A Scholar's travels with a Witcher
by Spike368
Summary: Sent out to gather the knowledge of the real world. A young scholar from the University of Oxenfurt finds a wounded Witcher on the steps to the inn where he was staying. So he starts gathering the material for his journals. Rated T for language
1. Chapter 1

I know it's a cliché but the first thing that I noticed about him were his eyes.

In preparation for my mission I had read what little formal information there was on the subject of Witchers in the University library, mostly the admittedly wonderful poetry from Professor Dandelion regarding the famed White Wolf and that blatant propaganda that makes up the infamous "Monstrum" leaflet so I was well aware of the fact that their eyes are mutated and freakish in their appearance but until I actually saw them in person I had no idea what that actually meant.

A lot of the tales describe them as Cat's eye's often yellow in description but that is a little wide of the mark. For my estimation they are a little closer to the eyes of a Lizard than a cat, and rather than being yellow in appearance, I found them to be much closer to a deep burnished Gold.

The second thing that I noticed about him was that he looked tired. Tired, soaked to the skin and more than a little bit ill.

I had been on my journey for roughly a week, setting out from Oxenfurt to the places where I considered it much more likely that I would find my quarry and truth to tell I was surprised and more than a little taken aback that I would find a Witcher so close to home as it were. I had anticipated more time to devise speeches to persuade someone to allow me to tag along on their path but as I stood there, along with the other patrons of the inn that I was staying at that night, staring up at the rather forbidding and imposing presence of the dark haired man on the horse, I found that I didn't know what to say.

He wasn't looking at me in any case.

"Job's done," The Witcher grated out through clenched teeth. It was difficult to hear him over the hissing of the rain that fell all around us. He stared past me at the bulk of the innkeeper who had managed to maintain his impressive girth despite the post wartime famine that was afflicting the area.

"You have proof?" The innkeeper pushed his way past me glaring up at the Witcher in a way that I would have found offensive.

The Witcher untied a sack that was tied to his saddle. I noticed that he was only using one hand and found his other hand pressed tightly to his side.

The sack thumped to the ground with a splash at the innkeepers feet who bent to inspect the contents before swearing loudly about bringing this filth to his hall. I wasn't listening at this point. I was too busy studying the pale skin of the Witcher's face and the way his left arm was pressed against his side. There was a dark liquid that was mixing with the rain at the bottom of the Dark green cloak that was carefully arranged over the Witcher's body.

The man was injured.

Returning to the conversation I heard that the innkeeper was haggling over the reward, trying to claw back some money from some kind of pre-arranged price. The Witcher was having none of it and calmly and impassively rebutting every new offer with the originally agreed price. When the innkeeper eventually caved and handed up a purse of money the Witcher bent the purse to the light to inspect the contents.

"I would like a room and breakfast," That same grating, quiet and hoarse voice.

"We're a decent people here," responded the Innkeeper quickly without even really seeming to think about it. "We want no vagabonds or dirty mutants here. Be off with you."

"I am willing to pay," This time I was sure I wasn't imagining it. The Witcher had winced when he shifted his weight. I noticed the Innkeeper licking his lips at the prospect of a little more money but he shook his head.

"No thank you. Besides," he looked around a little nervously. "We're full."

The Witcher said nothing. Just sat on his horse looking at the innkeeper who visibly began to wilt in the Witcher's gaze.

"He can share my room." I said without thinking. I was very conscious of a number of people edging away from me. "There's plenty of room and I could do with sharing the costs." Someone sniggered at the declaration that there was plenty of room as the rooms were quite pokey in reality. "Also, when I was checking on my horse earlier there was plenty of room in the stables for the Gentleman's horse." This at least was true as my quiet, aging mare was the only tenant of the inns hospitality.

The innkeeper threw up his hands as his greed and my arguments overcame his wobbling scruples.

"Fine, but I want the extra money up front."

"Then we'll need some hot water and some clean cloth sent up to my room as well." I went on,

"Now why don't you have someone to take care of the horse. The Gentleman has clearly injured himself in the defence of the inn so surely the least you can do is care for the man's horse."

"Defence that I paid through the nose for," The innkeeper bustled off shouting for someone named Dick to see to the horse and to "clean that fucking mess off my porch."

Having had their evening entertainment spoiled, the other patrons went back to their drinks. I offered my hand but the Witcher was already sliding out of the saddle and untying some saddle bags, hissing in pain as he did so.

"Let me help you," I tried but it seemed that the man was oblivious to me, staggering a little bit under the weight of whatever was in the bags. He also untied a long sword from the saddle and strapped it over his shoulder with another grunt, carrying a last, long box under his arm. Then he seemed to acknowledge me for the first time.

"Which way?" he grated. I got the sense that he had locked his jaws against the pain.

We made it through the common room, my supporting him with his arm over my shoulder and by all of the gods he was heavy, but...

This was my first impression of what it's actually like to spend time in the company of a Witcher.

You see I'm a funny looking man. I'm not handsome by any stretch and I'll admit to that, my teeth are slightly wonky, I have a broken nose from childhood adventures with my elder brothers and I was in the process of going prematurely bald, bearing in mind that at this point I would have, maybe been 19. I'm wiry more than well built, despite many hours of exercise and I walk with a stoop due to spending too much time hunched over desks. I also have this habit of... well... peering at people because of spending far too much time in dimly lit rooms.

I also have a surprisingly deep voice for what I look like which means that people tend to look twice at me and I've tried everything to look attractive. I've tried growing my hair (before the baldness), I've tried growing a beard which came out patchy. Once I even tried going to the village witch who chuckled a bit in what I hoped was solidarity and she gave me a potion which tasted vile, made me vomit and still didn't work.

The kindest of things to be said about my appearance was said by a girl who I was rather optimistically sent to by my father to try and woo her. I knew I had no hope of success in this particular case. I was far from the most handsome, far from the wealthiest, and far from the most titled suitor there. I spent some time with the lady in question, made her laugh and walked with her in her families gardens a couple of times where we mostly talked about the other suitors. She told me that I was a nice person and that some day I would make some woman very happy. She told me that there wasn't any one thing about me that was unattractive, but that all together it took some getting used to. She told me that if I had been wealthier or more titled then I would have been considered. When I asked if being more handsome would have helped my case, she giggled and admitted that it wouldn't have hurt.

I resigned myself to odd drunken tumbling with other students and occasionally some coin handed out to the right people but all of these things contribute to the fact that when I enter a room, especially in the countryside full of farmers and labourers carrying my bulky bags and staff I get funny looks.

The point being that despite all of this, the looks that the Witcher got as we staggered through that room made me shiver. There was a raw hostility and active dislike to it. It wouldn't be too far for me to describe it as a naked hatred in their eyes.

It wasn't as if he looked particularly different to anyone else, at least to me he didn't. He was a little paler to be sure than the more weather-beaten men in the common room but he had been injured, was hissing in pain and losing blood so being pale was to be expected. He was wearing a leather coat under his oilskin cloak over a shirt and some leather trousers that had been strapped to his legs in a way that I had seen other swordsmen and mercenaries use to leave their movement unrestricted. His boots, were large, well made and utterly filthy. I noticed that he didn't have spurs on the back of his boots.

I will grant that his eyes were startling the first time you see them but after a while you get used to them and the only other ways that I could tell he was different was from the way he carried his sword on his back rather than at his waist, like any other mercenary, and the pendant dangling from his neck that I hadn't been able to see properly. His hair was dark and tied back in a pony tail, his nose was long and he had a jutting chin with a cleft up the middle. He was scarred but to me that didn't strike me as unusual in a man that carried a sword. The biggest scar was horizontal across his nose, starting above his left eye until it ended on his right cheek.

So why did these people hate him so much. It was a mystery and one that I looked forward to solving in my academic future.

We made it to the stairs and I had to push him ahead of me. He slumped next to the wall when we reached the landing which gave me the opportunity to unlock my door (I had paid extra for the lockable door), get the man's belongings into my room (he protested feebly but didn't seem to have the strength to prevent me from doing what needed to be done before I came back. Levered the man to his feet and across my back.

Just because I'm wiry instead of built doesn't meant that I don't know how to pick someone up when they're not protesting. It's all a matter of leverage and the proper application of force.

I deposited him on the bed and went for my own bags to get my medical things. I had done a side course in field medicine so that I can patch up injuries. If you need surgery then I can't help you but I could probably make a good go of amputation with some help and patching up some wounds. The herbalism part of things is a little bit above my level other than "use the contents of the yellow jar in the wound before stitching it up". I was optimistic this time as I hadn't had to use any of my precious supplies yet on the road.

I didn't have to use them then either.

The Witcher struggled into a flat position lying on his back making the frame groan in protest. He quickly took his gloves off and laid them next to him.

"Do you have gloves?" he asked me

"What?" I was rooting around in my medicine pouch finding needle, thread and bindings.

"Do you have gloves?" He raged at me the sudden bellow like a hammer, it was shocking and more than a little frightening.

"Y-yes," I stammered, "Here with the rest of my things." I'm no coward but his tone of voice promised murder.

"Put them on,"

"Why?"

"Put them on, God's curse you for a fool and a dead one at that. Put them on before I bleed to death."

"Is there danger."

"There will be if you don't put those FUCKING GLOVES ON NOW."

I felt my brain snap then, in a way it occasionally does when my parents would scream at me when I was little, or a particularly strict professor or tutor would catch me day-dreaming about girls. I just shut up, shut down and did as I was told.

"In my bags you will find a small wooden box with wooden hinges, take it out and open it carefully,"

I did as bid and opened the thing on the floor. It was a beautiful old box, obviously much handled and treated with care. It was old, I could tell and expected some resistance in the hinges and the clasp but as it turned out the metalwork was well oiled and the box opened beautifully. Inside, carefully clipped into specifically made alcoves for their size and shape were tiny little glass bottles. Each individually clasped into place by metal straps that were also obviously well cared for. Inside the bottles were a variety of liquids.

"I need three bottles," the Witcher was hyper-ventilating. Somewhere, the part of my brain that was

aware of such things was screaming at me that I should get some kind of professional medical expert as hyperventilation meant one of several things. I didn't know what those things were but all of them meant "get someone who knows what they're doing,

"I need the one on the top row, third from the left as you look at it. Contains a blue liquid. Then I need the one third from the right, Amber liquid with silver sparkles. Hold it to the light to make sure you can see the sparkles."

I did so, holding it to the candle flame to check and it did indeed contain silver sparkles. As I say I knew very little about alchemy and herbalism but fascination was beginning to overtake my fear.

"Lastly, if you take the top try by the handles and lift it out, underneath you will find another tray. Take it out gently." The Witcher's breathing was becoming more shallow. Again my instincts were telling me that the man might die in my room but I was still too intimidated to go against his wishes.

"Underneath, that I need the black bottle, before taking it out examine the bottle carefully for any leaks. If it has leaked, do not touch the liquid residue for ANY reason, even with gloves on it might kill you. Bring the three bottles over to me. Carry the third one carefully as water will form on the bottles surface making it slippery and if you drop it, you will not survive the effects."

I noticed that he only said that _I_ would not survive the effects but my body was not obeying my brain at that point. I took the bottles over, taking two trips to do so. I was surprised that he did not complain about that.

"First, uncork the blue bottle and hand it over."

I did so and he drank it down quickly with the grimace of a man doing an unpleasant job quickly.

"Then the yellow bottle."

I uncorked, and held while he lifted up his jacket and shirt to display a large claw mark along his ribs. He would scar, presuming he survived and I could also see that it wouldn't be his first scar.

He poured the contents of the yellow bottle over the injury liberally, and to my eyes carelessly.

"Put those bottles back in the same places." He said, breathing heavily. "In the other bag you will find several lengths of rope and a hard wooden tube with string at either end. Bring them over."

I did so,

"Now, carefully and properly, tie me to the bed. Allow me no wiggle room and confine me as close as you can. Pay no mind to my comfort."

Part of me came back then.

"What?" You are injured, what are you?"

"DO AS I SAY," he roared, surging upright before collapsing back on the bed, plainly exhausted.

"I know that this may seem strange to your eyes and your instincts, but believe me when I say that this will save my life."

I froze for a second. I would like to say that I was deliberating what he had told me. That I was making my mind up between what my (admittedly limited) professional instincts were telling me and what the Witcher wanted me to do. I was also shocked and appalled at the violence of the man. His rages were sudden, uncompromising and terrifying. That he could crush me in a confrontation was never in any doubt anyway, but now I was honestly scared and I don't mind admitting to that. I was also finding that I was regretting my earlier decisions to help the man and to pursue this line of research. I was honestly considering just dropping everything and either looking for another, more personable Witcher, or returning to Oxenfurt and my tutors to admit that I had made a terrible mistake.

"Please help me." The Witcher moaned after a while, "Please. I cannot..."

Never let it be said that I am difficult to manipulate. A person asking for help or a pretty face are my weaknesses.

I tied the man up as requested so he was stretched out like a star. He tested his bonds.

"Good, now listen carefully as the next two hours will be the hardest. Take the black bottle and pour two drops into my open mouth. The spout is designed so that you will not find it difficult to measure out two drops so don't worry about that. Then, as quick as you can, put the wood between my mouth and tie it behind my head with the string. Again, do not concern yourself about my comfort. Within a couple of minutes I will start howling and thrashing around. This is normal, do not concern yourself as I am told the sight is surprising and frightening. Especially to those with any kind of medical training. Do not concern yourself at...All. Do not touch me, do not untie me and do not take the gag out as my teeth may splinter. I will be delirious and I may beg you to untie me. Do not listen. Harden your heart. I swear by whatever Gods you believe in that I will be perfectly fine by morning. Do you understand?"

I nodded. "Should I bind your wound?"

"If you wish, but only after I've stopped thrashing around. That might be several hours however."

I nodded, picked up the bottle, unscrewing the cap. The smell immediately filled the room and made me feel dizzy while strange lights danced in front of my eyes.

"Quickly now, before you pass out."

I put the drops into the Witcher's mouth and re-corked the bottle, gagged him as bid and made it to the window before vomiting the nights dinner out into the night.

I turned back into the room and waited. The Witcher had closed his eyes and seemed relaxed while I started counting. I lost count at 64 heartbeats when the Witcher's back arched and his entire body went taut as a bowstring before coming crashing back down onto the mattress. He screamed then, with a sound that I would have sworn came from some kind of monster had I not been in the room next to him. Then there was silence.

The entire process lasted around two hours as best as I can judge. He screamed, moaned and howled, sometimes thrashing about, sometimes spasming in ways that would cripple ordinary folk. Sometimes his eyes would fly open with a look of absolute terror at whatever apparitions he was seeing before him and other times his eyes would snap closed as his head moved from side to side, his breathing ragged.

I had long since given up any thought that I might be able to help the man. This was well beyond my level of training. When I did eventually get back to Oxenfurt and recounted the story to my tutor, he berated me for not documenting the entire process in detail but I was far too terrified and overwhelmed by the entire process to manage something as petty and...well...ordinary as making notes. At one point there was a pounding on the door telling me to keep the noise down as I was scaring the other guests which was as ridiculous as it sounds. Especially as the Witcher chose that moment to let out one of his more violent cries chasing the innkeeper off with a half-hearted threat that we would have to pay for any furniture that we might break during our ungodly time together.

We would laugh about that much later, but at the time I was mortified and scurried off to my pack to count my funds to see if I could afford to replace a bed.

Eventually the crying and the shaking started to die down and the Witcher seemed to sink into a sweat soaked sleep, only occasionally moaning out something from the gag. I fetched my blanket from my pack that had been dumped in the corner and wedged myself in the corner of the room so that I could watch my patient.

I don't know when I fell asleep. All I can comment on the matter is that an uneven wooden floor can feel remarkably soft and comforting when you wake up after far too little sleep. As a result it took far longer than I would have liked to properly wake up and remember where I was and what had happened the previous evening. I've had hangovers that were more pleasant than how I felt that morning.

Eventually though I managed to drag myself back into the land of the living, stood, stretched, subsided, stretched again and yawned in a way that cracked my jaw.

Then I saw the empty bed, well ruffled and rather dirty.

I swore. Violently.

Stupid Gods-damned Witchers and their stupid ungrateful faces.

It took me a good couple of minutes to notice that his things were still in the corner, neatly stacked and orderly as a person might do before going in search of breakfast.

Still muttering to myself I relieved myself indiscriminately out the window, splashed some water on my face and went down to meet the world.

The Inn was much quieter in the morning, presumably the farmers and labourers would come back in the evening for a drink or three before going home to their wives. It was the innkeepers wife that was behind the bar that morning, cleaning cups, shouting at serving women and generally getting in the way of everyone like good innkeepers do the world over.

The Witcher called me over with a wave and a gesture if not a smile. He was sat in the corner of the common room, back to the wall with his sword propped up against the table. He looked in stupidly good health and remarkably cheerful for a man who had looked like he was in imminent danger of dying, only a matter of hours earlier.

"I didn't want to wake you," he said between bites of sausage from the huge breakfast that he had in front of him. "So I came down earlier and kicked up a fuss until they fed me. I ordered you breakfast by the way."

He set about the fried bacon, eggs and sausage with an energy that made me feel faintly ill. A similar plate was deposited in front of me.

"Watered wine or milk?" The serving girl asked me,

"What?" This was all happening a little too fast for comfort and I could still feel bits of my brain waking up and rebelling at how little sleep I had had the previous night. "Oh, umm, watered wine please,"

the girl disappeared.

I forced myself to eat a sausage. The best thing that could be said about it was that I had tasted worse.

"Are you going to eat that?" The Witcher snagged an extra piece of bacon from my plate. He was obviously ravenous and eating like a starving man at a feast.

I manfully ate some more and I will admit that it got better as I went on. Who would have thought that breakfast could be an acquired taste. My drink was brought as I finished and the two of us sat back in our seats and looked at each other.

Yes, trying to stare into a Witcher's eyes is unnerving. Especially as they hardly ever blink.

"So I owe you a thank you." He said after a long while.

I didn't know how to answer that. I remind everyone that I had barely slept after what was not the most restful evening.

"You're welcome," I managed after a while.

He nodded at that.

"It's not often that a random member of the public offers help to a mutant."

I didn't know how to answer that either.

"So I have to wonder," he mused, leaning forward. "What your angle is?"

"Excuse me?"

"What do you want?"

"Why do I have to want anything?"

He sighed and leant back, his gaze continued to hold mine.

"I've met many people in my time on the path." He said after a long while. "Many, many people and I would like to think that that has given me a bit of an insight when it comes to human nature. Most prominently that people do not do something for nothing. There is always an angle, always a reason. I hunt monsters. I do it for coin. Some knightly orders have taken up my profession and they do it for fame, adulation and the promise of power and increased rank in whatever knightly order they belong to. The fact that they nearly always fuck it up is generally forgotten. I've never met anyone who does good deeds randomly. There is always an angle. Always. Even if it is just to make themselves feel better because they did something bad earlier. So what do you want?"

I will admit that I was lost for words. A somewhat rare occurrence but it seemed that my breakfast companion was running out of patience.

"Who are you?" he asked in the end.

"My name is Franklin Eriksson Von Coulthard."

"An impressive name, Do you know what that means?"

"I do," I answered following up with the familiar joke "But I'm not sure that my Grandfather knew it when he chose the suitably aristocratic name when he managed to buy himself a title."

The Witcher smiled a little. Just a slight upturning of the lips but I had been watching for it. It meant that he got the joke which I had not expected.

"So, now I know your name, but who are you?"

"I don't know what you mean.

"I want to know what kind of man pulls an injured Witcher off his horse in the middle of the night. While it's raining no less and helps that Witcher across a crowded inn to a bed and then helps him to care for himself. What do you want?"

His voice had turned dangerous and I could see his hands twitching. I thought it was time to come clean.

"I'm a student at Oxenfurt."

His eyes narrowed and I felt a chill down my spine. "Are you an alchemist?"

"No,"

"A healer then? what do they call themselves? a Doctor?"

"No,"

"Herbalist?"

"No."

He frowned.

"Then I don't understand why you are here?"

"I want to be a professional scholar."

For the first time he looked a little confused.

"A what?"

"I want to be a..."

"Yes yes I heard you the first time. I thought that being a scholar was something that you either are or are not. How does one become a professional scholar?"

"You get given tenure."

"Ah, I see."

He stared at me for a long moment. I felt that I had gone down in his estimation a little, as though I had been downgraded from slime to mucus.

"Why would anyone want to be a, tenured scholar?"

I sighed a little. I had asked myself the same question several times over the last few months.

"There are several reasons." I said, scratching my chin

"I have time."

"Very well then. The first reason is that it annoys my father."

The Witcher nodded. "From what I understand, that can occasionally be a worthwhile ambition. Why?"

"He wants me to marry and settle down. I'm not averse to the idea, providing it's a girl I like and who likes me but I wouldn't have a choice. But for the good of the family of course."

"Of course,"

"And I find that I don't really care about the family that much. I have felt like a piece of meat being bargained over."

"Such are the problems of being nobly born."

It was not a new argument.

"I am aware of that." I replied.

"Then what is the second reason?"

"I like being a student. I like attending lectures, arguing about things with other students and lecturers. I like the way I spend my days."

"Doesn't sound like a good..."

"I also enjoy the research side of things." I interrupted him. It was a risk to interrupt the highly trained killing machine in front of me, I was under no illusions about that but I felt that things were getting to the stage where I needed to exert myself. "I want to broaden people's understanding and knowledge. If we lose that knowledge then we step backwards rather than forwards. We need to educate ourselves and learn from the past."

"Those who fail to learn from the past are doomed to repeat it."

"Precisely,"

"Who said that by the way?" The Witcher asked

"I can't remember." I admitted. "I was always more interested in history itself rather than the philosophy."

The Witcher nodded before shrugging.

"This is all well and good but that still doesn't tell me why you helped me."

"I would like to think..."

"Oh come on,"

"No, hang on." I felt that courage was needed here. "I would like to think that I would have helped any injured person who was being turned away from an inn for seemingly arbitrary prejudiced reasons. I knew they had rooms available so..." I held my hands up in what I hoped was a gesture of helplessness. "If you had not been a Witcher I doubt the situation would come up. But yes I would like something from you."

"A contract?"

"Kind of."

"That's an odd way of putting it."

"Not really." I took a breath and had something to drink before starting my pitch. I had been working on it for a long while and didn't want to ruin it.

The fact that his sword was so close to hand as it were was really off putting.

"The thing about it is this. No-one knows about Witchers. Everyone knows about Witchers but no-one really knows about Witchers if you follow me. We all know that you turn up occasionally wearing at least one, sometimes two swords on your back and that you have strange eyes that remind people of cats,"

"Or snakes," he put in. I couldn't read his face.

"Yes..." I tried to regain my stride. "We know that we can hire you to deal with local monster problems. We know that "Monster Problems" are defined by whatever it is that a Witcher decides they are and that the Witcher then charges a certain amount of money for their services before moving on. Often at the urging of the local populace. We also know that the number of Witchers out on the roads is dwindling."

"How do you know that?"

I had expected the question this time.

"Because there are fewer reports of you."

He shrugged.

"But beyond that we _know_ nothing." I continued. "For instance, people call you mutants, but what does that mean to you? Why do you carry your weapons on your backs rather than at your sides like everyone else does? Is being a Witcher a calling? A job? An obligation of some sort? Why do you never hear about retired Witchers? And so on."

He sniffed. "One of my more famous peers had the dubious fortune to befriend a world famous poet who then chronicled his exploits."

"Yes, I know." I had a copy of the chronicles in my bag upstairs that I had begun rereading on my travels to prepare myself for this meeting. "I have read it several times. However there are some problems with it from a historical standpoint."

"Such as?"

"It is written by a world famous poet and saga master. Therefore, in generations to come, most of the chronicle will be dismissed as being mostly fiction. That there was a Witcher with white hair who did some incredible things will not be in doubt but as to what the chronicles say? I'm afraid that that will mostly be dismissed."

The Witcher nodded.

"However, my findings will be published in the Oxenfurt university Chronicle and combined into a book. This will automatically give it more weight by future historians."

The Witcher stared into space for a long time.

"Why do you think that the "Life and Times of a Witcher" is a worthwhile thing to record?"

"Because no-one else does what you do. Yes you charge for your services, but you do provide them and those services have saved many lives. I, for one, think it would be a shame if "The Witchers" as a whole disappeared into history without a mention other than the works of a poet and an obvious piece of propaganda which is obvious now but will be taken as fact in the future unless it is contended now. That and because no-one has really done it before."

"Chronicling us will not make you popular in certain circles."

"Religious ones you mean?"

"Indeed,"

"The thought had occurred. I find that I don't really care that much."

He smiled. He actually smiled. I nearly fell off my bench in shock.

"My work can be dangerous," he warned.

I had him and I knew it.

"I know. I trained for sometime with a fencing master and with a quarterstaff."

"Even so, sometimes I will order you to stay behind and you will do so. Or you will die. By my hand or by the monsters hand. I cannot defend you and worry about the monster at the same time and the distraction could be deadly."

"I understand."

"My job, often doesn't pay well and will not support both of us in provisions and the like,"

"I have an allowance that is paid to me by the university in the form of credit with most merchants and moneylenders. I can take care of myself in that regard."

"Payment? As you say, I don't work for free and I feel that carting you around with me will not be entirely pleasurable."

"Shall we say ten percent of my allowance? I can also cook when we have to camp and am hardier than I look."

The Witcher grunted.

"Will their be questions?"

"Yes, but only about method, philosophy and history. If you are uncomfortable answering then you should say so and I will leave the subject behind."

He nodded.

"It's part of our code," he said after a while, "that our secrets remain our secrets. Any attempt to see or divine the formulae from my potions and tools will be met with death. Any sign that you are trying to see how my mutations could be done will be met with the same."

"I understand. Can I ask what they do and how it feels to have them?"

He thought about it for a moment. "Yes, but don't expect a regular answer."

I nodded.

"Then do we have a deal?"

"We do,"

I held out my hand.

He hesitated for a brief moment before taking it.

"I don't know your name?"

"Kerrass." He said, "Kerrass of Maecht."

(Editors note: This is the first of what will hopefully be an ongoing series regarding the ongoing adventures of Franklin and Kerrass. We here at the Chronicle hope that these writings will offer insight into the life of a Witcher and their place in the world, slowly vanishing though it may be. We are in communication with the author who has only recently returned to Oxenfurt with many scars and stories to tell. He tells us that he intends to set back out on the road in the Spring to meet up with Kerrass for future topics but in the meantime and while he is here. Please send us your questions and we can put them to him. He promises that he will do his best to answer them now, or to put them to his companion over the next year.)


	2. Chapter 2

In the end we managed to get away from the village in the early part of the afternoon after much complaining and moaning on the part of my new companion.

Every time we would be ready to go he would find some new dire instruction to give me that, if not followed, would result in death for at least me and probably him during the journey. To my mind they were full of little picky things like how tight my saddle was strapped to my horse, the type of shoes that she was shod with, how long my stirrups were, how I held the reins and so on. At one point we spent a good ten minutes discussing how we were going to set up camp in the evening with everything being laid out for me so that I would know exactly how everything was supposed to be placed when we stopped for the evening if we found ourselves away from civilisation. He actually stopped down to the ground and used one of his knives to draw a diagram in the mud which included such things as how far we were to sleep from the road, where my bed roll would be situated, where his bedroll should be situated. How the horses should be tied up, where the camp fire should be dug and how and where a watchman should stand and move to ensure that we weren't being attacked during the night.

At first I asked some questions about the importance of the various instructions that he gave me, things like why I needed to have my stirrups a lot shorter than I would normally have them when I rode, only for a torrent of abuse and ridicule to come from the person that was going to be my travelling companion.

Again the thought occurred that this was possibly a lot more trouble than it was worth and that I should turn tail and head for home.

When all was said and done we left to the ironic cheers of some of the people working in the village and I couldn't help but smile to myself as the innkeepers wife had secreted a small bottle of apple brandy in the provisions that were carefully arranged in my saddle bags with an instruction not to share it with _him._ I had chuckled a little to myself and it was this that galvanised me to keep to the original plan.

After this, I don't think we spoke together for a week. I won't deny that it was tough going. The Witcher set a hard and fast pace which the horses complained about nearly as much as my aching muscles did. We kept to byways and game trails for the most part, avoiding the main roads with their deep ruts and potholes and therefore the gossip and traffic that goes with them. I couldn't detect any particular pattern that we were travelling by other than the fact that we were travelling vaguely eastwards.

The routine was that we would ride until early evening when I would see the Witcher take his eyes from the path ahead of us and start looking around. This was my signal that we would be making camp soon. When he had picked somewhere, often the dampest, wettest, coldest, most exposed patch of dirt and mud that he could find we would set about making camp. Well I say that _we_ would set about the camp. In truth, I, would set about making camp while he tended to the horses and glared at the surrounding undergrowth. I would dig a small hole where I would lay the fire, occasionally sheltering the fire from the elements with a pig skin that had been purchased for that very purpose. Then if it was dry I would arrange any damp clothes that needed airing around the fire before starting to cook. Food at that point was generally a kind of barley stew with a few pieces of dried and salted meat thrown in for good measure. It was filling enough, and occasionally I was able to flavour it with some wild garlic that I found while wandering about. After the food was ready I would arrange the sleeping areas, again stretching a skin over the top, and digging a rain gulley if required before going out in search of firewood. Again the type of wood I was looking for was drilled into me by my travelling companion.

When dinner was ready I would eat, clear the pots away and curl up in my own bedroll while the Witcher kept watch over us both. I doubted that we really needed to set a watch as we were still relatively close to civilised lands at that point but I kept that opinion to myself. Anyway, better to be safe than sorry.

The Witcher would wake me up at some point in the night and it would be my duty to keep watch for the rest of the night. It wasn't easy at first but getting into the swing of things I used the time to take care of some of my own concerns. I made some notes about our early meetings as well as a lot of unimportant observations about the journey so far. I had a pretty good guess as to what was going on with my travelling companion but had decided that keeping my own council was the best thing for us both. I would collect some more firewood, do some exercises, some quarter staff drills, deal with some personal hygiene issues that would creep up every so often. It was pitch black outside the camp as the moon was waning at the time and my ears were more reliable than my eyes at keeping watch. It also meant that I could prepare the two of us a decent breakfast which I would give the Witcher when it was ready.

The only particularly relevant thing to say about him in this period is the way that he slept. Always he would sleep on his back, left leg right leg bent with his sword on his left hand side. I yearned to ask him about that but kept my silence in the meantime but every night I would watch him through my bleary state of half-sleep as he carefully arranged himself and his weapon just so until he was satisfied. When he was satisfied he fell asleep almost instantly.

He snored like a dwarf.

So fatigue turned into boredom, boredom turned into monotony, monotony turned into a strange kind of reflective thoughtlessness. It felt a lot like falling asleep only without the actual sleeping process. I dreamed up so many things, imagined conversations with my father, mother and various other family members. Remembered conversations suddenly had extra scenes that if I had said just said a slightly different thing at a slightly different time then I would have gotten away with everything. Talked that impossibly beautiful girl into bed. Finally gotten my father to up my allowance. I looked at the man who always rode in front of me and imagined the two of us travelling the lands and righting wrongs and other such romantic nonsense. I had erotic daydreams about every girl who had eventually said no and self righteous dreams where I won every argument and won every competition.

I had come through some kind of barrier into a land of kind of strange and absent enjoyment. It was fun watching the Witcher becoming more and more frustrated with me. Watching as every single time I did something without giving him the opportunity to yell at me went home into a deep part of his soul like a dagger made of glass although I carefully hid my smile for when he was asleep or when I was buried into my own blankets for the night.

In the end we had been travelling westwards for ten days give or take an hour or two when the Witcher jerked his reins and his horse turned around with a wicker of protest.

"In the name of everything, what are you still doing here?" He was absolutely furious. Not properly, about to commit murder, furious, but he was still pretty angry. The other thing was that I was roughly half asleep.

"What?" I blinked stupidly at him.

He pinched the bridge of his nose and spoke again. Much quieter this time.

"Why are you still here?" he said. "This situation is intolerable."

I stared at him for a moment as I tried to remember how to speak.

"Umm, you remember, my research project? I'm paying you to let me follow you around?"

He stared off into the distance. For a long moment.

"You really aren't going to change your mind on that are you?"

"No," I found that I was trying not to smile again. "Do you know how hard it is to find a Witcher in this day and age?"

"I do. It's too hard. Certainly too hard for those people who actually need us."

He stared at me again for a moment. Exasperation and frustration warring on his face, eventually giving way to wry amusement and resignation.

"Let's camp early tonight. I need to exercise, we both could do with the rest and to talk a bit more."

He walked his horse on and we rode for maybe another hour. It was early afternoon at this point.

He eventually found us a little alcove up against an embankment that almost made the place into a cave. It was sheltered from the wind and the rain and there was plenty of room for both the horses and ourselves. I begun arranging the sleeping areas until he stopped me, directing me to put the blankets up against the embankment because they would be more comfortable.

"You know how to make tea?" he asked me.

"What?" I asked stupidly

"Tea, do you know how to make it?"

"Umm yes. The chancellor gets it in from Zerrikania and has a thing about inviting us all to help him drink it. I always thought he was showing off."

"He was," he said with more than a little irony, "getting it from Zerrikania at any rate. He was probably lying to you about that as well. Anyway, whatever it was it will be similar to this stuff."

He produced a waxed paper packet from one of his bags and tossed it to me along with a jar of honey. "Make us some up along with a good sized lunch. We'll be at a village tomorrow and can get more supplies there." He gathered up his sword and the strange, long wooden box that I had seen him with at the inn. "I like my tea hot, strong and with plenty of honey. Build us a nice big fire tonight."

"How big?"

"Big." He answered with a slight smile. "If you get into trouble, shout. If it gets really dangerous, scream." He loped off at a gentle run.

I set to work building the big fire and gathering firewood, I made tea and settled in to wait.

By the time he came back several hours later I had my notebook out and was sketching.

"Those are pretty good," he said sitting down on his own blankets making me jump.

"It's just something to pass the time."

He nodded. The silence lengthening into awkwardness. "Do you know how to roast a rabbit?" he asked suddenly.

"I do as a matter of fact,"

"Good, because I ensnared three."

I will not deny that my mouth started to water at the prospect. War affects things. First there was the war. Then came the disease, carried by all of those corpses. Then it was the famine due to the utter lack of people to work in the fields. Rabbit was a rarity.

"We both need to rest tonight," he continued. "Can you clean them up and get them ready while I make sure that we can both sleep tonight?"

I nodded, took out a knife and got to work while he had taken a large ball of thread and started winding it around the trees and branches.

There was a faint jingling coming from the threads as well as little golden glints of light.

He came back with a satisfied look on his face.

"We didn't need to set watch at all did we?"

"Nope," he grinned evilly.

"Bells on string around the camp?"

"Yes,"

I laughed at that and hurled the rabbit offal out into the woods.

"So how long have you been regretting your decision to let me tag along?" I asked as I started to thread the rabbits onto sticks over the fire.

"Roughly speaking? Since shortly after I said that you could. I don't know what possessed me, I really don't. Like most of us Witchers and mutants, I'm not used to being around people and it kind of made things difficult for me."

"Why didn't you just tell me to leave?"

"It was a contract. I'd said yes and we'd shaken on it. Therefore a contract is a contract is a contract." He scratched the back of his head as he poured himself some tea. "I'm under no illusions. I'm essentially a hired sword, a mercenary if you prefer and all we ever have is our word."

"Isn't the stereotype of mercenaries that they aren't trustworthy?" I asked,

"That is indeed the stereotype, but if mercenaries start going back on their contracts, who is going to hire them next time?"

It was not an invalid point. He winced at the tea and added another spoonful of honey.

We lapsed into silence again. I was trying to contain my excitement as he was visibly relaxing in front of me.

This time he broke the silence.

"Why haven't you asked me any real questions yet?" he asked me.

"Would you have answered them until now?" I countered. "This is not the first time I've had a subject to study that involves interviews. You will answer questions when you are ready. My job is to ask the right questions at the right time.

He thought about that for a moment.

"Fair point. Do you want to ask me a question now?"

"If you don't mind?"

"A short one then."

"Why do you carry your sword on your back and why do some Witchers that I've heard of carry both at the same time?"

"A short question I said," His lips turned up a little in the ghost of a smile. "To be honest I don't really know. It's just that that's how I was trained to carry my swords. The plural thing of carrying both swords at once has always struck me as a bit stupid. Especially in times like this. People know Witchers carry a silver sword. People hear silver and think that that equals money. Money equals food and safety and if I were to carry it openly then it's inviting trouble."

"Also is there any danger of drawing the wrong sword in a fight."

"That would never happen. They weigh differently and we are trained in those movements from the moment we are brought to the school. As for carrying both, we all have different methods. Some of my fellows might argue that having both means that you are prepared for anything. This idea has merit, but personally I would argue that you should never be surprised and you should always know which sword you should be carrying. For me the only time you might need both is when you are hunting in a bandit infested area."

"What about when travelling in an area with bandits _and_ monsters?"

He grinned nastily. "Depending on the situation I might have to see who is faster, the monster or my horse,"

"Is it not harder to draw a sword of that length from your back rather than your side?"

"There's a trick to it. Again, if you've been trained to it then a side draw seems inefficient."

"Can you demonstrate?"

He thought for a minute and then stood up.

"Watch carefully. Give me a cue as to when to draw as though something was jumping out at me."

I nodded. He stood, easily and relaxed with his hands at his sides.

I shouted and his sword was in his hands before I had finished shouting.

"Did you see it?" he asked.

"No, could you do it again only slower?"

"Not really, the trick requires speed. Watch again."

The process was repeated with my being none the wiser.

"Nope, sorry."

His eyes twinkled. "You're watching the wrong hand. Watch what my left hand does."

The process was again repeated.

"Can I see it again?"

He did at a final time and I smiled.

"You tug the strap," I felt rather pleased with myself. "It makes the sword leap forwards and out."

"Yes, you need a specific sheath for it and the blade must be shaped and oiled correctly for it to work. It also requires hours of practice."

He subsided again and poured himself some more tea.

"As for, "why on the back." The honest answer is that I don't know," he scratched his armpit. "But if I had to guess, there are a couple of possible reasons."

"Go on," I prompted.

"Firstly, It tells everyone who I am from a distance. Yes, as I get closer you could see my eyes or my medallion when I have it out on my chest. But from a distance?"

"Stay clear of that guy," I said putting on an artificially scared voice, "He's a Witcher coz he's got his swords on his back."

"Exactly. Another reason is that my work takes me to some inconvenient places, up cliffs, down caves, into sewers, down wells and things. I could imagine that doing so with a sword at your waist, swing there, that sword could get in the way, or clang into something warning the monster in question that I'm coming."

"Good reason,"

"It's also a balance thing I suppose. If you carry a sword on your hip there's a lot of extra weight there which you would naturally compensate for, both with your body and your natural movement. Eventually one side would be stronger than the other putting your body out of balance. I don't know enough about the body so I'm just guessing here, but it makes sense."

I nodded my agreement. I'd studied anatomy at one point and it wasn't entirely incorrect.

"But my training and sword forms depend on balance and movement. If my muscles don't react exactly to my requirements then I am dead and gone, and whichever monster I'm hunting is free to kill more peasants."

He took another drink. "Does that answer your question?"

"I think so,"

"Good,"

He finished his tea. "Right then. If you're going to watch me work, I need to be able to trust that you know what you're doing. Go and fetch your quarterstaff."

"You ready?" he asked when I got back. He was holding a quarterstaff of his own that he had presumably earlier. His sword was propped up against a nearby tree.

I nodded.

I would like to say that I saw what happened next. I would like to say that I saw him go from a neutral standing position with the quarterstaff resting on the floor at his feet to a full staff extension with the end of the staff impacting, hard, against my forehead.

I fell, feeling more foolish than hurt.

Now there is something that, in my own defence, needs to be said again. Yes I'm a student. Yes I've spent a good portion of my life crouched over desks and musty tomes. Yes I'm gangly and not particularly well muscled. But I'm also no slouch.

If you've ever pursued any kind of athletic pastime in a group yourself you know that the range of ability is like a curve. Us scholars like to be condescending and describe it as a bell curve. The vary best athletes who are both talented and well trained are at one end and the least talented and least trained are at the other end. The vast majority of people come in a clump together in the middle. I would tend to find myself towards the front of that clump. What I'm trying to say is that I'm not a terrible waste and that I have some martial skill.

The other thing to say is this. At Oxenfurt I studied fencing as well as the quarterstaff and a little bit of wrestling. My talents were not in fencing as I tended to over-think that discipline when to be any good you need a singularity of focus that I lacked. I was OK at wrestling providing that my opponent was either my own weight or was feeling overconfident. If they were overconfident I would win a point shortly before getting pounded into the dirt.

But I liked quarterstaff fighting. I found that there was always something you could do and that there was always more than one option. A parry or a block could be turned into a strike which could then change into a jab, a strike, a sweep, a grapple or any combination of all of these things.

I also, vividly, remember the first time I fought someone I knew I couldn't beat. That I would never be able to beat. Even if I trained each and every day then I just wouldn't be able to beat this guy. I remember being terrified for just a moment. I remember thinking to myself that if this person wanted to, he could kill me, or seriously cripple me. I could be done for life. My entire existence could end here on this practice field.

I remember realising this after maybe the first exchange.

That guy was nothing compared to the Witcher.

I would actually like to have seen that fight now that I come to think about it.

But right then and there I wasn't worrying about that. I had just been walloped over the head with a heavy lump of wood and feeling very foolish.

I began to sit up and realised that I'd bitten my lip, and I spat blood.

Then I heard the sound. It was a kind of whistling sound. It's a distinctive sound that you learn quickly when you use a quarterstaff. It's the sound of the air being split apart by a quarterstaff moving far too quickly towards your head.

Now, one of the first things they tell you when you're learning to fight with either a staff or a sword is that the floor is not your friend.

I rolled.

Towards the whistling sound.

Towards the Witcher who had gripped his staff by the end with both hands and was bringing it down with immense force towards the area that I had occupied only a moment before.

He'd braced himself for the two handed swing at me and the angle of the staff meant that it mostly hit the floor while I was rolling towards his legs.

He kicked me in the ribs for my effort. He pulled back for another kick and I managed to catch the leg this time and heave upwards.

He didn't fall, instead he spun away hurling his staff away as it had broken when it hit the floor and reached his sword drawing it smoothly. He shook his hand as though loosening it from a cramp.

Fortunately I had taken the opportunity to regain my feet and settle a stance as he did so.

We faced each other then across the little clearing. A matter of seconds had passed. My sides ached, my mouth was sore and the side of my head was thumping.

I was furious.

I spat blood as a red curtain of rage filled my vision.

He attacked as I did so, but I had expected it.

I charged forwards with a shout, ducking under his stroke driving my staff into his midsection.

But he wasn't there. He had spun away, which meant that he probably had an open view at my back. I spun myself. He was right handed which meant that the strike should land _here_ and so I put my staff there which directs his sword down like _so_ which means that my staff is now over his sword which means that I can swing like _this_ and he should move away to give me some room.

I had forgotten that I was screaming.

He didn't move away, instead he shoulder checked me and I fell backwards staggering. My foot landed on a stone or a stick or something damned inconvenient and I felt myself falling.

I landed hard and the breath whooshed out of me. The Witcher rose above me, his eyes blazing like the sun. His lips drawn back into a snarl. I would swear that I saw fangs in his mouth, his hair streaming about his head in a shadow and it was absolutely terrifying. He brought his sword round in a mighty strike and I did the only thing I could think of, attempt to knock the blow aside with my staff and try to roll aside.

It's hard to do that when you can't breathe.

I heard splintering wood and just for a moment I thought it was the sound of bone splintering and that I was dying.

"OK, that's enough."

I opened my eyes, I didn't remember closing them.

The Witcher was standing over me, holding out his hand to lift me to my feet. He was smiling faintly His eyes had returned to normal, his hair was back to being tied up.

I did think about refusing the hand but on balance, I wasn't convinced that I could make it to my feet by myself.

I stood and staggered a little.

"You alright?" he asked.

"You hit me in the head." I accused him.

"And the ribs." he added with a slight smile. "I hope you're not sentimental about your quarterstaff as I'm afraid I broke it."

"They're not hard to come by." I had come fourth in one of the Oxenfurt tournaments with that staff.

"Good." He helped me over to a tree root where he deposited me. He brought back the remains of both our staves and broke them down a little further before adding them to the firewood.

I was astonished to realise that barely a minute had passed.

I was also realising that I wasn't as badly hurt as I thought I was.

"OK," I said after testing the cut on my lip and gently probing my head injury. I was going to have a lump there. Sure to make me more attractive to the ladies. "What was all that about? Trying to teach me some humility?"

"What did you think it was?"

"You said earlier that you wanted to test me to see if you could depend on me,"

"Correct." He had taken out a whet stone and was inspecting his sword in the minutest detail.

"But that wasn't just that was it? Wanted to exercise some rage there?"

"Nope,"

"But you were really trying to hurt me." I protested

"No I wasn't."

I hissed with pain as my hand came away sticky. I held the hand up for his inspection.

"You weren't trying to hurt me?"

"Well, maybe a little," I had begun to notice that he didn't really smile. There was occasionally a slight upturn of his lips, but I got the feeling that this was intentional. Instead there was a kind of twinkle in his eye that told me that he was enjoying himself.

"You did well," he said. "You didn't panic and when I used the sign you didn't freeze in terror or confusion, you reacted with rage which was an interesting response. Something to think about there. Ooh, and while I think about it, I know it helps your adrenaline and things but try not to shout before a strike as it warns your opponent that a strike is coming. Instead shout _as_ you strike"

"A Sign?" My brain wasn't quite catching up.

" Axii to be precise. A little magic trick to confuse the minds of enemies. Did you see me make a movement with my hand? As I was drawing my sword?"

"Oh that's what it was." I felt a little silly then.

"Don't be too hard on yourself. From my perspective you didn't freeze in terror confusion which was what I was afraid of. You didn't react blindly. You acted, with some skill I might add. Much better than I expected if I'm honest. I've seen people react much worse to that before now."

"Was that the test?"

"Part of it. How's the rabbit doing?"

"It's fine. Besides I'm not really very hungry yet. What's the other part of the test?"

He regarded me for a long time.

"A quarterstaff is useless where we're going. Don't get me wrong, you have some skill with it but against anyone that wears anything more than chain-mail, it isn't really effective. Now yes, if we're worrying about human predators then the likelihood of them wearing full plate harness out here is rare, at most they might have a helm that they have looted from some battlefield. But Monsters are a different story. You need something with weight and an edge to cut through thick hides. Something that will put fear into your enemies. You have talent but we have a lot of work to do."

"Are you still trying to put me off."

"No." he said after a moment. "No, I think that that option is no longer viable. If you want to leave then you can, anytime you like in fact. But if you're still determined to come with me then we need to make sure that you're not going to get either of us killed. Do you understand?"

"Yes,"

"I shall give you a series of exercises that you need to perform every day. Do not shirk as it will mean the difference between life and death and I will be able to tell if you don't."

"I understand,"

"We will be approaching a town tomorrow and there will be a hunt."

"How do you know?"

"I can see the signs. No I'm not going to tell you what they are."

I smiled as he predicted my question.

"We'll go in and you need to stay quiet. I will tell them that you are my apprentice. They will understand being apprenticed to a trade, they won't understand you being a scholar."

"What about my being your squire?"

He shook his head.

"That will make them think that I'm a knight. If I'm a knight then that means that I'm nobility which means that they will clam up and I need them to be comfortable enough to speak with me to do my job. Oh, and write nothing down unless we're given a private room and you're absolutely certain that no-one can see you."

"Why?"

"Learning and intelligence frightens people. Not just peasants but nobility too. Never give away an advantage if you don't have to."

I nodded again.

"How's your head?" he asked,

"Sore," I answered.

He handed over a bottle.

"Peace offering?" he offered.

I took, sniffed and the smell that came out was like a knife slicing through my brain. It left a scent of apples behind. I decided that I was in it now and took a swig.

I don't know what face I pulled put the Witcher did smile then.

"Drink up, it's good for you."

"Is this the apple brandy that the innkeeper's wife gave me? The apple brandy that was in my pack?"

The Witcher turned back to tend the fire, saying nothing.


	3. Chapter 3

At first I didn't believe him when he told me that the first things that would notice us as we approached the village were the cats followed by the children. It just seemed so ridiculous to me that this would be the case. In any village there are people out working in the fields, working on the homes or on the fencing or on the roads. Hunters with bows trying to find a meal, trappers, fishermen, mill-owners, ramblers, horny couples that have escaped prying eyes for a quick tryst. But no, apparently none of that was the case. The first things that would see us coming were the cats, followed by the children.

"Why the cats?"

"Damned if I know," he said as he was cleaning some dirt off his armour. He was fastidiously cleaning every piece of his equipment until it shone. "I once met a Sorcerer who claimed that it was because cats can see the eddies of magic. I have no idea if that's true or not but they do react oddly around monsters and they seem to hate me so..." he shrugged and got back to work.

"Why not dogs?" I asked. I had wondered if I should clean myself up as well, but he had told me not to bother, that the people in the village wouldn't be looking at me and so I was cooking breakfast.

"Dogs are just dogs. They'll react to anything if the wind is in the right direction. But cats..." he hawked and spat into a piece of leather. "My personal view is that the damn things are just so evil and monstrous that they can feel a monster slayer coming."

"Cats aren't monsters."

"You say that again when they've clawed your wrists apart, or when you've accidentally walked into a pair of them rutting in the street." He spat again and scrubbed vigorously "Cats were only put on this continent to remind us all that something so small and cute can also be utterly and completely evil."

I laughed at him. I felt we had come to a bit of an understanding. We weren't friends, at least not yet but I had high hopes for the future. We were in a strange kind of place, neither of us were entirely sure of our positions with the other or where we stood with each other so we were sort of feeling our way through the world.

There had been another load of instructions that morning about how I was to behave in the village that we were going to. Where I should stand and how I should hold my horse, how I should behave. He had warned me that I was going to be introduced as his apprentice. He would say that I was a war orphan, that I wanted to become a Witcher and that he was trying to dissuade me by showing me the horrors of what I would be going up against.

He had also asked if I could change my accent to sound less educated. Unfortunately that was beyond my rather humble acting abilities and I said so.

We arrived in the village of Treaton in roughly midmorning. Apparently this was so that the maximum possible number of people could see him coming. When he was finally satisfied that his equipment was properly arranged and prepared we rode up the track and into town. Just as we got to the first row of houses he turned his horse aside onto a small piece of grass land and just sat there. Not moving.

Now I'm not a poet. I tried it a few times in vague and vain attempts to woo a few pretty girls but I always found that my sense of humour gets in the way of such things. I have much more skill with limericks and as a result, the audience that I was intending to get to cry, end up rolling around with laughter which is not the desired effect.

But this time, the sight of the Witcher, his sword and the metal fixtures of his armour gleamining in the sunlight, sat there on his horse perfectly still made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. It was a peculiar feeling and I found myself wondering how many times he had done this, sitting here on the edge of a village waiting for someone to approach, wondering what the job would entail and where it might lead. Would this be the job that finally killed him? Where would he go after this, would he be injured? would he make friends? Enemies? a lover?

I thought about how many times this little ritual had been played out throughout history. A lone man with a sword on his back and bulky saddlebags comes out of the woods and along the trail, grim faced. stern looking with stark terrifying eyes that seemed to see everything despite the fact that they were just staring straight ahead.

I found the image haunting. It had a mythic quality to it and a storied history that I found myself drawn to. I tried to think about other images that might be similar to this. I thought of a knight in full armour riding off to battle with the sun glinting off his armour and banners snapping in the wind. But despite his lack of armour, or maybe because of it. The Witcher just seemed that much more dangerous. I thought then of the churchman that my mother had once taken me to see in an effort to give me some kind of inspiration towards doing something with my life. He was obviously a few meals short of proper health, had no money to speak of, his red cassock was dirty, patched and faded and his symbol of the Eternal fire was made of wood rather than metal but his passion had inflamed the crowd and sent me home with dreams that I did not recognise.

It took me a while to find my passion and much to my mothers disappointment it hadn't been where she had wanted it to go.

But that lone priest, declaiming the righteousness of the eternal flame before the oldest oak tree in the local area had nothing on the Witcher.

There was a conviction there, a surety and a focus that I found disturbing at the same time as being reassuring.

I understood why Master Dandelion had decided to write his sagas on the subject of a Witcher then. Indeed I was surprised that no-one else had ever done it before.

I cursed my romantic soul and did my best to copy his stillness.

Now, sometime after the fact I find myself wondering what the pair of us looked like standing our horses together on that lonely mud track on the edge of a village. A significant part of me thinks that I probably looked more than a little ridiculous while my companion looked even more dangerous and heroic by association. But part of me hoped and indeed still hopes that someone in that village looked out at us and felt their hearts lift a little.

Unfortunately the effect was rather spoiled by the small child who ran at us, obviously goaded by a group of friends, and hurled a large chunk of cow shit at us, most of which landed on my companion's cloak.

Then a local cat hissed at us and spat

He sighed theatrically.

"Gerroudofit." Someone shouted. "Go on, clear off you bunch of mongrels, go on. Or I'll have your parents tan your hides like the monsters that you are and that we all know you to be."

An older man came out waving a large stick and made an heroic one man charge against the "miscreants" and "vandals" that had stood jeering at the pair of us. The mongrels broke before the fearsome sight and fled, laughing and hooting out into the fields.

I was watching for it so I managed to see Kerrass' mouth twitch towards a smile just briefly as the miniature battle played itself out in front of us. As a piece of theatre it lacked something but was nonetheless entertaining and spoke of much rehearsing.

The man approached, only slightly leaning on his stick which was old, gnarled and shiny as though polished with much handling.

"Greetings my Lords," he called to us as he approached, "Greetings and welcome and Greetings again. I hope long life and health bring you to our humble little village." There was a light in his eyes that warned me that this old man was no-one's fool. My eyes flickered from one man to the other. The Witcher had told me that a lot could be decided in the first few moments of contact between him and the "client".

"Greetings," The Witcher's voice had changed a little. Normally he spoke with a flat, rasping voice without accent. It was a voice that sounded as though it was bored and resented the fact that it had to leave the lips at all. Now he had an accent that I couldn't place but was familiar as though it came from just over the hill from anywhere. "I saw the sign a few days ago. Do you still have need of some specialised services?"

It was interesting that neither man spoke about a monster.

The old man scratched at his chin, obviously looking a little uncomfortable.

"The truth is master that I don't know. We have problems, same as any village and no more or less mysterious than any tale or night time circumstance that they can talk about over yonder or a little was through the forest when they bother to come a-callin'" he tugged at his beard.

"In truth I am a little concerned that you've come here for nothing." He finished shifting his weight from one foot to another.

The Witcher nodded sagely and with sympathy. "I understand completely my friend. Tell me, do you have a blacksmith in town who can craft a blade."

"We do master, we do at that. Any man who can swing a hammer in these parts can craft a blade after, what is it now? three wars in living memory?"

"At least," my companion added easily dismounting.

I was astounded. His entire manner had changed, he seemed relaxed, friendly, approachable, his voice and manner was transforming before my eyes to one more suited to the village. The tall statuesque figure of just moments before had vanished.

"Well," continued the old man. "We're lucky enough that a Dwarven refugee came through towards the end of the last war. The smith had been drafted into the army like and the although the man's daughter was doin' 'er best. The simple fact was that she just didn't 'ave the experience like."

The Witcher motioned me to dismount and follow as he lead his horse into the village and chatted with the older man like a long lost friend.

"So now, the dwarf, the ugly little fucker, teaches Cait the Younger, what her father didn't have time to learn 'er and now we stand ready to have the best smith here abouts."

"Superb sir, superb. In which case I have a proposition,"

"A what?"

"A proposal, a bargain if you will."

"Alright, I'll listen."

We came into the village as the two talked and as I wasn't really required for the discussion I took the time to have a good look around.

For a start it was busier than I had imagined. I had always imagined that, well, I hope you, dear reader forgive me this prejudice but I'm noble born and sometimes my thoughts betray me. I had always thought that peasants went out to work on the land and then came back in the evening. But here there were work yards, I could see a man working on a series of planks, sanding, shaving and topping. I saw another man hard at work on making furniture, true it was only a bench but it was still a man working at furniture. A group of women were gossiping despite the sweat that stood out on their skin as they worked at scrubbing on a set of clothes while another older woman was chasing children around, half in a game to occupy them and half in an exasperated attempt to keep them all in one place. All over this was the constant music of the hammer and saw, most often on

wood, but sometimes on metal.

There was an industry here and it left an undertone of almost frantic proportions as though they were working too hard and too quickly. It astonished me that they could keep up the pace. It was not the first time that I found myself thinking that maybe it was the city folk, the churchmen and the nobility that were the lazy people.

I was also surprised to see that we were not universally welcomed. A group of men were unloading a cart on the edge of the central village green area that made no pretence of hiding their dark looks and muttered asides.

"As I say, my apprentice here is in need of a proper weapon to suit his hands and his size." The Witcher's comments brought me back to the conversation. "So I shall speak to the master smith about the requirements then I shall listen to your problem in return for some food and an ale and then we can decide where we go from there."

"Yes but..."

"Rest assured my friend, if there is nothing to worry about then I shall say so and we will pay for any other food and drink while we wait for the smith's work to be done."

I could see the conflict in the other man. He was afraid of something and I didn't really know what it was but he _wanted_ to be persuaded.

"Well I don't want to put you out of your way."

"My friend have you ever heard of the Witcher's code?"

The old man shook his head but I could tell that he was excited at the prospect of some kind of mysterious code.

As was I for that matter.

"We don't take money but for honest work. In this case the removal of the threat, should there be one and, depending on the circumstances, food, drink and lodging's while the work is carried out. If this is not to your satisfaction then we can be on our way leaving you and whatever it is to work out

the problem for yourselves."

"So just a chat?"

"Yes, and I imagine a walk around and a chat to some other people and I can tell you whether or not you need to be concerned."

The old man visibly shrank in on himself.

"Then the blacksmith is over there," he pointed to where some steam was coming from, "and then join me in my hut which is that large one on the end."

My companion nodded and held his hand out with an easy smile.

The old man hesitated a moment before taking it.

Have you ever had one of those times where you feel as though you've gotten lost somewhere. This is a lot harder to describe than I thought it would be but the best I can do is to say this. It's the kind of feeling where you're kind of separate from yourself as though your body went one way and your mind went another as though both parts of you made completely separate choices and then they both try to catch up with each other. It was surreal and part of this was due to the absolutely contrary nature from what I expected was going to happen versus the reality.

My gruff, taciturn companion had transformed himself into a happy, smiling, friendly, people person. He waved at the villagers, paid compliments and exchanged self-derogatory jokes with old men who were sat smoking about the problems with having an apprentice. That these jokes were aimed at me ended up going completely over my head. Several times I caught myself shaking my head in disbelief as though I was waking myself up from a not entirely unpleasant dream. I had expected a village under the cloud of fear and oppression with the Witcher arriving like a knight errant to free the people from the oppression that was all around them. Instead it seemed that the village life went on as normal and the Witcher was more one of them than I was.

The first stop was the Blacksmith's where we were met by the most stereo-typical dwarf that I've ever seen. Complete with long chain-mail, horned helmet, broad Mahakaman accent, hammer in his belt, Long beard and bushy eye-brows. The sounds of hammering came from within the forge.

"Ah a Witcher." He said cleaning his hands on an already filthy cloth which he then used to mop his brow and the inside of his helmet before putting the cloth inside the helmet and placing the helmet back on his head.

"Indeed," The Witcher was smiling slightly and I felt that he had gone back to the man that I knew for a little while.

"It's the sword on the back, it gives it away."

"Then I must compliment you on your observations."

"Thank you very much." The helmet came off again as the dwarf scratched his head.

"As a thought," my companion continued, "Doesn't it get a little hot in that helmet and chain-mail in the forge."

I thought I heard a slight pause in the hammering.

"Aye, it does. A little warm I must admit but ehhh..." The dwarf looked up and down the alley quickly. "The locals expect a certain..." his hand moved in a circle as he strained for the right word.

"Quality?" The Witcher offered.

"Aye, a certain... quality from a dwarven Blacksmith."

My companions eyes narrowed slightly.

"Well, before we start, I don't mean to sound insulting but my life depends on the answer to these questions... Do you have experience in making and maintaining weaponry?"

"After three wars any local blacksmith, including me, has been commandeered by at least two different armies to make and maintain weapons and armour for them. It's almost quicker and easier for me to make a sword than it is to make a scythe-blade nowadays."

"Then can you work with silver and meteorite alloys?" The Witcher's eyes narrowed again.

Again the helmet came off and a more vigorous head scratching moment.

This time I knew there was definitely a pause before two rapid hammer strikes.

"Aye, I can manage that."

"Excellent." The Witcher smiled happily removing the sword from his back. Then I need this blade sharpening and oiling while I wait and this..." he moved towards his horse and removed the long narrow box that I had seen before in the inn where we first met. In daylight it looked old, almost black with age. Again I found myself expecting a creak from the hinges but they were obviously well oiled. The Witcher carefully produced a sword wrapped in a cloth which shone in an extraordinary way in the light of the sun. I have no idea as to the aesthetics of a sword. I've seen swords that looked beautiful before with design work, etchings and studded with jewels that swordsmen scoffed at, but I've also seen swords that have been proven to have lasted for centuries that still look dangerous but look like the most boring sword imaginable that you wouldn't look twice at if it was stuffed through the belt of a peasant bandit.

This sword was beautiful. Sharp and hard. The blade was shaped with an ever so slight leaf pattern and the hilt and cross-guard were ornamented with strange grooves that both drew the eye and repelled it.

"This needs sharpening as well. I will come for it before dark."

"Alright, well I'll just take the Steel one into the back and..."

"Why?" my Companion asked. "The sharpening wheel is right there. I'm staying here to wait for it so why do you need to take it into the back?"

"Errr, well it's to do with... The heat, yes the heat."

"The heat has nothing to do with it. Can you work it or not"

I noticed that the hammering stopped.

"Of course I can work it but..."

"But what?"

The dwarf sighed and looked up and down the street again before pulling a curtain around the outside of the shop.

"You'd better come out," the Dwarf said in a much more normal voice. I would have put the accent as coming from somewhere north of Novigrad.

A giant came out of the forge, heavily muscled and short-haired enough that it was to my shame that at first I thought that the figure was a man.

"I can work it," she said and I started with surprise. The pitch of the voice gave away her gender. She examined the plainer steel sword in the light from the forge. "This needs more than just a

wheel" she informed my companion.

"Yes," he said, "It will."

The girl with the frighteningly large biceps stalked back into the forge clutching the Witchers sword as though she was going to use it as a club to beat mountains to death. The two of use then turned towards the dwarf who was standing there, bright red and holding his helmet in his hands, turning it round in exactly the same way that a peasant does in those comedy plays when he's being beaten up by his betters.

In the end, the poor dwarf couldn't take it any more.

"It's like this. I'm a trader that had most of my goods commandeered in the form of taxes by the crown. That girl in there has forgotten more about metal crafting than I have ever known but the locals round here knew her from when she was little, so they just don't trust her. Then I come here on my way away from the war zone having lost everything that I own and suddenly I'm being asked to give the girl a few pointers. Leaving aside the fact that she can literally pick me up and bend me in half."

The Witcher nodded, his eyes were glinting strangely.

"So the two of us came to the arrangement that she would do the work. I front the shop and because it's "dwarven craftsmanship" we can charge more."

"A dangerous game." I commented.

"A little, but have you seen the size of her?"

The Witcher's eyes glittered. "She does look as though she could flex and cracks would open in the ground.

"Precisely." The dwarf nodded.

The curtains opened and the girl handed the sword back. I noticed that she did so so that the blade could slide straight into the scabbard and that neither the Witcher, nor herself had to touch the blade.

"Tell me miss." The Witcher said, still smiling slightly, "Are you in the position to take orders?"

"If the money's right." She said as she picked up a water-skin and squirted some liquid into her throat.

"I don't think money will be a problem. I need a metal pole with a short blade at the end. The blade needs to be longer than a spear head and made for slashing as well as stabbing."

The girl nodded.

"How long does it need to be?"

"About six feet pole plus another two foot of blade. Oh and if possible I would like the entire thing to be able to be broken down into sections."

Her eyes went vacant a moment as she sucked her teeth. By my guess she was about sixteen but she seemed far older under the soot and sweat.

"Three days, 246 crowns." she said flatly. "It won't come cheaper than that so don't bother asking."

"Done and done," The Witcher said.

The girl nodded and turned back inside.

"Excuse me miss," I blurted out without consciously deciding to.

She turned and looked at me without expression.

"Have you ever thought of marrying?" I asked. I still don't know why.

"Whatever for?" she asked looking confused.

I couldn't find an answer for that and she shrugged in a way that eloquently suggested that I was terminally stupid as she turned away.

It was only a short walk from the smithy to the head man's house.

"A spear?" I muttered,

"Not really, think of it more as a kind of pole-arm,"

"Because of course I'm more used to that."

"You may be surprised. Anyway, we can talk more on that when she's made the thing. Now remember, hospitality is good but don't eat very much at this stage, we don't want to eat too much and make him think that feeding us is too much trouble."

"Yes, I remember. You told me about that this morning remember?"

The Witcher made no comment about that.

"The old man came out to greet us and presented us with wooden boards that seemed to act as plates, some bread, cheese and some reasonably fresh looking butter. There was also a bowl of fat which the old man smeared onto his bread with relish but I couldn't bring myself to partake in.

There was also a jug of mead and although we both took cups of it, I noticed that Kerrass only took sips of it, barely enough to wet his lips and I followed his example.

We ate slowly, following the lead of the old man.

"So I take it that not everyone approves of your decision to consult a Witcher?" Kerrass asked.

The old man looked surprised.

"How did you know that?"

The Witcher laughed. "It's no great trick. Approval of my presence is never universal. In this case I can't help but notice that that large man with a fat nose and fatter belly keeps glaring at us. I also notice that he has a group of friends to whom he has been chatting."

The old man groaned. "Oh, I'm going to pay for this. That's Ruthorford the Cooper. Not as much call for his trade now that the last wars have taken a lot of the workforce away meaning there's not as much food coming in for him to barrel."

"Which of course he blames you for."

The old man smirked "Well naturally. I'm the Alderman aren't I, head of the men's council and therefore I control the entire world and spend my days sitting outside and smoking my pipe. Never mind the fact that I'm often out in the fields helping out as much as I can these days as well as mending people's roof's. I'm the thatcher you see."

My companion nodded sympathetically.

"He wants my job as well," the old man continued, warming to his subject. "I would let him have it as well for all the good it would do him, just to get him to shut up but I'm awfully a-feared that he would just blame me for any problems that crop up and then blame everyone else for the rest. Not the kind of man I would trust this place with. Most folks don't listen to him, but it's always the louder ones, or the burlier ones that like to get into fights that seem to approve of what he's saying. But the women of the place support me so I mostly do OK."

He took out a pipe and a tobacco pouch and started to fill it.

"I'm not going to hear the end of this in the next meeting." He sat for a moment looking miserable before he remembered his manners and offered us both his tobacco pouch which we declined.

"Who's the local lord who should be paying for my services?"

"Damned if I know," The old man lit a taper from a candle that was resting in the window. "What with three wars, Nilfgaard against the north, Aedirn against Kaedwen, Kedwaen against Redania, heh, it wouldn't surprise me if the local lord is off cowering in Nilfgaard or has fled to the distant north to get _away_ from the Empire. Maybe both. It's been a while since we've had a tax man though, so we stockpile what we can in preparation for the day when some soldiers turn up and demand more than what we have for whatever they need it for. Not that they can take any more of our men as we don't really have any."

"What about those troublemakers?" I asked.

"Heh, Funny you should mention that. For some reason they aren't anywhere to be found when the recruiters come through." He took a long puff on his pipe and blew out a not unimpressive smoke ring.

"So how can I help?" The Witcher asked after carefully pouring his mead back into the jug when the old man wasn't watching.

"Well, as I say, I'm not even sure that it is a problem."

"Is that the troublemaker asking?" Kerrass put in. "Tell me what happened. As I say, if it's nothing then I'll say that it's nothing and we'll move on, taking this fine lunch and excellent mead as our payment. I have a commission with the blacksmith but we will pay for any other food that we need. If it is something we will talk and make a deal. If we can't come to a deal then we shall walk on. So why don't you tell me what's troubling you all."

The old man stared into his mead cup intently while working up a real cloud of smoke. I took the opportunity to pour my own mead back into the jug following Kerrass' example.

Suddenly enough to make me jump the old man moved, took a deep breath and knocked the ash out of his pipe.

"It's like this." He said, "We lost some cattle."

"How many?"

"Three cows."

I nearly said something. Looking back now I am so very glad that I didn't.

"Out of how many?" Kerrass said straight faced.

"Five. We also lost two sheep and a goat."

Kerrass was staring into space.

"What time of day was this?"

"At night."

"At the same time or spread out?"

"Spread out over several nights."

"Any news of bandits in the local area?"

"No sir, not that I've heard."

"Have any remains been found?"

"No sir,"

"Was the ground examined by a tracker or a hunter afterwards?"

"No sir, we don't really have either but the ground did seem disturbed. Truth be told though, people don't like to gout out to those fields any more."

"For good reason," Kerrass muttered under his breath. I could see him thinking, it felt very strange to me. It was the same expression that I saw some professors get when they've been asked an uncomfortable question by a student.

His eyes snapped open.

"Is there anything else going on that's strange. Anything at all that's out of place, no matter how small or silly sounding. I promise I won't laugh. Neither will my apprentice if he knows what's good for him."

I bit the inside of my cheeks in preparation.

"Well sir, A large number of people have been losing tools lately."

"Nope, what else?"

"There have been noticeably fewer birds in the woods,"

"Close, interesting but not what I'm looking for. What else?"

"Well, some of the ciders soured quicker than expected."

"What else?"

"The bee's have been swarming unusually."

Kerrass sighed. My friend, I am trying to help you. There is something else that you think is stupid and don't want to talk to strangers about for fear that we will think you're mad. What is it?"

The Alderman finished his mead in a swallow

"Well sir it's... Frying bacon."

"What?"

"A few people have heard frying bacon out in the fields."

Kerrass closed his eyes.

"Have you found anything like a hard shell? It would have been dark purple, almost black. Kind of like a large eggshell but much harder?"

"No sir,"

"How about a stretchy substance that from a distance will have looked like cloth but when you get closer, feels like a stretchy animal hide. It would stink of peat and animal droppings."

"No sir, but as I say, since we've been losing livestock, we've moved what's left into other fields and folk don't go into those others any more so there might be things out there that we haven't found."

Kerrass nodded and stood.

"Very well my friend. I need a guide to take me out to where the animals disappeared. In the mean time I'm going to have a walk around the village and get a sense of the place and talk to some other people to see if they can shed some more light, some detail that might have been overlooked if you don't know what you're looking for. As well as a guide I would suggest that you pass it around that if anyone should hear the sound of 'bacon frying' then they should move until they no longer hear it. Preferably to higher ground or on top of a rock. As well as that, I should be summoned immediately."

"Is it dangerous?" The old man asked.

"Oh yes." My companion nodded. "You have undoubtedly saved lives by summoning a Witcher and you have already served your village well. You have a burrower of some kind but we don't know what, or how many yet which would change how we go about dealing with it. With luck, we should have it all dealt with soon, probably by tomorrow night after which we can get out of your hair."

"How much will this cost?"

"I'm afraid that depends on the thing that's burrowing. If it's one thing then I need one set of herbs and equipment, if it's the other then I need other herbs and equipment. All of which cost money.

Does that make sense?"

The old man nodded,, looking pale.

"If you could see to the guide and the frying noise and I will speak to you this evening about what I've found? We can sleep in a barn somewhere if there's no inn."

The Alderman looked up. "No sir, you will sleep in my house. You're serving the village and I won't have it said that our hospitality is wanting."

The Witcher laughed. "You haven't heard my apprentice snore yet. Don't worry we'll have this sorted soon."

He turned and walked away to the next house where he knocked on the door.

Which is what we did for most of the rest of the afternoon.


	4. Chapter 4

It was fascinating watching the Witcher work in this part of his profession. Even though I found it incredibly tedious and increasingly frustrating as Kerrass went around each house talking to as many people as he could lay his hands on all the time carefully and quietly teasing information out of them. From the most senile old man to the youngest, barely able to speak, child he was the soul of patience and charm. Deftly and easily turning the topic of conversation back to where he wanted it to go while at the same time turning down a surprisingly large number of sexual invitations.

I asked him about it later and he said that it always happens, he doesn't understand it and tends to avoid such encounters on the grounds that he never knew whose wives he was sleeping with. Then he would have to fight someone and it would all go to the cesspit from there.

But even so, given his impatience when we had first started travelling together I was surprised at just how long he could stand being invited to play with dollies and hearing the words "It used to be much better in the old days".

I swear I'm not making that second one up either. It turns out that cliches are cliches for a reason and in my travels with the Witcher I have met an awful lot of them. Including an absent minded wizard with a pointy had and a robe, both with stars on them along with crescent moons.

We had gone round most of the village and the sun had begun to sink towards the horizon when we hit trouble. The trouble in question was the large man that my companion had noticed earlier and a group of toughs.

Rutherford the Cooper was an unpleasant man, tall and wiry of limb but he also had the enlarged nose and swelling stomach of a man who enjoys his alcohol possibly a little too much. He was clean shaven which struck me as unusual in rural parts as I hadn't seen anyone without some form of a beard. To be fair his hands were callused enough to show hard physical labour and his apron was indeed covered in wood shavings and an unpleasant looking sticky stain that I presumed was some form of glue to hold the barrels together. In the countryside things generally smell of rotting vegetation and animal dung. His smell was sharp, unpleasant and put me in mind of a chisel being driven up my nose.

His companions were thugs and hangers on. All had the similar signs of being drunkards and also all of them were armed which again made them stand out. None of the other villagers that I had seen carried anything more than eating knives although weapons were often visible, hanging on walls and propping up corners gathering rust, men very rarely carried them. I suppose on the grounds that when you're trying to persuade a field to give your children something to eat over the winter, the extra weight of a sword and armour is not really something that you want to be thinking about. But these men were armed, Clubs and axes mostly although one of the six of them had a sword.

Rutherford opened his mouth to speak but my companion was already there, pre-empting him.

"Good afternoon Mr Rutherford. I was just on my way to see you." Kerrass extended his hand to be

shaken and smiled easily.

"That's interesting," Rutherford folded his arms across his chest. "Because I was just coming to see you."

Kerrass smiled slightly. "How wonderful. Perhaps you can tell me your version of events then?" He gestured to a nearby bench before sitting on it. "Shall we sit to discuss things."

"No I don't think so. You won't be staying that long."

"Really, why is that?" There was a treacherous note of innocent stupidity in the Witchers voice.

"Because you and your apprentice," he sneered over the word as though it was some kind of insult to be learning a trade. "will be out of town in ten minutes."

"Will we?" The Witcher seemed astonished at this.

"Yes you will."

"Why is that?" I became aware that a number of people were watching and children were being ushered indoors.

"Because you're not welcome here. Filthy, mutant non-human freak spreading your disease and charlatanisms and trickery and filthy magics among decent folks. It's not natural. It's not. So I want you gone."

"Or?" The Witcher's eyebrows rose dramatically.

"What do you mean?"

"You want us gone, or what?"

"Isn't it obvious?"

"Indulge me. After all, I am a filthy, mutant, non human freak and although I am relatively clean and by definition can't carry diseases, I don't understand the actions of decent people." He smiled nastily while I looked for a weapon. Within a couple of steps there was a hoe leaning against the wall of the house that we were standing next to. I shifted my weight, feigning boredom so that I could spring for the pole quickly.

"You will leave, or you will stay. For ever. In the ground."

"Sorry what was that?"

"You heard me."

"Regardless would you mind saying it a little louder for me. I get this horrible buzzing noise in my ears. A terrible affliction brought on by the presence of idiocy."

"Leave now or else."

"I see," said the Witcher springing back to his feet. I saw that his left hand was on the strap across his chest and I tensed slightly. With his right hand, the Witcher reached inside his jerkin and pulled out his medallion. I had seen it before but had never had the opportunity to have a properly good look at it. It showed a stylised cat's head in the process of hissing straight ahead.. It was cold, dark metal and if I'm honest, it made me uneasy to look at it. He held it so that the sun glittered off the sharper edges

"Do you know what this means?" Kerrass asked.

I had already noticed that The Witcher used his voice like a bard might use a musical instrument. That he could make it sound friendly, amused, soft, quiet, sympathetic and many others between. This was his chilling voice. It was cold, determined and with a kind of clipping when he clearly and carefully enunciated the different syllables without dropping any of the consonants. He calls it his "don't fuck with me" voice.

Rutherford didn't seem to care but I did notice one of the other men going a little paler. I decided that that man was more likely to run and dismissed him from my plan of attack.

"Not only do I not know," Rutherford tried to sound intimidating. "But I don't care. Now clear..."

"Then I shall tell you," Kerrass interrupted. "It means that I am a Witcher of the Cat school, and an accredited guild member. That means that I live by a code."

"I could give a fart for your..."

"That code states," The Witchers voice was flat and grating now. Like a stone moving over gravel. "that once a contract is taken, that I must follow it through until the end of the contract."

"Your contract is void."

"That's lovely and everything but I don't work for you."

"That old man is a fool and a scare monger. There is nothing wrong..."

"In which case you have nothing to worry about it. But I gave my word. If you try and stop me then I will defend myself."

"You don't scare me with your deviant eyes and your scary voice."

"I should." The Witcher said but Rutherford was getting red faced and angry now.

"You don't scare me so let me make it clear. You will leave or you will be killed. If I were you I would take that path," He pointed. "And walk out of town now. In fact, you should run."

The Witcher's eyes narrowed, just ever so slightly. A minute movement that could have been ignored if you weren't particularly looking for it but I had learned that you needed to really pay attention to Kerrass's face to be able to tell what he was thinking, I was watching for it.

I shifted my feet even further.

"Mr Witcher, Mr Witcher." A young voice was shouting, shattering the tension. "Mr Witcher, Mr Witcher."

"I'm over here."

"Mr Witcher," The kid was filthy, wearing a short pair of overly large woollen trousers that were tied onto his waist with apiece of string. He was out of breath and his expression warred between being utterly terrified but also pumped up about the exaggerated importance of what was happening. He was also plainly scared by what he could see going on between the adults in front of him.

Say what you like but children can sense these things.

"Mr Witcher, the Alderman sent me to find you."

Kerrass knelt down. I had noticed the trick of talking to children earlier, getting down to put himself on eye level with them and talking to them as equals

"Tell me the message, quickly,"

Rutherford backhanded the kid hard in the face and sending him sprawling.

"Get lost you little shiiii..."

He was interrupted by Kerrass launching himself up from his kneeling position and used that momentum to shove Rotherford in the abdomen. The breath exploded from the cooper as he almost flew backwards into someone's bean growing lattice causing him to collapse in a clatter of broken sticks. The other toughs stood around in confusion as they couldn't decide whether or not to help Rutherford or to attack my companion.

I helped the child to his feet and noticed the cut lip and the look of cold and injured fury that sometimes springs up in children when adults are being idiotic and unjust.

Kerrass knelt back down, ignoring the toughs but I noticed that his hand was on his sword strap again.

"Tell me,"

The kid sniffed hugely. "The Alderman tells me to tells you that Anna the Weaver has heard..."

The Witcher stiffened. The tension hadn't left his body, it had changed.

"Which one is her house. Quickly,"

He didn't grab the boy. Nor did he raise his voice or shake the boy to emphasise the importance of

the question. All things that I would have done.

"It's the one on the end sir Witcher sir. The one with the purple Fox-gloves on the front."

"Run, from here to the smithy and bring me my silver sword. The dwarf will know which one it is. I will be at her house. Run."

He rose and spun and had started to move, to find that Rutherford had surfaced from the mess that he had made for himself and was barring the Witcher's way.

"You assaulted me." he sputtered in rage. "You struck me. By the power invested in me as a member of the town council..."

"Get out of my way you stupid fool." Kerrass made to move round but was held back by one of the ruffians.

I will admit to freezing. As I said I am not a soldier and am not really used to physical confrontation outside of arranged practice areas and times. The attackers certainly weren't watching me and I could have done something I suppose but I was frozen in place.

"I need to save that woman's life you idiot."

"You will do nothing of the sort, you will stand trial and be hung for."

"A woman's life is in danger and all you can think about is your foolish pride." The Witcher snarled.

All of the ruffians were watching the Witcher. My thoughts seemed to move like treacle.

"A woman's life is not in danger." Rutherford moved towards Kerrass threateningly. "You are just trying to scam the good folk out of their hard earned money by pandering to the stories of that old fool the Alderman. Perhaps now people will finally see sense and vote him out of his position and pave the way for some real order around..."

Someone screamed.

It was a woman's voice.

The Witcher lunged for a gap between the men facing him, his sword was still in it's sheath. I saw a fist heading towards his head. Time slowed so that I could see it travelling and wondered how someone could throw a punch so slowly.

My treacherous body finally obeyed me and I moved, seizing the Hoe as I went.

In the days that followed I would often dissect what happened next in my dreams and on the back of my horse as we trundled gently down the road. To this day I don't know if I did the right thing and I suspect that I will wonder until the end of my days. I had two choices and in the split second between the scream and my seizing the hoe I weighed up the two options. On the one hand I could attack the men surrounding the Witcher and attempt to free him so that he could go and deal with things or I could run towards the scream and try to be useful there.

I tried to weigh the two options, which was more likely to save lives, where would I be most useful. It was impossible to tell but in the end I made my decision and I moved.

The ruffians were ignoring me and moving in around the Witcher so I ran towards the scream. I don't remember ever moving as fast as I did that day. I sprinted out of the little alley and along the row of huts facing the green. It wasn't hard to see where I was going as other people were standing outside their own huts, pointing and looking worried. That included the fact that the child's descriptions were accurate and to the point.

The woman screamed again, horribly.

If anything I accelerated. I could see and hear the Alderman shouting at people to go and help. He was himself making his own way towards the small cottage on the outskirts of town but his going was slow.

I sprinted towards the house. A couple of people were plucking up the courage to go in as I was arriving and I screamed at them to get out of my way. I turned my shoulder to the door as I arrived and I didn't slow down as I hit it and barrelled through into the cottage

Please believe me when I say that normally I am a fairly cultured man and that I don't normally behave like this. I have berated myself for acting the fool that day and also lauded myself for being a hero but more often than not I am left with a sense of uneasy guilt. At the time, all that I can claim was that I was so angry at Rutherford and his merry band of idiots that some spark of common sense had been ignored and destroyed. I certainly don't think I could have done the same thing in cold blood back then.

At first I didn't register what was happening. I burst through the door and my body registered the fact that the impact against my shoulder hurt. Then I saw a child which I grabbed by the pigtails without thinking and unceremoniously threw her behind me and out of the door. On some level I registered her scream of pain and anger but I was too busy surveying the scene.

The interior of the cottage was quite pretty and homely really. There was a fire pit in the middle of the room with two small beds tucked into the sides as well as two chairs and an assortment of other cooking equipment. There was also a small table with the remains of a meal on it and a spinning wheel in the corner as well as several bobbins of woollen thread.

The homely effect was spoiled by the gaping hole in the ground. The dirt floor was falling away into the hole that was increasing in size, the sounds of the dirt and stone as they fell into the hole was not unlike the frying of bacon but it was being drowned out by the roars and sounds of the creature that was climbing out of the same hole. It had grabbed hold of another child, a young boy of maybe six and was pulling the boy towards the hole and it's gaping maw. I didn't think it was much bigger than the boy itself as it came out but it was monstrously strong for it's size, roughly humanoid in shape, it had two legs, two arms although it's head seemed to grow out of it's torso rather than to have any kind of neck and it's mouth was huge and fanged. It's red gaze was fixed hungrily on the child and it's hands ended in huge claws that gashed at the boys leg as I watched blood spurting through it's fingers.

The smell was overpowering, rotting vegetable, animal manure and the raw stench of human terror all mixed into a potent cocktail that nearly stopped me in my tracks. I was already pretty shut down but I felt myself detach from my body. As I watched, another pair of clawed, webbed hands appeared in the hole and another one of those things climbed out.

There was another girl, maybe twelve years old, hiding from the monsters behind her mother's skirts who just stood and stared at the monsters, her mouth open as if she had forgotten how to scream. I grabbed for her, but she dodged around her mother to avoid me.

The first creature had a good hold of the boy now and was dragging him into the hole. The boy was screaming and shouting for his mother, spittle and snot spraying from his face as he blubbered in justifiable terror. The mother darted forwards and grabbed the boy by his reaching arms while

the second monster climbed to it's feet and started to move to the corner of the room, towards the cot that I hadn't seen before.

I screamed and charged it, hoe's blade out in front of me as I rammed it into where I thought the things neck would be. It flew off it's feet as I followed through with a push.

I dropped the hoe and scooped up the tiny human form gathered in blankets inside. The monster that I had struck tried to climb to it's feet and I stamped on it's head as hard as I could on the way past to the door.

I was still screaming and the baby added it's own cries to the general din. I handed the baby to someone and spun to go back inside.

I was still screaming and tears of what I can only assume were terror obscured my vision. The woman was being pulled towards the hole despite the girl holding onto her skirts. The boys eyes were wide with terror and pain and as I watched he screamed and choked before blood exploded from his mouth in a gout, staining his teeth and splashing against his mothers smock.

I grabbed her bodily but she was fighting me, the small fists of the girl beat me around the head and back.

"Mother," The boy gurgled, blood and mucus clogging up his throat. He spasmed again. Tried to scream and died, right there in front of me.

The mother pulled and pulled as another gout of blood came from the child's mouth. She slipped and let go.

I kicked the little girl towards the door and picked the woman up bodily. She had started to scream again as I moved towards the door. She subsided a little when she hit her head on the door jamb in her struggles

Finally the Witcher arrived. Bursting through the door. He didn't even bother trying to rescue the boy as he chopped at the creature that I had kicked, again and again. Although the force of the blows drove the creature down to the ground He still wasn't really hurting it as it hissed and spat at him.

I carried the woman out and half threw her and half dropped her in front of the terrified villagers.

"Master Witcher, Master Witcher." The voice came. The dwarf from the smithy with a large and heavy hammer in one hand and the silver sword in the other. I grabbed the sword and ran back into the hut.

The Witcher turned, he had one foot on the things chest now. He must have seen what I was carrying as he dropped his sword and snatched the silver one out of my hand, cutting my palm as it did so.

I still have the scar. The first of many I would gain from my travels with Kerrass.

He stabbed down once and this time there was no resistance to the blow as the sword went clear through. Another creature scrambled out of the hole to be met with a flat horizontal cut that almost cut the creature in half.

He pulled a short cylinder from his belt, twisted it and started shaking it vigorously.

"Take the steel sword and get out, get the people back." He said, almost calmly.

It took me a second to locate the sword on the ground. I grabbed it by it's cross-guard and ran for the door, screaming for the crowd to get back.

I must have looked like a demon from hell crossed with a screaming madman. But they certainly moved back for the Witcher who emerged, dragging the body of one of the creatures, his silver sword in the sheath across his back.

There was a kind of "wumpf" noise and the roof exploded off the house.

I stood there for a moment as the straw and wooden timbers fell around me like a grotesque snowfall blinking stupidly.

The Witcher approached me, clapped me on the shoulder and carefully took the sword from my numb hands.

I opened and closed my mouth a few times trying to get my words out but eventually my legs just kind of gave way and I sat down heavily. I couldn't remember ever having been that exhausted.

The Alderman approached us. He looked old, almost ancient.

"Is it over?" he asked my companion.

"Alas no," The Witcher said, "You have Nekkers Sir."

The old man sighed and nodded before moving away.

The Witcher crouched next to me. He had found a flask of water from somewhere and handed it to me.

"You alright?"

I almost chuckled at that.

"I'm fine," I forced myself to answer.

"You're bleeding." he said carefully, the same way that you might a child. He pointed at my leg where my clothing was torn and at my hand. Blood was seeping gently from both places.

"Well will you look at that," I said wonderingly. The pain seemed a distant thing as though it was shouting at me from a distance.

"I'll find you some mead and clean it up. Try not to move although it doesn't look serious."

I sat back and started to really shake in the grass.

"Here drink this," A cup was offered and I gulped down the strong and sweet mead while the Witcher cleaned up and bound my leg and hand before collapsing next to me.

"You did well. By all accounts you saved those peoples lives today." he said clapping me on the shoulder.

"Tell them that," I said gesturing in the direction of the family gathering round the wreck of their former home. The mother was being restrained from entering the still burning wreck of her home by her husband while she screamed in a primal, almost bestial way. The children stood nearby looking confused as other adults tried to usher them away.

"Tell them that." I said again.

The Witcher had nothing to say to that.


	5. Chapter 5

If only that had been the end of the day.

If only.

I lay back in the grass and concentrated on getting my breath back to a semblance of normal pace and rhythm along with my heart beat. I had thought I was relatively fit and healthy. I had done all the prescribed exercises at the university and I had been on the road, with all of it's trials and tribulations for the last 6 weeks or so but I was dismayed at how utterly exhausted I was. I had also begun to shake uncontrollably. I felt detached from my body as though it was completely beyond my control and that I was just watching from an outside observers point of view. I literally remember thinking that I should try and stand up and drink something sugary which was when I remembered that the Witcher had given me a small cup of mead but it suddenly felt so far away as though that would be such a huge effort that I simply could not bring myself to perform. My arm felt like it was a tree trunk as well as being miles away from my head.

I had also forgotten that I had closed my eyes.

After forcing myself to lift the giant cloth curtains that had covered my eyes otherwise known as my eyelids, I realised that my arm wasn't as far away as I had first thought. Unfortunately the other problem was that trying to drink while lying flat on your back, although not impossible, is extremely difficult. Especially when you are shaking with shock. With great effort and no small amount of concentration I sat up and sipped at my cup of mead while I waited for the greyness at the edge of my vision to clear up. It was taking it's own sweet time to do so too.

The Witcher had vanished off somewhere doing whatever it is that Witchers do after they've killed a monster or three. I would later find out that that generally amounted to cleaning the monster blood of their weapons as it's often corrosive, harvesting alchemical bits from the corpses in question and having a look round to see if any secondary burrows had sprouted up in the absence of this singular burrow. At that point he was running around peering at the ground and occasionally freaking out the locals by bursting into their houses and throwing himself flat on the floor to listen to the floor-boards before leaping to his feet and running off. Not that there were many people to disturb as by now most of the town had gathered outside the house at the end of the row that was still smouldering.

Dimly I could hear that there was an argument taking place near the small house about whether they should let the house burn or whether they should put it out. There were arguments about it on both sides and I soon zones out of it completely thinking nothing in particular.

There was a growing buzzing in my ears anyway that sounded strangely hypnotic.

I continued to sip my mead and do my best to follow what was going on around me.

The family that up until that afternoon had lived in the hut on the edge of the road with the foxgloves in front of it were being lead away now. The woman had screamed hysterically for a while before a group of women had taken her over and to my eyes seemed to feed her something, after which she was able to be lead away. The father of the house with the foxgloves seemed to have himself well buttoned up, put a brave face on it and took his children in hand. He put me in mind of a lecture that I once attended on the still infant industry of explosives in the world.

A lot of Alfred Nabel's inventions and discoveries died with him when he blew up his own workshop to keep those secrets hidden but some things have since been rediscovered, one of the things that stuck in my mind was that explosions need to have an outlet as all that explosive force needs to go somewhere. Therefore if you want to blow up a wall you bury the explosive underneath the wall rather than placing the explosive next to it.

As I looked at the young farmer leading his somewhat smaller family away, I remembered this lecture and I remember hoping that there was someone who would keep an eye on that family in case the young man would explode randomly and at an undeserving target.

My ruminations as well as my long slow movement towards getting over my shock at recent events were shattered as a person who was by no means small grabbed me by the collar and did it's very best to haul me to my feet.

Unfortunately for him he did this incorrectly and as a result only succeeded in tearing at my clothing, much to my bemusement.

Then it turned out that he had some friends to help him who grabbed me by the arms and levered me to my feet. When they got me to my feet someone started to shout at me, in my face but then they let go of me and I was unhelpful enough to collapse back to a sitting position again. Then I started laughing.

For those of you reading who have any kind of medical history or training, yes, I was in shock and dangerously close to hysteria and no, I had no idea about that at the time. Strange how you don't think that you're in shock while you are actually in shock.

I got a kick to the face for my trouble.

I didn't stop laughing though which unfortunately made my assailant even angrier and I got another kick.

"Get up," Someone said. I blinked at them stupidly, "GET UP," they screamed again before having me hauled back to my feet.

I giggled again.

"Where's your friend?"

"Who?" I asked.

It was not my wisest moment.

My head snapped forward as a fist thundered into my guts and I tried to curl around the pain as though it was some kind of baby that I wanted to protect with the rest of my body. Unfortunately in letting my head go forwards I met the fist coming up in the uppercut.

It wasn't a particularly hard punch but it did make me bite the inside of my lower lip causing a small blood spray.

Once you've been beaten up though, pain takes on a kind of different meaning.

But now they had made me mad and as they did so, they pain just kind of went away.

But I needed to wait my moment.

I sagged into the men's hands.

"Where is your friend?"

"Which one," I answered. "I have many friends."

They gut punched me again. I found myself wondering if there was a reason that people tend to hit other people in the stomach for a reason rather than hitting them in the face.

"Get the fuck off me,"

Rutherford was struggling with someone. I couldn't tell who as the mead that I had drunk earlier was trying to come up through my nose.

"This man is harbouring a fugitive. A fugitive that assaulted me and my friends in broad day-light. I demand justice and if no-one else is prepared to provide that justice then I will find it myself."

I was still slumped in the other men's arms. But now I got one leg under me. I felt someone grab me by the hair and tilt my face into the light.

I saw Rutherford's face. He was flushed and angry. One eye was half closed with what was going to be a truly awe-inspiring black eye and the other was wild eyed and blood shot. He also had a cut along one cheek but mostly I was looking at his nose, all big, red and with those tiny little purple veins running through them. Those little ones that you hace to be really close to a man's face to be able to see. For all the world it looked like a boil or a blister that needed to be popped.

It was a favour really. He would thank me for it later.

I had the one foot planted now and used that legs strength to launch myself up like one of those fireworks you can see around the noble quarters in Oxenfurt, driving my head as directly into his nose as I could.

The effect was rather satisfactory but by the eternal fire did it hurt.

For a moment my head swam and white light exploded behind my eyes. But on the other hand there was liquid running down my face and my enemy was reeling away from me clutching at his face.

"Bastard," he roared. "Bastard, you've broken my nose." He howled in pain and rage as he tried to talk through his increasingly busted up face.

He seized a bottle from a nearby villager and drank a large amount from it before whimpering in pain and hurling the bottle at the crowd as he turned his murderous face back to me.

"Bring me rope." He ordered. "I'm gonna string you up so that your friend can see it," he snarled at me as it began to occur to me that head-butting this vodka fuelled maniac was possibly not the wisest course of action that I had ever taken.

"WHERE'S MY FUCKING ROPE?"

Rutherford screamed at the crowd, spittle, blood and snot spraying from his lips and the ugly mushroom that had taken over his face. I felt a giggle scrabbling at the bottom of my throat. I don't know why but I managed to strangle it before it properly managed to take hold.

"Yes," came a cold and hard voice, "Where is is his fucking rope? It will save us all time later,"

The words were spoken quietly but at the same time there was a power to them that carried them over the rest of the crowd and into everyone's ears.

If this had been a story then the crowds would have split apart providing an oh so convenient path for my rescuer to walk down. Then my rescuer would have intimidated my captors into letting me go, but this was not the case. The crowd spent a good amount of time looking around to see who had spoken.

"Show yourself you cowardly mutant freak." Rutherford spat in his hate.

"I would," came the Witcher's voice "but I can't seem to get through which is fortunate for us both I think."

It wasn't an alley that formed, it was more the mob version of self preservation. People just started backing away from each other until there was a rough circle around us all as people filed into the gaps between houses, others ran into the houses themselves, calling for children to come inside lest there be trouble.

Children being children, they of course ignored this and either climbed out windows or onto roofs to see the street theatre, entertainment being rare in those parts.

As a result though I could finally see my rescuer. He had been busy it seemed as he was holding the corpse of another Nekker by the foot having dragged it towards the village. The corpse was nearly cut in half in the midriff with only a few inches worth of skin and muscle holding the two halves together with other stringy entrails spilling out behind it.

The entrails steamed in the air. A couple of people shrieked at the sight.

I kind of wanted to gasp or something but the blows to my stomach had robbed me of breath.

"Drop your swords," Rutherford crowed in gleeful triumph at the imagined surrender of the Witcher.

"Why?" The Witcher responded sheathing what I recognised as his silver sword.

"Because you assaulted me,"

"Yes, I know why you want me to. I also know that hanging me is an overreaction according to the local law for assaulting a cretin in self-defence."

"Drop your swords, or we'll kill your friend."

The Witcher nodded.

"Go ahead," He marched forwards to within about ten feet of us all. I noticed that his left hand was on his sword strap and that the steel sword was on his back. I felt a trickle of cold sweat run down the back of my neck and I shivered.

"Frederick," The Witcher said, "I'm sorry, but you can rest assured that you will be avenged shortly." He was talking to me but he was looking at Rutherford.

"You're insane," Rutherford sounded like someone had thrown a bucket of cold water over him.

"No, I'm quite serious. If you kill him then you will have lost your shield. You will not have time to reach for a weapon yourself because by that point your head will be sailing from your shoulders in a most impressive arterial spray. Your colleagues will be too busy being shocked that they will die in relatively short order after that."

"You're bluffing."

For answer Kerrass grinned nastily. "Try me,"

The tableau was set. It was like a scene out of a play.

"I am a member of the village council and I am placing you under arrest."

Rutherford drew his sword and stepped away from the other two.

"Ah, said the Witcher. I find that interesting. Release my companion first before I answer,"

"There is no answer for your actions you mutant fuck, you are guilty there are witnesses."

"I have a defence,"

"There is no defence."

"Yet I will make one which is the right of anyone. If you try to stop me I will assume that this town is lawless and act accordingly."

My companion really did have an amazing talent for smiling hideously. I had heard the same about the White Wolf and wondered if it was something that they taught in Witcher school.

"Where is the Alderman?" Kerras asked. "He is the authority here that I recognise. He hired me and as such I will explain myself to him."

"Put up your sword," Rutherford demanded.

"I have done," The Witcher snarled in response. "I notice that you have not."

"I have the right,"

The Witcher managed to sneer and smile at the same time. A feat that I had previously assumed that only my father could perform.

"Where is the Alderman?"

"I am here Master Witcher. Nursing my own injury in the pursuit of Justice." The old man was helped out of the crowd by the Dwarven smith looking as though he had aged ten years in the last two hours. I didn't blame him at all after what had happened in the cottage on the edge of the village but then I noticed the cut on the old man's brow that still looked as though it was seeping gently down his cheek.

I felt exhausted then, and more than a little sick, just wanting to find a small and dark hole to crawl away into until the world started to make sense again.

I think. I couldn't swear to it and I never asked Kerras, but I think that that was the moment where he decided what would happen next.

Kerras' lips thinned, just slightly at the sight of the Alderman staggering towards us. Even the Dwarf who had looked jovially dwarven was red with some suppressed emotion.

"Alderman," Kerras spoke kindly but let his words project. "I would ask how the law is enforced in your village?"

"It's never really come up before," The old man looked so sad then and I wondered if he knew, "If crime is committed a crowd of us get together and meet out punishment. More often than not it is to be cast out of the village and that is generally enough for our purposes."

"And murder?" The Witcher asked.

"Never in my memory. It last happened in my Grandfather's time and the killer was caught and hanged."

"I see." The Witcher turned back to Rutherford and it seemed to me that his yellow eyes began to glow.

"Alderman, this man and his companions sought to prevent me from performing the duty for which you hired me. They threatened my companion and I with violence and death if we did not obey."

He was speaking to the mob now. I had been to see plays, sermons and recitals and you can always tell when a performer has the audience in the palm of their hands.

"At that moment we heard a woman scream. I am a Witcher and I made to run and see how I could help as that is both my duty as a Witcher and my right as a free thinking individual. What kind of a world would we live in if we ignored the distress of another."

It was not a question and I saw other villagers nodding.

"But this piece of shit," Kerras snarled and again I would swear that I saw fangs. "prevented me bodily from rushing to aid the stricken. He and his companions struck out at me with clubs, swords, feet and fists."

He paused and lowered his gaze for a moment.

"I fended them off as best as I could, and when I was free I ran to where the scream came from. I would also note, that the gentleman struck the child that brought your message to me. A message that might have prevented the tragedy that happened later. But in physically restraining me he delayed me."

He looked back up, at me this time.

"Fortunately I was not alone and my companion was able to win free and race to assist the stricken. Where, barely trained as he is..."

I smiled at that. It seems that I can find humour in the strangest and most tragic of circumstances. My blessing and my curse.

"He managed to save, by my count, at least two children by himself as well as helping me save the mother and her daughter. That is at the very least of this man's deeds today."

He paused before turning back to Rutherford.

"Alderman, I am told that the family lost one son today. A tragedy that no family should ever have to endure. A tragedy that is all too common in this modern era. I would ask you whether or not that son could have been saved if the message had got through as intended and if I had not been restrained so that my companion and I could do our job."

The Alderman didn't answer.

Rutherford did though.

"This is preposterous,"

I wondered if he actually knew what that word meant. That sense of humour problem again.

The Witcher ignored him.

"In my eyes, that makes this man," gesturing at Rutherford, "a murderer. Not only that but rather than helping with the effort to prevent more tragedy he kidnaps and assaults the true hero of these circumstances. The one person here who actually definitely saved a life today without being helped by anyone else. That includes me by the way"

"He is tainting the issue Alderman," Rutherford splutters.

"Yes I struck him but I did so in the pursuance of saving another life."

The alderman pushed himself away from the dwarf's support so he could stand on his own two feet.

"I agree master Witcher. You are free from blame."

Rutherford spluttered a bit but The Witcher wasn't done.

"Good," The Witcher said, "And the other matter?"

The old man tried to speak again but couldn't get the words out. The air was thick with a tension that I had only just noticed. The old man nodded and kind of shrunk in on himself.

"Excellent," said the Witcher drawing his sword almost leisurely. "In that case, as that rope hasn't turned up."

He took two quick steps,

"Now just a minute..." It seems that Rutherford couldn't resist a cliché,

I heard the blow rather than seeing it as I had closed my eyes. It was like... No, I was going to say that it sounded like a cleaver cutting meat, or a pair of scissors cutting silk. But it didn't. It sounded like someone having their head cut off.

Many people screamed.

At least two people vomited.

The Witcher hadn't joked about the spray either.

"Let him go," he said quietly to the two men holding me. I rather think that they were still holding me in shock rather than with any intention of harming me. They certainly dropped me as though I had suddenly become as hot as a newly forged sword.

Kerras crouched next to me,

"You Ok? Can you stand?"

I nodded.

"Good, I need your help if you can give it. I could probably manage but I would rather trust you than some of these people."

I levered myself to my feet. It took much longer than it should have.

"Now," said the Witcher, addressing the crowd again. "This village has Nekkers. I don't know how many but Nekker swarms tend to be between six to as many as fifteen. I have killed two. It is vital, absolutely vital that tonight, you lock and bar your doors and shutter your windows as it's getting late now. In the morning I need every person able to swing a pick or a shovel. Bring food and water for yourselves as we must work hard and quickly if we are to make your village safe again. In the mean time, if you hear a sound like stones on a hillside or, strange as it may sound, like bacon frying in fat. Then run. Get everyone out of the area and find me, my companion or the Blacksmith and say what has happened. Don't grab anything, take no belongings, and above all don't go back until I, and I alone tell you that it is safe. Your lives depend on it. If you do this then you will all be safe. I promise."

Strange as it may sound. For a man who had just butchered another in full view off everyone, we all believed him.


	6. Chapter 6

I sat carefully and tried to relax. Back to the tree with my legs stretched out in front of me I wriggled a little in an attempt to be comfortable. It was not easy, twigs, dry leaves and the soft squishing that I was trying not to think of as the mud grinding itself into my trousers. Leaning my head back onto the trunk of the tree I did the little tricks that the Witcher had taught me to keep myself calm.

Deep breath, in through the nose. Now hold it,

One second,

Two seconds,

Three Seconds.

Then blow it out through my mouth nice and hard.

Just focus on the breathing now.

But it was no good. The sky on the Eastern horizon was noticeably lighter than it had been a moment a go.

It was nearly time.

Twisting around on the floor I could just about peer round the bulk of the tree to see the white flag hanging off the pole, limp and quiet in the still air of the morning. I could see the flag and if I squinted hard I could just about see the mound of earth just beyond it.

I took another breath.

I had lived around people all my life. Whether it was at my birth place in my fathers manor house or later in the castle that he had bought, there was always some kind of noise. When I had left to go to Oxenfurt I had lived amongst the other students and in the crashing, bells and calls of the city. Even in those times on the road. I had stayed in inns with other guests, the sounds of drinkers in the common room, other sleepers and occasionally the sound of lovers in the rooms next door. When I slept outside, there had been the Witcher's snoring or the snorting and restless shifting of the horses.

But this was a silence so utterly pervasive that it was like a blanket settling over me and far from being soporific it seemed to accentuate every little noise making every twig movement, or leaf rustling into a sound that made the world seem like it was exploding.

Not that that happened often.

As I had learned, at this time in the morning, the majority of noises were caused by birds in the trees, or small animals in the undergrowth. But there was none of that now. I had been warned about this of course. It was apparently a common thing in the presence of a monsters next or burrow. Those things that could run away had and those that couldn't would already have been eaten.

Take another breath.

Two cylinders, one for my hands and another for my belt. I had had hours of practice. They were actually rather easy to use. Grasp it with both hands, twist and shake before throwing hard enough for the glass to break. The danger was that the glass was remarkably thin and could break easily and so had to be carried gently. I had first wanted to hold it in my other hand until it had become obvious that I would need both hands free to activate one of these grenades.

Grenades. Such a strange word. I didn't know much about alchemy but it seemed to be almost magical to me that the right combination of things could produce such an alarming effect. The twist mixed the two substances, the shaking would aid the mixing, when the glass broke then the mixture would be exposed to the dirt and the air, which would cause it to explode. I had laughed at that and asked the Witcher why people didn't just use this instead of hiring mages, and sorcerers to do whatever they did and the Witcher looked me straight in the eye and said.

"You are not the first person to ask that question." before walking off.

I resisted the urge to get up and stretch my legs. Too much noise. For all I knew one of the nekkers was just behind that mound and listening for just the slightest piece of noise to go charging off after.

I took another deep breath and looked up to check the Eastern horizon. It was definitely a lighter shade of blue.

I started counting in my head.

Slowly, keeping my eyes open, ears tilted for any sound. Anything to let me know what was going

on.

Absolutely nothing.

After Rutherford had been killed, an action that I was still not entirely impressed with, The Witcher had started chasing the people indoors and I did my best to help him. The villagers were reluctant at first, many wanted to help, many more felt guilty at the events of the afternoon and wanted to let everyone know, in exquisite detail how much they had wanted to help, but were just kept away from doing so by children, spouses, events, work, things in the way and so on.

It had not occurred to me before how little there was to do in a village of an evening. In Oxenfurt I might go to a tavern, or to see a play or sit somewhere and read a book. Dance in the square or argue loudly with someone.

Here it would seem that the main evening pass time was to gossip with their neighbours. The doings of folk being their entertainment, the state of the cows and their regular bowel movements. Their romance novels were replaced with matchmaking of the younger members of the village. Their adventure books taken up with how they would conspire against each other, how factions and cliques would build up and interact with each other, feuding over tiny little facts and issues.

But now they had something really meaty to talk about.

Dreadfully classist of me again, but it astonished me that the absence of a simple cooper could lead to such a power vacuum within a village. My trained aristocratic brain wanted to scream at these people that it was just a Cooper that was missing, and not a very nice one at that. But this was a major crises for them. An empty seat on the village council. People were already arguing over the different candidates and who could be put forward and who would do a good job and who would be terrible for the role and say what you like about that Rutherford man but he did have a point that the Alderman was getting on a bit nowadays too.

It seemed to me that despite the visible evidence of both a monster corpse and the death of a local boy, no-one wanted to believe that there were monsters in the village. The news had been taken in to the collective consciousness and then had sloughed off them in much the same way that water never sticks to the back of a duck.

At one point my scholarly brain rebelled and I grabbed a middle aged woman who was refusing to move until she had finished discussing things with her next door neighbour. I confronted her with the slowly setting sun and the very real presence of monsters in the village and she looked at me as though I had crawled out from under a rock.

"Yes well," she said, "They're only nekkers aren't they." She actually chuckled.

"But they killed that boy," I protested incredulously.

"Well," she droned in the tones of a woman imparting wisdom to the painfully stupid, "You know what they say?"

"Errr, no. No I don't"

"Well," said the neighbour, her arms folded, "Monsters are attracted to that sort aren't they. They only punish people for a reason and that family were always a little..."

"Strange," said the first woman.

"Aye, that's what I meant. I mean who builds a house that far away on the edge of town."

I stared at them incredulously for what felt like several minutes. The house had simply been the one on the edge of the row. Not outside of the town limits at all.

"Monsters don't bother decent folks after all." she continued, blithely ignoring my astonishment.

"Yes they do," I heard myself screech. "They really do. How many people are going to go hungry over the winter because those Nekkers have eaten some of your livestock."

"'ark at 'im getting all high and mighty,"

"Yes, but he follows a Witcher around doesn't he. Got to be a little cracked in the head to want to do that doesn't he."

"GET INSIDE NOW." I roared. "AND DON'T COME OUT UNTIL MORNING."

"Alright, alright you don't need to tell me twice."

The women retreated with bad grace.

I couldn't believe it. I was still feeling tremors in my arms from the exertions of earlier that day, the visible and physical marks that proved with absolute certainty that things were happening and these women wanted to ignore that.

I was furious.

But what was I going to do?

Eventually the Witcher, the Alderman, the dwarf and I got everyone inside. Salt was placed outside every entrance to every building. The dwarf waved us farewell and the Witcher locked the Alderman and I inside the Alderman's house after taking some crushed leaves out of one of the packets in his bags and adding it to his water bottle.

I managed to eat a little and collapsed into an exhausted sleep where I remember dreaming rather vividly, but for the life of me I couldn't have told you what it was I dreamt.

The following day started early. Very early. Too early for my blood.

I was woken by the Witcher, looking alarmingly awake and refreshed for someone who had clearly and obviously had no sleep judging by the growing pile of Nekker corpse bits that were piling up out of sight behind the Alderman's cottage.

He had the disgracefully bad manners to smile at my rather drawn face as I was suffering what can only be described as a hangover, which I thought was massively unfair given that I hadn't really drunk anything other than a couple of cups of mead and although that mead might have been a bit stronger than I was used to I had eaten properly and drunk no more.

As a result though it took me a lot longer to wake up than I normally would. The last parts of the sleepiness was driven away by my head being plunged into a bucket of water that had been drawn from the town well, by the Witcher, for that purpose.

Breakfast of some bread and a nutty kind of goats cheese seemed to mostly complete the cure as the village gathered in the green.

I found myself wondering if the Witcher was aware of the placing of himself as he stood with his back to the house with the foxgloves. So that every person there would see, not only him, but also the ruin of a families life.

It was a stark, unpleasant image that stands clearly in my mind to this day.

"I will not lie to you," he started out calmly. He sounded like a surgeon informing a person that they were about to lose both legs. "I will not lie to you but the problem is rather serious. Last night I found four Nekkers wandering the nearby area above ground. Normally they are relatively timid creatures for whom strength in numbers is the greatest part of their courage and conventional wisdom, according that great scholar John of Brugge, is that when you find a number of Nekkers above ground then then you can expect at least three times that number below ground. That means that with the four already killed there could be anything between twelve to fifteen more still burrowing underground looking for prey."

"So when are you going down into their tunnels then?" someone shouted, a male voice that I couldn't see the owner of.

The Witcher shook his head. "I'm afraid that that's simply impossible. If I found a burrow and tried to go down there, not only would I not fit, but I would easily get lost, or the entire thing could collapse on top of me, I wouldn't be able to breathe and so on."

He scanned the crowd.

"We need to drive them into the open where I can slay them."

"What's this 'we' stuff?" yelled the woman next to me giving me more than a little of a glare. "We hired you didn't we? Why do you need 'our' help?"

The crowd murmured it's approval of this.

"I don't." said the Witcher. There was just the slightest hint of a smile about him. I couldn't see his features move but I could tell that that was what he was thinking. "I don't need your help. It could all be done by me, let alone by me and my apprentice."

People started muttering to themselves.

"However," he held his hands out in a placating gesture.

"However, as the Alderman will tell you, I am not cheap and I charge by the day. Doing it all by myself, even with the help of my apprentice will take several days if we want to make sure that all of the Nekkers are actually dead and I assume you want them all dead so that there aren't any of them left to reproduce?"

I smiled to myself. He'd handled that well.

"I thought that you would all be a lot happier if you put this all behind you as fast as possible." The Witcher continued, "I'm just trying to give you the best possible value for money."

The villagers were nodding and I could hear a couple of them talking about conscientiousness and honesty and 'good craft practice that'.

For myself I was struggling not to laugh. I had seen salesmen at their work before and it came to me in a flash that the Witcher could sell wine to a noble from Toussaint.

"What I need is for all of you to stay in the village today. Preferably towards the North East side of the village to make it easier for me to spot signs of the Nekker's presence. I also need about six volunteers, they need to be strong people and able to wield a shovel with speed and to be able to keep up with me as I will be moving damn fast. There is no risk to these people, that you can be assured of, no matter what. The faster the job's done then the safer it is. Any questions?"

"What do you need the fucking shovellers for?" shouted an older woman.

The Witcher grinned nastily. "To dig some big fucking holes."

As it turned out, he wasn't joking.

Have you ever seen a water diviner work. Those people that take a branch of wood, hold it a weird way and walk around slowly humming until they twist the branch round in their hands and declare with absolute surety that this is where the person should dig their well. Then, to everyone's astonishment it would turn out that they were right.

Neither have I, but that's what it reminded me of. The Witcher took out his medallion and held it tightly in his hand walking around the relatively small wooded area with his eyes closed. He would walk slowly, the hand holding the medallion close to his throat with his other hand held out in front of him. Then he would stop, cock his head like a dog listening to the wind at the same time as sniffing before his eyes would snap open and he would sprint off to another patch of woodland where he would throw himself horizontal onto the ground with his ear to the ground for a moment before getting up and closing his eyes again.

This would go on for a while before he would stop and point at a very particular patch of earth

and tell the diggers to dig on that particular spot, no not there, maybe a foot to the left, no not quite... Yes that's it. Then the men would dig, the dwarf who had deputised himself to lead the group would supervise and the Witcher would sit nearby, on a stump or a mound in the ground, obviously poised to leap to his feet a moments notice, his eyes hooded and barely moving.

I soon realised that not having done much manual labour in the past I was more of a hindrance to the digging work than an aid, I moved and sat next to the Witcher.

"I have to ask you a question," he said suddenly,

"What?" The suddenness of the question had startled me.

"I have to ask you a question and it is not an easy one to answer and I want you to think about it."

"Right? Do I need to be concerned?"

"A little," he admitted "I want to know if you're alright to help me tonight?"

I started to speak but he held his hand up to forestall me. "No don't answer too quickly. I need you to think about it. You worked hard yesterday and went through a couple of nasty things. That's not a compliment but a truth. I've seen men put through things like that and the strongest man can be shaking and sweating for several days after that. I need to know if I can depend on you with my life, and the lives of those villagers."

I thought about it for a while.

"I won't pretend that I'm happy with everything and I am looking forward to some spectacular nightmares in the near future. But keeping busy is good. What is it you'll need me to do?"

"Run, really fast. Really really fast, stay calm and be able to operate a small device without dropping it?"

"I think I might need a little more than that." I smiled.

The Witcher did not.

"We need to drive the Nekkers to the surface. They are uncomfortably close to the village so they need to be exterminated rather than driven away which is normally the best solution to a Nekker problem. They came from that direction," he waved in the direction of the West. "So we need to close off the escape routes and then drive them to a last burrow which will lead to the open and then..."

"Make with the chopping," I said, "and the stabbing, also the slicing."

"I see you get the idea. I need you to run from burrow to burrow, dropping bombs down the holes. You will do the Two burrows to the North, I will do the two to the south and then we will meet at the burrow closest to the village where, theoretically, the Nekkers will come to the surface and then we fulfil your chopping side of the plan. I've spoken with the smith and your spear will be ready by then. Can you do that?"

"I think so yes. I'll need to practice."

"Good, I'll give you an empty bomb so you can practice with it. You should also get some rest as this is all going to happen in the early hours of the morning when the Nekkers are at their most tired."

I had nodded. Of course I had nodded, what else was I supposed to do in that situation.

Of course I was bitterly regretting that now.

Sleep had been something that had happened to other people during the evening. I had been so tempted to get myself some kind of artificial sleeping aid such as alcohol but somehow that seemed like a terrible idea. The Witcher had me practice the quarter staff with him for a while, only with one end of the staff painted black, directing me to only hit him with that end of the staff which is harder than it sounds. I had run the track over and over again. Theoretically it wasn't very far. I had torn up a blanket, the whitest blanket I could find and tied the scraps to trees along the route that I had chosen to run down. Earlier today they had been so bright that I had ridiculed the need for any kind of further practice. But now, in the blue-gray light of early morning My imagination threw nightmare scenarios at me. What if one of the two remaining village pigs had found it's way back into the woods in the middle of the night? What if the Nekkers had decided to come out for a wander and I ran across them?

What if...

Intellectually I was well aware that the "What if?" game that I was playing with myself was a useless and wasted exercise but I couldn't help it.

I checked my supply of explosives again. One still on the belt, one in my hand. For some reason I felt the need to make sure that the one in my hand was indeed still there despite the fact that it had never actually left my hand at any point.

The holes that had been dug had gone down maybe three feet. They were narrow as well, no more than half a foot wide and the earth from the hole was piled at the side. I was to throw the cylindrical device into the hole, kick the earth over the top and then run on.

"Speed," The Witcher had said to me as he had left me for his own waiting place. "Speed is key. In the hole is fine. A little dirt over the top is perfectly OK. Speed, not finesse.

He had gripped me by the shoulder as he had gazed at me for a long time with those strange eyes. It was easy to forget those eyes in the light of the day but in the half light of the very early dawn , the yellow Irises had almost shone, reflecting what little light there was and the pupils themselves were huge holes, giving the uncomfortable feeling of looking back at the eyes of a corpse.

He had loped off. It could only have been a few minutes earlier but he was gone. As was his sword. The spear was still too unfamiliar to me and I had elected to leave it at the site of the eventual battle as it was still heavy and ungainly in my hands but now I felt it's lack clearly and distinctly. My hands ached for the weight of it and the cold of the metal to cool my sweating palms.

Surely it must be time, surely now.

The mound was still there, bathed in the light of dawn. The sky was alive with colour now. A painter might have been able to capture it in all it's glory but for me, a little scholar out there in the woods near a village that I couldn't even remember the name of, I felt very small and frightened. I thought of my family, my friends back at the university and the too few women that I had known. I made myself promises that if I survived this then I would tell various people how I really felt, I would reconcile with my father and apologise to my mother.

I would probably have gone on longer, driving myself into a pit of depression and self recrimination. I have done several of these late night or early morning watches now, waiting for action or death and the self recrimination hole is a deep one that can suck you down, further than you ever thought possible but I didn't have chance this time.

I heard it.

At first I didn't know what I had heard. It was like...Try and imagine the sound that a metal hammer makes when it strikes a plank of wood and shatters it. But then there is another element to the noise which is like hearing something when you are underwater.

I heard it.

At first I second guessed myself. Had I really heard anything? Was that really the sound I had been waiting for? Had I imagined it? What was going on?

But then came the disbelief.

It was too early, the Witcher had made a mistake. It was too early, surely there would be a few minutes yet? Please let me live for just a few more minutes.

All of this happened in an instant and it shames me to admit, here and now that I found myself honestly considering dropping the explosives and running off into the night. I wanted to, I could feel my legs gathering themselves towards movement in that direction. I sorely wanted to. I even tried to make the decision.

But I didn't.

I don't remember the point where I decided to move. All I know is that suddenly my feet were under me and I was running. I reached the hole and froze for a moment as I tried to remember what I was supposed to do. I nearly dropped the grenade but instead I found the bit I needed, gripped and twisted.

It didn't move.

Then I remembered.

I twisted it the other way.

Threw it in the hole, probably a little harder than I needed to and kicked as much of the dirt over it as I could before sprinting off in what I hoped was the right direction to be rewarded by a much louder bang behind me.

I stumbled, before re-finding my feet and ran on.

I saw the first piece of the blanket flapping from a nearby branch, then I saw the second. I was absolutely terrified but that fear gave me speed. My imagination had vanished and my entire world was the next piece of blanket.

At some point I heard another, muffled bang in the distance. My ears were still ringing from my own explosion but I was coming up on my second mound.

This time I was more co-ordinated. The grenade came off my belt. The removal of imagined monsters lurking in the dark made my hands sure.

I gripped,

twisted,

threw,

kicked,

then I was off again.

The bang behind me gave me a kick and I sprinted on.

Piece of blanket, piece of blanket,

Where was the piece of...

There it was.

And on and on, branches whipped at me, bushes and brambles tugged at me, small stones and uneven floor threatened to trip me up.

But I ran on and slowly I could see more and more as the sun climbed up the sky.

There was the clearing.

The Witcher was already there, because of course he was already there. The bastard wasn't even breathing hard. Near him I could see his Steel sword driven into the ground point first, rather deep. From the pommel I could see his Witcher medallion dangling and he was rubbing his other sword with a cloth.

He nodded at me as I arrived. There was no comment, nothing was said.

He threw the cloth at me.

"Rub that over the blade."

I caught up my spear that was resting against a nearby tree. It seemed lighter than I remembered somehow.

The Witcher had placed the silver sword in his back scabbard and knelt next to the sword in the ground.

As I watched, rubbing the new steel with what looked like a red-jelly like substance, he took three bottles out of a pouch at his side.

He took a small swig from the first before placing it back in the pouch, then couple of gulps from the second before wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. He waited a moment before taking the third bottle. He grimaced slightly before quickly draining the contents.

I stood mesmerised, remembering the inn and what had happened when he had used these things before.

He knelt next to the sword and carefully, slowly he reached out and took the hilt in both hands and leant forwards until his head rested against the pommel.

It seemed like a religious thing, as though he was praying.

Then he screamed.

It was not a human sound that scream. It was the sound of the thing that comes for you in the night. It was the sound of a tortured and wounded animal determined to sell itself dearly.

No human throat could have made that noise.

He knelt there for a while. His entire body trembling. I was frozen in shock. I wanted to go and help him, reassure him, offer some kind of comfort but I couldn't

His breathing became harsh and ragged, he groaned then as if in some kind of pain but still he didn't move.

Then it was silent.

I realised that I had stopped oiling my blade and rubbed at it furiously.

Slowly, very slowly. The Witcher unfolded and turned to me.

I nearly ran from him then.

I certainly swore and blasphemed.

He grinned at my reaction and somehow it was not reassuring.

He was white now. The colour of death, his skin seemed to have shrunken on his bones, his skull clearly visible, his teeth bared in a corpse like grimace of what looked like hate. His eyes glittered and black veins visibly throbbed just below the surface of the paper like skin.

"Stand, well back from me," he gestured.

His words seemed slow and elongated to me, each syllable drawn out and clearly pronounced in the way of a drunk man taking care to make sure that he is clearly understood. His gesture was slow, languid and dreamy like. He moved differently, all loose as though his head was being held by an invisible hand and that everything else was being dragged along with the head.

I fell back where I was ordered and turned to watch.

Slowly the Witcher drew his sword and stood before the burrow.

There was a sound on the edge of my hearing and it was a moment before I recognised it for what it was.

It was the sound of frying bacon.

I have spent a lot of time since that early morning thinking about what happened next. I have compared it to fights that I have been involved in, fights that I have seen and fights that I have heard about.

I have also thought long and hard about those fights that are described in ballads where the fight ranges widely around the location, swinging off chandeliers and fighting along balconies where one opponent gets the upper hand, small injuries are traded back and to until the good guy is held over some kind of precipice until some over confidence inspired mistake sends the villain over the edge and into the gulf.

I once spoke to a fencing instructor about this and he explained that the differences between an actual fight and a show fight and a demonstration fight. In a show fight as you might see on stage often involves taking the time to strike the other persons weapon nice and hard so it makes a suitably impressive sound and flashes nicely in the sunlight or in the local stage lighting.

A demonstration fight involves a lot of the spins and twirling effects that are designed to look impressive and show off a fighters skills, agility and physical form.

Whereas an actual fight is often over very quickly. The difference being that an actual fight is all about killing the other person. No flashy moves, no demonstrations, just short, sharp and brutal murder. More often than not the most skilled fighter will be the one that wins. But there is also a mental part of a fight which is the gap between a man that can fight for real, or the man that confines his fighting to the first blood circles. The real winner of a fight is the person who is willing to go further than the other guy. In a fist fight, the person who will win is the person who is willing to put their thumbs through the eye-sockets of his opponent and jab them in the throat until they choke to death. Yes, there are occasions where terrain, physical conditioning and other circumstances can make a difference. No-one fights well when drunk for example, but essentially that's what it boils down to.

Apparently the same thing is true in a sword fight. The idea is to kill the other person with absolute minimum effort.

I knew none of these things at the time. But looking back at that time, the first real time I had seen the Witcher fight rather than just killing someone, that was what he was doing.

In fact, calling it a fight is an overstatement. It wasn't a fight, it was a slaughter.

His movements, although blindingly fast, seemed unhurried and leisurely. He expended no amount of effort than the minimum required, for instance at one point he was moving and it looked to me that he missed the Nekker in question, but there was in fact a gout of black blood and the thing died. He must have done it with the very tip of his sword but at the same time, the effect was the same as if he had cut the things head off.

He hardly moved. That was the other thing I noticed. We later figured out that there was a total of sixteen Nekkers that were killed that morning which, apparently, is an unusually large number but it seemed strange to me that I never saw him dodge something, he never ducked, or sidestepped or moved out of the way. Every stroke was a killing stroke, no move happened without one or two Nkkeres staggering away either dying or injured. It wasn't until much later as my own combat skills had improved under the Witchers tutelage that I realised that he was dodging, all the time. It was just that every attack was also a dodge, in dodging one Nekkers strike he was killing another.

It was hypnotic.

It was terrifying.

It was beautiful, horrible and terrible all at the same time.

I almost didn't notice the Neker that had made it past him and was coming for me.

I do not know what happened. The Nekkers had come out of the ground where we had dug that last hole, almost exactly as The Witcher had predicted. They came out first in ones and twos and later as a group. To my eyes nothing had made it past the Witcher in the growing light of the morning and the Witcher was stood almost directly in front of the hole so it would have been hard, if not impossible for him to have missed one. But miss one he did and I owe my life to the fact that Nekkers are relatively stupid animals and this one screamed as it jumped to attack me.

I spun to face it but it was already inside the reach of the bladed end of my spear and all I could do was to get the shaft of the spear between myself and the creature as I pushed and heaved at the thing. I hadn't realised how big it was though and again, if it had been thinking about more clearly it would have used that weight to throw me around a bit, but all it could do, all it could think of doing in it's savage and uncompromising fury was to get it's teeth and claws at my face and neck.

It's teeth snapped at me, trying to get round the spear, it's claws raked at my clothes and I retched and vomited at the stench of it's breath.

In the end I simply toppled over, the weight and the stench and the pain was just too much and my legs just buckled under me. As I fell I felt a strange kind of disconnect, I don't know where it came from but it felt as though I was watching the action from a distance like a spectator at some kind of sporting event, and like any sporting event, this part of me started shouting advice.

Unlike every sporting event I have ever been to though, the participant could actually hear the advice and I took it, twisting as I fell. I didn't quite manage to land on top of it but I certainly managed to prevent it from landing on top of me.

I rolled then, pinning it to the ground. I had a sudden and overwhelming feeling that if another Nekker got past then I was done for but still I pushed the haft of the spear into it's throat and leant on it with all my strength and weight.

If it was a human, It would have had the good grace to stay throttled.

But it wasn't human. It didn't work like a human, it didn't think like a human and as a result, because I was thinking like I would if fighting another human I was unprepared for it to use it's legs as a spring to lever me off and away from itself.

There was just enough time for me to realise that I was in fact flying through the air before I came crashing down. Just that moment of realisation followed by another thought that came almost as quickly. The realisation that this was going to really hurt.

I was not disappointed.

It was more by luck than by design that I managed to tuck my head and roll onto my back, as otherwise I would have been sent spinning over the top of the monsters to land plumb on my head. As it was my neck was stiff and sore for a good couple of weeks afterwards to go along with all the other injuries that I had sustained.

I crashed down onto my back and for a moment the world span around. I was aware of the pain in a distant kind of way, again as the lucid part of me realised that there were several stoned that had been placed onto the ground in rather unfortunate ways that I would have to deal with later.

Much to my astonishment though I still had my spear in hand. I rolled to my left which the Witcher told me later, saved my life and looked for my opponent who had vanished.

Again, that monstrous, animal instinct of theirs to bellow just as it was coming towards me, hands uplifted to rake across me, mouth open to bite, feet raised to kick out. All I had to do was to lift my spear, brace it as best as I could and the Nekker simply ran onto it.

It didn't go easily though.

It fought every step of the way, at first it tried to pull itself off the weapon. But then I remembered a small part of the many lessons that the Witcher had tried to impart and I twisted the spear in the things guts.

It screamed again before it actually started to pull itself along the spear towards me. Terror clawed at my throat, choking me. I would have paid real money right then to be able to drop the spear and run for it but the terror was a blockage in my throat that I couldn't clear. The thing scrabbled towards me, teeth gnashing, claws reaching and getting closer with every movement. The oil that I had coated the spear with hissed against the things skin, black goo escaped from it's gaping maw and I froze.

I sobbed in the cold morning air but somehow this was not enough for me. A mere sob at this time, the ultimate time of my life up until that point could not be marked by a sob. So I screamed back at the thing, screamed my fear out through lungs and a throat that burned with the effort of both that scream and the effort of the run through the woods earlier. All the waiting and the pain and the fear came out of me, channelled into that scream.

I took a firm hold of the shaft of the spear and pushed.

Hard.

The Nekker over balanced and I could add my weight to the spear itself pushing down, and down and down. The magic bound into the things blood and skin and flesh fought against the steel spear but the oil that the Witcher had given me was my ally and I pinned the cursed thing to the floor like I would hammer in a nail.

I started at the silence. I was still alive and suddenly the air smelled all the sweeter for it. I could smell the dung of the far off cattle, my own unwashed body, not to mention the horrific stench emanating from the monster I had just killed.

I wanted to laugh, I wanted to puke my guts up, I wanted to cry and jump and shout until the world ended in the prophesied eternal snow.

What I did was lean forwards and concentrate on breathing in and out as I suddenly felt dizzy.

After a long moment I realised that the sounds of fighting had stopped and as I looked up I realised that the Witcher was staring at me and probably had been for some time. Colour was returning to his cheeks and although he looked a little wild eyed and I thought I could see a slight tremor in his hands, he looked considerably more human.

He was cleaning his sword with water from a skin that he had brought with us.

"You did well," he said in much the same way as my lecturers had done after I had made a point in a Lecture. He had that glint in his eye that I was beginning to associate with amusement. "So how does it feel to be a monster slayer?"

I answered by staggering away and vomiting violently against a nearby tree.

Not my most poetic moment I will admit.

"I will ask you again later," he said with a smile.

We borrowed a wheelbarrow from the nearest house and spent, roughly the next hour carting the corpses to a nearby clearing where we piled them up together in a heap and burned them, spending enough watching to make sure that they had properly started burning before turning away.

I don't know what I was expecting from the villagers but I know it wasn't this.

They essentially ignored us.

As we walked through the village towards the Alderman's hut people moved out of our way but beyond that nothing happened, no-one enquired after our success, no-one commented or made a fuss. They were just going on about their lives.

At first I thought that they might have forgotten what was due to happen that night but there had been four explosions that had not been small as well as various screams and shouts, not to mention the plume of black and oily smoke snaking up to the heavens from just outside the village.

I gathered our things in silence as the Witcher dickered with the Alderman. It seemed that the Alderman was trying to back out of the deal that he had made and the Witcher was being firm. I retreated then into myself and carried our things into the sunny morning before I said something that I would regret.

There was a funeral procession going by a little way off. At first I thought it was the little boys funeral before I realised that the body was too big, meaning that it must be Rutherford the Coopers funeral. I saw the weeping women and the dark faced men and I looked away, unable to put a name to the deep feeling that was in my heart at that moment.

The Alderman came to the door and shouted for a boy who was told to fetch the Dwarven smith who, dutifully summoned got into a screaming row with the Alderman. As I later found out, the Alderman had negotiated in bad faith with the Witcher, promising more than he could easily afford relying on some kind of pity response from the Witcher to make up the difference. The Witcher had asked, would a craftsman demand less money for what had been done. In the end, the Witcher demanded what money there was and required that the Alderman and the village foot the bill for my spear. The Dwarf had been furious at this, not at all convinced that the money would be forthcoming as the Alderman had already broken one deal, why should the dwarf believe that he would cover the other deal.

For some reason the Witcher was blamed for this as well.

In the end we left the little village at maybe an hour before noon and headed roughly north. I wasn't really paying attention by this point. I was furious and saddened beyond words as well as suffering the effects of exhaustion and loss of adrenaline.

We rode at an unexpectedly hard pace for several hours taking a strangely circuitous route, moving off the road and following various rabbit trails before coming back tot he road again and head along at a good trotting pace for several hours. I would put it at mid afternoon when the Witcher stopped, looked carefully up and down the road before leading us off the trail for about an hour of hard stumbling through woods and meadow lands before directing me to set up camp against an embankment. I did so woodenly and without thought while he vanished into the undergrowth. He came back, a couple of hours later, just as the shadows began to lengthen carrying a couple of large meat steaks, a loaf of bread, some cheese, a few apples and a bottle of rye in a sack which he dumped next to the fire.

He looked at me for a moment before taking his swords off and carefully laying them next to the bedroll.

"Here," he said offering the bottle, "You look like you could use a drink."

I took the bottle and drained off considerably more than I had initially intended to.

The Witcher raised his eyebrows in surprise.

"So," he said taking the bottle back and having a much smaller swallow from it. "How does it feel to be a monster slayer?"

I laughed at him. I had no words and it was either laugh or burst into tears.

After I calmed down I looked up.

"I think I can guess anyway," I said reaching for the bottle, "But why are we so far off the road."

The Witcher took the bottle back. "If you know already, then why are you asking?"

"Because I want to hear it out loud. Because I want to hear that humanity is not as bad as I think it is. Because if you say it I can disbelieve it and claim that you are a monster for thinking it."

The Witcher sighed and leant back on his saddle.

"We're so far off the road because the villagers know which way we went. They know which way we went and there's going to be some kind of hunter or woodsman amongst them and they know that we are carrying a, for them, not small amount of money. They also know that your spear and my swords could be sold for even more money. That Alderman, although a good man amongst his kind, has a village to think of. When he hired us, he was thinking of the good of his village. Now, he's thinking that he's just given up his cache of back taxes to two cut-throat conmen vagabonds and that if something were to happen to those vagabonds then that money could be recovered. Hell, there's even the possibility that Rutherford had some friends that might want vengeance."

He shrugged and passed me the bottle.

"Times are hard," he went on. "They breed hard and unpleasant people. I wish it wasn't so but there it is. Even if the Alderman isn't planning our demise then that's a village full of people with any number of motives to come after us, greed not least."

"I know," I said, "I know but, I just. I thought there would be something different."

I sounded like a grumpy child and I knew it.

"Did you expect a parade?" he asked. "Cheering women to throw themselves at you in their thanks, a feast to proclaim our excellence." he grinned mockingly at the thought.

"No," I agreed, "No I didn't expect that. That was too much. I was, I don't know but I wasn't expecting this sense of anticlimax," I threw a branch into the fire, "I suppose I was just looking for some kind of gratitude. To not have had people attempt to swindle us as we left would have been nice."

The Witcher sighed.

"Such is the nature of the job. Sometimes there is gratitude. I have been feasted before when the job is for a noble of some kind. I have had women throw themselves at me in gratitude which is a dangerous offer to accept as a rule," he sniffed at that thought, "I've also been run out of towns with lynch mobs chasing me for days. I've been imprisoned for made up crimes and then offered release if I perform this one simple service, only to be flogged on my return. But the vast majority of people will try to cheat you, and then pay up in one form of another. That's just the way of things."

"It just feels as though nothing has been achieved." I wailed "Why do it at all if all you're going to be met with is ingratitude and blame. What's it all for?" I asked. I could feel angry tears collecting in the corner of my eyes.

The Witcher smiled a little sadly. Looking back over all the sneers, and laughs and smiles and faces that he had presented me and the other villagers over the last few days. This felt like the first genuine expression that I had seen.

"What is it all for?" he said, "You saved that little baby's life. That's one little boy who will have a chance at life because of you. I saw that as I ran up. You made a difference there. It might only have been a small one, the child might die next winter but that child is sucking down more air because you were in that place at that time. You saved that life which is more than just about all of the people on this continent can say. You saved a life. More than that, you saved an innocent life and gave him a future."

I nodded, grateful to him. "What about you?"

"For me," he settled back. "I'm about to have a huge fat steak, which I would like cooking rare please, half a bottle of some fine rye vodka and enough money in my pouch so that when we get to a proper place with a tavern then the pair of us can get properly drunk and sleep in a proper beds. Separately. On me this time."

He grinned in satisfaction.

"If you want a wench though you're going to have to pay for it yourself. I'm not paying for that."

I laughed at him and felt the tension leave me.

"Fair enough."


	7. Chapter 7

"So," I began as we rode down into the valley.

"Oh hell," The Witcher responded, smiling crookedly. "All of your best questions start with that look and that word."

"I don't know what you mean," I protested, hoping that I was simply radiating innocence,

"You know exactly what I mean you lying dog. First you ride along in silence for a good long time staring at a point around two inches above your horses head with this kind of frown on your face."

The Witcher demonstrated in an exaggeratedly comical way which I expected was a lot closer to the truth than I was strictly comfortable with, "Then," he continued, "You look up at me and open your mouth as though you're about to speak before you think better of it. Then you strangely tilt your head backwards and forwards, from side to side while you consider various different ways to start a conversation before you eventually give up and just decide to come out with it and ask the question."

"I do not," I protested even though I was lying through my teeth and we both knew it.

"I will bet you the price of tonight's dinner that you were about to ask me a question and that you were uncomfortable asking it."

I said nothing.

"Hmmm?" He prompted arching his eyebrows at me.

"No bet," I muttered.

"Ha!" he exclaimed triumphantly.

We had been travelling together for some time by this point and although I would hesitate to refer to the two of us as friends we had come to an understanding. I would suspect that the correct word for it was companionship. We tolerated each other while at the same time having enough empathy for each other to know when to stay out of each others way, when to crack a joke and what was likely to make the other person smile or bring them out of whatever dark mood that they had fallen into. I had discovered that the Witcher was a lot more genial than our initial weeks together would suggest, but at the same time and by his own admission he had a tendency to sink into black moods for days at a time where he couldn't really be talked to at all for any reason. When these moods would overtake him, the best that I could hope for was that we would find a job for him or by him a large bottle of whatever apple fermented spirit could be found in the local area. The stronger the better is how he liked it. Oddly though, in these black moods he became a better teacher.

We would train every morning and every evening, Strength and stamina exercises in the morning as well as balance and footwork and in the evening there would be some work on the spear.

Occasionally he would declare that he needed me to do some drills for him so he could work on his own sword work. He would direct me to perform a series of jabs with the spear at various heights followed by two massive sweeps. He would then parry and leap about, avoiding the spear and would claim that it was some kind of monster drill. I can't speak for that but I do know that my quarterstaff and spear work improved in those first weeks on the road than they ever did under professional tutelage at Oxenfurt.

We had taken part in three hunts since the first one involving Nekkers. The first had been a Shepherd who had a problem with a griffin sneaking off with some of his sheep. The Witcher had told me that this would be too dangerous for me and ordered me to stay in the shepherds hut for two days and that if he didn't return then I was to go home. Needless to say he did.

The second was for a noble who had a problem with a ghost in one of the outbuildings of his grange. While not being particularly dangerous as I was standing in a circle of salt and Iron shavings, the first time I saw that that thing it must have taken years off my life. Nothing like the sight of a woman with no head feeding a baby at her breast that was slowly eating her to give you nightmares.

We also had a run in with a suspected werewolf who turned out to be a badly treated dog, trained by it's owner to attack anything in front of it. There was a land dispute and a local legend of a demon dog and the dogs owner thought that he would get away with murder by hiding it with the local legend. We figured it all out, killed the dog, restrained the owner and delivered him to the town council. They were still debating what to do as we rode away, money in hand.

To my surprise the Witcher had turned down two contracts, one involving a Golden dragon, because apparently there's no such thing as Golden Dragons and he also turned down a contract that was about bringing another nobleman a Succubus, because the Succubus had betrayed him. The Witcher had tried to explain to the lecherous old dog that such things were in the nature of Succubi and that as the thing hadn't killed anyone and wasn't particularly dangerous, the Witcher wouldn't hunt it. After some complaints the Witcher made some kind of comment along the lines of the fact that the old fart should consider himself grateful that the Succubus had taken any notice of him at all and we had left with the threat of hounds being set on us. I had noticed that the Witcher stopped to talk to a local herdsman though when we were heading away from that area.

I found that I was enjoying myself although I was beginning to be concerned that I wasn't going to be writing one book, that I was in fact going to be writing several and that it would take more than one outing with Kerrass to get all of the material that I wanted. From our first hunt with the Nekkers alone I could think of several essay titles to warm the cockles of my Lecturers hearts and the material was just stacking up.

But there was one subject that I needed to broach. A subject that wouldn't be easy to discuss, but it needed to be discussed.

There was no doubt about the matter. My companion was a mutant and we needed to talk about that.

"So," I began again.

"So," he said, mockingly.

"So you're a mutant." I decided to just come out and say it.

"Yes?" he prompted. When I struggled for words he carried on "Have you only just noticed that? I thought it was fairly common knowledge that Witchers are mutants,"

"What's it like?" I blurted, berating myself for being extremely lacking in scientific method and lack of preparation with my questions.

"I don't know, what's it like being human?" he answered promptly. I got the feeling that he got asked this question a lot and that this was a rehearsed answer.

"You know what I mean. You were human originally."

"Yes, but only mostly,"

"What does that mean?" I asked. I sensed a defensive wall going up between us and I needed to get past it before the wall was finished.

He sighed and gave me a good hard glare for a moment. "I'm from the Cat school of Witchers."

"So?"

"What do you mean so?"

"Is that supposed to mean something to me?" I asked

"Doesn't it?" he accused

"Lets say it does. Lets say I know everything there is to know about the Cat school of Witchers. This due to the famously public nature of that school where they took regular tours of their keep and invited many scholars to inspect their cellars and their techniques, inviting..."

"Yeah alright alright, fair point," The Witcher held up his hand in the agreed sign to say that I had scored a point during training. He was smiling I was glad to see

"Even if I knew all of those things, I would still like to hear it from you."

The Witcher thought about this for a moment taking a drink from the wineskin that hung at his pommel.

"I was always taught that the Cat school was different from the other schools for two reasons." He began, "The first was the fact that it was founded by Elves, or so our history told us. For some reason this means that we can only recruit those with elven blood. Not that that's some kind of snobbery, it's just that the formulae and herb combinations that we use, only seem to work on those with Elven blood to some degree. It doesn't seem to matter, to what degree but this would prove that somewhere in my ancestry an Elf got curious."

"What happens to those children who don't have elven blood?" I asked.

"They die, screaming in agony,"

"Oh," I said feeling a small wave of nausea rise in the pit of my stomach. "In other questions that I may not want to know the answer to... What's the other thing that makes the Cat school different?"

The Witcher looked at me for a moment. "There seems to be a flaw in our mutations that means that although we may survive the mutations perfectly well, there is a significant chance that we may become psychotic."

"Good to know," I said faintly.

"Still want to travel with me?"

I shrugged. "You haven't killed me in my sleep yet."

"That's because I'm waiting for the doors in my soul to open and for the little demons that live on the other side of those doors to tell me to."

I tried to nod as though this made perfect sense, while internally I was just hoping that he was teasing me.

"So you have some Elven blood in you somewhere?" I prompted.

"Yeah, so I'm not sure I'm that different from what I was. I was still separate although I don't remember knowing that. I went to the Witcher school when I was eight as my family could no longer afford to feed me. They tested me to see if I had Elven blood in me, I did and I was subjected to trials."

"Yes, but you are a mutant. Doesn't that feel different"

"Contrary to popular belief it doesn't make that much difference other than the fact that I can see much easier in the dark than I remember being able to do when I was younger. The main changes are invisible, to you and to me."

"Sterility, Strength..."

"Immunity to disease and so on. The ability to take what is essentially poison and become faster and stronger, Yes."

"How does it effect you socially?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you aren't human, but nor are you an elf or a dwarf. I've seen you in towns, people don't trust you," I shrugged an apology at this truth, "But they don't hate you nearly as much as they hate outright non-humans."

The Witcher scratched his chin while he thought.

"Truth to tell, I've never really thought about it. I suppose... I suppose it gives me a certain amount of perspective. I am separate from society. I'm part of it, but at the same time I am separate from it. It gives me a different point of view that makes it easier to look at the big picture rather than just whatever the locals seem to think."

I thought about this as we continued to ride.

"Yes I can see how that could be useful in your line of work."

"You're thinking about the thing with the Hound."

"I am."

At first we had travelled East when we had met, but gradually we had shifted southwards and as we did so, the rains of spring started to turn into the bright and warm of Early summer. The villagers were still busy and there was a tension in them now as they watched their new crops growing. Would this crop succeed? would it fail? With all of the people that have died, will this be enough for the village to survive? Would all the mouths be fed? They were almost watching the crops grow, their mouths hanging open and their stomachs audibly growling in some spaces.

The signs of the recent wars were obvious in the number of deserted villages that we were passing. To be clear, calling some of those places villages was probably even a little bit ambitious. They might only have been a few houses gathered together to mind the meeting place where the farm traffic was driven through. We would knock, and call out to see if we could buy a fresh loaf of bread or something as any change from trail food is always welcome but we were always met with silence. We would shrug and move on.

There were also bandits in the area. Not many but they were definitely there. We rode through and the Witcher would point out the signs of them. A flock of birds swooping in to land on a particular set of trees before veering away at the last minute. Deer standing out in the open where it shouldn't be. After a bit of this I spent a bit more time with my hand resting on my spear and spent some time training that little bit harder, much to Kerrass' amusement.

"If they're out here." He would say, "If they're out here then they've been chased off from the jucier pickings on the main roads. They're probably sick, starving, wounded or a combination of the three. Slowly they'll either drift home, integrate into the local areas, starve or head back to the busier highways where they're more likely to find a juicy merchant. We are both armed and any decent bandit will be wondering whether or not it's worth his while."

I was not reassured however so I trained and worked harder.

The Witcher continued to be amused but took advantage of my zeal by training me and working me harder.

That day the sun was up, the birds were singing and there was a town visible below us with a small keep up on the hillside that looked in fairly good repair. Most of the houses were thatched with straw, but one or two had tiled roofs and the place looked in good repair. We were still some distance away though and we were looking forward to a properly cooked meal where neither of us had to do the work, a soft bed in safety and Kerrass was hopeful of a wench. The following day we would call at the castle to see if there was any work for a Witcher in the area and if not we would re-provision and continue to head south.

For myself it had been too long and although the town was small, after the thatched and muddy villages that we had been spending too much of our time in recently, the picturesque town with the river running through it and a water mill gently splashing looked like heaven. I heartily hoped that Kerrass would find some work and that we could spend a couple of days here. I wanted to write my mother and my tutor to let them know how we were getting on, maybe tidy up the notes I'd been keeping and put some thoughts down on paper before I forgot some of the observations that had run through my head since the Witcher and I had started travelling together.

Needless to say that it didn't go according to our plan.

Not that you'll be surprised by that dear reader but I think it's important to know the mindset that we were both in as we got to that point in the journey.

We rode down the side of the valley, the road snaking backwards and forwards so that nearby farms could still take their goods to market on the back of a wagon. We were chatting and mocking each other and laughing and doing those things that people do when they've been travelling together for a while, telling each other about how much they snore and how much their body odour was beginning to take on a chisel like quality.

Eventually we came to a bridge. It was an old stone bridge, probably dwarven in manufacture as they tend to be the kind of folks who build that particular kind of lasting feature on the landscape. It was almost certainly the reason that the town had been built up there. It was also, unfortunately, obviously in some state of being halfway through some repairs. We travelled across the bridge, taking our time and riding our horses carefully to ensure that they didn't lose their footing.

I will forever regret the words that came out of my mouth when I reached the other end of the bridge. I still, to this day, shiver in regret as I remember that bright, sunny morning with the gentle breeze carrying the scent of fresh bread and cooking meat came from the town houses. I shudder and squeeze my eyes shut in an effort to keep the image from crossing my vision.

"Well, it looks like somebody's already done your job for you."

There are explanations as to why I said those words. There are reasons but, here I sit, at my desk in the warmth of Oxenfurt university and I know, with absolutely no sense of self delusion that those same reasons do not excuse me. I was using humour as a reflexive defence against the horror that was there. That I hadn't expected such a horrible sight to greet me on so lovely a morning. Yes, I was, and I suppose that I still am, racially inclined to be prejudiced in certain areas. This is a problem in myself and I need to work on that problem but at the same time... Those words were said, they were in the air and my ears were registering it even as I said them.

The Witcher looked at me with a look of utter disgust and disdain.

There are moments, if you're lucky you get the chance to see when they happen and to know the mistake you made but there are moments when you drop several rungs in someone's estimation and you can see it happening before your eyes.

"So it would seem," he said coldly, "but there is never any reason for this kind of cruelty."

He dismounted and threw his reins to me negligently.

Bile rose in my throat. He was right of course. Absolutely right.

Tears welled in my eyes.

Dammit.

I dismounted myself, and staked out the horses as the Witcher would need my help and I deserved the penance.

There was a tree at the end of the bridge where the path to the right led towards the town and the path to the left led up towards some light hills sparsely covered with some trees. The tree was huge, obviously used as a kind of meeting spot for various reasons and for some stalls to be placed on market days. Pedallers would come here and hand out odd sorts but there were no pedlars today.

Instead there was the corpse of a troll. Still relatively fresh enough that some of the fluids glistened slightly and it was attracting flies in reasonably large sized numbers. It had also been mutilated.

Horribly.

It had been nailed to the tree by the wrists and the ankles as the head, hands and feet had been removed and placed, mockingly at the foot of the corpse. The head was particularly grotesque, it's eyes had been put out, the sockets burned and you could see that the tongue and ears had been cut off. It's teeth shattered. And it's genitals rested on the top of it's head. There were tracks of moisture running from the eye sockets that were not blood.

It had been crying.

It was a pitiable sight that brought tears to my eyes.

But this was not the worst thing.

The stomach was opened by a huge hole from which it's entrails had spilled but there were lots of small cuts and discolourations which I assumed were bruises.

"A troll could have survived that," The Witcer said, pointing at the hole in it's stomach. His voice was soft, "They nailed it to the tree so that it couldn't protect it's soft stomach and chest with it's harder carapace on it's back."

He took a breath and looked at me.

"Then they tortured it to death. For fun." he said coldly.

I sobbed then. "I'm sorry," I managed to squeek out.

He nodded and looked away from me.

"Look," he said, pointing at a blackened patch of grass, "They set a fire to help them and to cook some food." He used a boot to kick out a chicken bone before sighing and covering his eyes. "It probably took him all night to die."

"Who did this?" I asked.

"Probably a knight of some kind. That's a lance hole in his stomach." He was moving round the ground, peering at it closely. "Or a group of them. This was their idea of sport."

He spun and moved to me quickly, grabbing me by the lapels. "You came out here wanting to know about Witchers and the way we live?" He yelled in my face, spittle flying.

I gulped, unable to answer.

He dropped me, the rage leaving him just as suddenly as it had overtaken him.

"We do a job. It's a nasty job and it's not too much to say that we are professional murderers and killers. But there is no joy in it unless we save someone directly or occasionally when we avenge children or a pretty girl. But we never torture the monster. Our job is to kill it. It is their nature to be monsters. It is their nature to kill people and to hunt the byways and lanes, sewers and alleys for their quarry. It is our nature to protect ourselves from such things and that's what people like me do, by hunting them down. But I never take joy in killing a unique, if different creature."

He was talking to the ground now, almost speaking to himself.

"Trolls especially. Unless they're rabid, which by the way is a disease that effects humans as well as trolls, they can be reasoned with, take an active part in society..."

He stopped himself mid rant.

"They may have needed to kill him."

He looked back at me. I was stunned by how cold and emotionless his face was. How still it was.

"But they didn't need to torture him to death." he said flatly.

"I know," It seemed so little to say. So little and so pointless. "I'm sorry. I spoke in ignorance."

He waved me off. "You're forgiven. I'm just angry and you're a nearby target."

He sighed again.

"Come and help me bury him off the road so that when he rots he doesn't poison the river."

It took us a few hours to do the work. We didn't have the tools to bury him properly but there were enough loose stones that we could erect a decent sized cairn over the body before we rode into town at a point where it must have been early afternoon.

We smelt, we were covered in gore, I was shaking like a leaf with emotion. We were a grim sight. More than ever I wanted a bath to scrape the world off my skin and an urgent need to drink myself into unconsciousness.

We were not in a good state.

But even allowing for that I was not prepared to be spat at by a man doing some maintenance on the town gate.

His eyes followed us as we rode up, beady, glittering eyes from underneath a thunderous brow until we rode past which was when he hawked and spat.

I was still feeling a bit shaken and I didn't react other than to know that it had happened. To all intents and purposes, the Witcher ignored him.

We continued to ride in, nice and slowly.

More and more people came out to see us. Glaring with sullen eyes. I had seen this before from the absolutely poor and starving villagers who saw our clothes and goods, they had regarded us with hungry eyes and hated us because we had things that they did not. But these people. There was only hate there. Hate and anger.

"We don't need your kind here," Somebody yelled from the safe anonymity of the crowd. A few other people murmured their agreement.

The Witcher continued to ignore them, lost in whatever chain of thought that had caught him up.

We came to an inn, a large building with a courtyard and we dismounted to walk the horses through the gate. The groom stopped shovelling the muck out of the stables and watched us with sullen eyes.

Our reception inside was no better.

"We're full." The innkeeper told us."

The Witcher sighed loudly and placed some money on the table which the innkeeper glanced at briefly before looking back up into the eyes of my companion. An impressive feat that most people couldn't manage for any kind of real length of time.

He slowly shook his head. Slow and firm.

"We're full." he said again flatly.

I had been training with the Witcher for a bit now and I noticed that the Innkeepers right hand was under the table. I also noticed that the bar wench had left through a back door, probably to get some help.

"Really?" said the Witcher, looking around the all but empty common room. "There were no horses in the stable that I could see."

"Let me be clear." The innkeeper said. The man was clearly apprehensive but something glittered in his eyes that told me that he had no intention of backing down. "If we were completely empty, if we were starving and my children were shedding tears of pain at the hunger pangs that kept them awake at night. Even if my inn was basically a barn with rats piss to drink and dung to eat. Even if all of these things were true. There would be no room for the likes of you."

I expected an explosion, I expected extreme violence or a display of temper from the Witcher but nothing happened. I saw him consider things. I saw him check the windows, the doors and the other people in the room. But in the end he nodded, shrugged and took his money back.

Outside, the afternoon sunlight was reflected from the armour of the dozen or so guards that were waiting for us. I couldn't help but notice that the armour was particularly shiny, as were the crossbow bolts that were pointing at the pair of us.

"Now this, Private Clayton, is what we call "pre-emp-tive Law-keeping." A man in slightly more ornate armour stood forwards from the group, his chest-plate in the stylised heavily muscled form. It was burnished to a bright sheen which spoke of many hours with scouring sand and armour polish. It also had several scratches and scars that glittered across the surface. He took his helmet off as he spoke and allowed his long, braided dark hair to fall down his back. He spoke with the same accent as the innkeeper but his angular, almost feminine facial structure as well as the sharp points on his ears spoke to his mixed blood.

"Hello my friends," he called to us. "Are you here for the troll hunt?"

His face and voice were friendly, but he stood in amongst his men that still bristled with armaments. They looked a little more competent than I would normally expect from town guardsmen and handled their weapons as though they knew how to use them.

Kerrass stared at this man for a moment, again looking at the entrance to the courtyard. I saw his gaze flicker towards the stables, the post where our horses were tied and a stack of boxes that were next to a low wall.

"Who asks the question?"

"Sarge," said a younger voice, "Why don't we just arrest them Sarge?"

The elf-blood smiled before addressing one of his men.

"Because he's a Witcher, Clayton. Good as I am, I doubt I could match him one for one. Hence the crossbows,"

"But why Sarge?"

"Now that's an interesting question Private Clayton. The man is aware that he is a Witcher and he knows that I know that he is a Witcher. I know this, how Private Clayton?"

"Sarge?" Came a young voice from one of the armoured faces. The boys helmet was open and the face wore a scraggly and uneven beard.

"Think about it Clayton," he turned back to us, "Apologies for this but I need to bring the new lad up to speed."

"Oh no, please go ahead," The Witcher intoned, crossing his arms. A gesture that hid the fact that his left hand had was holding his sword strap. For some reason I was fairly confident that the gesture was not lost on the half blood.

"Come on Clayton?"

"Sarge, the sword on his back Sarge."

"And?" The Sergeant prompted, not taking his eyes off my companion.

"Err, his eyes Sarge."

"Good lad. Now don't take your eyes off him. Later I'm going to question you on his appearance and what he's doing. Now, Mr Witcher. My name is Sergeant Gult of the town and castle guard. Charged with defence and law-keeping of the local area."

"Unusual to see a mixed blood in such a position." I couldn't tell without seeing The Witcher's eyes as to whether or not he was amused.

"Call it an hereditary position if you like. My father accidentally knocked up an elf woman when one of those commando units came through here 30 odd years ago."

"I don't understand," The Witcher commented, "Did he trip over something?"

I felt myself shift. He was trying to diffuse the situation with humour. I noticed that the other guards posture didn't shift though. Neither did my Companions.

"I like you Witcher." said the Sergeant. "He told me that to avoid banditry by the commando he was assigned as a guide, to take them through the area, missing the military patrols and avoiding the richer areas. There seemed to be this ritual amongst them and one night he offered to partake." The Sergeants armour rattled as he shrugged. "Nine months later, the woman arrived at the castle gates with me in a basket. Father insisted that he would have married her and that he even offered to, but she spat at him, hissed like a cat and vanished into the trees and he did his best to look after me. Taught me everything I know. However, I will freely admit that this was only his side of the story. So, now you know my story. What's yours. Are you hear for the Troll hunt? I warn you not to lie to me."

"Sarge,"

"Shut it Clayton," The Seargeant said without rancor.

"No," said my Companion. "I was coming here looking for work, certainly. But it seems to me that the work has already been done. Your doing perhaps?"

"No," A shadow flickered across the Seargeants face. "No not mine, nor ours either."

"Good," The Witcher nodded, "What was done to that troll was despicable."

The other guards shifted a little.

"Did you take him down?" The Sergeant asked quieter, and somehow sadly.

"and buried him. As much as we could anyway."

The Sergeant nodded.

"Down weapons lads."

"But Sarge,"

"Shut it Clayton."

"Sarge, Sir William said..."

"I don't care what Sir William said. What you should care about son is the fact that I'm here and he aint. Which means what, Private Clayton?"

"Dunno Sarge."

"Proud of you son."

The half-elf turned back to us ignoring the smirking faces of the rest of his men.

"I take it that the decision to slay the troll was not particularly popular Sargeant."

"Not really no," The Sergeant hawked and spat in a manner that spoke of long practice. "Old Tom was a decent feller as trolls go. Not that I've known many trolls mark you. Thing was, he used to be a bit of brigand round here but you could normally plead off by giving him something to eat or a bottle of booze. And he would take any kind of hooch going as well, down in one. But gradually he seemed to get bored of that until me old dad had this idea. He went to the lord of the castle and said

"Why don't we pay 'im to look after the bridge. Trolls like bridges and all. The Lord agreed and the deal was struck. Much to the annoyance of some of the locals."

He paused for a moment, "Thirsty work this, Corporal Jenkins?"

"Sah," shouted a pikeman,

"Take Jones and Matthews inside and get a round for everyone, including the Witcher and his companion but NOT for Private Clayton who is too stupid to be allowed to drink just yet. Also, be so good as to tell the innkeeper that these two gents are OK in my eyes."

"Sah," shouted the pikeman, drowning out Private Claytons protests.

The beer was produced and was of surprisingly good quality.

"That's better," said the elf smacking his lips around the rim of the tankard. "Now where was I?"

"Paying the troll," supplied the Witcher, hiding a faint smile behind his own mug.

"Ah yes, so the troll took his pay, day in and day out for years. The local kids, including me by the way, used to ride on his shoulders during the fair while he demanded his tolls from travellers. In turn he would hand most of the money over to the city treasury and in return we would pay him in food, booze and equipment for him to repair the bridge. Not a bad job he made of it too to be honest and we were always fairly certain that any cheating he did was purely by accident."

The elf sniffed hugely and stared at the bottom of his mug somewhat forlornly.

"Why don't I pay for the next round?" The Witcher offered, handing a few coins over to Corporal Jenkins.

"Decent of you, my friend, decent of you." The Sergeant was checking the sun every so often.

"So what happened?" The Witcher prompted gently, surprising gently I remembered thinking.

The Sergeant sighed and seemed suddenly younger, and considerably older as the mask of jovial guard Sergeant fell away.

"The local lord has a daughter. Lady Josefina she's called and by all the Gods above and below you will never see a more beautiful creature in all your life. Gorgeous she is with hair the colour of sunlight, pale blue eyes that can make a man weep if she looks at him from underneath her long lashes."

The half-elf shook himself.

"Suffice it to say my friend that were I a better poet then I could talk about her virtues for a long time but I would also hide the very real fact of how utterly loathsome she is."

"Really,"

"Really. I know that my elven blood means that I served the current lords father when he was a lad and the Lord isn't a young man as it is. I've been a guardsman for most of that time and served in all three wars in one capacity or another. I've seen good men do bad things and bad men do good things and every spectrum of things in the middle. Primarily I believe that what a person becomes is as a result of their surroundings but that girl was just born wicked. She's the sort that holds planes of glass, to focus the sun on an ant-hill and pulls legs off spiders."

I shuddered.

"Yeah see, your friend knows what I'm talking about." The Sergeant continued taking another long drink. "Anyway, her father, who is quite aware of the problem, decides that as she's just turned sixteen she needs to be married. Not the worst idea he's had but that means that we've attracted every Shit-dick in the surrounding region to court the poisonous little wench."

"Sarge, I don't think you should be..."

"Clayton, one more word out of your pox filled mouth and I'll have the baby fat flayed from your back." The Half-elf put some venom in his voice this time.

"He's a good lad really," he muttered in aside to the two of us, "Just a little young and too ready to believe that beauty equals goodness."

"I know the type," The Witcher commented. I thought he did very well not to look at me as he said it.

"Anyway, the lady gathers suitors around her like flies on shit. She's under pressure to choose one but she's having far too much fun terrorising people and setting them all against each other. So far their have been, to my knowledge, four death duels that I've had to break up and eight to the first blood, some of which nearly became death duels. There have been nine fights, a still growing number of "accidents" and one poor kid, too young for the arena, tried to hang himself after she lead the others in a campaign of cruelty against him. In short, beautiful though she is, it would have been better for everyone if she had simply been drowned at birth."

The Witcher took a sip from the beer. I noticed that he wasn't really drinking. A sign that he was getting ready for a fight. I took his lead and offered my beer to the Sergeant who took it gratefully.

"Anyway, it looks like she's found a favourite by the name of Sir William the Ram."

"I've never heard of him," The Witcher turned to me and raised his eyebrows. I shook my head to say the name meant nothing to me either.

"I'm not surprised. Arrogant little puke rides around saying that he wishes another war could start so that he could "see some action" as it were. Unfortunately he's good enough that he would probably become famous and poets would sing songs about him. Tall he is, and a wall of muscle. Handsome to go with it as well. I would have thought he'd been coddled but as it turns out, he really is as good as he thinks he is. Fought in a bunch of tourneys down in Toussaint where they go for that kind of thing and got his nickname. They say he's slow to start but once he gets going then there's no stopping him. Seeing him train I can believe it as well. Once claimed that he could knock down a castle gate with his lance and his charger. Can believe it too with the amount of armour he wears. Tried to lift the chestplate once and I could barely stand. And I'm no sluggard."

The Witcher nodded, having handed his own beer off to Corporal Jenkins.

"Anyway," The Sergeant continued. "The entire crowd came down a couple of days ago, looking for some sport." He spat again, his voice had suddenly gone thick. "They came down for some sport and Old Tom, poor Tom. He demanded that they pay the toll didn't he. Poor bastard never stood a

chance. With her shrilly cheering him on, Sir William the Pox-ridden son of a bitch, levelled his lance and ran the poor old bastard down. The entire party then spent what must have been an enjoyable few hours torturing the troll to death until he succumbed to his injuries. In other words, he bled out while being poisoned by his own guts. Poor sod."

The half elf spat again. I felt sick.

"So then we all get ordered to leave the body where it was left as a warning to other monsters and brigands that the law was governed properly here and that anyone who takes it down should be arrested."

The Witcher nodded.

"Are you going to arrest us Sergeant?"

"Good heavens no. What for?"

"For taking the body down."

"I didn't see you," the Half-elfs eyes were gleaming oddly. "And I would bet you a not inconsiderable amount of money that no-one else saw you either.

"I see," said the Witcher.

"Sergeant," I jumped in. "may I ask a question?"

"Certainly squire,"

"If the troll was already dead. Then why did you think we were here for the troll hunt?"

The Sergeants eyes gleamed again.

"There's another troll isn't there." The Witcher said.

"Saying nothing sir,"

"But Sarge, Sir William said..." Private Claytons voice was cut off by Corporal Jenkins bringing his gauntleted fist down smartly on top of the Privates helmet which made a noise, not unlike the ringing of a bell.

"I know of no other troll Mr Witcher sir," The Sergeant hadn't reacted to Private Clayton's 'accident' "Nor do I know that if you travel back out of town the way you came but continue on this side of the river that you may come across the hunting party, or at least where the other troll..." He leant forwards with the air of a conspiritor "Or should I say troll's'" He exaggerated the S to almost comic effect. "used to make their lair. Nor will I mention how grateful the local towns folk would be if you could... potentially..."

"I see," said Keras. "I thank you for the beer and I will think on what you said. I am inclined to pursue the matter anyway, but how grateful would you say the locals wouldn't be?"

"I believe that the going rate for a monster of that side would be a few hundered florins while the Lord is away."

The Witcher nodded, looked at me with a raised eyebrow and we went to fetch our horses.


	8. Chapter 8

As it turned out, it didn't take us that long to find what we were looking for.

The sound of a Troll roaring is a very particular sound, kind of cross between an avalanche and the roar of a...

Ok, this one is tough so I'm going to have to ask you to just go with me on this one.

Picture the scene. You've just been out drinking. As you get up to leave the place someone starts picking a fight with the local gentle giant. Every local pub or inn has one of these. He's a guy, known for being heavily muscled. Often tall as well, does a lot of work involving heavy lifting. Blacksmiths often get this kind of size. They often come across as deceptively stupid although anyone who makes that assumption of someone who knows the intricacies of smelting and forging is massively mistaken. They're often remarkably gentle and courteous, this from a childhood and young adult life of having to be extra careful with the other kids their age for fear of spontaneously and accidentally breaking said peers.

As a result these men tend to develop a kind and gentle disposition which means that it is extremely hard to make them angry.

Now, as I said. Picture the scene. You're out drinking. One of these gentle giants is talking to a pretty girl. They might be in any stage of the courtship process from the teasing to the days before marriage part. But there this person is talking to the girl. The girl is being reasonably amenable to the attention from the giant, after all he is heavily muscled and I'm told that a certain type of girl can really go for that kind of thing and then comes in a third player and his group of friends.

This third player, and you'll know this person as well. This third player is an angry drunk. Can be the nicest person in day to day life but when he's had a tankard or two, he can get downright nasty. For whatever reason, he hasn't figured this out yet, and nor has he figured out that it is a bit of a sport amongst his friends to egg him on. Said third party decides that he wants to prove how tough he is by picking a fight with our Gentle Giant.

So he goes up to the Giant and starts hurling insults at him trying to provoke him. The Giant ignores him, apologises for any real or imagined insults and generally does his best to avoid any kind of confrontation. Giant and girl go to another part of the bar. But Angry man isn't done with them yet so he follows, trying physical attacks now, pushes, crueller jibes and things. Angry's friends start realising that things are going a little too far and start to pull him back but he's properly angry now and ignores them, throwing off restraining arms. By now the locals are expecting a fight and are moving out of the way. Gentle is still trying to avoid it though but realises that Girl might get hurt so puts her behind him and turns to face the threat.

Angry is waving his arms now, pushing the giant who is basically trying to tell Angry to Fuck off, calmly and persistently in the same tone of voice that you might use to get rid of someone trying to sell you something useless. He's beginning to get frustrated though and the barman steps in trying to calm things down while shooing one of the maids out the back to fetch whatever guard or watch person that might be available. The girl might tug on the giants arm trying to remove them both from the situation. Giant is happy with this solution and turns to go.

Events from here differ slightly. The girl might have enjoyed the attention and the drama but whatever they have now realised that things are getting out of hand, it's just the girl, the giant and Angry in a circle. The giant turns and Angry man hits him. With a chair, a tankard, a bottle, a club or whatever.

Giant is now irate and turns to face the threat automatically. Girl tries to pull him away, coming round him to try and divert the giants attention by getting him to look at her instead of Angry. Giant looks down.

But Angry swings again. Maybe at Giant, maybe at the girl, but whatever he was aiming for he hits the girl and the girl goes down.

There is blood.

Giant bellows in rage.

That sound. That sound that he makes is the sound that I'm thinking of. A primal sound of fury that comes from before we had learned about things like civilisation and living together in peace.

That sound and we heard it about an hours ride out from the town. We had been travelling at a steady trot during that time but with a quick glance at each other, our already tired mounts were kicked into a gallop, we left the track and started moving up through the gentle but rocky hills occasionally having to duck out of the way of low hanging tree branches. When I was first trained how to ride, they warn against riding like this for fear of loose stones and rabbit warrens breaking horses legs. In truth it was a miracle that nothing happened to either steeds as we galloped along.

The sounds had gotten worse. Along with the roaring we could hear a regular kind of crashing noise like a huge bundle of sticks being thrown into the ground over and over again. There were human voices as well and horses screaming in distress.

We rode into a small valley formed by a few hills, their crowns covered in loose rocks which had clearly been quarried and turned into stone for the towns houses, as well as several trees. It was sheltered there and would have been rather pleasant during calmer times.

We came round a bend in the valley and came across the sight.

It was a little dell. You entered it from only the direction that we had used and the hills came round into a circle facing us reaching a taller peak directly in front of us. There was some evidence that someone had used fallen trees and loose rocks to build up the crest of those hills to provide more shelter. I remember that there was a large burnt patch in the centre of the ground as well. At the time, a small pavilion had been erected near to where we stood our horses with a blue and white standard nearby that we had seen emblazoned in the town. The ground sloped up to the hills in front of us getting steeper and steeper until it reached what looked like the small opening of a cave although it didn't look as though it went very far back at all.

Standing in the mouth of the cave was another troll. I wouldn't have known she was a she for the looking as it seemed that troll genders look very similar to each other but I'm describing her as "she" as I now can't think of her as anything else given the following events. She was standing guard over that cave entrance like she was a warrior of old defending the breach in a castle using, and I swear that this is true, an uprooted tree as a club.

Her foes, eight full armoured knights who were trying to approach on foot with spears, swords shields. One man was trying with a crossbow but couldn't seem to get a clear shot while there was also a pair of injured men lying, battered and bruised next to the pavilion being tended to by a couple of squires.

It was an almost comical sight. It was plain, even to me, that the knights couldn't use their horses to approach due to the slope and the troll's choice of weapon was fearsome enough that the crossbowman was unable to get a clear shot. They were clearly trying to draw her onto the flat ground so they could get round her or mount some kind of cavalry attack but the poor besieged troll was clearly having none of it, sticking to her post like the most dutiful soldier that you've ever seen and as a result she had the high ground. But that was her problem as well. Eventually she would tire and then it would all be over. No sooner had the amusement hit me than the remorse followed up. I looked away, not wanting to watch anymore.

My companion had similar ideas.

"Whatever happens," he whispered fiercely over the din. "Back my play and say nothing," before riding towards the pavilion at a gentle pace as though he didn't have a care in the world.

It is in these moments that the decisions are made which shape our lives. I had been told to trust this man. He hadn't set a foot wrong so far. Hadn't, as far as I knew placed me in any danger that I wasn't aware of before hand but at the same time, his carelessness towards everything in that particular moment struck me as being off. The situation was obviously dire or otherwise we wouldn't be here, indeed we wouldn't have found the place at all. But he was just walking up to the pavilion as though there was nothing going wrong at all, that nothing was out of place and that everything was absolutely fine.

It obviously wasn't.

But the decision was clearly already made for me.

I dismounted, took our horses and lead them both towards the the picket line where all the other horses had been tied.

Having done that I followed Kerrass into the Pavilion, there was an effort by two, faintly disgusted looking guards to prevent my entry but some whispered conversation from within followed with a high and feminine giggle chased out a "Oh do let him in," and suddenly the way was clear for me.

I entered and in the way that the Witcher had taught me I scanned the room quickly.

For room it was, there was a partitioned off area behind which I guessed was a bed and a place for feminine hygiene. There were several large chests and the place was so filled with blankets and tapestries that I was left wondering where the cart was that had brought all this stuff out here in the first place. Eventually though it evidenced itself to be part of the structure, onto which was placed some food and drink.

There was also a table, sat in front of the table, the chair twisted so that the occupant could see the entirety of the room, sat the Witcher in the most relaxed posture that I had ever seen him in. Leant back, legs outstretched and gesticulating broadly with his sword propeed against the arm of the chair negligently. I briefly thought to myself that if I had placed my weapons as carelessly as that then he would have kicked my ass up and down the pavilion.

Sat on the other side of the table was the largest man I had ever seen. He was also, quite possibly the most beautiful man that I had ever seen. Long blonde hair that fell away from his temples in waves, cut, just short enough so that it would easily fit under a helmet of some kind. Piercing blue eyes glittering from under the longest eyelashes that I had ever seen on a man. Strong and chiseled cheeks and a chin that stuck out with a cleft down the middle. He looked like the hero of a balladeers tales. The kind of man that slays dragons and rescues princesses from towers. He also had this way about him, a slight upturn of the mouth that was always on the edge of turning into an outright sneer but not enough for you to call him on it. I felt that he was judging everyone in the room, including me, and that he was finding us all wanting. Other than the female that was also present of course. Someone he looked possessively over which was when I realised that he wasn't looking down on us, he was checking us to see if he was a threat to his dominance over this woman.

He was also dressed in Full Plate armour. The same kind of armour that only the truly rich can afford. And it shone.

As for the girl...

How do you describe the most beautiful girl you've ever seen?

Even though I find that my personal tastes tend to run towards the more brunette end of the scale, this girl was... Hard to describe.

She was blonde, not the burnished blonde of the knight but the light, almost white, blonde of sunshine. She was pale with a perfectly clear complexion, defined face and a long neck graced with a golden choker style necklace. She also had blue eyes, which were much more startling than the knights given her pale skin and light colouring and where as his glittered, hers shone, large and white with obvious delight at the world and everything that she saw. She wore simple sapphire earrings and a golden circlet to keep the thick, and admirably luxurient hair back from her face.

She was the kind of girl where her beauty hits you like a hammer to the face when you see her for the first time. The kind of beauty where you find yourself thinking "Have I stared at her too long? Am I staring now? How long was it since I last looked at her? and can I get away with looking at her again now? Oh holy fire is she smiling at me?"

As I entered she was laughing at something that the Witcher had said. The laughter was like rain in a desert and even worse, I could tell as the three of them were looking at me, the jest was at my expense.

I felt myself redden as I bowed and moved to stand at the back of the pavilion to stand with the other servants of which there were three. Two maidservants and a man whose slightly richer clothing suggested that he was some kind of seneschal or chancellor.

But in truth I wasn't really looking at them. My eyes were too full of the glory of the woman sat, enthroned at the other end of the room next to the table.

"I'm so sorry Master Witcher," she said, her voice warm and soft. "But what was it you said your name was? Your jest has just driven it from my mind," she giggled again.

That giggle. It was like a peek behind the curtain at the theatre. A glimpse beneath the mask. I suddenly remembered the tear tracks on old Tom's face.

"It is purely my mistake Milady. I may even have forgotten to mention it, as captivated as I was by your beauty." The Witcher's voice was astonishing in it's change. I had heard him change his accent before to be able to talk to villagers and feel like "one of them". He sounded cultured, educated and refined. I'm a noble and I don't talk like that. It was like how people would like to think their Kings and Queens talk.

"My name is Kerrass of Maecht. Master Witcher, at your service." He quickly got up and sketched a bow with a smile. I saw the smile hit home with the girl, but more so with the knight who scowled, sensing competition maybe?

"Oh how wonderful. I've never met a Witcher before. What's it like?"

"Being a Witcher? We are the line that stands between the darkness and the Light madam. When you hear the animal noises in the depths of the night. When you hear the howls of the damned or the calls of creatures in pain, there I must tread. In haunted caves, crumbling ruins and remote mountain tops. There I wander, hunting out evil so that good people like yourself can sleep in peace."

"I like that, 'In haunted caves and crumbling ruins. I shall have to commission a poem about it."

"You do me too much honour Milady. In truth it is a task, a necessary thing that must be done by someone. If not Witchers then who else? A woefully unqualified soldier or guard who leaves behind a wife and child?"

"A trained knight is more than capable of seeing off any monster." Commented the knight. He was trying to get back into the conversation somehow. Obviously unhappy with the direction things had gone.

"Like the trained knights outside, failing to kill a lone troll?" The Witcher's voice positively dripped with scorn. "The simple truth is, that to kill a monster, you need a professional. How many of those men have silver weapons?"

He was met with silence.

"Hmmm, I thought as much."

"Is that why you carry two swords?" The girl asked curiously. "Silver for monsters and steel for men?"

"Hmmph. Just a common killer." Said the knight.

The girl fluttered her hand. I will admit that she did so prettily.

"You'll have to forgive Sir William. He recently killed another troll you see and is struggling to see why you would be needed."

She was setting the two men against each other. There was little doubt in my mind as to which she preferred but it was also quite clear that she wanted to keep him on his toes.

The Witcher sneered a little.

"It's quite easy to kill a troll when you have flat terrain and a good run up with a lance that keeps you quite out of reach of the trolls swings. It takes a lot more courage to step in range of those arms, with or without armour. I notice that Sir William is in here while others attempt to bring the beast down."

The knight reddened in anger. He was also not looking as handsome as he had a moment before.

"Yes well. He sees the problem and is thinking of the solution rather than wasting his time and effort." The girl defended the knight, re-exerting ownership and bringing him to heel with one sentence.

"The, truth of the matter madam is that both swords are for monsters." The Witcher continued. There are beasts in the wider world who are naturally occurring and others who are magically occurring. The silver sword is for magical creatures and the steel is for more natural occurrences. But both types of sword are for monsters. I will admit to needing the steel sword for the occasional act of self-defence as sometimes my travels take me into... less civilised areas."

The girl nodded her sympathy.

"Anyway my lady. You obviously have a troll problem. I am a Witcher and therefore I am your solution. Allow me to get rid of the problem for you."

"But my knights?"

"Oh I've no doubt your knights will bring down the beast eventually." He waved his hand negligently, "But at what cost? Mens lives. Men who have connections that might prove problematic should they be injured, or even killed?"

I was reminded again that the Witcher would have made an excellent sales man.

One of the servants. The more richly dressed servant stood forward and cleared his throat.

"That is a valid concern Milady. Your father would..."

"Oh poo my Father." Venom dripped from her words.

"If I may milady." said the Witcher. "It may even be more fiscally responsible in the long run as well,"

The girl subsided and started thinking.

My father had done a certain amount to see to the education of his children. One of the things we were all taught was to keep our thoughts hidden from others in case an opponent could read our intentions. I was taught the same by the Witcher and my Fencing masters about facing a man in a fight.

It was clear that the girl had not received this advice and you could see the war of ideas wrinking her pretty brow.

"Very well Mr Witcher. How much would you charge to remove this troll from my fathers lands."

"200 hundred crowns Milady," The Witcher answered promptly.

Sir William scoffed. "200 crowns. For what? An hours work."

"For doing something you and your fellows can't seem to do," The Witcher declared. More scorn. He was making the knight angry for some reason that I couldn't see.

I saw the girl look at the Chancellor again, who nodded.

"Very Well Master Witcher, 200 crowns for the removal of the troll."

The Witcher nodded and rose to his feet.

"A quick word with my man and I will set about it."

He beckoned me out of the tent and leant in. "Have your spear ready and beware treachery, especially from the crossbowman." he whispered quietly.

I nodded as we walked towards the horses.

I unstrapped my spear and took the cover from the blade while the Witcher took his silver sword from the box and I helped him strap it along side his steel one.

"Steel one coming off?" I asked, but he shook his head. Eyes glittering strangely.

He took a small flask from the small black box and oiled his silver blade appropriately as we moved back to join the Lady and her knight who had come out of the Pavilion.

The Witcher laughed at something, silver sword hanging easily in his hand.

"Oh My lady." He said chuckling. I was startled. Although I had heard him offer wry chuckles before now, this was the first time that I remembered him actually guffawing out loud as well as grinning from ear to ear in a way that suggested amusement rather than imminent murder. It was strange and looked uncomfortable on his face. Like a shirt that is only just a little bit too small for the person wearing it.

"Oh My Lady," He said laughing. "Call those fools back before they hurt themselves." He laughed again before raising his voice.

"Call it off lads, call it off. Come and take your rest." He waved his sword in the air as he did so.

I'm sure he was completely ignorant of how that made it glitter in the sunlight.

Someone sounded a horn call and the knights, still failing to attack the troll on the hillside started to stumble back towards us.

"Right lads gather round," The Witcher crouched in the middle of them and I shivered. There was a fey feeling in the air. Something was happening that I did not understand.

"Now then boys. I'm a Witcher, notice the two swords and the strange eyes. I'm a professional and I'm here to give you all a lesson on how things are done alright?"

One of the knights spat in disgust.

"What's your name?" He asked the knight.

"Sir Phillipe of Cruss." said the man. I thought the accent was from Toussaint originally but I couldn't be certain.

The Witcher's eyes narrowed a little.

"I will remember. Now first of all. Do any of you have a silver sword? Do you Sir Phillipe?"

The knights armour clattered as he shook his head.

"I thought not. If you are going to slay monsters then you need silver weapons, or for the monster to stand still long enough for you to batter it to death. Now do any of you know about the behaviour of Stone Trolls. Sir Phillipe?"

The clatter came again.

"How about trolls in general? Phillipe? No? Well let me tell you. Just because they sound stupid and don't have as much of a working knowledge of what 'we' call the common tongue doesn't mean they actually are stupid. You try speaking without any lips."

"Trolls, intelligent? You degenerates are all alike." Sir Phillipe, who was clearly not as clever as he wanted to believe spoke with a voice that made me think of fingernails on blackboards. I did notice however that Sir William was getting redder and redder standing next to the Lady Josefina possessively.

"What I was going to say before a certain ill-mannered lout decided to interrupt was that trolls are cleverer than you think they are. Remember that cave trolls are often sought after for masonry work as they have a basic and innate instinct as to how stone fits together to a level that even Dwarves don't understand. Also notice at how she..."

"She?" Sir Phillipe again.

"Yes, 'she' you ignorant fool. You would know this had you studied anything to do with the subject. She, which should tell you something else about her behaviour. Also, if you interrupt me again, I'm gonna knock you on your arse you incompetent fool. Now,"

Somehow he managed to exclude Phillipe who was spluttering.

"Can anyone tell me what family of monsters Trolls belong to?"

"Err ogroids." Came a timid voice. The smallest of the knights who was looking a little pale.

"Well done," said the Witcher, "What's your name?"

"Sir Thomas of Anelren sir."

The Witcher nodded.

"I will remember it. What are Ogroids allergic to Sir Thomas?"

"I don't know sir,"

A couple of the other knights tittered.

"Quiet," Thundered the Witcher. "Lack of knowledge is not a fault. Failure to follow up on that lack, is." I struggled to keep my face straight as I wondered how many other roles the Witcher could take up. I had seen killer, mercenary, instructor, courtier and now I was seeing Class Professor.

"Ogroids are allergic to a particular mix of herbs that can poison them. It can make even the slightest wound become serious, even fatal to a troll."

"Are you going to tell us the formulae Sir Witcher."

The Witcher grinned at Thomas.

"Of course not Tom. Trade Secret."

"See, just a tradesman after all." blurted Phillipe angrily.

The Witcher, who still held the sword in his hand, simply flicked his wrist. It was lightening fast and Phillipe fell backwards on the grass.

"You cut me,"

"Yes," said the Witcher standing and moving forwards.

"With that poison on the blade too. You've poisoned me you honour-less fuck."

"Language in front of the lady," admonished the Witcher.

"I don't care about that, you've poisoned me."

"Are you a troll?"

Phillipe floundered, his hand on his face where a small cut on the cheek was welling a slight amount of blood. The kind of scratch you might get from being slapped in the face by a branch.

"No, of course not you simple..."

"Them I shouldn't think you have much to worry about then," said the Witcher moving forwards again. "Also..." He hauled off and booted the fallen knight in the face.

The other knights sniggered but I was watching Sir William and his lady. She had enjoyed the display but Sir William was now watching the Witcher with a kind of hunger. I hadn't seen that kind of hunger before that day but I have seen it since. It is the face of a warrior wanting to test himself against another. It is the face of someone getting ready for a fight.

"Watch carefully boys." The Witcher said to the other knights. "You might learn something."

Another one of those iconic moments happened then. The Witcher walking towards the troll, sword out and held away from his body at his side. The others stood with me were not unaware of this. There was a connective feeling of held breath as the Witcher came to a halt, well outside the range of the hill.

The troll, who had very sensibly used the opportunity to sit down and have a rest, heaved herself up to her feet using the tree as leverage and swung her arms around a little. For all the world she looked like an athlete doing some warm-up exercises.

"Hello up there," The Witcher called.

The Troll looked at him and growled.

"Now there's no need for that," The Witcher continued. "I just want to talk."

The Troll roared. Hearing it in the distance was nothing compared to the real thing, up close and personal. It wasn't really a noise that you heard, it was more something that you felt in your gut and in your chest.

"Also," The Witcher went on conversationally. "I'm not in the least bit intimidated by loud noises."

The Troll stopped and leant forward to peer at my companion. Then she lumbered forwards a few steps holding her tree in the same way as a washerwoman holds a frying pan when she suspects the presence of a mouse.

"You, two swords need?" Her voice was so deep that it was hard to think of her as feminine.

"Sometimes."

She scuttled backwards a few steps with remarkable agility for something her size.

"You Wisher man," She yelled and brandished her club at him.

The Witcher didn't move. "I am, yes."

"You here Kill Kill? Truth Tell." She demanded.

The Witcher slowly and calmly sheathed his sword on his back. The other knights around me started whispering to each other about strategy, tactics and psychology.

"If I have to kill kill. I will." The Witcher was speaking clearly. Making sure he was saying each word distinctly. The troll raised her club...

"But I hope I won't have to,"

The club was lowered again. She looked at him with an exaggerated look of suspicion. She sniffed him.

"You smell truth."

She shook her head and bellowed.

"But Wisher men Kill Troll, Kill."

"Sometimes Troll kill men kill." The Witcher said reasonably. "Men can't kill Troll. Call Witcher. Help."

"You Help?"

"When I can."

The Troll considered this. I was fascinated. As far as I know there are relatively few examples of scholarly discourse with Trolls. People have obviously spoken with them many times but no scholar had ever really made a study of them. It was amazing and I found myself being drawn into it. The troll obviously had a problem speaking common. It would be wrong to call it a speech impediment because she wasn't human and her teeth were on the outside of her mouth, taking the place of lips. She sounded stupid because her language was stunted and that made sense. It wasn't her first language so of course she came across as slow, or easily confused. She was having to convert the Witchers words into her own language, reason them out, come up with a response and then translate that response into common.

Like everyone I had heard of Rabid trolls. But then again I have heard about rabid and crazy humans as well. I felt a perception twist and shatter inside me. The trolls were intelligent and reasoning creatures. Maybe they weren't as clever as we are, maybe they don't 'work' in the same way that we do but I found myself wondering at all the reported troll attacks. How many of them were down to one side or the other not talking and not 'thinking'.

The troll was pacing, her brow furrowed in concentration. Her emotions were easy to read, her huge face contorted into remarkably similar expressions to human faces. I wanted to spend a week talking to her and making notes.

Someone's armour clattered as they shifted their weight and I was brought back to the very real threat of imminent violence.

"You help?" The troll asked again.

The Witcher nodded. "Yes. I help. If I can."

I wondered if the troll noticed his emphasis on the word 'If'.

She sniffed hugely and turned away from the Witcher for a moment, rubbing her face with the back of one stony wrist.

"They Killed my man," she wailed suddenly dropping her club and covering her face with her hands as she sobbed openly and with more raw honesty than many humans would. "He worked for them for years and they killed him."

My heart wrenched and I felt close to tears as I felt the trolls anguish like a punch to the gut. Nor was I the only one as I heard Sir Thomas sob and one of the maidservants had to turn away.

"He bridge fixed. He Money collect. He angry not get, when at him they laugh." She was sobbing and sniffing between words. It was horrible. She looked like a toddler who had had a favourite toy stolen, or a faithful dog who was wondering why it had been kicked by a beloved master.

"He Good Troll. He hurt no-one." She was getting angry again now and I found I didn't blame her.

"I know it. I know they did." The Witcher said. "I'm so sorry."

The troll peered at him suspiciously, her distress momentarily forgotten.

"What you sorry for? You there not."

"No. I suppose I'm sorry on behalf of my race." Said the Witcher.

"Tanks. Sorry bring not him back though."

"I know it."

The troll abruptly sat down and just wept. There's no other words for it. The Witcher cautiously approached and gently place a hand on her shoulder.

I am not ashamed to say that I felt tears on my face at that image. I thought it was beautiful and impossibly sad. I am no poet to immortalise something in words that can bring tears from listeners, nor am I an artist who can render a moment, frozen in time. I have always been at peace with this lack in myself.

But every so often... Every so often I feel it's lack.

Time stood still as we all watched a Witcher console a grieving woman. At that point it didn't matter what race they both were, but one of us, at least had not forgotten what we were all doing there that day.

"They here kill me?"

I also noticed, in the scholarly part of my brain that I found myself hating at that point, that her common was getting better the more she used it.

The Witcher just nodded.

"I fight." The Troll told him.

"I know that too. Why you not run?" I also noticed that the Witcher's common had got worse.

The Troll shrugged as she looked at him. Huge amber eyes staring into the cats eyes of the Witcher.

"Baby sick," she said simply.

"Oh fuck off," I heard myself whisper in despair.

"I'm not staying here any more," one of the knights who we hadn't met yet said to his friends. "I no longer want a part of this. Come on."

Two of the knights left the group and rode away.

Sir William said nothing, frowning in concentration.

"Witcher," screamed the girl. "I demand you perform your duty."

The Witcher took a few steps away from the troll.

"Be silent woman." He snarled.

"But..."

I saw the Witchers hand twitch.

"I said be silent." He thundered. "I am working here. Interfere again and I wash my hands of this affair and will act according to my conscience"

He turned back and spoke to the troll before turning back and he looked at me.

"Franklin," he waved me up.

I ran over, the Witcher watched the remaining knights who were getting less and less comfortable with every passing second.

"There's a baby," he said without looking at me. He looked like a man dangling over a cliff by one hand and could feel that hand getting slippery. "You know medicine?"

"A little, mostly wounds and stuff. Not sure I know much about Troll babies though."

The Witcher pinched the bridge of his nose. "Well she won't move until the baby's better. Can't say I blame her, but that's the obstacle. Can you have a look for me?"

It was a surreal experience. I had used my training on injured men before and cleaned up the odd busted child who had hurt themselves kicking a ball. The difference this time was that the "baby" was the size of a fully grown dwarf and the anxious parent was, well, a Troll whose spade sized hands made a noise that was quite literally stones scraping over each other.

"Well," I said emerging from the small cave that was surprisingly neat if foul smelling and filthy. I didn't want to presume though, for all I knew that was a Troll's version of spick and span.

"Well. He?" the mother nodded.

"He's hot to the touch and doesn't like the light. Do you mind if I touch your forehead madam?" I

asked

"Wha'?" she looked bewildered.

"Him face touch?" The Witcher put in. "Simple words, normal tone and pace," he said to me.

"Oh," she bent down and I could feel her forehead which was unsurprisingly cool.

"Well," I suddenly felt very tired. "This is a bit out of my league but if he was human I would say to wrap him up warm and get some water into him."

I saw the Trolls bewildered face.

"Him, water drink?" I tried.

She shook her head. "Him mouth close," The troll responded.

"Little water. Drip drip." I said. "Him bad meat eaten?" A thought had occurred to me.

"Meat old." she nodded.

I nodded as well and went to the Witcher who was watching the knights. His hand was on his sword strap.

"The baby needs wrapping up warm, blankets or skins. Then drip feed him as much water as you can get into him."

"What's wrong with him?"

I shook my head. "I don't know," I almost sighed the words. "Maybe he's eaten something bad given the family disruption or it might just be Troll snuffles. She said old meat. This is above my head."

The Witcher nodded a little crestfallen.

"I'm heading back to town." I said.

The Witcher looked up, confused and I saw that I wasn't the only one feeling the strain.

"There's bound to be an old woman, or healer of some kind who has forgotten more herb and local lore than you or I ever knew."

I felt so much better when the Witcher nodded, relief at a plan being formed written large on his face.

"Ride fast Franklin. Otherwise I might have to kill a knight or two and I don't fancy I could take them all."

I nodded and clapped him on the shoulder before catching up my spear and running to my horse.

Stereotypes are interesting things. Everyone, including me has an image of the local village herbalist, or Witch. Think about that image now for a moment. Firstly They tend to be either ancient or young, never middle aged. They're either a crone or a promiscuous lady of the night type wearing either too revealing clothes or covering themselves from top to bottom. They always live alone and without company.

This was the image of what I was looking for and I couldn't have been more wrong.

I eventually found Mother Raeburn working on the small patch of ground next to her house. She was weeding her plants, all grim determination and scowl of concentration with a clay pipe clamped firmly between her teeth which generated enough smoke to make the insides of my lungs itch. She was, maybe mid to late forties. No spring chicken to be sure and older than many of the old women in those areas that had been ravaged by the more recent war but she was still a lot younger looking than I was expecting.

She was tall, grey haired that was pulled back into a pony tail and other than that she looked like any woman who was beginning to feel as though she "wasn't really that old was she?" I will admit that she was attractive in an earthy kind of way. She clearly worked herself hard and spent most of her time outdoors and things. She had the bloom of health about her, unsurprising given her profession and when I explained the problem she drove her trowel deep into the earth and started bellowing instructions at the numerous children who were hanging round the house. All along the lines of, "Make sure this is done, hang these, brush those, wash the other things. Not too much smoke or it all goes to pot" and so on.

As it turns out she had married relatively young and had seen no reason why she couldn't be the local herb-woman as well as enjoying life at whatever damn pace she liked. By her own admission she drank, she tried various herbs of mind altering capabilities and still enjoyed the odd roll in the grass, hay or bed whenever she could convince her husband of the need and spent the rest of her days running him, the children and the grand-children ragged.

All this I learned while frantically trying to suggest that time was precious.

She collected several bunches of things and a couple of bottles of strange coloured liquids. One of which contained a small lump which I was sure was a wasp. Apparently it added to the texture.

We also made a stop at the local butcher who was in the process of slaughtering and butchering a couple of sheep where she spent some time arguing with the man about something that I couldn't quite catch and he ended up handing her a large wineskin of something. I was still on the horse as she handed it up to me.

"Hold this," she instructed in the tones of someone who is used to being obeyed.

"What is it?" I asked all innocent.

"Pigs blood." She was rooting through her satchel for something.

"What?" I recoiled.

"Would you rather I use your blood. Pass it over." She poured the contents of a small paper packet into the mouth of the skin and gave it a shake. "That'll have to do."

"Pigs blood,"

"Yeah," she said climbing up behind me, ignoring the offered hand. "Makes it easier for the troll to swallow. Fresh pigs blood is like Mothers milk to 'em. Off we go."

On the ride back I learned more about her history and the history of every family in the local area.

"Are you a Witch?" I asked at one point.

"Are you a Witch hunter? Come to take me off to a pyre?"

"No ma'am, just a curious and exhausted scholar."

"In that case. I would say I know a thing or two that they didn't teach those youngsters up in Aretuza or wherever it is they teach young magic people nowadays. But I wouldn't say I'm a Witch or Wizard or Sorceress or anything. Just an increasingly old woman who knows a thing or two. Also, don't call me Ma'am. Makes me feel old. Greta is fine."

I also heard the full history of the "thing with Tom," filled with many stories of Tom's quiet mischief and the towns equally quiet affection for the troll who had worked with the townsfolk to make their lives a bit better. She told me that, "he was a good man that, despite being a troll. He gave the impression that there was more going on behind those eyes than most would give credit for."

There were all these little stories about that time that Tom had gone out to find a lost sheep, or had walked a little girl home, or played a prank on an uptight merchant.

If I hadn't before, I was becoming increasingly certain that I would have liked Old Tom.

It was just beginning to get dark as we got back to that little clearing. It was that stage of things where the light was just beginning to turn red. I didn't bother with niceties and just rode up to the foot of the hills and helped the lady down who ran towards her patient. The Witcher was still stood in the same spot. To all intents and purposes he hadn't moved.

As I went to stand with him I could look around the place. Sir William hadn't moved either and he and the Witcher were staring at each other, something building between them. The girl could be heard yelling at someone, presumably taking out some frustration on some poor maidservant.

Another couple of knights had made a retreat as well.

"You were quick," said the Witcher quietly.

"Quick?" I answered. I was breathing hard and my poor horse was shaking. "She was fussing over every detail and it took me ages to find her. I wanted to apologise for being late."

The Witcher sniffed. "Such women want to exert control on the grounds that they need everyone to listen to them and do what they're told. They need the obedience of everyone from the highest King to the lowest peasant. It's a knack that they seem to teach each other in an ancient and sacred code. To be honest I'm surprised she didn't make you wait till morning."

"I think she was fond of the Troll."

The Witcher nodded. "Well, lets see how it's going."

Prominently and obviously he turned his back on Sir William the Ram and moved over to where the Herb-woman was making cooing noises over the infant troll while the mother troll looked on, hands

wringing nervously.

"How's the patient?" the Witcher asked.

"He'll be fine." said the Herb-woman. The infant troll was now in his mothers arms drinking greedily from the wineskin we had picked up earlier. The Troll was visibly shaking with relief.

"He essentially got the Troll equivalent of the snuffles but with the added stress, poor food and his mother not being able to nurse him properly for obvious reasons." She glared down the valley to where the pavilion stood and Sir William was practising his death stare on us.

"Can the child be moved?" The Witcher asked.

The woman sighed and rubbed her eyes, looking much older than I judged her years. "Yeah, so long as he keeps guzzling that stuff down, which he will, and then drinks the water and eats and nurses properly then he'll be fine."

"What wisher man say?" The troll could move surprisingly quietly for someone of her bulk.

"You need to leave," My companion told her brutally. "Wrap up your child and head that way," he waved over the lip of the crest, away from the pavilion and the entrance to the little vale. "Stick to the high places where the horses can't reach you and you should be fine. I will deal with these fine folks and any other pursuit will already be too far behind you."

"Us not go. Home this." She stamped her foot and there was a sullen rage in the trolls voice that I found I couldn't blame her for.

My companion got help from a surprising source though.

"He's right Annie," said the Herb-woman.

"Who's Annie?" I asked.

"Annie I." The troll said stamping her foot. A trolls stamp can make the earth shake.

"Don't mind him." said the Herb-woman. "But the Witcher is right. You have to go or those men will come back for you. Give it a year and the Lord will come back and sort this all out and things will have calmed down again. You'll see."

The troll stared at the infant unhappily.

"Dis our home," she said again.

"I'm sorry Annie," said Greta. I was surprised at the emotion in the old woman's voice, but then I suppose I shouldn't have been as there was a lump in my own throat.

The troll wiped her eyes.

"No you fault." She said. She stomped over to the cave and pulled out a large animal skin that she quickly fashioned into a crude sling and put the infant inside who was still guzzling from the wine skin.

"Tank Greta," she said,

"I'll see you soon Annie," said the older woman.

"Tank Wisher man friend."

I stood dumbfounded.

"That's you," Kerrasss said to me. He was smiling sadly.

"Oh," I said, jumping a little. "You are quite welcome Annie. Thank you."

The trolls face creased in confusion. "For what?"

"never mind." I whispered.

The troll nodded.

"Tank Wisher man." The Troll paused "You not Wisher man." she decided after a while.

"I'm not?"

I nearly crowed with delight at the Witchers face as his mouth hung open in astonishment.

"No, You kind,"

Without further preamble she glared at the Pavilion and very deliberately picked up her club and swung it over her shoulder before climbing up and over the lip of the dell with surprising agility.

The Witcher stared at his feet for a moment before he looked back up at the place where the troll had disappeared.

"No Annie." he muttered. "You're wrong. I'm not kind at all."

He turned and looked at me. "Silver off," he said. There was a fire in his eyes as he said it.

"Thank you for the help Greta," he carried on as I quickly unstrapped the more ornate of the two swords. "But there is about to be some violence here and you may not wish to see, or there may be repercussions."

"I can stomach justice when I see it Witcher and my status offers me protection aplenty. I supply her father's ointment for his knees." she cackled evilly, "Also there are bits of this countryside that even that Sergeant has forgotten about."

The Witcher nodded, rolled his shoulders and looked back at me. "Stay out of it. Protect yourself and Greta here if it should come to that."

I nodded. I was disappointed but there was still enough of my brain that was cool enough that I could understand that he needed space to work.

The Witcher took a deep breath and closed his eyes. When he opened them again there was absolutely no trace of emotion there. Not thought or feeling. Again, it felt as though I was looking at a mask rather than looking at a human being, even a mutant. He turned and walked down the hill towards the Pavilion.


	9. Chapter 9

When I woke up in the morning it had seemed like such a pleasant day. It seemed very far away just then. That early morning camp-site in a pleasant little dell just off the road. An early rise as we knew there was a town, not too far away. Very pleasant indeed.

Yet here we were. Violence hanging in the air and I thought about that morning and the long chain of circumstances that had led us here to this point and at this time. It seemed surreal.

Sir William was standing there. I saw that his helmet was now under his arm and that there was also a man wearing Sir Williams colours standing next to a huge Warhorse that had been separated from the other horses. I presumed that this was Sir Williams squire and saw that he was holding a lance.

"Lady Josefina," The Witcher called. "Lady Josefina, come out of there."

Greta and I followed at a distance and made sure to stay towards the edge of the glade.

"Lady Josefina," The Witcher called again standing in front of the Pavilion. "Come out Milady. The task is done and your servant and champion stands before you victorious." He was talking in that melodic voice again. The same one that he had used when he was playing the courtier earlier. But now there was a maliciousness to it a sense of steel and bitterness.

"Josefina," he sang. "Josefina, Oh the beautiful Josefina, She Whose radiance lies unsurpassed by the rays of the golden sun."

I smirked despite my own best efforts.

"She whose lips put to shame the red red rose."

The Lady Josefina stormed through the pavilion entrance. "How dare you speak to me in such a fashion?" She demanded.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I thought that was the point of tormenting these poor trolls. It was part of your courtship."

"You?" She asked, misunderstanding. "You court me? You are nothing but a common Witcher."

"No madame," he answered. "I am an exceptional Witcher, but we are not talking about that." He held up his arm as though declaring a flowery declaration of love on stage. "But now My dearest Lady. As a Witcher I must warn you that the time has finally come." His arm dropped and all tone and resonance left his voice. "Pay the man."

He held his hand out.

The better class of servant was standing behind the lady and opened his mouth to speak.

"Milady we did..."

She spun on the poor man. "Silence wretch."

I saw that another two knights from her former entourage chose that moment to quietly leave.

"And as for you, you filthy vagabond." She hawked and spat in the Witcher's face. "That is your payment."

The Witcher calmly wiped the spittle from his face.

"Madam you promised..."

"I promised nothing."

"In return for removing..."

"But the Troll is still alive." she screamed.

Even though she was now showing the worst of her own character, I am ashamed to admit that she was still beautiful.

"It's still alive," She went on. "What kind of a monster-slayer are you? I wanted to watch you..."

Her mouth snapped shut as she realised suddenly.

"Wanted to what?" asked the Witcher coldly. "You wanted to watch me kill her. Her, not it. You wanted to watch me kill her, and her child. You were looking forward to a show weren't you? A slaughter. A butchering of innocents."

She said nothing. Her eyes blazing. Eternal Fire help me but I wanted her then. I forced myself to look away.

"Pay me."

"Never. The beast is still alive. Bring me her head and the head of her child and I will pay you." She crowed in triumph and finally, finally my lust turned to disgust and I could look at her again.

"All I swore was to rid you of the beast. That I have done. She is gone. The contract is fulfilled and you owe me my reward." The Witcher drove home each word as though he was driving a dagger into an enemy.

"I agreed to no such thing."

"You did milady."

"Prove it." She said. That note of defiant triumph back in her voice. "Produce the contract that I signed and I will pay you."

The Witcher said. "Forgive me madam but my understanding of a certain royal decree in these parts is that a nobles word is their bond. You said the thing, therefore it is true. If you fail to keep your word, then your entire title, fortune and lands are forfeit to the throne. Which I believe is currently under Nilfgaard rule."

The servant tried again. I might have only been imagining the malice in the man's eyes. "He is right milady and you did..."

"Be silent," she screamed. You answer to me while my father is away and I forbid you to hand over any money."

"In which case milady I have no choice but to declare you a debtor and an uncouth liar." The Witcher's eyes flashed. But as you are now a commoner, and I am but a "common Witcher" I will call you a Bitch. I will call you a filthy Liar who doesn't deserve to lick the dung from my boot. You madam are a she-devil who should have been whipped regularly since childhood. Should have been tossed into the cold as a worthless waste of food, water and air. If the soul was displayed on your skin you would be the ugliest woman alive and no-one would care to watch as you were left out in the cold. Not only will I say these things."

His voice rose to drown out her apoplectic rage. "Not only will I say these things but I shall spread the word far and wide that these things are the case and I'm sure that the nearest Imperial tax collector will soon be hearing about it and will come here to hang you for treason. You will be known as the whore you are and that you spread..."

"That is enough," Sir William finally entered the fray. "Madam, I offer myself as you champion."

His tone carried a certain frustration that she hadn't thought to ask him about this sooner.

She jumped on the offer immediately while at the same time being startled. "Yes, kill this man for me." She grinned in relish at the prospect "Kill him slowly."

Sir William moved forward towards the Witcher.

"If you try and slap me," The Witcher spoke in his raspy, graveyard voice. "I will remove your hand and honour be damned. I accept the duel. But we still need a witness to formalise this."

"I will serve as witness." I offered. "I am the son of Baron von Coulthard. I can provide warrants of nobility."

"Unacceptable, you are clearly biased." Sir William intoned.

I didn't think I could get angry at an insult to my nobility any more having long since left that world behind. I took a step forwards then and opened my mouth.

"I will serve," said the Chancellor before I could speak. His tone carefully neutral. "As the Lords Chancellor I may do such a thing on his behalf in his absence. To challenge my neutrality in these matters is an insult to him."

"I accept," said Sir William.

The Witcher looked on with a slight smile and a placating gesture in my direction. "As do I," he said.

The chancellor went inside and came back out with paper, ink and quill.

"Terms gentlemen?" he asked, pen poised.

"To the death," Sir William declared. Accepting the ladies smile graciously.

"Agreed," The Witcher seemed bored.

"Skill at arms only, no magic or potions," The knight went on.

"Agreed." I began to feel a little concerned. I knew the Witcher was good, but he was wearing, at best light armour and Sir William was dripping in plate and chain mail.

"But, I want it noted." said the Witcher, "That if I win, then the lady owes me the 200 crowns and," he paused for a moment, "everything I said about her is true."

"You do not demand her death if you kill her champion?" The Chancellor asked. I wonder now if he was trying to prompt him into just that.

"Nah," said the Witcher, he was watching the girl, "I will remand her to the justice of her father."

I am sure. I am SURE that the Chancellor smirked at that.

The Chancellor scribbled for a while, three copies of the writ and both men and the princess signed all three copies. The chancellor kept one, the Princess kept another and The Witcher received the third.

"Finally gentlemen." Said the Chancellor, "Is there no way I can talk you out of this proceedings."

They both shook their heads.

"Then the flame and sun be with you both. Make yourselves ready." I noticed he didn't add the traditional, 'May the best man win'. He had no doubt as to the outcome.

The Witcher nodded and moved to the middle of the glade while Greta and I moved to stand with the Chancellor, our safety now guaranteed under the laws of a legal duel.

With a smug smile, Sir William gestured and the squire who was obviously prepared for the gesture brought the horse up. The last of the knights quietly left muttering in disgust. If Sir William was victorious, it was now clear that it would be him that would marry the girl.

"Can he do that?" I muttered to the Chancellor.

"What? Oh yes. The stipulation was martial skills only." The man was clearly disgusted however. "Your man should have stipulated that the fight happen on foot. Or have got on his own horse by now. I'm afraid that this is probably a foregone conclusion.

William climbed aboard the huge warhorse, helmeted himself and took up the lance. The horse pranced a bit and reared, an impressive feat considering the weight of the man on the beasts back. I suspected it was an intimidation technique.

The Witcher had sat down and seemed to be watching the show with some interest.

Sir William made a huge show of asking Lady Josefina for a token of her favour. She gave him a scarf that was obviously prepared in advance before, still prancing, he rode to the other end of the dell.

The Witcher picked himself up, dusted himself off and finally drew his sword. He moved to provide a greater distance between himself and his opponent. On the one hand this would mean that Sir William would have less room to pull up, but on the other hand he would be going faster when he reached the Witcher.

I found that I was holding my breath.

Sir William pranced around for a while, showing off in a way that I am sure was meant to be intimidating but as far as I could see the Witcher stood calmly, breathing evenly and steadily.

There was a moment, I've seen it several times since. I will admit that I've even been involved in one of these moments. Where suddenly, instead of people, standing around nerving themselves up to start something. The fight had started.

The horse sprang forwards in an obviously trained manner where it seemed to go from all but standing still to an almost flat out gallop inside of a split second.

I had enough time to see that the Witcher danced backwards a couple of paces giving himself more room and turned the sword around in his hands so that he was holding it by the blade. I didn't have time to wince even though I knew how sharp it was.

Sir Williams horse leapt forwards like an arrow from a bow, the lance falling into rest to the cheer of Lady Josefina as the knight sped towards it's target.

My companion shuffled a bit to one side, frowning in concentration and then...

He seemed to collapse. There was no sound to signify the lance striking home but the Witcher just folded up, and rolled to one side.

Then I saw that he had rolled in front of the horses feet and the lance was pointing in the wrong direction.

I tried to cheer but it came out in a grunt.

The lance couldn't possibly come back in time.

The Witcher was past it's point. He was safe. The sword rose, pommel upwards and the Witcher swung with what looked like all his might.

Too soon. He was going to miss.

He had missed.

Far too early. It seemed wrong. Why would a swordsman trained as well as the Witcher make such a mistake.

But it wasn't his mistake.

It was mine.

It was ours.

The pommel of the Witchers sword struck the horse full in the mouth, shattering the front teeth. The horse had been thundering forwards at an astonishing rate, and it tried to stop, rear and lash out at it's tormentor in one movement.

The Witcher spun away and waited, sword held by the hilt again.

The horse was in a panic now, rearing and bucking. Further tormented by the knight holding on and frantically trying to bring it back under control. Blood streamed from the side of the poor beast where Sir Williams spurs had raked it. The froth at the beasts mouth was pink with blood and then, with the slow pondering motion of a tree falling in the woods, Sir William slowly toppled out of the saddle.

The noise he made as he crashed to the floor was unlike anything I had ever heard.

Sir William lay on his back for a moment before trying to get up to a sitting position. Lady Josefina had screamed when he fell and now stood with her hand over her mouth.

Kerrass walked forward and gently tapped the knight on his helmet before moving past him to stand, ready a bit nearer to us all.

"Franklin," he said to me, "Would you help the man to his feet please and remove that horse from the fight. Take that damn bit out as well while you're about it." I nodded and had time to see the Chancellor's mouth open in surprise.

I made it to Sir William and with much grunting and swearing I managed to get him to his feet and started straightening out his armour. I don't know why but it seemed like the right thing to do at the time. He started as he recognised me and bellowed for his squire who came running with a huge

broadsword.

I got at the horse and managed to get it calmed down. It looked more shocked than seriously hurt and I led it back to the others to discover the Witcher in the middle of a lecture to Lady Josefina but his voice was pitched so that Sir William could hear it too.

"That's the problem with knights," he was saying conversationally as Sir William was having his shield properly strapped to his arm for foot fighting rather than horseback fighting. "When it comes to warfare they all have a couple of passes at each other from horseback. If one of them falls off then ransom is usually given. People are allowed to yield and other such "chivalric" actions abound. But down there, in the mud, is where the actual fighting happens. Where a man can be as well trained as he likes but still gets overwhelmed by the raw savagery and hate that is found on the battlefield."

Sir William had had his armour and shield adjusted to his satisfaction and was now demanding his sword.

"But," continued the Witcher, "You ask any infantryman, any infantryman in the world about what the target is when facing heavy cavalry and they will tell you that it's the horse. Get the knight down to your level and they're fucked. Knights just aim for each other and therefore don't assume that anyone would _dare_ strike at their horse as _they_ are the target, not the horse."

The sword had been settled and strapped to Sir Williams wrist before, in a fury, Sir William took a swing at his own squire.

"Now, as for William the ram over here. Or should I say Billy the goat. Honestly, why name yourself after a goat when your name is William. It's just asking for trouble."

Sir William roared in rage and swung his sword in a down ward strike intended to cleave the Witcher in two.

The Witcher simply stepped aside.

"Now we have a knight on foot," The Witcher chuckled nastily. "Only one of the things they don't tell knights is that their boots are made for stirrups and balance with a lance. Not for fighting on foot."

He danced out of the way of another strike, his sword still held casually at his side.

"So by now, his calves will be hurting and he will probably still be quite dizzy from the crash earlier."

He ducked another huge horizontal blow.

"Not that he's hurt though. He's wearing armour, aren't you Billy the goat?"

"Fight me damn you," roared the angry knight.

"But I am fighting you. Just in the way of a Witcher, not a knight."

I was astonished to realise that Sir William was out of breath.

"You see. I'm a Witcher. I'm not trained in the rules of war. I'm trained to kill monsters. That's what I do. I look at a charging knight and I don't see a man sat on the back of a horse. I see the entire picture."

He had taken a step back and was circling his enemy at a distance.

"I see that the horse isn't properly armoured for a fight because a proper fight isn't expected. So I attack the horse."

"You fucking coward." Sir William snarled.

"Now now, is that anyway to speak in front of a lady?" The Witcher's voice held an equal snarl. "Now I have reduced the monster to it's basic system. A heavily armoured thing. That if I struck it plum then it wouldn't hurt it. Indeed, all it would serve would be to bring me in range of the things weapon. Have you caught your breath yet Sir Billy the Goat."

"Fuck you,"

"My my, it would seem that courtesy and chivalry have gone right out the window. Sad, but not unexpected. But as a Witcher I am taught to look for weaknesses in the armour."

"There are no weaknesses," Sir William sneered. "It might take me a while but you will fall."

"Really?" the Witcher gasped in mock horror, "Then you will forgive me if I point out your error."

The Witcher closed with his enemy with blinding speed. He struck Sir William on the helmet twice in rapid succession. As he had predicted the blows barely even scratched the surface, Sir William swung at his tormentor.

But the Witcher was made of smoke, flowed round the blow and was suddenly behind the man. He thrust low, hard and into the back of Sir Williams knee.

Sir William howled, more in rage than in pain as his limb collapsed under him.

"Bodies all work the same way after all which is the other thing that you must study if you hope to win out. Now, lecture over and I need some answers."

"You will never win."

"I have already won you piece of filth." The Witcher's voice was like ice. "Did you torture the old troll?"

"What?" Sir William seemed genuinely confused.

"Did you torture the old troll," screamed the Witcher spittle flying before his voice went suddenly quiet. "It's a simple question,"

The knight managed to stagger to his feet.

"Fuck you," I thought I could detect an element of despair in there. I knew enough about the body that even if he survived this. He would never fight again.

"Very well."

The Witcher moved again, There was a clash of steel and then the other leg gave out.

"This can carry on for as long as I choose." The Witchers voice made me shiver. I didn't want to watch but then I remembered the old troll nailed to a tree. I remembered the wail of a grieving wife and I made myself watch.

The knight made a desperate swing, missed. The Witcher brought down the edge of his blade on the wrist joint and I winced as I heard bones shatter before the Witcher kicked the sword out of gripping reach. Not that Sir William would be able to. The skin wouldn't be broken but his wrist was clearly shattered.

Sir William levered himself upright. "Yield?" he pleaded. He had bit his lip in pain and blood

stained his teeth as he raised his visor.

"The terms were to the death," It was the Chancellors voice. I had forgotten, as had the Witcher I think for he seemed to pale a little. "Your demand Sir William, and yours, madam," The man spoke with relish.

"Answer my questions and I'll make it quick," Said the Witcher, the hate had left his voice.

"Yes I tortured it."

"Did she tell you too?"

"No," he said quietly before rousing himself "No, but on my oath she wanted me to." Sir William looked at her then and he hated her I think at the last moment before the Witcher's sword went through his visor, his face and into his brain, killing him almost instantly.

"You asked me earlier why I needed two swords madam. You said that the Silver is for monsters and the steel for humans. It's a common mistake and I corrected you then and I remind you of it now. They are both for monsters and I just killed a monster."

He started to walk towards her.

"He lost. Which makes all my words true. It's bound by law even, by witness no less. You madam are a debter, a whore and a torturer of innocent beings. You hired me for a job and you refused to pay it."

"You cheated,"

"No madam, I did not. As your witness will swear I assume?"

"I will," said the Chancellor. The man seemed worried, there was madness in the Witchers eyes.

"You ordered the death of that troll. You ordered that man to his death. You betrayed me and your subjects and you visited pain and death on those self same subjects." He was getting close to her now. "You are a monster madam and as a good Witcher I should kill you now. In fact..." He raised his sword and...

"That's enough," I said as I put my hand on his shoulder. I have no memory of crossing the distance between us. "That's enough."

Lady Josefina fled then and I saw the madness retreat from my companions eyes. I slowly took my hand away as he turned and walked into the darkness.

I took a deep breath as the chancellor walked towards me.

"That was educational," he said. "Your friend was right of course."

"I know it," I answered as I felt a rage building in me. "At what stage in her development, did you all know she was a monster?"

The chancellor shrugged. "Some of us have always known."

"Including her father?"

"Not her father, I think. He loved her as she reminded him of his wife. It made him blind. He's a good man and so we hid it from him. To spare him."

"It didn't spare the troll though did it. Nor this knight."

I saw my barb strike home.

"This is your fault." I said, "As much as it is hers and his," I gestured at the knights body.

"I know," he said. He took a breath. "I am under orders not to pay your companion. As I am oathsworn I must obey those orders. However the orders say nothing about the man's horse, or his arms which would probably fetch a good price,"

"As well as label us for Sir Williams murder I imagine. Can you promise me that that will be prevented?"

"They are your friends by legal right."

"Because of course that stops nobility on a regular basis."

He had no response to that and simply strode away.

I found Kerrass eventually. I had commandeered the knights sword and his scabbard which had more than a few large and shiny baubles on it. I also had tied his shield to his horse after covering it with my blanket as that too had some wealth on it's front. The horses bridle was similar but I couldn't bring myself to go over the man's armour. The horse was biddable enough and followed me easily. It turned out to be a stallion which told me all I needed to know about the man riding it. I figured that we could sell it for stud somewhere. Greta had promised me that we could hide at her herb cottage where she stayed when she was doing a big herb gathering session and she would lead us there as no-one would think to find us there as the guard captain was intelligent enough to be reliably stupid.

The Witcher was stood on the lip of the hill where he had been thanked by the troll. There was a strange look on his face, distant and infinitely sad. I knew he had heard me approach so I just stood there and said nothing.

"Take me away from this place," he whispered after a long while.

We stayed at the Greta's cottage for a couple of days. She brought us supplies and the gratitude of the townsfolk in the form of some change which came out to about 120 crowns and some rather strong bottles of spirits, some of which Kerrass used to keep himself drunk over those two days. The girl had gone back to her fathers keep and turned out the guard looking for us under the charge of the murder of Sir William the Ram. Fortunately for us her father came home and ordered the guards back in short order and we were able to flee. We sold the warhorse and many of the gems on our continuing travels and in the end we more than made up for our time in that unhappy place.

I have taken some steps to keep on top of things and for those readers who keep track of such events and scandals I will say that I have disguised the names of those people involved. The girls name and the identity of those villagers are kept secret, not for her sake but for the sake of her father who turns out to have been a good man and who had raised several fine sons and at least one good daughter that I could find. They don't deserve having their name tarnished although I imagine that they will recognise themselves when and if they read about it. I didn't find out why "Josefina" came out so wrong after such generally nice people and I suspect I never will.

You will have heard about "Billy the goat gruff and the Troll" though as I paid a rather fine minstrel friend of mine to make up the story about the bullying goat who bullied the troll to death before succumbing to his greed and eating himself to death by biting off more than he could chew. I suppose it will change eventually as he tells me that people tend not to like stories where trolls are sympathetic. But he promised that such a variation wouldn't be sung by him.

Sir William the ram did exist and despite efforts by his family to hush the matter up, he did indeed die at the hands of a single man rather than the several bandits who ambushed him while he slept, exhausted, after his titanic struggle against the troll that had victimised the surrounding regions. I am told that his two brothers are seeking out those men who are trying to "sully the good name of their brother". For a while I was a little worried by this but eventually, and with Kerrass' advice. I stopped worrying about it. They haven't turned up yet.

As for Lady Josefina. It turns out that her father flew into a rage as he also had fond memories of Tom the Troll. He retired in distress at the news of his daughters cruelty and left the castle to his eldest son who seemed of a decent sort. I only know this as his first judgement was to send the young woman off to the nearest nunnery along with her dowry which was considerable. Having commended her to the eternal flame she was declared as no longer part of the family and that was the end of that.

But it wasn't. Having spent some time in the winter looking into this sort of thing I found that she spent some time at the nunnery practising her own special brand of manipulation. Having seduced most of the men who lived locally and after several escape attempts the Mother Superior banished her to an out of the way, mountainous retreat, miles from anywhere. Undeterred, Josefina would escape regularly. Unfortunately there were no other human settlements in walking distance, certainly not for a girl like Josefina and she would often return after a few hours of nearly freezing to death to whatever penance would be assigned to her.

I eventually received a letter from that Mother Superior who told me most of this. She mentioned that the girl had left one day and not come back. As she hadn't come back after two days despite no stores having been stolen and therefore it being unlikely that she could be living off the land they sent a tracker out. The former Lady Josefina's body was found, recognisable, only by her attire and the colour of her hair. As for the rest of her, it looked like she had run afoul of some monster who had systematically pulverised every inch of her with a large blunt instrument. Apparently death would have been horrific but fairly quick, all things considered. Attempts were made to track the beast who was probably a troll, giant or Elemental of some kind judging by the tracks but the beast had left in the direction of rocky ground and taking up the trail from there became impossible in the freshly fallen snow and the search was abandoned given that neither the nunnery nor any of the nearby villages had been threatened or attacked.

I understand that the Mother Superior, who seemed like a formidable woman, had posted a Witcher contract but she held out little hope as the reward amount was meager and she was more doing so on the behalf of the lost soul.

I leave it to the reader to judge the matter any further.


	10. Chapter 10

(NB: Some VERY mild spoilers for _my_ ending to Witcher 3. This is just a brief mention of who I imagine controls Oxenfurt at the end of my playthrough but doesn't affect the main plot at all.)

Since returning to Oxenfurt for the winter I have been struck by two things. 1: Beds are really comfortable, and 2: This means that I can answer my own mail.

This is a mixed blessing.

On the one hand this means that I now have fan mail. I am unused to this experience. I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has taken the time to write in. Every single letter is read I assure you although the sheer weight of them means that I cannot possibly answer them all AND still produce the required word count for both my tutors and these small publications in the Oxenfurt magazine.

The other problem is that it means that my tutors can get hold of me. Believe me when I say that "answering fan-mail" is not considered an acceptable excuse for missing deadlines.

I was shocked at this.

Even now, as I sit at my writing desk and look out the glass window at the locals putting up Yule decorations under the careful watch of the local guards. Things are settling down here now with guardsmen just wearing unmarked armour with a Golden sun patched in at the shoulder. The university has moved back above ground and is taking classes again and I find that I am seen as an authority.

Much to my disgust.

I have separate lodgings now which means that I can't depend on some well meaning porter making sure that I have eaten or making sure that I have clean clothes. The trick now is that I have to _remember_ to take the laundry out and go and eat in the halls.

But this means that my tutors have more time to pester me and seem to think that I have more time to do the things that they want rather than the things that I want. This has mostly been writing up detailed and clinical descriptions of the various monsters that I have seen so far. Then when they were still not satisfied they hired an artist to come and work with me. Apparently one of the professors is particularly excited by having "modern eye-witness accounts" to talk about the various monsters and hopes to publish a book on the subject using the paintings from my colleague and my written memories.

I naively asked whether the Witcher and I would get any credit in the final work. I was told that it would count towards my Doctorate.

A doctorate that I can only see as a speck off in the distance. I am left thinking that if I had gone off, found a Witcher, interviewed him, got a physical description of him and then returned home to write it all up and hand it in is my dissertation then my Doctorate would be arriving much sooner. But instead I am now one of those "Go-getting" students that every Professor in the place wishes that they had but actively discourage anyone from turning into, preferring to keep the prestige and the knowledge for themselves.

If you can sense a bit of bitterness creeping in here and there then you would be correct.

But, as I keep reminding myself, beds are amazing.

So is regularly cooked food that has been cooked by someone else.

So are girls.

Which is another injustice. Apparently I've put on some muscle mass in "all the right places" thanks to my training with the Witcher. Training which he will be most annoyed to here has become more and more neglected due to the other demands on my time. But the biggest disappointment is that now, I catch girls looking at me, not with amusement after I've made a joke or anything, but with a curious kind of thoughtfulness and a kind of gleam in their eye. The same gleam that the Witcher got when he used to spot his prey.

I am now confident that to enjoy the benefits of this I should go out and have a few beers.

But am I given the chance?

Of course not.

I am fairly convinced that I am only writing these words to you on sufferance. That sufferance being that the Magazine has told my professors that if my stories are not delivered on time then the money that they're being paid for _my_ stories would soon dry up.

Yes, I know, don't even get me started.

So thank you dear readers. Due to your kindness I am able to write about some of the things that I want to write about rather than some of the things that I keep being told I should write about.

But then I was struck with that problem of...

What should I write about?

My mind is so full of the minor injustices of being back "in the real world" as my Professors would say that I don't have a real thing to talk about.

So I turn to my stack of mail and the list of questions that I have been asked.

The first and most common question is:

What was the biggest monster you've ever faced and what was it like?

This is a common question and I'm unsure about how to answer it. The largest in terms of tonnage was an earth elemental. It was so old and weathered that it moved painfully slowly so that all we had to do was dance around, chipping at it until the magic that bound it together shattered. It was just a slog and wasn't particularly scary. It was like an old servant who had been left behind at the old manor house to "look after the place" who has then been forgotten about until old age and senility took their tolls. We took it in turns. The Witcher would do most of the damage before I would spot him for a breather. The hardest part of it was that it was trying to get to a village so we had to keep it occupied. When we did eventually cause the poor thing to shatter we staggered to the village, took our payment and a bath and slept for two days.

The biggest in terms of size was probably an ArcheGriffin. There were a couple of monsters along these lines. Large flying beasts that have been driven out of their normal mountainous habitat for some reason and had noticed that humanity helpfully fenced up potential meals all in one place. They could then dine from whichever field they fancied before moving off.

What were they like?

I fought none of these. Invariably in those cases. My job was to drive away people or animals that might distract the Witcher from his work. I will say this though. You can read accounts of heroes battling Dragons, Griffins, Cockatrices and others. You can read the books, listen to the ballads and look at the paintings. The one thing that none of these things can prepare you for is the stench of the beasts in question. Kerrass used to say that a lot of these beasts seem to think that meat needs to be aged to add proper flavour and that they don't bother brushing their teeth. So what they have in their fangs is essentially rotting meet and offal. He went on to joke that if a man survived a Griffin attack then they ran the risk of dying due to the Cadaverine poison that would be in the things bite as a result.

The truth is though that these things aren't particularly scary. There is a truth that I came to understand while I was journeying with a Witcher on his path and that truth is "Knowledge defeats fear". We fear that which is different to ourselves and we also fear those things that we cannot explain. Monsters by their very nature cannot be explained as they behave in ways that they shouldn't according to our worlds natural laws. We know that this is because they are strangers to this world due to the previous Conjunction of Spheres. The one that brought magic into the world. So they are literally from another world that has different rules to us.

However that doesn't mean that they don't have rules of their own. The Witcher's represent the last great bastion of this knowledge. One of the first things I did when I returned to the university was to make an appointment with the foremost expert of Flora and Fauna that the University has. I told him some of the things that the Witcher said and the Professor was ridiculing these stupid opinions. I responded that these observations came from a Witcher who had quoted the bestiary of someone called John of Brugge.

It was as though someone had jammed a red hot poker up the old man's backside.

"What did he say? Who was this? Where was this? Can I get a copy?"

Since then I have been admonished, daily, to explain to the Witcher, next time I see him, that the University would pay _any_ amount to get their hands on a copy of the "Studies into Anthropology by John of Brugge,"

I can already hear the sound of the Witcher's scornful chuckle.

My point is, that all of these monsters become much less terrifying once you can predict them. There is still danger, but it is a danger that can be assessed, measured and protected against. So that when the Witcher goes into combat, all potioned up with his swords dripping in oils poisonous to the monster in question, the odds are steeply in his favour. Unfortunately, their potions are toxic to us and I suspect that's part of the point.

So onto our next question.

What was the scariest monster that you've ever been involved with?

The scariest monster is always the next one. The one over the hill, the one that's terrorising the next village or town. The one where you don't know what it is. You find a sign by the side of the road that says, "The creature of Breckster forest," or some such where it describes things like "strange goings on," and "people going missing." That could mean anything, or anyone. It could just be that there is a cliff near the local village, villagers get drunk and fall off a cliff. Villagers can't accept that some of their number are terminally stupid and try and hire a Witcher or other monster slayer to prove themselves intelligent. The problem being that we have to investigate because at the end of the day, a Witcher needs to eat and a reward has been offered. But that moment, where you turn up, unpack your gear and you don't know what to prepare for, what oils to use or what potions to drink, how the potential monsters might move or fight back. It's all very well knowing that the monster in question is a Forktail, but what _kind_ of a Forktail is it? Does that mean you use the Yellow herb in the mix or the orange herb? Are we facing a monster completely unprepared and therefore in serious danger or do we know what we're up against?

We don't know.

Then we see the thing, we fight the thing, we kill the thing, we nearly always get swindled on the reward money and then we move on to starting to worry about the next monster. Which is a terrifying prospect.

Kerrass used to tell me that "The moment it starts to become routine and you stop paying attention is the moment that you lose your life,"

There's a truth there for normal life if I look for it long enough.

So that's the answer to that question and I am well aware that it's not really a satisfying answer.

Instead I shall ask and answer the question that I suspect is at the root of the question.

What was the moment that you were most terrified?

It was the monster we couldn't prepare for.

It's also the time I saw Kerrass being terrified.

In fact, calling it a monster is possibly even a bit of an insult to it. Or to the other monsters of the world, which, at least, are honest in their pursuit of whatever it is that they need.

There were two points that I want to address here and there were two kinds of fear. The first one was the fear that was involved in the waiting, when the imagination starts to catch hold of us and we imagine all of the horrible things that are about to happen. I will talk about that in more detail in a bit. But the other point was...

Ok this is difficult to describe so I'm just going to...

I'm afraid of drowning. Although that isn't entirely accurate, what I'm afraid of is the moment that comes just before you drown. My fear is of the moment where I'm awake, I'm holding my breath and I know I've got about a minute to go. But I'm trapped, there's no way out and that knowledge hits me that I'm about to die and there's nothing I can do. All the while the pressure is building up on my lungs and I know I can't hold it for ever so what do I do?

Another instance might be the man who is about to be hung. The noose goes around his neck, there's nothing else to do but to be hung.

Or again, in wartime. I'm told that a regular punishment is impaling. Where they perch you on top of a spike and wait for you to slide down the spike. What do you do in that situation? Do You struggle to prevent the slide or do you stay still? You're going to die sooner or later but which is better for which outcome? Do you fight? At what point does doing one or the other become suicide?

That decision is what I'm afraid of. Not the dying, but the method.

In this case it was the same as any kind of other mission.

It was autumn by now and We had travelled a not inconsiderable distance down south. The plan was that we were edging our way towards the coast where We would catch a ship to take us back north. Kerrass wanted to spend the Winter in Novigrad for reasons that I will hope to get to at some other point so we would drop him off there while I continued further down the river towards Oxenfurt. The Winter would be spent and we had arranged that we would meet up again in the Spring as by this point I had received confirmation that I had been granted permission to continue travelling with Kerrass and collecting material.

It was the time of year that I would normally love, where the air was just becoming crisp, there was a crunch underfoot, you wrap up to keep warm and the prospect of a cup of mulled wine or mead with, hopefully, the company of a nice warm woman is something to be looked forward to.

Out on the road it was something else though. Instead of travelling from job to job we had started having to travel from inn to inn. Sleeping rough was possible but was a constant balancing act between being close enough to the fire to stay warm versues being too close to the fire and burning your clothes.

But we had the news of some Witcher's work from an innkeeper at the previous village. Apparently people were disappearing in the middle of the night at a place called Amber's crossing along the way. Apparently it was a local joke that no-one knew who Amber was or what he or she might have been crossing as there was no river or stream and the road ended there. He was able to give us a good bit of local knowledge as well. Apparently the place had started off as a hunting and tanning place being next to a huge clump of old woodland, not the Brokilon which was far to the north by this point, but it had a similar reputation of "Decent folk don't go in there," type of thing.

But the village grew from their hunting and tanning industry and they were joined by woodcutters, carpenters and Lumberjacks. The place was not large, but nor was it small, they would trade meat, skins and wood for their own necessities and were generally seen as decent hard-working types who lacked in imagination.

He couldn't tell us much more about the problem other than that folk were disappearing and that a reward had been offered.

What's a Witcher to do when there's a reward for missing people?

We left early, making fairly good time as the roads were beginning to harden again after the Autumn rains and there were fewer and fewer people on the roads. Mostly merchants hurrying back home for the winter or trying to squeeze out that one last sale, fleeing before the approaching tempest. Odd families running to and fro and squads of soldiers trying to catch the last few brigands before the winter months made already starving and terrified men into desperate, starving and terrified men. Most of the peasant villages and farms that we passed were either deserted as families had moved in together to share warmth and food or they were busy preparing their homes for winter. Repairing damaged shutters, stocking up on firewood, getting all the animals either in barns or slaughtering them ready for the winter.

I was struck again by my own assumptions as I always assumed that people kind of wound down in the winter after the harvest had been taken in. But no, it would seem that the work continued right up until the line where the decision was between freezing to death or leaving the job unfinished and possibly starving to death in the new year.

We arrived in mid afternoon just when the light was beginning to lessen. There was a small working man's tavern there where people went to spend their wages on beer before they got home to hand over what was left of their pay-packets to disapproving wives who always seemed to be surprised that their husbands had drunk all the money away despite the fact that it happened every week. I remember that I was surprised at how small the village was relatively speaking. I would later find out that the lumber yards hired crews from all over the place, wherever they could find the labour the cheapest and the people who actually lived there were the skilled labourers, the men who could dress planks and knew about which kind of trees to cut down and where to plant new trees and which trees to leave alone. The tavern seemed to be doing fairly well for itself despite the fact that the majority of the working crews had gone home for the winter. There was still some work happening and many of the men there were enjoying a tankard or two and we were able to secure some sleeping space next to the fire for our use.

As it turned out the village elder/leader figure was also the chief foreman of the lumber yard who had already retired for the night but the barman was reasonably chatty and despite the sword on his back which earned him a few funny looks we managed to settle in quite nicely. The assembly was friendly enough as it became clear that we weren't there to take any work away or do anything to sabotage the next seasons wood stocks.

If anything, the one thing that no-one wanted to tell us about was the reason for our arrival. Kerrass would inform people that he was a Witcher after which the person that they were talking to would nod and then swiftly change the subject. This was unusual as normally upon admitting that he was a Witcher Kerrass would be inundated with the problems facing the village, about goblins in the woods and spriggans in the ground and strange bat-like creatures that distract a man when he's on his way home from work. On rarer occasions he would be told about the problem that he was facing, a ghost inhabiting the nearby mine/woods/fields or whatever. A huge Black Dog that prowled the byways with glowing eyes or a far-off flying beast the breathes fire that was roasting and stealing sheep as it passed over.

This time there was nothing. Although they were undeniably pleased to see us and we soon found that we didn't have to pay for many of our drinks.

About half-way through the evening I managed to ask Kerrass quietly what he thought was going on.

"They're ashamed," he said, "They don't want to talk about it and are drinking away their fears." He got plucked aside by some young lady who took him off to a dance-floor where some people were banging the table to accompany a surprisingly good band of older men who had made instruments out of household items, including a washboard, some spoons, a gigantic wood saw and a couple of home-made looking flutes.

In the light of Kerrass' observation I began to see that there was an almost frantic level of enjoyment here. That they were deliberately having a good time. I thought of students in the days before exams really start kicking in where they know that they should be working but the enjoyment of a drink and a dance with friends is too much temptation to be avoided.

The company caroused long into the night before people started to wander home. Kerrass had been commandeered by one of the girls that he had been dancing with and had been taken out the door with a giggle and a swirl of skirts. I wasn't offended that I hadn't received as much notice. Over the past summer I had seen the effect that Kerrass' "otherness" sometimes had an on women, and men as well for that matter and had realised early in our association that gratitude was sometimes an aphrodisiac to those people who had nothing else to give. I didn't judge. I tried to avoid such encounters wherever possible, but I will also freely admit that surviving a monster encounter was sometimes a powerful stimulant of it's own and I would always make sure that the lady in question was willing rather than feeling obligated.

I slept the night away on a bench in the corner of the room that was pleasantly padded by a cushion and some extra blankets that the farmers wife had found in cupboard that didn't smell too bad and as a result I slept remarkably well.

Although I did dream. I don't often remember my dreams but I remember this one particularly well and I still don't know whether or not it's entirely relevant to the rest of the story, or indeed to my story overall.

I woke, deep in the night and the first thing that struck me was the utter quiet. Now that I was used to living outdoors a lot more I was more attuned to the little sounds that happen outside of the bigger cities, the branches rustling, leaves blowing in drifts and such things as well as small animals doing the best that they can to pick up the last morsels of food before winter descended properly over the surroundings.

But it was deathly quiet. I got up and wandered about a bit. The furniture was still there but other than that, the entire place was empty. No food, no embers in the fire, not even tankards behind the bar or barrels of ale on the shelves.

There was no-one there. I was utterly convinced about this although I couldn't tell you why I was so sure.

In the end I went outside. The night was perfectly still and clear. I could see the stars above me, the Warrior and the Spear constellations stood out beautifully and I realised that I should be absolutely freezing but I had a blanket about me. I wandered aimlessly around the village until I found myself on the edge of the buildings and I sat there on a bench that looked out over the fields and small clumps of trees too stunted to be chopped down. The massive bulk of the forest behind me.

I sat and marvelled at the stillness of the night looking up into the night sky and counting stars, pulling the blanket tightly about myself creating a small hollow of warmth within myself.

It was so peaceful.

But then I realised that I was being watched.

Slowly, I turned my head in an effort to get a good look at whatever it was. It seemed to be an extra shadow next to someone's chimney. But then it stood up and seemed to stretch itself. It stood up then and grew and grew until it stood at over eight feet tall before I realised that it wasn't growing, it was stretching. I couldn't really see how big it was when it sank back down to what I assumed was it's resting height but I could see that it's legs were those of a goat and enormously muscled at that. Above the legs it wore a shirt and doublet over the top, the shirt was a pale, creamy white while the doublet was dark in colour although I thought I could see red highlights around the edges. It's belt was wide with silver edgings and several pouches stood out, over all of this it seemed to wear some kind of cape and on it's head was a hat with a peacock feather that had been the height of fashion back in Oxenfurt.

When it was good and sure that it had my attention it removed it's hat and flourished it's cape in the most fanciful bow that I had ever seen before tapping the hat back on his head and clicking it's heels before catching up a cane that had been resting against the chimney and running along the top of the house.

Without thinking I gave chase, incidentally disobeying one of the Witcher's first laws which is to never chase after a strange being if you don't know what it is.

I saw it land easily in the road and run off down the road at a speed which seemed impossible. I chased after blind to the consequences, legs pounding as I went. It reached the end of the row of houses before it's legs folded underneath it and it launched itself up to the roof of the next house where it landed lightly on the rooftop before turning to watch my progress.

I still had not seen it's face but I could almost feel it's mocking eyes and I redoubled my efforts to catch it.

It bounced from roof-top to roof-top and drifting down to me came the sounds of laughter like a child enjoying a fun game as I ran and ran and ran. It didn't occur to me that I should be tired I just ran.

It was leading me back towards the woods and it bounded back down to ground level and then he started to accelerate. The thought occurred that he had been toying with me and I started to become angry, the anger fuelled me and I set to sprinting for all I was worth.

He skidded to a stop and turned to watch me close on him. As I hurtled towards him, far too fast to stop myself in this frosty weather, he gave a jaunty little salute before giving himself a short run up followed by planting two feet in the snow and leaping high into the air and into the forest.

I stopped to watch him hurtle across the sky before looking down at the ground where he had stood just moments before. Hoof prints stood there in the ground. They were smouldering with the heat. I looked up and was about to run on into the forest in pursuit when I felt a hand on my shoulder.

"Stop," said a voice. It was a woman's voice and I still don't recognise it despite thinking about it almost every day. "He wants you to follow him. Wake up for your souls sake."

I woke then to the smell of the innkeepers cooking bacon and realised that I was in a cold sweat.

A freezing cold bath in ice cold water drawn from a well where they have to lower someone on a rope to break the ice is never fun and yes, looking back on it from the perspective of my nice warm digs here at the university it sounds pretty horrific but at the time I just wanted to be clean when I put some new clothes on. Nothing like a cold sweat dream to make you think about personal hygiene.

I got changed quickly and asked the innkeepers wife if the Witcher had emerged from whatever hole he'd dug himself into. She nodded and said that there was a small hill that you could look out over the village nearby and that he was on the top of that. She gave me 2 large bacon sandwiches and two cups filled with the hot honeyed herbal drink that they seemed to like in those parts. I wrapped myself in the huge fur-lined cloak that I'd treated myself to a couple of villages back and ambled out to find him.

He was brooding. It seemed to be a skill that he practised in those more civilised areas where there were more people to watch him. Supposedly he was thinking about deep and serious things but I thought it was just another way to make himself seem more like an outsider, more iconic and mysterious in his role. We were comfortable enough with each other now that I knew when to tease him about that kind of thing and although he was clearly brooding, this didn't feel like one of those times.

He was wearing his silver sword. Something that he didn't do unless he was going on a hunt. It was one of the surer signs that I could see that he was nervous or concerned about something.

He acknowledged me with a nod and took the sandwich with out comment although the way he bit into it suggested a ravenous appetite. I didn't mind. Fresh bacon is a luxury that is to be enjoyed whenever possible.

The drink was enjoyed at a more sedate pace.

I just stood there and enjoyed my drink while I waited for the Witcher to finish his thinking. The trees around the village didn't seem as thick in the wintry morning light. Certainly not compared to the thick forest that the village backed onto. There was a kind of thick mist that offered amongst those trees, thick and smoky looking. From this angle it looked as though the forest existed at the bottom of a kind of bowl formed by small surrounding hills. There was a solid kind of centre to the woodland and it seemed to radiate outwards. Because of the mist it was difficult to guess how big it was. Not as big as the Brokilon of the Northern Kingdoms but I guessed that it would still take a skilled forester several days to cross it.

The village itself looked small and insignificant next to it. I found myself thinking that the villagers were awfully forward thinking but a little naïve for planting new trees for the ones that were cut down as in my amateurish brain... It looked like it would take, even a town twice the size of this one, with an imported work force...it would take generations to cut this forest down.

Good for them for being forward thinking.

But...

There was something off here.

I shivered.

"You feel it too?" Kerrass asked, butting in on my thought process.

"What?"

"There is something not quite right here. The whole place feels faintly... Off balance,"

"I don't understand,"

"Nor do I?" The Witcher stared into space. "I haven't seen... or really felt anything like it before. Yet still, my medallion doesn't even twitch."

He pinched the bridge of his nose. An insight struck me.

"Did you manage to get much sleep last night?"

He smiled slightly. "A little,"

"The girl tire you out then,"

"No, but not for lack of trying," he frowned.

"I'm just going to speak aloud," he said. It was the same tone that you use in college when you're about to ask a question that you know is a stupid question but that you also know that it needs asking. I've used that tone many times.

"Did you feel anything last night ?"

"What do you mean?" I searched my memory.

"People are disappearing, but in any other village, that get together last night would have been considered a party. Also, I've been propositioned after the hunt many times and with other villagers blessings in the hope that I might reduce the fee in return for some girls favours which is why I rarely partake. But last night?"

He shook his head.

"I will be honest Francis," I was startled, he rarely used my name. "I will be honest, I have rarely felt that level of...desire from a woman. Lust? Yes, Curiosity? Regularly. But desire? She clung to me afterwards and wouldn't let go. At the time it was intoxicating to be wanted so much but in the cold light of morning she seemed so...resigned. So drained."

"You sound like you're moaning about having been stood up."

Another smile.

"I know I sound like a newly dumped child or teen but... Normally when women, especially peasant women, have given in to their lust or curiosity or misplaced sense of obligation with me, we do the deed, pleasure is hopefully had by both parties and then they want to leave. Nothing wrong with that, I need the sleep and they want to scurry off to get their own rest before morning chores and before local gossip mongerers realise what happens. This morning she stayed with me and was reluctant to leave until she was called for."

He shook his head.

"Outside of my experience. And you can't tell me you didn't notice that. I saw you turning down a couple of propositions as well."

I nodded. "I was flattered of course and they were pretty enough but I was tired and looking forward to a bed of some kind."

"I know, I know you're a romantic and you like to have your feelings," he teased. "That party though. It was a party wasn't it. It's not just my imagination."

I thought about it for a long while, sipping my drink occasionally. "No," I decided. "I don't know enough about their lifestyle at this time of the year to comment, but..." I said to forestall him, "I will say that it seemed strange to be having that much fun when people are going missing. I've travelled with you for what 6 months now give or take and I've watched you take on a number of contracts. People are grateful to see you but they're never that...happy."

He nodded, seemingly relieved.

"I'm glad you agree."

He sighed.

"There was a child taken last night,"

"What?"

"They came for me this morning to let me know,"

"Why didn't you come and get me?" I was hurt and overreacting. Made worse by the fact that I knew it.

He held his hands out placatingly

"They came for me, told me and I've been waiting, both for you and until the sun is properly up so that I can see what I'm doing. I also told the parents that I would talk tot hem later I just..." he frowned. "They seemed so _calm_ so resigned to their fate. They hadn't known that we had arrived so they had gone to the Headman who brought them to me. The man was saddened but resigned. The woman was a bit weepy but not the kind of hysterics that I would expect from a women with a missing child."

I stared at him.

"You're troubled aren't you." I had never seen him like this before. He seemed on edge. Like a startled cat watching something it doesn't trust to stay still.

"There is something strange here. Something that I do not recognise and do not understand." He took out his cat's head medallion and held it out in front of him, peering at it closely.

The thing always gave me the creeps. A permanently hissing house cat kept close to his chest. Seemed a little unnatural to me.

The medallion failed to move other than with a gentle swaying motion signalling an utter lack of magic or monsters in the area.

He shook his head and tucked the pendant back in.

"I dreamt last night." I said. I don't know why I said it. I was aware that I was risking ridicule but somehow I felt that it needed saying. "It's probably nothing but..."

He shrugged. "It might be nothing or it might be something."

I told him about the jumping man and my chase through the village while he stared off towards the woods sipping his drink.

"Interesting," he said as I came to the end.

"If you say so,"

"No, it is," he finished his cup. "You met Jack."

"Jack?"

He stopped and stared at me. "You're joking with me." He said accusingly.

"I'm really not, who's Jack?"

"What are they teaching in that university of yours. Jack is Jack."

I shook my head in bemusement. He seemed to be enjoying my ignorance.

"Jack Flash?" he prompted. "Jumping Jack? Spring heeled Jack. Jack be nimble Jack be quick?

"No?"

I shook my head.

"Who is he?" I asked. "What is he?"

"An omen." The Witcher said. "In this case I suspect he might be a clue. Interestingly, I think he tried to kill you. Just be glad that you didn't meet him in person."

"What? Why? I was dreaming. How could he kill me while I'm asleep?"

The Witcher shrugged as if the answer was beyond his reach. "He's Jack. But his presence, even in a dream, is important." He stared off into space for a moment before shaking his head as if to clear it "As my teacher used to say, it's useless to theorise without information. So far, all we've got is missing people and the presence of Jack. Couple that with some off-putting local practices and a sense that people are partying against the end of the world. Lets find something more definite."

I was looking out over the woods as he said this. The winter fog had crept across it like a wave that shone in the in the morning sunshine. It seemed so still and peaceful but at the same time there were shadows that stood out against the glowing white that seemed to suck at the eye. For a moment, it seemed to me that I stood on the edge of the world where common sense and decency still ruled over everything and that I was staring over the edge to where the darkness dwelt. To where we had driven it with our cities and our so-called reason.

It felt angry.

It took me a moment to realise that the Witcher had strode off like a man with a purpose.

"Who is Jack?" I shouted after him.

He didn't answer.


	11. Chapter 11

"My God," The Witcher swore. "You stupid fucking bastards. What have you done?"

I've talked before about the Witcher's facial expressions. About how you really have to concentrate if you want to catch what he's thinking. The smallest facial tick or shift of eye muscles can betray the smallest shift in his thinking. After a while of such minute study, watching someone else talk is like watching a play, acted out by different actors describing what the person's feeling.

The Witcher was not like that.

At some point in the future I mean to discuss whether or not a Witcher feels emotion and my own reasons as well as Kerrass' feelings on the matter but for the right here and now I will say this. I think that Witchers do indeed feel emotion. But whether because of their lifestyle or childhood or mutations, their emotional...compass I suppose is the best word for it, is slightly out of sync with the rest of us. Kerrass certainly feels emotion. He's pretty good at cold rage for example by which I mean that he controls it and lets it fuel him without letting it overwhelm him. But this was something I had never seen before.

His eyes widened suddenly, the pupils dilated and his mouth hung open while his breathing accelerated suddenly. This is relative you understand. For anyone else this could be describing someone who has just walked uphill but for Kerrass, it seemed to me that this was a massive shift in his emotional state. He took a step backwards, his foot automatically creeping for the position it would be in if he was taking up one of his sword stances. His left hand flexed.

Then he frowned, his eyes narrowed and his lips started moving silently. He caught up the medallion and peered at it, closer than I'd ever seen before. He hung it from his right hand and stared into the hissing cat's eyes.

Then he started to swear.

In several languages.

Never let it be said that Witchers are uneducated.

It had been a frustrating morning for me. The Witcher had ignored my appeals for information about who or what "Jack" was eventually telling me in an exasperated voice that he would tell me later and that "Now wasn't the time for conversations like that." I had already ascertained that that particular tone of voice meant that he felt that the matter was closed.

We walked back into the village that was now well awake. The feeling of something strange going on deepened. A child had gone missing. Where was the group of men getting together to find the child? Where were the shouts and the people demanding that any Witch or suspected evildoer be hung from the nearest tree? Where was the mob with the burning torches and improbable farming equipment held as though they were weapons/?

Instead, people just went about their normal business.

Men worked on furniture. Thatch was repaired, wood was chopped. Children ran around and got in everyone's way.

As we walked through I caught a couple of girls eyeing the pair of us up before putting their heads together and giggling as some plot was hatched.

I found that I was on edge. My weight had moved towards the balls of my feet as though I was in some form of combat practice, I needed to wipe my palms on my trousers. I was getting ready for a fight.

The Witcher led me to a house near the edge of town. It was close to the woods but not remarkably so and was only on the edge of town because that was what the village was really. Near the edge of town and then a lot of barns, workshops and warehouses. Kerrass knocked and let himself in. We were obviously expected by the lady of the house, I would but her at about 25, long hair tied back and tucked under a headscarf. Her face looked haunted and tired but she somehow managed to summon a small smile for the pair of us. The man was tall and massively muscled but the muscle looked slightly off balance giving him a slightly strange way of moving. The muscles of a man that did hard physical labour all day without respite. His hands were heavily callused and he moved throughout the house as we were there, picking things up and moving them, perfunctory efforts to tidy and clean. I would have thought that he was angry but other than the fidgeting he seemed calm and friendly enough.

We were offered honeycakes.

I found myself wishing that I had brought my spear.

"Right then," said my companion, "I wondered if you could go through the entire story again for my companion here and it would do me some good to listen to it as well in the cold light of day rather than just after rising."

The woman just nodded. I noticed that she met the Witchers eyes easily and cleanly which not many people can do. She looked serene and collected as though... I once spoke to a friend who had gone to prison for being drunk and disorderly. It was during a festival so he was not alone and the prison was crowded so he ended up sharing a cell with another man who was due to be beheaded in a couple of days. He told me that the man was quite calm and friendly, chatted freely and exchanged small talk about the world with my friend who said that the man looked at peace and calm. His only discontent was that the decision had been made so why was he waiting to be killed. Resigned, that's the word, she looked as though she was resigned to her fate. This was the way the world works and she just needs to learn to live with it.

She nodded as the Witcher spoke before her blood shot gaze turned to me.

I was wrong. It was simply that all the emotion had left the woman and she had nothing left. Her voice was thick and raspy as she spoke. She often had to clear her throat.

"I don't rightly know what to say. We didn't stay up late as he had tired himself out during the day doing chores and playing with his friends. We'd just started him doing some small jobs around the woodworks y'see so that he could get a good idea of what the work was like and he could settle into it when his time came. He protested a little for the form of things but it seemed as though he was actually relieved to be in bed if I'm honest. I went to wake him up in the morning and his shutters were..."

She choked then, her hand moving to her mouth. As I watched she almost literally swallowed what she was thinking.

"His shutters were open and he wasn't there." She finished in a normal voice.

My companion nodded.

"Where were the two of you last night?" I always admired how he managed to ask these kinds of question without seeming to be accusing towards his subjects.

"I spent some time making a new shirt for the lad as he was growing so fast."

Past tense, already the past tense. That was the problem. These two parents had already given up hope. As though it was simply a matter of fact.

"So I worked on that." She went on. "Little Lucy woke up and had a bit of a fuss so I got her back to sleep, warmed myself some milk and then went to bed."

"and your husband?"

"I was in the tavern last night along with everyone else." The man's voice was gruff but at the same time I was expecting some anger. The questions needed to be asked but they did have a tendency to make parental figures a little bit cross on the possibility that they might have been neglectful. These two weren't Resigned was exactly the right word.

"What time did you get home last night?" Kerrass asked the man.

"I dunno," He thought for a moment. "The two of you were still there though. I wanted to stay a bit longer but I've quite a bit of work to do before Winter properly settles down to it and I wanted to get a good start on things."

The Witcher nodded.

"The shutters. Big heavy things I presume?"

"They have to be," said the woman

"Bolted and latched?" The Witcher went on.

"By my own hand," said the man.

"How long ago did you do that?"

"Maybe a month ago? Around the first frost."

"I'm not from round here is that a usual time to be shuttering up?"

"It's a little early but with the young lass..."

"I see." The Witcher nodded and thought for a moment.

"Are the shutters latched on the inside or the outside?"

"On the inside sir. If you lock them on the outside then young folk round here think it's a funny jape to open the shutters at night."

The Witcher leant forwards.

"When you got home sir, was the house warm or was there any indication that the shutters were open?"

"No sir, the shutters were closed when I got home. It was too warm to be otherwise."

"Big heavy bolts on your shutters?"

"Yessir,"

"Could your son have moved those bolts?"

The parents considered, looked at each other before the man shrugged. "It's possible. He's a strong lad."

"But neither of you heard anything last night."

"No, nothing. We didn't notice anything at all until we woke up this morning."

The Witcher nodded and leant back. "Are you both sound sleepers?"

"Yes and no. We're always tired what with the little 'un but at the same time, when we do sleep..."

"I see yes."

Kerrass stared into space for a while. "One last question then, do you have a local Witch or Wise person. Maybe a Knowing one? Someone noticeably better with herbs and healing than anyone else?"

The woman paused for thought. "No sir I don't think so. Not in my memory at least. We're all quite good at treating injuries and have some knowledge of herbs. Can't help it being next to the woods and being near the sawmill."

"Lumber work is not without it's dangers," The man put in.

The Witcher nodded and frowned slightly.

"Do you mind if we have a look around?"

"Please do?" said the woman.

The man excused himself to go to work. Kerrass walked around the house once, with his hand to his chest and then again with the pendant out and held before his eyes.

I went and had a look at the boys alcove. It wasn't really a room, just an area off the main room big enough for a bed. A thin wooden wall cut it off from the rest of the house but there was no door. The bed was unmade, a mattress of straw and sawdust I did not doubt with some well worn and obviously much loved blankets and pillows. There were a couple of old toys, a wooden sword, a toy soldier and the ever present sewn toy bear that was missing an eye.

The Witcher joined me then and sniffed the air before tucking the pendant back into his jacket. Between us we checked under the mattress to find nothing. We tapped the floor which spectacularly failed to sound hollow and then we had a play with the shutters which were stiff and precisely as chunky as the owners said they were.

A brief experiment was had were I moved through to the parents sleeping area while Kerrass opened and closed the shutters and then in conference we agreed that we could _possibly_ sleep through it being opened, but neither of us were tired parents or small boys and it was the middle of the day with outside bustling and noise rather than the depths of night.

The back of the house where the shutters opened out onto was equally as plain and ordinary. Grass, mixed with moss and general wild-flowers. I recognised Puffball amongst them but Herb lore wasn't in my syllabus at university. The bushes and brambles were quite thick and although I would allow myself to say that I had picked up some Woodscraft, I was by no means an expert and my clothes and hair seemed to get caught on everything. Unlike the Witcher who glided through the entire place thing as though he was made of smoke.

He gestured for me to stay back as he examined the floor carefully, staying well away from the area immediately beneath the window before examining the window ledge and edges. He beckoned me forward and I knelt to see what I was bid. Without his hints I wouldn't have seen what he had seen but I could see what was there when he pointed at it.

The child had clambered out of the window, catching a piece of clothing on a splinter before landing in the overgrowth where he had staggered and fell to his knees. Then he had stood up where I could imagine he had brushed the dead leaves and bits of twig from his trousers or smock and had strode off.

The Witcher followed the tracks, slowly and carefully. He would never pick anything up or move anything aside he would just peer at it, maybe taking a deep sniff. If he couldn't move through a gap in the branches that the child had moved through he would bid me wait for him there before moving through the undergrowth to find another way through and asking me to join him.

The child had walked in an easy curve keeping himself in sight of the village but sufficiently deep in the woods so that he would not easily be spotted by any wandering villagers. It wasn't very far before his tracks came to a path that led from the village to the woods. The Witcher frowned for a moment and told me to stay still before he used the path to go back to the village.

He came back, plainly thinking hard.

"The path peters out just before the edge of the village." He said quietly, almost to himself. "There's even some heavy-duty bushes between here and the village itself that a strong adult could force their way through but they would lose some clothes and skin as they did so if they did it without an axe."

I nodded and bent to look at the ground. "So not so much a path, more a track. Like a deer track or rabbit track when they use the same route over and over again."

The Witcher nodded. "Lets go see where it leads."

Before we did so we did a little scout around to see if the boy had continued off but his tracks vanished into the well worn track. As we looked we could occasionally see the odd scuff mark in the ground or a recently broken twig that told us that the child had indeed gone this way.

We followed. I felt the lack of my spear even more.

The track lead into the woods by a kind of meandering route, overall it went in one direction but by the same measurement it also often took detours that carried no reason behind it. Signs of civilisation were soon left behind us and I tried to think of the last time I had seen a woodcutters mark or signs of ground clearance.

We went slowly and carefully, testing each step and each movement. The Witcher would stop occasionally and pull out his medallion to examine.

I asked about making marks or tying some string to avoid getting lost despite the path.

He smiled at me. One of those smiles that were him telling me how naïve I was.

I didn't mind really as I was well aware how out of my depth I was.

"Not bad ideas if this were a normal wood." He said, scratching his chin. "But if it's a letch or spriggan or some other kind of woodland spirit then it might take offence at us harming the trees. The string's a good idea but if it's a beast that abducts rather than just eats on the spot then it is certainly clever enough to cut a line of string. Don't worry though. We're moving in the same direction, the village is over there," he waved. "We haven't gone very far at all and one of three things will happen. One, my medallion will twitch in which case we hide, or two... It attacks, in which case you run and I try and get a good look at it before I join you. Or three, we find the end of the path."

"How reassuring," I muttered.

He grinned nastily at me before we went on again.

As it turned out it was option three.

The path petered out becoming less and less clear. Something caught the Witcher's eye near the end of the path and he bade me wait. He crouched down and peered at a spot which was the same as the next bit to my eyes. Then he moved slowly forward before stopping. He stared at the ground for a long moment before equally as carefully gazing at the forest roof.

"Wait here," he said before jogging off in a quick circle, bent close to the ground.

Then he did it again, much more slowly and carefully, moving individual forest flowers aside, fingering the moss and the twigs, all the while holding onto his medallion as though it was a life giving artefact.

Which for all I know it is.

Eventually, looking rather unsatisfied he rejoined me.

"So he stopped here," he pointed "and waited. Maybe a minute, maybe two. He shifted his weight a little, fidgeting I suppose, kid like that. Then he went from standing utterly still to running. Full pelt in that direction." He gestured again.

"Afraid of something?" I suggested.

"Or running towards something, or someone." he countered, not arguing or refuting, just... musing. "The problem with both theories," he went on suddenly, "is that the tracks go on for maybe a dozen paces before vanishing. Just vanishing, from one step to the next."

"So he was taken." I said, "carried off by someone or something."

"So it would seem. The problem with that is that there is no other sign. None."

He stared into space and blew out a long slow breath.

"I'm not boasting but I would count myself amongst the top ten trackers in the northern kingdoms."

He said. "There are spells that can do better, can show the past of an area but other than that, Witchers and elven hunters are the best at tracking something and Witchers are better than elves at spotting monster sign. It's what we're trained for after all."

He shook his head as if to shake off a thought.

"He came here. He skirted the village and then followed the path." He looked over at me. "Why would someone do that. Throw some ideas at me."

"If he was a bit older I would say it was an assignation with a girl."

"I agree, or I would if it was a bit warmer, surely a hayloft would be better for that at this time of year. Why else?"

"If not to meet someone then...I don't know... to retrieve something that he'd lost. He followed past landmarks to find it."

The Witcher nodded thoughtfully before shaking his head.

"No, his tracks would have moved around the area as he searched. He stood in one place."

"So that means that coming out to finish a chore left undone is out as well. There would be something here to... Well... Chore."

The Witcher nodded agreement.

"So," he decided, "The child came out here to meet someone. It was a clandestine meeting as he left in secret and skirted the village rather than walking through openly. He followed a track. A track that, in my judgement, many others have followed before. H reached the destination, in this case the end of the track, then he waited. One minute, two minutes. Then he sees something..."

"Wait," I said. "He only waited two minutes. How often have you gone to meet someone and they're only one or two minutes either side of you. His..." I waved my hand for inspiration, "friend or enemy was waiting for him but was hidden from view. Where they could see him but he couldn't see them."

"Good," The Witcher rubbed his hand. "That's good thinking. Whoever, or whatever took the boy could sense or see his approach. Can't test any kind of 'sensing'. Could you stand where he did and crouch a little?"

I did so and the Witcher disappeared for a lot longer before returning shaking his head.

"Nothing," he said. "No-one was watching from the bushes. We can be all but certain of it."

I nodded, a little disappointed.

"So he waited." The Witcher started. "Then something made him move. He went from stock still to full pelt running as well."

"He saw something." I said, "A monster?"

"Or someone he was waiting for," The Witcher went on. He thought. "The tracks don't match up with something terrifying. Fear is a paralytic. People stagger, torn between the instincts of fight or flight. You get scuff-marks."

Kerrass wasn't happy with this though, I could tell.

"No we can't be certain of that, whether he was running to something, or away from something," he decided. "Then the boy disappears."

"Or was taken." I put in.

"But there are no tracks." The Witcher stated again. "Even wraiths leave sign if you know what you're looking for. Noon-wraiths scorch the earth, night wraiths freeze it but the ground is evenly frozen. Any other wraith would leave grave-dust of which there is none."

"So what else could do it? A flying monster?"

"No blood-spatter," The Witcher said simply. "Believe me, there would be blood-spatter. Plus the canopy of the woods is unbroken with no other stock being taken, no local sheep or goats. It wasn't a flying monster."

"A wood spirit, the spriggans you spoke of."

He shook his head. "They leave sign, The child would be here if a woods spirit was dissatisfied with them."

He frowned.

"Vampire?" he said aloud, "No, it would have to be an elder with a mist-form and again there would be a corpse. Not a Witch as the medallion would give sign of that which means..."

He petered off.

"My God," He swore, "You stupid fucking bastards. What have you done?" He took his medallion out, and peered at it.

"I didn't know you were religious," I said, making a joke,

"Shut up," he said.

I found that my hands were sweating and I wanted to urinate. I realised in a detached sort of way that I was becoming terrified.

"That's it, he muttered. "That's it,"

"My God," He swore again following it with several more curses in languages that I didn't know but could recognise their intent.

"Run," he said. "Back to the village, now, do not stop. Do not look back. I am right behind you."

"Wha...?"

"RUN," he screamed at me, physically turning and pushing me as his sword leapt into his hands.

I had never seen him like this and I answered his order as best as I could, sprinting down the tracks as fast as I could.

It was only a small track though and I wasn't looking, Branches whipped at me, the cold air stinging my face and causing my eyes to tear up. I stumbled but the Witchers strong hands hauled me up by the collar and pushed me onwards. His terror was palpable and it fed my own like throwing lantern oil on a fire.

We ran and we did not look back.

The last bramble bush was there and we ran through it. I don't think I could have done it again in cold blood. The bush was huge, viciously spiky and it certainly drew blood, I heard cloth tear and I yelped in the sudden and bright pain that tore at my flesh but I got through and nearly staggered into the arms of a burly wood-cutter.

The Witcher was maybe a step behind me.

"Get away from him," he snarled at the wood-cutter. "Get away from him or I swear by all that's..."

The poor man fled before the wild-eyed Witcher, whose rage and terror was a physical thing, battered at the people around us.

"What the fuck?" I managed but I was winded.

"Where's your spear?" He asked.

"At the inn,"

"Good,"

He leant back and took a deep breath, visibly grabbing hold of himself and pulling his mind back from madness. When he opened his eyes he was my companion again. Reasonable, distant and collected. But something flickered in his eyes, like a spark that was buried in an almost dead hearth-fire.

"What the hell?" I managed still gasping for breath and taking stock of my ruined clothing.

"Jack," Kerrass whispered, almost to himself. "Jack was the clue. Not him but someone..."

"Who is Jack?" I demanded.

I don't know what I expected but I didn't expect the next thing.

He moved, so quick it was a blur.

He grabbed me by the collar and hissed

"Don't ask me that," his voice was quiet. "Don't even think that, until we're a good two days ride away. Ask me then and I'll tell you what I know. But don't ask me that. Don't even think that."

He let me go.

"For now," he went on. "This isn't Jack. Not his style. For your souls sake... Put him from your mind."

He took another breath.

"Excuse me friend," he said to the nearby woodcutter who was still shaking like a leaf. "Could you

tell me where the Head-man is?"

"H-He's m-meeting with the village council sir."

"Where's that?"

"The inn sir, please don't..."

"I'm sorry about that friend, I was out of sorts and quite, quite terrified." The Witcher smiled a little ruefully. "I'll buy you a beer later to make up for it."

The man perked up a little.

"Incidentally," The Witcher went on, conversationally. "Could I borrow your axe?"

The Witcher actually whistled as we walked through the village, axe on his shoulder as though what we were doing was perfectly normal. The change in his attitude was jarring, from fierce and murderous terror and rage to the good cheer of a man going for a stroll.

With a large axe swinging easily in his hand.

Not that I knew what we were doing, but something about my companion's demeanour suggested that there was going to be violence. In the ways of villages everywhere people started to find chores to do outside where they could see what was happening, which of course made the whistling even louder.

We got to the door of the inn where the Witcher took the time to take a couple of practice swings with the axes, grunting as he did so.

"You know, you've still got your sword on right?"

"Mmm? Oh yes, but that wouldn't really make my point."

"Which is?"

"Which is how angry I am," His voice was deadpan and I couldn't tell if he was joking or not. "Be ready for violence."

One of the first lessons that Kerrass gave me about fighting was that to be ready for violence was to be ready to strike hard and strike first. This was so that the bastard never got a chance to get in another swing at you and if there's any doubt then put your thumb through his eye.

So it was going to be that kind of conversation with the Headman.

I rocked my head from side to side and rolled my shoulders out before nodding.

The Witcher nodded back and opened the door.

"Hello everyone." He said loudly. Big, obviously fake smile plastered all over his face.

"Uhh, Hello Master Witcher, can we help you?" The head man was sitting at one end of a set of tables that had been pushed together, stools and chairs had been arranged and most of them were occupied. There were also a couple of guys at the bar but that was it. The innkeeper was polishing cups near the end of the bar closest to the meeting and seemed to be taking part while at the same time taking drink orders. There were a number of big burly men, similar to the father of the missing boy as well as several slighter men who were surrounded by slates and papers. I moved past the Witcher and sat at the bar, catching the barman's eye and pointing to a barrel that contained some ale.

"Yes, as a matter of fact you can." Kerrass played with the axe, swinging it around so that the air whistled and I saw more than one pair of eyes note it's presence. The innkeeper poured my drink, watching Kerrass carefully. "You can tell me what it is that lives in the woods."

The reaction of the people in the room was instant and profound. People shifted weight, leaned back and took breaths.

"You can also tell me," the Witcher went on, "Which idiot it was decided to sell out the entire village to something like that?"

"Mast Witcher sir," The Head man tried, "I hardly think that this is the time or..."

"Or was it that you're all in on it? Did you all do it? Did you all wake up one morning and decide that the occasional child sacrifice was a worthwhile price to pay for whatever it was that you all got in return for it? You sick fucks," The Witcher's cold fury washed over the room. Most of the people there went red in the face, outraged sputtering and some mouths opened to shout obscenities. One of the men at the bar rose to leave but the other had gone pale. The barman moved to a very specific area of the bar, one of his hands sank below the counter.

I noted it carefully, I've never met an innkeeper in the world who didn't have a club or some other kind of defensive weapon hidden under the bar.

The general noise level rose to a point where the Witcher couldn't talk or shout over the din. It then became obvious why he had wanted the axe.

It came up in a swing, behind the shoulder and whistled back down with incredible speed and force before it was driven into the middle of the meeting table.

Which split.

Spilling everyone's slates, papers and drinks onto the floor and all over the attendees.

The barman reacted first but I had been waiting for that and drove my still mostly full tankard into the man's temple.

He collapsed as though he had just folded up.

The man at the bar pulled a hatchet from his belt and stared at me. I through the remains of the tankard at his head making him duck.

Unfortunately for him this gave me enough time to grab the bar stool I was sitting on and smash it over his head.

He too collapsed.

The Witcher drew his sword.

I had forgotten that it was still the silver one. Where his steel sword was made out of meteorite iron and therefore had an ugly black, unpleasant kind of look. The silver sword shone in the firelight and somehow, despite how well it was oiled, the sound of it being drawn echoed in the room.

The silence was suddenly total, broken only by the groaning of the barman. I wondered if I had killed the other man but he seemed to stir a little.

Something started to drip ominously into the silence.

"Being a Witcher is a tough job." Kerrass said in his cold, raspy killer's voice, "We make it look easy because if we weren't good at it then we would all be dead. For the most part it's a simple thing. There's a nest of Nekkers that needs destroying or a Griffin that needs murdering or something. But sometimes it gets complicated. You know what the biggest reason is that Witchers die?

"No?

"Then I'll tell you,

"It's because fuckwits like you try to keep things from us.

"'Save us from the Witch,' they say forgetting to tell us that they were the ones that summoned the Witch in the first place.

"'kill that Wyvern' they say without mentioning that it's actually the local princesses favourite pet dragon.

"On a smaller scale the problem comes when we're not given fully complete information. Does the Forktail have green eyes or red eyes? Does the Griffin have grey tail feathers or brown? If so we need separate potions to deal with that.

"I can see that you want to know what the point is for all of this.

"This morning you tell me that another person has gone missing, this time a child. My companion and I leap into action. We investigate, we track and question. We enter the forest. We find a track, a track obviously left by many other people. A track so deep that it's impossible to conceive that anyone who has lost a loved one would not find it. We follow the track and we find some clues. Shall I tell you what those clues are?

"The child vanished. It wasn't done by magical means. There are no tracks or blood traces or clothing scraps or anything to indicate any kind of monster or human or non-human assailant. The canopy is not broken so it wasn't a flying creature so what was it? There are only two possibilities, the first is that it's an elder vampire that can assume a mist form. However just because a vampire could turn itself into mist does not mean it could turn it's prey into mist, besides, why would it bother? There is it's quarry, chomp chomp, mmmm lovely blood, move on. See my earlier comments. Also, I have some experience with Elder vampires. Believe me when I say that they are very good, and very keen, to police their own. People going missing on a semi-regular basis from the same place? Awfully sloppy of a vampire to let that shit go. So I discount that theory.

"You understand that I'm just thinking aloud at this point.

"That means that there is only one theory left.

"That something _else_ lives in the woods. Something you, or someone summoned for reasons that I could care less about. Something non-magical but extremely powerful in it's own right. Something so old and rare that my medallion doesn't react to it. Maybe it was summoned so that the woods would never run out of lumber. Maybe it was so that their family would always survive, or maybe it was for the good of the village as a whole given the other clues.

"I think it's the last option.

"What were those clues?

"The track that the victims have followed. A track so ingrained that this must have been going on for years and that the numbers of victims are far from small.

"The fact that no notice has been posted for a Witcher or similar to deal with the problem. We learn about it from local gossip. You are obviously not poor judging by some of your clothing, the scale of the works and your ability to hire on work crews so a Witcher or Sorceror of some kind would not be out of your price range... So why haven't you sent off for one?

"How lethargic everyone is about a missing child. In any other village or town that I've ever visited, a missing child results in everyone being rousted out. Crowds arrive from nowhere to help in the search. Saving a child means that we all get to feel better about ourselves. But you lot have already

given the child up for dead.

"Now you should count yourselves as fortunate. Very fortunate indeed that I reasoned this out before harm came to either my companion or myself. I don't know what he'd do but I suspect it would go along some lines that he would pack up his gear, head to the nearest city and alert the authorities. Probably not to much result but he's the sort of person that wouldn't let it go and people would investigate. Knowing him, some form of scholarly type. Unfortunately for you, if a man can afford to spend his life as a scholar then he tends to be quite important. How long before one of these important men goes missing?

"As for him? If something had happened to him I would have drowned this place in blood." There was a brutal simplicity to the statement that made it all the more threatening.

"There is a third option," said one of the younger men. He had pulled himself to his feet and drawn a knife. "Something could have happened to both of you."

The Witcher rolled his eyes, calmly moved towards the young man, grabbed his knife arm and slammed the pommel of his sword into the back of the young man's head.

"Please," he said scornfully as he bent to pick up the knife. "You people would only suffer from the trying." He stared at the knife in disgust before driving it into the wall and applying pressure until the blade snapped.

"So now I have questions that I require answers to. After which I will decide whether or not I'm going to kill everyone here. Francis?" he said to me, "Could you bolt and then jam the door so we can talk uninterrupted."

I nodded and set about my task.

"So my questions are this," Kerrass went on. "What lives there? Who summoned it? Why? And What was it's price? There may be follow up questions. Then I will want to know whether you still want my help? If not, we ride away. If you do then we will discuss pricing based on your answers to my earlier questions."

His eyes seemed to blaze for a moment.

"The earlier questions are non-negotiable."

The Head man nodded miserably and righted a table. The Witcher sat. I found a couple of tankards and poured the three of us some ale, leaving some money on the counter and propping up the bar man. I left the other man that I had struck where he was, the innkeeper had been hospitable to me and therefore deserved my help. It would later astonish me as to how easily I had made that distinction.

The Witcher sat. I noticed that he had taken a stool. Even allowing for the fact that he had sheathed his sword, it didn't look any the less threatening.

"So what is it?" he said after taking a long drink from his tankard.

"I will admit to not rightly knowing." The man looked as though he had aged twenty years in the last five minutes. "I don't know what it is, all I can tell you is the story of what happened."

The Headman was the next person to take a long swallow of ale from his tankard. I got up and filled a large jug of ale figuring that it would save on shoe leather if I didn't have to keep getting up and going to get more beer. The Inn-keeper was beginning to look a little more awake and nodded as I told him that this round was to be put on the head-man's tab.

"All village headmen get told this story but at the same time the story's not a secret and the job has run in my family since these events.

The village was just getting going, making a good living off cutting trees down and then selling off the wood. I don't know why the village was established here but I do know that the majority of that wood was sent off to one of the local towns to aid in that town's being built. Suddenly and for no readily apparent reason we got a case of wood-rot, you know what that is?"

We both shook our heads.

"It's a disease amongst trees and we still don't know what causes it. Some people claim it's something to do with insects and some other people claim that it's spiritual, a curse or whatever. In short, the trees we were cutting down turned out to be rotten. More and more it happened. We worked harder and harder but there was less and less to show for it. Things were getting desperate. Clients were threatening action which in those days involved soldiers and heads on spikes. Money and food was running out and things were going badly for everyone."

He took another drink.

"It sounds relatively minor as I say it now but at the time it was serious. Some people were leaving the village declaring that it was a bad investment. It was a just a cycle of ruin. Less money, less food. Less food, worse health. Worse health, less strength. Less strength, less wood. Less wood, less money. The village was desperate and in the way of such things it was the village headman that took the blame.

"I can well imagine how desperate the man must have been to see things through and get his people out of trouble. I sometimes think about what I would have done in his place.

"One night something snapped in the man. He took his youngest son into the trees.

"It seems alien now that a man would do that to his own child but the man was desperate and those were different times. A parent reasons that their child is suffering and there's nothing to be done. Removing the child means that there is one less mouth to feed. One less suffering voice. He wasn't the first to take that option but as it turned out, that wasn't what he was doing.

"He went out into the trees at dusk. He came back a day later but he looked as though he had been gone for several more days without food and water. He had a fever and was shivering. The local herb-woman cared for him and he returned to health but the village didn't care.

"Because none of the trees that were felled the following day were rotten. Energy was suddenly in everyone's mind. The trees weren't rotten. We examined that wood carefully to make sure that we weren't wrong because if the wood was rotten and those beams collapsed then their delivery would be worse than no delivery at all.

"But no, all the wood was fine, as it was the following day and the day after that. We rejoiced and fell to the work with new found fervour.

"A month went buy, food was bought, wood was sold, people came back and everything was right with the villages world again.

"Then a girl went missing. Fourteen years old she was, long blonde hair, the memory of history says that she was a beautiful girl, kind and well-spoken to everyone. Village men and boys were counting the days until she was of marriageable age.

"Her name was Amber,

"The story goes that the village searched and searched. The place was a lot different then. We had some good men then who knew the ways of the wild. Her tracks were easily found as the girl had never learnt to hide them herself. The trail was as you described. She went into the woods in a relatively straight line for a small distance, not very far at all. She seemed to wait for a while before simply vanishing.

"They assumed an assignation of some kind. A wandering noble or knight had seen the girl, noticed her beauty and spirited her off to have his way with her. The hunters didn't agree as there were no other tracks.

"The head-man, to his credit did not hide past this point and his story came out. He had been the grand-son of a man whom his father had fled when he was old enough to help found this village but one day the Grandfather came to find his Grandson and had given him a book. The old man turned out to be a priest of the Lion headed Spider cult."

My companion hissed.

"When things had started to get really bad the book had been read and a solution had been found. He had walked into the woods and summoned...something. He described it as a dark form, a dark...man of some kind. He said that it seemed to struggle to find a shape."

"A deal was struck," my companion prompted.

"Yes. In return for one life a month, the village would be prosperous. That was the extent of the deal."

"Not nearly defined enough." The Witcher said.

"I agree. The creature chose the life so it couldn't be a volunteer for a start. Nor is the period regular, it's not on the fourth of every month for example. We don't know their fate and none have ever come back. There are other conditions as well.

"No-one who is born here is ever allowed to move away. We can leave on business trips or to court a spouse or something but we always have to come back. We're also not allowed to send off for help about the problem. The problem was a little commuted when work crews started to come in. No-one misses the odd lumberjack from out of town and they do just wander off sometimes or get into fights where a knife is pulled and they fight over women and things. It's horrible and yes, I am aware that that makes us guilty of murder but... The deal was made for us."

The Witcher nodded. I was astonished that he seemed almost sympathetic.

"Has anyone tried to talk to this being since?"

"It's been tried, sometimes those expeditions come back. Sometimes they don't,"

"What happened to the book?"

The Head-man chuckled despairingly.

"When the headman confessed, the local Witch fled. She just packed up and went. The rest of the village flew into a rage, burnt the book and lynched the head-man. My ancestor was the man who put the noose round the man's neck."

"And you've been living like this ever since."

"Yes."

The Witcher nodded and spent a long time staring into space.

"Will you help us?" The headman asked nervously.

"I am not sure I can," said the Witcher honestly. "Such beings are exceedingly dangerous and there is no secure method of dealing with them. Sorcerers and Witches have more sense than to try and deal with them."

He stared into space.

"I will try," he said after a long time. "But something to think about. If I try and fail, or succeed for that matter, by which I mean that it kills me or I banish it, then there will be repercussions against you. It will probably kill my companion in revenge and you will feel it as well."

The head-man nodded.

"You understand that this might also mean the Wood-rot comes back?"

The head man nodded.

"Can't you kill it?" he asked even though I thought he knew the answer,

"Such things can't be killed," The Witcher said flatly. "Do you still want me to help?"

"Master Witcher. Twelve people a year doesn't sound like a lot, but it means that in the long term, every single person here knows that, barring accident or illness. None of us will die in our beds. We all end up taking that track into the woods. There is no grave-yard in the village. None of us have gone back to the earth or been burned in accordance with the holy flame meaning that we are damned by old religion and new. If you can break this curse then it will not matter. We have money, even taking away your fee which I already suspect will be considerable. We can make a new start elsewhere."

"It may follow you."

"Then it follows us." The head-man said savagely. "But at least this way our children will have a chance."

The Witcher nodded.

"I have a lot of thinking to do," he said.

Kerrass went to where his gear had been stowed, took out his steel sword. Slung it on his back next to the silver one and walked out the door without saying another word.

We all watched him.

Unmoving.


	12. Chapter 12

It seemed only fair that I stay for a little while to help them clear up. I felt a little guilty now that everything had come out and I had caused some of the damage after all. The barman acknowledged my apology and moved off with the odd dark but hopeful look while the man who I clobbered with a stool took it all rather well.

"Sorry about that my friend," I told him with very little contrition.

"Don't worry about it," he said rubbing the back of his head with a cloth. "I was probably going to knife your friend."

We shook hands and as far as I could tell, that was the end of it. Odd how, not half an hour earlier, we were trying to kill each other and now we were getting on as reasonably good friends. I even caught him at one point when he threatened to wobble onto the floor.

I set things to rights as best as I could before I went outside carrying my spear. The Witcher was easy to spot. He had stripped down to the waist in the freezing cold and was performing his sword practices. It was the special one, the one designed to work up a sweat rather than to perform to an audience. He had built a small fire nearby and there was a small pot over the fire that was steaming. Everything about him seemed to suggest that he was deep into the process of preparing himself for a fight and by the look of him it was going to be a serious fight.

I shrugged and started to perform my own exercises. To be honest I was expecting to not be involved in this particular hunt on the grounds that it sounded far too dangerous. I had found a small fenced enclosure and was practising with my spear while making plans for a night of a few beers with some pretty women.

Then a lad of maybe six years old came to find me and summon me to the Witchers side.

He was knelt in front of his small fire with his eyes closed. Still stripped to the waist. I can't speak for him but I was shivering just looking at him. I had seen him a couple of times without his shirt and the number of scars in his lean frame always caught me off guard. An instant, if momentary, rush of fear and pity for a man whose entire existence was to walk into the dark places of the world to fight creatures that prey on us. All so that we don't have to. Then when he gets wounded, even horrifically so, he patches himself on and goes to perform the next task.

His sword was laying on the ground in front of him, hilt towards his right hand and I knew from experience that even though he was knelt down he could be upright and swinging that sword at a moments notice.

The silver sword was on his back and his medallion was clutched tight in his left hand in the same way that a priest might hold on to his chain or symbol of office.

He opened his eyes as I approached, I tried to see any sign of any of the potions that he must have already taken in preparation for the nights adventures. Were his eyes that little bit more dilated? His speech slurred or his skin that little bit paler? I knew that one of the potions, something he referred to as "White Gull" was a kind of preparatory drink that a Witcher drinks in advance of the rest of his potions to prepare their bodies for the onslaught of new toxins. It was also a mild hallucinogen and occasionally brought on tremors.

For the first time I wondered whether or not it was the potions and their toxic components that made Witchers who they were rather than the training and mutations. There was no way to tell of course, other than performing an autopsy and I had sworn never to do that or to allow his body to be used in that way.

"Hello," he said quietly. "You'll forgive me for not getting up." It wasn't a question. He was enunciating all his words particularly carefully, biting off every consonant and sounding every vowel fully.

I sat next to him and fold my legs, my spear next to me. He would take his time or possibly wait a little longer before the negative effects of the potion began to wear off before speaking.

It was also the first time that I thought of those potions as drugs akin to fisstech or opiates. I wondered if he was addicted and if he was, how would I tell? Maybe that was why he kept doing what he did? Because he was addicted to the stuff he took so that he could do the things that he had to do.

I still haven't asked that question and I haven't dared ask him since.

Yet.

"I need to ask you to make a choice," he said suddenly. His voice was a little deeper but his diction was much closer to what was usual for him.

"Is it an easy choice?" I joked trying for some levity.

The corner of his lips twitched. He was in full on Witcher mode now and that was as close to a smile as I was going to get.

"It should be." He said, just as quietly as before. "It should be very easy. But I would be lying to you if I could tell you which option I want you to choose, although I know which one I would choose in your place."

"That was very cryptic and confusing," I said, "even for you,"

"I know,"

He took a deep breath.

"Your choice is this. You can either, walk down from this hill top, saddle your hose and ride away to the village where we first heard of this place. Wait for me there for two days. If I have not joined you then I am either dead or worse and you should move on."

"Right," I tried to keep my voice neutral although I'm pretty sure I failed.

"The other choice is that you come with me."

With exaggerated care he reached up and scratched his chin.

"Tonight I'm going into the woods." he said, his voice sounded a little as though he was already dead. "I'm going into the woods and I'm going to try to find this thing, this...entity. I intend to try and get it to release the village."

"Right?" I prompted. I felt as though I was waiting for the punchline.

"That's it." He said, that's your choice.

"So I come with you, or I leave town?"

"Yes,"

"No middle ground."

"No."

I stared at him for a moment. I found that I was getting angry.

"Well," I said, unable to keep the sarcasm from my voice. "That gives me plenty of information to make an informed decision."

"I know. I am sorry for that."

I stared at him. "This is the first time that you've tried to hide something from me. I've asked you so many questions. You've answered some and some you've just refused to say anything but those things are all about Witchers. What lives in those woods Kerrass?" I demanded.

"I cannot say."

"Why not?" I started to feel like a petulant child. "What's the danger behind knowing what this creature is? Why is it different from a vampire or a griffin or, or, I dunno some kind of Ghost. I've seen some pretty horrifying things since starting my travels with you, including some things that I still have nightmares about and some other things that I didn't believe existed. What is different about this?"

My anger seemed to wash over him like a wave washes over the rocks on a beach. He was unchanged afterwards.

"The difference is, that this time it can hear us."

"Fuck off,"

"No I'm serious Franklin. Men have studied these things, several men and every single one of them has a life time of calamity, followed by going mad, followed by dying for seemingly unrelated reasons. None of which have to do with their subjects. The most recent that I heard about was late last year, a Professor in Oxenfurt who died when his house collapsed on him.

"Houses have been collapsing all the time in Oxenfurt. It's shoddily built, we know this. It's what you get for building houses on an island. No foundations to speak of."

"Precisely my point." Said the Witcher. "You feel like you're being dismissed but I'm not dismissing you. You should go, you should save yourself if and while you still can."

"If?"

"Yes if. It's undoubtedly sensed your presence by now. Your dream about Jack will have seen to that."

"WHO IS JACK?" I demanded.

"I'M NOT GOING TO TELL YOU." He screamed back. "I wish I'd never told you his name now." He went on. I noticed that his spittle was pink. "I will not condemn you to death and madness while we are so close to one of the sources of that."

"What are you going to do?"

"I told you I'm going into the woods to..."

"To find this entity, yes, you said. What then? You fight it?"

He gave his slight smile again. "No, you don't fight things like this. You run from them."

"What is it?" I pleaded. "Tell me, please. You're killing me with this."

"I know and I'm sorry."

"You run from them?" I said after a while, trying to calm myself.

"Yes,"

"But you're not going to?"

"No,"

"Why not?"

The Witcher took another deep breath.

"I don't know." He said after a while. "During training we were warned about things like this. We were told in no uncertain terms that when you come across something like this you should run. Leave the people who were foolish enough to make a deal with it to their fate and get out of the town. Also, don't stop riding until you're at least 20 miles away. That was my first urge. It's trained into me, remembered through pain. It's almost an instinctual thing. That was what I wanted to do earlier when we came out of the woods. Saddle up and then run.

"But I frightened that woodcutter."

He stared into the flames for a long time. "I don't know why but I find I can't leave them to their fate. These people I mean. I can't just stand by. I have to try and save them."

He pinched the bridge of his nose before gesturing for his potion box that was nearby and I pushed it over. He took a small sip from a jar of red coloured slime and washed it down with some water.

"What are you going to do?" I asked after a moment

"These things like making deals but if there's one thing they like more it's playing a game. Making a wager. They love it and the higher the stakes, the more they love it. I mean to challenge it to a contest."

"A game?" I asked incredulously.

"As you say."

"A game." I muttered again.

"Yes."

"What if you lose?"

"It could vary. From that I will no longer be able to see the colour blue, all the way up to the loss of my soul. I can't worry about that now."

"What's the game?"

The Witcher shrugged. Some of the life seemed to be coming back to him now, a little more colour to his cheeks. "Does it matter? They always cheat so what I have to do, is to ensure my victory."

"How do you do that?"

"I have two plans. The first I will do if you don't come with me. The second is if you do come with me."

I nodded.

"You're not going to tell me what these plans are?"

"No." He shrugged. As much of an apology as I was going to get. "The problem is, that if I give you too much knowledge then one of two things will happen. The first is that the full weight of knowledge will cause you to be terrified. You will freeze and be unable to do anything."

"Sounds bad, what's the other thing?"

"The other thing is worse. You get arrogant and complacent and start to assume that you know better than it and that you have it trapped or that you have a way out. People always think this but they are always, always wrong."

"Fucking lovely," I said. "Which is the better plan?"

"Both plans are fucked. Because if it understands or has a counter to my strategy then neither of us are coming out of those woods. That and it's been playing these games for a long time. Understand that we will almost certainly fail. The odds are better if you come with me, but only slightly."

"That's harsh." I was being played and we both knew it.

"I know,"

"You know which one I'm going to choose now don't you?"

He sighed.

"I do and for what it's worth I am so very sorry."

"I'm coming with you."

"Because you're a romantic and I just asked you for help."

I nodded. I had been hooked and sunk by my own rod.

The Witcher stared into the fire for a long time.

"You should get some rest. Get some sleep if you can. Eat a big meal if you can stomach it but don't drink any alcohol. Also, try to get laid. That's not a joke, nor is it because you might die and it's probably your last night alive although that's also true."

I nodded but the words were barely registering.

"Take it from someone who knows." He went on, "Write tender letters to your family, close friends and lovers. I will make sure that the head man posts them on. For what it's worth. I'm going to charge them a fortune for this and half of it's yours."

I smiled at this despite myself and saw it reflected in his eyes.

"I'll find you just before midnight." He said and turned back to the fire.

He was reaching for another potion bottle as I turned away.

I felt a little numb, as though I was floating along in some kind of dream. It didn't occur to me to try and go back on my word. I had told Kerrass that I was going with him and as a result I was now going with him. I couldn't go back on that. He had seemed genuinely sorry that I would be joining him but at the same time... He knew I would come. He just knew it. Of course he did and I felt a little used and ridiculed at the same time.

Was I really that easy to predict?

I went in search of some food. I rather felt that getting some sleep was a forlorn hope given what was probably going to happen later.

The innkeepers wife gave me a large steak and fried up some mushrooms and potatoes to go with it. She apologised for her husband when she found out that I was helping the Witcher with his shenanigans later although it sounded strangely derogatory towards myself to admit that I was basically along as bait.

I ate my food and wondered what to do next. I asked if there was a shrine so that I could make my peace and figuring that prayers couldn't hurt in our evenings endeavours. But unfortunately there wasn't one and she seemed surprised that she hadn't really thought about that before now.

Then my family occurred to me. I found paper amongst my things as well as some sealing wax, ink and several quills. Found a corner table and sat down to write.

The first letter was to my tutors at the university. I wrote to tell them that if they got this letter that they should assume my death at the hands of a demon in the lack of any other information. I told them that I enclosed letters to friends and family as well as all the notes and sketches that I had made since travelling with the Witcher for them to do with as they pleased. It was by far the easiest letter to write.

Then a couple of quick lines written to my friends at the university dishing out my limited possessions to the people who would get the most from them. It was a depressingly small list.

Several letters were started before being thrown into the fire as I found myself wondering why I was caring about this person or that person and did I really want to remember myself to that girl that dumped me that one time.

I found it odd that the possible, even probable, arrival of my death had changed my perspective slightly.

Then came my family.

My father is an increasingly disappointed, bitter, dried up old man and at one point I hated him for that. Everything he had done had been geared towards dragging his family further out of the mud and make us a power in the country. I never knew my Grandfather but if my father was to be believed he was some kind of muck farmer who was tired with scraping a living out of the dirt. Everything that my Grandfather did was towards the goal of making his family rich. Apparently he would say proudly that he had started out with nothing but the ragged clothes on his back and to be fair to the old man he must have worked hard. He married my Grandmother to accrue more wealth and then he had bought himself a noble title and some lands so that he became a Baron and more importantly he was now part of the nobility.

I don't know what he expected to happen. Whether he suddenly expected to be seated at the same table as the King or that the people that had looked down on him as some kind of commoner before his rise to the nobility would suddenly open their arms to him and greet him as friend. Instead they had even behaved worse as my Grandfather had missed the truth, that I was only just learning at this point, that some people just like looking down on other people. But this disappointment crippled him. He went back to his original scheme which was to just make more money and even more money. But the other nobility hated him for it despite the lavish parties he would throw. He recognised that he was throwing good money after bad and became a recluse.

My father had inherited the old man's talent for making money and his sour disposition and precious little else. He had expanded the families fortunes massively and so we had been able to upgrade from a manor house to a castle. Nothing huge, but big enough and strategic enough that he had to ask the Kings permission to do so. Permission that had cost another pretty penny and even then, despite the sponsorship of tourneys and balls as well as good works and the raising of troops during the wars... Our family was still seen as jumped up Merchants and was ostracised while our entertainments were enjoyed and our hospitality abused.

You understand that those words are taken almost directly from my fathers mouth. Eventually though, unlike my Grandfather, he realised that we wouldn't become serious nobility in his generation and started to bring his children up in a manner that he imagined that the regular nobility would. Some of us took to that.

Some of us did not.

I wrote my father to say that I wished him well. I specifically told him that although I did not ask for his forgiveness I hoped that he would one day understand me and as such be able to give me his blessing. I told him that I thought I was doing important work and that I had saved a number of lives during the pursuit of that work and that I hoped that this spoke well of me. I gave him my love (not a complete lie) and my respect. (Which is true. It can't have been easy growing up under a man like my Grandfather with the weight of all that expectation.)

Writing my mother was difficult. I loved her dearly but she had always seemed rather distant. There were no illusions in the family. The two had met and she had been dazzled by his wealth and his ability to spend lavish amounts of money during the courtship. He was also dazzled by her breeding, her dowry and her cultured training. Something he hoped that she would be able to pass on to her children. There is little doubt that they had loved each other at some point and although they were not as close any more as my father focused more on turning his little Barony into something that future generations would be proud of, she still worried after his health a great deal. I was always left with the impression that she regretted something though and missed something or someone. She had started to collect romantic poetry and cultivated a small flower garden in the castle grounds where she would sit for hours at a time just staring at whichever bloom caught her eye.

I love my mother, but spending any time in her presence is depressing in the extreme. I wrote that I loved her and wished her nothing but joy and contentment in her life. I hoped that the garden was flourishing well and asked her to pass on my good wishes to a number of her friends that had been Aunties to me when I was younger that she had drifted away from in a small effort to help her reconnect with some old friends. I also told her not to blame father for driving me away.

In as much as any family has a bad apple, that bad apple is my eldest brother. Just being in the same room as the man made my fists itch and I promise you that although I hope I'm not a violent man, I would cheerfully punch that man's dick off. What had happened was that my father took my brother under his wing and had tried to teach him how to be a business man and make more money and how to expand the work that my Grandfather had started. My Brother was shown the plans for the Barony, the forest to entertain hunting parties of all kinds, the tourney grounds. He was shown the plans for state of the art forges and the letters that had been exchanged between my father and the dwarves about sending some people to make our metalworking the best in the Northern Kingdoms. He had seen the plans for the new farming techniques and met the heads of the various villages.

He was shown all these things. But all he heard was about how much money he would have access to. From there he just spent his time spending his allowance, racking up huge debts, fighting numerous duels over women (which he won) and generally being shit to everyone. To give you a taste of how classy this man is. I once overheard him talking about how fuckable one of his potential suitors was in front of my parents, her and her parents. He's the kind of man that you find that you want to bathe after spending any time with him at all.

I seriously considered not writing him but that might make problems for the rest of the family. I wrote a few short lines about Filial respect and admiration and wished him the best for the future.

I had no doubt that the letter would eventually be opened before being tossed on the fire.

Following noble tradition, my next brother went off to the church and never was there a man more suited to the job. He found faith early, no doubt encouraged by both parents and the queue's of priests that waited on him from almost the day he was born. If you tell an infant that the Holy Fire will keep us all warm in it's embrace over and over again then eventually he will start to believe it. My Brother was ordained just as I was beginning to get old enough to talk to priests. At first he was a genial, happy kind of priest, always ready for a joke and pulling faces at my little sister and I during the serious prayers. But gradually he became ambitious which suited my father no end.

As such he needed to be seen to be a little harder in his beliefs. He was acting as my confessor at the time and would often assign me penance far more serious than the crime deserved. I sighed with relief when he left to be coached for a Bishops seat.

I am told that he is now an important man in the church and that although he will never be Hierophant, he will probably be on the council that will elect the next one. He comes home every so often and as I grew up and my scholarly interest started to make itself known we started to re-discover an earlier bond. In public he supported my father when it came to how I was supposed to live my life but in private he told me to follow my passions as "The pursuit of knowledge is a worthwhile goal". I think of him now as a good, if flawed man.

I wrote of my respect and affection for him and spoke briefly about my adventures and the need of many for the churches charity and the work that Kerrass had done to try and make the lives of the ordinary people better. I hoped that he would take that the way I intended.

Then comes my Big sister. She does not know it and I can write it here because she has no interest in academics and so is unlikely to ever read it. My big sister, who is only 5 years older than me, is the person most responsible for my upbringing. She is kind, strong, beautiful, fiercely intelligent, utterly charming and in possession of the most wicked sense of humour and mischief that you will ever know. Despite being older than me she would often get me into trouble with her many schemes and pranks. When my brother gave me harsh penances she would be the one to spread ointment over the whippings and hug the injustices away.

She is also possessed with wild and madcap energy. When she was supposed to be learning to do something that she saw as wasteful she steal a horse from fathers stables and go off on a ride. The guards would chase after her. Come back to report that she had thrown them only to find her back in her room, demurely working at her needlework. She suffers no fools and out of everyone it's her that most often takes my eldest brother to task for his various shenanigans.

I love my big sister dearly and although she doesn't know it... Every woman that I have considered in this life gets compared to my big Sister and so far, every single one of them has been found wanting.

I did not say that in the letter. Mostly it was full of memories and gratitude for her love and affection throughout the years.

My immediate older brother was the son that was assigned to join the military and serve the king with his strength at arms. He was given the best tutors and instructors and generally worked hard to become the best knight and soldier that he could. He did well at it too in the long run. When I turned up as a kind of spare a year later it was kind of assumed that I would follow one brother into the church (My mothers wish) or my other brother into the army (My fathers wish). Seeing some problems with various of the bits of the more esoteric eternal fire dogma I tried for the martial. But my build did not really lend itself to swinging my broadsword around. I tried and my brother tried to help but although he could do the thing, he couldn't teach the thing and we would get exasperated with each other and then get into fights. That being said I am closer to him than any of my other brothers. I left him my spear and told him that I had used it to kill monsters.

Then there was my little sister. For all the faults of the rest of us my little sister is the best parts of each of us. She was fourteen when I left home and was growing up to be a real beauty. Dark hair, long lashes and as much as a big brother can admit it of a little sister... She was gorgeous. It sometimes seemed a shame to me that she was confined by society to the strict rules of her gender. But I later found out that there was a sharp mind under there and that she intended to marry well and guide her husband to greatness. She could do it as well, all the while letting her husband think that it was all his doing.

It would cause me incredible pain when she got married.

I wrote for a long time. I don't really know how long but I do know that the innkeeper and his wife had gone round lighting candles and lamps by the time that I finished.

I tried to get a little sleep but by this point people were coming in from outside. It was a strange feeling, almost like a wake. People stood around, talking quietly and drinking slowly. I sat there and just pulled my hood up but there didn't seem to be any avoiding those eyes and those faces.

Eventually I left and as I got up, people raised their tankards to me. I wanted to scream at them that I wasn't dead yet and that I had no intention of dying. It was unpleasant and made me feel almost ashamed of myself.

Instead I just hunched my shoulders. I pulled my cloak around me and ventured out into the night. I wandered around for a good long while, just wandering around aimlessly. In the end I climbed back up the hill to where the Witcher's fire had been built up to a grand blaze. Stones had been placed round the edge in precautions but it was too cold to get truly out of hand. I knelt at the edge of the fire and started to pray to the Eternal fire. I don't pray often. I like some of the tenets of the church of the eternal fire but I find to much of their current tenets to be objectionable and ignorant.

But right there, with the warm blaze burning my face. The cold at my back. The blaze was comforting and suddenly it felt right.

This was the critical moment for me. I was scared. Utterly terrified. I desperately wanted to walk off. To leave as the Witcher had suggested I should. I stared into the fire muttering my prayers as I felt the time moving by. Trickling by. Moving slowly, so slowly towards the time where the Witcher would come out of the darkness.

I wasn't going to leave though.

The realisation came over me then that I wasn't going to survive this. That I wouldn't be leaving this place. That I would be burnt, buried or taken by the entity in the woods. I thought about the fear that had always been mine. That of drowning, knowing that I was drowning and that I had time to struggle, but there was no way that I was going to make it. This was it. This was the moment of truth. Would I panic, struggle to escape my fate or would I stand?

I took a deep breath and thought over the last months of travelling with the Witcher. I thought of the deaths that I had seen. None of them looked pleasant. But it was a truth that everyone dies, even Kerrass would some day despite seeming as invincible as he does. I found myself thinking about the old cliché about a death meaning something.

I was going into the woods to try and rescue a boy and to try and drive off a supernatural entity that was terrorising these people.

There were worse ways to pass the time.

I opened my eyes and saw the Witcher standing there, silver sword across his back.

"I didn't know that you were that religious," he said with a very slight smile.

"I'm not," I said getting to my feet. "But right here and right now I thought to myself 'What the hell'."

Kerrass nodded.

"It's time." He took a breath, "Whatever happens. Say nothing. Nothing at all."

I nodded and stretched. Taking my cloak off and dumping it next to the fire.

"Kerrass,"

"mm?"

"It's been an honour," I said and held out my hand.

He stared at it for a long moment with a strange look on his face.

"Likewise," he said. Shaking my hand firmly.

We walked down the hill together. I didn't really feel talking as for some reason the entire thing seemed to feel...larger I suppose than words can encompass. I was walking to my death or damnation. All that I could hope was that it would be quick.

I had left my spear behind. It didn't seem as though it would be any help and Kerrass didn't mention it.

Something was happening in the village itself. People were gathering torches in hand. The flames smoky and heady. They were just drifting towards the end of the village that was closest to the woods themselves. They stood in silence just watching us with the flames dancing ominously on their faces. The shadows were disturbing as they leapt about the place and before too much time I was just staring straight ahead.

It felt uncomfortably like a funeral.

We just walked past them. Just walked past them and pretended as though they weren't there. They were eerie, like the ghost of a village. Again my expectations were destroyed. No speeches. No expressions of gratitude, no cheering or applause.

I suppose, looking back, that they felt the same thing that I did. That this was too big a moment to be put into words. One way or another, their lives would not be changing after tonight.

We eased our way past the bramble bush and Kerrass lit the first of our torches that he carried in a bundle next to his sword. I wondered about that and resolved to ask him later. As if there would be a later. I almost chuckled at the thought.

But then I shivered.

Then there was a kind of weight on my chest, I struggled to breathe for a moment and staggered. Kerrass stopped and watched me for a moment. An unreadable expression on his face.

I straightened up, took a deep breath. My sight shivered a moment, felt a wave of dizziness and waited for it to pass.

When it did I opened my eyes and the Witcher was still waiting for me. He looked in my eyes and then very slowly he raised an eyebrow. It was a question.

I nodded.

Still without a word he turned and walked on again and I followed.

We came to the end of the track and we stood there for a few moments.

Kerrass turned, examined the line of the track as it lead back to the village. Then he nodded and turned and strode deeper into the trees and I felt a sharp pain behind my eyes.

"Who comes now into my realm?" The voice echoes off the trees. It was deep, booming and spoke of infinite echoes. "Who dares to invade my closest of sanctums?"

We had gone maybe a dozen paces past the end of the track and I stood, frozen in my place. The trees seemed to grow all around me, towering over me, reaching for me with all of their branches, like hands. Hands that I felt were trying to scratch and tear my flesh.

"Who dares?" It was a roaring sound. The voice wasn't a shout but it was almost unbearably loud.

I realised that I was cold. As I looked, frost began to form on the edge of my clothing. Shivering became violent. I looked around, desperate for the reassurance that the Witcher's presence would provide, but I was alone.

The darkness increased, I felt the branches rubbing against my flesh, pulling at my clothes. I flinched away from them in terror.

I tried to move.

I tried to run.

I was so cold. I was hugging myself in an effort to keep warm but it was useless. Every breath was becoming a pain as the frigid air was sucked down my throat and into my lungs. My chest began to hurt.

From somewhere I seemed to remember a lecture about the effects of extreme cold. I remember the lecturer telling me that after a while, the victim would become numb, then starting to feel as though there was a soft warmth and fatigue would spread throughout every limb.

I longed for that moment but right then and right there, all I could feel was the pain.

I looked at my hands and they were turning blue. My tears of agony were freezing on my cheeks. My clothes were frozen now so that even the shivering was agony. Huge great spasms that shook my entire frame.

I fell to my knees, even more pain.

"Yes," came the voice. "Yes. Kneel in my presence mortal. Kneel in the presence of the Eternal frost. The end of the world. The end of everything. This is my resting place before I come forth into the world and your 'holy flame' will be unable to protect you."

I could hear the baying of hounds.

"Hear the hounds of Winter that come at my call."

In the distance I could see a light coming through the trees. It was a cold blue kind of colour and it followed a figure. Huge, grotesque hounds roamed at it's feet, fighting and prowling around. Their teeth bared in a narrowly suppressed fury.

The figure itself was a giant. Maybe ten feet tall and fully armoured in metal that clinked as it walked. There was no flesh on display. The armour covered him completely and with every step, ice would form on the armour but it would then shatter with every movement. The cracking sounds reaching me sounded like the cracking of bones.

"And now, petty mortal thing. You shall be the first of my victims. Your blood will be the first to slake my thirst and to give me the strength to leave this place and spread my cold throughout the world. Then this... accident of life will be ended finally and for all times."

He drew a sword that had been hung off his back. It reminded me of this huge slab of ice, jagged and sharp. He raised it high over his head.

I closed my eyes,

"Stop that this instant." It was the Witcher's voice. It rasped unpleasantly and carried the same tone that you would use to speak to an unruly child. "It is neither funny or intimidating. Also, threatening guests is seen as rude when we grace you with our presence."

The cold vanished, instantly and utterly.

You know that feeling of tingling that you get when you've been outside in the freezing cold for too long and then you get into a hot bath or stand next to a fire?

Amazingly, all of that failed to happen.

I went from dying of the cold to perfectly normal in a fraction of a second.

I was still shivering though but not from the cold.

The Witcher was next to me and helped me to my feet, looking me up and down and taking a long moment to look me in the eyes before nodding his satisfaction at whatever he saw there.

It was still very dark though now that the Witchers torch was visible it was as though there was an extra layer of darkness that floated around the tree-tops like a mist.

A mist moving without wind and somehow it was darker than the night sky we could see above us.

"A Witcher?" came a voice from all round us. It was a vibrant and warm, almost amused.

"Yes, a Witcher." My companion responded. "It would strike me as only polite if you would give us something to talk to. Courtesy and all that."

"Oh very well, very well." Now it was the voice of a petulant old man. Quarrelling with the idea that he could no longer look after himself. Just on the edge of senility.

The Darkness seemed to be sucked towards a point, maybe a couple of meters in front of us before changing into the figure of a man.

Except it wasn't a man. It was more... I struggle now to describe it. It was humanoid in shape. It had a torso, two arms, two legs and a head but after that the similarities stopped.

It had no eyes or nose, no brow or chin. There was a mouth certainly but no cheekbones or jaw. It was like a childish drawing of a man made solid. It was dressed in a black robe that had neither depth nor flow about it, no folds or movement at all. Not even a weave that I could see. It was just black.

But it was it's mouth that was the worst. Slightly larger than the proportions should allow there were no teeth in that mouth, no lips or tongue either and it's movement only vaguely corresponded with the words that were formed by it. Beyond the mouth's opening was just blackness.

But despite it's utter lack of features, it was studying us carefully. Watching us, almost tasting us with it's gaze.

I shivered.

"Aha!" the thing giggled, "Your friend is afraid." It pointed a long finger at me. "Shivering terror at my magnificent visage," It giggled and I felt my skin crawl.

"I believe that the correct term for my companions behaviour is 'shuddering'," The Witcher informed it.

"Oh," It seemed astonished. "Does he not like my form? Is it not...pleasing to his eyes?" It scuttled forwards like a crab, bending to the ground and using it's hands as well as it's feet to aid it's movements.

I recoiled. I tried not to. I tried so hard to keep my back straight but the way it talked about me... It sounded almost hungry.

It straightened in front of me and that horrible face filled my vision.

"Do you not like my exterior? My glorious form that I constructed?"

I tried to look sideways at the Witcher.

"Don't look at him," It screeched, "Answer me."

I choked, taking the moment to form an answer and took a moment to moisten my mouth.

"You are so far outside my experience," I managed slowly, clearing my throat more than once. "that I find you repulsive."

It laughed. Uproariously.

It turned away from me and stalked back to it's original position. This time it's movements were regal and cold.

"I have shown you my form," it said coldly. "In return for this I demand your purpose here Witcher and the..." It tilted it's head like a dog as it looked at me. "The profession of your...Companion,"

It seemed to savour that last word. "Is that an acceptable bargain."

The Witcher nodded. "It is."

"Very well then. Answers if you please."

"My companion is a scholar. He wishes to record how things work outside his experiences for future generations to know and understand how we lived."

The thing seemed surprised.

"Interesting." It considered me, tilting it's head from one side to the other. "Your purpose Witcher? Be swift."

"I am hear to discuss a bargain with you."

"A bargain with a Witcher," It stopped, frozen in place like a picture in a wall. I started to wonder what it would look like if I walked round it.

"A bargain with a Witcher." It crowed suddenly and danced around us with glee and delight before ending face to face with Kerrass. "A bargain with a Witcher," it hissed. "Very well." It screamed into the night.


	13. Chapter 13

(Warning: Some scenes of torture.)

Suddenly we were in a town square and it was daylight. But what light there was was grey and shadowy. The houses looked deserted and a mist flowed through and past the houses.

I saw the Witcher raise his hand to his temple and rubbed for a moment.

There was a table with benches on either side of it just in front of us. The table was laden with food and drink and it was as though all the colour and lustre that was lacking from the village was in the food instead. I could smell the roast pork and fresh bread. There was a wheel of cheese alongside a bowl of honey and some apples next to that. The sight and the smell reached down into my subconscious and triggered something primal.

I felt my mouth beginning to water and moved towards the table.

The Witcher caught me by the scruff of the neck.

At first I wanted to fight him as I felt so hungry as though I hadn't eaten for days.

"Unfair Witcher," came the whining voice. On the bench opposite us was an old man. Bearded and stooped with age. A shirt was tucked into a pair of woollen trousers belted with a leather strap. A hood finished the ensemble but the voice that came out of this elders mouth was the things voice.

"Unfair indeed." The old man's face pouted. All the expression that it's original figure lacked. This old man had.

"What would you have been allowed to do to him if he had eaten without permission?"

The old man smiled horribly, drool spilling out of the corner of it's mouth. "I'm going to enjoy playing with you Witcher." It stood and gestured extravagantly. "Please sit as my guests."

The Witcher stood stock still. Still holding onto my collar with a grip of iron. I did fight him that time, striking at him with my fists and feet.

The only thing I can say in my defence was that I was not in possession of my full intelligence.

The Witcher slapped me across the face. Hard enough to really hurt. Then he took my collar again.

"Really?" he asked the man. "The food is given freely?"

"Indeed," The old man gained an erection and I suddenly wanted to vomit.

"I'd like to hear you say it." I couldn't see it but I could tell that the Witcher was answering the grotesque behaviour with one of his repertoire of horrible smiles.

The old man sighed extravagantly.

"The food and drink is my freely given gift. Given without desire or expectation of anything in return."

The Witcher let me go and we sat.

"Please," The old man licked his lips "tuck in." He drooled again.

If anything the food smelt even better.

I couldn't have stopped myself even if I wanted to, tearing a lump of bread off, dipping it in the pork gravy and shoving it into my mouth.

The old man started to laugh. Laugh and laugh and laugh.

My stomach roiled and I looked down at the rotting piece of flesh that I held in my hand. It looked like it had once been a foot but the slime and dried, black blood made that identity a mystery.

I fell backwards off the bench, dropping the thing that I had taken bites out of as I went and pushed myself further backwards.

Then I retched, heaved and vomited until I could taste bile. All to the sound of that thing's giggling that would turn back into laughter whenever a new spasm took hold of me.

The Witcher just stared at the shape of the old man, or the mask of an old man that the creature was wearing.

The costume it was wearing.

I hated him then. I hated them both.

The Witcher examined his gloved hands, picking at a bit of dirt. "Are you finished?" He asked the thing.

Diverted, the thing stopped laughing immediately. Almost mid breath and peered at the Witcher suspiciously.

"Yes, your bargain." He drew out the syllables for a long time as though he was savouring the taste of the word. "Tell me, what does a Witcher want?"

"Many things," The Witcher said with a slight smile as I dragged myself away from the slow pool of spreading vomit.

The thing smiled.

"What do you want?" it asked more directly.

"I want you to leave these woods. I want the child back that you just took and I want you to leave me and the villagers of Ambers crossing, past and present, alone."

"Interesting." It literally stroked it's chin in thought. "What are the villagers to you?"

"That isn't part of the bargain,"

The smile broadened.

"What if I insist?" it countered.

"Then I would likewise insist that the answer to that question would be given after the deal is sealed."

The smile broadened even further, past the point at which a human mouth could sustain it. I saw skin tearing and a grinding noise that I assume was teeth and bone being pushed together.

"I'm going to enjoy this," the thing said.

Something was bothering me though.

"Hold on." I said. The Witcher spun and glared at me.

"Be silent, wretch," he hissed, his eyes glowing and not for the first time, I had the impression of fangs in his mouth.

Terror closed my mouth over the question.

He hadn't asked for a guarantee of my safety. A cold knot of ice began to settle in my stomach.

The thing's grin widened even further.

"How interesting. But what do I get in return for your, wants?"

"You get him," The Witcher said pointing at me. "Mind, body and soul."

I moaned. I was trying to say "No," or protest in some way but it seemed as though my mouth wasn't working properly.

The betrayal started to sink into me. It was as though a knife was slowly being pushed into my gut.

It hurt like nothing on earth.

I felt the things eyes on me.

Foolishly I raised my own eyes to meet it's gaze.

I felt another sharp stab behind my eyes.

"Oh don't worry. It can be fun. You might even learn to enjoy it, having every dream fulfilled." The voice was low, husky and female.

I found myself in a castle bedroom. It took me a while to recognise it as the master bedroom at my father's castle. Only this time the walls were covered in book shelves. A writing desk was placed next to the window and all around the room were trophies taken from the bodies of various monsters.

It was my room.

I turned. Through the open door came the smell of freshly cooked bread and roast meats and I found my mouth watering.

"Your pleasure is my pleasure," came the woman's voice again.

I became aroused as involuntarily I turned to see the bed.

On it was a woman.

Or not really a woman, this was _the_ woman.

I will admit to having never fallen in love before. I've certainly been attracted to women, I've slept with women and I have _thought_ I've been in love before. But as it turns out I wasn't.

The way it was once described to me was by a poet friend of mine who claimed to have known many women but to have loved none of them. He said that if you think of the person that you are with at the moment no matter what stage of the relationship that you are in. Now imagine that person leaving you without warning. He said that if you can't imagine that happening, no matter how hard you try, or if you can imagine it happening but that it would destroy your world. Then you love them.

But.

If you think that what would happen is that you would be upset for a while, maybe have a cry, go and get drunk with your friends who will tell you in great detail how you deserve better than him/her/it?

Then it's not love.

Now he said that one can turn into another and back again without warning which complicates the matter but the point is that I've never been in love.

So I don't know what my ideal woman actually looks like.

But she was lying on the bed.

I couldn't tell who she was. She seemed to shift before my eyes from one person to the next.

There was lady Josefina from the adventure with the trolls. There was my old friend from university, the woman I lost my virginity to, my sister, my mother, the maid in the castle who had been the first person where I'd noticed that boys and girls are different in exciting ways other than just icky ones.

I saw an elf. A princess and a whore. I saw a demon, an angel, a succubus, a priestess of many varying religions including made up ones.

All combined into one woman.

They were chained to my bed.

My lust swept through me like a wave of fire and I was tearing at my clothes in a frenzy.

"Or maybe," said the woman, licking her lips sensually, "maybe you prefer being controlled instead."

Suddenly it was me who was chained to the bed. The woman or women were climbing up and although I had thought that my lust had reached a peak, it went even higher,

"Or maybe, we can look at your nightmares." It was my fathers voice, my lecturers voice, my older brothers voice dishing out some kind of torture.

I was still naked and strapped down but now I was strapped to a torture rack. My brother and Lecturer turned the wheels and I screamed at the pressure.

Then My father took a red hot spike in his bare hands, placed it at my navel and started to push.

"Nah," said the creature dismissively. "He's rather boring really."

I was still in amongst the trees, lying on the ground, my hands stretched out above my head and the anticipation of agony still there in my gut.

I was also naked and just as plainly, had soiled myself.

I couldn't move as I could still feel the restraints holding me down.

It occurred to me from a distance that I had probably lost my mind and right then and right there, I found that I didn't really care that much.

The creature was being dismissive about me.

"He's a grown man, has fairly standard sexual appetites with slight fixations towards his mother and sister marking for a very common taboo leaning and a basic but very small Oedipus complex. I would also sense a bit of a type of exhibitionism and only a very light bondage desires of both directions."

"What's an Oedipus complex?" The Witcher asked curiously,

"A trick of the mind involving members of your family from the opposite sex." the creature answered as though the Witcher was being unusually stupid.

He sounded like an etymologist talking about the latest moth that he'd pinned to a board

"He's also annoyed at male authority figures that he disagrees with.

"He's killed but not with any kind of malice.

"He's not even a virgin for father's sake. No darkness to pursue and very little innocence to ruin. What could I possibly want with the likes of that?"

May the flame burn me and keep me warm in the darkest nights of my soul but I found that, as I was lying there in my own filth and the muck of the forest. I was disappointed.

"So you reject my terms?" the Witcher asked with a yawn.

There was a pause,

"I do utterly."

"That's a shame," A chair scraped across the floor. "I'll be going then."

Footsteps.

"It's a shame though," the Witcher said. "Because he's drawn some interest."

Another pause, more footsteps getting further away.

"Whose interest?" the creature feigned boredom but it didn't fool me.

I felt as though I was separate from myself. Displaced from my body. I could identify myself and recognise the state I was in. I felt like my body was a puppet on a set of strings that I could control. Or a mannequin that I would move around. I tried the experiment and got some small movement from my hands but the effort was overwhelming.

The Witcher had paused for some effect.

"Jack," he said simply.

Another pause.

"I want him." the creature hissed, "I accept your bargain."

"No, you rejected him. You remember how that works? Now you can't take him. He belongs to himself. Maybe Jack will come and pick him up when he finds the time."

The creature hissed. I could hear it pace and move about, it struck something with a howl and I heard a tree creak with the force of the blow.

The Witcher continued to move away.

"WAIT," the creature screeched and I felt a wetness at my ears and afterwards they rang for some time. "Wait," it said, calmer.

"There can be a new deal."

"No deal," said the Witcher but this time he didn't move away.

The creature paced a while.

"I could harm you now and simply take him from you."

"An empty threat," the Witcher said. "You rejected the first proposal and that means..."

"Yes yes yes yes yes,"

There was another pause.

"I might," the Witcher mused. "I might play you for him."

"Done," the creature screamed. "But there still must be new terms.

The Witcher moved back and sat back down.

I found myself physically moved until I was standing upright. Chains formed around my wrists and ankles until I stood chained to the nearby tree.

"What terms?" the creature was back in it's old, monstrous form. The table and benches remained however. There was also a small boy nearby in torn and filthy clothing who was playing with something that I couldn't see. There were piles and piles of bones, all lain haphazardly across themselves. I tried to count them but my mind sheared away in horror from the effort.

"Same as before," The Witcher said, "with a couple of additions. He must be protected as well," he gestured at me, "You will also not inform Jack or any of your fellows about us. If they should stumble upon us then fair enough, but you won't put them on our trail. You will also leave this world and this plane of existence until the end of all things."

The creature shook his head. "That's too long," it spat. "One thousand years."

"Two thousand years."

"I want something else as well for that."

"Which is?" the Witcher asked.

"I want you as well if I win." It hissed it's hatred. "Mind, body and soul."

The Witcher considered.

"My soul is not my own to give," he said with a far away look in his eyes. "But I will offer you something." He thought about it for a while. "I will give you that part of me that makes me a good Witcher."

"And what is that?" the thing demanded.

"Beat me and find out."

"That doesn't sound like a big deal for me,"

"Being a Witcher is my entire purpose in life. You take my ability to do that away then I am not 'me' any more. Sounds like a pretty good deal to me."

The creature considered this time.

"Done," it said.

"Which game?" The Witcher asked,

"Which other game is there for times such as these?" the creature was almost rubbing it's hands with glee.

"I see," the Witcher wore his ghost of a smile, "The oldest game then. Shall I start?"

"By all means," The creature spoke as though he was inviting a prostitute to disrobe.

The oldest game.

I didn't know it by that name but I guarantee that you've either played it or played a version of it at some point in the past. The most common version of the game is the game of riddles where people take it in turns to ask riddles of their opponents until one person cannot answer and then the questioner is declared the winner.

At university I understand that the maths people do it with equations and sums. Heraldic students used nobles and their heraldry.

But the form of the game that the Witcher and the demon played that night is rumoured to be the oldest form of the game.

It's played by two people. One person starts by declaring themselves a thing or concept. The other will then answer to declare themselves the thing or concept that defeats the other players words. Then the first player will respond with another thing and on it goes. You lose when you can't think of anything to defeat the the thing your opponent just said.

It is a game for travellers, two companions on the road who are just moving along without any intention of giving each other their business or life story or personal secrets. They won't speak after the journey is done so they play this game. That or two people meeting in a pub. It is most often won by the person with the largest imagination and vocabulary as well as knowledge of the world.

But when you see two truly great players of the game and you enjoy playing yourself it can become something else. You can see the traps that can be played, the gambits and the avoidances. The truly great players can force you to say things that they can respond to with words of power for which there is no return.

For example. "I am the paper that holds the knowledge," to which the unwary player would respond, "I am the fire that burns the paper to ash," then the clever player beats the first by saying. "I am the water that quenches the flame to the last spark"

You see it's also a game of theme. If you can trick your opponent into travelling down a single path of thought then they will struggle to tear themselves away from that path.

The two of them played.

On and on it went. Gambits were traded and lost, words were given and let go. The Witcher seemed relaxed, sat back in his chair feet out in front of him. The creature however would occasionally get up and pace, clearly agitated as the Witcher played on.

Amazing how the prospect of losing your life and soul to some creature will focus your brain.

It started to feel as though the game was drawing to a close and increasingly it was looking as though the Witcher was going to win. It was a not an uncommon gambit, creation versus destruction with the Witcher taking the part of the creation side of things and the creature being the destroyer.

"I am the world that nurtures all life," said the Witcher. He was, incredibly still, his eyes frozen in regards to the creature.

"I am the army that crushes all life underfoot." The creature responded. Licking it's lips. A seemingly nervous habit as it is sat back down and stared at the Witcher.

"I am the fortress that protects all from the invading army." The Witcher responded. It seemed that he leaned forwards slightly.

"I am the dark magic that snuffs out all of existence." The creatures lips were pulled back into a snarl.

"I am the resistance that will fight till the end," The Witcher whispered. I thought I could see where he was going. Something fluttered in my chest.

"I am the informer that gives the resistance away to the enemy so that all is lost.

The Witcher smiled.

"I am hope," he said simply and the self same emotion flowered in my chest. I had seen many of these contests played out amongst uppity students in philosophy class. It was one of the oldest words, one of the oldest gambits. No-one ever came back from that word. There was no response to it.

"I am the despair that crushes all hope." the creature said with sudden relish.

The Witcher opened his mouth to say something. Then he paused, looked aside and as I watched I saw terror strike him like a hammer between the eyes.

I felt my heart sink. I was wrong, the Witcher was wrong. He'd played the gambit in the wrong order. The point was to get your opponent to play despair before you pull out the hope. But in his haste to win the Witcher had forgotten that and the creature had won.

It grinned at him.

"You played a good game Witcher. A very good game."

He laughed.

Kerrass looked stricken.

"No-one has played so well or for so long against me since... Well I don't think it's ever been done. But you fell for my nerves didn't you. You thought you had me beaten."

It cackled again prancing around the clearing in delight.

"You thought you had me beaten but you forgot who I am Witcher." It stopped and was suddenly next to the Witcher, holding him by the throat. "I have been playing this game since the dawn of time."

It laughed and laughed and laughed. Every titter, every guffaw and chuckle was like nails across a black-board but what they actually were were nails in my coffin.

All he was doing now was anticipating taking it's prize.

I need to issue a word of warning here.

I have never met anyone who has lost their soul. Apparently the closest form of that kind of thing would be some of the things that mages and sorcerers of both genders can do. But as I have the magical talent of a roof tile, I was not given the training or mental conditioning to be able to properly report what it was like so what I'm going to be doing here is what I perceived to happen.

What I _think_ I saw.

That being said I can no longer distinguish between what I saw at the time and my memories of that time.

The creature leapt at me suddenly. He seemed to float over to me in a strange kind of smooth motion and grabbed me on either side of the head but I felt no physical contact. Instead it was as though the outside of my skin had been pierced by millions of tiny little pin-pricks. The sort of thing where you don't even manage to draw blood. Then the pins started to feel as though they were growing, extending into the middle of my skull. Straight needles of freezing cold agony that came together into the middle of the skull.

Then they started to move wriggling inside me like worms on a hook.

I tried to scream but the creature moved it's mouth to cover mine and it... flowed into me and as I screamed it felt as though I was screaming all my strength and will into it.

My vision went black as the scream went on and on. The breath had been sucked out of me a long time ago, after my will and my strength went my sense of physical sensation. I no longer felt cold, then I could no longer taste.

Taste is one of those senses that I never really think about. My mouth, tongue and saliva are always there so even when I haven't eaten for a while I am aware of that sensation in my mouth. I didn't miss it until it was gone.

Then my sense of smell, The forest around me, my own sweat and filth. It just left me, sucked out of me.

My eyesight had already gone, but then it was my hearing.

One by one the sounds of the outside world left me. The trees rustling in the wind, Kerrass attempting to call out to me, telling me to hold on and that he was there. My own sobs and grunts.

The creature's laughter.

Finally went my sense of physical sensation. The cold wind against my naked flesh. The wet feeling of the mud and filth against my skin. The pain from the various bruises and scratches I had suffered.

It just went. Stretched out

Now that I think about it. Imagine a basin of water with a small hole in the bottom that the water just flows through. The water level sinks, maybe you get a small whirlpool in the middle and eventually there is a gurgling sound as the last of the water disappears down the drain.

That was what it felt like. Like my life was being sucked away, spiralling down a drain.

I was only aware of utter blackness then. It wasn't even numbness. Just the lack of anything. Inside my head I started to scream again.

Then it started to suck out my memories. My entire life started to replay before my vision including things that I had long since forgotten about. Positive and negative. Sometimes it would speed up through what I guessed the creature didn't care about or wanted to save for later. Like a man reading a book and wanting to see what happens next.

I was also aware of it's opinions on the matter which were not complimentary.

It watched the memory of the dream about Jack over and over again for what felt like years.

Then I was no longer myself I was just a thing, a raw animal being with raw animal emotion and instinct.

But he decided to take those too.

I cannot describe what it's like to lose your instinct for survival, or losing your raw animal fury at what's being done to you or your fear about what this might mean. I tried to panic but even that had been taken from me.

And through all of that the creature was laughing at me.

I was now just a machine, a golem for his amusement and I could see some of the things that he wanted to do to me, including using me as some kind of meat suit so that he could interact with others. Maybe he would put another soul in his collection into my body and go on a rampage with it. Sight, sound and other sensation started to come back to my body and I could feel them all as though I was far away from them. As though I was watching the entire thing in the form of a play from the perspective of the protagonists point of view.

But then I became aware of something else as well. My memories, my instincts and my emotions were somewhere else along with all the other parts of me that made me into the person that I am. I tried opening it's eyes.

I wish I hadn't. To this day I wish I hadn't

I was suspended in a cage by means of giant golden spikes that had been driven through my body which kept me suspended well above the floor of the cage. Those spikes were a constant feeling of agony until that pain became a single musical note of sensation that ran through my soul that I clung onto in the same way that a drowning man might hold onto a floating piece of wood. The cage was made out of metal and though it seemed huge to me, easily as tall as the hierophant's tower in Novigrad and as wide across. It looked like a cube to me, I could see through it. Next to me was another cage and in it was a similarly suspended woman. Head tipped back and her eyes and moth open in a silent howl of agony.

On the other side of me was a dwarf.

Above me was another cage although I couldn't see the occupant and the same below me.

And beyond them were more cages and more cages. Each of us stacked on top of another cage and another cage was stacked on top of us.

Across from me was a wall of similar cages full of humanoids in various shapes and sizes. The noise was oppressive in it's constancy.

I have no doubt that I was adding to it in my own way. Seemingly a giant form of the creature, still bald and without feature came down the corridor between the rows of cages and bent down to look at me. As though his mouth was acting as it's eyes.

"Welcome," came it's voice, the very sound a torture. "Welcome my new play-thing. We shall see what we can get up to you and I. But first I must see to your friend. Your friend who brought you here and left you to my mercies. But in the meantime."

It turned to address the other cages. "Make our new friend feel welcome," he said.

Dear Flame the noise.

I shut my eyes and became aware of what I thought was still my body.

I just don't have the words. I've tried and I've tried, many times, to describe the difference between the two states.

The torture came from the fact that I was neither one thing or the other. In the one state I was agony in a cage. I was aware of who I was and all my emotions and feelings and memories but while there I was pierced through with golden spikes of poison and the sound of agony was a solid thing that surrounded me like a blanket made of fire and ice. I knew that the sensation could stop, that I could return to nothingness but in doing so I would lost my sense of self.

The other state was the state of a golem. Where I had physical sensation but it wasn't connected with anything. I was cold but didn't feel pain. I had no doubt that I could and would plunge my hand into fire, acknowledge the heat without feeling the burning pain. I would also lose all sense of self. Memory, instinct and will were lost to me. My name was nothing. I could hear words but their meaning was lost. But even here I knew that there was an alternative, that there was a place where these things were known to me but that it came with unimaginable torment.

So I flipped between the two. Life in the cage seemed to drag and to my perceptions I spent years in that cage but when I returned to the shell that I had left behind, it seemed that only moments had passed.

But the shell could see and hear things. It remembered.

The creature crawled towards the Witcher. It's torso moving slowly across the ground, it's long cloak trailing after it, unmoving but dragging dead leaves and bits of twig after it, arms and legs moving to support it's body in lightening fast movements. The Witcher backed away slowly and drew his sword.

"You promised," The creature hissed.

Kerrass took a breath and knelt, driving the sword into the ground. He removed his medallion and wrapped it around the hilt and knelt next to it gripping it with both hands and resting his head on the pommel.

The creature sped up then. The Witcher was no longer drawing things out so the anticipation was less. It stalked up to the kneeling figure and spent a long time standing over him before lightening fast he swept in and hands were placed at the side of the Witchers head in the same way as it had mine.

The contact lasted a few seconds.

As if yanked by a rope the Witcher flew back from the silver blade and clutched the side of his head and howled in agony. He was clawing at his face, pulling at his hair which came away in clumps. It's only now that I realise that the fact that he was wearing gloves saved him from ripping out his eyes.

One hand went to his gut and started tearing there as well but it couldn't get through the armour. He turned on his side and vomited some black slime as he went back to beating his own head with a fist.

His reaction was extreme.

The creature however stood stock still, vertical, stiff as a board. Slowly it grew eyes and a nose and ears looking remarkably more human before it changed again, the skin of it's head rippled until it was smooth and white as a goose egg. Then it vanished, to be replaced by a cloud of inky blackness before the original figure was back.

It moaned,

it shook it's head and moaned again, a single word this time

"Noooooo," it moaned and shook it's head with more and more violence.

"Noooo, no no no no no,"

It went on and on and on, starting to move round the clearing, clutching at it's head.

The small child amongst the bones had collapsed to the floor and seemed to be asleep.

"What have you done?" the creature said in a calm sounding voice. "What have you done?"

The voice seemed familiar to me in some way that I couldn't place.

It stalked over to Kerrass who was thrashing around in some kind of spasm, feet and hands lashing out. It grabbed him by the hair and pulled him to his feet so that they stared at each other, monstrous face to face.

"What have you done?" The creature said in it's new tone of voice.

From somewhere through his pain and madness. Mud and blood mixed in equal measure over his face and staining his teeth. Kerrass managed a smile. It was horrible.

"What have you done?" The creature shouted it this time and I recognised it.

It was a Witcher's voice.

He threw Kerrass' body aside and moaned again.

A horrible sound started to emerge into the clearing like nothing on earth. A sound far more monstrous than anything else I had heard up to that point.

Kerrass was laughing.

"I gave you," he paused as another spasm racked his body. "I gave you what I said I would."

Somehow he managed to get to his feet. He screamed again and staggered, both fists clenched to the sides of his head.

"I gave you that which makes me a Witcher," he laughed, a sound of utter despair. "I gave you what I am you cowardly piece of filth."

"I can't feel anything," the creature moaned. "Nothing at all,"

Kerrass laughed even louder as he staggered towards the creature, hacking and spitting as he came.

"You are an empty thing now," he said through a deaths head rictus. "Your sensations from your prisoners are utterly gone. Your Witcher feelings have taken them from you because you never felt them in the first place, not even the ghosts of forgotten things."

Kerrass laughed again. I cringe to remember it now. If the concept of vengeance could laugh at it's victim it would sound like that.

The creature retreated from Kerrass, scuttling sideways. Still moaning.

But Kerrass wasn't walking towards the creature. He was walking towards his sword.

He fell.

Then he started to crawl.

"Take it back," The creature demanded.

"No," said Kerrass. "No I won't."

The creature moaned again and started banging it's head against a tree.

"Take it back," it bellowed at him.

Kerrass just laughed. He had made it to the sword and was pulling himself up towards the hilt.

The creature hissed, pounding it's head on the tree so hard that splintering could be heard. It's hands covering where it's ears should be.

Kerrass was standing now, leaning heavily on his sword he unwound the medallion slowly, painfully slowly as though he had to remember how his hand worked.

"Take it back," the creature pleaded.

"Fuck you," Kerrass spat at it as he put the medallion back on. Hate, disdain and scorn dripping from the words. He was breathing deeply now, sucking down air as though it was precious.

"Please take it back," the creature fell to it's knees. "A life without feeling is no life."

Kerrass took his time, the creature babbled it's pleading to the floor. Gone from a powerful entity it now produced scorn and, dare I say it, even pity.

Kerrass drew his sword from the ground, in a movement I knew so well he cleaned it in the crook of his elbow and sheathed it. Staggering under the weight.

"Take it back," the creature begged again. "I beg you. I'm sorry."

Kerrass looked at the stars for a long moment before looking at the creature, bright tears on his face. He staggered to the creature and grabbed it by the scruff of it's neck and hauled it to eye level, the mirror of the earlier scene.

"What's in it for me?" The Witcher snarled.

This time I am certain that the shell that was my body saw fangs.

"Everything that you asked for. I can't give you more. Your friend will get his soul back. You are both protected, this village and it's descendants are protected. I will leave, not to return for two thousand years."

"What of the other souls you have collected?"

The creature shook it's head.

"Their bodies are long dead. Their souls cannot be moved."

"Bastard," The Witcher swore. "Done," he said then simply.

The creature vanished.

I opened my eyes to a new agony and screamed my lungs out. The scientist in me says that it was the agony of returning sensation, both mental and physical. The religious and superstitious side of my being says that it was the agony of rebirth.

Kerrass walked over to me. His easy walk returned and the madness had left his eyes as he crouched next to me and looked into my eyes.

"Frederick, look at me, look at me Frederick." I forced my eyes back open, not remembering when I'd closed them.

"We won Fred, We won,"

I covered my face with my hands and wept.


	14. Chapter 14

"Did you ever tell ghost stories when you were younger?" Kerrass asked me as he built up the fire.

I still felt the cold keenly and although it was reminding me that it was good to feel alive and that I was feeling better than I had in a long time, I think we both felt the need for some light and heat that night.

I sat there, wrapped in my cloak and my blankets, my spear near to hand after some gentle evening practice to get myself back into the swing of things after my month of illness after the village of Amber's crossing. My muscles were sore and ached rather more than I was entirely comfortable with but it felt good. In the meantime it was cold out, but I was warm. Good hot food filled my belly and a pleasant glow filled me from the small amount of apple brandy that Kerrass had allowed me to drink.

Finally I felt strong enough to hear the stories. I was not up to my full strength yet but I was getting better with every passing day. But now it was time. I had to know. It was like an itch, directly between my shoulder blades, just out of reach of either hand and it was driving me mad.

We were sat together, sharing the camp fire, feet stretched out towards the flames and letting the warmth wash over us. It was quiet as well. Peaceful rather than intimidating.

The Witcher knew it too.

"Are you sure?" he asked without prompting and he had stared into the flames for a long time before asking that question.

"Did I ever tell ghost stories?" I repeated him. "Of course I did. We were young at some point. My big sister used to entertain herself by telling my brother and I the scariest tales possible, to see how long she could make us stay up at night in fear. Then when I had a little sister I used to pass on the joys of tormenting younger siblings myself. So yes, I've told ghost stories. I have to admit though that they were much more interesting than the true stories which I've found more tragic and sad rather than scary."

The Witcher nodded. He had a long stick in his hand that he was using to stir the fire. I had a sense that he was also relaxing as we slowly left the ghost of Amber's crossing behind us.

"Witchers tell ghost stories as well." He said, staring at me from across the fire, the fire-light dancing in his eyes. "Mostly we do it to torment Novices,"

We both snickered a little.

"What I remember most though," he went on, "was that when I was a novice myself we would stay up to tell each other stories. Made up stories about the things that we would see, the things that we would do. The idea was that we would always set out to scare the other novices so that _they_ would be the person that seemed the most tired in the morning rather than ourselves."

His mouth twitched in memory

"It never worked though. We would always wake up after a night like that, pale as death and absolutely exhausted."

It was always interesting to watch the Witcher stir up old memories.

I guess it was a side effect of having so many.

"The master of novices was an old Witcher called Nayhan. I never found out how old he was but he was old back then. He was one of those old men that even though you knew he was ancient, he still seemed as though he was going to live forever. He had faced every monster multiple times, back from a time when civilisation was much more confined and the wild was much wilder so he had this air of a scarred old tom-cat who had seen it all, done it all and had somehow made it back. He was feeling tired and the masters of the school thought that it would be a good idea for him to try and pass on some of the wisdom that he had learned during his many years on the path to us novices."

No this time there was definitely a smirk.

"We hated him. He was a nightmare of an old man. Awake and fully groomed, his armour shining, his face shaved and fastidiously clean. Always awake, fresh and with his mind going. We would try and play pranks on him all the time but not a single one of those pranks ever seemed to strike home. He would always, always catch us out and administer a punishment that was as harsh as he liked.

"In the end, as we got a bit older we figured out that the punishment was proportional to the amount of effort he thought we had gone to to play the prank. The better prepared the prank, the more impressive the prank, the less the punishment. But if the prank was lazy he would give us a right thrashing.

"Discovering that he had a sense of humour was a remarkable thing. An insight into an old man that had terrified me for years whose every blow, every sharp retort or order to "do it again," was an effort to keep us all alive when it became our turns to take trials and go on the path."

I smiled as I thought of some of my own tutors. Especially my own horse-riding tutor who had bullied me back onto the horse the first time I fell off.

"In the end, I think that that old man is the reason that I'm still alive today and I miss him now that he's gone but that's not important to this story."

Kerrass shifted his weight a little.

"One night he caught us. Sat in a circle in the novice's cave, all gathered round the fire-bowl that gave out it's heat as we competed in tales designed to scare each other silly.

I remember that he came in so quietly that we didn't see him or hear him until he stepped into the firelight making us all yelp in terror and anticipated punishment.

"'What you all doin' instead of sleepin' as you ought ta be?' he asked casually. I now think he was more amused than angry but I was terrified at the time.

"He stared at us one by one, his big bushy eye-brows bristling with displeasure until one of the younger ones managed to squeak out that we had been telling ghost stories."

"'Ghost stories?' he exclaimed 'Ghost stories. I'll give you ghost stories'. He sat amongst us, pushing into the circle and shuffling until he had made himself room. He took out a long clay pipe and started filling it from a pouch.

"'In a few years time some of you will be walking the path and you won't need to tell each other ghost stories to scare yourselves to sleep. You can just tell each other of your adventures and then you'll be so bleedin' terrified that you won't know where to put yourself.'

"I remember him cackling around his pipe.

"'Listen close boys and I'll spin you a tale, the likes of which you'll never hear from anyone who hasn't been on the road as long as I have. A tale that still scares the Shite out of me after all this time as the thought that he still spends his nights watching me and following my progress'

"'I'm going to tell you the story of Jack' he said."

I don't remember much of my time immediately after our confrontation with "The Creature of Amber's woods which is what it's now called in the local area. I vividly remember the moments after I had been returned to my body.

Kerrass had made his way over to me to check that I was alive and that I was indeed in my own body. Then it was his turn to collapse in exhaustion while I keened my grief and pain into the night sky. I honestly think that we would have stayed there for days which would undoubtedly have meant that, unclothed as I was, that I would have frozen to death in the cold, early winter air.

But there was a young child present and children, as a rule, are difficult to ignore.

I remember that he tugged at Kerrass and asked in a quavering voice where Mr Snugglepants had gone.

Kerrass tells me that I started to laugh at the question which was when he realised how serious my injuries were.

Not of the body you understand but my mind had nearly given the entire thing up as a bad job and was trying to retreat into a dark hole from which it had no intention of returning.

From my end I was drifting in and out of consciousness so I have little memory of this.

He took one of the torches from his pack and drove it into the ground so that the flammable part stood upright. Then he twisted his fingers in the sign that he called "Igni," to light it. He covered me with his coat before picking the boy up and slinging him over his shoulder and running back to the village where he almost dropped the boy into the astonished arms of his parents.

Please bear with me if my recounting of events seems a little dry but this information comes to me second hand.

He drank a potion for energy, demanded that the innkeepers wife start heating water for a bath, lots of water, no more than that before he grabbed my cloak and some sheets from a nearby washing line.

He made it back to me then, used the rags to clean the worst of the muck and filth off me, wrapped me up in the blankets with my cloak over the top and picked me up to carry me back tot he village where I was dumped into a bath full of hot water.

Apparently I fought him tooth and nail.

Apparently I also grabbed a knife and tried to cut myself with it but the Witcher was fast enough to take it from my hands.

I was scrubbed clean with several changes of water required before the Witcher was satisfied, my skin pink with the scrubbing, blood having been drawn in more than one place.

I was then bundled back up into a clean set of blankets and laid down on a rug next to the open fire.

The memories of that day and the next run into each with the nightmares of my imprisonment at the hands of the creature for me. I had managed to impart to Kerrass that although mere minutes had passed in the real world, whole years seemed to have past in this one.

The inn was shut for that day as the innkeeper and his wife cared for me, feeding me soup and keeping me from harming myself. I slept until I dreamt, at which point I would wake screaming at the nightmares that tore at my vision.

In the meantime the tireless Witcher had taught the parents of the boy some signs to watch for in case the boy was sick or otherwise damaged by his time spent with the Creature. Then he had lead a team of woodsmen into the trees where they found a massive bone yard where the remains of the Creature's victims had been sorted into piles. A pile of rib-cages, another of leg bones but the worst was the skulls, perfectly preserved and obviously cleaned and regularly handled by loving hands. A great bonfire was built in the middle of the village, a huge thing with flames and smoke high enough to reach the sky while a constant stream of men with sacks of bones, fed the fire. Oil and wood was fed to the flames, trees were cut down around that place and chopped up to feed the flames which burnt for days and nights at a time.

Eventually though it had become clear that I was not recovering. The Innkeeper and his wife managed to get me dressed. Apparently I would swallow when food was put before me and my urge to end my life had been reduced. I could also take care of my own visits to the outhouse providing I was escorted there and escorted back but in all other ways I was still not myself.

The Witcher made our farewells, collected our rewards and tied me to my horse as he had no faith that I would not pitch over the side onto the roadside.

The first thing he tried was a village Witch although he tells me that it took some time to find one who was willing to help me. In the end he found one on the edge of some village. A Witch who preferred the privacy to being woken up at all hours with whatever problems the local village had produced that day. She took us in for a couple of days where she treated me for exhaustion and the nightmares. My guess is that she had a little bit of magic in her somewhere although I doubt that she knew that that was what it was. She tried to read my dreams and retreated from them with a scream of her own while Kerrass gathered her some herbs and other ingredients that she had wanted.

She mixed Kerrass a potion that he was instructed to pour down my throat if I went more than a couple of days without any proper kind of sleep. It was supposed to prevent dreaming sleep and take me straight to the deep resting sleep that my body required.

I have no idea who that witch was or where she lived. If I push myself I can remember a smell of sage and the face of a harried looking woman in her late fifties with shortish hair.

The Witcher conferred with her as to what he should do next and she told him that my body was as fine as it was going to get, but that now he needed to concentrate on my mind and soul.

Kerrass thought for a while and went in search of a priest.

Apparently he didn't find what he was looking for until his sixth attempt by which time I was slipping backwards again, the herbs having less and less benefit towards my well-being and were running the danger of giving me an addiction to the mixture as well as all the other problems that we were dealing with.

Let me just put forward my position on the Church of the Holy Flame again. The Church has done a lot of good. Especially in it's early days when it seemed to start as an effort to keep the poorer people warm on cold nights. I've seen good men and women tending a fire that was being used as a kind of Lantern to bring in wandering refugees in an effort to get them some food and a bit of medical care where they don't need to be worried about bandits or "random inspections for contraband" from regular troops.

But I've also seen men in robes openly fondling themselves as young and pretty men and women are tied to the stake and kindling set about their feet.

Those priests that Kerrass found first fall into the second category. There had been three wars in living memory and finally the northern Kingdoms had lost to the bright sun of the Empire of Nilfgaard. There were fewer people to work the fields and as such there was now a famine as well as a disease from all the un-buried bodies. Yes we were far south from the front lines now but the wars impact was still felt. In this case it came in the form of men who, for whatever reasons, thought that vitriol and filth could be seen as holiness.

In that time on the road I once saw a priest with red robes and no symbol of office striding down the road followed by a train of starving women and their children. As it turns out the man was basically running a brothel, rewarding converts and offerings of food and wine with an hour with the donators choice of woman. It had made me almost physically ill.

If I had been conscious and rational I would have been able to help Kerrass find what he was looking for but Kerrass who had no clue as to how to deal with Priests of the Holy Flame other than when they are clients, just approached those men who were preaching.

Two of the men just hurled mud and dung at him, calling him mutant and deviant as he approached.

He found a town with a more formal church and a slightly better provided for priest who, because he had access to better supplies, had chased the Witcher off with rotten eggs and tomatoes.

One man had listened to the problem carefully before earnestly suggesting that I was a lost soul already, tainted by the evil that I had come into contact with and that I should be burnt at the stake as soon as possible in an effort to save what remained of my soul before the rot finally took over.

The last man was actually the worst.

He had listened, sympathised and been solicitous and kind to our hurts. He had taken me off the Witchers hands promising to heal my soul. The Witcher had collapsed onto a pile of straw in the next room and was drifting off to an exhausted sleep when he heard the crack of a whip.

The priest had me tied to a post, stripped to the waist and was lashing me with a flail.

Fortunately for me and, I suspect, the priest, he wasn't very strong and as such it looks like I won't carry the scars of a flogging although Kerrass won't tell me what he did to the man. But there is a glint in his eyes whenever we talk about it which suggests it was something humorous rather than deadly.

But just as he was about to give up and enquire at one of the old shrines to Veyopatis or to see if there was a priestess of Melitele around that would help, he managed to find Father Jerome.

Father Jerome was a cheerfully angry man who both resented and enjoyed his lot in life. It was curious the way he dealt with people, haranguing them with terms of religious ire calling them things like "harlot" or "Blasphemer," or "Sinner" as quickly as others would call them friend or brother. But the way he did it lacked any kind of venom or hate. It was just the way he talked.

Once when we were sitting outside his small shrine and he was having a smoke as we talked a painfully thin elven woman came by. She saw him before he saw her and I saw her shrink from him.

Sure enough a torrent of abuse escaped his lips calling her a scarlet and ungodly whore before The holy flame and Man and how dare she show her face here before the burning pyres of the God.

The woman looked confused as his tone of voice was as though he was telling a joke. He had rushed over to her, taken the plainly exhausted woman by the hand and gently lead her and her toddler towards one of the waiting blankets and showed her where the food, water and clean linens were kept. All the while keeping up a constant stream of blasphemy and condemnation. He even picked up the small elven child that I hadn't seen hanging off the woman's skirts and made the child giggle while at the same time asking her "Who's a filthy little hell-spawn?"

He was a large man, heavily muscled and had obviously had some kind of military training. He was maybe thirty and his hands and fore-arms were heavily scarred with burn and scorch marks but other than that he looked like a fairly normal countryside priest.

The lie was proven by his cultured accent along with his vast and wide-ranging knowledge of church dogma.

Including the contradictions that lay in that Dogma.

He was also anything but poor as the locals would often bring him food, drink and other offerings. He confided in us that he only really needed a fraction of what he was brought and used the rest of it to care for the poor and hungry.

The Witcher had been with us at the time and although Jerome called him a deviant and unholy freak, the two of them traded insults like the most foul-mouthed of sailors and were fast on their way towards becoming firm friends.

The Witcher asked him whether or not he had any problems with bandits or soldiers commandeering his supplies. For answer, Jerome produced his metal shod staff.

It was obscenely heavy although Jerome could swing it around as though it was nothing.

Jerome took us in and for reasons that he would later explain to us, he set about the business of saving my soul.

Or as he put it. Persuading me that there was nothing wrong with my soul, that I had done the right thing in saving those people (even though I had done it at the behest of a deviant heretical heathen rather than a good and godly man) and that my soul would be accepted into the warmth of the everlasting flame.

Unfortunately I was less convinced.

But Jerome was a stubborn man. Extremely flawed and given to some black rages and self flagellation for his own perceived weaknesses but at the same time he persevered.

He never once told me that I was being silly, nor did he make light of my ordeal. He would just repeat the same things over and over and over until eventually they began to filter through. Comforting me in the dead of night as I woke up, screaming and sweating after another nightmare. He held vigil with me long into the night and showed me how to keep the fire burning.

With him I helped him care for the refugees and the poor. His compassion was very rough and ready. His sympathy seemed arbitrary but no-one could question his care. He also had a nose for sniffing out those people who were there to take advantage of his generosity and would chase them off giving them a sound thrashing as they went.

Women were always whores and Harlots. Men were always heretics and sinners but it seemed he loved his little flock, such as it was.

I learnt his story as well.

He had been a questioner in Novigrad. By which he meant that he was a torturer and he was really really good at it. He could produce a confession to just about anything from just about anyone and had taken pride in doing his work well.

He had worked tirelessly as well and many men, women and non-humans had gone to the pyres after his searching instruments had found the truths that those people had kept hidden.

Then one day he had been brought another subject who had been tied to his table.

For some reason that day he had stared at the young woman who was being accused of Witch-craft and Sorcery. A crime of which she was clearly guilty, just the glint in her eyes with flawless features and complexion was enough to prove that. He even found that he recognised her from a wanted poster. She was bound, gagged and her fingers were broken so he knew she could cast no spells but suddenly as he stood over her with her pliers in hand he found that he couldn't do it.

He remembered that he had become a priest because he wanted to help people, to spread the light of the fire into dark places and comfort those in need. To convert through example rather than force.

He told me that he had carefully put down his pliers, on the tray with the others and carefully untied the woman. Without saying a word he had left to find her some clothes and a cloak after which he smuggled her out of the building telling her that he would claim that he was bewitched.

He'd resigned his work which was apparently not uncommon. Good torturers sometimes have breaks and he had been told that the position would be open to him if he ever wanted to return but instead he had taken his 'instruments' to a blacksmith and had them melted down, telling the blacksmith to make small useful things with them, nails, hammerheads and the like.

He had gone to his house, sold his belongings, giving the money to the local hospital and had left with his robes, his chants and his copy of the holy teachings.

He often said that he was happier now than he had ever been in the church.

He had wandered for a while, preaching where he could find a willing audience and moving on where he could not. Eventually he had found this old shrine and the sight had depressed him. He'd built it up, kept the fire burning wanting nothing more to spend out his days in contemplation and prayer.

But as is the way with such people, he started to gain notice and followers.

Much to his own disgust.

He was now working with a local Witch to build a kind of field hospital for the sick and the injured.

His knowledge of anatomy and wound treatment (apparently a torturer has to know about healing as well as pain) along with her herb craft made a powerful team despite their almost comical loathing for each other.

Although part of me wonders how much of that loathing was an act and whether or not the two would be having a torrid and passionate affair when the refuge was empty.

I like to think that they were.

They made a fearsome team together.

Gradually under his care I started to come back to myself, gaining strength and fortitude by the day, but I was still badly depressed. I still had nightmares and no joke or story could raise my spirits for long. I would often sink into a black stupor of self-recrimination as I remember all those other lost souls that I had left behind in the creatures store-house.

I still feel that guilt today even though, logically, I know that there was nothing I could do to help them.

In the end Jerome took Kerrass aside and gently informed the Witcher that the priest had done all he could for me but the remains of the healing was outside his power.

Kerrass had spent the two weeks that I was at the shelter doing some odd jobs for the local village. If you look hard enough, Witcher's would always find work in those days. I suppose it was supply and demand. Too many dead meant that vast tracks of the countryside were becoming wild again. He was never more than two days ride away though and would often stop in to check on my condition.

Kerrass had asked what was left and Jerome had told him that my body had been healed, as had my soul but I had forgotten how to live. How to feel joy and that was something that he, Jerome, couldn't help me with.

They had discussed a few methods with which to do this. I don't know what they said and Kerrass has never told me but apparently Jerome is one of the few people that could make the Witcher chuckle.

We left. I no longer needed to be tied to my horse to prevent me from falling or leaping off and I embraced Jerome as I left.

"Take care," he whispered as he did so.

I miss that man.

Kerrass took me to a nearby by city called Fealburg. I spent most of that journey in a strange state. The world seemed grey and uninteresting to me. Food lacked taste, conversation was pointless. The prospects of the following day were just drowned in monotony. I tried reading but couldn't keep my concentration. I tried some training but I was so exhausted that I could barely lift my spear and my head wasn't in it anyway.

I did my chores despite Kerrass' insistence that I didn't need to before crawling into my blankets and sleeping the sleep of the exhausted which was spoiled by ongoing nightmares.

Fealburg is fairly near the coast. A little ways north of the place where we had originally intended to take ship to return north. Kerrass seemed familiar to the place and greeted one of the gate guard by name, exchanging a few insults as a matter of course and as a result, the required bribe for entrance was not too high. He led my horse confidently through the streets which is good as I would have been hopelessly lost within seconds only to have been knifed in some back ally.

One day I hope to go back to Fealburg in full possession of my faculties as I was not in a fit state when I got there.

I find that period between leaving Jerome, who I didn't want to leave by the way, and my arrival at "The Floating Blossom," the most disturbing. There was nothing wrong with me physically. A priest had absolved me of my actions and surely he would know about what needed doing but here I was, still upset. Still having nightmares. I used to think about ending it all on a daily basis. I felt like a burden to Kerrass, trailing the countryside after me and I was so unreasonably tired. Fatigue weighed me down like a weight tied to my feet and lifting them and moving them just required so much effort. I longed to find some hole. A deep, cool dark hole to bury myself in where I could just shut away the world and I could die in peace.

It's so hard to describe now and as I write it down I feel as though, compared with the very real injuries and horrors of war, my problems were petty and small. No matter how many times the Witcher or Jerome or anyone else told me I deserved to feel this way and that I wasn't wrong. It was just a different kind of injury that would take a different kind of healing is all.

I'm struggling to tell you what it felt like.

It was as though the entirety of the world. All of existence, the very act of breathing in and out was full of bright lights and sharp edges. Loud noises and sudden, terrifying events. It hurt. It constantly hurt. I wanted to retreat. I wanted to give up so desperately, it was just that going against Kerrass' wishes seemed like so much extra effort.

So we came to The floating Blossom. I suppose that what that place was was a brothel although Madame Karla would be deeply insulted to hear me say that. She would say that it was a guest house where men and indeed women could come and have their troubles taken away from them. I was deposited in a booth while Kerrass went and told my story to Madame Karla and then it was her turn to take over my care. It would seem that the last step in my recovery would be to teach me how to live again.

It has to be admitted that I did not take it with good grace.

I was paraded before Karla's other ladies. I was told that I was going to be looked after and that should I require anything at all. I was simply to ask.

I took offence and wondered if I was supposed to sleep with them all at once or one at a time.

Showing remarkable insight Karla took me aside and asked me whether or not I would be able to do that thing.

As it turns out my depression had left me impotent.

The ladies took me in hand and I was left with no choice but to hand myself over to their care. They bathed me, clothed me and fed me. It seemed that I became something to all of them. To Karla I was an errant child that needed some looking after. To the others I was sometimes a younger brother, an older brother, a long lost friend, a figure of authority and a potential lover.

I would spend my days in the company of these women and looking back I will never forget their kindnesses and to my dying day I will protect the honour of prostitutes.

They would take me for walks around the city showing me the undeniably splendid sights that were around. We went to see plays, listen to music and watching sporting events. We gambled and laughed. Always I was accompanied, always I was dressed in the finest clothes with a beautiful woman on my arm attentive to my every need.

Gradually I began to relax. I relearned how to let people get close to me, physically and mentally. As I did so they began to let go and give me more freedom. They would talk to me, ask my advice regarding the men in their lives and the women in mine. There was so much laughter and although I can't imagine that their lives were easy, they managed to find the enjoyment in all things.

I am also aware how lucky those women are. I have seen much more brutal bordellos, brothels and whorehouses. Couple that with the universal truth that no girl of any age wakes up one morning and declares to themselves and to their parents that they want to be a prostitute but I felt that these women were content.

They were clean, well fed, protected from rough clients. They were educated (something else which I found myself helping them with) and had regular visits from doctors.

I used to spend my days quietly sitting in a corner reading a book, chatting with the women and providing them with a safe haven if they wanted a break from entertaining their "clients". They could fetch a drink and sit and talk with me while we played cards or some other game, conversed and played at flirting.

I was happy for a time and gradually, oh so gradually I learnt that this effect was not a trick. That it wasn't going to go away. I was weak yes, in body and mind. I spent days just being held by people as I sobbed myself to exhaustion. I started to come to terms with the fact that I would probably wear the scars for all my days but the sun would shine, there was still knowledge to be gained and pleasure to be had in good company. Especially the company of beautiful women.

One day as I lay in bed waiting for the sun to come and listening to the beginnings of city business outside I realised that I was not alone. I looked over at the woman next to me. She had always been around in the background and she was unutterably beautiful although we had never really had the chance to talk. Long golden hair and sleepy blue eyes. She smiled at me. Where other women had been hard edges and cruelty, this lady was soft and kind. Her eyes seemed to search my face before she moved forwards and kissed me.

That morning as we loved each other, the bright winter sunlight shining through my window and being reflected off that ladies skin is one of the most beautiful images in my memory and I cherish it like a precious jewel that I take out and look at whenever I need to.

I dozed afterwards and she slipped out as I did so.

I got up that day feeling better than I had in days. Took care of my personal hygiene, dressed in my new travelling clothes and went downstairs for breakfast.

The Witcher was already there tucking into one of his characteristically huge breakfasts.

I joined him, he raised an eyebrow and I nodded.

"I would not blame you if you wanted to part company," he said around a mouth full of sausage.

"No," I said. "I will continue if you let me."

Kerrass shrugged. "I'm not sure I deserve a choice in the matter." he looked up again. "Welcome back."

I saw him hand a considerable pouch over to Karla afterwards and was momentarily annoyed at the illusion being stripped away but that was dispelled at the many tearful farewells that I then had with just about every woman there including Madame Karla.

The blonde was nowhere to be seen.

That first day was not a long one. At first it was just a joy to be back out on the road. A joy that was compounded by the fact that I was enjoying myself again. My questions were coming back, as was my curiosity.

The first night we stopped early at my request as I had a need to stay outside that night. We built a huge fire and I slept in a way that I hadn't done for weeks.

The following day I did better and that night I finally asked the question that had come back to me now that I was on the mend.

"Who is Jack?" I asked, wrapped in blankets my hands around a pot of Kerrass' tea. "What was that creature?"

Kerrass sighed and poked the fire. "I owe you answers and if you are sure you want them now, I will tell you what I know. Are you ready for them? I don't want to trigger a relapse."

I thought about it for a long time. He was right of course. That was a danger.

"Sooner or later I will want to know. You say that knowledge is dangerous and if it is, then I would rather be informed by a man who knows where the pitfalls are."

Kerrass nodded and stared into the fire for a long time.

I didn't push, he was clearly thinking where to start.

"Did you ever tell ghost stories when you were younger?" he asked me.

"No-one knows who Jack is." Nayhan had said. "No-one ever knows. It's not even a hundred percent certain that that is in fact his name. Normally you find him as a portent, a dream. You'll be investigating some kind of horrific case of horrible and gruesome murder at the hands of some monster, apparition or otherwise possessed person. You'll ask around about anything strange going on in the recent past and you'll occasionally find a report that someone had had a dream. Often the victim before they died, or sometimes a close friend, family member or lover who would dream of Jack before or shortly after the person died. Sometimes, as a Witcher you can try and help protect the dreamer, or sometimes you can prevent something terrible or catch the person responsible but always the dream turns out to have been significant in some strange way.

"Dreamers will describe a man. Always well dressed in the latest fashions wearing black, red and occasionally some white splashes across the chest along with a hat of some kind. Whatever the local fashion is at that time. The hat always has a long feather in it. Sometimes the man will have human legs or sometimes he will have legs more resembling that of a goat. Huge and massively powerful. Jack will flee from the dreamer, often leading them on some merry goose chase before vanishing before the dreamers eyes, but always there are a set of burning hoof prints where Jack had last stood in the dream. The dreamer would have time to see them. Know what they were. But then they would wake up, often in a sweat.

"Of course, that's the problem with prophecy. Making sense only in the past tense. 'Oh of course the ghost was trying to tell us that we needed to smear cheese oil over our swords to defeat the demon. Because that was what it was trying to tell us when it was rolling something around on the floor'.

"But in this case, if you look far back enough and have access to enough data you come back with a truism which is that Jack gets about."

Nayhan paused to tip the ashes out of his pipe and looked us each in the face.

"So," he went on, "So I had been on the path for around forty years at this point and I was on my way back to the keep to spend the winter there when a messenger summoned me towards Oxenfurt. Nowadays a Witcher has to go looking for work and that situation is only going to get worse but back then people would often have to seek us out. Couple that with the usual problems of having to sort out fact from fiction and those occasional cases where criminals would try to suggest supernatural goings on in an effort to obfuscate rather mundane crimes meaning that we would often get called in to 'consult' on perfectly normal murders or kidnappings.

"In this case it was even less than that. The messenger summoned me had a message with him set out the basics of the case. The other thing about back then was that the university of Oxenfurt was getting established but to get to the state that they wanted to be in they needed more students. More students equals more fees which in turn means more money for the colleges and so on. The way that was being tried at the time was they were testing out whether or not female students could hack it. It was seen as a way for the nobility to occupy younger daughters who were dissatisfied with their suitors or younger wives who wanted to get away from husbands who were practically their grandparents. On the downsides to all of this, students were invariably nobles who saw study as a man's pass time and were threatened by the potential intelligence of their female counterpart."

Apparently at this point Nayhan had sniffed loudly and suggested that the younger male students had clearly missed the potential of lots of young, bored and frustrated noble-women all kept in one place. The comments went over the heads of the young Witcher hopefuls.

"So it seems that a Lady Katya was out with her friend a Lady Theresa. Lady Katya had a fascination with the early works of a philosopher that I (meaning Nayhan) couldn't remember. She had decided to take an evening stroll with her friend Lady Theresa to get some air, a little light exercise and an opportunity to think on the problems that class presented her away from the loud noises of their boarding rooms. As they were walking along the alleys of the still growing city a figure jumped out at the two young women. The figure wore black trousers of expensive cut, shiny black boots, a black doublet with white piping and a black velvet cape with crimson inlay. He had a cap with a feather and carried a cane.

The figure jumped out at the two women covering the majority of it's face with it's cape, struck Lady Theresa around the face with it's cane causing her to become dazed before dragging Lady Katya off into the darkness. Lady Theresa being a fairly sensible lady staggered towards the road and made good use of her lungs in calling for help. Several gallant gentlemen came running at the calls for aid, charged up the ally down which Katya had disappeared Some distance down in the light of their torches they saw a man answering to that description bent over a bundle in the road. At the sight of the gentlemen the figure ran off deftly jumping over a wall to make his escape. The rescuers found that the bundle in the road was the dazed figure of Lady Katya who had clearly fainted and whose clothing was torn exposing her to the elements. The gallant gentlemen charged off in pursuit but in the end they were unsuccessful. Largely due to the fact that they were all a little soused.

It was a mark of the times that the optimistically named Oxenfurt city guard put this down to a student prank. The same thing happened a week later only "Jack" had managed to "leap" up a wall to make his escape.

Unfortunately once these things start to happen then they have a tendency to continue happening and escalate. It wasn't long before someone's important daughter was raped and exposed by "Jack" before making a miraculous escape. The guard had no suspects and sorcery or monsters were suspected as no suspects answered every description nor could any one person who could perform such feats have been at every crime scene. So they sent for me.

Looking back I always remember finding it surprising that the figure was already being called "Jack" before I got there. Scholarship was still a very new occupation amongst humanity and as such the phenomenon known as "Jack" was only known to specialists in the field such as The Witcher's schools, Sorcerers and Wizards and the elves of course but people were already calling him Jack. They called him "Boot-heel Jack" then because of his habit of taking to his boot-heels and fleeing whenever he was spotted.

I arrived, did all the interviews which was a little difficult because many of the victims had been sent home, or fled home, or demanded to be returned home. I spoke to some of the "gallant rescuers" I invited some of the guards to explain why they hadn't taken the threat particularly seriously in the first place?"

(Frederick:The answer was not suitable for publication and I, for one, am grateful that the quality of the city guard has improved since those days)

"I (Nayhan) scouted the city for a few days and there was absolutely not a twitch of my medallion. As a result it was entertained that there was nothing supernatural about the phenomenon at all and that this was some kind of mortal perpetrator.

"Sometimes a Witcher will find that the perspective of an outsider is useful and they can use that to look at the bigger picture where local officials are too close to the problem to resolve. The guards had been looking for one person or monster was doing these things but the truth was much simpler, in that there was more than one person doing it.

"Several attempts were made to catch the miscreants, commonly operations including bait but none of them worked until one night, maybe four nights after my arrival. A male student victim was found tied to a public fountain. He had been tied, gagged, beaten with a stick, his penis removed and a huge wooden phallus had been inserted up the man's arse until his internal organs ruptured and he bled to death.

"This time my medallion was jumping all over the place.

" Soon after we found another victim, this time in his home. Again he had been tied up, gagged, beaten with a stick only this time he had died of a combination of extreme alcohol poisoning and drowning. He had had so much vodka forced down his throat that it had filled his stomach and overflowed into his lungs. Believe me when I say that it would not have been a good way to go.

"As we were working on finding a connection between the two boys a third was found having bled to death. Again he was bound, gagged and beaten before being hung upside-down off a temple spire with a small cut in his head meaning that it had taken him hours to bleed out.

"We didn't need to wait very long for a connection as a fourth student came to us and confessed."

Nayhan had sniggered at this point.

"Th poor lamb was terrified. He met us in an inn in the middle of Oxenfurt during the middle of the day. His name was Oswin, tall lad, easy on the eye, blonde hair and had all the charm and social grace of a pubic louse. He was one of that particular breed of rich kid that thinks that money, breeding, title and good looks can get him through life and any problem. He honestly expected that we were going to let him off his crimes because of who his father was. Piece by piece we got his story out of him. There were five of them in total. Obscenely rich boys who had found each other at university where they were studying fencing and other things that had sounded like a jape when they first go to Oxenfurt. They had met, decided that shit should clump together and had spent a bunch of time trying to make themselves as obnoxious as possible to just about everyone,"

(Frederick: Witcher Nayhan's story should not really be considered a historical source as his bias against these people, although possibly justified, is considerable.)

"The five of them had decided that they were offended at the presence of the ladies in this establishment of male betterment and had decided to teach certain members of the more uptight sex, their words not mine, a lesson or two. Reading between the lines I was left with the impression that what had actually happened was that these ladies had been the ones who had rebuffed the gentlemen's less than charming advances.

"We demanded to know about the fifth accomplice, we were not kind and shortly the address was given over along with various threats that "father would have words with our superiors". We left, armed and armoured to find that we were too late. The fourth victim was found in a private fencing salon where he had been bound and gagged before being tortured to death by wounds that one might receive during a fencing match. There were thousands of cuts. Tiny cuts, all missing the major arteries but still cutting deep enough to reach nerve centres and blood vessels. The poor kid was in incredible pain and had died of his wounds before we got there however the body was still warm so we must have just missed the assailant.

"We continued to interrogate our surviving witness who was, by this point extremely terrified with good reason. The five men were determined to play a series of pranks on these women but were unsure what to do until one of their number had found a story about a killer named Jack that had stalked the streets of Vizima in Temeria about twenty years before. The killer had assaulted and murdered several women during his rain of terror before disappearing just as suddenly as the murders had started. The murders were renowned for the acrobatic prowess and the wicked sense of humour of the killer, leading guardsmen on several merry chases along roof-tops with laughter peeling out behind him, scaling impossibly high walls with ease along with easy jumps that could clear outhouses. The killer was never caught although a physical description had been given by witnesses.

"The five young men were physically fit and able so they concocted their plan. With elaborate chases planned where they could pretend to be each other. One person would vanish round a corner and another appear on the rooftops, mob chases visible person and first guy would get away. The costume was bought and they started their systematic assaults on those women that had wronged them in some way.

"The little puke was saying "It was only a bit of fun" over and over for so long that I really wanted to slap him. As if raping and torturing women was 'just a bit of fun'

"Pah

"Anyway, it was clear that the boy was going to be arrested, tried and dealt with by the justice system in Oxenfurt at the time and despite my own feelings that we should hand the new killer a medal of some kind it was determined that a skilled killer should be brought to justice. We tried everything to catch him, we set watches, we had patrols out, I used my medallion regularly, we managed to draft a passing mage into helping us. At one point I even dressed myself in the little git's clothes in an effort to draw the killer out but to no avail other than the fact that I spent a lot of time in the baths the day afterwards.

"We found nothing.

"The guard captain eventually talked puke-face into being the bait himself. We had men stationed all along the route that he was going to walk. He was going to be shadowed by myself and the guards best swordsman. The guard captain was at the point where any assault was the most likely. Doctors were on standby in case of injury. The mage was next to a basin of water which apparently meant that he could keep watch over everything.

"It was a tense evening even though I found I didn't really care about the 'fate' of the boy that I was protecting, although I suspected that my wages would suffer if he died or if he was harmed in any way.

"But it was a good night for a hunt. The moon was nearly full but not quite and it was one of those clear winter nights where the stars were out. Freezing cold so we could see each others breath which was less than ideal but again I wasn't worried as I could control mine and I wasn't the quarry.

"But we were wrong. Jack didn't come for the boy in the nice, quiet and secluded ally. He came in the widest square in Oxenfurt.

"We heard his laughter first. Echoing off the buildings. It was loud and it was moving phenomenally fast. My medallion was jerking enough that the chain marked the skin of my neck. The laughter carried on and on. Guardsmen were rushing about, rattling weapons and generally making fools of themselves. The mage appeared through a portal and the guard captain came with his small band of men. All told there were maybe a dozen of us in that square.

"The bait fell into a whimpering heap and pissed himself.

"The laughter increased at every new arrival, the mage, the guards until it sounded like the amused man was in hysterics.

"I will say this for him though. Jack has a well developed sense of drama and likes to arrive in style. There was a building there, slightly larger than any of the others were a pointed roof. A figure emerged there and he stood on the very point of that roof overhanging the square like some kind of gargoyle. He waited until we could all see him before removing his hat and bowing to the assembly before putting the hat back on. I had a sense of a pale face with an immaculate black haircut and goatee. He flourished his cane and drew a ridiculously flimsy looking sword from it and saluted us again. Some of the guards came to their senses and arrows started to fly.

"Jack leapt down.

"It was a three story drop. A Witcher could do it without harm but we would need to roll with the impact. As far as I could tell, Jack simply landed and started to stride forwards.

"Then he vanished.

"But he hadn't gone. He was just moving so fast that he was difficult to see. We took a defensive position around our prey, anything sensible would have fled but Jack didn't. He just moved. I've never seen sword play like it. As I watched three men were cut down, blood exploding from their throats like it would from a geyser, the guards staggering away before collapsing.

Then Jack vanished down a side-street. Laughter following him.

Several of the guards pursued, much to the fury of the guard captain but the chase was on now and not a policeman in the world would have stopped their pursuit of so obviously a guilty man. Soon there were only six of us in the square. Two guardsmen, the bait, the guard captain and the wizard who was muttering to himself and myself.

"Then Jack came back.

"It's a common mistake and I had fallen for it same as anyone else. My medallion was jingling and I was searching the side alleys for signs of movement.

Jack landed behind me. I spun but Jack was there and he blew a white powder into my face and I saw stars. But I was frozen in place and could do nothing but watch.

The guard captain was taken out of the fight when his hand was removed at the wrist. One guardsman went down with a thrust to the leg while the other fled, followed y Jack's laughter and the captains cursing. Jack gestured sharply at the mage who screamed horribly and vanished in a flash of light. Then Jack turned to me and made another sharp gesture which shook me to my core as my medallion suddenly stopped still. I still couldn't see his face but I was sure that he was grinning at me.

Then Jack went for the bait. He was bound and gagged with swift and efficient ease before taking a butchers knife from somewhere in his cloak he pulled the boys trousers down and cut of his genitals. Then he bent down and watched the boys eyes, as close as a lover might, while he bled to death.

The genitals were negligently left covering the boys face.

Jack then turned to me and walked over slowly. His rapier was back in his hand and very slowly, very deliberately he scarred me across the face."

Nayhan had gestured to a significant facial scar that was vertical from the temple, crossed his right eye and finished at his cheek.

"I roared and freed myself from the enchantment and charged him."

Nayhan shrugged.

"He didn't just beat me. He was toying with me. I couldn't touch him, he was like smoke and he parried every cut, thrust and trick that I knew. I was even beginning to tire after a while. The witnesses from the houses claim I fought valiantly but all I was really doing was fighting for my life.

"Then the guardsmen that had chased him started to come back. Jack leapt backwards. An impossibly large distance, saluted me again and ran off.

"This time I did give chase. The guard captain, despite being mutilated was back in charge and ordering people about while a medic dealt with the stump of his wrist.

"But I ran. I was already tired but I couldn't leave it there. That boy, no matter what he had done had not deserved that. No-one deserves that. A swift death, certainly but humiliation like that...

"I ran and I chased him. Always he seemed just out of reach, only just out of the range of my sword. We must have run all through the city until we thought we had him cornered. It was at the waters edge. The river between him and the Temerian shore. I was coming from one way and the guard were coming the other. Jack stopped, turned and brandished his sword.

"We had all seen his swordplay then and were rightly scared of it. We advanced cautiously, the guard demanding that he lay down his arms.

"Jack laughed at us, long and loud. He sheathed his sword, bowed to us, turned and gave a little run up before jumping across the river.

"Literally jumping across the river.

"We stopped and stared, he was now out of the guards jurisdiction and would be long gone before I had got to the bridge, convinced someone to open it.

"He turned, waved and vanished into the woods that were much thicker at the time than they are now.

"As I watched the treeline though I noticed something glowing on the floor.

"It was a glowing pair of hoof-prints where Jack had jumped."

Kerras stopped after finishing the story. He was just staring into the fire, probably at some memory long passed.

"At first I remember thinking that the entire thing was bullshit," he said after a while. But when I left my school after finishing the last of my trials and being given my shiny new medallion, my shiny new swords and my potion box still had that new box smell. I went to Oxenfurt. It was on my way anyway as there were always contracts to be had in that neck of the woods and I spent an entertaining day down on the docks looking for that pair of hoof-prints and chasing down rumours of that story.

"The story was true as far as I could tell. There were a series of murders within a couple of days where five noble sons were humiliated and killed although there is no mention of the women that had been harassed, raped and murdered beforehand. When I talked about "Jack" I was looked down on by the historian that I was asking and told that such things had been dreamt up by the students at the time who wanted to make a series of simple murders have some kind of meaning and make them more fantastic.

"I kept my peace. I did find the hoof-prints though. They were and, as far as I know, still are on the northern parts of the docks. That area where shallow draft boats can be pulled ashore to unloaded. There are a series of stone slabs there to prevent erosion. One the end of one, although the marks have been damaged over time with water and wear. You can still see the marks of a pair of hoof-prints. Smaller than a horse but larger than a goat that seem to have been burnt into the stone. As though the hooves had been melted into the bulk."

"When I came back to the cat's keep that year. It was made known that Nayhan had died while on the path that year, although no-one knew how it had happened.

"I went to the keeper of chronicles. It is, or rather was a position often held by a Witcher who has been crippled on the path and can no longer walk it. They came back to the keep and would keep the books as a kind of librarian. Ours was killed when our Keep was raised by Redanian troops.

But with his help I found what I was looking for which helped with what that creature was back in Amber's crossing. As to Jack it only gave me more questions.

No-one knows where they come from or why they're here. They are no race that anyone can tell and seem to shift their forms like you or I would change a pair of clothes. We know of several of them.

The most recently famous one is the Master of Mirrors. He goes by many different names and has worn many different faces but he travels the roads and byways of the world seeking amusement. Legend has it that if you call to him at a cross-roads at midnight he will come and grant your wish. He will always demand a price and what he gives you will be close to, but not quite what you were looking for. He is known to have been active towards the North East of Oxenfurt as recently as this time last year but has since vanished.

I believe, although I can't be sure, that what we met is a creature known as "Darkness" because it can hold no other shape for long. It's talent is always rumoured to have been that it can see the darkness inside someone and can bring it out. Our deepest fears, our deepest and darkest desires. The things that we are ashamed of, secrets that we even keep to ourselves. It delights in experiencing these things with it's victims along with the emotions that come with it because, as Darkness, it has no emotions of it's own."

Insight struck me,

"Which is why your lack of emotion terrified it because it could no longer experience the emotions of those it had captured."

Kerrass smiled slightly. "Precisely."

He took a swig from the flask. "It was a risk but it was one I felt was worth it. Again I apologise for what that risk did to you."

I waved him off.

"There are others, as well," Kerrass passed the flask over to me, "You might have heard of the horse-man of war. A tall black or white figure who rides before the war-front, sometimes male, sometimes female. Cutting down anyone in it's way with sword and axe. It rides a black horse with red eyes. It also has no head.

"There is a knight that can sometimes be found. He guards a bridge challenging those who try to cross to a fight. Rumour has it that he has never lost but the people he challenges sometimes survive and sometimes die according tot he whim of the knight.

"To the south, in the Black Forest of Nilfgaard which is a huge thing that dwarves even the Brokilon forest even in the north. It is a dark forest where death and decay almost flows from it in a wave. Deep in the depths of it, there is said to be a creature that the locals refer to as "The schattenmann" which roughly translates as "The man of knives," or "The man of scissors," They use him to frighten children saying that if they stay awake or suck their thumbs then The Schattenmann will cut their thumbs off. People who work in or near the Black Forest have a ritual that they do there where they sacrifice things to the Schattenman. People think of it as quaint, but one new village had a fervent priest of the golden sun there and demanded that the peasants put aside their rituals. The village was found later. All the villagers had vanished leaving belongings out and food on the table. The priest however was nailed to his church and was still alive despite many and varied efforts to kill him. In the end the village was abandoned and the forest claimed it back along with the still screaming body of the priest.

"As for Jack. He turns up once every fifty to seventy years if you know what to look for. He will find a city or a castle full of people. He will choose a theme, sometimes virgins, prostitutes, pretenders that try to emulate him, pregnant women, priests. And then he kills them. Humiliating and disfiguring them in various ways. People can only remember the noble outfits and the laughter.

"So who or what are these things?

"We don't know. What we do know are some of the common factors. We know that the same beings, or entities have existed for millennia. The elves know of them all though they know only slightly more than us. The dwarves and the Gnomes have stories of Jack, The Mirror master and the Headless Horseman.

"We all seem to have different names for them.

"They aren't magical but they have more power than any of us can claim to understand.

"The elves theorise that they are emotionless or do not have emotions such as we understand them but that they are curious about us. That we are beyond their understanding and that they have studied us from the shadows since the first gnomes made enough sparks to light fires on this continent. They even believe that they were here before the gnomes came above ground and that they can move between worlds.

"At one point it was thought that they are individual riders of the wild hunt but we since know that this is not true.

"Whatever they are we know one thing. Every single other one of those creatures that we know about interact with people apart from one. Every single one of them trade in souls, stories, favours, jokes, skills and information. They have no sense of morals but they all talk, yes, even the headless one talks. But they all defer to someone. Someone whose orders that they follow, even when they're pursuing their own goals. That is the only thing that connects them is their deference to another party and the only reason we group them together.

"That person is not a King, not a General or Priest.

"It's not a philosopher or artist.

"As far as we know it's not their parent or creator.

"All we know about him is his name.

"A name that we gave him.

"He is known, throughout the world as simply,

"Jack."


	15. Chapter 15

(NB: Some of the "facts" that are presented in this piece by Kerrass and Frederick were found and inferred from things that I found quite far down the black hole of Wiki-hopping including some of the unpublished polish comics about the subjects. I would love to be able to quote sources on some of this stuff but I can't find those pieces any more. Nor can I find a reliable timeline of events (Damn Mr Sapkowski and CD Projekt Red for leaving things excitingly and inspirationally vague). Because of this, in many cases I've gone with what "feels" right in my head regarding the histories of the northern Kingdoms, rather than what might be accurate according to book/game timelines.

Also a warning for some extreme language.

Thank you for reading.)

It feels strange to me now, that here I am about to set off for a second year of adventures with Kerrass, the Witcher from the Cat school of Witchers to be thinking about the ending of the previous year.

Not that it was a full year of adventuring. I didn't set off until well into that year but there we go.

Details details.

I'm still sat in my lodgings as I write this introduction and as I look around this place, the boxes of books and scrolls that are to go off to storage for when I return, if I return, make me feel somewhat melancholy. I look at my spear leaning against the door where I have purposefully left it. This to block the door in case another professor turns up with urgent questions about how a griffins claws act, whether they live in sheaths in their paws in the same way that a cat's claws are sheathed or whether they are out all of the time.

They live in sheaths Obviously. I thought some of these people had done autopsies on those magnificent, if terrifying beasts.

My saddlebags are packed, a few spare changes of clothing, my winter cloak that will also serve as a spare blanket should we still be going into summer and depending on where we end up. A LOT more writing implements with explicit instructions that I should be both writing and drawing a lot more as I travel around the northern Kingdoms this time.

Kerrass is going to love that.

I've also bought myself a much larger drinking canteen, several packets of herbs for purifying water and a lot of food seasoning for having flavourful meals while out on the road.

There are only so many times you can boil up food rations with barley and whatever vegetables that you've found lying around into what you optimistically call "stew" before it gets boring. Next time you read some fantastical book where the travellers sit down to a nice camp-site meal of stew, imagine a thin, watery, brownish grey looking substance with suspect lumps in it that almost always turn out to be turnip rather than meat. Then imagine that it tastes mostly of the salt used to preserve the meat and precious little else.

You're welcome.

Always remember the cooking herbs when you go travelling. You'll thank me for it.

I had a Yule gift for Kerrass which was the largest, strongest and most expensive bottle of Apple brandy I could find. I had sampled some in the shop and I swear by the holy flame that I want those two minutes of my life back. It was sat somewhere in the bag along with my own medicinal alcohol which I had chosen as a particularly fine brand of Vodka that was coming out of Kaedwen at the moment. It had that nasal quality that can clean out your tubes although you have to be careful as it is a bit of a mood amplifier. If you feel even slightly tired you'll fall asleep but if you're feeling active and energetic then you'll be buzzing around like a lunatic. The same goes for feelings. Drink while depressed and well... You get the idea.

So I'm all set up for my journey when I get a letter through from the magazine editor saying that they've had someone drop out from publishing an article in their latest issue and they're hoping that I could possibly fill up the gap with a slightly more amusing tale than the last one.

I can't answer for amusing. I'm a historian not a bard.

But as the letter came with a note from the professor that is over-seeing my doctorate to say that they could do with the funding I don't see that I have much of a choice.

"I'm about to leave," I protested

"You'll have time to do something," said the professor I noticed, not for the first time that they have absolutely no idea how long it takes to produce this stuff. It will help them, I have to help them and as a result they want it doing yesterday.

"No," I said stubbornly, already feeling that I was losing the argument before it had really started.

"No I don't. I'm meeting Kerrass soon and he doesn't like being kept waiting." It was only a little lie. He won't mind being kept waiting providing he will be staying on someone else's expense. It's me. I want to be underway again.

"Well just annotate one of those pieces that you've done for us. Someone's bound to be interested in some of those."

I jumped on it. Adding some notes to an already written down transcript sounded easy enough. "I can do that," I thought and jumped at the opportunity.

Turns out though that I was lying.

You see, it turns out that as well as being an academic...

The thought occurs that the reason all those academics give me so much grief is because _they_ were given so much grief by _their_ professors who were given grief by _their_ professors and so on down the chain. I wonder if there's something to that.

Anyway.

As well as being an academic, it turns out that I am a bit of storyteller and I find that I have to pick subjects that interests my readers. Then I have to add some context and things so that readers can better understand what's going on.

As a result it's not just adding an introduction and an outroduction to an existing transcript but it's actually expanding the thing far beyond what was originally intended.

Not that it matters. Kerrass turned up, I introduced him to my Professor and some of his colleagues and he now entertains himself by turning all their theories about monsters and the evolution of monsters on their heads. I'm actually a little worried in case he annoys them so much that they start to disapprove of him as a source and press upon me the need for "facts" that contradict him to suit their own theories.

But still.

The interview I've chosen for your perusal is hopefully one that you will find interesting as it concerns the history of the Witcher schools. Primarily dealing with the history between the Cat school and the Wolf school and some details about why Cat Witchers are often looked down on as well as Kerrass' potted history.

Coincidentally it was also the last, really deep conversation that Kerrass and I would have before we parted ways for the winter.

It was on the ship home I remember. We had gone down to the harbour the day before to book passage up to Novigrad for the two of us plus our horses and it had gotten really really cold by this point. Apparently we could expect some snow during the voyage and some light, choppy waves but the captain assured us both that the chances of outright storms during this particular window of the season was relatively small and that if a storm did creep in then we would be able to see it coming to be able to take refuge accordingly.

We got the berths fairly cheap as apparently a Witcher aboard is always a crowd draw as the Captain can always charge extra as "There's a Witcher aboard to protect us from sirens, Vodyanoi and other exciting Sea based monstrosities'. All he required in return for the discount was that the Witcher spend some time on deck scowling (the Captains direct words) at the other passengers and warning them in dire tones that they really should stay below.

Kerrass has smiled his little smile and said that he was certain that he could oblige and promised to be there early the following day to be present during the loading of cargoes and passengers.

The theory behind this late voyage was that there was a Window before inlets started to freeze, ice forming beneath the water became a problem and when the storms ended for a willing Captain to stop off at some of the Fisher towns to pick up some last cargoes for sale in the markets in Novigrad. That would mean that Novigrad merchants could put their prices up because "supplies were scarce in winter" but they were still getting large supplies from Captains like him. In theory it wasn't dangerous but the timing was tight. Set off to late or start to run behind and you could be trapped amongst developing ice. Start to early and you might get caught in one of the last storms of the season. The man was confident though and his crew seemed experienced.

Dutifully we spent our last night on dry land in a quiet inn where we could get some decent food as well as a good nights rest without being pestered by tired eyed and freezing cold prostitutes. The kind of woman where what you really want to do is to wrap them in a blanket and feed them a hot drink rather than actually sleeping with them. Kerrass advised me to fill my stomach in the evening and try to get as large a breakfast as I could in the morning. All of this because I was not entirely sure whether or not I suffered from seasickness and we were unlikely to get much to eat the following day.

Luckily though it turns out that I do not suffer from that particular brand of illness. I won't deny that there were a few warning rumblings early on but they soon vanished and I had a fairly lazy day watching the cargo being loaded and the other passengers being brought aboard. Kerrass was fraternising with the Captain, looking suitably grizzled and annoyed at the world. For myself, we had fallen back on the old explanation that I was the Witcher's apprentice which the crew loved as they saw me as some kind of good luck charm. It really is true that Sailors are a superstitious lot, even more superstitious than soldiers are. I found myself the job of looking after the horses aboard and had managed to erect a canvas covering to keep all the horses together, I found a shovel for the necessaries, a manger for hay and several buckets for food and water. All in all I made myself a little tent just in front of the mast for my own sleeping arrangements as well as to take care of the horses that were being kept on deck.

However I suspect that the real reason that the crew liked me was because of an incident involving the merchant that would cause a problem for Kerrass later.

I like horses and had worked with the crew to choose the best place for my little stable. I had various tricks to coax the horses up the ramp and onto the deck. Apples and sugar lumps are marvellous incentives. As are blinds over the horses eyes and a gentle, firm and confident grip. But I came to one horse... There were going to be about 6 all told on the voyage including mine and Kerrass' gelding. Ours and two others were already aboard. Another horse had been brought and I was getting to know the horse before the difficult task of getting it up the, not overly large, ramp. But then another horseman turned up.

I will not deny that he was a good looking man. Nor will I deny that he wore his clothes well. Nor can I deny that I took an instant dislike to the man.

I can't define why. It might be that looking back on my first sight of him has coloured my memory but all I can think of is this. I would like to think that I am not a violent man. Nowadays violence is one of the tools that I have at my disposal thanks to the Witchers teachings but I would really rather talk my way out of a situation instead of fighting my way out. So I'm not a violent man but something about this guy just made my hair stand on end. All I could think about at the time was that he had a really punchable face.

He savagely reigned in his horse at the dock, and threw himself out of the saddle and started screaming at one of the dock hands about why _his_ cargo had yet to be loaded onto the ship. The dock worker just ignored him, as did the customs officials.

But regardless the man acted as though he had won the arguments despite, as far as I could see, nothing actually changing. But then his eyes fixed on me.

"You there, boy."

I was and am twenty. That means I'm young but definitely not a boy to the average greeting. So I ignored him and assumed he was speaking to someone else.

"I'm talking to you boy." he yelled.

I'm not joking either, there really are people in the world like this.

I turned to see what the fuss was about and found that this prize idiot was looking at me.

Satisfied he flicked a coin in my direction which landed at my feet in a small pile of gooey manure.

I had made no move to catch it. Instead I had watched the coin ark through the air to land with a little splash before I looked back up at him to catch him smirking as though he had just made a fine jest.

See what I mean about how punchable the man is?

"See that my horse is taken aboard immediately and you will oblige me by making sure that he is given the foremost treatment." He then raised his nose and made to walk off.

"Your horse is the last to arrive," I said, coldly, "as such he will be the last to embark. That is presuming that the Captain is not ready to depart before then. My understanding is that the ship was due to depart half a glass ago and as such you are late and therefore at the bottom of my list of priorities."

The man's mouth opened in shock.

"D-Don't you know who I am?" he demanded, his voice rising in outrage. Again I swear that this is true and that it actually happened.

"Not, only do I not know," I said forestalling him. "But I don't care."

A couple of the nearby sailors who were working hard getting the late cargo aboard cheered ironically.

I suppose that it should be mentioned that I was not the young man that had left Oxenfurt all that time ago. I was older, both in months but also in mileage. Since my departure from Oxenfurt I had been tortured by otherworldly creatures. I had been drunk and known the intimate company of women, both activities number far more in the journey than I ever had in the years prior to my departure. I had killed monsters. I had saved lives and faced down mobs. I had bled and cried and fought and sweated and shat and pissed myself with fear. I had smelt the rotting breath of a Wyvern bearing down on me as I was carrying a child to safety when Kerrass was on it's back killing it and I had heard the screech of a cockatrice as it dived for it's prey.

I had blown up monster dens, descended into pitch black caves and sat with a terrified family while Kerrass confronted the angry spirits that were haunting them. I had seen a trolls tears as well as the best and worst of the human spirit. I had seen the light go out of a man's eyes with my own dagger in his throat, an act that still keeps me awake at night despite the utter surety that I had no choice.

At the time my hair was unkempt and there was several days worth of beard-growth on my face. I was dirty, sweaty and having experience with horses I was wearing my most raggedy clothing. I have filled out since leaving Oxenfurt. I have muscles now, where I didn't know it was possible to have muscles. I'll never be built, nor will I ever be as chiselled as some men achieve as I have far too much of a fondness for good food and alcohol, but there are obvious muscles and my posture has changed. I stand upright now and stare into people's eyes.

But despite my appearance, my voice remains relatively unchanged. I still sound like an educated Redanian nobleman, no matter how hard the Witcher and I had tried to train it out of me and I suspect that it was this that made the man step back as much as anything.

Out of the corner of my eyes I saw that the guards who were escorting the customs officials had turned to watch the confrontation.

The man's face flushed. "My name is Lord Antoine de Cair. Lord of Westerly manor and ruler of the High Reaches and you will do as I order you."

There is a game that nobles play that is to do with rank. During my upbringing I was taken to court many times and providing it's a relatively informal court then it goes like this. Ambitious men and women like to make a big deal of their titles, bragging about them and making a fuss over them. My Father and Grandfather belong in this category. These people wear their chains of office proudly along with the large ridiculously over-priced jewellery and slap cosmetics and perfumes all over themselves in an effort to appear more than they are. Whereas the higher ranks are dressed much more casually. They have generally realised that they aren't going to climb any higher in this lifetime because they crown is the one that orders their marriages so they have reached the glass ceiling of rank. They have nothing to prove. Therefore their pageantry is often subdued and, I would argue, more classy. They wear hunting clothes and the dresses they wore when they were re-arranging their libraries or arguing with the wine-merchants. The other odd thing that I've noticed is that the REAL high born. The people with the REAL wealth that have been around for centuries often get on better with the common men and women that work for them.

It's the ambitious men that tend to be the problems.

Like this Pox-driven bastard.

Also the title of Lord could mean anything. Technically I am a Lord due to my father being a baron, so are my brothers are all Lords all the way up to the Lord Duke of the Pontar delta who was second only to King Radovid before the King was killed. The fact that this man had no follow up title meant that he could be anything.

Also I was a noble too and I found that I wanted a fight.

"Never heard of the place. Or of you." I said as I felt the cold, ready feeling of pending violence wash over me. "For all I know you're just some jumped up little merchant who has been sold a made up title by some corrupt crown official in return for a back-handed bribe before the new Empress takes the throne and tells you where to shove it."

"I have paid my ticket, my cargo is now being loaded and I demand that..."

I shrugged. "I don't care about your cargo as I don't work for you. You're interrupting the flow of things and keeping me from my job so piss off and keep your opinions, orders and demands to yourself in future. Oh and take your shitty, insulting little bit of tin with you." I kicked the dung covered coin at him, making sure that his trousers got splattered by it before turning back to the chestnut mare who was getting agitated.

"How dare you, I'll..." There was a scraping sound and I moved.

The other difference between the me that had left Oxenfurt and who I am now is that I had been taught how to fight by a professional killer.

Before his sword had cleared it's scabbard I had fastened my left hand around his wrist keeping the sword where it was and my dagger was at the side of the man's neck.

"If that sword clears it's sheathe, I'll make you eat it," I hissed.

"What's going on here?" a guardsman was suddenly close by truncheon in hand.

I recovered my poise first.

"Nothing officer," I said backing off and re-sheathing my dagger. "I was just demonstrating something to the gentleman here," I turned and went back to the chestnut and started coaxing it up the ramp.

"Officer I demand that you arrest that man," came a shaky and high pitched voice from behind me.

"For what?" asked the officer innocently. For demonstrating a dagger technique?"

"He assaulted me,"

"Really? What I saw was you drawing steel and him defending himself. If that was an assault rather

than a demonstration then it's you that I would be arresting."

I lost track of the conversation after that. But I saw that Kerrass and the Captain were watching me and one of the sailors clapped me on the shoulder without comment.

Having got the Chestnut aboard and settled I decided to be the better man, which obviously I was, and returned to the dock for the black. It was a tricky bastard and I had to show it who's boss a few times but again, the power of the apple was on my side and I was able to coax the unruly beast up to my stable.

I managed to busy myself for a while after that, laying straw down. Putting sawdust down, making sure there was plenty of food and water around and that all the horses got along in the small confines which involved me shuttling a couple of them round so that none were next to another

horse that they didn't get on with.

Wouldn't you just know it but it turned out that black horse was the trouble-maker. As a result it went on the end with Kerrass' gelding next to it. The gelding was a large, fairly well trained beast and had a kind of placidity to it that put me in mind of a large and experienced warrior who is having a young soldier pick a fight with him.

The Captain and Kerrass approached me while I was doing that. The Captain was gesticulating wildly as he moved but his face seemed amused rather than upset.

"You've been making friends Freddie," Kerrass said, not even bothering to hide his amusement.

"Hmm? Oh the guy was a prick." I responded.

"Yes, but a prick who has considerable amounts of money invested in this journey." The Captain said calmly, still gesticulating as though he was angry.

I looked at the stacks of crates already aboard. "But they're aboard now and as I understand it you're the last ship out. If you don't take them who will?"

"I know, I know," said the Captain. "The man's a cunt, no scratch that, a cunt has warmth, depth and purpose. The man's a piss-stain on the trouser leg of life. But he complained and we've got to spend a few weeks with the man. He complained to me, so I've spoken with your "master" and we've come over to yell at you."

"Hence the gesturing," said Kerrass, still smirking.

"What's to stop us tipping him over the edge when we're out to sea?" I asked innocently.

"Don't say that in front of the crew," the captain suggested, "Just in case they take that as a serious suggestion. It is an option though if he becomes an issue but I'd rather not take it."

"So just look contrite and do your best not to piss him off too much," Kerrass added.

I grunted, did my best to look put upon as the two men left. I must have been good at it as another sailor came up and offered me a swig from a flask that threatened to burn my throat out.

We set sail shortly after that and I was much entertained as Lord Antoine turned out to suffer from violent sea-sickness.

It was three days later that the crisis point came up.

Kerrass was there in his professional capacity. He would stalk the decks, silver sword on his back and with a small cross-bow that he'd spent the first night constructing from the various parts that he had collected in the bottom of his pack. He would walk up and down, looking stern and foreboding, exchanging brief words with the night watch and the Watch officer. Then he would make a patrol below decks before returning to the upper deck where he had found a place near the mast where he could stay out of the way while still being able to keep his eyes on things.

For myself I had rigged up a small cot in amongst the horses. I won't deny that the horses smelled quite pungent but at the same time I was warm enough and since my adventures in Amber's crossing I find that I have developed a small amount of claustrophobia and as such I preferred sleeping outdoors. Not that I couldn't or can't sleep indoors. I just prefer being out doors.

I also very rarely feel cold. I get cold but it's the sort of thing where people have to point out to me that I'm actually shivering.

But anyway Kerrass was patrolling during the night. He had admitted to me that both he and the captain felt that the possibility of any requirement for a Witcher on a sea voyage at this time of the year was remote and as such what he was doing was just for the show of the thing so that the Captain could justify the rise in ticket prices. Kerrass would get some sleep in the early hours of the morning when the sun came up. This served two purposes, the first was to ensure that Kerrass was well rested but it also meant that he was out of the way. The morning change of watch was the hardest and the busiest, getting the crew and passengers fed, getting the anchor up (The captain didn't want to risk sailing at night. The skies were fairly overcast and he didn't want to blunder into a storm so he always found us an anchorage. He had obviously sailed this route many times before) and checking the sails for ice or tears in the light of the morning.

I would just stay where I was. The sailors looked after me regarding food and I had made a few companions amongst their number who liked to share the warmth of my little cave for a round of dice (which they won) or cards (which I won).

I didn't see the incident in question start but apparently Lord Antoine had come up on deck after breakfast and wanted to pick a fight with someone.

At some point in the future I intend to look up Lord Antoine, presuming he hasn't yet been murdered by someone, and do my best to make his life hell. I am not hiding my bias here. The man is a wretch.

Lord Antoine came on deck and wanted to throw his weight around. He had recovered from his bout of seasickness. I don't know what prompted his bout of rampant stupidity but it seems that his target was Kerrass. I don't know but my guess is that as he had found that he couldn't bully me he decided to go after my "master" thus confirming the man's death wish.

So he came on deck after Kerrass had gone below to wrap himself up in half a dozen blankets near the cargo. I had offered to make room for him in the stable to which he had said that the warmth would be welcome but if he was visible then people would mither him.

I don't know what mither means either. From the context it would suggest that people would annoy him.

But Lord Antoine came up on deck and stood at the rail for a while as we floated past some islands before spinning around in obviously false horror and demanded the presence of the Witcher. The boatswain came over to see what the fuss was and Lord Antoine insisted that he had seen a siren flying around on one of the islands.

Kerrass had told me that Sirens are essentially flying lizards and as such are not overly fond of cold. They might come out of their caves if we crashed on their islands but that didn't look like it was happening.

The boatswain peered at the island. Declared that he could see nothing and went to wander off.

Lord Antoine kicked up a stink about demanding the Witcher's presence. Hadn't an extra fee been paid for a Witcher's presence. Why wasn't he here?

The boatswain came back and told the man in no uncertain terms to shut the fuck up.

Lord Antoine refused and began to start churning up a panic. Mostly in the other passengers but I had begun to see that the sailors were beginning to become agitated as well.

Kerrass blearily came to the deck clearly wondering what all the fuss was about.

I came out as well from where I had been shovelling horse-shit over the side and saw Kerrass go over to the Lord High piss-drinker and tell him in no uncertain terms that there was definitely not a dragon over on that island. Nor were there Sirens, Wyvern or anything else that possessed Leathery wings that could or would fly over to the ship and eat him specifically.

Lord Dick-stain (I'm going to run out of insults soon so I apologise if it's getting cruder but words cannot express how much I dislike this excuse for a human being. It honestly makes me angry that whatever force governs the creation of all things made a human being out of that skin instead of a couple of thousand earth-worms.) started calling Kerrass' expertise into question, decrying him as a murderer and a scoundrel, shouting at the other passengers that the Witcher would see them all dead and would steal from their rotting bodies. He said that the Captain and the Witcher were in on the plan together and that it was all a con.

As he said all of this I was walking towards them getting ready to throw some water on the situation. I wasn't worried for Kerrass but if Kerrass killed the man then there would be a trial at which Kerrass would surely be found guilty. I needn't have worried though because as I watched Kerrass got calmer and calmer. It is actually possible to see the precise moment when a man stops caring about whether someone that they're talking to survives the next 30 seconds.

I couldn't hear Kerrass' words and I never asked him. I suspect that they were things along the lines of the fact that the man should calm down, take it easy and stop agitating the other passengers and crew.

Lord Shit-dick then continued to gesticulate about the questionable sanity of a cat Witcher, calling him some names that I won't repeat here, at which point Kerrass shrugged, said something that I guessed was along the lines of "Well, it's a good job that I don't work for you then isn't it?" and walked away. The only other option was to throw the first punch.

Unfortunately Lord Ass-hat proved that he had the intelligence of the grease that you find under your toe-nails as he followed Kerrass towards the back of the ship and started screaming at his back.

"People like you are a scourge," he screamed. "You're con-men, psychopaths and murderers. You probably fuck all those children to death that you kidnap from their rightful parents don't you you genetic mutant freak. I'm glad that you and all your people are doomed. I hope that you all get your asses put on a stake so that you can feel it going up you the same way you like to..."

Suddenly the whole season was not as amusing, or ridiculous.

All I can say on the matter is that it was a good job that Kerrass was more clear headed than I would have been. Even so I'm pretty sure that it was a good job that the Boatswain got there first.

Grabbing the errant Lord in what was no doubt a well meaning attempt to stop him from grabbing Kerrass from behind.

Kerrass had turned and his face was dreadful. His lips had peeled back from his teeth, his skin pale and his eyes were blazing. I'm sure I wasn't the only one who noticed that a dagger had appeared almost magically in his hand.

"You don't know of what you speak little man," he hissed. "I have killed and killed and killed. I have wiped the blood of children from my sword and I did it all for money. I am a monster slayer and I kill monsters for money but guess what..." there was literally blood and spittle dripping from Kerrass' jaws from where he had bitten his lip, "The person who gets to decide what is a monster and what is not is me. Right now? You're looking pretty monstrous,"

I had managed to put myself between the two men but I couldn't bring myself to look at Kerrass' face. There was pain there. Rage as well as guilt and horror. Somehow this offal of a human had managed to strip away the humanity from the Witcher and we were watching it fall away.

The man couldn't let it go though.

"See, he's worse than the monster he fights," he crowed in triumph, "Keep him away from me," he said it almost gleefully.

Kerrass surged forwards then and I found I was holding back an enraged Witcher and I was going to lose.

"Get that bastard out of here." I yelled as I held an increasingly frantic Witcher back from committing murder.

"What?" The ass-hole screamed. "How dare..." He was interrupted by a thunk as the boatswain decided that enough was enough and used his club to render the man unconscious which made hustling him bellow decks much easier.

But Kerrass did not stop.

We held him, digging feet and whatever we could find into the ground. The boatswain tried to work his way round the frenzied Witcher but I managed to scream out a warning that restraint is one thing but a physical attack might draw blood that wasn't his.

We strained at the mutated muscles before Kerrass roared. Literally roared and threw us off.

But then he just stopped.

He was stood in the middle of the deck, head down, arms loose at his side and he was shaking.

"Get me a bucket of water," he murmured. I was creeping closer trying to check on him as I heard it and looked around. Everyone was watching me, including the captain. It seemed that I was in charge at the moment and I gestured.

A bucket of sea water was rapidly produced and without waiting Kerrass picked it up and poured it over his head. He was outright shivering now.

Slowly I reached out. I felt like I was trying to reach out to a fractious and angry animal. I managed to get my hand to his shoulder before Kerrass snarled and threw the hand off before stalking off to the front of the boat where he climbed out and sat with his head in his hands.

We watched him for a while before the Captain shook himself and ordered everyone back to work and disappeared below decks.

I returned to my own job. Horses are naturally social animals and the attitude aboard ship had gotten them all agitated. Kerrass had a trick that he used to calm animals that I suddenly wished he'd teach me but it kept me occupied.

Time passed as it is wont to do. The captain came over to me and told me that Lord Fuck-wad had been locked in his room on the grounds that he was making the voyage dangerous for everyone involved. That he had agreed not to interfere with the running of the ship and that his verbal and physical assault on both myself, at the docks, and the Witcher on the voyage had violated this. As a result the man was considered a criminal on ship and as such would be dealt with by the authorities at dock. I nodded my gratitude and made a joke about the fact that I was one of the crew now and did that mean that my ticket was going to get refunded?

The Captain laughed and pointed out that he would lose out on the long run due to losing a client. Especially the sort of client who was likely to hold a grudge.

"Have you heard of my father?" I asked with a smirk. Family contacts should be used for something at the end of the day.

"Who's that?"

"Baron Von Coulthard?"

The man stood agape.

"The trader baron?"

"If you say so," I said. I suppose that a trader of my fathers stature would be known in those circles. I was too used to people responding to his name with a kind of "Who?" kind of expression.

"You're the son of Baron Coulthard?"

"Yep."

"Holy fire, working for him would be amazing. Hey doesn't that mean that you're like, filthy rich?"

"Not the way he tells it. Listen, I'll write you a letter of introduction to the agent in Novigrad. That should make up for any losses you might make in the long term."

The Captain seized my hand and shook it furiously for maybe five minutes. I told him that I would like to keep that quiet and he agreed before walking off chuckling to himself.

I stayed up late working that night. I swiped a lantern from stores and stayed up with a barrel as my desk and another slightly smaller crate as my chair.

I also had a bottle out and a pair of small cups.

I was not disappointed.

Kerrass came out of the darkness shortly after the midnight watch had been sounded. He was dressed simply in a shirt and trousers with his sword strapped to his back. My first thought was that he must be freezing. My second thought was to notice that he wasn't even vaguely shaking.

I poured from the bottle and passed a cup over without looking up. I head another barrel scraping as it was shuffled across the deck and the cup was taken from my hand. I took a small cup for myself. I was still a little reluctant to drink heavily since my relatively recent adventures but I figured that this night was a special one.

Kerrass sat quietly for a long time, staring at his drink.

"I came here to apologise." He finally said.

"What for?" I asked.

He seemed taken aback by that.

"Didn't I strike you?"

"Nope," I said taking a sip and finishing a thought on the paper. "You pushed me away a bit."

"It all seems a little hazy now. I have to struggle to remember what happened." He finished his drink in a swallow and I poured again.

"I also wanted to thank you." He said. "That's the second time you've stopped me from committing murder."

"Second? Oh, Lady Josephine."

Kerrass smiled a little. "I wanted to kill that man Fred. I wanted to kill him so much that I could taste his blood in my mouth. I could feel myself tearing at his flesh."

I leant back a bit. I tried not to but I couldn't help it. I came back quickly but I was sure that the reflex had been noticed.

He nodded. "I'll ask the Captain to drop me off at the next anchorage point. It was...nice travelling with you Fred," He rose from his seat.

"Hold on," I said rising with him. "What the hell are you talking about? Leaving? You'd just been called a child abuser and a boy fucker. You showed considerably more restraint than I would have. The difference between the two of us is that you are 'capable' of more than I am. I'm not afraid. I'm just human."

He sat back down slowly.

"I'm a Cat school Witcher." He said "That means something. You don't know what it's like. We're murderers and thieves and psychopaths. I was not lying when I said that I had killed children. It's part of our mutations certainly, but the training makes it worse."

He sighed and took another drink.

"I am not a good man Fred. I'm a killer and murderer. I can feel the madness at the back of my head scrabbling at me. I told you about it just before we met Annie the troll. I told you about how our mutations breed madness and I joked with you that the reason I hadn't killed you yet was because the little voices hadn't told me to yet."

I nodded.

"I was lying Fred. They tell me to every day. I ignore them. I've been ignoring them for years. We all have it, Cat school Witchers to a greater or lesser degree. Sometimes we fight it, sometimes we let it slip and sometimes it takes us over."

I nodded again feeling a little foolish

"Do other Witcher schools have this problem?"

"Not that I know of."

"Do you want to talk about it? The differences between Cats and the other schools?"

"Yes, but..."I saw some of his humour twinkle in his eye, "Not to you. I want to talk about these things to Scholar Frederick. We wronged those people, the other Schools I mean and that should be recorded. Part of my way of paying something back."

I got up, got a sheaf of quills and a pot of ink and several sheets of paper from my packs, trimmed the quills and set out the ink, blotting paper and sand shaker.

I dipped my quill in the ink, checked to make sure it had picked up the ink and held it over the paper.

"Whenever you're ready then."


	16. Chapter 16

Hello.

My name is Kerrass of Maecht and I am a Witcher of the Feline, or Cat, school of Witchers. Anyone who refers to us as being from the Pussy school of Witchers will be throttled.

By me

And by throttled, I mean stabbed.

With my sword

Repeatedly.

So I am a Witcher. To borrow the famous phrase, this does not mean that I am a Witch, nor does it mean that I am a Witch-hunter. I am both a Witcher and I make my living by being a Witcher.

I am struggling to think of where to start with this whole thing.

Frederick, my hanger-on, has advised that I speak as though I am speaking to the group of people who he refers to as his "dear readers" or, depending on his mood, "Adoring Public". He tells me that he has received letters from people that suggest that these essays of his are useful and well-received.

I am not sure I believe him.

The story of my life is a long and sordid one and were I to tell it in detail then Frederick and I would still be sat here this time next year and he would have worn down his quills, used up his ink and covered every spare piece of paper on this ship.

He has just smirked at me.

I know him well enough now that I can almost hear him saying something along the lines of "I'm game if you are,"

Arrogant little snot.

I say that with some rough affection of course as I'm aware that the "dear reader" might not be able to read my tone of voice nor appreciate my somewhat dusty sense of humour.

I'm told that a dry sense of humour is one of the symptoms of being mutated.

I realise that I'm procrastinating. This is not due to reluctance but is more to do with the fact that I don't really know where to start.

So let's start with my profession Being a Witcher.

But the problem starts there. What is a Witcher?

A Witcher is two things. It is both the name of my profession and my state of being. In the same way that a person might be an elf, a dwarf or a human. I am a Witcher.

But, as I say. It is also my profession.

So I shall take that line of things first.

Being a Witcher is, well it's a little boring if you want to know the truth. 98% of the time (yes I know what a percentage is. You have to be fairly well educated to understand alchemy and the Lore that is required to be a Witcher. Stupid Witchers tend to die really quickly.) you are looking for contracts or preparing for the fight itself. By which I mean tracking the monster, trying to identify the monster, interviewing the victims, trying to find out it's habits and so on. The other 2% of the time is filled by terror, adrenaline and fury.

But, if I've done my job right, it's actually not that scary. From careful observation you can tell which way a griffin is going to leap, what the habits of a ghost are and the difference in stench between a ghoul feeding ground and an Alghoul feeding ground (It's in the ammonia levels). So when you actually perform the hunt, you're fully prepared and it becomes more of an execution rather than a hunt.

Not that it isn't dangerous mind.

Some people might be saying, "Well can I be a Witcher then?"

By this definition, yes you can. However I have certain advantages that you do not. Which goes back to the physical or racial description again.

We also have a guild of sorts. But it might give you a common frame of reference for how you can tell a real Witcher from a fake.

Or if you prefer, how you can tell an amateur from a Professional

We wear medallions and have vertical pupils.

The different medallions denote which schools we come from.

The ones I know about are the Feline school (obviously), the Wolf school (who you will have heard of if you've read the works of Dandelion the poet regarding the famed "White Wolf" of Rivia), The Bear school (sometimes called the Ursine school), The Griffin school, The school of the Viper and the Manticore school.

As far as I know, these are the schools of the northern Kingdoms as well as the northern parts of Nilfgaard. There may be others though. I've never actually seen a Manticore Witcher and have only met a Viper Witcher in passing when very young and another more recently. There might be more schools from further south or over towards Zerrikania where I would be astonished if there wasn't some kind of "Dragon school" given how much they like their dragons over there.

.

This is harder than I first thought it would be.

Where was I?

Oh yes.

Witchering as a Profession

There are lots of terms for Witchers. Derogatory terms for us. We are called mercenary, freak, charlatan, thief, assassin, murderer and other such things that I won't mention.

Unfortunately, the vast majority of these things are true to one extent or the other.

I myself am less than entirely virtuous and there are things in my past that I am definitely not proud of. In my time, as well as hunting monsters, I've hunted people. I've been a bandit, Mercenary, Road Agent (Frederick has just looked at me strangely for some explanation. A road Agent is kind of like a professional bandit. You get given a target, a specific item or person that the employer wants you to steal from/kill as well as the time and route of their travel. You attack, take the stuff back to employer. Get paid and move on. Bandits set up camp in a specific spot and pray on passing travellers.). I've been an Assassin, a hunter, a body-guard and a guardsman.

I've managed to avoid soldiering though as my feelings about politics in general are not complimentary.

I have killed many people. I will not lie to you, or to any of the people who might read this. I am not a nice person and I would struggle to describe myself as a remotely good person.

I have killed men, women and children. I have crept through open windows and assassinated entire families in their beds. I've broken into buildings, barred the doors and marched through the entire place turning it into a red ruin with my sword.

There are dark truths about why I did these things. The first and most obvious one is that I did it because I was being paid.

The more uncomfortable reason is because I enjoyed it.

Frederick has just recoiled from me. He tried to hide it and tried to restrain that urge and I cannot say that I blame him for it, indeed it proves that _he_ is a good person and a nice person and sometimes I find that I hate him for having that integrity that I lack.

I can justify my actions.

I can argue that I was simply being a Witcher, that a Witcher is supposed to kill monsters and that what I was doing was killing monsters. After all, why do we carry an Iron sword if not to kill people as well as magical beings?

The castle belonged to a man who, if his villages did not produce adequate goods for his liking he would kill two people. He would crucify an elder so that workers didn't have to stay at home to look after the elderly and then he would place a young person on a spike to be impaled so that care of the young would not be an excuse either. The rest of his family were killed to prevent any future rebellions or the possibility of the evil spreading through a bloodline although it is entirely possible that the client was just clearing the way for their own ambition.

But I didn't ask questions. I just wanted to be paid.

.

I've even tried to leave the path on several occasions. One time I made a ridiculous sum of money from a job and I bought an inn which got burned down around me by some men who were hired by my immediate local competition. I defended myself and my customers but when the ash had settled it seems that in fighting to protect myself and the people around me I had frightened a number of other people and I was forced to leave town.

I have been a merchant and a caravan guard.

I've supplied herbs and potions for a shop.

I do not have the patience for farming but I've made a fairly good living as a hunter before now.

I've also been married.

Twice.

The first time was the time where I bought that inn I mentioned. She was a nice girl and I sometimes still miss her although I can no longer remember her face. She died in the fire about sixty years ago.

The second time was to a girl called Margaret. She fell in love with me at the age of fourteen and declared to all concerned that she was going to marry me.

Naturally I fled with her parents blessings.

When her father died two years later I received a message to say that Margaret had not forgotten me and was declining all other suitors until I returned. Her mother pleaded that I return and try to talk her out of it.

I did so but she held firm and she was growing into a fine young woman. The kind of woman that you would be proud to stand beside, mature for her age, kind, clever, funny and she had a knack for knowing when I wanted company and when I needed to be left alone. In the end I told her everything her mother wanted me to tell her. I tried to scare her, bore her and otherwise drive her off. But Mags was clever enough to see through us both. It was one of the things I liked about her. In the end it was agreed that she should wait another two years until she was 18 after which she could do what she liked and her mother would give her blessing.

We married. I would spend the year working around that area before coming back and spending the Winter with her. But the truth of a Witcher's life got to her in the end. The truth that she wouldn't be able to have children broke her heart and she left me.

I had seen it coming for a while and we parted as amicably as we could. I was always welcome at her home when I stopped by. She married a widower and died in childbirth six years later.

.

.

Could you just?

I just need a minute.

.

So what's my perspective? How do I feel about, or what do I think about all of these things?

That's complicated.

By my reckoning I'm roughly 90-95 years old. I stopped counting some time ago and lost track so I don't know any of these things for certain but I guess that's what it is and it certainly feels about right.

But 90 years is a long time to be alive by anyone's reckoning and I am definitely not the same man I was when I left the Feline fortress on the path for the first time. What I thought then and what I think now are definitely two very different things. Now I think of some of the things that I have done and I am ashamed, appalled and disgusted even though I can logically say why they all happened and what led me to that place.

If I think about it logically it can even be said that some of those disgusting things were not really my fault. I know that that sounds like an excuse and it is but it's also a truth that no-one exists separate from their circumstances. A man is taught how to think by their parents and their tutors and their masters and I am no different.

I was born, as I say, about 90-95 years ago in a village about three weeks ride north of Novigrad. Yes I am aware that my name is Kerrass of Maecht and Maecht is one of the regions of the Nilfgaardian empire nowadays but we were told to pick a name that sounds realistic but is also from a faraway place to make us sound more exotic. There is no point in looking for the village as it is no longer there and I suppose it was ruined by one war or another when I wasn't looking. The site is now wooded and unrecognisable. Even the Small river that my mother used to teach me to fish has been diverted some distance away.

It's peaceful there though. Sometimes I think that I might build a house there.

But then I remember that I wouldn't know the first thing about how to build a house and give up on the idea.

The village was not an entirely pleasant one to live in. I remember thinking that my mother was extremely beautiful and cannot disentangle that from my more grown up thoughts that every child thinks that their mother's beautiful. The memory is borne out by the fact that she had many children and my cynicism is that she was the town whore as there certainly weren't many women around.

The men cut down trees and shipped them off while the small number of women worked together to mind the children and cook a large meal for everyone. People would gather, out in the square or in one of the bigger houses to be fed as best they could to keep warm and entertain each other. I suspect the women would be passed around although I would often be put to bed before such things would start to happen.

I remember it as being an affectionate place, even though to modern eyes it must have been horrific. The atmosphere was full of men being men. Hard-drinking, hard-working and hard-playing. Fights were regular, injuries were as regular but there was never any bad blood. If someone wasn't pulling their weight then they were taken away in the night. The children would be told that Uncle Ivor had gone away but I suspect it's much more likely that he was taken into the woods and quietly murdered.

A Witcher recruiter came by from the cat school. Witchers were becoming a rarer sight by then although there were still plenty of monsters to go around and his arrival was viewed as an excuse for a bit of a party. At the time he did some work around the place as a village like ours certainly attracts the monsters and before he went he demanded payment. I'm only vaguely aware of the terms as I was too busy larking about in the rivers and the trees but the payment turned out to be a couple of lads to go and become Witchers.

I remember that we were all lined up in front of the Witcher wearing our best clothes which, for the majority of us, meant that they were the cleanest rather than the newest. He joked with the adults as they discussed our various virtues but knowing what I know now he must have just been making small talk.

In the end he walked along the line and stared into our eyes from so close a distance that it made me uncomfortable. Then he seized our hands, stuck a pin into a finger and applied the blood to a piece of orange paper. Once the blood had soaked in properly he would sniff it before tossing it away.

In the end he selected three lads including me. Some of the elders objected to one of them and I remember being hurt that not even my mother raised her voice in protesting that I shouldn't go.

Not that I wanted to stay you understand, being a Witcher sounded dreadfully exciting.

The Witcher lead us out, now leading his horse so that we all walked behind him.

.

I laugh because, no sooner had we got out of the village the mask fell from the face of the man. He shifted from a kind of genial uncle to a hard, distant, remote kind of man. I recognise now that this was his Witcher face that tends to be hidden from villagers that he wanted something from. A good hours march away from our home he sat us all down next to the river and sat facing us. I'll never forget what he said.

"My name is Tendril and I am a Witcher. It may come to pass that in the relatively near future you will come to hate the day that you and I ever met. I have chosen the three of you to be Witcher candidates as I believe that the three of you have what it takes."

I remember that he spoke slowly and clearly, his gaze flickering from young pair of eyes to young pair of eyes, making sure that we all understood what he was talking about.

"Becoming a Witcher is hard. It hurts. It will probably kill you. But if you are determined? Work, train and fight hard? The three of you will make it past the trials and be given your swords and your medallions and you will take to the path. But make no mistake. You will not die in your beds. Your training will kill you, your missions will kill you, some random passer by will kill you when you least expect it. You will lie awake at night, your body a sea of pain from what we are doing to you, you will cry yourself to sleep at night due to the horror of the things that we will show you. You will beg us to stop torturing you and we will not stop.

"Ever.

"Until we think you are ready or until you are dead.

"I tell you these things now so that all three of you know this and will never be able to say that I lied to you. You will never be able to say that you were not warned about how hard it will be."

He checked our eyes again to see if we believed him. He must have been happy with what he saw as he moved on. For my thoughts, I remember being scared but I also remember being determined to be ready, determined to fight.

"If, at any point you think you can't do what we tell you to do. If it becomes too painful for you to bear, the answer is simple.

"Quit.

"This is the first of your trials. The trial of choice.

"Once you pass through the trial of choice you will no longer be able to leave and if you try, we will find you and bring you back.

"Do you all understand?"

We all nodded earnestly.

"Do you all still want to become Witchers?"

We nodded again.

"Then let us being. Who wants to go first." A smile came back then. Tendril was not a cruel man. He just did a necessary and unpleasant job. Truth be told he was kinder than many of my "uncles" to the three of us.

He told us to strip naked as he produced a razor-blade from his saddle-bags and set to shaving our heads before ordering us into the river to bathe using some herbs that he gave us as soap. When we came out he threw some white powder at us, front and back that stung our eyes and our freshly shaved scalps.

What was he doing?

Probably delousing us. We were undoubtedly filthy.

Then he gave us each a shirt and pair of trousers that were tied down with a leather strap. He was not harsh but he had no patience for wasted time. We piled our old clothes together and they were burnt, almost ritualistically.

Then our trials began even before we had seen a sword.

We ran behind his horse. He rode us hard. Never faster than we could reasonably go at a jog. But the pace was relentless. He stopped us often, insisted that we ate or drank before marching us on again. We travelled day and night, at night he would tie a lantern to the back of his horse so that we could see where he was and jog towards that light. When he let us sleep we would throw ourselves flat and be asleep almost immediately although it would only seem like seconds later before we would be roused again to continue on.

Truth be told though we ate better in those two weeks than we ever had at home and although exhausted, we could all feel the difference and before long we were jogging and moaning and joking and getting cross. At which time he increased the pace.

It took us about two weeks to get to the Feline keep, by which time the three of us were beyond exhausted into a strange kind of null-state that exists beyond that point. We moved like golems, only awake by habit as our bodies ached in places that we had never ached before despite our childhood having been fairly active. We were fed but we were far too tired for much more than to be thrown into a dormitory room where we all fell over onto the nearest unoccupied bed and slept.

Before I go much further I should say that Feline Keep is, or rather was, not really a castle or fortress at all. Those of you that have heard of Kaer Morhen from the bards tales will know that that place, ruined though it now is, was once a massive and terrifying edifice that attacking armies must have been terrified of. Feline keep is more like a series of caves and tunnels in a gorge where it looks as though the land had cracked. What little outside structure there is is to protect the approaches but they are little more than towers and some small walls. To find all the nooks and crannies to get in and out you need either a guide or a map and so it would have been a besiegers nightmare when it was devised as you would set up your siege-lines but defenders would burst out and attack your rear or your supply train before disappearing into the night and returning to the defence.

It was a dark place, full of walk-ways that we called "cat walks" where the older Witchers would watch us train and study which was how we spent our time. It was nearly always dark and we learnt to fight in almost pitch darkness. Sometimes we would be taken outside into blinding sunshine where we continued our training before bags would be put over our eyes and suddenly we were fighting in darkness again. We fought in pairs, one blind, one able to see, 2 on 1 with a combination of blindfolds. We fought drills were everyone was told to swing their swords in patterns and the trainee had to make it from one end of the hall to another.

As a result of the darkness, even before we were mutated we had learnt balance, we could see with our hands, our feet, ears, skin and nose. A gust of a breeze could tell you the size of the room and whether we were being attacked or not. I myself learnt to climb to the point that I could hang off a ledge by my fingertips and still be able to fight off an attack hanging 20 feet off the ground.

While blindfolded.

Injuries were common. Indeed they were expected but they didn't stop our training. If we were so injured that we couldn't move we would be drilled on our monster or Alchemy knowledge. If our arms and hands could move then we practised signs. Feet meant that we could run, or practice footwork or moving quietly.

To my shame, we were also taught to hate.

I don't know where it started, or who it started with. I was taught to hate because my tutors were taught to hate, same as they were taught to hate and so on.

But I think, now, all these years later, that I can guess why.

You see, one of the things that none of the Witcher schools seem to know about any more is how we all started. What was the basic intention behind Witcher schools. What was the organisation? How were they put together and so on?

We know that originally we were created to fight monsters. OK. Why us, why not any number of other possibilities that could have been used in the north that were available to a people that had harnessed magic?

One thing that we do know is that the schools are fairly well spread out. The Bear school was far to the north, North-West, up among the mountains. The Wolves make their den in the North-East, up in Kaedwen. We were around where Novigrad is now. The Griffin were further south of us, somewhere around the Yaruga river with the Viper school being in the area that was once around Central Nilfgaard and the Manticore where further south than that.

By anyone's estimation that is a good spread over a map which suggests that there was some form of planning in the placement of the schools but at the same time that is far from certain.

We also have a difference in method from once school to another.

We all have things in common. The two swords, silver and steel. The boxes full of potions, the signs and the lightish armour that means we won't be encumbered in confined places. We're all mutated in roughly the same way, eyesight, immunity to disease and poison, heightened metabolism, faster reflexes, quicker healing and so on. But after that things start to change. Not just our methods but also regarding our characters as well.

The Feline school is all about movement and flexibility with quick highly accurate cuts. We study where the arteries are, where the blood vessels are, where the weak points are. We are trained to strike with lightening speed and just enough force to do the maximum possible damage in those struck before moving away like, well, like a cat. We're also incredibly vicious and will use whatever tools that we have available to us to get the job done. We are one of the two schools that teach the use of a crossbow. The other school being the Bear school.

The Bear school are my favourite as they are almost the exact opposite of the cat school in looks and methods. Whereas the Cat school tends to produce slim, lithe and quick men. The bear school produces giants. Seven foot tall walls of muscle. Their swords and armour are bigger and heavier than anything that the other schools use. Some people argue that this makes them vulnerable against the faster monsters like Kikkimores or Arachnomorphs but to those people I tell this story.

Before things went sour between the schools they used to gather together to swap notes. You know, discuss the migratory patterns of the monsters, any new variations of existing creatures that required different methods and things. Swapping forging techniques and potion recipes that kind of thing. When I was an apprentice it seemed like an excuse for all the old men to get together and get drunk but now that I'm older it seems like it would be quite a good idea.

.

That ship has sailed though.

.

I never went to one as the practice had stopped by the time I had gained my medallion. But there was one time where the other schools sent their representatives to the Feline keep.

The Bear had sent one Witcher, he was never introduced to us but he struck me as a quiet, taciturn man but for two occasions. The first was on one of the opening nights, I think it was the first time all the attendees had gathered and the hosting school (us) were throwing them a party. None of us are experts in any kind of artistic display but I remember laughing at the jokes, singing along with the songs and enjoying getting slightly tipsy with the ale that old Nayhan, the master of Apprentices, had allowed us that night.

But then, towards the end of the evening. The bear stepped forwards. In his hand was a beautiful harp. It wasn't golden nor did it have any other ornamentation that I could see. But the careful way that this huge man carried it suggested that it contained great wealth. He sat on a stool and started to play. Then he started to sing.

I am unashamed to admit, sat here now that that song moved me.

You have to understand that we were all still relatively young men. I myself was maybe fourteen by this point and we had all been taken from our homes rather abruptly. The other members of the school were our families now. The keeps were our home and every single man in that hall had that one shared experience. From the robed and cowled Griffin, to the grim-eyed Wolf, this was the one thing that we all had in common and there he was. This hugely muscled, frankly ugly human being with a face covered in scar tissue, his beard patchy around the scars, sat on his stool with his beautiful sounding harp and he sang with a startlingly pure voice about the joy's of coming home after a long journey.

The hall was silent after he had finished as we all came back from wherever the song had transported us to before applause began slowly and stole it's way across the room.

The other time was during training. We were outside playing this game. The idea was that there were wooden approximations of various monsters and targets. What they were were shells that contained fairly fine sawdust and they were designed to be at their weakest where the monster was weak so that if we struck the wrong part of the monster then the wood would be scarred but if we struck the correct part of the creature then the sawdust would begin to flow. So a human target would be weak around the neck, armpits and groin. The object of the game was to empty the target of sawdust as quickly as possible. I had never seen it done. There was always some sawdust left in the dummy and we would be told to do it again with the more times the dummy was struck, the more sawdust would fall out. There was also a time limit of thirty heart-beats that Nayhan would call out, being an even bigger distraction. So the real test was how many times you could hit the dummy accurately.

Now the bear, I find it shameful that I can't remember his name, had come out into the daylight and he was maintaining his equipment. He sat with a cup of ale next to him as well as a cloth, brush and several small tubs of grease and cleaning fluid. First he went over his armour which looked massively heavy to me. The heaviest armour I had seen a Cat Witcher wear was thick boiled and hardened leather with some small patches of chain-mail around those weak points I mentioned earlier (groin, neck, armpits). This stuff was made of small plates of steel attached to a chain-mail shirt that was made to be attached to a long leather coat. He would peer at the armour, every link of the mail, every plate, ever stitch and strap. Even the slightest blemish was scrubbed, cleaned and polished. It took him hours while we trained. Then he put the same amount of effort into his swords which were half again as long and wide as ours were.

The trick to teaching young men to fight is to balance frustration against improvement. We had spent hours at these things and yes we had improved but we still weren't getting it right according to Nayhan's experienced eye. In the end, an urchin who was a year younger than me who was made of wiry muscle piped up to the huge bear.

"Do you do this exercise Master bear? How many times can you hit the target in the time limit"

The bear scowled while still scrubbing at his sword.

"Do as your tutor instructs, boy. My school is not yours." His harsh and gravelly voice was ins stark contrast to his singing voice.

"Aww but please." The lad's voice turned scornful. "I bet you can't do it either. Cat's are better than bears anyway."

I'm possibly giving you the wrong impression here. The urchin wasn't any better or worse than the rest of us. He was just tired, grouchy and wanted to fight something. Plus it was a good ploy. We had already been told how much we were supposed to hate the Bear school (Actually not as much as many of the others. They weren't as stuck up as the Griffins, nor as arrogant as the Vipers and certainly not as filled with superiority as those cursed Wolves. Arrogant pricks that they were thinking they're better than anyone else) and as such the urchin was clearly trying to trigger Nayhan's lecturing response in an effort to tell everyone how much better we were than the bears. There was another possibility that there would be some violence between the two men which was even more exciting.

The Bear sighed and looked over at Nayhan who was grimacing in a way that I learned later was him trying not to laugh.

The huge man lumbered to his feet. Slung his sword on his back and rumbled over to the dummy. He stood at the starting point and took a while to stretch his limbs and settle himself. At the time I thought he was delaying us which made me as cross as the next apprentice. Now I think he was stretching out the show.

He looked over at Urchin and said "Watch closely." before nodding at Nayhan.

Nayhan began the count.

Which stopped at two.

The Bear had drawn his sword and struck the dummy at the top of it's head which had split the target down the middle. The man then twisted his sword and withdrew it from the mess of the dummy spilling saw-dust out as it came.

It was obvious that there was no sawdust left and that we would need a new dummy.

"I only need to hit the dummy once, boy. Now mind your master."

The bear lumbered back over to his cleaning equipment and got back to work.

At the time I was furious that this bear had come in and mocked our practices and that fury was fed by others but now I look back and wonder if that lumbering beast of a man was trying to tell us something.

I never met him again.

The Griffin we saw as aloof and arrogant. To be fair we saw everyone as arrogant. They would turn up to these meetings un-armoured wearing robes and cowls similar to the way monks dress. I never saw one of them hunt but they would apparently trust to their signs a lot more than the rest of us and their signs were also incredibly powerful. When they did wear armour it was bright and almost gaudy, bright greens and golds announcing their presence to the world so that all could see them. I have heard it suggested that the Griffin were closer in attitude to knights and churchmen than they were to the rest of the Witcher schools. They vanished from the face of the Northern Kingdoms rather abruptly and we never found out why. One year there were plenty of them out on the path and the next...

Nothing.

Not bumping into a Witcher is not uncommon so we didn't notice at first but then gradually it came to be proven that they had gone. I don't know where they went although I suspect that the then Sorcerers council had something to do with it and not necessarily in a sinister way. The Griffin put all the energy that I put into my sword work into their signs which, and I cannot overstate this, were incredibly powerful. In researching better versions of these signs they must have come to someone's attention and then be gobbled up. The attempts of Vilgefortz to recruit Witcher Geralt are well-known to readers of Dandelions saga's so such recruitment efforts must have come up to the Griffin as well. I just wonder if the Griffin felt they could do more good as Wizards rather than Witchers.

It is seductive, the prospect of putting down your swords and knowing that you don't have to pick them up the following day.

Anyway.

I know next to nothing about the Manticore except that we derided them for copying our methods. They were stereotyped as wearing little more armour than a light leather jacket and as such must have depended on speed and agility, same as us. I never met one so I can't comment.

The Viper school. I only one met them more recently and I have only ever met two of them. They were hounded to extinction by the old policies of The Emperor of Nilfgaard. It is possible that the new Empress will relax those policies and help rebuild the school but I think it will be too late. Of the two men that I met, one died, caught up in those machinations that surrounded the Loc Muinne disaster.

It was said, correctly, that the Viper school have forgotten more about Alchemy than the rest of us have ever known and I have seen this to be true. It was a Viper who designed the twist and shake Grenades that we used on those Nekkers way back when. It was even said that the Viper Witchers had discovered a way to forge steel and silver in a way that could embed oils and poisons in the

metal meaning that they never had to oil their blades.

Heh.

They also share the harshest and most brutal sense of humour that you would ever know. They were both the kind of men who would hurl an insult at you to get you back into the fight and clap you on the shoulder when it was done. Hard men, brutal men.

I liked both of them and regret the one's death.

No I won't say their names.

We were taught to hate them because they kept important knowledge from us.

Then there was the Wolf.

.

.

Ah the Wolf.

.

.

We hated each other the Cat and the Wolf. I don't know why but we hated them with a fierce and undying passion. I wish now that I had asked Nayhan why we hated them as now I find myself wondering. The cat had done more than enough to deserve to be hated but the wolf?..

They are arrogant certainly, sure of themselves? Definitely. Aloof? Secretive? Proud? All of these things but. I say these things about them and I examine myself in a mirror and see the same things reflected back at me.

There are rumours of course. It is rumoured that the Cat school was actually an offshoot of the Wolf and that in leaving we stole some of their mutagens. Defective ones as it turned out and we hated them for the defects and they hate us for the theft.

I don't believe this. The elven heritage requirement of the Feline mutagens seem to suggest otherwise.

I wonder if we hated them because they hated us and by my time it was so bad that no-one knew

why.

The other rumour is that well...

.

.

It was a Cat Witcher that guided the Mob to Kaer Morhen that all but destroyed that school. The great keep is a ruin now and every time I go there I find it incredibly melancholy to see the once proud towers lying in ruins, their bricks strewn at the bottom of the gorge.

I don't know if that was true. But looking back it was the sort of thing that we would have done and it shames me. But inherited guilt is not the worst of it.

There was a tournament organised.

I wasn't part of the organising as I had only been on the path a couple of years by that point and as such I was still seen as a green novice. But the idea was that the Witcher schools would send their best and their brightest to a central location and have a tournament. I think it was some kind of attempt to bring the schools closer together due to recent events (The Kaer Morhen massacre). If that was the idea it was a spectacularly bad one. Competitiveness is not a good method towards making friends. Personally speaking we would have done a lot better if we'd all just been locked in a room, had our swords removed and fed a load of beer. The casualties would have been a lot lower.

I'll never forget it as it haunts me to this day but not for the reason that you might think. The first night of the tournament when all the delegations had turned up we had been told that we were going to deal with the cursed Wolven school once and for all. We were woken up, we strapped swords to our backs and used the skills we had learned over those years of training as we stole over to the Witcher camp and started slitting throats.

It's as simple and horrific as that.

But what makes my skin crawl with shame now as I look back on that night. The thing that keeps me awake is not that I committed those murders. But that I enjoyed it. That I laughed afterwards with friends and comrades.

We laughed at the magnificent prank that we had played on our hated enemies.

I absolutely understand why people hate and fear us.

We deserve it.


	17. Chapter 17

(Frederick's note: After that last revelation Kerrass had to take a bit of time and got up for a wander. I can't say that I blame him as that can't have been easy to say. I made some further notes on some of the things said and waited for him to get back)

I don't want you to think of us as evil though. I really feel as though I might have done those other Cat Witchers a disservice there. Master Nayhan in particular was a good man who cared about the apprentices under his charge. He cared about us. He's one of the few Witchers who I've ever seen actively tear up when the news that some Witcher or another died somewhere out on the path.

I once saw another feline Witcher stand his ground before a dozen bandits who were trying to get to the family that were hiding behind him. He took two arrows to his chest before I could reach him and he still fought on until he eventually died of his wounds. His name was Barret.

Another Witcher friend of mine protected travelling group of pilgrims. He took his payment in a fair and equal share of their food, actively turning down the extra food that they tried to give him and often handing out his spare food to the starving children that gradually became attached to the travelling pilgrims. His name was Aiden.

I have many stories like these.

I know of a Witcher named Folkin who went into a battlefield to exterminate and drive off some Necromorphs for a nearby village. He found that one of the soldiers was still alive but was dying of massive infection from having been left in the mud and the dirt. The soldier asked Folkin to carry a letter and a necklace off to his widow and to give him a quick death. There was no payment offered and none asked but the letter and the necklace were handed over to the woman directly after Folkin had taken the time to do some chores around the house.

.

What we did was evil. I will not say that it wasn't and some day, in the future, those deaths will come due and I will have to pay for them.

But the people who committed those crimes were everyday Witchers. It could have been me. It was me. I did those things and I don't think of myself as evil.

.

Does an evil man see himself as evil though?

I don't know which philosopher it was that said that we are all the heroes of our own story and I suppose he or she is right in that regard.

So why are Feline Witchers so different from others? Why were we so willing to murder other Witchers? Why do people see us as psychopaths?

The most obvious problem is that we are. It's something in the mutations that we undergo. The herbs, mushrooms and concoctions of the trial of the grasses accelerate and accentuate natural male feelings of aggression and violence during puberty which is one factor but the other thing is that...

This is a bit technical.

In changing the way the body works to make us faster and stronger and better healers it also means that it changes how we think and how we act. One of the stereotypes of Witcher is that we feel no emotion.

Do we not?

I'm not sure and I don't know how you could tell. Do I feel emotion or is what I feel an emotional equivalent that I have trained myself to feel so that I can interact with humans.

I don't know the answer to that and no one can seem to answer it with any kind of certainty.

But one of the side-effects of Feline mutations is that we become psychotic.

We all have it to one degree or another and trying to explain it to someone else is really rather difficult.

For myself I have this thing that kind of stops me from thinking. It's like a weight that settles on my shoulders and chest making it difficult to think or even to breathe. Everything becomes a huge and overwhelming effort that takes far too much energy and all I want to do is to find some hole in the middle of nowhere and crawl into it to die in the quiet and cool darkness that the hole contains.

I don't dare hunt when these moods are on me because it suddenly feels as though it would be so much easier to let the monster take me. So easy to just take a half step too far or just be a little bit slower with the parry or the strike. No-one would think less of me for it. They wouldn't know. I died at the hands of the creature that I was hired to fight. No-one would know the difference.

But I would.

These moods come on me without warning and I don't know what causes them and I don't know how to stop them. There is just the knowledge that the mood will pass eventually.

I also hear voices. I can't tell you anything more than that. Just sometimes, not always or even often, but sometimes I hear voices. It's like a scratch at the back of my brain that feels like I could just itch it, or if I I try really really hard that I might be able to hear what they're trying to say.

I don't scare easily, after all I'm a Witcher and I don't feel emotions.

Or so they say.

But those voices terrify me even though I can't hear them. How do you deal with that? How do you cope with those feelings or having to listen to those voices or that feeling that you aren't alone inside your own head?

Once again, all I can do is wait, in the sure knowledge that my brain will be my own again in just a few hours or days later. All I have to do is be calm, focus on my breathing and get through it.

Believe me when I say that I have it easy as well.

Here are some more anecdotes about other Cat Witchers.

Another friend of mine named Kenneth said that he was two people in the same body. One was the calm, quiet, relatively respectable Witcher. The other was a frothing madman, hard drinking, hard gambling, hard-loving lunatic. Sounds like a fun person to be right? Especially as it was obvious that the more passionate Kenneth was a better Fighter than the calm professional until one day Passionate Kenneth tried to force himself on a woman and killed three of the people who tried to stop him. Calm Kenneth managed to regain control and walked into the nearest monster nest.

Another man was so cold, so remote from those lives he saved, those people that he worked with that he... He had no sympathy for them, he had no empathy. Humans, elves, dwarves were just things to him. He once told me that people were like windmills. In the way that you pour grain into a windmill and you get flour out, he felt that you poured dead monsters in at the top and got money out the bottom. It was a simple transaction for him. Spectacular Witcher, the best I've ever seen. Was executed for murder because a man refused to pay him after the job was done. They got into a fight when the Witcher was determined to take goods in return for the work and the man died. I'm told that the Witcher went to the scaffold genuinely confused that people couldn't see that he had the right of the matter.

That's ignoring all the people that went howling insane, barking at the moon and eating their own faeces that had to be put out of their misery.

I'm one of the lucky ones. I can stand here and talk about how I'm feeling and what I can hear and I know it's not right and more importantly I know that eventually the problems will go away to come back later. But as I say. I am one of the lucky ones.

We have no words for what these...problems are other than to label them psychoses, put the label on the person, toss them into the madhouse and describe them as insane.

Another friend of mine has a defect in his brain that means that, in moments of stress, he can't tell the difference between a past event and a current event. Can you imagine that? How horrible that must be?

These things are not our fault, these things are things that were done to us by people who didn't know any better and who had those same things done to them.

What we did was wrong and I know that. I'm not trying to...

I'm not trying to excuse those actions, I'm trying to explain them.

All I can think of right now is how much I might have terrorised the readers that I'm speaking to.

Ah well. At the end of the day people will still need Witchers so I shouldn't worry too much about losing trade as a result of all of this.

The other explanation about our behaviour...

Remember I'm explaining rather than excusing.

The other explanation is that we didn't know any better.

This might sound like a cop out but it really is the case.

Master Nayhan was a good man and I will fight anyone who even tries to suggest that he wasn't. A deeply flawed example of the system and an enabler of that system as he went on but he cared about us. He really really did. He just wanted us to be better at our jobs and there is no doubt in my mind that even though I have learnt many things from many people over the course of the many years that I have been on the path but the reason that I am still alive today to continue my Witchers work is from what he taught me.

But what I was taught was that the only lives that mattered were other Cat Witchers.

Here is the thing and I think, no in fact I know, that this is the main reason that the other schools look down on us. All schools have thrown up worrying mutations in their history or have ended up killing more "subjects" than they have had survivors so that earlier reason is not a good enough reason as to why the Wolves and the Bears and the Griffins might have disliked us. The other reason was that we were taught not to value life. Not just monster lives, but also human, elf, dwarf, gnome, mutant, halfling or other. None of them mattered and if the chips were down then you should just kill them.

End of story.

This means that there is an interesting crossover. It is well known that we carry two swords. The incorrect answer to the question of "Why do you carry two swords?" is "One is for humans, the other is for monsters" but that's simply not the case. It is true for all Witcher schools that the philosophy is that both swords are for monsters. That is absolutely true and all Witchers say that.

This means that humans and elves and dwarves can be monsters too.

AND THIS IS PERFECTLY TRUE.

If you wish to argue against me here then I will point out the case of Lady Josefina that I understand Frederick has told people about. You can't say that humans can't be monsters if you've never seen the inside of a slave barge, or a surgeons tent on a battlefield.

You will never had to hear the primal sound of a parent finding the corpse of a child after the pirates have raided the place or the executioner for the Holy Flame openly fondling himself as he burns a pretty Sorceress.

You will never have spoken to a father who sold his daughter to sex traders because he knows that if she stays in the household he will have to pay a dowry and he justifies it to himself that at least this way she will have food in her belly rather than having to starve to death.

I've seen all of these and I bet many of you have seen similar.

The worst one I ever saw. A thing so bad that I couldn't contain myself was when a woman was on the road as part of a small wagon train. I think they were a family relocating or some other kind of affair and were travelling with a merchants wagon and some other families. This was about fifty to fifty five years ago now. The wagon train was caught by bandits. Everyone else just fled. Scattered and fled apart from this youngish woman. I think she was maybe 25-30 certainly old enough to have an eight year old kid. It turns out that the kid was being carried by the father, the woman's husband, but that meant that he couldn't keep up with the others so he dropped his kid.

This was bad enough but just you wait.

The woman saw this. Screamed at her husband and ran back to collect the child who had just sat down in tears. She reached the child, got him up and sent him after the others when it became obvious that the bandits would overtake them. In order to give her child time to escape she then threw herself at the nearest bandit, kitchen knife flashing. The next two bandits stopped to help their fellow and as such the child and other travellers could get away.

She was a pretty lady which I can attest to when she wasn't covered in blood and bruises and so the bandits decided to keep her alive.

At which point I enter the story. I was in the local area tracking down a Grave Hag that was terrorising the local populace. I was still trying to pin it down to find out where it's lair was when, almost by accident, I stumbled across this bandit's camp where the poor woman was staked out onto the ground while the members of the band were taking their turns with her.

It was exactly as horrific as you can imagine.

I did what I could, driving off her assailants before freeing her and making off with her as I wasn't able to kill all of the bandits so the chance of them coming back with friends was high. Locally there was a small shrine to Melitele where an oldish Priestess kept vigil. It was actually her that had hired me in the first place. I explained that I had found the poor woman and then I felt it best to let the professional get on with it although neither of us thought that the woman would survive for long as she was already badly wounded, malnourished and abused.

I returned to my job, kind of making a hobby of hunting the bandits as well when I could and I returned with my trophy to collect my pay to find that the young woman was both alive and actually thriving.

I was heading in the direction of where her new home was supposed to be so I offered myself as a willing escort and travelling companion figuring that I wanted to see the happy ending of the tale.

Every so often you need to see something good in the world to restore your faith that what you're doing has a good effect.

During the journey she talked, mostly because she didn't like the silence and I kept my peace and stayed well away from her, announcing my presence loudly whenever I was vaguely close to her, or she to me. I became proud of this woman. She stood tall and had been through the most horrific thing that a woman can go through and had come out the other end fighting, teeth bared and I liked that.

We got to her home and found her father, her husband and...

I still get angry when I think of this.

The husband had formally cast her off as dead and had already re-married.

Baring in mind that the poor woman had been gone for maybe a fortnight.

Her father had taken in the children before sending them off to a work-house because he didn't want anything to do with them. When the woman met the two men, who were chatting in the street. They spat at her. They called her a "spoiled woman" and that she should have had the good grace to die rather than...

and this is true...

bringing shame down on her family.

Now I'm a mutant. Our reputation for being emotionless is renowned. But that reaction stunned me rigid. It was a solid five minutes before I could react.

What did I do?

I took the poor woman to the temple of Melitele in the town. There were maybe four sisters and a priestess there and luckily they rose to the situation.

I then killed a pair of monsters.

I extracted the rough value of the woman's dowry, leaving the two widows with plenty (indeed the woman's mother rather agreed with me and tried to give me more money) which I gave to the priestesses of Melitele to hold in trust before I fled with the local guardsmen on my heels.

They wanted to execute me for murder.

In my eyes what I did was not murder. It was an extermination. It was a purging of the gene-pool. It was stopping the spread of evil as certainly the younger of the two men intended to breed further.

.

Incidentally, if you're ever wondering why I tend not to visit Kovir as much. That is the reason why.

Am I proud of that action?

Hell yes I am.

I'm not ashamed. I killed a pair of monsters it's my job.

But there is the problem isn't it. Who gets to decide who is a monster. For many Witchers they would argue that it is in their own, separate from the situation, point of view that gives them a unique insight into the problem. That is one of the reasons for the vaunted, famous and infamous Witcher neutrality that so many people talk about.

But then, who is truly seperate from the situation. No-one exists on an island. No one can ever be truly neutral.

I've tried it. It's impossible. You can get close but my argument is that sometimes neutrality itself is a decision. It is a side to be picked and in not choosing you have still affected the situation.

It is an argument to be made that what the Cat Witchers did was to put down a hard and fast rule for their students that the person who gets to decide what a monster is is the client in question. Then the Witcher themselves can decide whether or not to take the contract. For after all that is their choice right?

Mmm, not really.

Believe me that when a Witcher is starving to death and living off acorn paste pancakes then he will take any job so long as it means that he doesn't have to boil his sword belt for soup.

We were told to take the contract. There is an old mercenary saying that a Contract is a Contract is a Contract. In that way we divest our responsibility for the murder or slaying or execution onto the client. I, the Witcher, am merely a weapon to be used by the client.

Just like any other weapon.

Unfortunately, other Witcher schools don't see it that way.

Even though, using that justification would mean that Witchers would still have work long after the final monster is slain, they see things in a way that their job is to protect people from the monster in the darkness.

Is that not what we were doing though?

.

I no longer know the answer.

I also don't know how much the difference between the Cat version of the Witcher code and the version practised by the other schools is as a result of those psychoses that I was talking about earlier, great or small.

But, an example...

The incident with Lady Josefina and the trolls.

A true Cat Witcher would have dealt with that incident vastly different. They would have looked at the corpse of Tom the troll. I would like to believe that they would have felt a little pity and buried the poor thing. What I said then about not showing cruelty was true, at least for me. We would then have met the town guard. Heard about the troll hunt. Followed up on that. Taken the Bitches money and killed Annie quickly and cleanly. If the Half-Elf had been a bit more clear about his problems with the girl and her suitor Billy the Ram. Then after taking their money, a Cat Witcher would have killed the pair of them without a second thought. Marched into town, demanded his reward before walking off.

Probably whistling as he went. Three monsters killed. Money in pocket.

No problem.

Contract fulfilled.

.

Simpler certainly.

But I would no longer be able to do that.

.

Sometimes I think it's a shame that there aren't as many Witchers around as there used to be. It would be really nice to be able to talk to some of them about this kind of thing. Unfortunately there simply aren't that many and most of the survivors tend to be the sort of dour, grim faced, taciturn men of legend who think that staying quiet makes them seem all mysterious.

They're mostly right as well unfortunately.

But I would love to be able to talk to someone about my doubts and fears. I would love to be able to consult someone who is older and more experienced. A Cat Witcher who can give me some guidance. But all of the old Cats are dead and those that survive have either managed to find a way off the path or are still struggling on with it to it's inevitable conclusion.

A flash of claws in the pitch darkness is you're wondering what that ending is.

You want to know what's changed in me. You want to know why I'm not as comfortable with the old Feline methods. Don't lie to me Fred I can see it in your eyes.

Yes there was a time when I would have dealt with Lady Josefina in the manner that I have just described. Same as there once was a time that Annie and her child would now be in graves next to her husbands or, more likely, left out to rot for the animals and the wind.

What can I say. I had my mind changed for me. I had my eyes opened and irony of ironies, the people that did that were the Wolves. The hated Wolves whose blood stains my sword and stains my soul.

Why did they save me?

They would say that it was their code that saved me. I don't know about that. I'm not a wolven Witcher. But I now look at them, those Wolven Witchers that I have met and I feel shame.

It was during a hunt like any other, maybe...forty years ago?

It's so hard to keep track nowadays.

Anyway, I was in Kaedwen and I was following a contract to hunt down a Big ass Royal Wyvern. Huge thing it was. Magnificent beast. The locals had already told me that she had been living up in the high hills for years, decades even without giving anyone any kind of problems. They didn't mind it taking the odd mountain goat or remote sheep. The village that hired me was miles from anywhere anyway and all they had to do whenever the local tax-man came by to count sheep was point to the Giant Wyvern that was flapping about relatively nearby and ask whether the tax-man himself wanted to argue with the giant beast about the stock numbers being smaller than they should have been.

But recently it seems that the Wyvern had become agitated. Aggressively attacking anything that had gone even remotely near what it saw as it's territory. That territory had also expanded and as a result, villagers and local peddler caravans were being preyed upon by the beast and as a result they hired a Witcher.

Me.

I did my job. I scouted around a bit, made sure that there weren't any young Wyverns who might account for the increased territorial nature of the beast. I rested up, took my potions, prepared my oils and went out for a hunt.

It was a hard fight but I had made a mistake. A really stupid, elementary mistake that makes me wince with remembered embarrassment even now.

The thing was that I had checked above ground for any competition to the Wyvern. What I hadn't checked for was the possibility of an underground challenge.

As we fought, the Wyvern and I, the ground began to collapse underneath us and we fell into a huge cavern. One of those magnificent places that reminds you of how small humanity really is. It was also the lair of a Kikkimore queen.

I was dazed, having been prepared for an above-ground fight I wasn't ready for an underground battle even though my training at the Feline keep soon came to my rescue. The thing about Kikkimore queens is that they are often surrounded by Soldiers.

The result was predictable.

The Wyvern gave as good as it got inside the short time that it survived before the combined forces of the Kikkimores overwhelmed them but by then I was fighting for my life and I did not succeed.

At some point I was pierced through the shoulder by a long claw that pinned me to the ground. Another claw pinned me through my leg, narrowly missing the major artery. The venom, which would already have been fatal to a human was clouding my vision and I could feel my body fighting it off but through that haze I could see the smaller workers coming towards me, mandibles twitching at the thought of fresh meat.

There are several instances where I have been close to death and that one was one of the closest.

But another man came into the cavern, wearing a red jacket of studded leather armour and wielding his silver sword expertly. He roared a challenge to distract the beasts from devouring me and charged into the middle of them.

Unlike me he _was_ prepared to fight Kikkimores and proceeded to do so.

Very well.

Not that I knew this of course. I remember groaning as the claws came out of my leg and shoulder before I just passed out.

I woke up a couple of times over the following days to meet my rescuer. I had enough time to tell him about the village that had hired me and he told me briefly about the village that hired him.

The long and short of it was that he had been hired by a village on the other side of the mountains who had been concerned about the rumbles and problems of underground tunnelling. Bits of ground were collapsing. Sink-holes were forming and Kikkimores had been seen above ground. Not being stupid they had also hired a Witcher. The Kikkimore queen and the Wyvern were involved in a

territory war and both sets of humans had been caught in the middle.

It took me weeks to recover and by the time I had recovered the passes through to my normal enter hideouts had been closer. The Wolven Witcher whose name turned out to be Eskel, invited me to Kaer Morhen, home of the Witcher school.

I had no choice but to accept as I was still very weak and would not have survived living in the wilderness for the months of the winter. I just had to hope that they would not figure out who I was.

Turns out though that I was too late.

My memory of this is patchy as I was taking Witcher potions every hour on the hour to try and convince my tired body to heal itself. I would wake occasionally at which point Eskel would feed me as much food as I could stomach to give my metabolism the kick that it needed but then I would go back to sleep.

But I remember being wheeled into Kaer Morhen's outer courtyard which was the point where it finally dawned on me where I was and I started to panic. One younger Witcher came over to peer into the cart curiously.

"Evening scar-face, who's the mangy one?"

I would later find out that this one's name was Lambert. He's a fairly normal looking guy with a retreating widows peak which I always found a bit odd. He's a very difficult to like Witcher as he's a very angry man and he takes out his anger on anyone who's passing nearby by hurling insults at them. I've always suspected that he insults people more the more he likes them although the venom with which he does so never lessens. Having said that he seems a good man and he's a very dedicated Witcher.

I should also talk about Eskel briefly. He's the kind of man who, when you're not in his immediate presence, you remember as being larger and more heavily muscled than he actually is. He moves slowly and carefully when not fighting and speaks very little unless he starts drinking at which point he starts to open up. He's got this huge, livid scar down one side of his face that pulls his lip into an almost permanent sneer unless you can make him smile or laugh. He prefers hunting in the wilderness as he seems to prefer to keep his own company than that of others, hunting for isolated communities and such. He's also a consummate professional. In days when Witchers were still being created I imagine that Eskel would have been a perfect tutor for younger Witchers. His knowledge of monsters is vast.

I have very few good friends in this world. Eskel is one of them.

But anyway,

"Our hunts clashed," Eskel replied to Lambert, encompassing a huge battle in three words. He's like that. "Kerrass here caught the worst."

Lambert nodded looking down on me.

"It's been a while since we've had a pussy in these walls."

Eskel shrugged.

"Vesemir won't like it," Lambert went on. I remember wondering whether it was Vesemir who wouldn't like it or Lambert himself.

Eskel shrugged again and gestured for Lambert to help him carry me into the keep.

Over the next few days I learnt a lot about the Wolves and indeed about myself and I have a new theory as to why the different Witcher schools are named after animals.

I don't know whether it's because of the mutations or what but Cat Witchers are vicious, nasty and cruel. Not unlike their animal counterparts. Bears are large, strong, slow, generally placid but capable of immense wrath, not unlike their animal counterparts.

Wolven Witchers behaved like a pack. Even though they separated in the spring every year they were still a pack and you could see it as they came home for the winter. There was still fifteen or so of them left alive at that point and another five who wintered elsewhere. They barely said anything to each other but their greetings towards each other were fiercely affectionate in ways that I had never seen amongst others.

As more and more of them arrived, they just seemed to slot into life. I never saw an allocation of chores, or decisions being made as to who did what, or who would train with whom or so on. They just got on with it.

That included dealing with me. I spent the early part of the Winter off in a spare room recuperating. Other Witchers would just come in with food and to check my dressings. They didn't say anything but the silence wasn't hostile, it was just that they didn't have anything to say. They came in, put the food down. Sometimes they would stick around a bit, play some cards or dice if I was awake, check my bandages and then wander off.

It was nice, it was...pleasant.

I don't know how else to put it.

Eventually I was able to take care of myself and could move down to the great hall which was where I met the legendary Vesemir.

In the Cat school we would treat the elder Cats with a kind reverence. They were _old_ which meant that they had survived for longer than anyone else. They were sages from which we could learn secrets to survival and novices ran after their every need in an effort to please them and gain favour.

Vesemire wasn't like that. Not because the other Wolves didn't respect him but more because... well...

I don't really know how to put it. He just wasn't. The others certainly treated him with a rough kind of respect but he was just as likely to get his tunic dirty with stone cement as anyone else was. His hands were still stained with alchemy ingredients and the two swords that he carried around as a matter of course were well worn and obviously lovingly tended.

The first time I saw him I tried to avoid him as I recognised him from _that_ night but it was no good.

"Hey now, don't slink off," he called. "Come and sit by the fire with me. I heard Cats like warm places and there are few enough of them in Kaer Morhen."

I approached cautiously.

"And my old bones appreciate the warmth as well." He likes to play up to his age, even though he's still hearty and hale enough for most.

I sat nearby and he poured me a tankard of mead that one of the others had had brewing. It wasn't bad.

The silence weighed on me though.

"I wanted to thank you," I began, "for your hospitality I mean and I promise that I'll be on my way and out of your hair as soon as I am able. Also to Eskel for taking care of me when he didn't have to and arguably shouldn't have."

Vesemir sniggered. It's always interesting to see an old man snigger like a school boy.

"To where exactly. The passes are all closed. Besides, we look after our own here at Kaer Morhen."

I took a deep breath and a long swallow from my mead.

"But I am not one of your own." I tried to put a wealth of what I was thinking into that small sentence. That I was sorry. That I didn't deserve their help. That I had killed many of their students. That I was one of the monsters that they should be hunting. There was all that and more, so much that I couldn't keep track of it.

"Of course you are," growled Vesemir glaring at me from underneath his bushy eyebrows. "You are a Witcher and Witchers look after each other on the path."

"But," I began. I don't know what I would have tried to say.

"But nothing. You're one of us. Witchers from all over the north have spent their Winters in Kaer Morhen. You are just one more."

I didn't know what to say to that and so I decided to say nothing.

I joined the company and found myself easily accepted into their midst. I started to exercise myself gently on their training machines. They gave me tips and I gave them pointers. At one point I remember giving the assembly a lesson on fighting in the dark which led to much hilarity including a demonstration where I fought two of them while blindfolded and although I didn't beat them. I held them off for far longer than they had expected.

The moment that I truly knew I had been accepted though was when Vesemir took me aside for a swordsmanship lesson and thoroughly schooled me. I am a good swordsman. I was good at the Cat school and there aren't many who I've trained with that are my equal one for one, let alone who are my better and all but a couple of those people are other Witchers. As always it boils down to the situation more than anything but I will freely say that I learnt more and better swordsmanship from a weeks hard training with Vesemir than I ever had under schooling at the school of the cat.

Then he sat me down and taught me about the Wolven code. He taught me about Dragons and why Witchers don't hunt them. About the difference between a monster and a non-human.

He taught me that not all things are monsters. Some don't know any better. Some are sick. Some were born damaged and yes, some are just evil. These things are monsters and as such it is our duty to fight them. To kill them so that others can live.

I asked him how to judge whether something is a monster or not?

He laughed.

Not many Witchers laugh aloud. We tend to be a stoic bunch as a whole and I was surprised by him. As were many of the others it seemed as they looked up to see what the fuss was.

He laughed for a long time.

"As soon as you figure it out," he said, still laughing. "You tell the rest of us." He chuckled for a bit longer. "You just live Kerrass. Just live as best you can. The most important thing is this. Do you shave?"

I nodded, confused. "Occasionally when I've got a good mirror. Or it's not to cold."

He nodded. "Then here's how you do it. If you can look your reflection in the eyes and ask it whether you did your best. If you stayed neutral and didn't give one side or the other the strength to cause more death. If you saved the lives of the people that the thing that you're hunting would have eaten. If you stayed out of petty disputes and if you keep yourself alive so that you can save more lives... If you can do all of those things. If you can look yourself in the mirror and know, and be _certain_ that you did everything you could with the knowledge that you had at the time. Then you're doing it alright.

"Anyone can look back with all of the correct information and say you did the right thing or the wrong thing. But they weren't there at the time. They didn't stand there in your shoes and have to make those decisions.

"The only person that you have to answer to is yourself."

"That's it?" I remember asking.

"That's it." he said standing up. "The passes will open in the next couple of days so we'll all start drifting off in the next couple of days and I've no doubt that you will want to do the same. But know that you are always welcome here. Whether for a refuge or somewhere warm to spend the winter."

"But I took part in the mass..."

He held up his hand to stop me. He looked as old as his years then.

"I know lad. I recognised you the moment I saw you. So did Eskel for that matter as well as a couple of the others. It doesn't matter but I will ask you a question now."

He drew his sword slowly.

"Knowing what you know now. Would you do it again?"

"Of course not." I answered knowing that I spoke the truth.

"What would you have done instead?"

"I would have warned you, I would have helped you."

Vesemir nodded. "See what I mean about looking back?" He sheathed his sword. "You did what your elders told you to. I don't blame you for that. It's what you do with that knowledge that's important now." He walked off.

I left Kaer Morhen that spring with surprisingly heavy feet. Eskel travelled with me for a couple of weeks and when we did part ways he pulled me into a fierce embrace before passing me a large and heavy coin pouch.

"What's this." I asked

"Your share. Of the Kikkimore and Wyvern hunt. Your Wyvern helped weaken the Kikkimores so I split the two rewards. That's your share."

I looked at the pouch and looked back up to see Eskel climbing onto his horse.

"Take care of yourself Kitten," he said as he turned to ride off.

"Back at you Mongrel." I shouted at his back.

That was forty years ago but I can still remember how much better the road seemed underneath my feet that spring.

.

.

The Wolves taught me a great deal. I think about who I was when I left the feline keep and who I became. I look back at what they did, what we did and I feel pity for myself, for the other students and indeed for those others who did the teaching and knew no better. Sometimes I get angry about it all. Some times I feel an overwhelming guilt at some of the things I did.

But most days I just focus on walking the path and I think that that's all I can do.

Frederick: It took me a while to realise that Kerrass had finished talking. It's a weird thing to describe but when I'm interviewing someone I go to this strange kind of meditative place where I am aware of what's going on but at the same time it just feels kind of floaty.

It's very similar to how I feel when I'm sat on the back of a horse on my way to wherever. My travelling companion is lost in their own thoughts and if I'm comfortable enough, experienced enough and in tune with my horse enough. I can just kind of drift off.

As a result I was just sat there, my quill poised over the writing waiting for the next words to be noted down and then a sort of... different quality to the silence made me look up. He had already paused several times during the extraordinary narrative that he'd given me but this time it became clear that there was nothing else to say.

Slowly I started to pack away my things, still in the fog of concentration and holding myself separate from the subject so that I could just note down what they were saying and as a result I answered the next question badly.

"Well?" he demanded.

"Well what?" I responded automatically. I don't know what I was thinking. I suspect part of me wasn't looking forward to turning my short-hand scribblings back into prose over the winter.

"What do you think?" he shot back. Clearly a little agitated.

I blinked at him stupidly for a few moments as my brain caught up with the last few seconds. I realised that I was crouched over the table gathering up the split quills and the blotting sand.

I sat back and thought for a moment before coming to a decision.

"About what?" I knew this wouldn't help him but he needed some truth now.

"About everything," he hissed, "about me about all of these, these things that I've told you." He gestured at the papers and I quickly gathered them up in case he decided to destroy them in a fury.

"What do you want me to say Kerrass?"

"I want...I kind of expected you to..."

"You wanted me to judge you. To tell you what I think of you now that I've heard your story?"

He looked at me steadily. The emotion kind of leaked out of him until he was calm and impassive again.

"I thought that was the point about all of this history nonsense. I thought that that's what scholars did." he said quietly

I smiled faintly. "No, no that's not my job. But let's be fair to each other with some honesty. This," I gestured at the papers, "is only a fraction of your life isn't it. This is not the best or the worst of your deeds. This does not contain all the lives that you've saved and the heroic deeds that you've done. Nor does it contain all the murder and the atrocities that you've committed does it?"

He didn't need to say anything.

I sighed and scratched my head as I hunted for the right words. It had been a hell of a day and my head was throbbing. I wanted nothing more than to climb into my hammock and go to sleep.

"My job isn't to judge you Kerrass. I couldn't anyway, I'm too close to the subject. You've saved my life numerous times now and I am anything but unbiased. I will admit to being a little bit... unsettled that you have killed children and murdered people in their beds. I was unsettled the first time you told me about the psychoses that Feline Witchers suffer from but that's not enough to make me want to stop travelling with you."

I was really struggling. I had the sense that he wanted something from me but I didn't know what that thing was and I don't think that he knew what it was either.

"History is judged by those people that come after us. Those men, and hopefully women, who read these things can make their own minds up. I cannot judge whether good deeds outweigh the bad or vice versa. I could give you platitudes if that would make you feel better, about how you're trying to be a better person than you were and that makes all the difference. I could tell you that that old part of you is dead and that you are a new person now of your own making.

"I could remind you that you carried me out of a woodland after besting a demon and then carried me around the countryside looking for healers to help me with my wounds. All things which you didn't have to do."

He shifted and opened his mouth.

"No, no you didn't," I interrupted him. Yes you didn't have to take me into the woods in the first place but I made that choice, not you. And even if it was the other way round, one mad scholar versus the lives and souls of that entire village sounds like a good deal from a numbers perspective. You could have just dumped me with the village or the Witch, or the priest, or the whores and just left me to it. You didn't. You carried me from one to the other."

I sighed again. One of my eyes was beginning to throb with fatigue.

"I've lost track of what I was trying to say." I said.

"The point is that all of the platitudes are true Kerrass. All of them are true and I know that that doesn't help. I like the sound of this Vesemir person and I would suggest that he is right in this. Do your best with what you know at the time. Or, let me put it another way. Did you kill the ass-hat this morning?"

"No, but you and the other sailors prevented me."

"Oh come on Kerrass. Honestly now. Are you honestly going to sit there and tell me that three unarmed sailors and a scholar would stop you from killing someone if you really wanted to? Remember that you were armed when you answer that."

He didn't say anything. He smirked

"You could have just spun and he would have been dead. I would also bet that not a single person on this ship, or any of the people who read about it would blame you. That doesn't make it right though and you knew it then and you know it now. Stop giving yourself a hard time over it."

He grunted.

"The platitudes are right Kerrass. In my eyes you are not the same person you were. But that doesn't mean you should stop trying to be better."

He didn't say anything. He just walked off into the dawn. It didn't surprise me to learn that we had worked all night.

He didn't talk to me the following day, or the day after that. But after that, he came back on deck armed and armoured as he had before. We greeted each other and things seemed to go back to

normal.

We parted ways for the Winter at Novigrad docks, he clapped me on the shoulder without saying a word and led his horse into the crowd while I left in search of a barge that would take me upstream towards Oxenfurt.

I spent the Winter wondering how much I had changed over the last 9 months since I met the Witcher and whether I should be proud of the changes.

Then I remembered a small struggling baby boy who screamed as I rescued him from his crib and the Nekkers that were approaching.

I shrugged.

Not for me to judge.


	18. Chapter 18

So I need to start today by addressing the monster in the room. For those of you who are aware of my current situation, Yes I am still at home dealing with the recent family crisis and no, I cannot tell you anything else about it for legal reasons.

I am very sorry for this but I promise that I will let matters be known as soon as I am able to do so because although the repercussions of recent events are not terribly important on the larger scale, they may make a difference locally.

For those of you who are unaware of what has happened amongst my family then all I am able to say at the moment is that there has been a crisis at home that has required my immediate presence back at the castle. I cannot go into what this is all about at this stage but rest assured. Those people who follow these writings to examine the processes of how a Witcher works will soon have something to examine and ponder as the crisis has involved Kerrass as quite an important player in the entire process.

The side effect of the reality that I am currently living at home is that I can once again be reached by the university and other members of the public who wish to correspond with me on various topics. First of all, let me thank all of you for all of the kind words that you have sent my family and me in this most difficult of times. All of the letters have been read although it would be impossible to respond to all of them. Suffice it to say that they are all appreciated and my family and I are grateful to the extreme.

Things at the castle are at that phase of proceedings where there isn't anything else that can be done until various results come in and permissions have been received for certain steps to be taken. So having spent the last few days wandering around the castle feeling aimless Kerrass, who is much better at waiting for things than I am, advised me to lock myself up in one of the clerks offices and do some work. In the meantime he and my soldier brother have spent the days talking about fencing. A subject that seems to provide them both with endless entertainment.

So I read letters, sending brief replies to those people that cannot wait or will not wait (Royal decrees and University Professors respectively in case you were wondering) and a letter from my publisher to say that they eagerly await the next "Kerrass adventure".

I'll just let those two words sink into your brain for a minute.

I am becoming mortally afraid that I am making my companion famous. Something that he doesn't want, especially given some of the things that we've talked about, and doesn't need in his line of work. When he talks about other Witchers, the subject of the White Wolf often comes up, as it must when we're talking about famous Witchers, and Kerrass talks of the man with pity and a certain level of amusement.

Even though I think he secretly enjoys the extra attention. More than once I've caught him preening in front of a mirror when he's been introduced to someone important or a member of my family. Checking himself in a reflective surface and so on. I've found that it is easy to deflate him at such times by reminding him that cats lick the back of their hands to get the best possible grooming possible.

He then tends to demand some kind of training routine that leaves me with aches and bruises as punishment.

But even so, fame is hard to avoid for a Witcher. One of the recurring themes of the letters that I have been receiving recently is the question of why do Witchers get involved with politics all the time despite their supposed neutrality?

That's a difficult question to answer but what it seems to come down to is that politics seems to find them despite their own best efforts.

Of course I have a story to back up my point. Otherwise I wouldn't be writing the thing would I?

Sorry, Sorry. It hasn't been a good week.

The way it goes is this. The average village can only generally afford a Witcher to deal with a relatively small threat. Nest of Nekkers, Necrophage problems, maybe a grave hag if it's quite a prosperous village or something.

Anything larger though and a village can't afford it. They club together and send a delegation off to the local lord to beg for his aid in such a matter. The first thing that happens is that the lord sends out some of his/her finest warriors/knights/arms-men/lackeys to dispense of the beast. They inevitably fail but the lord/lady feels as though this is an important step in the process of proving their Lordliness to everyone involved.

Unfortunately this failure makes beast angry and then there are fewer villagers. So Lord eventually decides to hire a Witcher. Witcher turns up and does job before demanding payment. Lords, being Lords, start to make noises about how a Witcher should just do the job due to some kind of feudal responsibility to the local lord. Witcher tries not to laugh, Witcher goes to jail. Does some work for Lord in effort to gain freedom. Lord decides he/she has pet Witcher and suddenly the Witcher is involved in politics.

Yes, I'm aware of the irony of a minor Lord talking about Lords like this.

The long and short of it is that only Lords/Ladies and particularly wealthy merchants can afford the Witchers rates.

Which are justified. I've been there when Kerrass has to shop for some of his rarer potion ingredients to take down a griffin, or watched as he's spent literal hours diving to a river bed to find one herb or another, or rooting through graveyards, or caving or...

You get the idea.

The other reason is that of all people, and these two facts go hand in hand, it's the Lords and Ladies that have the resources to find a Witcher on the road. But they also have a misunderstanding in that they don't really know what a Witcher does. They hear "hired Monster Killer" and hear "Hitman for hire," or "Murderer for hire," or "Bounty-hunter for hire," because a Lord/Ladies idea of what constitutes a monster is often different from yours or mine.

As another example of this kind of thing I refer you to the ballad "A question of price" from the works of Dandelion the Bard regarding the first meeting between the Lioness of Cintra, the fabled Ard Rhena, Queen Calanthe Fiona Riannon of Cintra and Geralt, the White Wolf, of Rivia.

However Kerrass and I have a slightly different story to tell. It's a story that still gives Kerrass some amusement and myself a little... well... terror in the base of my stomach because of what it might mean. However it is also a story that may become important in future times. It's a story about a monsters decision and maybe it's a story about the future. Especially when it comes to my families affairs as it would seem that...well...

She wasn't joking.

This year, as soon as we left Oxenfurt it became clear that Kerrass was a man on a mission. There were things to do in his head and places where they needed doing. We headed east and slightly North, heading roughly into Kaedwen in that area of the country that Nilfgaard had taken in the war before the peace agreement had been agreed upon. I don't know where he was going or what he was looking for and to be truthful I didn't ask. The plan was that we were going to head up into Kaedwen where there are regular annual problems with Forktails (apparently) and after that we were going to head back down into Northern Temeria around the Velen region as when the climate warms up, the necrophages will emerge from their holes to feast on the still rotting corpses that are lying around the area. Some of them might be even larger and a good living could be made there over the summer.

Turns out necrophages hibernate in Winter.

Who knew?

We were heading down the road heading Northish from Southern Aedirn into South Eastern Kaedwen. Although I know that we were well into Kaedwen when it happened.

We were riding along minding our own business when we heard horses approaching behind us. Approaching fast.

In my experience, which is now considerably more than it was when I started this journey, people don't tend to gallop their horses unless they absolutely have to. For a start, it tires the horses out as most horses are built for strength to be able to pull the wagons or carry the knights along. Think about it. The knights on a battle-field don't sound the charge at the beginning of things. They wait, increase to a gentle trot as they reach arrow range and it's only at the last second that they sound the charge. This is for two reasons, the first is so that the full weight of the formation of knights in armour hit the defensive line at roughly the same time. But the other reason, the important one in this instance is that if they all set off at that speed at the same time, the horse would be dying of exhaustion before it got to the enemy lines.

So people only gallop their horses when they're chasing someone, or they're running from someone. We had both discounted the possibility of a messenger on the grounds that they tend to travel alone. This was definitely a group of horsemen and they were coming on fast.

Kerrass was well aware of my thinking and scanned the terrain and lead us on.

Oh, there is another reason why people might gallop their horses. It's because the horses owners are rich pricks who don't really know what they're doing.

I remember that it was a warm day,, a clear sky and lack of breeze making it hotter and that the heat lay heavy on us. Both of us were in our shirt-sleeves and had been riding gently and occasionally walking the horses to keep them from being too winded or worn out. There were large water sacks on the horses which we were using to keep us hydrated along with the horses. It was a farm track really with grass growing down the middle between the wheel ruts, a fairly old wooden fence on one side kept the average traveller away from a tiny flock of sheep and there were several small plumes of smoke that rose gently into the day.

We had been talking about romance. I remember this because Kerrass was teasing me for being a romantic.

The things we remember...

It seems so long ago now, even though it is technically a few months ago.

But anyway.

Kerrass led us off the road on the other side from the sheep enclosure. There were some woods behind us and the ground dipped just in front between us and the road. I could imagine the dip being home to a small pond in wetter months. Then we waited.

There are of course other reasons. It could be a royal party, or an otherwise armed party, or a hunting party who had decided to stretch their horses legs or some other group of people who would come galloping down the road at such a speed that they wouldn't notice as their horses just ride you down like the peasant the rider knows you to be.

Sorry again.

But anyway. The riding party came into view cresting the rise in the road in an array of armour and colour that would have made any storied knight of Toussaint proud.

One of them was actually carrying a banner as if we should all know the person who owned it.

They then blew a horn and they clattered to a halt on the road facing us as I tried not to laugh. My first thought was about the poor horses as I'd spent a good amount of the past few days worrying about the welfare of my horse and my mind was still stuck in that groove.

Then I thought about the men. Most of them were wearing chain-mail under a tunic with plate shoulder guards and helms. I could almost imagine the sweat trickling down the backs of their necks and shuddered.

Then I thought of how ridiculous they all looked. On a day like today using an actual signalling horn to tell their fellow riders when to stop and things.

But I didn't laugh.

Kerrass had spent some time teaching me awareness of things or, as he put it, useful paranoia. He would say that it's not paranoia if the bastards are really after you and also this wonderful gem of Witcher wisdom "Some people might call it Paranoia, I call it caution."

Words of Wisdom.

Anyway.

The thing that got to my mind was that the men were all armed and that those weapons had seen heavy use. You can tell by the markings on the hilts.

The leader was a slightly smaller man than the rest of his knights but the overall effect was offset by the fact that he was the only one wearing full plate harness. He won points from me for not having too much ornamentation about himself other than the fact that his armour was obviously rather expensive as it had the blue sheen of steel that comes from a dwarven forge. His sword was strapped to his saddle along with his shield, both of which were plain and worn but next to them was a contraption that I had not seen before sitting in a new looking leather pouch.

He dismounted easily and strode towards us which was another tell-tale sign that he knew how to move in armour without being massively built.

So I didn't laugh at the ridiculousness of the entire situation.

He was joined by a servant who was carrying a pack and a water bottle, a squire and the man with the banner. He took off his helmet as he approached and waited with what looked like a practised patience while he was announced as Lord Philibert Dorme Duke of Angral by the man with the banner.

I checked on a map. It's a Duchy just south of the border between Kaedwen as was and what used to be Aedern. I expect it was used as a kind of buffer zone between the two nations before the Emperor started to get ambitious.

Lord Philibert won himself a few points by seeming to be kind of bored but also kind of resigned to the heraldic nonsense and I felt myself rise to the occasion.

"Lord Dorme, Allow me to present myself and my companion. My name is Frederick von Coulthard and it is my honour to present Witcher Kerrass."

My bow was possibly a little more flowery than required from a sweaty man on the side of the road but the kind of noble who would be dressed in full plate and chain on a day like this.

He echoed my bow, the depth of bow slightly shallower than my own.

"Any relation to Baron von Coulthard of Redaina."

He was surprised. I could hear it in his voice. So not particularly courtly then. Any real courtier would have hidden that surprise as it was too early in our meeting to give anything away.

"He would describe it as a distant relation My Lord."

He smiled warmly.

"A younger son then,"

I bowed the affirmative and he turned to Kerrass.

"Master Witcher. Are you available for a hire?"

Kerrass nodded. "As always that would depend on the hire and the amount of money offered Lord."

"As I should expect. May I offer some hospitality while we talk? It's only some small things. Pastries and the like as well as some wine."

"That would be agreeable."

We went a small ways along the road to a place where the ground was a little flatter and a pavilion was set up with remarkable speed that betrayed much practice.

"So what can I do for you Lord Dorme?" Kerrass said after eating a couple of sandwiches.

Lord Philibert, who was actually a little older than I had first guessed he was now that we were a bit closer to him, his dark hair was clearly dyed black but there was a sprinkling of grey in amongst the roots, waved off a couple of his hangers on and frowned at me.

"Frederick is my assistant and companion in my professional matters Lord Dorme. He has my every confidence in his assistance and his discretion." Kerrass' use of language again. He was showing off. I had noticed that he knew the correct way to hold a cup several times.

"It's a little embarrassing to tell the truth," Now that I was looking for it there was also make-up on his face. The kind that ladies use to hide unsightly bits. He scratched his chin.

"Well, the more you tell me the more I will be able to advise you and help you."

"I appreciate that." He took a long swig from a wine glass.

"Have you or your companion ever head of the Black Sun curse?"

Kerrass smirked a little "That stupidity. Yes I know it." Lord Dorme looked at me and I nodded.

For those people who don't know the story of the Black Sun problem then briefly it goes like this. At one point in the past, tellingly no-one can agree when it was, roughly 50-60 years ago there was an eclipse. Several astrologers, Wizards and priests decided that it was a bad omen and that anyone born under the Black Sun were cursed. Born deformed of body and Mind destined to drown the world in rivers of blood. They then went on something of a crusade, finding these poor creatures, killing them wherever possible and imprisoning them where it wasn't.

The enemies of these men and the Black Sun Theory point out several facts. They say that any evidence that these girls were malformed was destroyed after being dissected by proponents of the theory, that the results of the persecution of these women wholly benefited the theorists or their allies and any monstrous act caused by these girls could also be explained away by the persecution that these girls had received at the hands of the priests, wizards and Astrologers.

As a historian, the only thing I can say is this. The sun did not turn black, it was an eclipse. One that had been predicted at that. As for the rest of it. There are so many holes in the theory that both sides can argue themselves hoarse for days on end without conclusion. I also noticed that all the subjects of the curse were young and attractive girls and all of the main proponents of the curse were single, lonely old men.

For further information on the Curse of the Black Sun I recommend the works of Dandelion the bard, specifically that work called "The Lesser of two evils" and the original prophecy is discussed in "The curse of the Black Sun," by the arch-mage Etibald or the counter treatise that is a much larger book called "The Mania of Mad Etibald" by several different authors.

"Good, however it's not that bit that's really embarrassing although it is embarrassing enough. I am the Duke of Angren, making me second only to the King of Angraal. We don't call it that anymore of course as according to both Kaedwen and Nilfgaard I am a Count and the King is a Duke of those realms but that scarcely matters in the local area. It is governed by the King and we are a relatively small patch of land, of no strategic importance to either state so as long as the taxes turn up on time we can call ourselves what we like,

"I won't go into the whole messy business of the hereditary ruler-ship of Angraal as it's a waste of everyone's time. But suffice to say that if there isn't an heir for Angren then the balance of power in our little realm would crumble which would mean that we would probably come to the attention of someone important. They then might decide that Angraal would make for a nice gift to some lackey of theirs and the whole thing falls apart. Much though I dislike the King, he and me both agree that this problem needs sorting out."

He scratched his chin again.

"So you need an heir?" Kerrass put in.

"Yes,"

"Then I don't understand the problem. Get married and make the woman pregnant in the usual fashion."

"Here comes the problem though. That being my mother."

I nearly laughed but Kerrass didn't.

"I'm not a hitman," he said coldly.

"Holy Flame no, that's not the hire. Believe me, I have read the works of the bard and know exactly what it is that Witchers do.

"My mother is a traditionalist and as such she is responsible for choosing my bride. Unfortunately I am something of the apple of her eye being the only living son that she was able to produce and as such she has decided that I deserve the best."

"I see," Kerrass said, "None of the ladies the King has sent you meet her requirements."

"As you say," Lord Dorme scratched his chin again, it seemed to be a nervous habit. "She finds some fault with them all, turning them away one by one, often before I meet the ladies in question and without regard for my personal tastes. We finally managed to get out of her what the problem was and that problem is that she is looking for a Princess of the type that I deserve."

"There aren't that many princesses about nowadays," I commented.

"Precisely," said Lord Dorme. "All the time men are telling the King to have me killed as a threat to his rule and other men are hassling me to raise my banners in rebellion and take what they think, and my mother secretly thinks, as my rightful throne."

"I also have no time for politics." Kerrass put in rising to his feet.

"I understand master Witcher. I really do. Please hear me out."

Kerrass settled down again and there was another chin scratch.

"In the end though I found a Princess," he paused for a long moment. I couldn't help it, that thumb scratch to the side of his chin was drawing my eyes like the flash of a rabbit in the undergrowth.

The silence dragged.

"There's a huge 'but' coming isn't there," I heard myself say.

"Indeed," That fucking scratch. I wanted to offer him some kind of salve to help with that itch.

"Otherwise I wouldn't need a Witcher would I?" I was getting to him. I couldn't quite decide whether that was a good thing or not. If it was a problem Kerrass would interrupt me though.

"The thing is," Lord Dorme went on, "is that the Princess in question is one of the victims of the Black Sun mania,"

"She was one of those girls that were locked up in a tower when the curse came to light?" Kerrass asked,

"We believe so. We found the records to say what it was and where it was and things. We even know her name as being Princess Jasmine,"

"Forgive me Lord Dorme but..." I began. "The Black Sun mania took place, even at the most extreme end of the scale, over forty odd years ago. Even if she was locked up at the very end of the mania then she would be well past the point at which she could bare you a son, if she's even alive." I don't know what I was expecting. Some kind of shout down I suppose.

"You are not wrong," he said ruefully, "but, it will appease my mother which means that she will relax her hold on my wedding preparations. If we can go there, get past the protections that have been places around the tower, get in and categorically state that it's empty then my mother has promised that I can marry who I like, rather than press me into being one of the many suitors who have sent their suit down to the new Empress."

I smiled sympathetically. There wasn't an unmarried nobleman in the northern Kingdoms that wasn't having romantic dreams about sweeping the young heir to the thrown of Nilfgaard off her feet, no matter how unrealistic those dreams might be. From what little I had heard she had proclaimed loudly, and forcefully if rumour was to be believed, that she was too busy for that kind of thing.

Kerrass was shaking his head though.

"Lord Dorme, I'm not sure what you want me to do. Leaving the political problems aside, I think you would be better off with a Sorcerer or Wizard of some kind. The enchantment that protects a tower like that would be old by now and unpredictable, even if it was built to last so you might even be able to find yourself a village Witch who could serve, or even a priest. I am a Witcher and my training is rather... focused towards other areas."

"I understand Master Witcher, I really do but unfortunately you are the best of what is available to me at the moment and things are coming to a head at what we think of as our royal court. Isn't my understanding correct that Witchers would prefer to lift curses anyway?"

"Yes, but not to remove them from castles."

"I am willing to pay handsomely."

"Money is not the issue, I am more concerned that what you are asking is simply beyond my capabilities."

"Master Witcher I... I need this to be done I..."

He looked desperate. Unhappy and desperate. I leapt to a conclusion. The wrong one as it would turn out.

"Have you chosen a bride my Lord?" I asked quietly with a grin and a wink.

Lord Dorme said nothing but I did see his eyes twinkle a little.

"I'll offer this Lord Dorme," said Kerrass after a long pause. "How far away is this tower?"

"If we set off now we could be there by tomorrow morning."

Kerrass nodded to himself.

"Very well. In return for dinner and breakfast on the road towards the tower as well as say, twenty florins for the lost time. I will come and look at this tower of yours and make a recommendation. If I can get you in I will but the price will need to be renegotiated there. If I decide that it's too dangerous or that I can't do it. The two of us ride away with the 20 florins in pocket."

"Agreed." The response was a shade too fast but I put it down to the desperation of a romantic soul.

"I decide whether I proceed and _only_ I decide. If I decide to move on, we're moving on and you won't try to stop us," Kerrass was staring at Lord Dorme to emphasise his point.

"I agree," Lord Dorme confirmed.

"Very well."

The ride itself was relatively pleasant. We rode at a pace that was a little faster than I think either Kerrass or myself were comfortable with given the sunlight but it really wasn't long. Turns out that Lords like to work hard and play hard on this kind of thing. We rode until it started to get dark, down farm tracks and wooded lanes mostly, the paths and things becoming thinner and more overgrown as we went. I noticed that Kerrass in particular was paying close attention to the route so quite frankly I just let him get on with it. To my mind we were heading roughly northwards towards a smallish outcropping of mountains.

As it started to get dark Lord Dorme announced a dismount and we led the horses through some undergrowth and we came to a clearing that had obviously been prepared before hand. A much larger pavilion was up and there were already many other men there, servants, grooms and squires as well as a number of other men-at-arms. Lord Dorme told us that this was one of many armed camps that he was maintaining in case the King decided to listen to his advisers and come for his head after all. He didn't think it was likely but at the same time he didn't think there was any such thing as being too cautious.

He disappeared into his pavilion and dealt with things. A number of messengers and knights went in after him and so there was quite a lot of talking and indeed a lot of shouting to be heard through the canvas walls. Kerrass and I made sure that we saw to it that our own horses were well cared for and looked after before pitching our own little camp where we were told to.

I remembered the lectures that Kerrass had given me about orderly camping at the beginning of our partnership and as I looked around at the furious pace of work all around us I found myself remembering those talks and shouting matches and thought that Kerrass had actually let me off easy.

We dined with Lord Dorme and his inner circle that night. The food was pleasant enough despite being disguised trail food along with some venison, cheese and some actually fairly good wine but there was a tension in the air. The laughter had a stifled feeling to it as though people were uncomfortable.

I remember thinking at the time that it was just that the two of us were strangers here and so some of the nuances were lost on us.

We rose early the following day, ate, watered our horses and saw to our own needs but even though Kerrass and I took our time we were both ready long before Lord Dorme's troop was ready. People were dashing in and out of his pavilion very quickly and more sounds of argument came from indoors.

Eventually though we were all up and organised and we set out With Lord Dorme dressed in his armour. His squire was also carrying a wrapped up box, just a small one but I saw it and was momentarily curious about it.

It's easy to look back with hindsight and think that we should have paid more attention to different details but at the time I was too busy checking my gear.

Priorities right?

Anyway.

It was another crisp and clear morning as we set out and I enjoyed myself. Kerrass had both swords on his back that morning and had spent the time that we were waiting for the others reading from a large and weighty tome that he carried around with him. He frowned as he rode, obviously deep in thought and I decided that I wouldn't disturb him.

The sun was out, trees were beginning to find their leaves and there was a general sense of the world returning to life. There was also an excitement amongst the other riders, a contained energy and sense of purpose. They rode on either side of Kerrass and I who were riding just behind Lord Dorme who was someone else who seemed deep in thought.

We rode through fields and small windbreaks of trees, fields divided by fences and loose grey stone. Piled together in that way that would remain standing for decades, if not centuries If no-one interfered with them. Lord Dorme seemed to know his route though and led us confidently and surely. Farm workers bowed to us as we passed, sheep and cows were herded out of our way and rabbits were poking their noses out of their burrows to watch us cautiously as we rode.

We were heading towards a range of hills, the mountains still off in the distance but these seemed to be the foothills that would lead up to those mountains. Rocky outcrops could be seen cresting the top of them and suddenly I felt a chill crawl up my spine.

Kerrass is a great believer in these kinds of premonitions and instincts. He declared once that instinct is the left over from our savage past and that we should always listen to them. I looked sharply over to him to discover that he was watching me closely.

As carefully and nonchalantly as I could I drew the pole attachment out and fastened it to the end of my spear and took the cover from the blade.

Kerrass nodded and I saw him palm a potion bottle to his mouth under the cover of clearing his throat. I wouldn't have seen it if I wasn't looking for it.

I was not the only one on edge as a few of the nights started to shift around in their saddles and a small amount of muttering could be heard.

Lord Dorme ignored all of this and just carried on riding.

We entered a woodland track. The trees themselves seemed strange and far to uniform. The older trees seemed to be uniformly planted in rows. Younger trees sprouted all over the place but the older ones all seemed artificial in some ways. It reminded me of an orchard that had been left unattended for some years to recover from over-pruning. I remember thinking that it might be quite pretty later on in the spring but the thought just seemed to wither in my brain like an un-watered flower.

The path started to weave between the trees, this way and that way as well as becoming narrower. More than one of the nights had shifted their shields onto their arms and rode with their hands resting on their sword pommels.

I was no horseback fighter though so I adjusted my stirrups so that I could easily leap from them at a moments notice.

Just as I began to think that there would be no end to woods, they started to thin again and become unhealthy in their appearance. Stunted, brown and black leaves and trunks with the sickly sweet smell of wood rot and mould lying heavily in the air.

Despite the winter and the early spring rains, the grass grew in clumps rather than as a blanket across the floor. We had ridden into a deep valley. You could climb up the sides of the valley but you would struggle to lead a horse up there as well as there being loose stone up the banks.

The patches of grass died out and the ground became almost burned. Black and brown and utterly dead.

But that was not the thing that caught the eye.

"Oh Fuck off," I heard myself whisper in wonder and disgust at almost exactly the moment that the horses started to freak out.

Ahead of us was a...

Now I've spent a long time trying to think of the proper word or words to describe the building that greeted our sights as we we merged from the tree line. Calling it a castle summons an image of a curtain wall, maybe some trenches and hillocks around the outside to confound siege-works, maybe some battlements, crenelations along the top of the walls. Towers with arrow slits as well as a keep kept well back from the walls. You probably start to think of moats, drawbridges and portcullis's.

This thing had none of those things.

From the earlier talk about Princesses and the Curse of the Black Sun I had expected a tower. Not a fairy tale one with a ridiculous room perched on top of an impossibly thin spire and a red tiled roof.

It wasn't a fortress either, small, squat and ugly.

It didn't stand on a rocky outcrop, silhouetted against the sky with ominous foreboding crows circling it. I don't really know what one of those things is called but whatever they're called it wasn't one of those.

I find that the word 'Citadel' has the right kind of over tones to it.

What it was was a spike in the ground. It was difficult to judge how tall it was from this distance but spike it was, broad at the bottom and tapering up to a rounded off point at the top. It wasn't jagged or sharp looking. Indeed it looked smooth from this distance. There was also a spray of similar spikes jutting out from the base in all directions in what looked like a circle. They were evenly spread around the central spike raised up from the ground at an angle like the thorns and points from a crown. At the base of those spikes there was indeed a wall that went from one spike to another.

It was a difficult building to describe. It was just so impossible. The jutting out spikes were massive enough that they were impossible. Nothing could stand like that. It was so obviously magical in design that I would have known it even if Kerrass' pendant wasn't obviously dancing around like it was possessed.

The spikes themselves looked like they were black. Deepest black glass and it was as though we could see something in the depths of that glass. Something alive that if you stared at it for too long you ran the danger of recognising it. It drew the eye though and you had to tear your gaze away from the green and purple flashes that seemed to come from the depths.

There was also a light at the top of the tower that burned a steady and bright blue which clashed with the green and purple tints in the glass in a way to make me feel nauseous.

"Yeah," said Kerrass. "Yep, no way. No way am I going anywhere near that thing, nor is my companion and if you follow my advice you won't go anywhere near it either. This place is so obviously corrupted that the best advice I can give you is to send to the Empress, letting her know what exists here so that she can send a Sorceress or three here to deal with the place but I am leaving now. I wish you all luck. Frederick? Are you coming?"

"Fuck yes," I breathed out having to tear my gaze away from the horrid, stomach churning thing. I had noticed that there was a path down to it. On either side of it were crosses at regular intervals. Some had fallen but on at least one I could see a skeleton had been tied.

"Fuck yes I'm coming." I turned my horse away.

Or at least I tried to. Someone was holding my horses bridle.

"Wait, just a moment." Lord Dorme's voice sounded calm and unsurprised.

"Oh don't do it." I muttered. "You were doing so well,"

My horse had been blocked by two of the knights. One of them had taken hold of my bridle while I was looking at the citadel and the other on my right grabbed me by the scruff of the neck as Lord Dorme spoke.

"You can keep your reward Lord Dorme. I find I don't need it.

Kerrass' voice was cold. I turned and could see him facing off with Lord Dorme.

The knight who had me by the scruff of the neck had drawn a knife and was holding it to my throat.

I started to chastise myself for not seeing this coming in the first place.

Lord Dorme's face had shifted slightly. Now that I was looking at him in profile he reminded me more of a falcon about to strike.

"I'm afraid I really must insist Master Witcher. You see today has taken far too much preparation and far too many sacrifices for me to simply stop here."

"Explain to me why any of that is my problem," Kerrass' face was a mask but his hands hadn't moved yet. I waited, watching carefully.

"Because if you don't do what I ask..."

"asking implies the possibility of a negative response," Kerrass interrupted.

Lord Dorme smiled. "Forgive me then. What I demand." He pronounced the words clearly and carefully. "then your companion will die."

Another chill went down my spine.

"So?" Kerrass shrugged. His eyes on Dorme were intense. "He's a companion. Nothing more."

"Do not take me for a fool Kerrass. I know who you are and I know who he is. I have read his "Travels" with much interest and how you saved him from madness. You obviously care."

"I am a Witcher. I was indebted to him. Besides, Frederick is the kind of noble that you wouldn't understand because you're an unspeakable prick. He's a good man. He would willingly sacrifice himself and then I would be free to escape you. Isn't that right Frederick?"

I considered for a moment.

"Probably," I said, "although I would appreciate it if you could see your way to murdering this cunt

at some point. I've no doubt that father would be good for your fee."

"There you are Lord Dorme, so why should I go down there again?"

Dorme hissed.

Kerrass' left hand moved and I acted.

If there are any running themes through these articles and journal excerpts that I keep coming back to one of them is this.

Since starting my travels with Kerrass he has been training me to not be completely incompetent when violence starts. He works me hard and after that first time in the village with the Nekkers I have never once complained about how hard he works me.

I am not talented. I do not have "The look of the eagles" or "The bearing of a soldier" or I'm not "A warrior born" or any of the other poetic nonsense that is put about. I find it hard. Kerrass has to show me a move over and over and over again before I get it down and even then I have to practice it over and over and over again plus a couple of dozen times more to get it good enough to actually use it.

Kerrass and I have often talked about why that is and our conclusion which, to his credit, Kerrass has never once given me grief about, is that my brain tends to get in the way. Rather than existing in the moment of violence and letting my training and body memory take over I want to think about it.

I want to strategize and think about the best way to do it.

But what I do have is one significant advantage.

I was trained to fight by a hardened killer.

Most people don't want to kill someone. They have a tendency to automatically pull that last sword blow or close their eyes before loosing that fatal arrow that takes their enemy in the groin. It takes years, sometimes, to overcome that instinct and train a soldier to do the killing which is why most units of soldiers are taught using rote techniques so that the movements required to kill are so ingrained that they've killed their enemies before they've realised it.

One of the other thing here, outside the absurdly evil looking citadel, was that I wasn't perceived as a threat. The only person that everyone was looking at was Kerrass.

The other problem was that knights have a code of honour that governs their ability to murder someone. In this case, just slitting my throat would have been murder so they needed to be ordered to do it. Plus the fact that they clearly wanted to use me as leverage to control Kerrass.

Plus that little amount of haggling between Dorme and Kerrass meant that I could lay my plan.

My left hand came up and took hold of the wrist holding the knife. My right arm lashed backwards aiming my elbow at roughly where I hope the man's face was.

As I hoped, he automatically flinched backwards from the blow.

My left leg kicked out at the horse on my left and used that momentum as well as my weight and the man's flinch to drive the two of us off the horse and down to the right.

I landed on top of him as the breath whooshed out of us both. The fall probably hurt me more than him as he was armoured and padded whereas I was still in some light leathers.

But I was on top and that made all the difference.

I managed to roll so that I was facing him, still inside the circle of his right arm and dagger. If he'd reversed the dagger and stabbed at the back he might have killed me then but his reflex was to just slash wildly and so all he managed to do was to gouge chunks out of the leather. My right hand found my boot dagger, a practised movement that had needed practising, and I drove it under the man's chin and into his brain.

Blood exploded over my hand as though his neck vomited blood.

Fortunately for us both he died quickly and I was able to stand up and act further.

He was the third man I have ever killed.

The dead man's horse was between me and my spear though so I lashed out at it attempting to smack it on it's arse and get it to move.

The clash of steel from nearby told me that Kerrass was still alive. The horse wasn't moving. I checked around me to see what was going on. Most of the other knights had automatically run to engage Kerrass but there was Dorme's personal guard who would prevent me from mounting up and riding off and there was also the banner-bearer who was staring at me open mouthed.

Somewhere my screaming brain decided that he was a threat and I charged towards him, still only with a dagger in my hand.

He realised that all he had was a banner pole and he tried to draw his sword but the stupid fool still had hold of the pole rather than letting it fall.

I barrelled into him as the sword was half out aiming my dagger in a thrust for his eyes.

Here's a tip. Always go for the eyes.

He fell and I grabbed the pole as he fell.

If you ever find yourself in a fight, try and remember this. The ground is not your friend. Get up.

He didn't and I stamped on his neck.

Some of Dorme's personal guard had realised that I was an actual threat now and were coming for me.

The banner staff was not a good weapon, it was longer than my spear and it had the drag of the flag. I managed to tear the flag off but then they were on me and I was using it like an overly long quarterstaff.

They had me tied up then. I suspect, I hope, that I gave more than one of them a bruise or two to

remember me by but to defend myself I had to back off to keep them all in check and I was just blocking with no time for offence.

They backed me up and backed me up. They were winded but I was handicapped and really starting to feel the earlier bruising. I was also worrying because I had gotten turned around and had no idea what was behind me.

Lord Dorme as it turned out.

There was a "thunking" noise and it felt as though a horse had kicked me in the backside.

I staggered and fell forwards but caught myself. My right leg was numb and not responding.

Dorme said something then although I didn't catch it.

I snarled, still in fighting mode and spun around but my leg still didn't respond and I staggered again falling to one knee.

I then realised that no-one was attacking me.

Dormes guards were backing off, still with swords drawn because they weren't stupid. The banner-bearer was being helped up as he clutched at his throat choking.

Dorme had a crossbow in his hand, a hand that was wrapped in the biggest and thickest leather glove that I had ever seen.

I didn't know why but I felt a chill then.

Dorme handed the crossbow to his squire and carefully took the glove off.

The fighting around Kerrass had also stopped and those knights were also backing off. Kerrass was as confused as I was and started moving towards me. He was slow, cautious, feet sliding along the floor. His sword was ready, held flat as his eyes scanned across the line of men facing us.

Dorme was being handed a small box from one of the squires packs.

I pulled myself up again. Feeling was beginning to return now and that feeling was pain.

"Ow," I said as Kerrass got to me. We were both still facing the enemy.

"You've been shot in the backside."

"Now that's a scar I'm not going to want to show off." I muttered feeling a little giddy.

"Oh I don't know. Some girls like that kind of thing."

Dorme came forwards, accompanied by a couple of guards. Still well outside our weapons reach.

Dorme was holding a small glass bottle that had a pink liquid in it. A tiny amount.

"Here's how it is Witcher. I know that you're immune so instead I have just shot your companion with a poisoned dart."

"Which poison?" Kerrass asked conversationally.

"An expensive one," Dorme was smiling thinly. "Expensive enough that I have been promised that the only antidote in easy reach is in my hand. In a very thin and fragile glass bottle. That I will drop to be smashed on the ground if you do anything I dislike. Expensive enough that your companion's death will be horrible and will occur within a couple of hours. Check the bolt if you like, it should come out easily enough, the bolt is not barbed but you are wasting time."

Kerrass knelt next to me.

"You ready?" he asked me.

I hissed as he took hold of the bolt.

"Fuck no,"

He yanked it out anyway.

"Well?" I asked, struggling to keep my eyes on the enemies rather than whatever Kerrass was up to.

Kerrass inspected the bolt.

I heard him sniff. I imagined him tasting the end of the bolt knowing his immunity.

He sighed.

"Fuck," he said.


	19. Chapter 19

"I think, that what I should do to him is to hire a Mage of some kind to suck all his insides out through his ass-hole next time he takes a shit. That way he can die while he takes a shit."

"Oooh, good one. But also, what you could do is arrange matters so that he wouldn't die as that happens but only when they try to move him. That way he knows that as he crouches there..."

"or sits there,"

"Yeah, while he sits there, his troo's around his ankles with what feels like a particularly violent turd hanging out of his ass-hole, someone has to have a look and then tell him that he's about to die with his pants down."

"I like it."

Kerrass and I were discussing how we wanted Lord Dorme to die as we headed down to the citadel of unspeakable evil.

"The thing to make it crueller though would be to give him hope of some kind. So that he knows that he's going to die but deep-down he still has hope that it will be alright in the end."

"Hmmm," I muttered, "Good thought that. But I reckon he's a squealer. I reckon that if you told him he was going to die that he'd shit himself to death anyway."

"Probably. I still think that peeling his face off would be a good start."

I chuckled and staggered.

"You alright?" Kerrass asked, his tone was neutral but I could tell that he was keeping it that way on purpose.

"I'm fine, just weighed down." I wasn't fine. I was wondering if I was short of breath because of the poison or because of the amount of stuff that I was carrying. "Besides. You need to concentrate on what you're doing. Not on how I'm feeling."

"True," Kerrass paused as he stared at his medallion for a couple of moments before gesturing in another direction. "How do you feel about boiling him in oil?"

"Slowly?" I enquired. "We lower him into it slowly while the oil is already boiling or just drop him and increase the temperature slowly."

"Either works for me."

"Wouldn't he die too fast from the pain though?"

"Fair point."

"Boiling in salted water?"

"Ah, that's a good one."

I knew what he was doing. Even an idiot would know what he was doing. He was taking my mind of it. Keeping it focused on funny images instead of worrying about what that poison was that was running through my body and killing me.

Kerrass had sworn quite vividly after gingerly licking the tip of the crossbow bolt before calming abruptly.

"What is it?" I asked trying to stay calm.

"You don't want to know. Can you walk?"

"I can fucking well walk out of here," I snarled back. "I'm sorry."

"It's alright." Kerrass was taking some things from his saddle-bags. "It's a spider venom. I don't recognise it beyond that but given the fact that it's a spider venom. He's right, it is powerful and it won't be pleasant."

"Right."

"So can you walk?"

"I'm not giving those bastards the satisfaction. Yes I can walk. Or limp anyway."

Kerrass nodded. He strapped another belt around his waist. There were several small pouches around the front and he started putting small potion bottles into them. "Go get your spear."

"He stays with us." Lord Dorme was sitting on his horse a small distance away. "To guarantee your good will."

"Like fuck he is," Kerrass snarled. "If he's going to die, he's dying with me and not with your lot laughing at him."

"They won't laugh," Lord Dorme seemed rather shocked at the idea. "You have my word."

"Your word," Kerrass snorted. "Your word is worth less than the horse-shite I scrape off my boot."

One of the knights started to draw their sword in indignation. "Go on, I dare you." Kerrass begged the man, who at a word from Dorme, backed down.

"He's coming with me because he can help. You want what's in that tower, it will be quicker if he comes with me to help carry supplies and he has a tendency to spot things that I miss. Also, where am I going to go? You're going to follow me right?"

Dorme nodded.

"So we can't go anywhere without you seeing us. He's sick and I'm going to be tired and without a horse."

"Very well. But try anything and I smash the antidote."

"Smash the antidote and I kill you,"

"Little threats from a little man," Dorme sneered. "Be about your business then 'Master' Witcher."

"I will, What's down there?"

"What? You're a Witcher. Go and find out."

Kerrass took a deep breath. The kind he used when he talks to people that are terminally stupid.

"Listen, Fuck-face, I'm a Witcher. This is my job and you're coercing me to do it. Sending me in blind will just get me killed which means that you won't get what you want. An outcome I'm quite happy with by the way. Also, the longer you keep me here the faster my companion is going to be about dying which means that your hold over me vanishes. Now what. The Fuck. Is down there?"

He paused as though he was forgetting something. "Fuck-face."

He smiled as though pleased that he had remembered.

Dorme smirked. He still had the upper hand and he knew it. "The furthest my scouts have made it is into the inner courtyard past the first gate. They described a spell that animated the dead although I understand that such a spell would be centred on something so... Beyond that, the records that we found indicate that the tower was used as a prison. I would expect some form of guarding thing if I were you."

"Fucking lovely. Now what is that's in there that I'm looking for."

"You'll know it when you see it, but don't worry Witcher, I'll be right behind you."

"I know. I can already feel the dagger between my shoulder blades. Come on Freddie, no time like the present."

"He makes it sound so easy doesn't he."

"Yeah well. Fuck-face says what Fuck-face does."

Kerrass loaded me up with a huge sack of water and another sack of food which was apparently for me. As soon as we were a hundred feet away from the party of horsemen we stopped and he made me drink water until I couldn't take any more before we continued onwards.

It was another one of those "inching along, step by step" routines where we would advance slowly, Kerrass humming quietly to himself while staring at his pendant that was jumping around like a possessed children's toy, you know, one of those new Dwarven things that you wind up with a key. I had expected us to bypass each of the crucifixions but we got to the first one and waited next to if before Kerrass made one of his gestures and a huge gust of air knocked the thing down before Kerrass energetically stamped the bones to dust before setting them on fire. I nearly told him off for desecrating the bodies but then I saw the fact that the flames burnt with a green flame.

That was when he started the game. How do I want to get my revenge on Dorme?

It was an entertaining way to pass the long minutes that it took to get us down to the tower/keep/thing, burning corpses and uprooting crosses as we went.

The gate in the wall was much less impressive up close than it had seemed from up the hill. I have been through many gates in castles in my time. For those places where the term "Castle" also means a defensive fortification as well as a potential place of residence there are several features. Generally they include a moat or defensive ditch, a drawbridge, portcullis, barbican, killing ground, another portcullis and then you are only in the immediate outer area of the castle itself.

This place had a door. A literal door. That was on the floor having rotted off it's hinges. There were a couple of places where the metal fixtures of the door were still visible, lying there red with rust.

I found the sight especially morbid.

The rest of the place was fairly impressive but I couldn't help but feel that it was a place meant for show. The walls were dark and slick but felt a lot like stone to the touch even though it felt colder than stone and my hands came away moist with water that had condensed against the stone. It almost felt like glass. The ragged, cheap stuff with bubbles and ripples in the surface.

The outer walls weren't very high as these things go. Maybe 25ft high, thick enough to stand on certainly but easily reachable by a ladder for an attacking soldier.

I started to wonder why I was thinking so hard about attacking this place.

I coughed and Kerrass looked at me sharply.

The walls and the huge protrusions kept the courtyard in the shade though. It was cold here and I wished I had brought my cloak.

Then the dead started to rise.

There were indeed corpses littered around the place. Mostly just skeletons, age old skeletons, their bones black and covered in rotting vegetation, mosses and tendrils of roots hanging from their rib-cages. They carried weapons, rusty swords, their edges visibly damaged. More terrifying though were the more modern corpses. Men, only recently dead, a week or so at worst...

Random thought: What does it say about my life that I can now recognise the age of a corpse by looking at it. Food for thought.

They still wore armour and sur-coats that bore Lord Dorme's crest and wielded swords that still carried the sheen of recent care and attention.

Kerrass sighed. He sounded faintly bored if anything.

I'd never seen animated corpses before. They're always the sort of thing that you hear about in plays or in those copper dreadfulls that you can buy in Novigrad, full of lurid tales of monsters kidnapping maidens that wear surprisingly little clothing. They had always seemed as though they were more terrifying than they actually should be.

Don't get me wrong, it is surprisingly bowel-emptying when a corpse that you are standing next to starts to move but please allow me to dispel a few rumours about these things. First of all, to animate a corpse you need magic. The corpse itself has no intelligence other than the intelligence that the magic gives it which includes it's purpose. In this case we figured that it was to protect the structure and strike down intruders. Secondly there is a misconception that the less flesh on the animated corpse, the more dangerous it is. It has to be said that this was a myth that I agreed with until that day. The theory goes that flesh actually holds the corpse back, that the act of rigor mortis makes it difficult to move. I'm afraid that this is not the case.

What actually happens is that the corpse can remember what it is like to be alive. Muscle memory still exists in a strange form, long after death and therefore. The more flesh that exists, the more it can remember how to do things like move and fight which means, in turn, that it requires less magical energy. Skeletons however require more energy to animate and therefore are easier to deal with.

While I'm on the subject. Removing the head from an animated corpse will achieve absolutely nothing. The corpse is still animated.

Animated corpses are not zombies. Zombies are a completely different form of magic (or so I'm told)

Nor do animated corpses have any desire to eat mortal flesh, brains or otherwise. What you're thinking of there is Necrophages. To defeat these animated dead you need to disrupt the magic that is animating them by either finding the mage doing the casting and stabbing them. Or to destroy the object or alter that the spell is centred on.

Unfortunately while you're doing this, the animated dead are trying to pull you apart with whatever they find to hand. Their bare hands for example.

So you have to break them down to their component parts.

By hitting them.

Panic and terror is a factor however.

I yelped in protest as a corpse grabbed me by the ankles.

"Cut the arms and legs off so they can't hurt you. Then give the smaller bits a kick to get them all separated while I try and find the source of the spell. Blunt end for the skeletons. One decent swing should shatter them but stamp on any bits of bone that you find." Kerrass called out casually cutting the legs out from under one of Dorme's former soldiers. Once on the floor he removed the things arms with what looked like practised ease before punting the arms in different directions.

"Seriously?" I asked but he'd already gone. Sword in hand (steel one I noticed), medallion out and grumbling to himself.

Panic really is the biggest enemy when facing a horde of animated dead.

Once I'd removed the arm of the thing that had hold of my ankle and shook the hand off I could note a couple of things. The main thing was that they move quite slowly so if I was careful and took care to stay mobile and not get cornered or overwhelmed I shouldn't have a problem.

I went to work.

And it was work. After a while my arms and legs started to ache and my breath became short as the fighting just went on and on and on. Kerrass helped too as he wandered around the courtyard. There were a few out-buildings which he would kick open or, if they were more collapsed, poke through. But primarily he was looking for something.

The annoying thing was that there didn't seem to be that many of them. But they kept coming as the spell didn't let them stop. Hands would crawl back to torso's which would then pull themselves over to legs and so on.

Watching a hand crawl over to the stump of an arm is particularly un-nerving.

I was getting there though but it was becoming monotonous.

To give you an idea. I actually had time to stop and take a drink of water between bouts of animated dead destruction.

Eventually Kerrass let out a shout and the bodies just collapsed around me. The sound of bones collapsing, one on top of the other was oddly musical.

I was out of breath. I made it to the nearest wall, propped my spear up and just leant there for a while focusing on breathing in and out and staring at the floor in case I vomited. I found myself wondering if I should be this tired or whether the poison was taking effect.

The sound of footfalls announced Kerrass' presence.

"You alright?" he asked.

"I've been happier,"

I could feel him nodding.

"Rest up a bit while I burn these corpses. I destroyed the alter but there might be some residual magic. You never know. Oh and drink some more water and have something to eat."

"Why?" it came out angrier than I had intended.

"Look at me Fred."

He was holding a small bottle. Full of a golden creamy liquid.

"This is called "White Honey"".

"It's not very White,"

he peered at it. "It's kind of white, anyway, I don't make the names." he looked back at me. "If all else fails you're going to drink this as it purges my body of all toxins including alcohol and venom build up."

"I thought Witcher potions were deadly to humans."

"They are, most of the time. But in this case..."

"What the hell,"

Kerrass nodded again. "With me it tends to make me need to defecate. With luck it might just be a more violent bout of..."

"shitting," I interrupted. "So my choices are, waiting for a spiders venom to paralyse me and liquefy my insides, or brutally shitting my brains out. Lovely." I was scared and it was making me angry.

"Which is why you're drinking the water. To dilute it all and the food to give your body something to pass."

I nodded.

"It's alright to be scared Frederick."

"Fuck scared I'm angry." I snarled.

He grinned horribly at me.

"Drink," he ordered.

I watched him pile the corpses and bones, using that air blast thing of his to push it all into the centre of the courtyard before pouring a small bottle of stuff over the pile and setting fire to it all with another gesture.

It's at times like that that I want to record things about these "signs" of his? How far does the blast of air extend? How powerful is the blast? Can he dictate the arc of blast?

I was reminded of these questions again as I watched him work before the realisation that I could be dead. Probably would be dead in a short while washed over me again.

I felt sick and started to cough.

You know how, when you get a cold you cough up something that can only be described as "goop".

I did that.

Only it was pink.

A wave of dizziness shook me and I shivered. Kerrass was next to me, expressionless.

"I've got it." I said letting the air come into my lungs. "I'm going to buy a load of lemons and a sack of salt. Then I'm going to tie him to a table, take a small, very sharp knife and make a series of cuts. Then I'm going to take a cloth that's soaked in lemon juice and wipe the cuts with them. After that I'm going to do the same with a cloth of salt water. I'm going to keep up that rotation until I run out of open skin or until he begs me to let him die. Then I might start with some deeper cuts. I reckon he will think it's light for a while but it strikes me that that's the kind of pain that will build."

There was a long silence.

"Ok," he said after a long while, "you win. Although that's pretty dark for you."

"I know, but I rather hate him at the moment. I hope I'll be more merciful if the time comes."

"The time will come. Can you still walk."

I nodded. Levered myself to a standing position and took another long drink before shouldering my burdens and gathering up my spear.

"Kerrass," I said. "Will you promise me something?"

"Of course. I will carry your letters to your family and if your suffering becomes to great, either from my poison or his I will end it as quickly and painlessly as I can manage."

"Thank you but that's not what I meant."

Kerrass nodded and his eyes turned bleak.

"I will avenge you Frederick."

I nodded and looked away.

"Be merciful with it though will you? Do not be cruel in my name."

"I promise. But I will make sure he knows why it's happening."

"Good,"

Things take a damn long time when you're dying I can tell you. We went over to the door into the tower which was relatively tiny compared to the rest of the tower. Maybe two people could walk through the opening at any one time and the top of the door was maybe two feet from the top of my head. Like the door to the courtyard the wood was almost black with age and the surface of the metal fixtures was pitted red with rest.

However unlike the outer door, the wood was solid and the metal was unyielding.

Not that we tested that first. First Kerrass spent far too long testing the door for spells and traps, examining in minute detail the door jamb's the hinges. Eyes ridiculously close, frowning, gaze leaping from door to medallion which was held as close to the door as he could manage without it actually touching the door.

But it took so long.

I knew why of course. I have heard many tales of treasure seekers who had not taken these same precautions who have lost their lives to the results. But dammit it took a long time. Which gave me more and more time to consider my pending doom.

In passing I have a piece of advice for you if you ever find yourself poisoned.

Never trust a fart.

Your digestive system will betray you.

I spent a couple of embarrassing minutes cleaning myself up. The act of which left me out of breath with spots dancing in front of my eyes and my stomach roiling.

Kerrass either didn't notice as he was in the middle of his examination or because he was being polite and pretending.

Either way I was grateful.

In the end he decided that the door was safe, took a step back and used his "ard?" "Aard?" "Hard?" sign. I never ask how you pronounce or spell these things in case he gets sensitive about Witcher secrets.

The door was reluctant to buckle and was obviously kept in place by magic as it protested this abuse but in the end it was caught between the hammer (Kerrass) and the proverbial hard place (whatever spell was keeping it solid) and gave up. It gave a moan made up of protesting wood, metal and stone and simply shattered.

Kerrass nodded his satisfaction to himself, peered into the entry way and drew his silver sword.

"Torches," he said.

I passed one over and he led us both into a dark, almost cavernous room.

A spell of dizziness washed over me, although it didn't feel as though it came from the poison.

"Don't worry," Kerrass muttered. "We've passed into a magical area. This room is bigger than the tower itself and it can cause dizziness and..."

I interrupted him by vomiting.

"Nausea," he finished.

"I didn't need another excuse to feel wretched," I said while my stomach heaved.

"When you're ready, call out and I'll find you. I'm going for a look around." He left me his torch and strode off into the darkness.

"And drink some more water," he called.

Sitting, or standing in the dark while Kerrass "had a look around" was not a new experience for me. The only new thing here was that every echoed footfall from the depths was another time marker of my journey towards a horrible death. I tried calming myself with some water, considered some brandy but decided that it was a bad idea. I tried breathing exercises but in the end I just paced up and down.

I realised I was shaking from the rattling of my spear on the ground. I put it down and examined my hand in the light of the torch. I gripped a few times and found that I could steady the hand for a short while before it would start up again.

I swore softly.

Kerrass cleared his throat before stepping into the light. I'd made him develop that habit so that I wouldn't jump out of my skin whenever he accidentally snuck up on me.

Stupid Witcher with his stupid walking silently training.

I was aware that my concentration was slipping.

"Come and look at this,"

He took one of the torches and led me into the darkness and something loomed out of the blackness and I followed Kerrass round it.

"Ok, what is it?"

"A Golem of some kind I think, or a gargoyle or elemental. It's inactive for the moment and I haven't found the activation spell."

I coughed and something unspeakable loosened in the back of my throat.

"Don't things like this normally activate as soon as someone enters the room."

"Normally." He frowned. "But, if Fuck-face is to be believed then this place is a prison. I haven't found another way out yet other than where we came in and it might be that they're supposed to activate when that door opens. Do you wanna have a look around as well?"

"Might as well, It'll take my mind off things."

Kerrass' mouth twitched.

We wandered around a bit. I lit another torch and left it with the packs so that we would both have a frame of reference.

I found a wall and walked along it slowly. That had the double benefit of both letting me map the room but also giving me something to lean against when the dizzy spells hit me. It was no longer my imagination, they were definitely getting worse.

"Found a doorway," I called. "Door open,"

"What's in there?"

I poked my head in and waved the torch around.

"Guest room," I called back. Something in the ceiling had reacted to my presence and a soft light filtered into the room. It seemed like sunlight and as I watched the walls and ceiling faded away to be replaced by the blue sky of a pleasant summer day. I was standing in an open summer meadow with grass beneath my feet. Beautiful mountains and forests were off in the distance. Unfortunately the furniture, including several comfortable looking seats, a bed, a wardrobe and a desk were either rotting or had collapsed under the weight of years.

"Wow," Kerrass had joined me.

"I've heard of this sort of thing." I said after coughing to clear my throat. I found that if I concentrated really hard, I could ignore my increasing physical symptoms. "Mages would show off to their guests and simulate anything that the guest desired. Any vista, room or place. Even servants and...other kinds of servants."

"So this was a mage's tower then." Kerrass mused. "Fuck-face is looking for a thing, a trinket to help him in whatever scheme he's cooking up."

"It would seem that way."

"Well I found stairs," said Kerrass. "Up and down,"

"Lets face it. We probably need to go up." I said. I shivered and could feel my teeth chattering.

"Why?" he asked as we walked back to the packs.

"Because Down is either the torture chamber, the cells or the wine cellar." I reasoned. "Mages would want to keep their trinkets, libraries and laboratories closer to their hearts and their rooms I would have thought."

"Witchers too for that matter."

"And nobles."

I took another drink of water and managed to choke down a small apple. The apple juice stung my gums and my teeth were beginning to feel loose in my mouth.

Of course that was the plan.

Kerrass placed his foot on the first step leading up into the rest of the tower when a klaxon sounded along with an inhuman voice.

"WARNING, WARNING, PERIMITER BREACHED. WARNING, WARNING, INTRUDER DETECTED. ESCAPE IN PROGRESS."

The sound of it alone was enough to drive me to my knees as the awesome sound was a hammer to the senses. It felt as though it was echoing inside my skull bouncing from one ear to another with every echo reinforcing and amplifying the first. I almost certainly screamed although I couldn't hear it over the rest of the noise.

Kerrass pushed me behind him and I sprawled on the stairs as he leapt past me silver sword already swinging.

The noise was a white light in front of my vision that the thinking brain retreated from. I was now a primal terrified thing shivering before a power that I did not understand and was mortally terrified of. My hands had clamped themselves over my ears at some point but the relief was minute. Then it lessened and I could think again.

My eyes opened and Kerrass was standing over a small pile of boulders.

I couldn't tell how long had passed but Kerrass was clearly winded and sweating while another pair of Elementals closed on him as well as at least one gargoyle and another rock Golem. He was trying to get them to strike each other by dancing between them with those rolls, spins and pirouettes of his but although he had clearly had some success, it wasn't entirely working.

I remember a thought. A distinct thought struck my brain. I remember it growing in my consciousness like a plant growing and flourishing up until it flowered, almost literally in front of my vision.

"Not like this," I felt myself whisper.

Working feverishly I tore a couple of chunks from my shirt and stuffed them into my ears. It helped. I did take a gulp of Brandy then that burned all the way down but it's warmth in my belly as well as the courage that it gave me were needed then. I levered myself to my feet, leaning on my spear, dismayed by how much strength I had lost and willed myself to take a step forwards.

The second step was easier.

And the next step and the next step.

"Hey," I shouted at the back of the gargoyle that was closest to me. "Down here Lumpy."

I hauled off and struck it across the back as hard as I could. The crash of the metal against stone was felt in my arms rather than in my ears. The thing lumbered round to stare at me.

"SECONDARY INTRUDER DETECTED. JAILBREAK IN PROGRESS."

I don't know how many people have actually seen a Gargoyle in person so picture this. Try and imagine one of those cherubic angels with little wings that you see in those romantic pictures of couples that they commission for anniversaries. People tend to paint them in the background when they're painting loving couples and they often have golden curls on their heads, wings on their backs and are carrying adorable little bows. Now imagine that with horns instead of curls and gigantic fists instead of a bow. Then picture that figure as being 9 feet tall and made out of black stone belching green vileness towards you.

That's a gargoyle. I took a Jab this time aiming at the hip joint before leaping to the side as I had been taught. On cue it belched out it's green horror towards where I had been standing and the floor started to steam and bubble. I didn't have too much time to worry about that though because one of the elementals was coming towards me now.

The plan had seemed a lot more usable when I had imagined it in my head back on the steps.

I dived between the two and the crash was suitably impressive. There was another shattering sound and I could hear that Kerrass was screaming at me. I ignored him.

By the looks of them I was facing an elemental and a Gargoyle. The gargoyle was slower on his feet but had a ranged vomit that I didn't want to get struck by, however the Elemental was on fire.

ON FIRE.

The things I'll do.

Kerrass, not being quite as stupid as me made one if his gestures and a gust of wind buffetted me causing me to stagger. I barely managed to stay on my feet but it took me a long crucial moment to right myself by which time the two monsters were on me. Kerrass had his own problems with the remaining Golem as it seemed that he had lost position due to him putting out the flames on the elemental and he was no help.

They were on me. I ducked under the elementals massive fist and rolled between it's legs.

A cheap move I know but it was effective. It took me too long to get to my feet though and I was still facing the Gargoyle who vomited at me.

It feels really strange describing a bodily function as a weapon but there you go.

I managed to stagger through a dodge and got in another swing at the leg joint that I had struck earlier.

The leg shattered explosively. The Gargoyle looked puzzled for a moment before it gently staggered and fell sideways where it seemed to just come apart as it hit the ground.

I didn't have time to enjoy my triumph though as the time that I had lost left me to close to the Elemental.

Who hit me.

Hard.

Into a nearby wall.

My head rang, my vision blurred and pain ripped through my midriff. I was wheezing and what little strength I had managed ta gather for the fight had left me. Every time I took a breath there was another pain and I figured that I had broken a couple of ribs and could only prey that they wouldn't rupture anything vital.

Then I laughed.

There I was, a man dying of poison worrying about a few broken ribs.

I must have lost consciousness because the next thing I knew, Kerrass was facing me and pouring water all over me.

I spluttered.

"You awake?" he demanded.

"You didn't have to... Pour water all... Over me."

"I know, but I wanted to. Stupid bloody fool." He had several cuts and what looked like it was going to be a beautiful black eye. He was also limping and favouring his side but the advantage of being a Witcher is that you can simply drink a potion and be alright.

"Can you walk?" he demanded and I interpreted his anger as concern.

"Give me a hand?" He levered me to my feet but after several tries I found I needed to use my spear as a walking stick.

"I'm getting worse," I said.

"You're getting worse," he agreed. "Made that way by getting in a fight with Gargoyles and Elementals."

"You can criticise my technique tomorrow." I told him. "Let's move on."

The stairs were steep and seemed to go on forever.

The next floor seemed to have once been some kind of laboratory. There were signs of arcane symbols on the walls and floors as well as many and various pieces of alchemical equipment. I say pieces because the entire place seemed to have been vandalised to the point of distraction. Broken glass crunched underfoot and suspicious stains marked the floor, walls and even the ceiling. An empty chandelier hung from the ceiling and from that hung another sad corpse, almost mummified in rotten clothing.

"Cheery decoration," I commented before coughing violently.

Kerrass didn't comment. He gestured for me to stay backwards and advanced around the place, medallion in front of him like a man approaching a wounded animal. He went through what remained of the cupboards giving cursory glances to some of the papers that were also scattered about. Most crumbled to the touch but a few still had wispy writing on them.

"Can we take him down?" I asked, coughing so hard I saw black spots dancing in front of my eyes.

"He's a she," Kerrass commented without looking up from his work. "Do we really have time?"

"Dealing with people's mortal remains has a sudden importance to me, call me old-fashioned."

Kerrass grunted but he did take the corpse down and laid it carefully in the corner where I stood watch over it.

Eventually Kerrass stood up with a curse.

"Lets move on,"

"Kerrass," I tried.

"Don't you dare say it." He muttered.

"What the fuck are we doing here? Get out of here. Don't give Fuck-face what he wants. Make a break for it."

"What about you?"

"Don't go cliché on me,"

Kerrass sighed. "This is not the first time I've been caught up in a nobleman's schemes. Their flaw is that they are always let down by their ambition. Always. Every single time. What are we doing here? We're playing for time. We're going to find out what he wants and then hold it over him or wait until another opportunity presents itself."

"I don't feel as though I've got a lot of time left here Kerrass."

"You're not dead yet. I know it feels like you're dying now, and you are but..." He blew out a sigh,

"Believe me, you've got a lot of dying to do yet. We have time."

"That's not as reassuring as you might think."

"That's good. I didn't think it was at all reassuring. I was hoping I might find something here that we could use as an antidote but obviously not. Lets move on."

We climbed up the stairs. It was...

I felt like I was getting older. Physically getting older.

At the time I didn't want to ask what was happening to me because through some kind of perverse gallows humour, I kind of wanted to be surprised by the next thing that happened to me. I knew it was going to be messy and extremely unpleasant. I already knew from an older, brief stint in anatomy and medicine lectures that I had fluid in my lungs which meant that I was struggling to breathe. This meant that my heart was working harder to get the blood round my body which, in turn, was carrying the poison further and further round. By this point it had got into my nervous system and so I was finding moving increasingly difficult.

Because it was a Spider's Venom.

The idea behind a spider's venom is that it paralyses it's victim before liquefying that same body so that the spider can essentially slurp up the insect like a mosquito slurps up your blood when it lands on your arm. So this was what was happening. I was being paralysed first but the "Liquifying" had already begun. Hence the fluid in my lungs.

So that was what was going to happen to me in the long run. Before too much longer I was going to be unable to move. Then I would sit or stand or probably lie there while I could feel myself turning to jelly and eventually drowning in my own effluent.

Doesn't sound very pleasant does it.

I made it up the stairs having waved Kerrass ahead of me.

One step at a time, keep breathing, just one step at a time.

I was so busy watching where I put my feet that I walked into the crouching Witcher, pushing him forwards.

"It's a library." he told me. He was rooting around in his back-pack.

"Ok, what are we waiting for?" I tried to keep the desperation out of my voice. I considered sitting down but was worried that I wouldn't be able to get up again.

"It's trapped." Kerrass was taking out the various pieces of his crossbow. "See those jaws on the ceiling?"

I squinted but my eyes were watering and I chose this moment to realise that the edge of my vision was going blurry.

"No," I admitted. "I'll just take your word for it."

He peered at me for a long moment before returning to putting his crossbow together.

"Well those jars that you can't see are undoubtedly filled with something nasty, liquid fire, acid or something equally as unspeakable and they're roped into some pressure pads on the floor."

I peered again.

"Nope, still can't see them."

"That's because the sly fucks hid them under those rugs." he pointed. "It's possible, given the state of the place that the rope mechanisms have rotted away with age, but I kind of don't want to risk it. Apart from anything else, what Fuck-face wants might be in there and if we burn it then your antidote is as good as gone."

"I take it you have a plan."

"I'm gonna shoot the ropes out."

I nodded,

"You that good a shot?"

"I'm a decent shot. Twenty bolts with very sharp tips should do it." He paused. "Unless you want to have a go?"

I laughed and by the Flame it hurt.

"I didn't thinks so," Kerrass said, smiling gently.

It took a long time and I felt it with every shot. Even though Kerrass did it in twelve bolts to hit and sever four ropes I felt every single moment passing as he took his time, aimed, readjusted his aim and then move on. To be honest he was a good shot to just get it done in twelve bolts but that wasn't the point. It was costing time, time that I was increasingly aware that I didn't have.

In the end though we staggered into the library. It was four, back to back, shelves that were full of books and scrolls. Many of them clearly ancient enough that I didn't want to touch them in case they simply crumbled before my eyes. I judged that this place definitely confirmed that what we were dealing with here was a mage's tower of some kind. An ostentatious, intimidating tower that was compensating for something kind of mage's tower but a mages tower none the less.

Caustiously I limped over to the shelves that had books in them rather than scroll cases and tried to read some of the spines underneath the years of dust, dirt and generalised decay. Most of them were utterly illegible and the entire place would need a mage to come in, render any potential traps safe and then preserve the things before they could be read.

Kerrass was prowling around the area with his sword out and medallion in hand examining walls and some of the smaller statues that lined the walls for signs of life. He was obviously worrying if they would come to life but I found that I couldn't really bring myself to care. I peered along the line of books and finally found a title that took my breath away.

They were written in a variety of languages, most of which I couldn't recognise and didn't have time to worry about now but there were a couple of books whose titles were written in ancient elven that sparked my interest. The first was called "Observations of a new species," which meant nothing to me and was written by someone whose name I didn't know. There was another one called "On Portals, being a study of stability, location and time." which sounded a bit over my head but then I saw this one "The human disease, a study of early human history." It was written by someone whose name obviously made them elven in origin but I could barely contain my excitement. Here was a record of early human history from an outside observer. They would obviously be biased but at the same time this was incredible news. A record of, presumably, early human settlement on the northern continent. Most of the history of that time has been lost so being able to have another point of view into that time and that subject was momentous. If I could read it, translate it and have it published then it would make my name.

I remember thinking this and then the reality of my situation struck me and I collapsed. It was like I was a marionette whose strings had just been cut and I collapsed to the floor and I sobbed aloud.

I was dying and that awful reality finally struck home inside my gut. I found that I was afraid, terrified in fact of that moment. I had once read a poem that talked about the moment when you realise that you are mortal, that you will not live forever and that, some day, your existence is just going to end. I hadn't enjoyed the poem as it made me feel uncomfortable but suddenly I knew exactly what the poet was talking about.

I was going to die.

Up until that point I had been kind of detached from my physical degradation. I had observed, measured and catalogued them in much the same way as I would have done had I been a scientist watching the symptoms from a distance. I had laughed at them and even enjoyed them on one level or another but the truth hit home like a kick to the stomach.

I was going to die.

Never before had it occurred to me that we weren't going to get away with things. Never before had it occurred to me that I might die here. I had been travelling with Kerrass for some time now. I had been injured certainly but nothing close to what was happening now. Even the encounter with the beast of Amber's crossing... If you had asked me then, it would never have occurred to me that I wasn't going to make it out of the forest. It never occurred to me, despite Kerrass' informing me of such, that I might not survive but now it was seeming very real.

I was going to die.

All of this was happening in a split second in my mind you understand.

I was thinking of my sisters, my brothers and all of the other people that I would never get to see again. I thought of my parents and how utterly disappointed they were going to be at my death. I thought of the women that I had loved and all the women that I hadn't loved. I thought of my work and wondered if it actually mattered, would anyone's life be made more vibrant by all of the things that I had done.

I was going to die.

I tried to think of the people that I had saved. The tiny little boy who I had literally plucked from the jaws of the Nekkers but that even made me feel worse as those people reminded me of all the lives that I still might help and save if I wasn't going to die. At some point I wanted to go back to Amber's crossing to see how they were getting on. There were other things. I wanted to have my last rites from a priest. I wanted to tell someone what to do with my body but the chances were that when the poison had run it's course there wouldn't really be a body to do things with.

I was going to die.

I was never going to have a bacon sandwich again.

I was never going to get drunk again or eat an apple.

Suddenly I couldn't cope with any of this.

I fell and curled myself around the pain that I could feel in my gut.

How Kerrass knew what was happening, I'll never know but he was at my side in an instant.

"Hey," he said crouching next to me. "Don't give up now. Don't give up. You're not dead yet."

I snarled at him. There were words in that snarl but I don't remember them.

"Get angry," he snarled back. "Get furious. This is not your fault, nor is it mine. This was done to you and we're going to fix it. Get angry. Tell me about what you're going to do to him when you get out of here. Tell me now. Tell me how you're going to hang him from his ankles and give him a small cut so that he bleeds out. Tell me what you're going to do. Tell me about how you're going to live your life after we solve this. You are not dead yet."

I sobbed.

"Get up," he growled. He got his shoulder under my arm and hauled me to my feet. "Get up, now and fight. One foot in front of the other. We've still got more tower to check. One step, that's good now another step. Just keep walking and breathing. You can do that can't you. One more step come on."

He bullied, cajoled and physically forced me up the steps to the next floor and it seemed that this was the last floor as there weren't any steps left. He checked the door quickly. Found no magic and simply booted it open.

For all the world it looked like a ladies chambers. The tower seemed to have reached a point. High up in the ceiling which was a good twenty feet above me was a blue light. Just a sphere that shone with a slow pulsing light that was not unpleasant but I imagined that it could get wearing after a while. Otherwise the continuous black stone was all round us still.

It was also clear to us that whatever or whoever lived here had been dead for some time.

We knew this because as well as a chest of draws, a wardrobe, a four-posted bed, desk and dressing table, there were two corpses. Again with that kind of mummified look. These corpses had not rotted down to the skeleton. Skin stretched over the bones although I still suspected that if I were to touch either of them then they would crumble.

One was sat at the dresser and was kind of slumped backwards. She looked as though she had originally sat down to take care of the things that women take care of when they are looking in a mirror before just slumping into a sleeping pose where she died. Her clothing was right, if threadbare, ragged and filthy with dust and spider-webs so I assumed that this was the lady of the house. The other body looked as though she had simply fallen onto the floor. She was dressed a lot more plainly, skirt, blouse, bonnet and apron and I guessed that this was a servant of some kind. I found it very easy to imagine that this could be a scene from any, well to do, house with the mistress of the house brushing her hair with a maidservant bustling about. The hair on both corpses was white which was when I noticed that the woman at the desk had what looked like a very sharp knife close to hand.

I imagined a scenario where the Princess, mage or whatever had been imprisoned here, who I assumed was the woman sat at the dresser, had been left a servant to see to her own needs. The two women had grown old together in their mutual imprisonment until one day the servant just keeled over from age, illness and lack of freedom. Then the old princess, old and frail herself was unable to move the body and decided to end things there, checking in the mirror for the correct placement of the knife against a vein.

I could see no stains though to support my hypothesis but I looked at the tableau and found it incredibly sad.

The bed was made, the make-up brushes and hair brushes were all properly laid out. Everything was tidy and...well... neat.

I sighed and felt a sense of almost peace settle over me.

There was absolutely nothing here that an ambitious noble Lord who was willing to resort to murder, coercion and kidnapping would want.

Kerrass did not take it well.

He stood in the doorway. His eyes darted around the room taking in small details darting from point to point with frightening in human speed. He sniffed the air in much the same way that a bloodhound does and slow and quiet snarl spread across his face.

Slowly at first he went to the dresser and started to methodically take it apart piece by piece. He took the draws out, emptied them on the floor and examined the drawer itself in the minutest detail before negligently tossing it over his shoulder and moving onto the next one.

He paused, moved the dead noble-woman over to one side with care and almost reverence before returning to his frantic searching of the room, drawers were taken out, their contents examined carefully with medallion and naked eye as he went through the entire thing systematically. Then he did it again and again. Then he started breaking the contents of the drawers,. The clothes the small items and things and examining the remains.

He tore the bedclothes apart with a knife and went through them. He got under the bed to examine the underside. Growing more and more frantic he tipped the wardrobe over causing a crash.

I managed to shuffle over to a blank and empty wall and let myself slide down until I was sat down and just concentrated on breathing in and out for a while. My stomach had long since gotten rid of anything that might be thrown up so now I was down to stomach cramps and the occasional gobs of pinky green goop.

I have been privileged enough to see Kerrass lose his temper on several different occasions. Mostly there is a target for the anger and as such it burns itself out fairly quickly. Often it does so in a lightening fast explosion of violence that resulted in someone dying. This time there was no focus and so he would go into a frenzy of activity before he realised what was going on and would then forcibly calm himself down in an effort to re-focus before the frenzy inevitably returned.

I sat there and watched.

After he'd searched the room he took out his medallion and started pushing the wall in various points. Occasionally knocking but in other times banging against it with the pommel of his sword. Presumably looking for secret doors and rooms. All the time he was getting angrier and angrier.

He checked over the corpses again to see if something had been missed before screaming in a final release of rage he took his sword to the furniture. Cutting the bedposts in half smashing the chairs and the tables screaming all the while.

In an unflattering comparison he put me in mind of a toddler who has finally learned that the world is essentially unfair and I laughed.

I laughed for a long time.

Eventually he heard me and turned with a look of utter fury before something left him and he slumped and started laughing himself.

Dropping his sword in disgust he came over and sat next to me as we just laughed.

Well, I laughed. Kerrass, being a witcher, more chuckled.

After a while we both calmed down and just sat there.

"There's nothing here is there," I said, just wanting to say it out loud more than anything else.

"Nope," said Kerrass.

I nodded and went back to staring into space.

After a long while Kerrass reached into the pouch at his side and produced the small bottle that he had shown me earlier and just put it on the ground between us where I could almost feel it looking at me.

"How likely is it that that stuff is going to kill me."

Kerrass said nothing and it was all the answer that I needed.

"Yeah," I said, coming to a decision. "You should go. Try and get out while you can."

"Nah," he said reaching for his sword.

"Kerrass..." I started.

"No, he's already in the tower at the bottom. Fumbling around in the dark I think by the sounds of things. He'll find the stairs eventually."

"He could let you go," It was a stupid thought and I knew it.

"Him. No, he's going to be angry, will want someone to blame and there's an easy target of an incompetent Witcher. He'll make you die in agony and then kill me as a matter of course.

We sat in silence for a while and my vision started to go blurry.

A thought occurred.

"What could he possibly have been looking for? This place obviously predated the Black Sun nonsense so what was he here for? He doesn't strike me as the kind of person that would make a mistake like that. Why would he come here?"

"I don't know Fred." he sighed and pointed at the small bottle of creamy gold liquid. "You gonna drink that?"

I considered, "Does it at least taste nice?"

"Have you ever tasted a bee sting?"

"No,"

"Then it doesn't taste nice."

I nodded.

"Even if it works we would still have to fight our way out wouldn't we?"

"Yes."

I nodded.

"You are more likely to make it through without having to look after me aren't you?"

He didn't answer.

I nodded again.

"Stupid thing to die over," I said. "To die to be sent in here to find something that isn't here."

Kerrass grunted.

"There's nothing here."

I picked up the bottle and looked at it.

"There's absolutely nothing here," I said again.

"Oh I wouldn't say that," said a voice.


	20. Chapter 20

"Oh I wouldn't say that,"

The speed with which Kerrass can go from sat down and relaxed to fully awake and alert, sword out hand arranged for a sign is always terrifying to me.

No sooner had the voice's echoes stopped reverberating around the room than he was there in the middle of the ladies chambers scanning the entire area, frowning in concentration.

"Hello?" said the voice, it had overtones of amusement to it. "Is anyone going to say anything?" It had no distinguishing features to it. By the intonation I guessed that it was a female voice but there was no pitch to distinguish itself, the one from another.

It was also a quiet voice, it didn't feel as though it came from very far away but I felt as though I had to strain to hear it.

It seemed to just be a movement of air.

I later tried this experiment.

Get an old rug, flap it against something near a sunbeam coming into a window until you can see the dust dancing in the light. Then get as close as you can and shout really loud. See what happens to the dust?

That's what it felt like.

Kerrass was still turning slowly in the room.

"Who's there?" I croaked out through the goo and phlegm that was collecting at the back of my throat.

"Me," answered the voice.

I felt myself smile. Kerrass was examining his pendant which I had also noticed had jumped when the voice spoke.

"Very well," I said clearing my throat noisily. "I did not mean to be funny or to offend. But who are you?" The effort set me to coughing again and I closed my eyes against the wave of dizziness that washed over me.

"Unless manners have completely disappeared in the time that my door has remained closed, traditionally it was the visitors who introduced themselves first."

The voice had gained an overtone that suggested a lack of patience as well as a certain iciness.

"Very well," I said again, wheezing with the effort. "I am Frederick von Coulthard. Younger son of Baron von Coulthard and it is my honour to present Kerrass, Master Witcher of the Feline school."

It was too much of an effort.

"A Witcher," said the voice in a tone of surprise. "I have heard of such though I thought their development was still some years off,"

Kerrass for his part relaxed suddenly.

"Stupid fool. Stupid amateurish fool."

"What is it?" I wheezed slumping even further down the wall.

"Not what he wants. But Who he wants. Fuck-face wasn't after a thing but a person."

"Heh," I managed. "He really was trying to rescue a princess."

"You are being exceedingly rude. If I were still ruling here..." the voice sighed. "But I'm not and my threats are empty aren't they?"

Kerrass bowed floridly.

"Forgive us madam but we have been lied to at every turn and our tempers are wearing thin."

There was a pause.

"Then you are forgiven. You have broken the enchantment on my door, even though you did so rather inelegantly if I may say so, and I am predisposed to like you. What is wrong with your companion?"

"He has been poisoned."

"Interesting." Yes it was definitely a woman. I was having to force myself to stay awake. I was jamming my fingernails into the palms of my hands with the effort.

"Who has poisoned him?"

"The person who wants you."

"That seems like a foolish way to ask someone for help."

"Never the less."

There was a long pause and I could feel myself slipping towards unconsciousness. "Kerrass," I managed. He brought me around with a ringing slap to the face

"Ow,"

"Stay awake," he growled.

The pause went on as Kerrass righted me against the wall.

"What was he poisoned with?" the voice asked briskly in the way that people do who have an unpleasant task ahead.

"Spider-venom," Kerrass said.

"Which one?"

"I don't know but it's been modified since then anyway."

"Draw off some of his blood and place it in my mouth. Only a small amount though as I will need my faculties."

"Wait, what?" I protested.

Kerrass grimly batted my protest aside, cut some of my sleeve away with his knife and cut me across the wrist.

"How much?" he asked the air.

"Less than that to be truthful. A drop or two is all that's required."

Kerrass caught some on his knife and stood while I feebly staunched the flow.

"Right. Now what?"

"Place the drops in my mouth." said the voice.

"ummm, which one are you?" Kerrass asked, not unreasonably looking at the two corpses in the room.

"The one in the chair." the voice retorted. "Don't worry if you have to break my jaw, or if it comes away entirely. I'll probably have to regrow the entire thing anyway."

Kerrass paused. "Right," he said and did as he was told.

"Is that enough?"

"Oh yes," said the voice. "Although it's absolutely disgusting. Ugh, yes. Modified spider venom. Ugh. How could they stand it. What state is my lab in?"

"Wrecked." Kerrass answered.

"That's a shame."

"You're library's still there though." I managed from somewhere.

"Really? How kind of you." said the voice. "My captors did threaten to burn it."

"They trapped it." Kerrass said "So that anyone stepping into the room would have caused it to burn. Moving on though,"

"Ah yes. Do either of you suffer from arachnophobia?"

"No," said Kerrass.

"Errr, what?" I whimpered.

"Good." said the voice.

There was a skittering sound while screams and shouts started to emerge from down the stairs.

"Who's that?" the voice asked.

"Your erstwhile champion and his men I suspect." Kerrass said grimly.

"Well that won't do," the voice sounded a little panicked. "That won't do at all. I'm not nearly strong enough to face that yet."

There was the sound of slamming doors from deeper in the tower.

"That should hold them up a bit." The voice said smugly. "Kerrass might I trouble you for some water and any other food items you or your companion might have about your person. I am fearfully weak at present."

"What about...?"

"He'll be fine."

"I don't feel fine," I tried to say as the skittering noises seemed to come closer.

My fears were confirmed as some of the largest spiders that I have ever seen came rushing through the doorway.

Don't think of things that stand as tall as a man or a horse. Think of spiders as big as a good sized rabbit or blood hound.

Still that's fucking huge to man that has lost control of his legs.

They skittered up to me, seemed to chitter to each other in a way that looked, for all the world, like they were talking to each other before one by one they started to bite me.

I tried to scream but no noise could come out as these giant hairy...things took chunks out of me.

But then something magical happened.

Ladies and gentlemen. Honoured non-humans and whoever else might be reading these words. Learn from my example when I tell you this. If you are not in some kind of pain right now. Cherish that feeling. Love that feeling. Get down on your knees and thank every God that you believe in and maybe even a few that you don't, just to be on the safe side, and thank them that you do not currently feel any pain. The lack of pain is a blessing.

A feeling of bliss washed over me and I could literally feel muscles relaxing.

I fell asleep.

It must have only been for a few moments because no sooner had I closed my eyes than Kerrass was waking me up with a firm shake.

"Frederick?"

"I'm up, I'm up." I yawned.

"How do you feel?" He demanded. He seemed a little angry at something.

"Good," I assessed. "A little drunk if I'm honest, kind of floaty. Am I high?"

"Probably," said the voice. "A little anyway. You're still full of spider venom. The effects will wear off sooner than you would like."

"Marvellous." I managed.

"Can you stand?" Kerrass demanded.

I experimentally tried moving my legs and much to my surprise there was movement although I tried not to think about the squelching noise.

"I think so."

"Good, you may need to fight in a little while."

"Wonderful. You once told me to never fight when drunk."

"I did."

"Is the same true for being high?"

"More so."

"Oh don't worry. The effects will work their way out of his system soon enough." The voice went on. "Are you done fussing Kerrass? I need that mortal companion of yours for a moment."

"Why?" Kerrass demanded.

"Because your mind is... different from what I'm used to. If it helps, I did just save his life."

"It's alright." I said, climbing to my feet. I tried not to think about the state of my clothes. Some of them had dried to my skin and made unpleasant wet, tearing sounds.

"Am I as filthy as I think I am?" I asked Kerrass.

"Worse." He moved next to the splintered door and was listening. "If the worst comes, try to hug your opponents. They may flee from the stench." He didn't smile as he said it.

"That's reassuring."

I took a deep breath in an effort to steady myself and bowed to the room.

And my stomach heaved again.

You see a corpse was eating.

I can't think of any kind of description that would tell you exactly how disgusting the entire thing was.

A mummified corpse was deftly breaking apart a piece of meat pie and shoving the pieces into it's mouth accompanied by long draughts of water taken from my waterskin. I couldn't tell what was happening but the skin that had previously looked as dry as paper had begun to take on a kind of sheen as though it had been soaked in water.

"Thank you for the commentary," the voice said. "although the retching was entirely unnecessary. I am well aware of what I look like at present."

"At your service madam," I managed wiping my mouth.

The corpse paused and looked at me. "How do you know I'm a woman?"

"The dress kind of gave it away."

The corpse looked down at itself.

"Of course. I should have thought." The voice said. It went on munching.

"You'll have to excuse me though. I don't have vocal cords yet, or the strength to regrow them but I need your help and maybe I can summon an image to help with your revulsion." It's important to mention that the corpse hadn't stopped eating while the voice said this.

"What do you need me to do?"

"Just look into my eyes please,"

"You mean your sockets,"

"Impudence," an edge of anger had crept into the voice. "I need to know the state of what's happening immediately so that I can handle your employer. A quick spell will tell me what has happened recently in the same way that it told me your northern language. It will also help me form an image."

"Wait, how much of my memory are you after?"

"Just a small part. What's relevant."

"Relevance is subjective."

"It is a small request." the voice was definitely angry now. "I am still Queen, whatever my captors might think and I could make it an order or have your head removed for your impertinence."

"Given that you've just learned my language, do you know what any of these words mean?"

"Just look into my eyes will you,"

I glanced at Kerrass, who had drawn his sword and managed to catch his eyes. He shrugged.

I knelt down and forced myself to stare into the dark space where the things eyes should be.

A sharp pain struck me behind the eyes.

"Oh dear," the voice said. "The decay is rather advanced. Never mind. Stand up please."

I did so,

and she changed.

I blinked.

It was not a slow thing, she was just suddenly stood there. The corpse had gone and in it's place was the most terrifyingly beautiful woman that I have ever seen.

Yes even more beautiful that the vision that the beast of Amber's Crossing. That woman was beautiful but this woman was terrifying. Much more terrifying.

Her skin was literally white, not pale, white. Her lips were a painted red and full so that when she spoke it looked like she was tasting and enjoying every word. Her cheekbones were so sharp that it looked as though you could cut yourself on them and her eyes were large with a shining, slightly glowing green iris. Her hair fell about her shoulders in what can only be described as artlessly beautiful. My elder sister once told me that it takes hours of work to make hair look so good that it appears that she never had to put any effort into it.

She wore a simple black circlet that kept her hair back and a voluminous black dress that both hid and yet hinted at what was beneath it. You couldn't see anything but every so often her sharp turns would make it so that the fabric would lie against her body in a way that was unsettling.

She turned around and just as suddenly as it came on, my headache vanished.

"That will do for now." she said as though she was having to make do with something unpleasant.

"What are you?" I managed to croak out.

"A vampire," Kerrass answered for her. She had wandered off into the corner of the room and was searching through the mess that Kerrass had made of her bed. "Quite an elder one as well I should think given that she didn't try to eat you on sight."

"We prefer the term "Higher Vampire" if you don't mind." she said from the corner, throwing bits of wood over her shoulder. "If I do say so myself I'm also a rather talented Sorceress as well, hence the advanced glamour and all the anti-magic charms. Aha," She pulled out a chunk of one of the posts that had been part of the bed. "I knew they would never find it."

Before our eyes, the small stick transformed into a medium sized staff. Gold in colour with a stylised spider, rearing up at the top standing at about five and a half foot tall.

"Ah that's better."

The two of us stood looking at her.

Something in my brain broke.

"Could you possibly be more sinister if you tried?"

She looked at me intently.

"Would it help?"

I didn't have a response to that.

"Now to deal with this upstart who thinks he can use me as well as my possessions for his own ends."

She turned to the pair of us.

"I trust that, having freed me from my captivity that the two of you swear your fealty to me as your Queen in all matters?"

We looked at each other.

"What?" I asked, feeling as though I had missed something.

"Errr, no." Kerrass looked similarly dumbfounded.

"You came to rescue me did you not?"

"I... I don't have a Queen." I said. "At a stretch I suppose I have a puppet King of Redania and an Emperess."

"And I answer to no-one except myself." Kerrass put in

"Oh," I said, nodding "I do that as well."

"But I am your Queen." She shook her head in confusion and dismissed the problem. "Anyway. Here he comes and as Frederick hates him I will assume that you are more on my side than his."

Kerrass and I looked at each other.

"I really fucking hate politics." He said aloud as he moved to stand next to the vampire.

I stood on the other side shrugging at him.

For her part. The vampire took a few more quick swallows of water before passing the water-skin back to me while pulling herself up to her full height. I will admit that she looked astonishingly regal and I had no difficulty believing that she was a Queen.

Lord Dorme entered with drawn sword and a few more of his knights who were also armed. Kerrass had sheathed his sword earlier and lifted his arm to redraw but the Vampire was faster.

"Your rescue comes late Lord Dorme." She spat at him with withering scorn.

He recovered well though to give him credit.

"Not so your majesty for you were freed by the actions of my agents."

"Yes we know," the royal 'we'. I found that old courtier skills that had been built into me by various tutors were still working quite well. The two of them were trying to exert dominance over the other. "We also know that you had to resort to coercion and blackmail to get your agents to do the work. This is beneath you Lord Count."

Dorme winced. She was using his Nilfgaardian title.

"If you will your majesty. Around these parts I am a Duke and although I treat you with respect, people know my name whereas they do not know yours. Furthermore, regardless of my method, it is by my industry that you are freed."

"We will concede that point. However we are still Queen and we notice that you have not made proper bows as etiquette demands."

"Etiquette may demand it Your majesty but to do so would imply that you have power over me."

He was enjoying himself. He had a plan.

"You are Queen, but you answer to me now."

"Do we now. Why would we do that?"

"Gratitude?"

"To you, you did nothing but send braver men to die in your place."

"In which case, you will do what I say both because I order it and," The vampire interrupted by laughing in scorn. "Because I have this, your Majesty."

He made a florid bow which was infused with his own scorn and irony. He was handed a bag and held it up for her inspection.

She drew back as if struck.

"Where did you come by that?" She seemed shocked and I gripped my spear tightly.

"Does it matter?" He was smiling.

"How did you come by it?" She screamed with a force that made me wince.

Dorme laughed.

"I made it." he said with relish.

"Impossible," she muttered. "Such magic was lost. We made sure of it."

"Not so sure that it couldn't be found again."

I looked at the bag. It looked like a fairly ordinary bag of black leather with a dark red leather drawstring. I glanced over at Kerrass who seemed equally as mystified.

"You should not meddle with things that you do not understand," she said.

"I understand enough." he said. "Now bow before me."

She did so and as she did I felt my mouth open in shock.

For his part Lord Dorme simply nodded before turning to his men.

"Kill the other two." before leaving the room.

I laughed as I raised my spear to ready position. "Holy flame, could you be any more of a cliché?"

Kerrass simply shrugged and drew his sword,

"Hold," The vampire said.

I made myself ready to back Kerrass up as he would dart into the middle of things. This was something else that we had rehearsed.

The two followers of Dorme stepped round their Lord. They had shields this time. Numbers would be an issue, we would need to block the door to stop them overwhelming us. It looked bleak as I was still not at my best but I intended to at least make a fucker or two bleed.

"I SAID HOLD," The words were like a sonic hammer to my ears. I was driven to my knees under the force of it.

I also noticed that she had dropped the royal "we".

Having said that, even Kerrass seemed surprised. Our opponents weren't as lucky and more than one dropped their swords to cover their ears.

The vampire seemed shaken herself, having a little stagger and taking a couple of quick breaths.

We should have attacked them at that moment,

"Why should we?" Lord Dorme said coming back in. If he was shaken he didn't betray that thought on his face. "I owe you nothing, in fact..." He shook that bag in front of us again. There was a sound of things clacking together, an almost musical sound. "I own you, your majesty. By rights I should have you kill them to see the goods that I have bought in action. If you can't overcome a Witcher and his...hanger-on then what use are you to me."

"Precisely Lord Dorme. What use?" She took another deep breath. She had been shaken, whether by the shout or the contents of the bag I didn't know. I found that I was getting ready to catch her in case she fainted or something.

Catching a fainting vampire.

Heh.

Anyway.

"I ruled for many years Lord Dorme. You never throw away people who have even the _potential_ of being useful to you."

"These people have done what they needed to do and now need to be silenced."

"Do they though? Have they run their course?" She gestured at Kerrass, "This man is a fine warrior and is the only man who can realistically guard me. You think my resurrection and freedom hasn't gone unnoticed by other powers? This man," pointing at me, "is the son of a Baron. He is worth keeping alive if for no other reason than his ransom will not be small. Also,"

She took a breath.

"I am weak my Lord, you require me for some purpose, for that I require strength."

I swear I saw Lord Dorme's mouth twitch.

"You require sustenance you mean,"

"You make it sound so dirty," she snarled and for a moment I saw the corpse under the illusion.

Lord Dorme pretended to consider but he really wasn't as good as he thought he was. He had already decided that he would rather lose my blood than the blood of any of his followers.

"Very well. But if they escape or cause any problems then it is you that will bear the burden of their punishments." he shook the bag again.

"Take their weapons."

"They might need their weapons,"

Dorme turned back again. "At least take the spear. A Witcher can still be shot but a lump of meat hardly requires a weapon."

This time he really did leave.

I made sure to look the knight in the eye as I split the spear in half and handed him both pieces. His eyes were unreadable. He seemed both ashamed and grateful. There was no fear though, it seemed odd but then the situation we found ourselves in was hardly common.

Then sighing loudly I turned and forced myself to approach the vampire.

"Very well then Majesty. Better to get it over with," and I exposed my neck.

I don't know why I did this. I can but assume that I was still a little high from the spider bites as it was remarkably foolish.

"Don't be absurd," she snapped. For now I simply need you to help me down the stairs as it seems that I over estimated my strength.

"Do you need anything else?" Kerrass asked.

"Do you need anything else, what? Kerrass?" she retorted with venom.

Kerrass considered, "No, No I think I got it right the first time."

The vampire pursed her lips. "We have to work on your etiquette, Witcher." She looked around the room. "No, I have spent enough time here. Too long really. Let us go."

Kerrass made a deep bow and gathered up our bags. I asked him later and he told me that he was being extra subservient to wind Lord Dorme up. I can't tell if it succeeded but it certainly amused me.

The Vampire gripped my arm hard. She was phenomenally strong and if she had any weakness at all then I could not detect it.

We came through the library, which some more soldiers were ransacking and throwing into sacks. I shuddered involuntarily at the sacrilige.

The Vampires face froze.

"Is it possible that we could move a bit faster please,"

"Certainly," I said before struggling to keep up with her.

She kicked over a couple of pieces of broken crockery in her former lab but spent a long time in the main room looking about the place.

Men had brought in torches and were thoroughly searching the place. She looked at it all and I felt, rather than saw, a sadness creep over her.

She muttered something that I didn't recognise under her breath.

"What was that?" I enquired.

"Nothing really," she spun suddenly, letting go of my arm. "Witcher," she hissed quietly. Kerrass was watching the soldiers industry but he turned to her.

"Majesty?" He said using the word that he had omitted earlier. He also bowed especially low for the people watching.

"How many of these...men, did you kill up on the hillside?"

Kerrass considered. "Two I think, and another that will never fight again although I suspect that he will have been put out of his misery. Fred killed one for sure and another who will feel it for the rest of his life."

She thought for a long moment.

"Good," she said and allowed us to lead her out into the sunlight.

I need to note something here. It's more of a reminder to myself than anything else which is that the people reading this have not necessarily read my half-formed essay on the social interactions of higher vampires or any of the other works on the subject that the university students have access to.

I spend so much time writing about these different things that they sometimes blend together and I find that I mean to write things, think that I've already written them and as a result they get completely left out, or written out twice.

Higher Vampires have many forms and, as I understand it, many different subspecies. I do not know how this works but there you go. I also know that they can change form from the most normal looking human shape all the way through a kind of feral looking shape with extended claws and teeth to a gigantic winged beast. I have also since found out that these forms can change shape according to the practices and character of the vampire controlling them. Therefore a particular vampire who enjoys spending time as a human will have more and more of a handle on how to portray human emotion and will better and better be able to emulate them.

But the opposite is also true. If a particular vampire decides that they want particularly _sharp_ claws then they can work on that aspect of themselves until the claws can cut through steel.

It's been described to me that to them it's like a human practising playing the mandolin until they get good at it.

So there is always a problem in reading a vampires emotions as you can't always trust their faces or their mannerisms. Vampires have none of the automatic emotional responses that we take for granted. They don't smile when they are happy, they don't scowl when they are angry and they don't cry when they are sad. Skilled vampires do these things because they are living among human society and as a result it is absolutely vital to them that they are able to emulate these emotional responses.

Our charge was no different in this regard. Even more so perhaps as she had already told us that she was a skilled Sorceress in her own right so what we were looking at was an illusion making it all the more difficult to tell what she was thinking.

All vampires are different and I am not universally skilled or experienced in this subject but there was something that I began to notice after several days spent in her company that I will say here as it potentially colours what was happening.

Her facial expression hardly ever changed except when she was calm and therefore could remember that she was supposed to emote. However her mood had an effect on the surroundings. It's difficult to describe but I will try and it was more of a feeling than I would ideally like to put to paper.

When she was happy, the world just seemed a little bit brighter. The grass a little greener, the sky a little bluer. Air smelled sweeter, food tasted better and the sun was warmer and I found myself laughing and smiling easier than I had before.

When she was angry then the shadows would creep in, you feel cold and shivery. Your body grows tense and she almost seems to grow in size until she towers above you and you want to hide or run in terror.

This last also gave rise to another theory of mine which is this.

I once read a theory put forward that Dragons were the last true predator of man. For all other monsters mankind has come up with a defence. Witchers, spells, potions and most importantly, we now live in cities with walls and torches where the environment can be controlled. The only thing that can threaten that is a dragon which is big enough and powerful enough to threaten cities which is why dragons need to be exterminated.

Although I can follow this logic, I for one think it would be a shame if dragons died out completely.

But I am talking about vampires.

Vampires disprove this theory. Vampires at their most terrifying prey on humankind. Some do this for basic sustenance but some also do it for fun. It's their equivalent of my father growing a forest, releasing a bunch of boar and deer into it before inviting his friends round to go hunting. It's _fun_ for the vampires and our building of cities means that all we've done is put all the game into one, easy to find, place.

I think that our reactions to vampires is a form of prey response. We are terrified of them because we recognise our predator. The thing that is, by nature, higher up in the food chain than we are.

I mention this because it's worth remembering when talking about her reactions to the outside world.

She didn't react at all to being taken out into the sunlight.

She didn't blink at the, by now, setting sun or the growing number of army tents that were growing up around her citadel. She didn't sniff the free air or dance a little jig at the prospect of freedom. Nor did she squint, cover her eyes at the blinding lights, sniff at the smells wafting over from the cook-fires or make any kind of reactions at all. She surveyed everything with a kind of detached...observation I suppose. She noted everything, eyes shifting from one detail to the next leaving a definite impression that she saw everything in a brief moment, but I also sensed that she was disappointed in what she saw. She was not alone.

"I see that fuck-face has brought up the rest of his forces." Kerrass sneered. "I reckon, 100 infantry with fifty horse."

I nodded, "Which means that he's probably got that much again elsewhere. He doesn't seem particularly stupid enough to put all his eggs in one basket."

"What do you mean?" the Vampire asked.

"Putting all his soldiers into a valley with one entrance and banks that horses couldn't climb." Kerrass said. "As strategic positions go this one leaves some things lacking. Especially if you're launching a coup."

I felt myself nod. It made sense. He had told us about the delicate situation between him and the "King". Lies are always made better by adding some truth and as such if that tension was true and Dorme was the reason that tensions were so high then a Coup would make most sense.

"So his other men are in all the strategic places ready to launch the surprise attack." I said and Kerrass nodded.

The Vampire just listened.

We were lead over to a tent that was set aside for the Vampire's use. It was surrounded by a small wooden palisade and was heavily guarded. Our things had been dumped there despite quite obviously having been searched. I noticed that my money had gone along with a couple of other small valuable things and gear that someone might have found useful. I also noticed that it had been repacked hurriedly and wondered if our stuff had been distributed to the men to play dice over before it was recovered.

There wasn't a separate tent for us though.

Kerrass prowled round the little enclosure, enjoying another new hobby which seemed to consist of how nervous he could make the sentries watching us. I built a fire and stomped over to a guard to demand water. When he refused I did my best impression of my big sister when she was throwing a tantrum and demanded to know how he expected a lady of such obvious high rank (gesturing at the vampire) to travel without the opportunity to bathe. I kicked up a fuss, made a noise, stomped shouted while making my voice as shrill and annoying as I could.

Petty? Maybe but I felt that they deserved it and like Kerrass I decided that I needed a new hobby.

Eventually water was brought and I set it to heating.

"You realise, of course, that I don't need a bath." The vampire said with a slight smile, "Indeed, in my current condition the water would likely just pass through me."

"The water's not for you," Kerrass muttered as he passed. "It's for him."

She looked me up and down. "Oh," she said without inflection. "At least humans have begun to understand the need for cleanliness." She went into the tent and from the sound of things laid down on the ground.

I shrugged and stripped off.

Kerrass was correct. Over the course of the day I had lost controls of my bowels several times, bled, sweated and vomited while being poisoned. It had not been a great day and I stank along with unspeakable filth being caked against my skin. I stripped off naked, heedless of who was watching and didn't stop scrubbing until my skin was red.

By the flame but it felt better.

The bath and a visit to the Jacks almost completed my cure.

When I got back to our little enclosure, Kerrass was seated on a stool sharpening his sword with long even strokes. There was an aura of discomfort around our guards which left me wondering if he was doing it on purpose.

"Where is she?" I asked.

"She has been summoned," Kerrass made it sound like she had been taken off to her place of execution.

I grunted something intelligible and sat down at the fire before setting about making some tea as I suddenly had a raging thirst.

"Is she normal for a vampire?"

Kerrass stopped his sharpening as he thought.

"She's a little different. It helps her, more than us, that we're looking at an illusion of her face rather than the actual face as it means that she can just keep her face still rather than give away her thoughts. She hasn't tried to kill us yet which is a good sign."

He went back to sharpening.

"Is that likely?" I asked after a while.

"If I was locked up for...however long. I would set about eating, drinking and sexing everything I could find. Blood is like strong alcohol and the finest drug to them. She is keeping herself in check at the moment but..." he shrugged. "I would be interested to know what's in that bag of human skin that Dorme's carrying about that got her so upset. As far as I ever knew there was nothing that could control a vampire. Especially one who used Sorcery as she clearly does."

I asked him to explain.

"You think all vampires can cast an illusion? They can change their form to be sure but she's horrifically weak. She hadn't eaten or drunk anything in years. I've never seen a starving vampire. I have seen a starving Witcher though and I don't think I would like to go through starvation knowing that I wouldn't be dying at the end of it. The illusion is weak though. Most of her strength is going into regenerating herself rather than the power to make a different image."

"I thought it was quite a good illusion all things considered."

"It's not bad. Where are her legs though?"

"I suppose."

"She's a black shape and a face. The shape flows like a cloak but that isn't too hard, or so I hear. I think she's biding her time. Watch her face but bear in mind that any emotion that she shows you, she deliberately put there. We just need to make sure we can escape her nets when she makes her move."

"Will she?"

"Would you allow yourself to be caught by Fuck-face?"

"No,"

"Neither would I."

We sat in silence for a while as the tea brewed.

"Wait a second," an unpleasant thought had occurred. "Bag of Human skin?"

Kerrass grinned nastily.

There really was no weight to her at all and so I fell off my own stool when she walked up next to us.

"I apologise," she said a little stiffly. I searched her face for any sign of her thoughts but she was staring into the fire. I made her tea and she took it without comment.

"He wants me to help him usurp the throne of Angraal." She took a long drink of the tea without flinching. It had been scalding hot. I refilled her cup without comment.

"Me," she said. "I, who was once Queen of all these lands. I sat on the throne of stone and looked down across the fire at my enemies and they shrunk back in terror before my wrath. I am supposed to help him, a descendant of the men that overthrew me, to overthrow another man who is descended from a man that I hated."

Kerrass and I exchanged glances but said nothing. It's not wise to poke the angry vampire.

"Every tree, every blade of grass, every drop of water in the rivers, by rights all of it belongs to me and he wants me to just give it to him."

Everything she was doing told me that she was tired. But as Kerrass said, that image couldn't be trusted.

"How's he going to do that?" I managed.

She shrugged. "I am the rightful Queen,"

There was another long pause as Kerrass and I looked at each other,

"So?" Kerrass asked eventually.

"What?" she said looking up, "Oh right. You mean that in the modern world that doesn't mean anything."

"Yes," said Kerrass carefully.

"There is a trick in Angraal monarchy that was put there so that if an imposter turns up that I could always prove it was me. It was a charm and has a compulsion behind it. Apparently now it's used as part of the coronation ceremony for a new King but no-one knows what it means. He researched it, when he came up with the scheme. I am to take the throne and let him rule through me as well as provide whatever supernatural assistance that I can."

she shuddered.

"Stupid cretin. When the people find out who I really am they will flock to me,"

Kerrass and I did another of our exchanged glances.

"Help me," she said suddenly, "Help me take back my country. Help me take it back. Help me to be Queen again and I will reward you with more than you can possibly dream of."

"Ummmm, no," I heard myself say.

"What?" for the first time it seemed that I had elicited a genuine emotion from her. She was astonished and there's no way she could have faked that.

"No, I don't think I will help you do that."

She just stared at me. I waited for death at any moment from, Oh I don't know, a fireball from her eyes."

"It's not that I'm unsympathetic to your problems." My mouth had started talking again. I hate it when it does that without consulting me first. "Lord Fuck-face over there poisoned me in an effort to get us to do what he wanted. Then he tried to kill us anyway. You've saved my life twice and his life once," gesturing to Kerrass, "so I'll help you a bit. But at the end of the day, apart from anything else, I owe fealty to other people."

"To whom?" she demanded, "I am the Queen of all of these lands." As if that should overcome all other factors

"How big are all your lands?" Kerrass put in. I kept my mouth still through an effort of will.

"Seriously," Kerrass went on. "You're the Queen of Angraal. How big is Angraal."

"Six days ride from end to end," she answered promptly. "Between the mountains and the River."

Kerrass nodded. "And what's your name?" It astonished me as I realised that she hadn't actually told us that yet.

"My name?"

"Yes,"

"But I am the Queen,"

"That doesn't narrow you down."

She drew herself up to her full height. She seemed to grow and a purple light flickered under her robes. It got dark and I could hear chittering in the undergrowth.

"I am the Spider Queen of Angraal and you owe me your fealty. Not some petty Lordling that fancies themselves King of a made up country."

Kerrass nodded and turned to me. "Have you ever heard of her?"

She turned her terrifying gaze on me and I felt myself shrink. "No," I said. "To be honest I hadn't heard of Angraal either until Dorme told me about it."

"How dare you..." She began.

"Do you understand what that means?" Kerrass went on, ignoring her outburst. "Frederick is a scholar and knows more useless information than I have ever even seen and despite his own rather self-deprecating views on his own expertise he is rather a clever man. He's studied things including medicine, anatomy, herbalism, arts, poetry, music but mostly history and for him to not know who you are means that no-one knows who you are. Nowadays Angraal is considered a minor Duchy of the Great Kingdom of Keadwen. Kaedwen is itself considered a protectorate of the Nilfgaardian empire which stretches across the vast majority of the known world and trying to put a scale on it like "How long it would take to ride the length of it" is futile."

I saw where Kerrass was going and joined in.

"So lets say you win against Dorme and the other usurpers." I said.

"Which I will, of course I will. The people will rise up to support me. As I say, I am The Spider Queen of..."

"Yes, you said." I interrupted. A madness had taken the three of us. It was like I was watching a play and when I talked about it to Kerrass later, he said that he felt much the same way. There were words that just had to be said.

"First of all, You and who's army?" I said ticking the point of my fingers. "At the moment you have you and a tentative treaty of co-operation with Kerrass and myself. But neither of us are particularly willing to die for you."

Kerrass nodded at that.

"Secondly. Out of your own mouth you called yourself "The Spider Queen." Do you know how terrifying that is? You saved my life using spiders and I'm still terrified of you for calling yourself the Spider Queen. Do you know what that's going to do to the average farmer, villager or merchant?"

"They will bow before me as their rightful Queen," She made it forceful and I started to almost lose hope.

"No they won't." said Kerrass startling her away from me. "They will be terrified."

"As they should be." Did I detect some doubt there? I began to hope.

"People don't work like that." said Kerrass. "People are quite simple really. In my experience individuals can be intelligent, educated, informed and sensible. But people as a whole... Freddie you'll know. What's that saying about the intelligence of a mob?"

"That "If intelligence is a number where high is good, Then the intelligence of a mob is the intelligence of the dumbest person there divided by the number of people in the mob.""

"That's the one." Kerrass said with some satisfaction. "I've seen it far too often. Sometimes even against me. Witcher's have a saying as well. "The greatest swordsman in the land can be overwhelmed by six angry men with clubs." There is even evidence from our own history. One of our better swordsman, internationally renowned for his skill with a blade was mortally wounded by a farmer with a pitchfork."

"What are the two of you trying to tell me?" She had withdrawn a little. Only a little.

"People will either fight you, or run from you." Kerrass said. "Fight or flee, that's just instinct to them. Especially as you represent their natural predator."

"If they fight me they will die." She seemed to snarl that last and I felt the earlier flight instinct strong in my chest. But I found it in me somewhere to stand my ground.

"Then we're back to that earlier point. You and what army. The spiders? Peasants are really good at setting fire to things, say the undergrowth of your Kingdom, sorry, Queendom. Peasants, although I don't like using that word any more as it often strikes me that I hear it used with scorn from so called "nobles" like Fuck-face, I've also met many villagers on my travels now and many of them could have given my professors a run for their money if they had been given the opportunity and..."

"Freddie," Kerrass interrupted me. He was smiling.

"I was babbling again?"

He nodded.

"Sorry, I do that when I'm terrified." I said to the vampire who was frowning.

Was the expression real though?

"Peasants are not stupid. Reactionary? Yes. They'll just move. Pick up everything and leave to nearby countries. We live on a continent that has had Three Huge wars in recent memory. There's plenty of room in Aedirn or further north in Kaedwen."

I paused while my mouth waited for the next thought to line itself up to be fired back into the vampire.

"So lets assume you win." I said. Kerrass sat back on his heels and watched. He was openly smiling now and watched me with some interest.

"Lets be really optimistic and assume that you manage to usurp, sorry, take back your rightful throne. You manage to defeat Fuck-face, the Usurper-King and all the other nobles in the land who don't know who you are. Yours is a smallish patch of land and not really a Kingdom in the modern world so there won't be many. Lets also assume that the peasants hear that they are now ruled over by the terrifying Spider Queen of legend. Your reputation, regardless of the truth of the matter, will not be great as you were defeated and history is written by the winners. But lets suppose you win the peasants over to your cause and you find yourself ruling over the country of yours to your own satisfaction. Lets suppose all that. Ok?"

She nodded. Kerrass' eyes were laughing. He later told me that he always enjoys it when I turn into "Lecture Freddie".

"You're an intelligent woman, or vampire..." My brain stopped working for a moment. "I've never studied magic but my understanding is that you have to be if you are going to study it. So you're aware, I hope, that it's a long string of unlikely things happening to get to that point. But lets suppose it does.

"What do you do then?

"What do your people eat?

"Lets find in your favour and say that your lands provide enough farm land to provide food for your entire populace. Bear in mind that despite the wars. Populace data suggests that the population of the northern Kingdoms has been growing exponentially over the last hundred years after the monster numbers started to become reduced and the rise of the larger cities. So what else do your people need or want?

"Just off the top of my head they will need Lumber, Hay and Stone for basic buildings. Bricks, clay and other things for more modern buildings. I'm not a builder so I don't know but then there are other things as well. Entertainment for example. Bored people find a way to entertain themselves. Often with rebellion against the oppression. So they need fun things to do,"

"Wine," suggested Kerrass,

"Yes Wine, also beer and other spirits. These as well as luxury foodstuffs that you cannot grow here. Your climate is not really well suited to wine production. Ooh, and I'd forgotten metals. You will need a personal guard to stop plotters from striking against you. Where will you get the weapons from. Your area is not well-known for the weapons or metals it produces so I have to assume that there aren't any Iron, Copper or Tin mines in the local area. Neither is the place rich so there aren't any gold or silver mines to provide the illusion of wealth.

"You understand that we're just talking about the necessary things here.

"What about paper?

"Ink?"

She was silent now. Staring at me, her face was unreadable and her cloak didn't move. She looked like a statue and I reminded myself that it was just an illusion.

But there was a person in there somewhere and I needed to get through to her.

"The answer is that you must trade for them. You, "The Spider Queen of Angraal" must trade with your neighbours for the things that you want. How will that go do you think?

"They don't know you and to be truthful they were getting on perfectly well with the person that you killed and usurped.

"You understand that I'm speaking from their point of view there." I hastily added.

She said nothing.

"If anything they might mount a military campaign to retake Angraal for their friends. There's a lot of people in the north that would quite like to "Win" some kind of war and your little Kingdom would look attractive."

I paused looking for any hint that she was even listening.

"But now I come to your biggest problem," I said. I had been speaking with a pseudo comic tone before now but this was the last factor and it needed driving home.

"Angraal is no longer a Kingdom. It is a Minor Duchy and barely worthy of the title of Duchy. Wait till you see a modern map and compare it to somewhere like Toussaint which is ruled by a Duchess at the moment.

"Angrall is in an area that used to be fought over by Aedirn and Kaedwen on a regular basis. Both of those Kingdoms have been consumed by the Greater Nilfgaardian empire who, I understand, are still deciding what to do and how to govern their new "provinces". Couple this with the fact that the current Emperor is in the process of handing his power over to his daughter.

"At some point, an Imperial tax collector is going to turn up. Expecting to deal with the current Duke, the man you call the King of Angraal. What do you do then? You try and call yourself the Queen of Angraal and kill him. Or he leaves and reports that some upstart is declaring herself ruler

of a minor province. The current emperor is renowned for putting down such rebellions.

"Brutally and without mercy.

"Dorme has a force of 150 men here. Lets say that represents his armed forces and some men from his neighbours and allies. The King will have a standing guard of maybe fifty veterans protecting him and not everyone is going to support Dorme, so lets say that there's another 350 fighting men in Angraal. Does that sound about right Kerrass?"

Kerrass nodded without saying anything. I realised that he was watching the vampire, coiled and ready for a fight.

"So a total of 500 men. If you're lucky.

"When Nilfgaard invaded the Northern kingdoms most recently it was numbered in the thousands of men. Thousands of soldiers that means, not fighters and support people. Thousands of soldiers. Those men were also hardened veterans of putting down rebellions like what you would be perceived to be.

"As well as this, my understanding is that Nilfgaard has another four or five armies like it, ready to go at any time with another two that could be raised with relatively short notice. I can't be sure of that but those numbers sound close to what I had heard."

I tried again to detect any emotion from her but there was none. She just stood there and stared at me.

Fuck it.

"Which brings us on to the new Empress herself. Or to give her her full title: Empress Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon, Queen of Cintra, Princess of Brugge and Duchess of Sodden. heiress to Inis Ard Skellig and Inis An Skellig, and suzeraine of Attre and Abb Yarra.

"But a flowery list of titles is not all that the bards say about her. She is the Lady of Time and Space. She is the Lion Cub of Cintra which is no small title although it sounds derogatory. She escaped through a warzone to be rescued by a Witcher. One Geralt of Rivia who took her to be trained at the Witcher fortress of Kaer Morhen. Then it became obvious that she was magically gifted and was trained as a Sorceress herself. She has lived as a bandit, noblewoman, Witcher and adventurer. She is also the true-born daughter of the Emperor of Nilfgaard and for his own reasons he is in the process of passing power to her before he either retires or dies which is normally how succession works.

"There are several points that I would like to make here. One of the biggest is that she has Witcher training which means that she knows how to kill you. What potions to use, what oils to put on her blades and what type of weapons to use. Also many of the surviving Witchers view her as an extension of themselves. Almost a family member like a daughter, Sister, Niece or someone who deserves their respect."

"That includes me by the way." Kerrass put in.

I stared at him. "That's a little tidbit that you've kept squirelled away. Have you met her?"

"Once, nice girl. Friendly enough, easy on the eye but she carried that sword on her back like she knew how to use it. I didn't see her fight and she gave the impression that she wasn't fully comfortable in her own skin. But the way that others watched out for her and gave her that little bit more room as she walked around... She was a nice girl but I found her... terrifying. I spoke to a friend of mine once who asked me to look out for her and told me that the girl can teleport without incantation or portal and will reappear elsewhere in the blink of an eye. I believe him."

I nodded and returned to my blustering.

"Not that I think you would face her directly but think about what she brings to the table. Suddenly you are facing an army, all with their blades dipped in oils that can hurt vampires. Her elites with silver blades. Witchers stalking the night at her request and offer of reward. All these people who want to prove themselves before the new Empress and that's without her taking the field herself.

"And I have one last point to make. Her adopted mother is one of the Lodge of Sorceresses. That means nothing to you as it's a relatively recent creation and they aren't really a public organisation. But the Emperor suddenly seems to like Magic users again and that is a telling factor. Renowned names like Keira Metz, Yennefer of Vengerberg, Phillipa Eilhart, Lady Fringilla Vigo and Triss Merigold called fourteenth of the hill. All of them battle-hardened and experienced women who are keen to prove their use to the Empire.

"Don't get me wrong. I understand that trying to organise Magic users is like trying to herd cats and like cats they often succumb to infighting. But consider this. You would be a new factor that they have not considered. Both Sorceress and Vampire. History shows us time after time that nothing brings people together like an external threat.

"And the Empress has their ear and is rumoured to be a member.

"You may be powerful and you may have been spending your imprisonment learning and relearning how to do things. But these women and whatever mages that they can muster are the products of centuries of practice and competition with each other to prove their own superiority. Competition breeds innovation after all. Can you stand up to all of that?"

I was done and I suddenly felt exhausted. So much had happened today and I felt it. I shivered and wanted nothing more than to pull a blanket round myself and snuggle down to sleep. I went to do so but Kerrass started talking.

"I have another point that you may not have considered. I know next to nothing about Vampiric society. This is significant as if you were to draw up a list of the top experts in Monster Lore in the Northern Kingdoms then I am not overly flattering myself if I put myself somewhere in the top ten. It's my job after all and I know nothing about vampire society. They seem to have mostly integrated with humanity or gone into hiding.

"You stand up one day and openly declare yourself as "The Spider-Queen. Vampiric Lord of these lands" How would they react do you think? They might be enjoying their nice quiet lives living in crypts and watching the world go by. But then you come and draw everyone's attention back to the fact that they are hiding in plain sight.

"Just some food for thought there."

We both fell into silence.

Abruptly she stood and went inside the tent.

Kerrass and I looked at each other and shrugged.

What was done was done. We'd played our hands and now we needed to see which way the cards would fall.


	21. Chapter 21

"Ok, so I guess I'll start," I began. I leant forward slightly and had time enough to catch Kerrass' eye and the look of fatalistic curiosity that hid deep inside him.

"Lord Dorme, I hope you understand that I say this with all possible due respect but," I paused for effect knowing that what I was about to say might bring me the sweet release of death. "I'm pretty sure I hate your guts." I leant back in the chair that had been given to me as the effort of that part of the conversation had exhausted me.

The knights that were inside the tent who made up what passed for Lord Dorme's command group shifted and started shouting. There were cries of "How dare you speak..." and "Don't you know who..." and other such things that I had passed the point of caring what they said. They were not my opponent at that point and if one of them did draw their weapons and kill me where I sat then at least I wouldn't have to sit through another day of my insides rearranging themselves inside my body, and the fevers and the explosive expulsion of foodstuffs from both ends of my body that was happening on a regular basis.

It would seem that being poisoned by spider venom that dissolves your innards and then being cured by that similar but different spider venom can do nasty things to you. At first I had tried to enjoy the experience. At least it meant that I was still alive rather than slowly liquefying somewhere but after a while, falling from your horse and crawling off to the side of the road to vomit violently gets really old.

Kerrass was in the pavilion with me and had allowed himself a smile at my statement.

When Dorme raised his hand to silence his flunkies Kerrass waited for the silence and said very distinctly. "I think what my companion is trying to say is that you can take your new contract and shove it up your ass."

I nodded at him, "Wiser words have never been spoken,"

"I am learning eloquence in my later years," he dead-panned back at me.

Of course this set the knights back to arguments, shouting and threatening us and each other.

Lord Dorme just sat in his chair behind the table and put his head into his hands. If it had been anyone else I would have had sympathy for the man. As it was I just, well, found it kind of amusing. To be fair to him it was becoming clear what kind of thing he was dealing with when it came to his companions. They were the angry kind of young folk who like to imagine a non-existent time past where men were men, women were helpless beautiful creatures that needed rescuing and peasants got out of the road promptly and were properly grateful that they were aloud to exist. Upon learning that I was a scholar rather than a knight I seemed to be lumped into the catch all category of peasant. As for Kerrass, if there was a category of being below the level of peasant then Kerrass belonged to it. They were the kind of people that harped on about "the old days" despite being in their mid to late teens.

They weren't going to kill us or even visit one of their rather graphic describe punishments on to us. They didn't dare as it seemed that, quite by accident, we had lucked onto something that made us invaluable to their cause.

You might call me petty but I took every opportunity to twist this knife into Dorme's gut whenever I could. What can I say, being poisoned has this way of really focusing your anger.

That first night where we had camped within sight of the Spider Queen's black Citadel while Dorme's men went through the place, looting it down to the bare stone. I slept like a baby, until early morning when I was woken up by an alarming noise coming from my digestive tract. It was the howling of a beast in pain.

I made it to the Jacks, just, and what was produced was the most unpleasant viscous... You know I've just realised that polite people might be reading this. Lets just say that it was loud and unpleasant. I was actually met by the camp surgeon on my way back to the tent as it had been reported to him that there was someone in the Jacks potentially shitting themselves to death. This is the kind of thing that makes army surgeons jittery as it could potentially be dysentery or another equally unpleasant illness that spreads through an army camp. Apparently he spotted me immediately as I was limping as there is a very specific kind of limp that occurs in someone who is suffering from such an extreme "gastric incident." Basic medicine informed me that that's what happens when you need the toilet that urgently. In case you were wondering, that was when I decided to stop studying medicine.

I studied field medicine, stitching up wounds and stuff. We didn't get so far into actual illnesses before I dropped out as the entire thing clearly wasn't for me.

Anyway, I explained the recent poison and antidote deal. He had the grace to look embarrassed and told me to drink plenty of water, to keep warm and eat as much as I could stomach as the body would need the strength to expel the remaining toxins.

The camp woke up slowly and orders were given. Food was brought and I ate it like a starving thing and drank boiled water before I started feeling unnaturally cold. I dressed in my winter clothing as my more recent clothing was still unusable and I had resigned myself to buying a new shirt anyway but I just sat there, wrapped in a blanket and shivered.

Despite my illness, Kerrass and I were still ready long before the "army" was prepared to move out.

A horse had been brought for "the lady" who only emerged from the tent at the last possible moment. I tried to tell if she had managed to get any sleep at all but it was impossible to tell. Her illusion was up and she moved to the horse that Kerrass was holding ready for her with an air of pre-occupation. She had eaten her provided breakfast without comment and we made sure that there was extra food around in case she needed it during the march.

The horse objected to her presence until Kerrass made one of his little gestures over the poor things nose until it subsided.

She did not react. If anything her illusory face was more still and mask-like than before. The voluminous black robe was still, barely moving despite the wind and her staff was nowhere to be seen giving the impression of an insects shell.

We marched. It was less than pleasant and as I say I spent the majority of time shivering uncontrollably and having to take frequent breaks to either vomit or spend time looking for large leaves in the undergrowth if you take my meaning.

Not that this was a problem. The column moved so slowly that every time I needed to take a break I easily caught up with my position in the column. Over those two days we covered about the same amount of distance as Kerrass and I would have covered in just under a day. Kerrass by himself could have probably done it in a morning's effort.

My illness subsided over those first couple of days but I was still not entirely healthy and feeling the effects of the toxins and the days ride in the occasional bouts of shuddering that effected my body but at least I wasn't entirely exhausted as I had been before. The vampire was summoned both evenings. Without saying a word she would be escorted from our regular little enclosure, would go off for what we guessed was half an hour to an hour before coming back without an exchange of expression. Take the meal that we had left out for her and vanish into the depths of the tent. Kerrass and I said nothing. Going about our chores and keeping up with our new found hobbies. Kerrass was a master of patience at the worst of times and as such he had no difficulty sleeping or just enjoying the incompetence of the small army that we found ourselves in.

The problem was again that there had been three wars inside living memory. It's an important point and that's why I keep mentioning it. From listening to those soldiers that seemed more competent it was obvious that Dorme had stripped his lands and the lands of his allies to make up this force of men. Those self-same allies that were predicting a time of milk and honey after one of _them_ managed to ascend to the throne of Angraal. I struggled to believe it as those people that were wearing the armour and carrying, swords and still figuring out how to use the crossbows that had obviously been looted from battlefields were the people who should have been planting the seeds in the fields at that point in time.

I will admit that this amount of travelling has given me a new perspective on things. I find that I now say the word "nobles" in the same way that many nobles say the word "peasants". To those people that might be offended at this prospect I ask you these questions. What time did you wake up this morning and start work? Did you have breakfast? How much did you have? What did your work entail? Did you stop for lunch? When did you stop for the evening? Write your answers down on a piece of paper. Now disguise yourself and go out into your fields. Address the first man, or woman, who you do not recognise and ask them the same questions.

Compare the answers.

If the answer is roughly comparable then I would argue that you are not a noble. You are Noble. Do you see the difference?

Dorme and his flunkies were nobles who believed that everyone else on this continent is put here for their amusement and their own purpose.

The second evening after the vampire came back, Kerrass and I were summoned. I liked that we were developing a kind of wordless communication between each other in the presence of people that we didn't like. We looked at each other, shrugged, and moved off. Two guardsmen moved in to the enclosure, I guess to keep an eye on the vampire in her tent. Kerrass stopped and muttered something to one of them and passed over a small bottle of something. As he walked away the young guardsman's face drained of colour and was pouring the contents of the bottle over his sword.

Kerrass' eyes were glinting.

"What was in the bottle?" I asked.

"Apple juice," he said, expression not changing.

"That's really mean,"

"I know."

I laughed for us both and pulled the blanket closer around myself a little tighter.

We were led into the presence of Dorme and his many lapdogs.

Have you ever noticed that people who have very little power feel the need to surround themselves with lots of other people who they have authority over in an effort to feel big and important?

It was like that.

They had this map in the middle of the room that that they were all arguing over, it had little flags positioned on it with markers and different kinds of toys. Some clearly re-purposed chess pieces to represent cavalry, fortifications (castles) and infantry (pawns, tells you a lot really). They were all standing round it trying to look like soldiers. One hand resting on their sword pommels while the other hand pointed at the map or their verbal opponents. I had the distinct impression that Dorme knew how ridiculous it all looked as soon as we walked in. He was off to one side talking with one of the older men in the pavilion who had more of an air of quiet confidence than the rest of them put together. This was an actual veteran of war rather than any of the people who wished that the third Nilfgaardian war was still going on so that they could fight it and "see some action".

We went over to Dorme's side of the room and it became clear that our relationship to him had changed when we were brought chairs.

The others grew silent as they started to register who else was in the room. One or two had to be elbowed into silence as they wanted to know why they should be quiet for a Witcher and some younger son of a Northern Baron.

The fact that they were all younger sons themselves having managed to survive the Nilfgaardian war by virtue of being too young to fight seemed to have escaped them.

We sat, were offered refreshment which we declined for obvious reasons while Dorme started his pitch.

"I wanted to thank you both for what you've done,"

Kerrass and I looked at each other.

"Oh?" I said.

"In your attempts to provide voices of Reason to Her Majesty,"

I decided that bravado was needed here. Bravado with a side order of mockery. He was buttering us up for something.

"Imagine my utter lack of surprise that you've been eavesdropping."

"It is my camp after all."

"Granted." I conceded the point. He could easily still have us executed, vampiric wishes be damned. "What specifically are you talking about?"

"Your efforts to provide her Majesty with an overview of the current political landscape. She must be made to understand how fragile things are at the moment."

"I agree with you." I said, "But I can't help but notice that you are using this "fragile" time to launch your own rebellion."

"But a local one which will barely be noticed by the empire."

"The empire has noticed such things before."

A number of the flunkies shifted uneasily at this.

"Never the less," Dorme continued, speaking over the muttered voices and sounds of shifting armour. "You did well to attempt to keep her grounded."

Time for some self-deprecation, "I'm not entirely certain we succeeded though."

"But you did well to try. I also wanted to apologise. I may have been wrong to order your deaths after Her Majesty had been freed."

My temper flared a little and I spoke without thinking. Verbal sparring on this level requires focus, it's as much about reading the other person and their responses as it is about listening to what's said.

My tutor once told me that it was like playing cards where instead of playing the odds or the cards you have to understand that you are playing the person. I remember arguing that the odds are still going to win the game. After which we played a cards for several days and he beat me to such an extent that over three days I didn't win a single significant hand. The odds of which are impossible to compute.

"Is that all you have to be sorry about?" I growled.

There was another shifting of weight and a few people muttering that I should "Have a care..." as though I would find that threatening.

"Regarding yourself? Yes. I was being hasty but now I find that had I followed through on my first impulse I would have lost a possible route to Her Majesties brain and heart."

He watched me carefully. I kept my mouth shut as I had realised my error and was concerned that my emotions were still roiling a little too much to allow myself to speak freely.

"I want to offer you both a job. A contract if you will," he nodded at Kerrass.

I looked at Kerrass. We were getting really good at this whole "communicating with looks" thing. Apparently it's something that married coupled do really well although my parents seemed to have lost the knack in later life.

I told Dorme that I hated him. This did not go well with the flunkies.

I can't imagine why.

After a while of the flunkies not calming down Dorme gestured and the older man that I had noticed before herded them all out into the evening air like the sheep that they were before coming back in.

Dorme looked at him before returning his gaze to me.

"I can understand your hate but I hope you can understand my point here. Regardless of what you think about my methods or my reasons for doing things you have to agree with me on one point. Having an extremely old Higher Vampre prowling around the place is potentially dangerous."

"I notice that you had us free her anyway." Kerrass broke in. "Also, don't you have a method for controlling her?"

"I do, and it works but I need to concentrate to use it which means that there are hours of the day where she is up to her own devices. I've told her not to leave or wander off, or attempt to break the hold I have over her but at the same time..."

"So you want to hire us to keep an eye on her."

"Yes. Deliver my throne to me and I will reward you with more than you can imagine."

Some of you may know that there is a classic comeback to this kind of offer. Something about being able to imagine quite a bit. I decided that I was too classy to come out with such a line but as a general note to readers. If you're going to make an offer like this. Quantify it. In this case I felt that it was an empty offer. I thought it much more likely that we would simply be killed.

"If we turn the job down?" Kerrass asked.

"I'm afraid I must insist," Dorme's face shut down.

"I see. So you're not giving us a choice."

"No, she doesn't talk to me. She sits there, wrapped in her illusion and stares straight ahead while I talk to her and give her instruction. The two of you spend more time with her than anyone else. Talk to her. Tell her things. Involve her in the world that we all have to live in. Calm her down. An angry vampire is not something that any of us want."

"Tell me," I said, leaning forwards. "She is a prisoner, we are prisoners. Why should we not feel our sympathies drift towards her side of things?"

"I admit that I thought of this and I have two responses. The first is this. If she is angry and decides to do her own thing, including seize Angraal for herself. Would the two of you survive her wrath? The other thing is this." He gestured and his older flunky handed over a small book. "The two of you will not know much about the Spider Queen as you don't come from around these parts. She is our bogeyman of history. Our Queen Falka. Her reign was a reign of oppression and blood. This is a book of local history, stories and tales from her period which was from the earliest settlements of this area and lasted for around fifty years. I invite you to read it and come to your own conclusion as to the type of monster that we're dealing with."

He handed it to me.

"Again," Kerrass piped up. "The monster that _you_ ordered released."

Dorme said nothing.

I flicked through the book. It was readable and not simply scrawled in illegible writing. We were obviously dismissed and left.

"Take my advice," said Kerrass to me. "Take that book and lose it."

"Why?"

"Just don't read it."

"Why not?"

"Because history is written by the winners,"

"I know that. I also know that it's not going to paint her in a good light."

"We have to travel with her. If you read it, become afraid or even angry do you not think that she will react with her own anger. She grows more powerful by the hour as she regenerates from her deprivations of things like air, food and sunlight. True she's not as powerful as she will be. Not yet but one of the few things I agree with Dorme on. She needs handling gently and she can read our minds."

"Fair point."

"But you're going to read it anyway aren't you?"

"Damn straight." Kerrass opened his mouth to say more, "No Kerrass listen. I'm a Historian. This is what I do. I study history. I know that this book," I waved it in the air for emphasis, "is biased. I know it's hardly the most reliable source of history. But it _is_ history. Even better than that, it's history that I can corroborate with someone who was actually there. That's unheard of. Also, Dorme's right. It will tell us more about her."

Kerrass sighed.

"The first time we met. You didn't know my past. If I had just come out and told you that I've murdered women and children, would you have travelled with me? Would you have associated with me in any way or would you have condemned me?"

I had no answer to that.

"Thought not," he said.

"I don't know Kerrass." I admitted, "but I would like to think that I would have."

He snorted.

At the time I felt Kerrass' response was a little harsh. It was true that I had every interest in the actual living history of the piece but there was an extra factor that meant that I had something interesting to read during my regular and lengthy visits to the Jacks.

The following days journey passed in silence as we were becoming used to and it wasn't until the following evening when I was sat outside my tent that things started to happen.

The evening meal was over, I was feeling much better than I had for a while and I had discovered, much to my astonishment that I was enjoying myself. Sat there with book in hand, spring sunshine on my face and feeling of the road passing by I felt contented. I had some paper and was jotting down a few thoughts and will admit to being fairly engrossed when the Vampire's voice came to me from just over my right ear.

"You shouldn't believe everything you read you know, Oh I'm sorry, I didn't mean to startle you."

I picked myself up and righted my stool, brushing grass from my shirt.

"Your smile suggests that you rather enjoyed it though,"

"A scandalous suggestion. It's not my fault that I walk particularly quietly."

"Break a twig, cough or something." I righted the stool and sat back down. My brain was screaming at me. 'Keep her talking,' it said.

"How was your meeting with Fuck-face Your Majesty?"

"Fuck-face? Ah yes. I remember. Heh." She tipped her head to one side as if considering. I was having to remind myself that any illusion she showed me was entirely conscious on her part. "It's beginning to get tedious if I'm honest. He keeps saying the same things. That I should listen to you. That I should do what he wants me to do, why he wants me to do these things and what's going on in Angraal at the moment. It all seems very involved and complicated."

I gestured towards the stool opposite me hoping that this would be interpreted as an invitation to sit. She did so and I set myself back down.

"And how are you doing?" I asked.

"What do you mean?" she asked curiously.

"Well, in short order you have gone from being imprisoned to being back in the world, under the sky and the world that you left has completely changed."

She smiled. "Yes but I've gone from one form of captivity to another,"

"Granted. The company must be better though."

Her smile remained fixed. "Some of it is."

There was a pause.

"And how are you faring Frederick. Your illness subsiding?"

"My bowels seem to have settled and only lets out the occasional squeal of protest."

"Good, Where's Kerrass by the way?"

"Off exercising somewhere probably. He occasionally needs solitude and I tend not to interfere. It's also possible he's indulging himself by aggravating the sentries."

"Should he not be staying nearby?"

"Yes but I don't think they could stop him."

She nodded.

The silence continued. Aren't awkward conversations fun.

She must have felt the same because she laughed. I was surprised by how warm and comfortable the sound was.

"Do you have any questions?" she asked. "Anything I can clarify?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I understand you are reading about my history. Is it of interest to you?"

"Very interesting as a matter of fact. Very interesting."

"You don't seem to be very concerned about sitting next to the Spider Queen of Angraal."

"Why should I be?"

"That book must contain some rather incendiary stories."

I looked at her for a long time. Her mask was inscrutable. She had changed I noticed. Her robe, which used to envelop her entirely, now seemed to open a little at the front and riding trousers and boots could be seen underneath. They appeared to be made from relatively simple, undyed leather.

They did look brand new though. Her face showed signs of a complexion rather than being porcelain white. The impression was of someone who felt a bit more comfortable in her own skin. I decided that truth was the best route forward.

"I will not lie Your Majesty..."

"Don't call me that," she interrupted sharply.

"but... Wait, what?"

she sighed and smiled sadly, she was certainly getting better at her expressions. "It no-longer feels fitting somehow."

"What would you like me to call you then?"

"I do not know yet."

I nodded. An identity crisis. I should have recognised it.

"As I was saying then Milady. I will not lie. There's some blood curdling stuff in here." I waved the book at her.

"Anything in particular stand out?"

"Ummm," I made a pretence of flicking through the book, in truth I had already read it several times and I was using the time to think. "The incident where you ordered 21 people to be slowly impaled outside your castle kind of sticks out."

She nodded. "The story lacks a certain amount of context. They were trying to destroy a food supply that was required by the entire populace. I had it well guarded and so they failed but we needed to remind people about short term hardship would lead to long term good."

"That's a lot of context? Is there also a lot of context regarding the incident where you summoned a swarm of blood flies that swept through your lands sucking the blood from all of the younger people for your own sustenance and amusement."

"That didn't happen. There was an illness and the dead were not getting cleared away fast enough which was causing the plague to spread. The people didn't understand that it wasn't contagious from the corpses but the flies that carried the disease..."

"You could have just told me that there was context."

There was a pause before she nodded.

"There was indeed context."

"I am not stupid Your...Milady. I do this for a living. I am well aware that history is written by the winners. This especially as it was written to justify their actions in rising up against their feudal lords to each other and their children. I am also well trained enough to recognise that these stories are written like a bunch of fairy tales."

"Fairy tales?"

"Fairy tales were defined by the poets Grinn as folk tales that are passed down through the generations, often with supernatural elements, in an effort to pass on certain lessons."

"I see."

"In this case," I waved the book again, "to convince people that you were an evil bitch, that people were justified in hating you. You seem to represent the dark, horrific and wild territory that the heroic settlers had to fight against."

"It was a very different time,"

"I'm not denying that, but did you really nail several people to the outer walls of your keep until they died of pain and exhaustion. Feeding them so that they could last longer."

"Yes,"

"You know that people are going to be made uncomfortable by that?"

"Yes,"

"I invite you to use me madam. I am a historian. I record things and some people will listen to it."

"That's an interesting invitation Frederick. One that I would be cautious about repeating to other vampires."

"I take it that being invited to use me means something else to vampires."

"More than somewhat." she smiled. "I will say some things but centuries of keeping ones thoughts to themselves is a difficult proposition."

"You're going to tell me that it was a different time aren't you."

"I am indeed."

"People won't accept that."

"I know, nevertheless it is the truth. Not only was it a different time but I was, and am, a different race from yours. This place was mine for centuries before your people even landed at the river. Your people were the invader's into my territory and I had to respond."

"You see," I said leaning forward. "You see how easy this is?"

"It is easy to forget how young you are Frederick."

"I'm not that young."

"I'm over 900 years old Frederick."

"Ok. I am that young."

She managed a smile. She was clearly putting a little more thought into her facial expressions today.

"Do you want to talk about it?" I wondered alive.

"It honestly hadn't occurred to me. Does it help?"

"Sometimes. Talking about things gets those same things out into the open in a way that nothing else does. From my perspective, you have spent somewhere between four to five hundred years in captivity. Your views are invaluable, what has changed in humanity since you've been away? Have we changed for the better? The worse? Are we what you expected? Does history change your deeds? That's leaving aside all the questions along the lines of what's it like to be a vampire? I've spent the last year travelling with a Witcher by the way so I know how stupid that last question is."

She was silent for a while.

"Well lets start there then. Your every action is fascinating to me. For a start, that was a lot of questions in a short space of time."

"It was," I admitted. "But they are questions that occur and if I don't ask them then someone else will in relatively short order. I am vain enough as a scholar that I would want to have my findings published first."

"I understand that urge at least,"

"But my subject is Kerrass and his wanderings. I am also, no longer convinced that I am an objective recorder in his regard."

"You see there's a thing." she leant forward. "You have a word in your language, "scientist". It is an interesting word and of all the words that are applicable to me, that word is closest. I am a sorceress and I approached it in the manner of one of your Scientists. It is fascinating to me and has always been fascinating to me. So much of the force plus _so_ much emotion plus _so_ much shaping equals result. But there is also an art to it as well. You asked me on my views of humanity and that is not a simple question. So it follows that there is not a simple answer."

"Will you start then?" I was right. She wanted to talk.

"Your people are so impatient. I thought about this quite a bit when I was imprisoned. You are also so incredibly young. I mean that as a species rather than you as an individual, but by contrast to the vampires or even the Elves, Dwarves or Gnomes that had already settled this continent when we arrived. Your advancement is...extraordinary."

"What do you mean?" like most interview subjects, she was unused to this amount of speaking and as such needed to be prompted occasionally.

"We, the Vampiric species, came to this world with the Conjunction of Spheres and we settled here. I don't know why as I had not been born. The Gnomes and Dwarves were already here. The elves cannot be answered for as they hid from us in a manner that they are uniquely suited for. Vampires, especially vampires that are fully sentient and capable of independent thought are relatively rare... I apologise... Are you aware of the concept of Sentience?"

"I am, but only in the vaguest terms. It is an overriding term meaning self awareness, consciousness and self determination."

"That is close to how I understand it as well. But Sentient vampires are relatively rare and we are not a numerous species to start with. I, and others put this down to our, in contrast to humanity, relatively long life-span. When we discovered humanity we were astonished. Our earliest records were of very primitive people that lived far to the north just south of the northern mountains. They wore furs and moved standing rocks into circles with no more technological advancement than weaving rope from animal sinew."

"Yes, we called them the Dauk. We don't know much about them but there was another human civilisation to the north. We call that area "Kovir" now. We refer to them as the Wozgor. We don't know if one came before the other and if so in which order. We know that the Wozgor were relatively sophisticated due to their necropolis' and the Dauk operated in the same areas and in the same place. Both predate First Landing though."

"I remember. It is...Interesting to me that you found something about those people that we had not realised. Something to think about."

It's like she froze in place. Neither hair on her head or ripple in her clothing moved. She was a painting, a statue or some other, equally terrifying work of art. She had lost none of the beauty that she had first manifested when the illusion was first put in place. But now it was still.

It was three minutes later that she moved again.

"I wonder if it's your relatively short lifespan that fuels your desperation to move forward. To learn and create. The struggle against your own mortality. I must think on this.

"But to answer some of your questions. When your "first Landing" happened. My own Vampiric community had no idea what you were. You seemed similar in basic physiology to ourselves, four limbs, head torso and similar placement of vital organs, most specifically the heart. But your motivations were utterly alien to us. Your emotions, passions, whims and interests are strange. In some cases they are lesser aspects of our own thoughts and feelings whereas in other directions our passions would be terrifying to you."

"For example?"

"For example? What humans refer to as Love is possibly the best example as well as the basis for a theory that I am developing even now. When we feel Love for another it is an all-consuming passion that sweeps us along, battering down sense and intelligence before the overwhelming desire to make the other person happy.

"My working theory is that although your technological advances in the years since I was put into imprisonment are astonishing. Your other areas of advancement are somewhat lacking. Specifically, here, what I'm talking about is your relatively underdeveloped language. Again my example is "Love". In your language it refers to the animal passion that overcomes you, both male and female, to procreate. You do have the word Lust, but it seems that this is sometimes an uncouth word. Almost like blasphemy. There is also Love: the desire between to people to stay close to one another and bring the other comfort. The word refers to physical Love, that part of the act which is to do with pleasure for yourselves, or Love, giving pleasure to the other person involved. There is the Love of Parents, the Love of siblings, the Love of children. All of these things refer to different feelings, instincts and emotions and yet you use only one word to describe them all and from what I understand, you sometimes even manage to get them all confused with each other.

"It's like you have formulated the most basic language to do the bare minimum of what a language has to do and have then left it there."

She stared into space for another long moment. It was a habit that I was finding increasingly disconcerting.

When she did eventually move and started speaking it made me jump.

"When your people first came to this part of the world... You called it "First Landing?"

I nodded,

"We didn't know what to make of you. It was some time before I even saw a human being and by that point I had already been well briefed by my fellows. As a whole we tend to be solitary creatures, intensely territorial in our efforts to not interfere with each others hunting grounds and so we live relatively far away from each other. We occasionally mingle for the sharing of news and gossip and you could do worse than imagine that clucking noise that chickens make when they get together. As a result I was well warned about your people when you did arrive.

"You were investigated after first landing and it was discovered that your flesh was a delicacy and that your blood provided an intoxicating effect that was entirely pleasant. Curiously it is also a poison, a non-lethal poison that is soon flushed out of our system. In that it is exactly like alcohol acting on a human.

"There was a meeting called just a little way south of here where the vampire clans gathered. We hadn't done so on such a scale since we had first arrived here and began spreading out and we discussed the new human problem and what we were going to do about it. Disasterously for human-vampire relations it was decided that you were what we called a "herd-race".

"Before you get too offended let me explain what that means. Where we come from there are species that roam the wild and that are cultivated by us to provide the common vampire with food. This is again, virtually identical to the way you treat cows, sheep, goats and so forth. We bred them for flavour and for the various uses that their remains can be put to. Humans were categorised into a new form of this. We did not recognise you, you fit all the criteria for a herd-race being perceived to have a much lower intelligence than ourselves and it was granted that in the long term it would actually be beneficial to your species overall. The plan at the time was still that we were waiting things out until another gateway between worlds would open up and we could all go home.

"Some clans took the point-of view that what we should do with the humans was to put you all into cages and carefully breed you all towards the ultimate form of your species. That form being the best tasting varieties. Every measurement of your species growth and management would be taken out of your hands and that would be that. There was also some scientific interest in learning more about life from the humans that we had gathered.

"Another group theorised that the best way was a more traditional stand-point. We still had records from what we referred to as "The old world" which suggested that it was possible to "over-farm" herd species and as a result drive them into uselessness and extinction. This group suggested that humanity would make far better "prey" rather than "herd" and should to be left to their own devices. The argument that humanities blood and flesh were considered delicacies was used by both sides. Are you with me so far?"

I was writhing in discomfort. I cannot deny that I found myself drawing parallels between humanity and the vampires in the way we treated our foodstuffs and that made me uncomfortable. I was outraged that humans could have been treated in that way but then, we treat other animals in the same way so...

I nodded at her.

"I found that I didn't really care that much. Humanity hadn't made it as far as my territory and as such, I didn't consider them to be my problem. We all went our separate ways and that was that. We

were surprised and curious that we found that humans could communicate with each other."

"Why didn't you react in the same way to the elves or other races?" I asked. I found myself

desperately wanting to distract her onto another topic.

"Have you tried finding an elf when they don't want to be found? Elven magic was still very powerful and wide spread back then. That use of magic proved their intelligence to us and so we left them alone. The industry of the dwarves and gnomes proved their intelligence, they lived underground and they had obviously been here before us. Courtesy meant that we stayed away from them. It may sound strange to your ears but there it was. Humans landed in _our_ territory. Therefore they were the invaders. Our sentiments were that you should be grateful that we didn't scour you from the face of the continent at the time.

"But I digress,

"When we found out that you could communicate it was suggested that there was a possibility of intelligence and therefore sentience in humanity. Some of us studied you in microscopic detail. That is where a lot of the horror stories come from of vampires dissecting and torturing humans in an effort to discover what "fear," "terror," and "a soul" was. If those self same humans had been able to communicate on our level we would have realised that mistake but it's important to remember that humanity was viewed as a lesser species.

"Some decided that it was further evidence that you should be left alone as a prey species. This might sound kinder from your point of view but these were the same creatures that hunted your people down for sport and their own entertainment.

"I took a macroscopic approach. I was already a sorceress and scientist and as such I thought that I would see what happens to humans and what progress they could make in a controlled environment. A feudal system is often best for these things. I positioned myself as a powerful Lord, possessor of magical powers and Godhood that were beyond their understanding and set up the nation of Angraal.

"At first I was pleased with the progress that my test subjects made. They developed communities, they enjoyed the rites that they performed in my worship"

I raised my eyebrows at that,

"I was a relatively caring Goddess," the vampire allowed herself a wicked smile. "Melitele had reached the settlers by that point and as such "me" worship soon died out. I was very pleased to be honest as it displayed decision making processes as to moral systems."

She stopped talking for a while. I associated this one more with her being lost in memory. I realised that Kerrass had walked up at this stage.

"What I didn't understand at the time was two factors. The first is that humanity, even in their relatively simple stage of progression in social and physical sciences has an intrinsic desire to self-govern but to be against the pre-established order of things, natural or otherwise. The other problem was that I hadn't realised that children eventually need their parents to die so that they can grow up. Humans live in communities which is one of the major differences between vampires and humans. We live solitary lives, so as soon as we are old enough. We leave our parents to wander the world and establish ourselves. It's done so that both parties can survive. Humans tend to stay in the same place. Travel is rare for humans but I was still here, 70-80 years after their arrival. A blink of time for me but a couple of generations for humans. Looking back, I now realise that this inspired fear and anger. To me, the experiment had only just started when my subjects rose up against me. I reacted... harshly. I can only explain that you might react exactly the same if the sheep rose up against you declaring that they it's barbaric that you wear their skin as clothing."

I shifted uncomfortably again although I could hear Kerrass laughing.

"From your perspective I did horrible things. From my perspective I was doing what I thought was best for the humans that lived here. Again what if those sheep decided that they didn't like eating grass anymore."

Kerrass kept chuckling and I glared at him.

"Can I make a new request?" she asked.

"You can certainly make it," I said,

"I need to know more about how your world works now. I find it fascinating now that I have to live in it and my imagination is quite fired up. You explained the politics and now I must know what it's like to live in it. Will the two of you talk to me as we do so?"

Kerrass and I did our "trading glances" trick again. He shrugged.

"Of course."

"Then we will begin tomorrow," she said.

"You need a name." I said. "We can't talk to you if you don't want to be referred to as "Your Majesty" all the time."

She nodded. "Does "Spider Queen" make you uncomfortable?"

"More than a little. Plus, to us it's a title, not a name,"

"That is valid. What would you name me then?"

"Don't look at me," said Kerrass. I'm a Witcher, not a poet.

"Does it need a poet?"

Kerrass nodded, "or a priest."

"We have neither. Let me think." I felt my brain turn over in that way it sometimes does. Like in an exam where you can't remember something but then, unbidden. The answer comes to the fore-front of your mind.

"How about 'Ariadne'?"

I looked at Kerrass. "Sounds Good,"

We both looked at her.

She was smiling.

"It is fitting," she said.


	22. Chapter 22

Doubt.

It's a small thing. A tiny thing.

Just a little thing that can cause so much pain.

I just want to talk about this for a little while.

I've been thinking about this a lot recently, both for the events back in Angraal and the events more recently at home.

It starts as a small thing, a small niggling thing that you start off thinking is just a random stray thought that can easily be dismissed or quashed. Just a small thing, a tiny little thing at the back of your brain.

But then that small thing turns into a seed. A tiny seed that despite your own best efforts, intentions and sometimes even your own best interests... You start to water this seed and it starts to grow.

Small things happen. Small little coincidences start to add up in your brain towards a huge conspiracy against you. Things that you would and should dismiss are brought up in front of your minds eye which are then blown up over night while you sleep so that when you wake up and go for breakfast or whatever, those thoughts are fully formed and even things that you took for granted as being absolutely sacrosanct become doubted. They become lies that you no longer trust.

Such a small thing is doubt. But the fruit that it bears can be huge and devastating and instead it turns into a wild animal crouched at the back of your skull that gnaws at your brain baying for blood.

I stood on the edge of the village, no longer trusting myself to stay seated on the back of my horse. It was the early hours of the morning and the sun was rising to a bright, warm and beautiful day. It was a mockery of what we saw before us. The sickly sweet stench of death that had once been so alien to me wafted through the air, heavy and cloying. I found myself praying for rain in the hope that the water would wash that stench away. The stench and the filth and the flies that accompany such a massacre.

Nearby a soldier was crying and vomiting at the same time. He must have been about fourteen and no-one thought any the less of him for it. Even those people who were hardened to such carnage walked around with hollow eyes and sick, despairing faces. To my horror I realised that I was turning into one of those people that could look upon such scenes and harden my heart to the things that I saw.

The villagers had been torn apart.

But that sentence doesn't do the scene justice. They had literally been torn apart by claws.

Somewhere, a church bell was ringing. The capital of Angraal was in sight now so it probably came from there and I stared at the sky seeking some kind of refuge in the blue of it but still the scent came to me along with the sobbing and retching of that young soldier.

I will do it. I will describe some of the things that I saw.

I saw a child who had been shaken until it's spine had snapped. It was bent at an impossible angle and then slammed against the ground. Blood had exploded from his mouth and one of his legs was missing. From where I stood it looked as though it had been torn off at the hip.

Another sight resolved itself and my brain rationalised it, telling me the story of what must have happened. There was a family, the man had rushed against the attacker. He had some kind of Kitchen knife that was clearly not meant as a weapon and barely deserved the title of knife. He had been pulled apart with his entrails lying like sausages between the two halves. Long stringy lines of purple meat that were drying in the sun. With his dying breaths he had tried to reach out to his family. There was further evidence that his wound had been gnawed upon.

The mother was barely there. Recognisable only because what little remained of her torso had a breast that had pulled clear of the shirt that she wore.

Their son was behind her. He had found a rake but had simply been decapitated. Other than that there wasn't a mark on him.

There was more, much more and I found I couldn't take it in but that wasn't quite true. I could take it in. I could take it in quite easily. The thing was that I didn't want to. I didn't want to see this.

Kerrass was expressionless. His face and entire posture had turned to granite as soon as the stench started wafting towards us. He stood there, eyes scanning the scene, flicking from detail to detail analysing, noting and thinking. He was the Witcher now. All professional, stoic and calm. Ready to placate whoever needed to be placated but then the hunt would be on. A fight in the darkness. A flash of silver and a roar of pain. He was anticipating it now, looking forward to that hunt and the revenge that would give these people.

But again I found that was my imagination. Wanting to see those things in him. He was disgusted at the waste here but that was it. He was powerless to do anything about it, the same as I was.

Lord Dorme sat on his horse. He was pale, large black rings showing under his eyes and his horse was restive under him. He wasn't wearing his full plate harness, just a shirt of chain covered his arming jacket suggesting that he had dressed quickly.

He noticed me looking at him and walked his horse over to us, blocking my view of the village below us which I found I was almost grateful for.

"This is what happens," he said, his voice hoarse with whatever was going on in his mind. "This is what happens when you take her leash off. She did this. She broke free of me while I slept last night and this is what she did. Your friendly vampire. Your mascot and travelling companion. She is a beast and a monster. Never forget that."

"A monster that you still intend to use." Kerrass's words sounded even harsher, like fingernails scraping across slate. "This is in her nature. But you intend to use this against your enemies. Which of you does that make more monstrous?"

Dorme sneered.

"You see this carnage and yet you still try to shift the blame from her onto me. She did this, no-one else. She did it. To me she is a weapon that will kill one person. After that she can be destroyed like the filth that she is. I didn't do this. I did not trail a child's insides from tree to tree like bunting for a party."

Kerrass turned away in disgust. "I would like to look around." he grated out. "She may have left a clue as to a potential weakness. If I can narrow that down it will make destroying her that much easier."

"No, there is no time. We will come back here afterwards and see to it."

Kerrass shook his head and started to walk back to camp where our charge waited. And I led my horse after him.

I was disappointed, incredibly angry and I didn't notice how fast I was moving until I had overtaken Kerrass and he caught me by the arm before we got back to the camp.

"Don't," he said simply.

"Don't what?" I snarled back.

"Don't do it," I opened my mouth to say something but Kerrass over-rode me. He came in close, well inside the personal space bubble that he normally maintained around himself and was whispering fiercely. I assume so that other people couldn't hear what we were saying to each other but it seemed a little futile to be honest.

"You're stomping off to go and confront her about this aren't you?"

"And why the fuck shouldn't I?"

"Up until ten minutes ago, if I asked you who you would rather trust. Ariadne or Dorme. Which would would you have chosen?"

"Fuck off. You know the answer to that as well as I do." I shrugged off his hand and tried to storm off but Kerrass was faster.

And stronger.

"Think Frederick. Just think. Look at the entire picture not just what you were shown but what you weren't shown. Did you inspect the bodies?"

"I..."

"No you fucking didn't. More to the point, neither did I. Were those bite and claw marks the signs of Necrophages, other prey animals or the leavings of a vampire. I don't know do you?"

"It seems pretty obvious..."

"No it doesn't. Think. You're being emotional and that kind of emotion can get you killed. You wanted to know what it's like to be a Witcher. This is what it's like. You are presented with a scene, told it was one thing, you prepare for that one thing and then run after it but what if it isn't that thing? Remember that Dorme wouldn't let me inspect the bodies because "there isn't enough time," It takes me 5 minutes to check that. But he prevented us."

"Who else is it going to be Kerrass? Who else could it be?"

"Answer your own damn question would you. Examine the situation. Be the scholar that you are."

"That kid was ripped apart Kerrass."

"I know but it's our job to separate ourselves from that. I'm the Witcher, you're the scholar. To comment objectively is your remit. To hunt objectively is mine."

"Maybe that's a weakness." I replied.

"Weaknesses are dangerous. Caution, patience and thinking time is not. Look at the entire picture. Look at what you were shown but also what you weren't shown and what you don't know. Could Ariadne even do that?"

"I don't know."

"Neither do I. She's massively powerful but she's also been starving for centuries. How long does it take a vampire to recover from that. I don't know. She doesn't need to eat flesh or drink blood to survive. That is truth. If she was powerful enough to do that so that no-one could have survived, why hasn't she done that to the guards. Don't think for one second that their little swords or chain-mail would frighten a beast that could perform a massacre like that one."

"But she needs this army to do her bidding. How will she re-take Angraal without it? She's ambitious Kerrass, you know that and I know it. What if she's changed her mind. What if she wants that throne and needs a last minute boost to her strength to be able to fight the hold that Dorme has over her."

"All of those are perfectly reasonable questions but think about what happens if you confront her with them. Best case, worst case. The best case is that we lose what fragile bonds of trust that we've managed to build up between us. The worst case is that she loses her temper and kills a whole bunch of people. Those options are true whether she is innocent of that attack or not."

"Who else could have done it? If she's innocent then provide me with another suspect Kerrass. Go on, I dare you."

Kerrass remained calm. It was a remarkable feat.

"There are three possibilities that I see. The first is that you are quite right and that Ariadne lost her temper or was driven mad by blood or flesh lust and went on a rampage. Second, and I think this is far more likely to tell the truth is that Dorme, who is stupid but not a fool, has scouts out. This village saw those scouts and, or, is in the way of his military movements so it needs to be destroyed. Dorme then decides to make use of this slaughter to undermine our relationship with Ariadne. Teeth marks and claw marks are easy to fake at a distance. The third possibility is that someone else did it for their own reasons and Dorme is capitalising on it."

"Say what you like but Dorme is still a human being. He wouldn't order that."

"Wouldn't he? He ordered your poisoning remember. He actually did your poisoning."

"He was shaken by what he saw there Kerrass. I could tell."

"Yes, he actually saw what he had done and was sickened by it. As you say, he's human."

"She's still a vampire Kerrass. She's a monster."

"I'm a Witcher Frederick and some people call me monster too." He drew me in really close then by grabbing the lapels. His eyes glowed and I was again left with the feeling that I could see fangs out of the corner of my eyes.

Then he dropped me and I had to stagger to catch my balance.

"Either way Frederick. You've asked me a few times about why I hate politics so much and why I try not to get involved. This is why. This situation right here. We're fucked. Absolutely fucked. If we're lucky we'll get a short march to the headsman rather than the slow march to the noose by way of the torture chamber.

"There are three ways this goes down. The first way is that Dorme's plot works and he manages to take the throne. He manages to keep hold of her Ladyship and proceeds to slaughter all his enemies in an effort to maintain his legitimacy. Which means that the two of us have to go. We've seen to much, we know how he did it and you're a famous person who likes to write these things up in a journal that is then published so he can't possibly allow you to live and as for me? I make an awfully attractive scape-goat. Wandering Witcher, Wandering vagabond. Synonymous with Wandering criminal and murderer. Make up a charge, make with the chopping.

"The second way is that Dorme loses control over Her Ladyship. She turns feral and murders everyone or she actually manages to seize power. Again, her nearest threat are the two scum-fucks who let her go in the first place. One of which knows how to, and is trained how to kill her. The other will again wander off and publish his findings, making it clear to the world that what they are actually dealing with is an elder vampire.

"The third option is that the "King" of the realm is well aware of what's going on. He has people that worry about this kind of thing for him. They tell him, "ere. That Dorme chap is raising what looks like an army. He's also gone off to that secret valley where the Spider Queen lives. He hates you and might be planning a coup". The King then summons the nearest mage to serve as his "court wizard", as well as the army and whatever else is lying around and is planning an ambush for when we walk into the capital. Her Ladyship will probably survive, she'll just flap off somewhere knowing vampires but the minor Redanian nobleman son and the itinerant Witcher that released this terror onto the world will soon be caught if they weren't killed in the opening moments."

He took a deep breath.

Then another.

"Then the follow up to all three happens. Someone nearby decides to get ambitious, raises their own army and comes in to mop up the survivors."

He turned away from me.

"The plan is still the same. We're trapped here and now so we have to be patient and bide our time. Placate all sides and then, when it all kicks off, we fight or sneak our way to freedom. Stealing what we need as we go and try to flag down the nearest Imperial official which is when we tell our story. It's cowardly yes, but it means we survive and graveyards all over the world are filled with brave

men who didn't know the best time to cut their ties and run."

He took another couple of deep breaths.

"That might make you despise me Fred but at the end of the day I'm just trying to keep us alive. I'm going to check that they've got our horses ready and to see if I can steal some provisions."

He strode off. Quickly, so that he could control his own temper.

I found Ariadne in our little enclosure. She was sat on a stool reading one of the books that I had leant her. She was fascinated with the various aspects of modern human culture and demanded more and more information on the topic. The tent and the rest of our belongings had been packed away by various people and the army was in that bit between most of the people being ready and actually moving off that tends to last an hour or two.

She looked up and smiled. The illusion was no longer that of a travelling lady but now it was that of a Queen returning home and I would be lying if I said that the effect wasn't devastatingly beautiful. She was regal, impressive, corseted with a dress of dark purple velvet which defied all the laws of nature by being resolutely clean despite trailing in the mud. She was wearing a hug-collared black cloak with red inlay and it was fur-lined. Hair was piled up on top of her head but not too over done which suggested that she was returning from somewhere. There was a silver circlet holding it in place with black gems studding it. She also wore a silver necklace with Large black and red stones mounted in clever ways that they caught the morning sun light. Her golden staff had reappeared from somewhere and was propped against her shoulder and, as if by accident, the rearing spider that stood on the top end of the staff was facing me.

She looked up and smile, perfectly white teeth set off by the dark red lips that were the exact shade of her dress. That couldn't be a coincidence.

"You're back. How did it go?"

I was breathing heavily.

"Is everything alright? What did Fuck-face want?" She had adopted our nick-name for Dorme over the last few days and always pronounced it in a special way that suggested extra letters in the words that never ceased to cause Kerrass and I some amusement.

"Did you do it?" I demanded harshly.

"Did I do what?"

"Don't play games with me highness?" I spat, "And don't hide behind your oh so pretty illusionary face, showing me the expressions and emotions that you want me to see. Did you do it?"

Very slowly and carefully a book mark was produced and placed within the book that she was reading.

"What has happened Frederick?" she asked calmly.

"Did you murder that village?"

She looked me in the eyes. All previous warnings about looking into the eyes of a vampire were driven out of my mind in that moment.

"What village Frederick?"

"You know what village,"

She gazed at me steadily and I tried to tell what she was thinking.

"I do not." She said after a while.

"Did you tear that child in half?"

She stared at me for a long time before standing up.

"I'm not going to answer that." If she had been human I would have thought she was hurt.

"Why not? Is that because it's true. You killed that village. You slaughtered them for their blood and their flesh. After everything we've talked about you did it didn't you?"

"So quick to believe what you've been shown. So quick to believe your old prejudices." she sneered the words. "Humanity hasn't come that far after all." she threw the book at me.

"So you did do it."

"Look at yourself Frederick. You come here and accuse me of that. By yourself. Do you think for one moment that you are safe from me?"

"Does it matter? You are a killer and a tyrant. Those people were nothing to you. I am nothing to you. Neither me, Kerrass, Dorme or any of the rest of these people. We're just pawns in your games. A way of keeping score. Well these gaming pieces locked you up before and we can do it again."

"Maybe," she snarled and then I was dangling off the ground as she held me up by the throat. But make no mistake about it Frederick. I would kill the ring-leaders first. I would kill the leaders first. I would kill you first."

I make no excuses for the cliché, it was just the anger and pain talking. "Then do it now. Monster." I choked it out through gritted teeth while pulling at the fingers that held my throat in a vice.

She dropped me.

"Humans," she spat. "Still the same."

Some soldiers found me gasping for breath a few minutes later.

It's a shame really as up until that point we had been getting on quite well.

No that isn't sarcasm.

After that first round of question and answer between herself and I she became a non-stop chatter-box. She would wake us up with questions, question us while we ate, while we rode and when we stopped for the night. On one occasion of the four days that it had taken us to ride to the point where we found the village (as I say, this train of people marched far slower than any regular army or group of travellers.) Kerrass and I had to forcefully point out to her that we were tired and needed to sleep. She nodded and stayed perfectly still so that as soon as we woke up the following day, she hadn't moved and took up the conversation again in exactly the same place.

The topics for her questions were wide-ranging and varied often leaping off into vast tangents that would consume hours before she would return unerringly to the original point that we had been discussing. We talked about history, sciences, botany, etymology, religion and it's role, Philosophy, philology, something that she referred to as "social sciences", (neither of us knew what that meant but she asked a few leading questions and soon had us talking on the subject.), gender roles, gender politics and so on. She had this habit of shutting down to consider a point. She would answer one of us with the words "interesting" or "fascinating" then she would sit still in that perfectly still way that betrayed the fact that she was no longer concentrating on her illusion, normally for just enough time for our brains to wander off and then she would be back, questioning us just as much as we had done previously.

It was fascinating to us as well. I haven't checked with Kerrass but the opportunity to sit down and talk with a creature such as this was overwhelming to me. In some ways her knowledge and method of thinking was vastly more advanced than my own causing me to challenge long held beliefs that no longer held up in the face of her calm and well reasoned questions. Kerrass' amusement when she asked me why there weren't any female Kings and I responded that that would make them Queens instead. She told me that we treat "Queens" as being lesser to "Kings" though in our thinking and our mode of speech. She pointed out that the lines of succession passed through the male line and it was only due to extreme circumstances that Queens ruled Kingdoms openly. Often doing quite well at it to citing my own examples of Queen Calanthe of Cintra and Queen Meve of Rivia.

Two of these topics are relevant to what happened later so I will do my best to jot down the essential parts of those topics.

The first was regarding the topic of what the people of Touissant refer to as "Noblisse Oblige" or

"The obligations of a noble".

"So. Let me just see if I understand this correctly." she said. "If you are a lord, you have a responsibility to look after the people under your care. The people that farm your fields and work on your land."

"That sounds about right." I said. I was a little concerned as a number of the nearby soldiers had very obviously tilted their heads to listen closely to the conversation.

"So that is the purpose of taxation? To give the money to the Lord so that the Lord can pay for whatever is needed for his particular patch of land."

"Yes. The Lord also has to give a portion of that money to the crown and sometimes, depending on where you are, the church."

"I see. But why the crown?"

"Because all land is owned by the crown. The Lord rules that Land by the Kings sufferance."

"But what happens if the Lord and the King disagree?"

"Therein lies the problem as few lords are willing to give up this autonomy or resent the crowns decisions." I waved at the surrounding men to illustrate my point.

"Interesting." She said, freezing for a moment. "Leaving aside the idea of giving money to the church for a moment." I tried to hide a sigh of relief. Later that day it would turn out that she hadn't forgotten and had noticed my discomfort. "But what does the crown do with it?"

"Generally they save that money for future disasters. They might grow and maintain an army with it. Use it for trade or do their best to better their Realms with it."

"Or they spend it on their own luxuries." Put in Kerrass. He had been mostly quiet on this subject and was enjoying my discomfort just as much as the surrounding soldiers clearly were. "Or pay back the bankers for the various debts that have been accrued."

"Why would they give themselves gifts and luxuries at the expense of the common man?" she asked innocently. I swear that I could hear the surrounding soldiers, villagers and farmers to a man, turning to me with expectant ears. "Surely what that means is that the King should be the poorest man in the country as all of the money that is given to him is given by his subjects and that money should be spent back on those subjects."

"There are two reasons." I began, thinking hard. "The first is an explanation as to why they _should_ do it and the second is why they _probably_ do it.

"They _should_ do it because the rulers are in competition with neighbouring realms and therefore with neighbouring rulers. A display of luxury is a display of strength and intimidation. If their counterpart detects any weakness then they might invade or pursue that weakness. Or if they see strength then they might look for expansion elsewhere against another realm meaning that the ruler has protected his people from a long and costly war. Costly in both money but also in lives and material."

"I see, so part of that responsibility is to keep their people safe?"

"Yes."

"So why do they really do it?"

"Greed," I answered. "Greed and entitlement. These families and royal lines have been in power for generations and after a few generations they start to believe that they deserve those luxuries that they should be given them rather than having to earn them."

"I see. How interesting." It was the utter lack of sarcasm that she said this with that really got to me.

There was another long pause. You know how, when there's an intermittent noise that's just keeping you from dropping off to sleep. Where it'll stop for a while and you think "finally. It's stopped. Now I can just drop off to..." and then it starts again. It was like that.

"Frederick?"

"Yes?"

"You're a noble aren't you."

"Only just."

"But you are the son of a lord of men?"

"Yes I am."

"Does he support this concept of 'a nobles obligations'?"

I considered. It was a tricky question as I had never really thought about it before.

"My father is a complicated man. He comes from Mercantile stock, therefore, to the other nobles he is a commoner. But to his villagers he is still the Lord. Yes he has carried out massive works to upgrade and better his lands and his populace. He was heavily involved in the logistics divisions of King Radovid's armies although he didn't get much credit for that kind of thing because he has an eye for a good trade. So his people are better fed and better prepared for the future. The heirs of his heirs have the potential to be great people as a result but he is bitter that he isn't that important. He does follow the tenets of "The Obligation," but I get the impression that he does it because he can and because it winds up the other local lords who are not as good at it. He holds massive parties where other lords are invited to look at his great works and how it benefits the other people of his lands. It is one of the many reasons that they hate him for it."

"I see." It was another common little phrase that she uses on a regular basis. Two little words that carry a whole wealth of meaning. "Tell me Frederick. If _you_ were given the power, would _you_ fulfill this obligation?"

"I like to think so. But I am also self aware enough to realise that it is unlikely to come up and also, because I am a younger son and lack the training that my elder siblings had in the area of governing, that I have been allowed the luxury of believing in things like chivalry and nobility. My journeys with Kerrass have gone a long way to show me some of the errors in my thinking in regards to both but also regarding the lives of the villagers. I am beginning to feel that there are many nobles that could do with spending a year or two working in the fields, herding the sheep and other such things where a luxury is an actual lump of meat in the stew."

There were some more rumblings of agreement from the other soldiers.

This was a typical conversation but there was another one that sticks out in my mind.

"Tell me Frederick." Another one of her little phrases that have made me develop a flinch reflex.

"What is your ideal woman?"

"What?"

"I mean physically. What would your ideal woman look like?"

Kerrass perked up, his eyes glinting. "Yes Frederick tell us. What does your ideal woman look like?"

"Ummmm, I don't know what to say." Yes I was buying time but what can you do in the face of a question like that. "I can honestly say that I have been attracted to many women of different shapes and sizes. I just like women, all women really. But that's not what's important. I find many women beautiful but I'm not really attracted to them until I get to know them better. By which time I can generally find something to be attracted to regardless of the lady. But if you're asking me whether I'm a breast man or a leg man. I cannot answer that. I'm a 'woman' man. I like women."

"Interesting." she was peering at me intently. We were developing a kink in the marching order of the column as more people were beginning to clump up to listen to this particular topic of conversation. "And what qualities of a woman do you find attractive?"

"Intelligence," I answered promptly. I had been ready for this one. "Not necessarily education but intelligence is important. Humour certainly... I don't know really. There are several things and not all of them are quantifiable."

"I see. It's a formless quality. That unidentifiable spark that exists between two people that is both physical and mental."

"And social." I put in.

She nodded. "Fascinating," she was about to go off into one of her little thought processes but Kerrass decided to stick his own thoughts into the mixture.

"Yeah. That's bullshit." He leant over to Ariadne. "I'd call him on his bullshit if I were you. Yep." He straightened. "Definitely Bullshit."

A Seargeant who was marching nearby had to scream at the rank and file to be silent after the men started giggling uncontrollably.

"Kindly explain Kerrass." I am certain. CERTAIN that she managed to put a mocking sweetness into her tone which suggested that I was being ganged up on.

"Yes Kerrass." I hissed without too much anger. "Do explain because as far as I know I spoke the truth,"

Kerrass smiled a little mocking smile at me before turning to address the vampire again.

"It's not his fault really and you shouldn't think too badly of him for the lie. As he says, he is speaking as honestly as he is able. Also to be fair to Freddie, he is better with the ladies than many would give him credit for and better than many of our gender and his class. For example, he never forces himself on a woman, he waits for outright consent and I understand that, despite the frustration it sometimes causes, he checks one final time before losing control of himself. He also ensures that his partners enjoy themselves as well which is rare. All of these things are to be commended. But his physical type, what he is most attracted to is just about the same as every one of the men within earshot that are paying such careful attention."

"What is that?" she asked in the same way that she had earlier been asking about a particular kind of fungus.

"He wants the thing that he can't have. Height doesn't matter, tall or short doesn't even register. But what he really likes is slim build, unbound long hair regardless of colour, smooth skin, shapely face..."

"What kind of shape?" the vampire asked with some interest.

"It doesn't matter as long as it's shapely." Kerrass responded promptly. "He also appreciated well turned legs."

"What about breasts?" she wondered.

"Also doesn't matter so long as they are firm rather than saggy. But most of all he likes a particular posture. Upright, noble bearing, courteous but unafraid. Able to look him in the eye and to treat him as an equal."

"Interesting observation," There was just the hint of a smile around Ariadne's face. "What leads you to these conclusions?"

"Observation and much experience."

"Will you be more specific?"

"Certainly. I should also say that it's not his fault. He was taught to behave this way, or rather he was taught the opposite point of view and he acts out of resistance to that attitude."

"Do go on."

"There is one area that the nobility have it worse off than everyone else and that is because they don't get to choose who they marry. This decision is made by their relevant parents or, in some cases, it is a decision made by the relevant monarch in the case of particularly important nobles.

"When they are choosing a wife for a son, the thing that they look for is not attractiveness or social or intellectual compatibility," I had noticed that Kerrass could converse with academics with some ease when he put his mind to it. "The thing they are looking for most of all is proven fertility. Obviously this is something that is difficult to test, so instead they look at the figure of the woman and the perceived physical quality is wide hips with the argument that the wider the hips, the easier it would be for the baby to pop out. The girl is then trained to be able to please whichever man she is told to marry which includes things like, averted gaze, no sense of humour, demure subservient behaviour and so on so that the man of the house doesn't just chuck her out into the cold, or worse, ignore her completely."

Ariadne was rapt. So was I for that matter.

"The other men of the continent are exactly the same. EXACTLY the same before they start acting all smug, and they all want the same sorts of things within an acceptable scientific margin for error. Men are always the same. The desire for the thing that they can't have and a small amount of forethought can easily explain everything that is involved in this.

"Peasants, by which I mean everyone who isn't a noble, _are_ allowed to marry for love. But men are simple creatures and although, like Freddie, the good ones learn to be attracted to reasonable things like intelligence, humour, charm and wisdom they need to be attracted over in the first place. But then comes the thing that peasants also have that overwhelming instinct to do that thing that is humanities secret weapon. The thing that means they will be here long after the elves, dwarves, gnomes, halflings and begging the ladies pardon, the vampires have all died out."

"Which is?"

"They fuck like bunnies. It's a natural instinct. When they landed on this continent they were isolated and alone in the middle of a landmass that hated them, full of creatures that wanted to eat them or worse. Their only defence against this is to aggressively procreate. They breed at a rate that would exhaust every single female of any other species. A human woman can be relied upon to spit out a child once every year or so until she finally tells her husband to go fuck himself and sleep in a different bed. The mortality rate is high but if you're producing at that speed then, with all respect to those people who have lost folks, the mortality rate is acceptable. Taken against the elven way where elves live for hundreds of years if unchecked but are only fertile for a relatively short space of time and tend to give up after one or two.

"The elves claim that the humans are aggressively invading their territory but they aren't. They just need the extra room for all the babies that they keep having.

"But back to the initial discussion. This rate of production is hard on the female and any man who says otherwise is either lying or is misinformed. I've seen babies heads. That cannot be pleasant. But in turn the hard life of a peasant ruins the people. Their women get bent over because they're either bent over the huge belly that their husband gave them, bent over the child that the lump produced, bent over the flowerbeds or other work that the family needs to survive, bent over the meal of turnips that they have been given to eat and then people wonder why old women are bent over all the time.

This process ages the ladies before their time. Peasant women are at their most attractive between the ages of fourteen to eighteen, especially on the underpopulated frontier. Richer villages or towns where luxuries, amenities and health-care mean that that margin becomes larger, extending further into their twenties or even thirties and the women can afford to be little girls for a bit longer. But the factors are still the same. Long hours outside mean that skin becomes weathered, rough and wrinkled. Hair becomes unwashed, cut short to avoid lice, covered, braided or tied up to keep out of the way. Muscled in strange areas with malnutrition eventually taking their tolls on innocent, beautiful young women.

"This is improving as "civilisation" is spreading, although I use the term loosely, and people understand the need to take a break once every so often, maybe bathe and take the potions that the local herb-people suggest before they get burned as witches and warlocks by the church.

"Noble women are the same. They are taught to behave in a certain way and rather than playing to their strengths they are taught to minimise their weaknesses. Hair is again covered or braided according to tradition. The poisons in the make-up mean that skin becomes blotchy and damaged. The list goes on and on.

"Their are two groups of women who do not adhere to these regards.

"The first is those pliers of the oldest trade. The prostitutes and whores. Their hair is long and unbound for a reason. They know that long unbound hair teaches men to think of wives in the bed-chamber but here _they_ are being all young, pretty and available. A decent Madame or pimp will make sure that the girls are clean, well fed and healthy so they have those benefits as well. They also have the pride of women who band together and who know that "society" looks down on them having to sell their bodies to survive so there is an "us against them" vibe there which gives them courage.

"But the last group. The group of the ultimate unattainables... If you ask Freddie now, who the top ten renowned beauties are in the world. I would be willing to bet that of those top ten. Eight of them will be Sorceresses. Of those eight, six will belong to the Lodge of Sorceresses.

Sorceresses who can wear their hair long and full because who is going to tell them not to.

Sorceresses who are well aware that they wield more power in their little fingers than armies.

Sorceresses who have the ears of Kings and Emperors.

Sorceresses, who have access to the best alchemical ingredients and spells to accentuate already magically mutated beauty."

Kerrass paused for breath.

"The fact that these same women have been, up until recently, vilified and hunted, only makes that attraction more acute as it convinces men that these women need rescuing. What chance does the average village girl or nobleman's daughter have against them?"

Kerrass sighed and took a drink from his canteen before continuing.

"The problem is lessening fortunately and women are benefiting from the spread of proper care. Life spans are getting longer and so on but the male still lusts after the thing that he cannot have. I am a Witcher. The number of times I have been hired by some randy lord to find them a young and nubile Dryad, Naiad, Russalka or even Vampire woman for those who want to live on the dangerous side. Forever young, forever beautiful and forever forbidden."

He subsided on that last point.

"Is it only men that lust after these things?" Ariadne asked.

I opened my mouth to respond but Kerrass beat me to it.

"No. Women are just as susceptible. Early in our days of travelling together, Frederick noticed that I was propositioned by women frequently and often. He wondered why."

He looked over at me with a sardonic smile.

"Yes, I have read your little essays and no I don't like them."

He turned back to Ariadne.

"This is the answer. I am alien to them. I have different eyes, I am fit, well muscled and therefore easy on the ladies eye. They know that I am infertile, therefore they will not get pregnant by me, and that I am immune to disease meaning that they will not catch something that needs explaining away. They also know that I will move on so a night of pleasure with the Witcher is a relatively risk free rebellion against societies strict rules."

"And you Kerrass, what's your ideal woman?" The vampire asked.

Kerrass stared off into the passing fields for a moment.

"I want a woman who says that she loves me the morning after without having to be paid for the privilege."

"Fascinating," said Ariadne.


	23. Chapter 23

We rode into the capital of Angraal.

To my complete lack of surprise, it seemed we were expected although no armed force met us or tried to block our way. Instead the streets were absolutely deserted.

Calling it a capital is a bit of an exaggeration, Novigrad this was not, but it was certainly big enough to have multiple inns, I spotted several blacksmiths and some empty market stalls but it was eerily quiet. It felt like a trap. A trap that we were just walking into. Kerrass had found me a knife that was hidden in my boot and the knight that rode next to me had my spear in it's separate components within easy reach. His orders were to hand it to me should fighting break out but I was not naïve enough to believe that if he was under attack he would first take the time to pass me my weapon before, I dunno, raising his shield for instance?

We rode into the capital, hooves clattering against cobbled streets, armour and horse tack jangling in the late morning air. The sun was high and hot but storm clouds were gathering over the mountains to the North and the East, as fitting an omen as anything for the days business.

Not for the first time I reached up to my chest where my holy symbol hangs around my neck and felt the outline against my chest.

The soldiers walked in, war veterans mixed in with younger men, equipment shared out. Men with short hunting bows strode alongside other men with the huge Temerian heavy crossbows. I saw a man wearing some solid looking chain mail lean to one side to vomit by the side of the march while the man he was walking beside, dressed in well worn leathers clapped him on the shoulder. Our eyes darted everywhere, trying to see in through the shuttered windows, onto roof tops and down side alleys.

Somewhere a dog barked because dogs always bark into the silent moments. Somewhere else a cat screamed it's response. I had a sudden image of all the various animals that populate a town like this, the cats, dogs, rats, chickens, birds and whatever else having their own network of communication that ran across town lines where they discussed the doings of the humans that marched through the streets and for a while my imagination ran wild with the current conversation.

"Those stupid humans are at it again," said the dog,

"Yeah I know, have yours fed you yet?" complained the cat.

"Yeah, and I caught a rat down the cellar. Found a place to hide in a storm drain until it's all over."

"Lucky sod. Wish I could find a rat."

"Getting old, that's your trouble."

"You are not wrong, see you for cards on Thursday?"

The squeal of an axle shook me from my not unpleasant imaginings.

Somewhere they had found a carriage for the Vampire to ride in. Huge and black from a distance but up close you could tell that the paint was recent and still drying and that many of the ornaments that should have been decorating it were missing.

It did the job though. It was heavily curtained and no-one could see in. Kerrass rode on the other side of the carriage out of my own view. He had been allowed his own weapons although he had been searched thoroughly for the sign of any potions. He had enquired as to how he was supposed to kill an elder vampire without potions and oils but the guard had simply shrugged. There was an air of despair on our side that was permeating the men. They felt that they were going to die today and I had little reason to suspect otherwise.

We were attacking a held position when the "enemy" knows that we're coming. Our forces are equipped and under-trained. I didn't know anything about enemy numbers although we had been told repeatedly that there were other supporters of our cause that had brought there own forces up and were settling in around the capital for one of various signals that I was not party to. The worst thing though was our secret weapon.

I had cooled down a lot since seeing the results of the slaughter earlier that day. Many other possibilities had opened themselves up to my mind since I had seen those corpses. Not least of which was that Dorme could have caused the vampire to commit the atrocity so that she could be physically stronger for her role in his coup.

I had reminded myself about the old saying that the first casualty of any war is the truth. I had always thought the saying was a little inaccurate as another casualty that should be right up there is "innocence" but then I'm a scholar, not a philosopher.

But we still didn't know what Ariadne was going to do. Nor did we know Dorme's plans for her. Kerrass knew what she could do and had suggested that I not find out in case I would be paralysed with fear. I did not find this encouraging. The only person who seemed absolutely sure of what was going to happen was Dorme himself who rode at the front of the column riding in his full plate harness which had been polished to a sheen that made it hard to look at. He stared straight ahead, banner flapping gently in the breeze. He was upright, straight as a statue, barely moving at all with his flunkies hanging around him surveying the town with the air of people who had finally come into their own and were already rearranging the furniture.

I hated them then.

Then came us, the carriage, with Kerrass and I on either side as well as our escort that were squeezed in on either side.

I felt ridiculous and massively out of place, unwanted, unneeded and superfluous. I was observing events and it made me feel a little dirty.

Our little column of people walked into the capital. At first there was some attempt to maintain order but it left shortly afterwards. The enormous pressure that was on us all waiting for death to strike out at us at any moment but much to my surprise we made it to what passed for the town centre. It was a green square, a small meadow maybe 46 square feet and in the middle was this tree. I don't know if it's the oldest tree I've ever seen, certainly not the biggest but it was the tree with the most... I want to say character. It was gnarled and massive. The sort of tree where you can imagine children wanting to climb up it and play around the huge branches without any fear of falling off. Huge branches that would have fallen off in nature under their own weight were supported by equally ancient wooden posts that were driven into the ground. All around it the grass grew and in amongst the grass I could see scattered food leavings, sweet wrappers and apple cores. This was a public place, a gathering place where people sat, talked and ate together. A centre of community.

The column stopped at a shout that rippled down the line. People still stood about waiting to see what would happen.

Without being asked or told Ariadne climbed out of the carriage, balancing herself against the door side. She walked using the staff as a badge of office and stood for a moment looking at the tree. She seemed lost in thought. Kerrass had come round the side and was watching her carefully, alternating between looking at her and the group gathering around Dorme.

It seemed that there was an argument going on.

Looking at Kerrass, who shrugged, I approached the vampire. Her illusion seemed more in tune with her own actions now. More and more it was harder to remind yourself that this was an illusion. It was seductive to think of her as a person rather than a creature so utterly different to the rest of us.

She was still wearing her dress from earlier, regal and beautiful but she was also wrapped up and hidden in a voluminous hooded cloak that all but hid her from view.

She looked up at me as I approached. No trace of her earlier anger on her face as I moved to stand next to her and she returned to looking at the tree.

"I was born here Frederick. Sorry I should check. Can I still call you Frederick?"

I nodded. I was so surprised at the declaration that I didn't know what to say.

"Just up against that tree there. I'm glad they've preserved it after all this time. I might have chopped it down if I'm honest but I could still point out the place. Just round the side there."

I continued to say nothing. What do you say to something like that?

"Everything in our society is so heavily ritualised. When a couple does decide to have a child it is worth remembering that what we're actually doing is producing a rival hunter so it's quite a huge thing. You have to seek permission from the elders and all kinds of things, let alone finding another vampire who cares enough about you to _want_ to bring another vampire into the world.

"But my mother realised that her time had come, she flew up from her own home, high into the air, so high that the sky began to change from blue to black, high enough that the air became thin and difficult to breathe and she scanned the horizon before selecting this spot. I don't know why this spot but this was the one that she decided and she flew down here and chose that tree to give birth."

She sighed.

"I wish I could properly impart what it was like. It was a profound experience and I remember it clearly. The movement from warmth, comfort and having everything provided for me into an environment where I was cold and so painfully, wonderfully _aware_ of everything around me. It sounds sinister in your language but I was aware of the life-flow all around me, the blood pumping in my own veins, the blood in the veins of my mother and the woodland animals that came to witness my birth and inside the bodies of the lesser vampires that would be my servants until I had grown to full maturity in a few years. I could feel it in the ground beneath me, the water in the grass and the earth. The sap in the tree with it's leaves and all of it's wonderful connections. I could hear the long slow heartbeat of the earth.

"My mother left as soon as she was strong enough to move. I needed to exert my own influence on the area and the longer that she was there, the more her already established character would change the surroundings. It sounds harsh and unpleasant to you I have no doubt but to us it is the single most important sacrifice that a person can make. The sacrifice that a parent will not be able to see their child grow and to be influenced in any way. Indeed to realise that their child might even grow into a great rival in the future.

"At first I just lay there. Cold and hungry but I had no time to feel the loss as animals came and warmed me. Food was produced and given to me and I first started to reach out with my mind and touch my surroundings.

"I loved that tree and for the longest time I stayed here in this area until other needs sent me into the nearby countryside. When humans first came here I directed them to establish themselves here, practically there is water, fertile ground and ample game nearby but also, on another level, I wanted them to experience that sense of wholeness that I had first experienced when I came into the world. That...oneness with the world. I didn't know that humans reacted to the world differently to us at the time and I remember being hurt and angered that... you seemed to miss that."

She was startled out of her memory by a shout from Dorme, he seemed annoyed that she had emerged from the carriage before he was ready for her.

"Never the less, I do love that tree." she turned and walked back towards the gathering of Lordlings.

"What are you going to do?" I found myself asking.

She stopped and rubbed her temples as if trying to alleviate a headache. Such a human gesture.

"I do not know," she said. "I do not know and I find I'm so very tired of it all."

She took another breath before shrugging as if to say that it was out of her hands and turned away.

We marshalled together, lining up and I don't know if it was genuine despairing hysteria or what but I got a fit of the giggles as Dorme and his cohorts marched up and down the line, rehearsing with us all as to how we should enter this great hall, where we should go and where we should stand.

"Uniforms" were inspected, I say uniforms but there wasn't really any kind of uniform, armour was buffed and we all stood up straight. Ariadne had raised her hood and was a simple black shape in the middle of us all minus her staff which had disappeared somewhere about herself. I had finally been handed my spear but I wasn't allowed to put it together and in truth it would be useless as we were so tightly packed together.

The entire plan hinged on this. What would Ariadne do?

Dorme seemed confident and the mysterious bag was strapped to his right hip. As I watched he would touch it occasionally for reassurance.

Then we were led round the horses and the carriage to a large building. It was by far the oldest building there and it had the appearance of one of those buildings where it's appearance was a matter of tradition rather than practicality. Where the other buildings around the main square were tile and brick, this was stone and thatch.

We walked in, two guardsmen who I assumed stood at the gate were pushed inside by men with swords and we entered. It was a long hall that reminded me a lot of drawings that I've seen of Skelligan Long-houses. High ceilings, Wooden framework with tapestries lining the walls. There was no fire-pit in the middle though, nor were there any tables laden with food or servants passing out drinks. This was a meeting hall and it was already quite full.

Men and women of all ages stood within the hall. Mostly well off looking men and women stood around the place as well as what I took to be the official guardsmen of Angraal. These men _did_ have uniforms and has Kerrass had instructed me long ago I appraised them. Worn sword handles, signs of scarring, proper equipment rather than decorative equipment and their eyes were flat and uninterested as they appraised us in the same fashion. All of this led me to believe that if it came to a straight up fight between our party and these guardsmen, even though we did outnumber the guardsmen, it would be a massacre.

I touched my holy symbol again.

I guessed that the vast majority of the assembly were locally based merchants and their wives with the odd noble-person also present. There were other armed men here and there who I took for bodyguards who could be discounted as their first duty would be to protect their charge. I saw a priest of the eternal flame, his shaved head stood out, much taller than the other courtiers marking him as an outsider and he was escorted by a pair of men in chain-mail with red sur-coats leaving me wondering if the church had started recruiting knights again after the Witch-hunters had been disbanded.

I also managed to spot what I guessed would be a priestess of Melitele. Simple grey robes with the pendant that would display the three aspects of the Goddess. Her hair was tied back and out of the way. Something that they only do when they're expecting to treat wounded.

Not a good sign.

As we moved forward and came to the end of the hall we found the dais. On it, in a simple looking stone chair that looked as though the stone had simply appeared like that rather than needing to be carved, sat the erstwhile "King" of Angraal. He was obviously not a soldier by any means and had not bothered trying to get armour to fit him. He made me think of a man who had once been very active physically but long hours of feasting, talking and negotiating had resulted in a figure that was starting to relax. He appeared calm enough, he was certainly not sweating, blushing or pale by my estimation. His beard was close trimmed and his hair was tidy although it would need a trim if he was going to any kind of proper court. There were two guardsmen on either side of him. Hands on swords.

"Count Dorme, what a surprise. We haven't seen you at court in some time."

Dorme's lackeys stirred at the lower title

"I have been busy Lord Duke," Dorme responded, likewise using the Nilfgaardian titles. "So many things to do in today's ever changing world. Don't you think?"

"Indeed I do," said the Duke. If the reduction in his title bothered him then he gave no sign of it. There was a long pause. That moment where the two armies face each other before the order to charge is given, or the knights waiting for the handkerchief to hit the floor at the jousting tourney, the criminal waiting for the hangman to pull the lever.

"Tell me, Count," The Duke sounded conversational, "Why have you brought armed men into our halls. You know that this is against our most ancient traditions and laws."

"You know why," it sounded petulant. The Duke was much better at this than Dorme was. I realised that I had just stopped breathing and forced myself to take a breath.

"Yes I do. Just the same way that I also know that there are several other forces of similar numbers of men approaching the capitol from various directions. Tell me, what is the meaning of this?"

"The meaning, Lord Duke, is that soon this hall and the capital will not be "ours" but it will be "mine"."

"Interesting sentiment. Yet you come here, into the seat of Angraal's power and expect me to just hand it over?"

"Oh yes, but not to me." He touched the bag at his side and Ariadne started to move forward in the crowd.

"Behold," Dorme called as she came to the front, "The Spider-Queen of Angraal."

The cloak came off with a twirl and the golden staff shone as it spun in the air with a flourish. As it was brought down on the paving stones that made up the floor of the hall, there was a peal of thunder.

I thought it was a bit over the top but the onlookers quailed at it.

The Duke remained impassive.

"The Spider Queen of Angraal? If she ever lived she is long dead."

Dorme stood back and Ariadne took over. Again Dorme was shown up as Ariadne had more strength and purpose in her movements than he could imagine. Her dress was the same, High collar, jewels and all but her face had lost the softness that she had started wearing over the last couple of days and had once again taken on the form of terrifying beauty with her white skin, red lips and she had added sharp looking fangs.

"Dead?" she asked in a way that didn't sound loud but at the same time it filled the hall so that everyone heard it. "No, merely imprisoned. By your traitorous forebears."

She spun with a gesture that seemed to encompass everyone there. The light from the lanterns and torches seemed to fade, shadows leaping and I again could swear that I heard chittering in the background.

"Very pretty." said the Duke. His voice was harsh next to the practised, magically enhanced and mellow tones of the vampire. "But a pretty face and a few tricks means nothing It is certainly not enough to dethrone me." He paused, "Also, why would the fabled Spider Queen of lore bow down to a rodent such as yourself Dorme?"

"Through ancient magic's that I have studied these last few years. Ever since our family was deposed." Dorme was letting his anger show now. A mistake but he thought he was winning.

"Nevertheless. I think a sword through the gut will answer for this Spider Queen just as easily as it has the other imposters over the years. Guardsmen!"

"Hold," Ariadne called. It was a voice of such utter command. Dorme was playing with the bag and I could see his lips moving. Kerrass was frowning but at what I couldn't tell.

"I can prove my authority." she said simply. "Does this hall still recognise that ancient pact?"

This time the Duke _did_ pale and the hall started to mumble to itself. Ariadne strode forwards, Kerrass and I moving with her, Kerrass had his hand on his sword strap. She took her time deliberately placing each step. Dorme was smiling in triumph as he watched and it made his face ugly. Ariadne moved forward, the two Ducal guards took a step forward, one of them almost had his sword drawn but the Duke waved them back. Ariadne leant forwards and whispered something.

Then the Duke staggered, weaving. His hand went to his brow and he leant on the arm of the stone chair.

"Sorcery." Someone shouted. "Heresy, Witchcraft." It was the priest. "Such a thing should..." The rest of his words were drowned out in the outrage from the rest of the crowd. Guardsmen drew weapons, Dorme's people were ready for a fight. I drew my spear and slotted the two halves together.

But then Ariadne screamed for Silence. I don't know whether I was shielded, or in the wrong place for the full effect but it seemed to buffet the other people in the hall like a gale-force wind. The room darkened as though a cloak had been thrown over the sun.

The Duke also didn't react but seemed startled by the silence.

"I..." he choked and had to swallow. "This is no trick. Nor is it magic. This is the oldest magic of our land." He looked up at Ariadne in awe and terror. "She is the Spider Queen. I abdicate my claim in her favour, formally and utterly. Calling all of my people to serve her willingly and with all our souls while begging for her mercy." He reeled and staggered as he said that. Kerrass caught him and steadied the man.

"Witness?" Ariadne called, in a voice that echoed off the walls, pointing at the priestess of Melitele who was watching with curiosity rather than fear.

"Witnessed?" Interrupted the priest. "This is heresy. This is treachery. I will not stand for it, no flame-fearing..."

"Be silent," Ariadne hissed venomously with a strange gesture. The priests words vanished and some part of my brain recorded how long it took him to realise that he couldn't hear what he was saying.

The priestess nodded, somewhat reluctantly.

"Louder please?" Ariadne prompted, still using her magical voice.

"Witnessed," the Priestess seemed a little sick, although was clearly enjoying the priests discomfort.

"Excellent," Dorme called, trying to take control of the proceedings. "Now fetch the rest of your family so that no rebellion can be formed around them."

The former Duke looked up into Ariadne's face but she wasn't looking at him any more. She was looking at the chair. He looked at Kerrass who shrugged and then at me. I don't know what my face said but he left, the picture of utter dejection.

Dorme laughed. It seemed odd to me that I found new depths of my hatred for him.

Ariadne moved slowly towards the, well, throne and very slowly lowered herself to the sitting position. She closed her eyes slowly like a person climbing into a soft warm bed after a long day and sighed.

She sat there, perfectly still for some minutes. I can't speak for anyone else there are the time as I was too busy watching the vampire but a slow silence filled the hall and looking back I feel as though I wasn't alone in watching her. She seemed to leave in a small and undefinable way. The figure that I was looking at was back to just being the illusion A still picture of a woman sat in a chair. She might as well have been a statue.

A noise came to me and as I looked up, the former Duke had returned to the room. With him was a woman and two children. I normally don't like guessing a ladies age but this woman seemed to be in her earl to mid thirties. She stood straight but there was something about her posture that suggested that she was having to fight to stay that upright. She also had the bloom to her skin that suggested that she had recently scrubbed her face clean of whatever cosmetics that she might have been wearing. She wore a wimple and a featureless grey dress that put me in mind of a nun's habit.

The children were young, a boy and a girl. The boy was older, dark haired and wearing a shirt, trousers and tunic. He was about nine years old and looked as though he had been told to be brave but was confused as to why he needed to be. The girl was hiding behind her mother so I didn't really get a good look at her but from her height I would guess that she was about three or four years old.

Ariadne didn't react. People started shifting their feet in discomfort. Someone coughed and it sounded like a thunderclap.

I looked at Dorme who was staring at the former King of Angraal and his family with a look of utter hatred that made me physically nauseous. Kerrass was scanning the hall, eyes flitting everywhere, partially crouched, hand on his sword strap.

I decided that I couldn't stand it anymore and lent into Ariadne and cleared my throat. The illusion sprang into life and she looked at me, startled and a little angry. I gestured towards the former King and his family and she nodded slightly, almost imperceptibly.

She rose, slowly. If she was a human I would have said that she did so reluctantly, staring back at the chair as she did so. She ran her hand along the back of it and along the arm as though she was petting an animal.

"Well?" Dorme's voice was an intrusion. She spun and looked at him, their eyes meeting. Dorme's hand fell to the bag at his side and he muttered something. The vampires eyes followed the gesture.

"I think it's time that your people have a demonstration of your power," there was relish in his eyes.

"Don't you think so your majesty?"

Ariadne hadn't moved her eyes from the bag and slowly raised her gaze back to meet Dorme's eyes.

"I think that might be wise." she said quietly.

"Guard-captain?" she called into the hall. "I presume that you have a Captain here somewhere."

An old soldier stepped forwards. Pushing his way past the assembled courtiers. He was wearing the same armour as the rest of his men and he moved like a professional. Kerrass' lessons called themselves to mind and I saw a couple of signs that he was a little past his best but he was still a man who I thought could give Kerrass a pause. He had a long drooping moustache and his hair was tied back in a long pony-tail. That hair having long turned white. He looked as though he was visibly ageing by the minute.

"Your will Majesty?"

"How long have you served Captain?"

"Forty years Majesty. Man and boy. By your leave though I think it is time I retired. I do not believe I will be able to serve for much longer and you could do with a younger man more suited to your needs."

"Thank you for the thought Captain," Her voice was warm and almost kind. But then she changed and she was ice. "But for now I require your obedience,"

Something occurred then. She was using the singular, not the royal "we" as she had when Kerrass and I had first encountered her. "Do I have it?"

The Captain aged another few years before my eyes. He glanced at the old King who was staring at the floor before drawing himself to his full height. "You do Majesty."

"Excellent. Seal the building for me. No-one out, or in. There will be further commands shortly."

"Your will majesty." He whistled piercingly between his teeth and made a gesture with his hand that seemed to encompass the hall. There was the sound of wood being moved and doors slamming shut. The Captain just stood impassively as men started to shout from the depths of the building.

"The building is sealed Majesty." he bowed again.

"Excellent." she said.

Well?" Dorme broke in again. "Do it, kill them. Make it slow though. I want to enjoy this." He had his hand on the bag again I noticed. I promised myself then that I would do my best to kill him before this was over. He might have had his reasons for hating the former King of Angraal, but at the same time... Any man who can order a child's death does not deserve the air that they breathe.

Matters of state or not.

Ariadne glanced at him once but there was surety in that gaze. Certainty, the sort of look that suggested that a decision had been made.

She walked over to the Former Kings family. He looked up at her.

"Majesty if I may?"

Ariadne didn't react and he took that as permission.

"Whatever hold _he_ may have over you. However you may feel? I didn't believe the myths and the legends about you. I thought they were stories or else I might have tried to come to terms. You don't have to believe that but I would beg you. Indeed I do beg you. Spare my children,"

He put his hands on his sons shoulders and scooped his daughter into view. I had gone with her and saw that a tear rolled down his wife's cheek.

"Spare my children majesty. They are innocent of any harm done to you or to any others"

Ariadne said nothing but she just stared at him for a long time.

Then she crouched down.

"What's your name?" she asked the boy.

"What does it matter what his name is?" Dorme shouted.

"Ignore him," Ariadne said to the boy with remarkable gentleness. "I'm Queen anyway. What's your name."

"Squire Jonas," the boy said quietly, clearly in awe of the woman in front of him. His father smiled slightly and murmured something about title.

"Squire Jonas of Angraal Your Majesty."

Ariadne smiled. "Squire Jonas. A strong name. Are you a strong little boy Squire Jonas?"

My mouth opened in shock, she was teasing the boy. A small light lit in the depths of my soul. I didn't dare call it "hope" yet but it was there.

On cue, the boy stuck out his chin with a young man's stubborness "I'm not a boy, I'm a man." he shouted.

Ariadne, raised her eyebrows in mock surprise. "But you are little," she pointed out.

"I'm still growing," he grumbled.

"I bet you are." she smiled again before turning to the girl.

"And what's your name?"

"Sophie," the little girl squeaked out.

"Sophie," Ariadne breathed. "Do not be afraid Sophie. My name is Ariadne and I am very pleased to meet you." she held her hand out to be shaken towards the little girl

"What are you waiting for?" Dorme demanded again. "Kill them, tear them, rip them, KILL THEM" he screeched at the end, his voice cracking. I glanced at him, his mouth was almost foaming.

Ariadne didn't blink. At first the little girl was still shy before she darted out and shook Ariadne's hand quickly before jumping back to the protection of her parents.

Ariadne nodded and rose to a standing position again before turning to the mother.

"May I present my wife your majesty?" The former King said. "Donnella Meritania of Angraal."

Ariadne nodded.

"My lady, you do not know me and I do not know you." she said quietly. "You have no reason to trust, or like me and every reason to fear and hate me. But I would like us to be friends." I'm not sure that anyone other than myself and the Lady Donnella heard these words but she certainly gasped in surprise. "I have only just come across the concept of friendship and as such it will take some time to get used to it. I will certainly get it wrong but I will depend on your grace to keep me on the right track. To start with I will tell you now that your children have nothing to fear from me and I will fight to protect them,"

The ladies mouth dropped open.

"I will need to borrow your husband however," Ariadne said "and what happens next is probably not for the eyes of children. The safest place for them, and you, is behind the throne where they can be shielded. I suggest that you take them there now."

The woman nodded, not bothering to keep her astonishment off her face. She did look at her husband who nodded back at her, before fleeing.

Ariadne gestured that the former King should follow her.

"Take the other side of me Frederick she said."

"What are you doing?" Dorme shouted. "Stop,"

Ariadne simply simply ignored him and led the former King back to the throne and stood him next

to it. Kerrass was on her left and I was on her right.

"Lord King," she said in a loud voice. More human than it had been. "I thank you for obeying the ancient compact but I find that the throne is no longer comfortable. It seems to have grown somewhat since I last sat in this place."

"What are you doing?" Dorme screamed.

"I will shortly return your powers to you," Ariadne continued over Dorme's protests. "But I will just neutralise this situation first as it could all get out of hand. I refuse to hand your realm over to you in a worse state than which I found it so I would ask for your patience."

The man was clearly astonished and I joined him.

"I command you," Dorme had the bag of his belt now and was shaking it, red with rage. "I own you,"

"Ah yes," Ariadne said conversationally. "Your little bag. We must address that before we go any further."

I had never seen a vampire move. I would say here and now that I have _still_ not seen a vampire move it was that fast. To my eyes it seemed as though she leant forward slightly and the bag was suddenly in her hand. It was as though her arm simply stretched forward to take it despite him being some distance away.

The next thing any of us knew she was standing next to Kerrass, opening the bag and peering inside.

"Just as I thought," she said. "You missed something. I told you that we had destroyed that kind of magic and any access to it."

Dorme was still staring at his hand in shock. Kerrass had reacted to her sudden movement because of course he had. He slowly re-sheathed his silver sword and instead drew the steel one.

"But..." Dorme began.

"Non-combatants and courtiers," Ariadne continued ignoring him. "I suggest you retreat to the back of the hall."

The courtiers ran for it doing what they were told. Dorme's group suddenly looked very small.

"Captain?" Ariadne called,

"Majesty?" the man was regaining his vigour and had begun to look as though he was enjoying himself.

"I will have more instructions for you momentarily regarding the other forces approaching the capital but for now. Lord Dorme is a traitor to the crown. Those with him are also traitors although some, if not all of the common folk have been forced into action. I require Lord Dorme alive to face justice."

"Yes, your Majesty." The Captain said with relish.

Dorme's people started shouting then, drawing weapons and shouting

"All others who do not throw down their weapons immediately," Ariadne's magical voice overwhelmed them, "you may deal with as you see fit. Do not endanger your men's lives as you do so however."

"Yes your majesty." He whistled again and drew his own sword.

"Kill that bitch."Dorme's voice and wits returned with his despair. "Kill the Witcher and the scholar. Kill them all."

When I first started this whole enterprise, the thing that I wanted to learn was what it was like to be a Witcher. In the case of this particular tale I wanted to talk about the Witcher's renowned distaste for politics and their insistence on staying out of such things, despite the enormous evidence to the contrary.

It was in this moment, as Lord Dorme screamed for my blood and my death that I found out why and it might take me a little while to get to my point so I crave your indulgence in a story that has already taken a lot more telling than I initially thought it would.

First of all was a discovery in myself that made me feel a little uncomfortable.

There is joy in a fight.

I have since spoken to several professional soldiers as well as Kerrass about this particular discovery and as it turns out, I am not alone in this realisation but there are normally some caveats. There is seldom joy in a battle. Apparently the experience is so big, so overwhelming and so, well, organised for it to be joyful. Likewise it doesn't really occur in a one on one formalised duel because it is again too formal and the next few minutes are more of a mental chess game than a sprawling free for all.

But right there and right then as Dorme and his men charged us, howling madness in their eyes along with fear, blood-lust and terrible fury. I felt joy. An elation that I cannot imagine in any other situation. I've spent a long time thinking about it as well. The closest I've been able to come to is when the girl that you've been attracted to for so long actually says yes and the fear of rejection melts away.

So here's my theory, and this covers both things.

Witchers, despite what they might like to think, are relatively simple creatures. They have been designed, mutated and trained with one simple task in mind which is to kill monsters that threaten human life. There is very little moral discussion in this. The monster is dangerous, it has probably already killed many and therefore it needs destroying. There is no moral confusion. There is a problem and a solution.

On those occasions where there _is_ a moralistic problem then the Witcher is protected by his code. (They don't kill dragons, would rather lift the curse than destroy the cursed, will first communicate with the sapient creature before destroying it etc) All of this means that they don't need to think about other factors. There is a simple problem and they can focus on that problem to the exclusion of all others. Everything else can be ignored.

You can't do that in a political arena.

The very act of being neutral is a political one and will be perceived, weighed, measured and countered with relative ease. Much to the consternation of the Witcher.

While you are in a political arena then your problem becomes such that you have to weigh all of your options carefully. Closing off a particular possibility is dangerous to the extent of being foolhardy and as a result, the best option is sometimes to wait and do nothing. There is rarely a right and a wrong, there is no good side and evil side, light or dark. There is simply "us" and "them". But sometimes it's not even as simple as that. Sometimes it becomes "them, them, them, him, me, her and everyone else".

This creates a pressure. Not only to perform correctly for your side and survive but also, if you're a moral person, to do the right thing.

This is also why codes of behaviour such as Chivalry, the Skelligan Code of Honour and indeed the Holy Flames scriptures of obedience are so attractive because then someone else has made the decision about what is right and what is wrong.

So when all of that stuff melts away. All of the politics dissolves into the worthless bullshit that it is. It is amazingly, almost terrifyingly liberating.

Up until this point, Kerrass and I had been mired in politics. Trapped by my physical injuries and later by the fact that we were surrounded by guards. We had a supposed ally that was unreliably but obscenely powerful. We were involved in a rebellion that neither of us had any particular stake in other than the fact that we both disliked the leader of the revolt and we were revolting against a person that neither of us had ever met and a regime that neither of us had ever heard of let alone lived under.

But we were involved. Without our conscious decision but _politics_ had caught us up without our consent.

And it all melted away in that instant.

Ariadne had found the way forwards. Found the way that we could all survive. A centuries old vampire had found the solution and all I had to do now was to fight for my life in a small battle where the odds were mostly in my favour.

Oh, the weight off my mind. The enormous pressure, fear, confusion and frustration exploded out of me in a screaming, shining moment of joy and fury as I brought my spear to bear against my enemy. Kerrass was on my left and we were joined by a pair of the royal guardsmen that had not left their posts from beside their throne to the point that most of us had forgotten them but they were frighteningly efficient.

I was there. I was next to my friend and ally and in that moment my cause was protecting women and children. The Vampire could take care of herself but those two children could not and by the savage grin that plastered itself over Kerrass' face. He felt the same.

Dorme's group was quick to react and at first it looked grim as they rushed forward. A young lordling named Sir Nicholas Angleby rushed at me, presumably wanting to get a quick kill in. His sword was raised and he was screaming in the combination of fear and anger that accompanies a fight. I was yelling myself and he had underestimated me. His sword was well out of the way and I could just lunge with a choice of targets and I chose his throat. As my spear ripped free, his blood sprayed with it and he dropped his sword to clutch at his throat and I dismissed him from my mind. I hope he died quickly and the horror that I made of his throat would certainly suggest that he did. As was my habit, I looked into what had happened. He was very similar to me although a few years younger. He was a younger son of an older lord who was approaching senility and had been just too young for the last war which had claimed his older brothers and was left with an anger that he could not control.

The royal guardsmen leapt into the fray on my right. Not bothering with his sword he put his full weight and strength behind his shield and barged the other men backwards and I was able to step round him and jab into the mess at anyone who tried to reach round the shield.

Kerrass had leapt into the fray with similar gusto, his blade twirling glittering patterns in the air, occasional streams of blood flowing from the point in the way paint leaves a brush. The guard on his left acted to prevent people from flanking him.

We had the higher ground, if only by virtue of a couple of steps up onto a dais but they had the numbers and we were pushed back. But by that time the other royal guard had hit the back of Dorme's group and there had also been many men, particularly peasants and more than a few noble guardsmen who had decided that they didn't like being on the losing side of a rebellion and had thrown down their arms.

As suddenly as it started it was all over.

Eight men lay dead, five were mortally wounded and were dying with another twenty wounded.

The battlefield reaction was particularly violent in me this time and I leant on my spear and trembled.

Dorme was still alive and had been forced flat under the weight of guardsmen spears. Another couple of his minor lords were alive and in similar conditions. The other revolutionaries were quickly disarmed, split into their groups of those who had surrendered and those who had chosen to fight and the Priestess of Melitele was already hard at work saving lives.

Forcing my fingers to move I dropped my spear and got to work myself allowing myself to be guided by her. I wasn't able to do much more than set a broken leg and bind a few wounds though before I ran out of people to treat that I could do with my level of expertise.

Ariadne stepped forward again, guiding the former King with her. The children and their mother had vanished, taken off to privacy by guardsmen.

"Captain?"

The old man stood forward again.

"Majesty," He was openly smiling.

"A few matters to deal with the aggressive groups approaching the capital. Send men out to them dressed in Dorme's colours and tell them that "The Eagle has fallen" and they should all go home with the leaders accompanying you back to whatever welcome you might have prepared by that point."

"Yes, majesty."

"Treacherous bitch." Dorme spat with venom.

"For me to be a traitor Lord Dorme, I would have had to be a part of your cause from the beginning. I was not. You just assumed my obedience without testing your imperfect tool."

She shook the bag at him.

"Now my lord," she turned back to the former Duke. "I hereby formally abdicate my rights and claims to the realm of Angraal and it's throne and crown. I return rule to yourself and your line for as long as it may hold it. I also swear myself to whichever line may come after. I leave these men to your justice although I do have words to share with you to that effect. I offer you my fealty. If you will have it."

The Duke was clearly stunned, shocked and appalled at these events.

"Witness?" he called. He gave the impression of a man who had given up and was letting himself be led around by the nose.

"Witnessed." I said. "My name is Frederick Von Coulthard of Redania."

"Witnessed," called the priestess of Melitele taking a scalpel out of her mouth as she did so.

Ariadne knelt before the Duke who, his hands trembling took her hand and raised her to her feet.

"May I ask why?"

Ariadne considered. "The chair is no longer comfortable. It has changed, along with the world and It need to change with it. I am unused to this change and I have much to learn. I would also offer my services as court Sorcerer if you require."

"We will discuss that later." The man was frantically trying to regain his self control. "But first what of these men?"

He gestured at Kerrass, myself and the remains of Dorme's group.

"Lord Coulthard and Witcher Kerrass were coerced against their will by Lord Dorme. I will testify that they have not raised weapon against you or any of your men and indeed have killed several of Dorme's traitors before today in self-defence. Might I also state that, although there have been many factors that have lead towards my decision today. Not least of which, in fact a major part of that decision was influenced by the two of them. I will embellish later, in private, but your majesty owes them a great debt. Those other men I leave to your justice but Lord Dorme?"

Her illusion slipped for a moment and she seemed almost primal. A nightmare from a barbaric past. Slipped or changed according to her will.

"He attempted to poison Lord Frederick, nearly leading to his death. He framed me for mass murder of one of your villages."

"Lies," called Dorme,

"And he sought to restrict my will and make use of my body and power. He tried to enslave me which is a crime I cannot forgive. I demand his death."

The Dukes' eyebrows rose.

"I am still enough of a lord of the land to not execute without trial. The evidence against him is substantial but... Please understand lady..."

"She's lying My lord Duke," an unpleasant smile crossed Dorme's face. "She is a monster. She controlled me. None of this is my fault. She used her magic to coerce us into acting. I am free now. We all are. Let us serve you."

His other friends joined his pleas.

Kerrass spat in disgust and my face must have shown similar feelings.

"Those other two are her particular pets." Dorme went on. "They are lying to you. Don't believe him."

"Be silent." The Dukes voice cracked like a whip and I saw the hate in his own gaze as well as the ruler he had been before Ariadne arrived.

He took a deep breath. "Lady, I would dearly love to kill him but his point is not without merit. You are, by your own words a Sorceress and a vampire. How can we trust that you are not controlling us all. Even now?"

"She is a monster Lord Duke, don't believe her," Dorme shouted.

But Ariadne was smiling.

"Trust, like respect, is slow to come Lord Duke and I am aware of these problems. Just as I am aware that my word will not be enough here and that magic, as well as monstrous power, is an easy excuse for any."

She appeared to think but I thought she was just pretending.

"Tell me. Do you still have provision here for "trial by combat"?"

"We do,"

"Fighting her?" Dorme spat. "She is a vampire making her physically stronger. Also a woman. How would that reflect? I will not submit to that."

The priest of the holy flame raged at Dorme silently. Ariadne noticed and made another gesture.

"...Fucking Coward. Your faith in the holy flame would protect you against her evil."

He went on like that for a while. No-one swears and blasphemes like a priest.

"I have a solution, Lord Duke," Ariadne put in. "How about a champion?" she suggested to Dorme.

Dorme considered before nodding "But who will fight in a Witch's name?" he declared.

Ariadne smiled, almost sweetly.

"Witcher Kerrass. Would you oblige?"

Kerrass grinned. "Gladly Your Grace." I wondered at the title.

The priest was coerced to referee. Swords were inspected for poisons and "Witcher oils". Kerrass was admonished about Witcher tricks and asked about his potions and his lack of armour.

"Tell me your Majesty." he asked the Duke. "How would you like him. Alive for execution, of dead?"

The Duke smiled in a combination of emotions that I couldn't quite decipher. "I am not concerned so long as he is defeated," he turned to Ariadne, "Milady?"

Ariadne thought. "Kill him, show mercy at the end but let him know he's been in a fight."

Kerrass nodded.

It was not a long fight, nor was it pretty. A few short exchanges and I will give Dorme the credit that he was a fine swordsman but I could also tell from experience that Kerrass was holding back. The realisation that he was outclassed sunk into Dorme's face and he grew paler and paler. His strokes became less disciplined and more desperate until it ended quickly. Kerrass simply leant out the way of a strike before disembowelling Dorme and following up with a decapitation stroke.

It was all over.

It felt oddly anti-climactic. It was a week of my life that had been given over to these politics. A week in which I had nearly died and nurtured a hatred that had frightened me in more than one instance. Now, it was all over. My vengeance taken with Kerrass' sword as it's instrument.

All over.

I fell to my knees and dimly heard Ariadne tell the Duke that we should all go somewhere more private as there were "many things to talk about,"

I didn't hear. My combat reaction was in full flow and I was busy retching.


	24. Chapter 24

Kerrass was fussing over me.

"No," he said, "That tunic still has beer stains on it from that inn back in Appleford."

"Which Appleford? The one with the...?"

"No the other one. Where that barmaid kept climbing onto your knee and you didn't know what to do with her."

"Thank you for the visual Kerrass I'm sure it was very amusing for you."

"It was thank you, but regardless, you still can't wear that tunic."

"Have you got any better ideas?"

"As a matter of fact I do."

He produced another tunic with a flourish.

I stared at it for several moments.

"There's embroidery on that one Kerrass."

"I know,"

"Of flowers, Kerrass,"

"I know,"

"You know how I feel about embroidery Kerrass."

"Freddie, what I want you to do right now is to take a good hard look at my face. Have you done that?"

"Yes,"

"Does this look like the kind of face that cares what you think about embroidery?"

"But it itches,"

"That's why you've got a shirt on underneath. My last clean shirt by the way."

I changed Jerkins on the grounds that it was better for a quiet life.

"Where did you get this Jerkin anyway?"

"I borrowed it from one of the guardsmen."

"By "borrowed" you mean..."

"Yes I stole it from the washing line outside the barracks."

There was a pause.

"How long have you been thinking about this Kerrass?"

"A couple of days now. Hurry up. I want to leave Angraal in our trail dust before the day is out."

There was another pause as he straightened my sword belt.

I don't have a sword belt either.

Or a sword for that matter and a spear would be completely out of the question.

"Why are you doing this anyway?" I demanded.

"Because you should go and see her. It would be rude not to."

"You went to see her and you didn't bother with all of this gumpf."

"No, no I didn't." He paused for thought. "But then again I'm a monster hunter who goes out of his way to hunt people like her for money. You are a reasonable human being... A lord no less, paying courtesies to a fellow member of the nobility."

"She's a Vampire."

"Still a noble though."

"But she's a Vampire."

"Yes. And a Countess. Which is a considerably higher rank than you." He did an alarmingly good impression of my mother considering that he had never met her at that point.

"Kerrass."

"Yes?"

"She terrifies me."

Kerrass looked at me for a long time. "I know."

He sighed. "She is a Vampire. She is also...complicated. You should go and see her. Say Goodbye if nothing else."

"But I'm taking a bunch of flowers."

"Indeed, if I had been able to find a box of sweet-meats for you to give her you would be taking those as well."

"Whatever for?"

"For your boorish behaviour in ignoring her."

"But I haven't seen her."

"Precisely."

"I've been confined to my bed, not least of which by her."

"Exactly. Hey there's a good starting point for a conversation. You could thank her for saving your life. Now go on. Shoo."

He made herding gestures towards the door. "I'll get our stuff together and I'll meet you outside when you're done. Take your time.

My feelings were complicated as I left my room and asked the nearest guard for directions to where the Lady Ariadne was at that present time.

Angraal's main hall turned out to be much larger than we had first been able to see. The hall itself was attached to a series of guest rooms and negotiation rooms as well as a large garden that was theoretically for the use of the wives of the great men that would be debating important problems in the great hall. I suppose it is a sign of the times that the women had moved from the garden to the hall and all to the better for it in my opinion despite some people declaring that women should be seen and not heard.

Kerrass and I had been put up in guest rooms during the time that Kerrass had been off being busy in the meantime under hire by the Duke of Angraal and I had stayed behind being tended to by the priestess of Melitele for my various poisonings.

After all the wounded from the attempted coup had been seen to Kerrass, the ever present mother hen, had noticed that I was still trembling and coughing in what I had thought was battle-field reaction and had mentioned it to Ariadne who, in turn, kicked up a bit of a stink with both the Duke, myself and the priestess until I could be held down and looked at by the priestess in question. In detail it was described what had happened to me over the last week with regards to the poisoning, the use of another venom to counter-act the first venom followed by dysentery symptoms, a week on the road and then fighting and all of the things that that can do to a person.

The priestess scolded both Kerrass and the Vampire which would have been comical under other circumstances. Ariadne did her terrifying thing with Spiders and one burrowed it's way to the surface from the garden and was milked willingly for the priestess to play with it and I was examined.

I was told that my Liver and Kidney's had suffered severe damage as well as some minor damage to my heart. None of these things were things that you want to hear when people are talking about them with regards to yourself. Ariadne used her magic to heal me with guidance from the priestess and then, after Kerrass was questioned about my character and how I would behave in convalescence I was given a sleeping potion that knocked me out for several days.

I don't dwell on how they managed to feed me in the meantime.

After I woke up I felt as weak as a kitten but several huge meals as well as some more of the potions that the Priestess mixed for me got me back on my feet in record time.

As an aside. I want to state here and now that the Worship of Melitele is not a cult. They are good people all devoted to the care and well-being of all. The Holy Flame will always have precedence in my heart but we could do worse than have a hospital or sick-house run by Melitele's priestesses in every city. Kerrass paid the woman a compliment to the tune of the fact that this woman had forgotten more about Alchemy and Herbcraft than he, a Witcher, had ever known.

He is probably right.

But as it turned out I had missed some more momentous things which made my inner scholar rather cross.

Arguing that any healing could have been put off for a couple of days so that I could see some of the things that Kerrass had had to deal with while I was asleep did not gain any traction with the priestess or Kerrass himself.

But then he described them to me and I changed my mind as even with his, rather stale and clinical narration I could feel my brain slowly trying to leak out of my ears.

Long story short, Lord Dorme was into some weird and seriously fucked up shit.

But anyway, I'm beginning to describe things out of sequence so...

Eventually I found Madame Comtesse Ariadne of Angral (Apparently there's a big difference between Angral and Angraal. It's a local thing that I don't entirely understand) in the gardens. She was sat under a canopy of white linen on a bench with her feet tucked up underneath herself reading a book. Her hair had been unbound from her severe hair arrangement and although tied back into a pony tail she had pulled it round her neck and over her shoulder where she would play with it, twirling it round her fingers. She was wearing a lighter, brighter dress that I suspected had been leant to her, or copied from, another dress that the Duchess had leant her as there was more than a little gossip that the two women were indeed in the process of forming a close friendship which was causing the Duke some consternation.

The overall effect of the entire thing was of a young lady of the nobility, busy with her own interests while waiting for suitors to turn up and beg her hand in marriage. She had the entire entourage as well, complete with bodyguard (I am still unsure as to whether he was guarding her from others or guarding other people from her. The second thought was laughable) and two older ladies that were sat knitting nearby and scowling at random people who had the temerity to walk even vaguely close to their charge. I recognised the formation from when my sister was entertaining suitors.

There were two problems with the overall image. The first was the huge plate of food that was near Ariadne's elbow that she was taking a gigantic mouthful from with every half page or so. It was laden down with sausages, meats and pastries of various kinds. Nearby was another plate of cakes and a bowl of fruit. There were also two jugs which I would later learn contained milk and fruit-juice as well as a smaller one which contained red wine. The rate at which she was consuming the food was... a little off-putting. The other thing that was slightly off about the picture was the hound sized furry spider that had curled up asleep underneath the chair that she was sat on. You had to really look to realise what it was as well. At first glance it was a dog but then you started to realise that it had too many legs to be a dog and then you saw the mandibles and then... my eyes kind of slid off it.

It is well known that the human brain can only cope with so much weirdness at any one time and has remarkable capabilities to ignore what's directly in front of it if it doesn't fit in with it's overall world view. However it is remarkable to realise these things when it's happening to yourself.

I only knew a few things about what had happened regarding Ariadne in the meantime. I knew that she had taken over Dorme's former title and lands although she had already made a couple of very distinct changes. She had made a significant grand of land to the Duke and another grant of her land to the Church of the Holy Flame as well as setting aside a patch of land for a shrine to Melitele. She had also started insisting on people referring to her as the Nilfgaardian title of "Countess" or the Toussaint version of the same rank "Comtesse" rather than the Angraal title of Duke. The appearance of this meant that although she was still, technically the same rank as Dorme had been, she had reduced her significance in the eyes of the random courtiers that passed by. It certainly suggested that she was settling down for a quiet life.

She looked up as I approached and smiled generously.

"Good morning," she said, while taking a huge bite of a sausage wrapped in pastry.

"Madame la Comtesse." I made as formal a bow as I could manage given that the object of my bow was

brushing crumbs of her dress.

"I haven't seen you since..." She reached for words with the hand that contained the pastry.

"Since the good priestess of Melitele helped you prevent my Liver and Kidneys from exploding."

"Yes," she smiled with a small mischievous glint to her eyes. "Well I wasn't going to mention that one." She deposited the remains of the pastry on the plate, wiping her hands on a cloth as she did so. "You were, after all, somewhat indisposed at the time."

I felt my mouth twitch.

"You mean naked madame. I was naked and drugged up to my eye-balls."

The two older ladies glared at me. Not that I could see this but I could sense their disapproval like a physical force, radiating heat at the side of my head. Then the spider (whom Ariadne had named "fluffy") picked itself up, turned around a bit and settled back down again. In doing so it was exactly like a cat.

The two women subsided.

Ariadne laughed. She seemed to enjoy doing this and unlike the sinister malicious laughter that had occasionally grated when talking about Dorme in the past. This laughter was light and full of joy.

"I would invite you to sit Lord Frederick but there is only limited room and I'm afraid my chaperones would disapprove at our close contact."

I smiled.

"and we don't want that to happen."

"It is indeed, a fate worse than death. This whole business of being a modern noble, especially an unmarried female one, is fraught with danger."

"You're enjoying every minute of it aren't you." I accused.

"I really am," she admitted getting to her feet. "Instead, why don't we walk for a while. I have been reading up on modern etiquette and I have a few questions that maybe a modern nobleman such as yourself might be in a better position to answer."

I shivered in mock terror, remembering some of her other questioning sessions.

"I would remind the Comtesse that Witcher Kerrass is intending to leave later today and I with him."

Her eyes glinted with humour. I have to admit that the amused mischief in her eyes suited her.

"I understand. I only have a few dozen questions."

"Oh good, we should be able to polish it off before this time tomorrow."

She hit me on the arm. It always astonished me how physical violence is considered a witty retort with the fairer sex. In this case the blow was from a vampire and I was mostly grateful that it didn't hurt too much.

She offered me her arm and although I tried really hard. I still hesitated a little bit before allowing it to be taken.

"Still afraid of me Frederick?" she said quietly.

"The word is terrified Comtesse, and yes, more than a little."

"I didn't kill the village,"

"I know. I know that some over zealous members of Dorme's entourage did it and then he ordered it to look like you did it."

She nodded. For all the world she looked, felt and smelt like a young woman walking around a garden with me. My body reacted to this, the romantic yearnings of a young, unmarried male, but even so... The knowledge of what she was and what she could do was thick in my mind.

I forced myself to be the very image of virtuous chivalric young nobility.

"Is it my nature that frightens you?"

"Yes," Honesty was needed, I felt and she nodded.

"Will you give me time so that your brain can learn to trust me?"

"Of course." She nodded in satisfaction.

"Will you call me Ariadne instead of by my new title?"

"In private, yes. In public, I'm afraid that you will remain Comtesse to more than just me."

She smiled at that a little sadly.

"I find that I like the name though. Having a name rather than a title is novel and enticing."

We walked for a little while. I could hear the guard walking behind us and I was well-aware that the chaperones were not far behind.

"It seems that you have given up privacy as well." I ventured. The conversation had stopped suddenly and I felt the need to keep it going.

"Hmmm? Oh yes. I could get a room indoors to study and indeed I have been given my own chambers while a manor house is being built to my specifications over in Angral so I could do that. But I find that I like being out doors. Fresh air is a luxury that too many people ignore in their daily lives."

YES! There was an in. A safe topic of conversation that could be used to steer things away from worrying topics.

"What happened in Angral? Kerrass told me a little but he is terrible when it comes to remembering context."

"He does enjoy his focus doesn't he." She smiled. Again that laughter. Again the need to remind myself that I was gallantly escorting an ancient being through the flower garden and not a young noblemans daughter.

"How much would you like to know?"

"How much can you tell me without my fragile mortal brain dribbling out of my ears."

"Your brain is anything but fragile." She accused, "and I would never suggest different."

"I know, I'm sorry. A figure of speech."

"Ah," she nodded and forgot about it.

Something rustled in the leaves near my leg.

"Is that a rat?" I commented.

"No. Fluffy is just being curious."

I flinched and she laughed at me.

"Before you start your account, another question first. Why 'Fluffy' and is it true that you use him to put people off who you don't want to talk to?"

She grinned. A little of her old attitude came back. "Whatever gave you that idea?"

"Just as I thought."

"He is useful whenever the court scribe brings me more writs and decrees to read and sign. I am now pretty certain that a lot of those things are just written for people to sign without thinking as I have caught myself nearly paying twice the regular amount of tax on several occasions. But he is not a pet."

"I didn't think he was."

"He's is more a kind of...interface."

"What do you mean?"

"Spider's are not really that intelligent. Like dogs it depends on the breed. But they have created a

computer..."

"A what?"

"A thinking machine that is vast in complexity."

"Are you having me on?"

She smiled. "Let's just say that webs are not just for catching prey but they also form networks that are

remarkably similar to brain connections."

"You're definitely having me on."

"Have it your way. Let's see. I suppose things started to kick off with the meeting in the Dukes study,"

She also insisted on calling everyone else by their Nilfgaardian titles.

I have written the following from her point of view:

"It was a big study. I remember thinking that when I first walked in. A big room that I don't remember being there when the hall was first built. It was strange, like I was travelling through time. The strange sense of being home left from sitting on my old seat of power changing to the sudden feeling of... newness. It was unpleasant and cold. I remember shivering and making sure that I was close to the fire.

It was an odd room. There was certainly a desk, a fireplace and several chairs but there was also a lack of any paperwork that would normally suggest a study. Instead there were a lot of chairs and I quickly decided that there was a "public" study and a "private" study where all the actual work was being done.

I was incredibly tired after the days exertions and was desperately hungry but it seemed incredibly politic to ask for an entire roast pig just for myself at that juncture.

We sat. The Duke behind his desk, a rather obvious need to re-establish his control over proceedings but the poor thing was rather rattled I suppose. Not that I blame him.

There was also the two priests. The Melitele lady and the new one, the Holy Flame, fire or something. They stood together, the woman placid and curious while the man stood their bristling in barely contained indignation that he had to suffer the same air as myself.

Kerrass was there as well as the guard Captain.

This was after the rest of the various forces that Dorme had commanded had been sent home of course. For an old soldier he was positively gleeful at his work. There was also someone I recognised as a Chancellor who dealt with money and things as well as a couple of general political types and I was pleased to see that the Duchess was hidden in a corner, behind a screen. Apparently the Duke enjoys his wife's input on certain matters.

I approve.

But anyway,

Kerrass started your story. Massively uncomfortable in such a formal situation and he did need leading on a little. A couple of people, including Kerrass himself openly wished that you were more coherent at the time so that we could hear your side of the story but the Priestess squashed that idea.

Her name is Mary by the way. I like her, of farming stock originally she ran away to church and now exerts influence over several powerful people which is a situation that she obviously relishes.

Anyway,

Kerrass took the story up until the point where the two of you kicked my door in.

I know, I know you didn't know that it was a Ladies bed-chambers at the time but even so...

Then it was my turn. I showed proper respect to the Duke and described how his Ancestors and the ancestors had misconstrued many of my actions and had used primitive magic's to overwhelm my defences to lock me up in the tower. There was some argument about the right and wrong of the situation and I had to defend myself against several accusations but nothing I wasn't prepared for.

I described the long imprisonment. The eventual death of my maid-servant who was descending into madness at the confinement despite her loyalty and my decision to enter a sleep state to avoid my own madness and fury. I described your arrival, my confusion as to the state of the world and Fuck-face's words to me as well as his efforts to control me."

("I had a question about that." I asked as an insert, "Why _did_ you pretend to be controlled by him right up until the throne room?"

Ariadne paused and considered.

"First of all, I was testing his own understanding of what he held and how successful he had been. When I realised that he was incorrect in his assumptions I pretended weakness. I once read the works of a general who said that "When weak, pretend strength. When Strong, pretend weakness."

"The other thing was that I was by no means certain of where I stood in the world. Kerrass and yourself had already demonstrated that humanity had... moved on from where I thought their development had been and as such I needed to accrue more data. It is useless to act or to formulate a plan of action without data and as such, I wanted to know more. Your loyalties were not certain so I decided to bide my time and make an escape on my own terms.

"Later, when it transpired that Kerrass and yourself were caught up in things beyond your control as well as what Dorme had planned I decided that Angraal needed my help. The only deciding factor was what kind of man had my enemies produced by means of their breeding. I cannot deny that I was still angry with them for everything that they had done to me and to my country but finally, as I sat on my throne and thought about what you and Kerrass had told me about the world, the Duke came out and begged for the lives of his children. This simple act of a Fathers love told me that I could not kill the innocents in front of me.

"Dorme was quite right that if he was going to ascend to the Dukedom then those children would need to be killed. The same was true if I was to rule. So I decided to leave alone. To prevent the overturning of an established order and to learn how to exist and live in this, newer, world."

She sighed and rubbed her head.

"I did explain all of this to the assembly in the study but I did leave out the fact that I didn't decide which of the three options I was going to take until I was literally there, standing in front of the Duke. I was never personally in any danger. I could flee at any time I wanted to and the only person who could have caught me was Kerrass and he was, by his own admission, not entirely invested in that hunt. For which I am grateful as he... He terrifies me. I am physically stronger, faster and more resistant to harm than he is but when he looks at me with those cat's eyes..."

She shuddered.

"Probably some kind of primal thing. I really must remember to look into that when I've got a bit more time. Anyway...")

"I told my story with many questions about the nature of Vampires and my own perspectives of things long past and explanations about how the world works from my perspective when the Priest from the Holy Flame could no longer contain himself.

"My Lord. How long must we suffer this... this thing, this filth to dirty the very air in which we breathe... I DEMAND that you..."

"Father, you do remember what happened the last time someone demanded something in her presence," Mary said sweetly but he was on a roll and didn't stop preaching.

"For tho the Prophet said that Darkness lives in the hearts of all men and so we should seek it out with flaming brands to throw the shadow back and the holy flame can be seen in all of creation."

"I'm pretty sure that Ithline didn't say that in any recorded text," The Duke muttered and I began to realise that these impromptu sermons were part of the man's character. The others seemed content to wait for him to run out of words, making gentle jibes as they went. For myself I attempted to reason that this man had been just as terrified as everyone else in the throne-room earlier and that this was his way of expressing it. As a result I just chose to wait patiently while pointedly warming my hands by the fire a couple of times to make it clear that I wasn't afraid of light, fire, warmth or any such thing.

Eventually though I must admit that my patience snapped a little when he demanded further that I should be burned at the stake "like all witches and monsters"

"Certainly." I responded. "I'm game if you are?"

"and lo we shall see that...what?"

I could see that the Guard captain was smirking.

"If flame is the act of purging evil it would follow that if there is no evil then I would not be burned. Am I correct?" I asked Mary.

"It would follow his dogmatic logic," she said. Remind me never to gamble with that woman.

"So I will submit to this ordeal of fire, if you wish, providing you do the same. Then I can show the world that I am not evil by your own churches Dogma."

I turned to the Duke then.

"My Lord," I was taking care to properly say the two words to remind everyone, including him that I had sworn myself to him. "May I ask that we arrange the stakes and kindling as soon as possible as there are other things that need to be discussed that are rather time sensitive."

The Duke did an admirable job of hiding his smile behind a cup of water.

The Priest spluttered a bit.

"Such as what Madam?" The Duke asked.

"Well, my disposition, not least but first of all I would suggest that there is another problem with regards to this bag."

I took it off my belt and laid it on the floor next to the fire.

"Yes what is that bag?" I think it was the Chancellor that asked but I wasn't looking.

"It is an imperfect totem. Created using... utterly amoral methods. We should be grateful that it didn't work as everyone in this room would now be dead at my hands."

A couple of people twitched at this.

"As to what it is more practically. It is a bag made from the skin and containing the bones of Lord Dorme's daughter."

"What blasphemy is this?" the Priest hissed in what I took for genuine horror.

I looked at the Duke for permission and he nodded.

"Are you, in this room, aware of the multiple worlds that existed separate from each other but were brought together for what you call "The conjunction of Spheres?"

There were various nods.

"Vampires come from one of those worlds. But there were other worlds as well. Some worlds have denizens and powers that can travel between worlds. The power to dominate the mind of a... being like myself does exist but to do so you would need to make contact with one of these powers. You would then need to make a vessel that would hold these powers."

"Do you know how this was done?" Mary asked.

"I know part but not all. The process was so dangerous that when the vampiric elders realised that there was enough... You call it Force, or Magic, in this world to make these summons possible, they mounted a crusade against the knowledge. It was remarkably bloodless as crusades go, a few of our own perished as well as some other denizens who had come with us during the conjunction. But we made sure that we could recognise the practice of such magic's when they came up. Please understand that we were not entirely altruistic in our endeavours and that these events happened before I was born.

But we needed to make sure that this threat could be recognised and stamped out should anyone come across the method in the future as it's possible that a suitable mad person could find it and try again. Upon achieving a certain mastery of Magic, enough to realise the dangers inherent in these communications between worlds, I was told what things to watch for. As such I recognised the power contained in this bag. Even though it was imperfect and that Dorme had no real way of controlling it."

"How do you know this?" The priest asked, fascinated despite himself.

"The fact that he wasn't howling mad and throwing his own faeces everywhere was a hint. It takes a special kind of mind to... cope with such contact and although Dorme was ambitious and probably a little delusional..."

The Duke snorted at that,

"He wasn't completely psychotically insane. He saw that there was a method here that would, he thought, give him what he wanted and followed it. I, for one, would be very interested in how he found these things.

But..."

"This," I reached into the bag and produced a child's skull. "regardless of whether you believe me or not, is the corpse of someone who has had unspeakable things done to her. She will have been about six, so this has been a plan, a long time in the making. She will be the result of a rape. Her mother will then have been sacrificed and fed to the child and then..."

Frederick, I imagine that you sympathise a bit here. I am primarily a scientific kind of a Magic user and as such I can sometimes be a little clinical when it comes to describing such things. I looked up and noticed that the others in the room wore their alarm, pity and disgust on their faces. The chancellor in particular was pale.

"Well," I said. "Let's just say that her life was extraordinarily horrific. As such, as the Witcher will tell you, she will probably be haunting various places even now. I would suggest that these remains be laid to rest with as much care and compassion as the church of the Eternal Flame, or the Priestesses of Melitele can muster. Maybe you should even collaborate so the spirit can gain the comfort in death that it never had in life."

I started to feel a warming towards the Priest as his expression softened at this and he took the bag from me with gentleness and reverence.

"Will you give me the information that should be watched for?" he asked me. "Even if only to protect people from fates like this one," he gestured with the bag for emphasis.

"I believe I might be able to do better." I said. "As there is another danger in Angraal, which I suspect will exist in Dorme's lands somewhere. To even get _this_ far," I gestured at the bag which the priest was now cradling in his arms, "He will have needed to experiment and perform rites. Even though he got that bag wrong, he might have done some things right. There will certainly be things there that need destroying for the good of all."

"Such as?" said the Duke.

I admit that I was taken aback by the question. I thought that I had already explained myself beyond the need for further example but it seems that humans need to go one step further into imagining possibilities.

"Try and imagine the worst thing that could possibly ever happen to you. Then turn that circumstance into a physcial thing. Then turn that thing, including yourself as you imagine that thing, inside out and then animate yourself with invisible puppets strings that are used by dark Gods who roughly resemble the last thick and gloopy thing that came out of your nose while at the same time staring at you and guiding you with a terrible intelligence as well as utter hatred. While you are dealing with that image you are also being raped by a squiggley squirmy thing that is, at the same time, really large and infinitessimally small which is using you as the nutrient bath to lay it's own eggs within your insides."

I looked at the pale faces around me. "I can keep going if you wish."

The priestess was laughing, Kerrass looked serious but his eyes were glinting in that strange way that he has when I think he's either preparing to murder something or laugh aloud. Every one else looked sick to their stomach.

"The lady is not exaggerating, given what little knowledge I have of beings that came here from such places." Kerrass put in.

"I think that will do." Said the Duke. "What do you suggest?"

"First of all, Do you have any holy warriors amongst your number?"

The priest nodded.

"Then they should surround Dorme's lands with orders to detain or, at worst, destroy anyone who tries to leave in the immediate future. They should be backed up by as many holy women of Melitele as can be managed. Sir Priest, I have no idea as to the capabilities of your knights but Melitele's priestess are well known to me. A simple and entirely sensible religion in my opinion. I have no doubt that we can discuss this "holy flame" of yours at length at some other point."

"Destroy madam?" The chancellor looked aghast.

"Remember the egg-laying part of her description." Kerrass spoke up, for which I was grateful. "These people who try to escape, who injure themselves rather than be restrained are trying to spread the creatures or demons influence and are already better off dead. Most people will be innocent but any farmer will tell you that if one field has a parasite then it's better to burn the field than to let the parasite spread. Harsh but there it is."

"I would emphasise that the people's destruction is the last and most desperate action. I suspect that Dorme's people will have been misused and will be more than happy to find that people are taking them seriously. Your men should be armed and prepared for a fight, yes. But they should also have medicines, blankets and other things that help provide care."

People nodded.

"Then I suggest that the Witcher, myself and the strongest of your knights should go into the centre of the place and assess the danger. Sacred rites should be performed over any corpses found and they should be given their rest with compassion and pity wherever possible."

Kerrass was nodding as I said this,

"Then I believe that the best thing to do would be to raze Dorme's dwelling places with fire and the ground should be sewn with salt."

"I agree with her on that." said the Priest.

"You understand that you are agreeing with a vampire and a sorcerer there your grace," Mary teased him.

To his credit the man grinned and unstiffened a little. "My soul will heal in time, the lady has also promised to listen to me preach." He grinned at me nastily but with humour.

"She did at that," said Mary,

"You may come to regret that," Commented the Duke to me, There was a general titter of laughter. "Anything after that?"

"After that the area should be guarded to make sure that the threat does not re-emerge. I flatter myself that that means me. I can oversee the guarding and use my magic to slowly re-introduce native flora and fauna while also watching for any sign of mutation and corruption."

There was silence in the room for a while. Fortunately Mary saw what I was getting at. "Warren, just make her Lord of that Land."

It turns out that the Duke's first name is Warren.

"Make her Lord of the Land, as "reward" for her service against Dorme's rebellion, which she deserves by the way."

"A reward she deserves, but a Dukedom of Angraal?" The Priest was surprised. "Despite my...earlier agreement with her suggestions she is still a heretic and a monster, no offence milady,"

"None taken," I smiled at him showing a bit of fang.

He shivered and looked away first.

"But a Dukedom of Angraal, to an unknown quantity?"

"I agree," put in the chancellor, "We don't know her and the people don't know her. They may rebel at this."

"The people do know her," Kerrass of all people spoke up on my behalf. "She has been asking questions of many of the people in Dorme's army. She has spoken with myself and Lord Coulthard about Nobles' obligations at length and publicly. You may be surprised by how many people in Dorme's lands like her."

"I would also say that I do not need that much, my personal needs are not great." I decided to weigh in as this arrangement would suit me. "I would want a relatively small home but with a large library which I will fetch from my former prison. I would want a lab but largely I would want a large garden that I want to watch grow. Large tracts of Land? I will govern them tot he best of my ability, but the title of Duke is, I agree, too much. Count maybe? Some extra land to be taken by yourself my lord. That would make me, at best, a Baroness of Nilfgaard if I understand things right. I would not want any people on my lands that don't want to be there anyhow."

"I noticed that the Duchess' wife was coughing discreetly.

The Duke nodded without betraying any hint of having heard his wife.

"A Countess of Angraal and Baroness of Nilfgaard. It is fitting with a small land reduction. Does that suit lady?"

"It does."

"You will need to wait for your new home to be built but that would suit as we need to give you some

heraldry and discuss some other matters so you can stay here while your home is built."

"That would be wonderful," I said. "It means that my home can be built to my specifications as well and gives me more of a chance to see how the world works nowadays. I will also, of course, offer my services as your Court Mage and will enquire as to the organisation of Mages in the world as well but I will discuss those things with you as they come up."

"The Duke nodded. "Done and Done. I will have the orders and writs done up before you leave."

"My writ of nobility was written up while the Duke negotiated his fee and his reward with Kerrass and we left later that day after I used some magic to heal some of your more serious internal injuries."

(Frederick:This is where Ariadne's Point of view ends)

Ariadne's narrative stopped there, so suddenly that I was still walking on while she had stopped in her tracks. She was frowning, another one of her little ways in blending in humanity was that she now frowned to tell the entire witnessing world that she was "thinking".

"What happened?" I asked, "What did you find?"

"Hmm? Oh, I..." She stopped and frowned again for a moment. "I rather think that what we found was Human nature at it's grandest, and largest. At it's best and worst. It's something I have added to the growing list of topics that I intend to write about when I have all of my things in one place. Humans are different from all other races in that you are not driven by particular things. I suspect it's something to do with what Kerrass described in that it is linked to your relatively short life-spans. Even Kerrass, in his way has his nature and acts according to that nature.

"You are aware of this yourself Frederick. I have ready your writings and you yourself tell stories about men being more monstrous than the monsters and other men that have endangered themselves so that people could be free. Yourself not least.

"Yes, I have read your published works. I look forward to reading your account of _this_ little adventure.

"Humans... Humans are capable of so much that is grand and wonderful. All the virtues under the sun are found in humanity, kindness, pity, charity, love and some others that you haven't developed words for yet. But you are also guilty of the worst sins. Greed and Lust being just two of them. That's what we found in Dorme's lands, humanity's worst potential.

His biggest crime, in my opinion, was negligence. He was so fixated on being the Lord of Angraal that I suspect that had he succeeded he would have nothing to fulfil his life. Everything in his life was geared towards that end and had he achieved it he would have needed to fill that gulf. What we found were his people that were neglected unless they could be used in some way to further his goals. If he needed men to swell his armed forces then they were taken from the field. If he needed women, luxuries, money, or children to feed his dark rites towards power or to bribe other local lords towards his cause then he simply took it from his people by whatever means he had at his disposal. He didn't think it was evil he just thought that it was his right and that his people should be grateful for it. He wasn't particularly cruel, he didn't enjoy those horrors that he inflicted on others, he just...saw them as necessary. There are even some places where his people thrived under his stewardship until he stripped his lands of men and boys to fight his war. He did this because he needed strong men. Not because it was the right thing to do or the needs of the land or his country but because he needed them."

Ariadne shook her head in what I took for sadness and frustration.

"I saw it as a waste. A waste of land, wealth and people. The man was clearly intelligent and charming and _this_ was what he chose to do with it.

"He then went on to attract people to his cause. From an outside perspective those people might be good or evil, possibly both, who genuinely believed in his cause or saw in it another route to power. Even now, church and Ducal forces are routing out the last of Dorme's people, those hangers on that you despised so much. Now they see themselves as honourable outlaws, fighting the good fight against an oppressive regime. Who knows? Maybe they're right. I was sent home so that I would not be seen being too oppressive.

"What did I see?

"I saw a soldier get down off his horse and offer an old woman his blanket, cloak and whatever rations that he had in his back-pack before riding on. That old woman must have been passed by dozens of people and he was the first to offer her some charity. Another man close to me commented that the old woman would be murdered shortly for that cloak and blanket and that he shouldn't have given it to her.

"We came to a village that had been slaughtered by someone, I don't know by who. I hope it wasn't our side and I don't think it was due to the outrage, disgust and pain shown by our soldiers but there were some stories that were told by the arrangement of bodies. One woman had sheltered a child that wasn't her own with her own body, her efforts were pointless as the child had still been sought out and killed whereas another, older man had pushed a similarly aged child in front of himself so that he could get a head start on running away from his attackers."

I said nothing.

"Humanity has such...potential. I like to think that that's what we saw in those earliest of settlers as they landed in the delta. I like to think that we saw... hope."

She shook her head as though clearing out some cobwebs.

"Dorme's manor house was a picture of neglect and lack of care. Whole rooms were given over to the debauchery that I had feared and the rites that I had warned of. One woman had been skinned alive. Another had literally been raped to death. A man had been thrown into a pit with a pack of dogs. He'd done all the rites in the correct order but then he had just left them there. Left them without bothering to clean them up, so obsessed with the end result. It was like he had a list of things to do like "Eat breakfast, collect taxes, exercise horse, eat lunch, torture man to death by sticking hot items up his rectum, donate to charity" and so on. He just went through the motions.

"There was some magic there of course. You can't do things like that without leaving some kind of scarring where everyone can see and feel it. The place was definitely haunted and openly weeping church knights went through the place laying people to rest while Kerrass dealt with the angrier spirits as best as he could. People kept telling me that it was all horrible and how could a person do something like this."

"I'm sorry" she said after another long silence. "If you wanted a lurid telling of what happened and what we found out there you're talking to the wrong vampire. It seems that I have lost my taste for such things in being reborn into this newer and more modern world."

"Would you take it amiss Madame if I said that I was glad of that?"

She looked at me sharply before stopping and thinking. "No, no I don't think I would take it amiss and I also find that I am pleased that that's not what you want."

"Don't get me wrong, it would increase my reader numbers." I tried for a joke and she did indeed smile.

"What were the other duties?" I asked.

"What do you mean?"

"The Duke said you had "other things" to talk about?"

She laughed.

"It would seem that as well as your philosophy of Noble obligation, there are other more practical things that I am supposed to do now that I am a noble of this land for which there might be problems. Not that they're really problems but it's things that might need to be looked into for a quiet life in the future."

"Such as,"

She grinned.

"Apparently it is unseemly for a lady such as myself to be unmarried and ruling over a part of the realm." She snorted. "Of all the ridiculous notions that modern humanity has, this presumed precedence of the male over the female is one of the most stupid. But apparently it's something that I must look into. I told them that if they could find someone of suitable rank who was willing to marry the "Spider Queen of Angraal" then I would gladly meet with them."

I grinned at her. "You could always make your own arrangements. As I think has been mentioned previously, marriages are arranged so you could go over the boys head if you wish,"

"I could. I will consider various things. The other thing is that it is an apparent duty of the female to produce an heir. Leaving aside the problem of finding someone to fulfil the first duty to help provide a _legitimate_ heir. I am a vampire. I pointed out the redundancy of this duty given that, to all practical purposes, I will live forever but apparently it's still a thing in case something happens to me."

She snorted again. "How ridiculous."

"Have you made any other contacts with your own people?"

She looked at me for a long time.

"My people are very secretive. I have heard words to the effect that they will watch my progress "with interest," I have no idea what that means but I suppose that we shall see. Kerrass and yourself will still leave today?"

"We will. Kerrass wants to go further north as he has something that he wants to do, or show me. He's not being forthcoming on details."

She nodded and patted my arm.

There was something about that gesture. An intimacy about it that caught me off guard. We had been walking slowly round the gardens as we had talked and I was suddenly, again, very conscious of how close we were physically and I felt myself pull away without consciously meaning to.

"Do you still find me so terrifying Frederick?" she asked for the second time that morning. She looked up at me and I realised that this version of her was a little shorter than me. Thinking back this had been true before but this was the first time that I properly noticed it. She seemed a little resigned, maybe even a little sad.

"Is this a time for honesty rather than a time for consideration madame?" I asked formally.

She drew herself up. Her regality and poise coming back to the fore.

"It is,"

I nodded. Swallowed and cleared my throat.

"You terrify me madame."

She nodded. I recognised her mask.

"Why?" she asked.

"There are a couple of reasons I suspect. The greater part of it is unknown to me. Maybe it is an instinctual thing like your confession with regards to your feelings about Kerrass. The primal part of me quails before your gaze. But although that is indeed true, there is another reason."

I had turned away from her and turned back to face her.

"You are beautiful Lady, but I am also aware that what I am looking at is an illusion. What I can touch, feel, see, hear and smell is a spell designed to befuddle me. Made even worse by the fact that Kerrass, quite accurately, described my...tastes and as such, you cast a spell on me. I know this and as such I do not trust it. I don't know why you appear like this, in this form that is, I admit, attractive to me. I can guess at some reasons. You want to blend in, you want to put people at their ease and not frighten them all but it is a deception. Knowing that you can do those things I... Put bluntly... How can I trust you? You are also, obviously a gifted politician and can manipulate others to suit your needs and desires so how can I trust you?"

I smiled sadly. Her mask was still in place.

"You are right. I have met monsters that are kinder than humans and over the past year and a bit. I have met many things and encountered many more situations that have taught me to question my beliefs and long held prejudices but I find that although I can consciously decide that those things are incorrect... Instinct betrays me. I look at you and I hear your words. But I cannot trust what I see and hear, does that make sense? I do not mean to insult you and I accept that such things are highly insulting and I apologise for that and I..."

She smiled at me. "You're babbling Frederick. I understand completely. Trust is earned however and I intend to earn that trust. My appearance is part of that but I can see your reasoning. You have no need to apologise."

I nodded, relieved.

She looked to the left and to the right quietly. I blinked and a skeleton was standing in front of me. I say a skeleton but that's not true. It was...The clothes were real, they seemed to hang off her as though they were hung on a dressing mannequin. She was painfully thin. Beyond even the thinnest of humans, those people that you see who have starved to death over a prolonged period of time. Her skin was there but so pale as to be translucent, blue veins running hither and thither underneath her skin. I could see no muscle or flesh anywhere, her fangs were plainly visible in her mouth under the lips and I could visibly see her heart beating. There were two things that remained the same though, her eyes and her hair which she was playing with nervously.

"Oh," I exclaimed. Not the most witty response, or the most helpful.

She turned away. "Now do you see? This is why I hide so that I don't drive people away. I have...I learned a new word recently. Cliche. It is a cliché but true nevertheless. My companion in the tower died nearly three hundred years ago after living long past her natural span of years. I need people around me I'm... not lonely but I crave company and contact and people to talk to in the same way that I find I crave fresh air, rain or shine." Her voice was a rasping ghost of what it was normally.

But I wasn't really listening. She had turned away from my eyes. For the first time she seemed... afraid. She seemed... I don't know the word for it but I wanted to reassure her but without lying. I am well aware of the male need to be a hero sometimes and I cannot deny that that was part of what I was feeling.

"Ariadne," I said.

She looked back at me.

"I will not deny that you are a person that still needs to eat a lot of pie,"

she snickered at that, covering her mouth with her hand.

"But regardless of anything else I am pleased that you showed me that. That honesty is... I don't know what it is but it's...nice. And I will say that regardless of your physical body that, as I said, needs a lot of pie, vegetables and other such sustenance... I do see the truth there and I will admit that I find you beautiful."

I do not know what I thought would happen then. I suspect that if she was human she may have blushed. But

Ariadne held my gaze and nodded.

"Thank you Frederick."

We made pleasantries for a bit longer but the time for my departure came on us and I left. We were seen off by the Duke and most of the rest of the court decked out in their finery. I can't speak for Kerrass but I was certainly glad to be dressed in my normal travelling clothes again with my spear at my side and a road to be travelled. The Duke gave a speech, the priest gave a speech and then Ariadne approached. She gave Kerrass a jewelled badge and a small box that he put in the travel bag normally reserved for his alchemical supplies before hugging him. He made a joke which I did not here but made her laugh. Then she came to me and I bowed formally. She did have her illusion back up and I will admit that she looked stunning. A long way from the corpse that I had first met and the black clad evil queen of legend. She didn't hug me or offer a gift she just stared at me for a long time, head slightly cocked to one side like a dog considering something.

"Tell me something Lord Frederick," She said not quietly. "Who deals with arranging marriages for your family?"

The question was so out of the blue that like a fool, I answered.

"My mother probably, or if she has retired to the nunnery then it would be my eldest sister."

Ariadne nodded. "I shall remember that." She turned and walked back to her place next to the Duke.

As Kerrass and I left, the overwhelming implications of that question sank in and I looked over at Kerrass, mute horror on my face.

He grinned at me.

"Don't look at me." He said. "You did that one to yourself. Properly stitched yourself."

"Fuck off." I said and kicked my horse into a trot to the sound of his quiet chuckling.


	25. Chapter 25

So we were about a weeks easy ride north of Oxenfurt when we got the news about my father's accident.

And you have no idea how long it's taken me to sit here and right that sentence.

The story of what happened to the Baron Coulthard has, by now, reached all parts of society that can easily be reached. Letters have come from the capital of Nilfgaard regarding these events and now that the official part of the investigation is concluded, I am now free to talk about it, what happened and how it involved a certain Witcher.

You see there have been several problems. The first of them all has been that the events that I'm about to describe to you are of an intensely private and personal nature and as such I am uncomfortable talking about them. On the other hand, the faint and exciting scent of scandal has been hanging over these events since they happened. Some people need their reputations protecting and other people are trying to claim the moral high-ground when, in my opinion, they have no right to it. I am by no means an unbiased observer of these events and they have had a profound effect on me and those people that I care about while also continuing to do so for many years to come.

Another problem is an academic one. These articles that you, my dear readers, have in your hands are written on the sufferance of the University magazine and to use them as a pulpit for my own feelings and agendas is actually far from their intended use. Much to my surprise, pleasure and no little amount of horror I have become an active participant in those events that I set out to observe. I am not at all objective. I have been told by my professors that a true scholar would be able to stand aside fro his subject and use the cold dispassionate logic of an outside observer. To simply record these events without judgement.

But I find that I cannot do that. I cannot stand aside and allow someone to die a most grisly and horrible death by my inaction. To my mind I set out to find out what life is like on the road, to record what being a Witcher is all about. There day to day lives, their feelings about their work and how people treat them. I maintain that the best way to do that is to work, fight and walk alongside him. However a couple of my academic critics have pointed out that Kerrass has almost become a side character in some of my accounts. That these writings are no longer about him but are about the many people that I have come across on my

travels.

This is not entirely unfair criticism.

It also has relevance regarding what happened with my family. Am I writing about myself, or am I writing about Kerrass, his profession and his methods.

I don't know the answer to that but I do think that I can serve both masters here. The following account will appease many of my readers. Those people that have heard of me through my writing and as a result heard of my families misfortunes have written to me to demand an account of what happened. I want to write this account because I want to set the record straight. I know that many people will deny what I am going to write here. Many more people will claim that I have perverted the course of justice and lied about good and decent men in the pursuit of a personal agenda. All I can say to those people is that this account that you hold in your hand and serialised over future issues are the facts as I saw them transpire. They are also the facts as far as the magistrate saw them as well as the Sheriff of Redania who has final say on such matters.

The other reason that I feel justified is from an academic point of view.

You see there has been one point of view that I have never had the opportunity to pursue properly which is that of the victim. Those people who are so desperate that they are willing to hire a stranger, a mercenary to save themselves. To fight those enemies that cannot be fought in any other way. In short, those people who would hire themselves a Witcher. What's that like? How does that feel? These are questions that I can now answer and add into the record of what it is to be a Witcher.

So as I say. We were about a weeks easy ride north of Oxenfurt. Our business in the north was concluded (Again I must apologise. I am aware that many people wanted to know what this was and I will write about it after I've spent some more time thinking about those events. It was not an easy subject to process) and Kerrass had taken a number of contracts as we came over the mountains from Kaedwen back into Redania, exorcising his own complicated thoughts about what had happened in the north-east. As a result we were not short of coin. Kerrass had continued his practice of sharing his profits with me to a certain extent as I had helped carry him when times had been leaner and we were on our way back south to collect some of the many bounties that would be taken on the plague of Necrophages that was still continuing in Northern Temeria where the battlefronts had been.

There had been some talk of the increased need for Monster-slayers in the inns on the way back south as well. In my guise as a "Witcher's apprentice" I received many comments that "it's a good trade" and "You'll never be short of work" and other such comments. Comments that Kerrass found both amusing and more than a little insulting. Rumours were rife on that regard. Some said that Empress-elect Cirilla had ordered the formation of a Monster-hunting elite regiment of men. Others claimed that she had ordered the reconstruction of the Witcher schools. I never pay much heed to such rumours though as there were just as many rumours that said that the Empress in waiting could heal any injury with a touch (which may be closer to the truth than I am entirely comfortable with) and largely spent her time screaming at her father. Another rumour said that a number of Witch-hunters and knights were reluctant to return to their former trades of administration or minor nobility and had banded together in an effort to reform the order of the Flaming Rose to combat the increase number of monsters in the vastly depopulated wilderness.

Kerrass always snorted at such things, decrying such people as "dangerous amateurs". I challenged him once as to why he didn't try to help such people with advice and training but he threw the old peasant saying of "You can't make a silk purse out of a pigs ear" back in my face and stomped off in a fury.

But anyway we were on our way south. It was late Spring, Early Summer. The kind of climate where it's pleasantly warm and sunny but then a rain-storm will come out of nowhere. Or you go to sleep with a thin blanket expecting a warm night only to wake up shivering. We had spent the previous night in an abandoned cottage as there had been storm clouds off to the east and we wanted a little shelter as the terrain mostly seemed to be made up of deserted farmland.

The plan was that we were going to stop off at Oxenfurt so that I could drop off some of the notes that I had been working on, pick up some more paper and ink supplies and check in with my publishers and professors who, I understand, were busy lining up a guest lecture spot for Kerrass on Monster anatomy. I was morbidly looking forward to it in a way as Kerrass had gleefully declared that he was looking forward to it and had taken great delight in gathering what he described as "samples" for the students to see. But anyway we would stop off, I could do things, Kerrass could do his own re-stocking of herbs and things. A proper load of supplies before we headed down into Velen and the Necrophage hunt. Velen still being extremely depopulated and lacking in places to get those requirements.

We found a small village in the late morning and were just getting the horses stabled and groomed so that we could get a hot meal and things when there was the sound of hoof-beats, a lot of hoof-beats and the jangle of armour. The similarity to this occasion and our first meeting with Dorme was not lost on me and I unstrapped my spear from my saddle and noticed that Kerrass was also studying his sword, whet-stone in hand as though he was sharpening it although in reality it was ready to use.

"Lord Frederick?" Someone called. "Lord Frederick von Coulthard."

By stables I should say that it was the equivalent of a small wooden structure. We were lucky that it had walls for the kind of village that it was. There were maybe eight houses, an inn. One of the houses was a merchants place where travelling merchants could bunk down for the night and set their stalls out in the morning and another house was the site of a blacksmith who mostly made and mended farming equipment. He still had a couple of swords left over from the war but by his own admission they weren't the best quality. The inn won't have had separate rooms, you could have paid for a space on the floor but that was about it. It was the sort of place that farmers need when they need to trade gossip, livestock and goods and the _next_ town is just too far over.

I say all this by way of explanation that there was no where and no way to hide.

"Lord Frederick von Coulthard. Advance and make yourself known or rewards can be offered for his whereabouts."

I looked at Kerrass who shrugged.

"Just so I'm sure," I said. "But it's never a good sign when they know who you are is it?"

"Not generally no,"

"Oh good." I advanced back into the light with my spear held casually and comfortably in my hand.

The group of horsemen, unlike Lord Dorme's entourage were hardened professionals. You can always tell because the men are generally filthy but their equipment is always clean and their horses are well cared for. These men knew that their survival might depend on their horses and as such probably cared for their mounts more than they did themselves.

There are other signs as well if you know what to look for. A couple of them had bows drawn and arrows strung. They were lowered so they weren't expecting trouble but they were prepared for it. The bows were liberally place around the formation. The other men had their weapons sheathed but in easily reachable places. Spears strapped to saddles on right, bow and sword on left. Shields already strapped to arms. Their chain mail was lighter than an infantry man's standard armour would be as it had been interwoven with leather strips. I had learned that this was done for lightness but also to muffle sound and to dull the armour so that a stray sunbeam might not disclose position. These men were veterans of the war who were good enough to be kept on after the treaty. They wore the golden sun of our official overlords over their right shoulders and the Redanian flag on their shield covers. Covers that could be removed if they needed to move incognito.

Their leader was a tall man standing at six feet if I was to judge with a scar on the right side of his face which gave his face a kind of mocking expression. The only sign that he was in charge was that he had an officers signal horn strapped to his waist. Otherwise he was indistinguishable from his men. The hilt of his sword was well worn and he walked with the slight bow-legged stride of a man that spends more time on horseback than using his feet.

He dismounted when we emerged, looked the pair of us up and down and compared us to a drawing that he

had on paper. His lips moved as he read the words before he tucked the paper into one of his saddlebags.

"Lord Coulthard?" He asked me.

I was still feeling a little prickly and wary after the last time a group of horsemen had approached us.

"Who's asking?" I called over.

The man smiled.

"Sir Rickard Fletcher of Temeria, sir. Redanian Guards sir. I have a message for Lord Frederick Coulthard that is marked as both private and urgent." His accent sounded rough and without wishing the man insult, it didn't sound like the voice of a knight and I said so.

He grinned ruefully.

"Had the "fortune" to be standing next to Lord Natalis during the fall of Temeria sir. He thinks I saved his life and knighted me for it. Bastard."

"But working for Redanians?"

"Bastards are bastards wherever you go sir. Roadside bastards especially. Forgive my language sir. I just dislike brigands and bullies. We patrol the roads and hunt out all of those army deserters who decided that they preferred banditry to going home after the war. Lords Roche and Natalis had Temeria pretty well under control but Redania was struggling so we were offered as... help...Sir."

I nodded. It was a credible story.

Sir Rickard approached he and Kerrass looked each other up and down. It was not a new thing between Kerrass and other fighting men but Rickard reacted a little differently in that he nodded to the Witcher as a mark of respect between equals. Surprised, Kerrass nodded back.

Sir Rickard held out a scroll. Checking the seal I felt the hair stand up on the back of my neck. It was our families official seal.

"Thank you Sir Rickard." I moved off a little way and broke the seal to read the letter.

The first time I read it I kind of staggered up against the wall of the stable but I didn't really take the news in. I was looking at the words rather than reading them. Taking their meaning into my brain in some kind of subliminal way. So even though I was leaning up against the wall and fighting for breath through the lump that had taken residence in my throat, I had to read the letter again to make sense of it.

As of today I am sat some distance from these events and the note is long since missing. But even though it was mere weeks ago I cannot seem to remember the entirety of the note. I remember thinking that it was odd. That it didn't make sense and that it was difficult to read. The blatant hypocrisy of noticing a spelling mistake

and a couple of grammar errors as I read it hit me somewhere and I chuckled aloud.

The long and short of the entire thing was that my father had suffered a rather severe hunting accident and was dying despite the efforts of the best physicians that Oxenfurt university could be persuaded to send. My father had refused to send for a Sorcerer and as such it was expected that he wouldn't last much longer before succumbing to his wounds. I was urged to go home with all due haste as my father had been asking for me.

I read it a third time just to be sure that I hadn't missed anything out. I recognised my sisters hand-writing. She would have rejected the idea of consigning such news to the hand of a scribe but at the same time it was maddeningly short of news. How had he been injured? What had happened? My father hunted regularly, how could he have been allowed to be so careless as to allow himself to be injured?

The questions formed themselves up and marched across my mind in letters of fire.

What were the rest of the family doing? How long ago had this happened? Would he still be alive by the time that I got there? Had the relevant authorities been informed? Of course they had. The letter had been delivered by military escort. How else was my life going to change? I had always considered the possibility of course. There were three brothers ahead of me in the line of inheritance but that didn't mean that there wouldn't be some quite considerable changes. My eldest brother would now inherit and he and I had never been close. To say that we despised each other would not really have been an understatement. I very much doubted that he would allow me to continue with "my hobby" which is what he called my academic work. I could probably look forward to being farmed off to be husband to some woman's husband in return for whatever dowry could be got and a life of administration and constant calls of "You wouldn't let the family down would you?" as my brother called on my loyalty to pay off his gambling debts.

But at the same time I found that I was a little excited. The Status Quo was changing. Admittedly, probably for the worst but I was a much different person than I had been the last time I had seen my family and I was encouragement much more confident that I could stand on my own two feet.

You might have noticed a lack of grief as all of this was being thought about. Don't worry, it was indeed there but it still seemed a short distance away as though it didn't quite make sense yet. As though it wasn't entirely real.

Then I started with explanations in my own head. Anything could have happened between the time of the incident and now and many more things could happen between now and when I actually arrived home. Maybe someone would have talked some sense into father by that point and as a result he might have sent for some kind of wizard of Sorcerer to heal his injuries. It was true that he would have to get over his stubborn dislike of magic users, which I had always thought was more bred from a political ambition rather than a genuine prejudice, but staring death in the face was a powerful thing to try and get you to try new ideas.

At some point I had let the letter fall from my hands. I don't remember whether I had screwed it up or not but Kerrass was nearby, had stooped to catch it and was reading it.

I didn't notice. My brain was still working.

The prospect of not going wasn't even a question that was worth considering. Of course I was going to go. My sister had asked me to and there aren't many things that I wasn't prepared to do for my sister. I tried to think about how much time it was going to take to get home and shouting down those stupid voices that told me that I wouldn't need sleep during the journey.

I noticed that my eyes felt hot and rubbed at them stupidly and wondered why my face was wet.

Kerrass had left and was speaking to Sir Rickard. I was oblivious to this until Kerrass started to take gear of his horse and pile it on the ground.

"Kerrass, I ummm."

"Yeah?" he asked not looking up from what he was doing.

"I have to go."

He looked up at me.

"I have to go home and I uh," I put my hand up to my forehead which was beginning to ache. I felt exhausted and energised at the same time. I wanted to collapse into a heap and run away screaming. I wanted to leap on my horse and flog it to death to get home as quickly as possible. "I have to go home. There's a family crisis going on. My dad's dying."

My stomach cramped for a second and I put my hand out to the wall to steady myself.

"My dad's dying and I need to go home and take care of it. I don't know how long that's going to take."

"I know," he said. He went back to taking his stuff off the horse. One of the soldiers came in and picked up an armload of it.

"I don't know if you want to carry on to Velen and I'll try and meet you later or even if you..." I coughed. "If you want to part ways here but I have to go."

"I know," he said smiling a little bit. "Sir Rickard told me what happened and your letter told me the rest. I have it by the way I assumed you would want to keep it rather than leaving it in the dung."

He moved past me and started taking things off my own horse which finally managed to jar me out of my fog.

"What are you doing?"

"Changing our saddles. You've got enough to think about at the moment so I'm helping. Sir Rickard has provisions for you but one of his men is buying extra for me. He has a spare horse for you and he's going to leave some men behind to bring up our horses to your families keep later."

"Wait...what?"

"Well, he expected to be escorting you home and not me as his orders didn't include me."

"You're coming with me?"

"Of course I am." He made his voice indignant although his face looked as though he was trying to gauge whether he needed to catch me or not. "That's what friends do isn't it? Help each other out through tough times."

I nodded and that's when the tears started coming.

It was the first time that Kerrass had called me friend and at that moment it meant the world to me that I wouldn't have to make that journey home alone.

I felt his hand on my shoulder.

"Come on. The faster we can get our gear stowed on the other horses the faster we can get you home and you can find out what's going on."

I nodded and got to work.

It turns out that the accident had happened about a week ago and that it would take us about four days to get home. I should also say that Sir Rickard and his men were absolutely incredible during that journey and couldn't be more accommodating to my temper tantrums which were handed with deftness and grace, my sadness tantrums that were handled with humour and offers of alcohol and my impatience which was handled with humour and logic. But even despite that I was pretty sure that he would be all but dead by the time that I got home

They all knew what had happened because of course they did. It was common knowledge in that part of the world that something had happened to Baron Coulthard, one of the richest Barons in the north. It would only have been a matter of time before I came across the information myself but I was grateful that I had been found by one of my sisters messengers rather than hearing about it in some tavern somewhere.

Sir Rickards men were also frighteningly and wonderfully professional A huge difference from the many armed guards and soldiers that I had met during my travels. Sir Rickard kept very harsh, strict and absolute discipline despite the blatant criminality of some of the men that he had following him. One man had pale eyes who hungrily watched everything and had a habit of staring at you without blinking while playing with a skinning knife. Another man talked openly about poaching from various people's lands and the kind of food that could be found in this part of the world along with the best way to cook it. It didn't take much cajoling to find out that the lot of them were thieves and murderers who had been driven to the army out of starvation or to avoid the noose when criminals were still being used to fill the ranks during war time. In one of my more lucid moments I asked one why they still kept following Sir Rickard now that the war was over and they could easily desert back to the lives of thievery and banditry that had employed them before. The man looked at me as though I was terminally idiotic and said "Well it's 'is Lordship innit?" before wandering off shaking his head at the stupidity of the nobility.

The discipline was also very simple. Sir Rickard kept a number of rules that could easily be followed by his men. I tackled him about them later in time as our friendship grew (after these events) and he said he came up with them as simple ways to maintain discipline when he was leading the worst kinds of scum (he said that affectionately. He loves his men and they him even though he doesn't display this affection often.)

The first rule was that the men should fight like the bastards that Sir Rickard knew them to be. If they failed in this duty then the punishment would be up to the other men of the unit that had been let down by that failure. Apparently it had only ever happened once.

The second rule was that they should only get drunk when permission was given. Punishment varied depending on the danger of the timing of the drunkenness. Drunk on duty was given a flogging, drunk during a fight meant punishment at the hands of the unit again. Other Drunkenness was punished according to Sir Rickard's whim and desire for amusement.

The third rule was that women should be treated with respect and Rape is forbidden. Breach of the respect rule is punished by an informal beating at the hands of the woman's nearest male relative. Rape was punished by castration with two slabs of rock that was carried around in the sergeants back-pack. Sir Rickards only response was "I don't like rapists," and considered the matter closed.

The fourth rule was that his men should steal nothing but from the enemy. Resulting in flogging or hanging.

"Simple direct rules," he has said to me. "Soldiers and men in general like simple rules and leaders who follow those rules themselves. That's all leadership is. Set high standards, meet them yourself, never expect someone under your command to do something you wouldn't do yourself and always give credit where it's due." He shrugged and then refilled my drink.

Those men treated me like a little brother that needed looking after and Kerrass like one of their own. Especially after Sir Rickard challenged him to a Sword fight and lost, much to the hooting and jeering of the men.

It should have taken us four days to get back to my families estate. It took us three.

Sir Rickard set a hard pace and we would ride into military compounds and "commandeer" remounts under his authority before riding on. I noticed that even men who technically outranked Sir Rickard backed down in the face of his crooked smile. The fact that one of his men was always nearby grinning manically at the superior officer didn't seem to have any kind of effect.

At all. No, not at all.

I also need to update the rather paltry write up I did about my family some time ago so that you can be aware of what I'm talking about when they start to come up.

Ready?

My families estate is large for that of a Baron and sits about two days east of Oxenfurt. As I've mentioned before my family is considered "new money" by the current crop of nobility but my fathers line is full of men who have bettered both themselves and their families lot in life. All jesting aside and leaving my own disapproval of some of my fathers policies and politics along with the jokes, they did this by working damn hard. My great great grandfather had been an orphan on the streets of some unnamed city. My great grandfather was a farmer, grandfather made us rich nobility and father made us richer and grander nobility.

My Fathers name is Francis von Coulthard and although he is not the richest man in what remains of the Northern Kingdoms, on a list of the top ten, his name would feature. Again to be fair to him, most of that money was invested rather than lying around in some room. Most of it was invested into merchant enterprises that made the family even more money but a significant chunk of it was invested into his lands and it's people. He had made roads, paid for farming improvements and technology as well as buying extra supplies in from outside of his lands when famine hit hard immediately after the most recent wars. He paid dwarves to craft things for the people and as a result there was a dwarven settlement on our lands and a liberal sprinkling of church schools had also sprung up in some of the more major towns and villagers that make up our lands after several hefty donations to the church. All of which paid into each other and people would go out of their way to come to our lands.

He also decided to specialise. He went out of his way to turn what spare land he had (which was considerable) into a hunting reserve. Animals were brought from all over the Northern Kingdoms along with trainers and breeders to be released into these hunting reserves so that people could be invited to come over and hunt them. These hunts eventually became famous and were a significant part of "societies activities" in the north, bringing our family a lot of prestige.

Father would then expand by offering reasonable sums of money to buy up land bordering ours and expand his interest. Prior to the war King Radovid had ordered that he stop doing this for fear of having my father rival him in wealth and importance, but then the war had happened.

Father was one of the few who had predicted the most recent war, arguing that Nilfgaard wouldn't be happy with what had happened previously and when Nilfgaard crossed the Yaruga again Father turned up to the Kings court with enough arms and armaments to equip a significant number of soldiers better than they had ever been equipped before. In the official histories of the third Nilfgaardian war there will be several reasons why Nilfgaard didn't cross the Pontar and take Novigrad by force but my fathers money and the innovations it bought is one of them

As a result, our family gained favour, which was the point, and our various military positions were guaranteed. My eldest brother was Fathers assistant in the Logistics division which came with a rank so that he could claim that he had "served" in the war, my next brother was already a priest anyway and my third brother was assigned to a "good" unit where he could see action and gain glory for himself and his family as well as being kept reasonably safe.

For those keeping track... I could read, write, do maths and had half a brain. I was given a token rank and shuffled into the armies bureaucracy. I read reports, filed those reports and checked requisitions. At the time I was cross but now, having seen the results of injuries I think that I was the lucky one.

When King Radovid died my family did indeed suffer a bit of a set-back as many of the surviving nobles were his favourites that he kept close by and these were the people that hated my fathers increased influence. The drive, patriotism and ambition that had flared up in my father during the war died back down and he was left with his old schemes and went back to making more money knowing that an opportunity like that wouldn't come again in his life-time.

He had started to let business dealings go into the rest of the family to be taken up by others during his descent into bitterness and anger at the state of the world and the stubbornness of the nobility in not recognising his brilliance and increasingly his only pleasure in life was to go out on his hunts.

Given this I supposed that the accident was inevitable really while we were on the journey back to our lands.

We had a castle that stood in the middle of them which was my fathers "seat" for want of a better word. It was a large sprawling thing that sat on the top of a hill that was now surrounded by hunting land. It had been built by one of the previous nobles of the area as a massive display of that nobles power and wealth. Unfortunately, in building such a grand, huge and admittedly beautiful castle he had bankrupted himself and it had fallen into ruin as practical peasants will steal good stone from anywhere.

My father bought it for a fraction of what it had cost to build, repaired and renovated it for a similar amount and still saved money on the deal. I remember being excited about moving in as a small boy and being admonished not to get lost. An order that my sister and I promptly ignored.

My mother's name is Henrietta von Coulthard which I always found amusing for some kind of childish reason. I always wanted to call her Henry and wondered if her parents had secretly wanted a boy but then couldn't think of a new name to replace the existing one. She is a tall woman although she seems to have shrunk in recent years although her physical height remains the same.

Father married her for the money, land and the prestige, there is no point in pretending otherwise but by all accounts they managed to find a contentment and affection for each other that grew into a love of a kind. They never talked about it and that comment on their feelings for each other is based entirely on hear-say from my elder siblings and people who knew them at the time.

She comes from blood so old and intermingled that they can trace their line from father to son back to the people that first landed in the delta. I can't answer to the truth of those things as obviously everyone can do that but they took a great deal of pride in that fact. They were so intermarried with the other nobles that someone somewhere could probably prove that I'm somewhere in the line of succession to the throne. In practical terms what that meant was that the gene-pool for those nobles had shrunk considerably and therefore that branch of the family tree had withered on the trunk. They rarely had children and what they did have rarely survived. My mother had one older brother to carry on the family name (which is Kalayn by the way. Lord and Lady Kalayn's estate can be found most of the way up the mountains between Redania and Kaedwen. I think I've visited their lands twice.) and he was busy trying to defend what remains of his families legacy from the circling vultures.

My mother escaped to marry into the so called "new-breed" of nobility that was being encouraged at that time in Redania and even though it caused her to be ostracised by many of her peers it seemed that she was content enough as father could certainly ensure that she lived in a luxury that had been unknown to her up until that point.

When I was much younger it had caused me some pain that my mother and father did not spend as much time together as I wanted them to. Whatever affection that they had for each other had started to wane by that point and no-one seemed to know why. According to my old nanny (yes I had a nanny, deal with it) who had seen to my early schooling before passing me onto other tutors when my youngest sister arrived, the cooling between them started a couple of years after that last child was born. It was a slow thing at first and to an outsider it simply seemed that they had simply grown apart.

My mother caught religion and spent increasing amounts of time in the castle chapel, praying or speaking with the priest there, or studying the various books written by holy men on the subject. She might have made a name for herself in academic circles in that regard except that she rarely left the castle any more to see friends and women weren't really regarded as having the ability or the intelligence to be able to be academic in any circles at that point (a prejudice that still exists today, unfortunately).

Father didn't approve and threw himself into other works and refining the lands and the people and gradually they just satisfied. An atmosphere of sadness just...settled over the castle then and I would be lying if I said that it was an entirely pleasant place to grow up. Don't get me wrong... I wouldn't trade it but still, I remember there being a lot of sadness, hostility and tears that I didn't understand as a young boy.

The last time I wrote about my family in any kind of meaningful way I said that my eldest brother was the black sheep of the family. This is not an exaggeration, if anything it is an understatement. His name is Edmund von Coulthard and I dislike him intensely. I've even tried to hate him on more than one occasion but at the end of the day he's still my brother and as such there is a bond of familial feeling there. He's the eldest son and as such was immediately taken under my fathers wing and taught how to run family affairs. Or rather father _attempted_ to teach him family affairs.

What Edmund actually saw was the amount of money that he would have access to when father died and proceeded to become equally as adept at spending money as my father was at making it. No vice was safe from Edmund whether it be gambling, drink, women or drugs which of course led to massive debts. This, in turn meant that Father would frequently have to bail him both with Edmund's creditors and the legal authorities who quickly learned that if they wanted to make any money, all they had to do was follow my brother around for a short while until he did something criminal, "arrest" him for it and wait for the very real "ransom" to come in.

To all intents and purposes he's a handsome man, slim, athletic, tall and knows exactly how to wear different clothes and facial hair to get what he wants. But before any eligible ladies who might be reading this get the idea that he's just a lost lamb in need of some guidance and a loving woman in his life I need to tell you this.

He oozes. I can't say it any better than that. He's just... slimy to be around whether you're male or female although I would say that women get it worse than the men. He's the kind of man who will make extremely lewd comments under the guise of wit & charm while openly staring at a woman's cleavage and drooling.

Then an excuse would be made and he will belittle the ladies escort, whoever that may be and try to provoke a fight in an effort to prove just how masculine he is.

It astonishes me how often this seems to work for him as well.

I've just read through that last paragraph and realised that he _still_ might appeal to a certain kind of person.

He has fought numerous duels with slighted men and impregnated, many women of all classes and those are just the ones that I know about. There are orphanages on our lands that are entirely populated by Edmund's bastards and when challenged about his behaviour, he laughs, makes a negligent gesture and walks off laughing.

No I don't like him.

To all intents and purposes the feeling is mutual.

When he was still under 18 and therefore couldn't wander away from the castle by himself he would bully myself and the other younger siblings mercilessly. I apologise for the unpleasant sentence here but he once grabbed my elder sister between the legs and declared to one and all that she was wet for him. She hit him, inexpertly, in the ribs with a poker and he fled howling. It was a measure of how the household worked that _she_ got in trouble for that.

Was he spoiled?

Yes.

Do our parents and other tutors bear some of the responsibility for that?

Undoubtedly although they have since realised the problem he poses. Fathers looking after the various victims of Edmund's depravities becomes more about the pity that he feels for them than for any sense of his own responsibility.

But all the same... I believe there comes a point where you decide what kind of person you want to be and he chose to be this.

Enough about him. The family improves considerably after that.

Next comes Brother Mark. Or to give him his full title nowadays... Arch-Bishop Mark von Coulthard of Tretogor, servant of the Holy Flame and Defender of the Faith.

I should mention at this stage that the first three siblings are a good ten years older than the second three siblings as that will give you some perspective.

In many ways I really feel sorry for Mark. He would never see it as a disadvantage but at the same time I sometimes feel as though he wasn't given a whole lot of choice as to where he was going in his development. I got to choose what I wanted to do and had the ability and the freedom to be able to go out there and actually do it.

Mark didn't really have that choice as Mark's education and path in life was chosen for him before he was born. At the point of his birth Father was still trying to muscle his way into the inner circles of the nobility by trying to prove that he was as noble as them taking the term "noble" as the virtue rather than the title. As such he wanted to use the old system of the three sons in service to the crown. The first son would follow their father, taking on the family name and inheritance, the second son would go to the church and the third son would go to the army. The sacrifice of the second son to the church was meant to assure that the passage from this life to the next would be a harmonious one while at the same time making sure that there aren't too many people fighting over a limited number of available titles.

So from the moment Mark was born he was being trained, moulded and shaped to become a priest. If there was a point where my mother actually caught religion it was probably here from all the times that priests would come and go to pray over the unborn child. I have all this by hearsay of course but I like to imagine that this is the case.

He joined the chapel choir despite having no discernible musical talent, he spent his days maintaining the constant fires that light the way to church and offer refuge and helped out in whatever holy cause his confessor thought was most appropriate for a boy of his age. As he was never short of money to donate he was well thought of and was predicted to rise far in the church hierarchy providing his access to money would never dwindle.

As soon as he was old enough he went off and was ordained as a priest and came home to oversee the religious education of us younger siblings. At first I remember him as being a large voluminous man with a booing voice who could always come up with some piece of scripture to back up whatever argument he might want to make. When we confessed our sins to him he would be fair but understanding and he was always able to soften the blow with a grin and a sweet.

If he had continued in that vein he and I might have got on a lot better.

Gradually though, as the politics of the church changed he became more and more strict, walking around under a dark cloud of righteous fury and everyone in the castle scurried around in fear of his still booming voice. He no longer smiled or had any kind words while he moved as though his feet were offended by the fact that they had to walk on the ground. He kept up his good works though but I have always wondered about that change in him as to what triggered it. I once plucked up the courage to ask him whether or not he was happy to which he scornfully told me that "of course I am, who would think anything different to that?" and stomped off.

He was soon promoted away and has steadily climbed up the ranks of the church until his current position where, I'm told, he is unlikely to climb any further due to his origins. Give it another twenty years or so and he _might_ make it to the position of cardinal but it is an outside chance as his blood is not noble enough.

So I'm told.

He continues his good works though and I'm told that his strictest penances are for those people who lack charity to those who are less well off than themselves.

We have come to a better understanding of each other in recent years and on those rare times when we were both home at the same time we could stay up late discussing various things. It was he and my elder sister who told me to follow my desires and go to university to study.

I love my brother a great deal despite the fact that I don't always share his beliefs or his politics. I sometimes think that he would have been a lot happier being one of those monks that you can see sometimes, scurrying around in vast libraries copying things down and reading books that no one has ever heard of or thought about in years.

Then we come to my elder sister.

I love my sister a great deal and if anyone hurts her I will go out of my way to destroy them. The last time I talked about my sister in these writings I said that all women that I have since come to know and who my father occasionally rumbles about arranging a marriage to, I compare them to my sister and this is still true. She is strong, clever, beautiful, funny, charming, graceful and mischievous. Anyone who denies these virtues in her can fight me for it.

Her name is Emma, She has long Strawberry Blonde hair which she brushes obsessively in the morning before deciding what she wants to do with her day and what she wants to do with her day is EVERYTHING. She was and probably still is the absolute despair of my mother as on any given day she had been known to be practising fighting with the guardsmen in the courtyard, helping the groom much out the stables, meeting potential suitors, standing a watch on the walls, attending dances and banquets, out working in the field with the farmers and many more. Often in the same day. She always has a smile on her face, a joke on her lips and has stolen the hearts of many despite seemingly having no interest in being courted. Any time a suitor has turned up she is courteous and polite to them but the boy always leaves disappointed in some way as my sister carries on regardless. She is absolutely clear of any kind of scandal involving lovers and despite her, as I have mentioned, notable beauty she remains at home, happily unmarried and for my money, all power to her.

Father doesn't care that much as it means he doesn't need to pay a dowry and at this point it looks increasingly unlikely that a dowry will be paid.

She is the person that is most responsible for my upbringing as well as the education and upbringing of my immediately elder brother and younger sister. My mother had started to drift apart from us by this point although I would say that it isn't through any kind of conscious choice. I just remember that if I was hurt or upset then I would go to Emma rather than my Mother. She encouraged our interests, talked father out of the money needed to educate us properly and according to our abilities and interests. It has been her, rather than Mother who has taken an interest in our relevant lives. She arranged my immediate elder brothers marriage although the name on all the letters was my mothers and I suspect that of all people it will be her that _actually_ runs our Fathers business interests when he was no longer with us unless Edmund is completely stupid and demands a marriage that sees her off outside the country.

For some reason, after Emma there is a large gap between her and the next child who is Samuel I don't know why there is this kind of gap, I've occasionally wasted a certain amount of time trying to figure out why there is that amount of time just lying around with no new children born in the middle of it but there you go. The closest I've been able to figure out is that Father was distracted by some project or other and other "projects" such as family life were left by the wayside. When this was all done and dealt with he went back to mother and got on with things. I don't know how true this is but it certainly rings about right to my ears.

Sam is my older brother and we were born about 15 months apart and although I love him dearly... I also hate him with a passion that can only exist between two brothers who are so utterly different. In every way that I was kind of awkward, gangly and unattractive growing up, Sam was graceful, co-ordinated and handsome. No matter how hard I worked at physical pursuits, I struggled to build stamina and muscle mass whereas Sam is some kind of male God in proportion. Where I struggled to learn how to grip a sword properly, Sam picked it up with ease and was soon going through arms-masters at a rate of knots. Everything physical that he turned his mind to he could do well and picked it up surprisingly quickly. Climbing, running, fighting, riding, shooting, hunting, jousting or any of the other sports that people play. He was just...good at them. Talented or gifted are the words.

Whereas the opposite is equally as true the other way round when it comes to mental pursuits. Math, writing, reading, poetry, heraldry, etiquette, courtier technique, history, Anthropology and the rest were my remit and I found them easy. No matter how hard he stared at the books trying to will the information into his brain Sammy just couldn't do it. Also, no matter what anyone else tells you. He _did_ work hard at it. Some members of our family claim that he was lazy in that regard but I once found him crying after having been screamed at by a tutor that he was stupid and brainless and lazy despite the fact that we had both been up past midnight trying to get the numbers to do what they were told in his head.

In short, he is physically gifted and I am mentally gifted (although it's embarrassing to say that). We are true opposites and I love him and he loves me.

It's easy to look back now after nearly two years on the road with Kerrass and say that a change of tutors in either case might have made the difference. Also it might be easy to say that I am better prepared for peace time than he is but back then, as he strode from the practice yard, muscles gleaming with an attractive sheen of sweat and all the young female servants all of a flutter around his charming good looks. While I, at the same time staggered away, bruised from head to foot and struggling to breathe. I would have traded places in a second.

We did try to help each other in these areas. I tried to tutor him and he me but the results were, alas, predictable as neither of us had the patience to teach properly.

He joined the armed forces and quickly got himself knighted which came with some lands in a remote part of Northern Redania. He's never been to see it and leaves it in the capable hands of the men and women that have worked that land for centuries. As soon as he got the deed, I'm told that he handed it over to father to use as part of the business empire while he carried on with his martial exploits. Now that peace-time reigns he was competent enough to stay in the army and spends his time patrolling and guarding places while attending the odd tournament and winning prizes.

Finally there comes our youngest sister. The pride of the family, little Francesca. Born four years after myself she is the best of all of us from father all the way through. Beautiful, clever and kind. The entire castle (Edmund has barely met her and she was only just born when Mark left) dotes on her whenever she is home. At the time of these events she wasn't present so I don't want to delve into this too far. She was sent to Nilfgaard to be one of the new Empress elect's companions. Although the Empress is a little more boisterous than our sister is we hear that things are going well enough that Francesca is providing a little sister at best or younger cousin at worst for the Empress-elect. Everything she gets, she deserves the lot and when some young noble falls under her spell and marries her it will break my heart.

So that's my family, just about. I think we're fairly representative of families as a whole despite the differences in social and monetary standing. I've met and talked to many farmers families, townsmen families, villager families and everything in between. The genders of the people might change and all but there is still a good number of similarities. The black sheep (Edmund), the religious one (Mark), The darling (Francesca), the fighty, good looking one (Sam) the one that's too smart for their own good that can also be terribly stupid at times (me), and the one with all the real intelligence that keeps the family together (Emma). There is also the absent parent (My mother) and the driven parent (Father).

In telling you about them all, I am aware that I've carried on at some length about the subject, I wanted to give you a good picture of them all in your brain but I want to make one thing absolutely clear beyond any doubt. I love them all, even though some have pushed that affection, I love them dearly and fiercely. I am aware that I can be sarcastic, ironic, angry and (according to one letter I have received) snarky but do not let this distract you from the fact that I love them all and would fight, kill and die for all of them.

That is no exaggeration.

So there we were, Kerrass, myself, Sir Rickard and his gang of Bastards (his terms) riding pell-mell.. Riding hard for my home territory. I am forever grateful to those people for their support of me during those days on the road as we leapt from the backs of horses onto the backs of army supply horses that had been commandeered, sailing past customs posts and inspection posts with one of the Bastards riding in front with Sir Rickards royal military seal displayed prominently screaming the accepted cries of "Make Way," and watching people scurry out of our way.

I have been on the roads and have had to scramble out of the way of people at the sound of that cry. I have moaned and grumbled about it before but I will never do it again and I would suggest that you shouldn't either. One day it might be regarding you, or for you and yours that a medic, or goods, or medicine or a message needs to be rushed from one place to another.

But we rode hard and fast, eating in the saddle, drinking in the saddle and only stopping when it was too dark to see the road.

Eventually, as these things often do when you are going home, there was a sense of familiarity to the places that we were travelling through. The air smelled slightly different, the ground felt different underfoot and the shapes of hills and forests started to become familiar to me. Old friends that greeted me with the shaking of their leaves and babbling of the waterways and irrigation channels. The roads started to make sense and I could have made my way home even under the cover of darkness. The imminence of the end of the journey started to build up in my chest. That strange feeling of desire, nostalgia and fear that was building there. I may have painted my childhood as being harsh but there were also many good times that we had and happy memories that flashed in front of me vividly. That hill where Emma had brought everyone that she could lay her hands on for a picnic. That tree that I remember climbing up to the top and panicked because I couldn't climb down.

The tracks became more uniform and maintained the closer we got to the castle. Father's input again. We raced through villages and people started to recognise me and called out to me as we past. Part of me wanted to stop and greet people. There was old Bill, the land lord of the pub where I had first gone out and got horribly drunk in with Sam. There was a sombre air in the villages, quiet and more than a little afraid. Flags were down, people wore black and spoke in hushed tones. A cold and icy fear gripped me then that I was too late. That father had already died and I had missed my imagined final meeting with that man, a final opportunity to make peace with the father who had disapproved of my chosen path in life.

Without a word exchanged our poor mounts were kicked into one last burst of effort as we sped through the last mile before the castle.

There it was and I bent over in the saddle as though I had been punched in the gut. I could feel a grip in my throat and nervous energy in my legs which caused my horse to whicker in protest even though it lacked the energy to actually do anything about it. Kerrass glanced at me in concern.

We passed the pheasant woods where Father bred his game birds for the seasonal shooting competitions. We passed some of the out-buildings that were used to maintain the game-birds and hunting birds that were used for the families own birds, training and breeding as well as for those birds that were reserved for visitors who didn't have their own but still wanted to partake in the hunting.

But then there was a problem and my combination of grief and nostalgia that had formed a blanket over my awareness was torn away.

There is a single path up to the castle. Father had lined it with Elm trees because he liked the shapes that they make. The courtyard of the castle had been outgrown by the sheer number of people who would come and trade their goods on our lands and as a result a large area had been put aside for the use of a market. Semi-permanent structures had been erected and were hired out at a fee for the bigger merchants to use and the rest could use whatever space was left. It was big enough that Father had had it arranged so that you had to go through it to get to the castle or to continue on the road. That way any traveller would have to peruse the wares of the land before continuing on their journey. It was one of his better and more cunning ideas.

Today however there was no business being discussed, no market vendors shouting at the populace or milling members of the public arguing cost and quality. Instead there was a line of armed and armoured men. They wore Redanian armour, still replete in it's old colouring with the Nilfgaardian symbols now standing out as part of the paint. They had pikes, shields, clubs and crossbows, all pointed at us even though it wasn't a military formation.

For those people who don't live in either Oxenfurt or Novigrad these people belong to a very particular brand of public service. These people are the Watchmen or Policemen and their job is to find criminals, investigate crime and detain those criminals until their trial. People are often very hard on this particular profession but I have to say that, as a whole and as an _ideal_ organisation, they have my sympathy. They do a thankless, often unpleasant job and people hate them for it. Unless they are needed in which case they are harangued for not doing their job fast enough.

The counter argument though is that although I will admit some men get into the Watch in an effort to make the world and the city that they live in a better place, others are attracted to the Watch because it allows them to be bullies on a legal basis, to persecute anyone they don't like and call it "duty". Those kinds of Watchmen are the worst kind of people because although they would call themselves public servants, the only kind of person that they actually serve is themselves.

The rider who was ahead of our group to pass on the message that a group of horsemen were coming looked as though he had been dismounted at crossbow point and was scowling at the watchmen who was taking great delight in rifling through his equipment. As we rode up the soldier, who was named Harris, looked at Sir Rickard and shrugged at him.

"Halt," shouted one of the Watchmen. I don't know if you have ever tried to stop a galloping horse but they don't exactly like stopping when they've been running for a while. "I said HALT!" the watchmen screamed. His voice cracking.

When we did all clatter to a stop Sir Rickard made a gesture and the huge Sergeant who rode next to Sir Rickard showed the Watchmen how to bellow properly.

"MAKE WAY," he shouted in a voice that had taught itself to carry over battlefields. "KING'S BUSINESS,"

If I had been more alive and awake I might have found the entire scene funny.

The watchmen failed to move although a couple of the outer edges of them exchanged glances.

"You heard the man," Sir Rickard was rubbing at the ear closest to the Sergeant. "In fact you can barely avoid hearing him. King's business still applies and it is a military offence to obstruct an officer on the Kings business," He grinned nastily. Kerrass is not the only man who's grin can convey a massive range of emotion.

"I am well aware of that Sir knight. Do not seek to lecture me on matters of law." A man stepped from the line. I have to be careful here as I took an instant dislike to him. He was tall, thin and although armoured he looked uncomfortable in that armour as well as being the only man there with a sword. He had a large and impressive moustache that hid his mouth and gave the illusion of quivering whenever he spoke. "The law of "King's business" can be disrupted by a properly designated officer of the Law if "King's business" is being used to protect a criminal. Whether in ignorance or not." He presented it as though it was some kind of holy gospel.

Sir Rickard looked bored.

"Under the laws of military responsibility, any man wearing the uniform of the Kingdom or Country who commits a crime becomes the responsibility of his superior officer. Therefore if any of my men have committed a crime then they are my responsibility, not yours." He turned to his men who were grinning openly. I have since learned that Watchmen and Soldiers tend to hate each other on general principle. "You all wearing uniform lads?"

The men made a pantomime of checking before a general chorus of positives came from them.

"Leaving aside the _obvious_ criminal nature of your men Rickard that is not why I'm here."

The pretence of civility slipped from Sir Rickards face.

"Be careful Robart,"

The Watch leader turned to me with a self-satisfied smug little smile.

"Frederick Alain von Coulthard. By the authority invested in me Sir Robart de Radford by the council of Oxenfurt as Under-sheriff of Oxenfurt I hereby arrest you for the crime of Fratricide,"

At first I didn't believe I'd heard him properly.

"You what?" I exclaimed, anger, astonishment, pain, grief and any number of other emotions claimed me.

The Watchman's smile broadened as he walked forwards and very deliberately took hold of my horses bridle.

"You heard me," he jeered. "I'm arresting you for murdering your brother you piece of filth." He turned to his men. "Seize him,"

I kicked him as hard as I could in the head.

As a gesture it lacked subtlety but I was a bit rushed for time.


	26. Chapter 26

As you can probably guess, things went rapidly downhill from there.

Sir Robart, the under sheriff, staggered away from me as my boot managed to collide with his head with the heel hitting the top rear of his helmet with a crash.

His arms cartwheeled as he staggered forwards. And he grabbed at my horses bridle in an attempt to right himself and reclaim his balance.

Unfortunately for him, the horse I was riding wasn't my normal horse. Normally I ride a fairly spritely but undeniably stupid riding horse and I call her Peanut because that was how she was introduced to me. She was chosen for endurance and speed more than anything else but she needed to be controllable in the event of a monster attack. She had been left back at the inn where I had first learned about Fathers injury and she was being brought back by one of Sir Rickard's men.

The horse I was riding at the moment was a trained military horse. Feeling a strangers hand on his bridle he immediately reared up and kicked Sir Robart in the chest before springing forwards.

Someone laughed aloud although I couldn't tell who it was, it definitely wasn't me. People tell jokes about the red mists of fury descending over their vision but that really was what it was like and I was consumed with an absolute fury. First of all, how dare he? HOW DARE HE?

I've only ever killed in self-defence or when it was a choice between killing and the life of someone else. So the thought that I might have actively killed anyone else was a problem.

Then a fury of a different kind swept me up in it's grip.

My Brother.

I kicked the horse in the side. It was only too happy to lunge forward and accelerate to a gallop on my instructions as I sped through the now milling collection of guardsmen who clearly didn't know what to do. If I had had time I might have been insulted that they clearly didn't think that I might make a run for it but my horse had the bit between it's teeth now and I was racing up the tree lined path up towards the family castle.

People shouted behind me but they were soon left behind.

My Brother?

Which brother. Edmund, I don't like him but he's still my brother and at a time when the laws of inheritance were suddenly going to become very valid indeed, the family needed stability and the quick and easy transfer of the title of Baron Coulthard.

Or Sam. Sammy. A brother so close in age that we might as well have been twins. Each of us the others polar opposite.

What about Mark. The death of an Arch Bishop though. Surely that arrest would have been attempted by church guards and Inquisitors rather than some Watchmen from Oxenfurt?

Surely.

My mind raced and as my horse galloped the fear fed itself into my brain and fuelled the fire of my rage.

How dare they try and keep me from my family at a time like this?

A horn sounded behind me. I could see the castle gate now in front of me and armed men were running to block my passage. I could hear hoof beats behind me. At least one horse, probably more but I didn't care. I pulled my spear from my saddlebags, aimed the horse at the gate with the still assembling men and leapt from the saddle.

Some people might say that I should have stayed on the horse and they might be correct except for the fact that I know how to fight on foot. I know how to ride a horse. What I don't know is how to do both at the same time.

I connected the two halves of the spear as I ran. The armed men, maybe seven of them moved to block the way. They had spears of their own that were levelled towards me behind a row of shields. That had been the other reason I had dismounted as horses are traditionally reluctant to charge down a spear formation. I ran towards them.

I must have been screaming. Behind the guardsmen I could see some of my families guardsmen tumbling out of various buildings. Two of them in full armour and a few more in various states of half dress and half armour. All of them armed.

Sam was with them buckling his own sword around his waist and I felt a rush of gladness that it wasn't him that had died. That had been murdered.

I slowed a little, desperately trying to control my anger. That losing my temper was a quick way to get killed was one of the first lessons that I had ever been taught in any kind of martial pursuit. So I planned my first maneuver to knock some spears aside and get past the points.

There was a crash and Kerrass had leapt off his horse and landed gracefully next to me. His own face was wearing a fixed grin of fury as his sword swept from his scabbard and we charged the small formation of watchmen.

"Seize them." Screamed someone. Sir Robart was coming up behind us on his own horse, his armour was flecked with vomit and he was obviously struggling for breath. The other Watchmen were sprinting up the steps behind him crossbows pointing. "Arrest them!" It was definitely Robart that was shouting. "Kill them!" He gave as his last scream.

I laughed. The entire thing was so ridiculous that I could do nothing else. I leapt forward with a feint left before springing to my right, my spear moving. Kerrass had swung low aiming to come up under the spears. My initial movement having distracted the men we were attacking.

We had practised this.

I had my target now. I was past the spear point and I had chosen his groin as my target. I saw the fear then as he dropped his spear and tried to draw his club but we both knew that he wasn't going to make it in time.

He was already dead and I was bellowing in rage and triumph.

Then he vanished.

It took me a moment to see that he had been punched backwards as if by a huge and invisible fist. Then my ears registered that there had been an almighty crash of metal.

"That's enough," A cold, quiet and hard voice came from behind us spoke into the dead silence after the crash.

I spun, spear up and ready to deflect incoming blows. "I learned an interesting thing the other day," the voice continued. "Apparently, when people are hunting birds such as pheasants or pigeons for game they don't use pointed arrows as a skewered bird is a spoiled bird. So they put solid balls of metal on the end of the arrow to literally knock them out of the sky. It's of no use in war as men in armour generally survive the impact although I'm told they still feel dreadful afterwards. Still deadly to the bird though. I wonder how it works on watchmen."

Sir Rickard sat his horse nearby. He had drawn his sword, his shield was on his arm and he sat easily and relaxed. I had travelled with him, drank with him and yelled at him but this was the first time that I had thought of him as a leader of men. I had wondered why Constable Natalis of Temeria had knighted him but there and then, it seemed obvious that he was too much a leader to remain in the ranks as he dominated the small area with his presence.

Kerrass slid in behind me, still facing the other men that had surrounded us so that we were guarding each others back.

Sir Rickard waited until everyone was looking at him.

"Sergeant?" he said, his voice carrying and seeming calm despite the very deadly threat that was implied in his tone of voice.

"Sir," bellowed his huge Skelligan second in command. The man was huge, hairy and carried the largest crossbow that I had ever seen.

"Remind me of our general orders Sergeant."

"Sir, that all men should be allowed to travel the roads of Redania freely and without harassment, Sir,"

The giant crossbow was levelled indiscriminately at the knot of men surrounding me. Sir Rickard's other men had taken cover around the area, behind trees and bushes. They were crouched, making themselves small but every one of them had their bows out and arrows knocked. The jovial men that I had travelled with had vanished to be replaced by hardened killers.

"What can I see in front of me Sergeant?" The tone had become more conversational but Sir Rickard's eyes promised a painful and violent death to anyone who challenged him.

"Sir. Some travellers have been detained sir."

"Against their will?"

"It would seem so sir," The Skelligan's tone was also more conversational now. The crossbow was not lowered however. "You can tell by the fact that they're about to fight a dozen armed men by themselves. Sir."

Sir Rickard nodded.

"Lads, if one person. Just one, moves their weapons at anyone else in an aggressive manner. You may kill them."

"HOW DARE YOU SIR?" Sir Robart recovered from his shock and spat blood.

The change in Rickard's attitude was sudden and shockingly violent.

"HOW DARE I SIR? HOW DARE YOU SIR?" He was off his horse and covered the distance to Sir Robart in two strides.

"What do we do?" I muttered to Kerrass, the scene felt balanced on the edge of a cliff.

"Wait," he muttered back. "Do nothing to provoke but be ready to react violently and horribly."

I felt for my earlier anger. It was definitely still there.

"I can do that," I said.

Sir Rickard was in full flow. His face was inches from Robart's, red with spittle flying.

"YOU STOP A RAPID MOVMENT OF SOLDIERS ON KING'S BUSINESS, DETAIN AND SEARCH ONE OF THEM AND ATTEMPT TO ARREST A MAN IN THEIR CARE WITHOUT EXPLANATION. YOU ENDANGER US ALL, SIR, BY BECOMING A COMMON BRIGAND. YOU RISK EXPOSING US ALL TO BIAS AGAINST THOSE WHO WEAR MY UNIFORM AND YOURS."

"He..."

"I DON'T CARE WHETHER HE SHIT IN THE EMPRESS' BED. THERE ARE RULES AND REGULATIONS SIR AS WELL YOU KNOW."

Sir Rickard withdrew, the colour fading from his face until he was absolutely normal again.

"This isn't about me is it," I muttered.

"Not really," Kerrass answered. "I think you're an excuse. Not that it would be Ok that you would be an excuse hanging from the nearest tree or in the dungeon though."

"Explain yourself sir," Sir Rickard said calmly.

"His brother Edmund is dead." I felt a s though I had been punched in the gut. "Murdered with a dagger in his throat." Robart continued but I was no longer listening as I staggered and fell to one knee. My breathing was coming in hisses through my clenched teeth. I merely thought I had been angry before.

My brother.

I didn't like Edmund. Sometimes I had even hated him but he was my brother dammit. You don't just tell a man that his brother has died like that.

Then again, there is no good way to tell a man that his brother has died.

Kerrass told me what happened in the rest of the conversation as I wasn't really listening any more rather than thinking of ways to murder Robart.

"I should kick the shit out of you," said Sir Rickard. "You didn't tell him because you knew his reaction would prove his innocence didn't you?" It wasn't really a question. "You just wanted a quick arrest of a nobleman to make your name. Get him back to the torturers that still infest the watch-house in Oxenfurt from the Witch-hunter days and he'll confess to anything and your promotion is assured. That was the plan wasn't it?"

Sir Robart opened his mouth to speak.

"Don't answer that," said Sir Rickard, "It would make me angry and you might not survive. When did this murder happen?"

"Two days ago."

"Then you're more stupid than you look. Two days ago Lord Frederick was under my care. We spent the night in road Garrison No 12 north of Novigrad. It's commander, Sir Garth Chvatil will vouch for that."

"He could still have..."

"We rode damn fast to get here. He would have needed magic to get here and back."

"He associates with a vampiric sorceress now and..."

"Really? Then the Oxenfurt mage's, as I understand a couple have come back would be able to answer that wouldn't they. As for the Vampiress herself it's my understanding that the lady holds a high rank and as such bringing such a charge against her would be... problematic. Also, where's the motive?"

"They were well known to argue..."

"As brothers so rarely do?" Sir Rickard waited for a while. "Be gone Robart. Check his alibi if you must but be gone."

"Or else what?" Sir Robart was trying to get angry.

"Or else what you are doing is calling me and the lads, liars. I'm a knight nowadays and that comes with a certain number of responsibilities and privileges. One of those is the ability to defend my honour when lies are so clearly said about me and the people under my care." Sir Rickard grinned. "You deny this and come for him again on that basis calling me a liar then I shall see you on the field of honour. Where I will kill you." He said it with a certain relish. "My men however have a similar but entirely different code of honour. One which they take no less seriously than we take ours and they like being called liars even less than I do."

There was a long pause while someone audibly sniggered.

"He struck me."

"After the accusation of Fratricide that you had just made, I would have killed you."

There was another long pause.

"But there's no other suspect." Robart whined.

"That is not my problem. Nor is it his. Go off now and do your job."

Sir Robart straightened his armour and sheathed his sword.

"Withdraw," he called and his men started putting their weapons away and moving around Kerrass and myself, giving us both a wide birth. He changed his mind and came and leant over where I was still kneeling wanting to vomit, scream, cry and kill things all at the same time. "This isn't over, I'll be back for you." He said before turning away.

On any other day I might have just let the comment roll off my back. On any other day I would have seen it for the weak grasping of a weak man who wanted to exert his authority to shore up his confidence and ignored him.

But it wasn't any other day. I was in front of my home and I had been accused of killing my brother.

I heard Kerrass' protest at Robart's words which was a kind of growl but I moved, surging to my feet and dropping my spear.

I had taken to wearing a dagger across my belly.

I grabbed Robart by the back his chest plate and spun him catching hold of the breast plate. My dagger was out and I held it with the point a fraction of an inch from his eye.

I so desperately wanted to kill him then. So badly did I want to plunge my dagger forwards, through his eye and into his brain.

He didn't struggle.

But I am not a murderer.

"Today you called me Fratricide." I said. It didn't sound like my own voice. It sounded hard and unpleasant.

"Today, when I come home for the first time in several years to help my family through a crisis which involves my fathers health. You choose to tell me of my brothers death by accusing me of that murder."

He was plainly terrified.

"I should kill you here and now," I ground the words out through clenched teeth. Silence reigned.

"I should kill you here and now and no-one would blame me after the shock that I have suffered and the insult that you have subjected me to, and unlike Sir Rickard, I am not bound by a duty to uphold the law."

I wanted to kill him so badly that I could taste it. It was a sour, metallic taste, like the taste of a metal spoon after the food that it carried has been eaten.

"But I am not a murderer."

He seemed to subside a little.

"But I have killed men and creatures that would have you pissing yourself in fear."

He tensed again.

"So I shall give you this warning. You have ten minutes to get out of my sight, followed by an hour to get off my families lands. Then, if you come back without express invitation from me, or a member of my family, for any reason at all. I will kill you on the field. Bring seconds if you come and get your affairs in order before you do so."

I dropped him.

"Be gone," I snarled.

"Duty may..." he stammered from where he had stumbled.

"Send someone else." I said before turning away.

I heard him get to his feet and start moving towards me before a jangle of armour told me that Kerrass had put his hand on Robart's shoulder.

"I wouldn't," growled the Witcher. "I would be his second and would be happy to kill you in his place."

The Watchman fled.

I managed to keep my legs rigid and still until they were out of sight before letting my knees buckle and crashing to the floor.

My brother Sam approached us then putting his sword away.

He was grinning foolishly.

"That." He said pointing in the direction of the departing Watchmen, "was amazing."

"It was something special." Kerrass agreed.

"I thought he was going to wet himself," Sam went on with amused admiration.

"He did, but it was hidden in his armour" Kerrass grinned and turned to me. "I didn't think you had it in you."

I groaned and put my head between my legs.

"You alright?" Sam asked.

"Just a little light-headed."

"No wonder, running off a man of the law like that."

I groaned again.

Kerrass levered me to my feet.

The Sergeant was shouting at Rickard's men to form up and remount and I shook myself back to awareness.

Also my sister Emma had appeared out of nowhere, looking all regal and fierce despite, or maybe because of the austere nature of the black, mourning dress that she had on.

She was talking with Sir Rickard as I approached.

"All done?" Sir Rickard asked as I walked up.

"All done," I nodded. "Thank you Sir knight for your help there."

He grinned and was suddenly back to being the informal man that I had travelled with over the last few days.

"Don't worry," he said, "It was my distinct pleasure."

"Will your interceding on our behalf get you into any trouble?" My sister asked. She has this trick of smiling with her eyes even though her face was absolutely still. She was also clearly enjoying herself.

Sir Rickard considered.

"Nah, he'll make a complaint. I'll make a report. No-one cares enough though. Robart knows that I can kick his ass with my eyes closed on horseback or on foot." He turned to me. "He might come after you though."

"Not to worry," Kerrass spoke up. "Frederick would kill him in six, no, five moves."

My family took that comment in silence.

"That's a bold claim," Sir Rickard said with some surprise. "Robart's good with a sword."

Kerrass shook his head. "He might be a good fencer but he's not a fighter."

I saw the comment hit home with Rickard who nodded thoughtfully.

"Anyway," Rickard got back on his horse. "I'd best be off. I'll leave you your horses in case you need them in the meantime. Someone'll come for them. Eventually."

"We are grateful though Sir Rickard." My sister again. Her voice radiating gratitude and warmth. It was like honey and I could see it working on Rickard who looked at her with obvious appreciation. "If you do get in trouble, please get in touch. We could use a number of men to keep our roads safe and if our roads are safe, I have no doubt that our immediate neighbours would welcome our offer of help."

She managed to include everyone in the "our offer of help."

Sir Rickard's tone and posture changed. He was all military now although his face betrayed some mischief.

"Should the army decide to reduce my pay, I may consider it Ma'am,"

He turned to us and shook hands with Kerrass and myself, "Take care of yourselves lads," it felt like we were being included in amongst his men. It felt like high honour. He shook hands with Sam and bowed over Emma's hand when she offered it. I noticed that his posture was perfect and would not have been out of place at court.

"Your servant Milady."

Emma glowed at the formal farewell.

Sir Rickard mounted up as the Sergeant called the Salute. The men saluted with a precision that, to my eye, would have made a drill-sergeant weep with pride and in 'perfect' order they turned and rode down the hill.

"I think you've got another devoted follower there sister mine." Sam commented with a grin.

Emma also smiled and transformed from the lady of the house to being my sister again. It seemed that it was a day for masks. "Nah." she said with a grin. "That man likes the idea of a lady but what he wants is something else."

"Amazing how you can see such things." Sam said before turning to me. "Welcome home brother, I'm not as certain that I could whip your ass on the practice field anymore."

I smiled. I was tired and the jovial atmosphere was at odds with what I had expected from the meeting but I held out my hand to him. "I wish I could say it was good to be home but..."

Sam took it my hand in the warriors grip I noticed and pulled me into a bear hug. I had been wrong. The smiles were masks as the fierceness of Sam's hug displayed. He let go and turned away so that I couldn't see his face. "We'll catch up later yeah? You can introduce me properly to your Witcher friend then." He scrubbed his face a little suspiciously and then his jovial mask was back. "I'll take care of the horses and get everyone back to work."

Emma nodded and he left calling for someone called Gregory as he caught up the reins of our horses.

I watched after him. I felt like he had grown somewhat in a way that I couldn't put my finger on. Then again, I was hardly the same man that had last left these walls.

"Won't you introduce me?" Emma said pointedly bringing me back to earth.

"Of course," I shook my head. "I have the distinct honour of presenting Master Kerrass. Witcher of the Feline school. Kerrass, may I introduce my sister Emma von Coulthard."

Kerrass bowed formally but left out the flowery hand movements. His hands by his sides pending only at the waist. It gave him a formal, lordly appearance.

"Your servant Lady Coulthard." he said, equally as formally.

"Come inside both of you." Emma took Kerrass' arm through hers without missing a beat. "We'll get the hospitality done and you settled but then I must take Frederick off to see to some family business."

"I would be grateful Lady," Kerrass said, keeping his formality in the face of my sister's friendliness while allowing himself to be led towards the castle keep.

Some more background information now I'm afraid.

The home of the Baron von Coulthard was a fighting castle. Even though nowadays it is mostly a family residence my father insisted that it retain it's ability to become a fighting castle again when he took over and extensively renovated it. He brought in professional siege engineers from Temeria and Redania to best advise him on how to do so and where to station men and horses, Siege equipment, provisioning and other such things. As a result, to get to the keep you have to go through a large and terrifying double portcullised killing ground where archers can be stationed above to rain death on any attackers. From there you come into the first of three sections of courtyard. Each section is divided by thick walls and large gatehouses, same as the first so that should attackers get into the first courtyard then getting into the next one is difficult and then there is still the keep itself to be taken which is no small feat.

There are fresh wells in each courtyard for water and the outbuildings that spring up wherever there are castles are made of wood and easily pulled apart so that, in the event of an actual siege then they couldn't be used as cover. The first courtyard is the largest being home to my fathers stables, falconry and kennels. There is also an area for the training of horses. There are regularly other temporary structures as well that are built and demolished according to need. The chief groom, as well as the other stable-boys live in this area while working. In colder weather they can move to the more secure areas in the keep but in the summer they preferred to be on hand in case any of their charges needed anything.

Anything that could be used for the care of horses was also in the first courtyard. There was a tannery to make their own horse tack according to the chief stable-master's exacting specifications. Also a herb hut where any medicines that the animals might need were made and mixed after the raw ingredients had been bought at the market.

The next courtyard housed the armed men. From the heavily armed professional soldiers to the more lightly armed scouts and archers. There was an archery range and a tilting dummy (It had once been pointed out that you had to bring the horse up to the tilting dummy from the lower courtyard which was far from easy. Also shouldn't the dummy be near where the horses were. The arms-master and the Stable-master looked at me when I pointed this out as though I was deficient in some small and significant way.) This was also where the barracks was situated at my parents insistence. Again there was room for them in the citadel itself but the arms-master would call emergency drills in the early hours of the morning to keep the men on their toes but that could interfere with guests or family. There was also an extensive forge and armour-smith that was run by an extremely highly paid dwarf who mercilessly bullied his staff but if anyone else got hostile towards them then he would be the first to leap to their defence. The quality of the work they produced was exceptional and sold for a high price. Another sign of my fathers business skills.

The final courtyard was where things were devoted to the comfort of guests. Luxuries that had not been thought of when the main keep had been built such as baths, gardens and extra guest houses were here. There was also a newly walled off area where things like butchery was done for the evenings feasts and things but it was kept well out of the way.

Father was always tinkering with the layout. It was kind of like a hobby to him, thinking up new things to be built and new ways to organise things. He liked to think that the people that worked in his castle should always be kept busy to avoid mischief and display industry to his peers. Constantly in search of the perfection that he craved but had come to realise that he would never attain. Now he called it "building for the future," It's a nice place and if it was free from the bitterness and general dissatisfaction of the lord of the castle I think I could've been happy here.

But then there was my father.

Poor man.

Siege catapults, ballista and trebuchet's lined the walls and sat atop the towers. I knew from experience that they were well made, maintained and were regularly drilled. All of my fathers men were expected to be able to operate all of the machinery and that all of the machinery should be usable at a moments notice. He drove people mad by ordering demonstrations at odd hours so that this could be proven and would invite his peers to watch his siege crew at work.

To be fair that work paid off. The ballista in particular were now frighteningly accurate but those nobles who did visit, rather than being impressed had felt as though we were threatening them and showing off.

Can't think why.

This time though the castle was subdued. Although the work was still carrying on there were many many faces missing. Soldiers and young men lost to the wars and returned crippled and broken. I saw a couple of new additions including what would turn out to be a hospital and caring house for those men who had fought under my fathers colours who had come back injured.

Again, from a distance these were good and kind acts by my father. Kind and charitable acts but I could never help but feel that they were done so that they could be driven into other people's faces rather than because they needed to be done.

"Who's Gregory?" I asked of my sister as we passed the stables not recognising the name that my brother was calling out.

"The new Horse-master," she answered shortly.

"What happened to Reese?"

"You know how he was. He was absolutely devastated about fathers accident and left."

I was shocked and said so.

"I always thought that we'd be carrying him out of here feet first."

"We all did but he was distraught, thinking it was his fault and came to us the day after and asked to be given leave to go."

I nodded, the old stable-master was one of the few men who my father seemed to get on with.

My sister threaded us through the activity, expertly dodging movements while at the same time acknowledging greetings and sympathies. It seemed that many people were bringing in supplies, presumably for the feasts and things that would be happening to accompany anyone's death. I was unaware of my fathers wishes on the matter, or Edmund's, but any kind of funeral for them would be a burning or internment which would depend on Mark's and mother's influence. That would be a small family affair which would then be followed by a wake where people would gather, wear their favourite, most sombre clothes and stand around drinking my fathers wine and saying how wonderful he and now, my brother were.

A great anger was burning in the pit of my stomach. I felt it like a small burning ember at the bottom of a fire-place that could be exposed to air, fed new fuel and encouraged to take spark and flare up. I didn't notice the people that worked in almost silence to take down the flags, the tapestries and the decorations from the public areas of the castle as well as those people that were working hard to bring in the food, drink and other supplies. I did not see the soldiers salute as my sister and I walked past, nor did I hear the greetings from the gate-guard into the upper courtyard. I know that my sister kept up a relatively cheerful speech explaining how things stood to Kerrass as well as giving a relatively simple tour of the castle along with various embarrassing childhood stories about myself.

Somewhere I registered the fact that Father was still alive but only just. That he spent most of his time sweating and shaking with the effort of staying alive as whatever poison had gotten into his bloodstream from the injury finally finished the job of killing him. When he did wake he struggled to speak and moving was even more difficult.

Mark was also here and when he wasn't standing vigil over father's death bed he was found praying in the chapel.

It seemed that the castle was mostly in shock. My father's injury and illness had been given enough time to seep into the collective consciousness and people were starting to come to terms with his death and for brother Edmund to take over. But then he was dead too and now people didn't know what to think or what was going to happen. I was the same. I was faintly aware that there was some kind of rule regarding inheritance when it came to churchmen inheriting estates and wealth from family but I couldn't for the life of me remember what it was. I was probably alright and able to continue my work as Mark approved of scholarly pursuits however my methods would probably be strictly curtailed. Emma might struggle as she would be married off in moments as I could well imagine that her current lifestyle would be considered "improper" by Brother Mark.

We got to the citadel and just before we went in the three of us stood at the entrance and looked out over the walls.

"So what do you think of our little home?" my sister enquired innocently.

"Little?" Kerrass asked with an immaculately timed raised eyebrow before turning to me. "Frederick I was aware that your family was wealthy but I had no idea. If and when we do get back on the road...You are paying for the drinks and I should warn you that I have a tendency to become thirsty on the road when other people are paying."

He turned back to Emma with a certain increase in the formality.

"Milady may I say that your home is a joy to behold. Industry, beauty and care given to the buildings and those people that live in them. It and the lands surrounding it are a tribute to your families wealth, charity and intelligence that you have so clearly invested in these lands."

My sister realised that her eyes had widened and her mouth had fallen open.

"However," Kerrass said neutrally but I could tell that he was feeling mischievous. "May I also say that, despite the beauty of our surroundings, they pale in comparison to the beauty of the lady before me whose Intelligence and Kindness I see evidence of in those same people and buildings that fall within her care."

He bowed formally.

Emma was clearly astonished.

I resisted the urge to give Kerrass a kick.

"Well," she said clearing her throat and leading us just inside the entranceway. There was a servant waiting there with a couple of bowls of water and towels. A second with a plate carrying a bowl of salt as well as the small biscuits that are baked in out part of the world that signify "bread" as part of the ceremony.

"Master Witcher Kerrass I offer you the hospitality of the house. I will admit that I am surprised at the level of culture that courtesy that you display here and am grateful for your praise. Please clean the dust of the road from your hands and face and partake of our food. We pledge to defend you if you are attacked, guard you when you sleep and feed you when you are hungry. Our home is now your home."

Kerrass nodded, washed his face, dried his hands on the cloth, dipped the "bread" in the salt and took a couple of bites.

"I am grateful for your care lady," I enjoyed my sisters astonishment. I was well aware of Kerrass' level of knowledge in these areas and he could really pull out the tricks if he saw that they might be useful. "I pledge my sword to your walls and my skills to your use. You welcome me as a guest and tell me that your home is mine but I would defend my home and work to better it. I would do the same here if you permit."

He bowed again. His face still not twitching.

Emma stood for a moment or two. She had recovered from her astonishment and now looked thoughtful.

Then it was as though she came alive suddenly.

"This is Jasmine." she gestured at one of the servants. Another face that I did not know. "She will act as your guide and servant while you are here. If you need anything. Anything at all. Please tell her and she will facilitate. In the meantime I must borrow my brother to bring him up to date with circumstances."

Kerrass nodded.

"I understand," he said in a less formal tone before turning to the servant. "I think a room, followed by a bath and if there is a tailor nearby as I lack in formal clothing at present." The servant nodded and silently led

Kerrass down the hall and up the stairs.

Kerrass caught my eye and winked.

Bastard.

Emma turned back to me with a crooked smile.

"I _like_ him."

"I thought you would."

"I didn't think he would be so cultured. I was looking forward to a bit of rough and ready but as it turns out he's a _cultured_ bit of rough and ready. He's going to cut swathes through the serving girls." she spoke as though she relished the prospect.

"Oh good," I managed faintly as Emma linked her arm through mine and led me through to what must now be her study.

"Not just the servants but some of the local nobles wives and daughters as well when they start to turn up."

"Kerrass will be delighted."

"I'll bet."

Emma chuckled. She never giggled which always seemed to set her apart from others.

"Also, might I suggest that you look well."

"Thank you mother,"

she punched me on the arm.

"And also," she leant in. "You should look scary more often. It suits you."

"I'll bear that in mind next time I'm trying to chat up a girl. Try and work myself up into a murderous rage before hand. That's sure to get them more interested in me."

"Don't be boring and don't pretend you don't know what I mean. You look good. Life on the road suits you."

"Fantastic,"

We entered a room. Not too distant from the entrance of the keep. It was a smallish room that contained a desk, a couple of chairs and although the desk was clear the shelves were stuffed full of notes, scrolls, ledgers and books. I did not doubt that if a piece of information was needed then my sister could lay her hands on it at a moments notice. There was also a fireplace and a window that opened out into an inner courtyard that was being used as a herb garden for the kitchen.

Another woman was sat at a smaller desk in another corner, bent low over a scroll where she was writing with quick and confident strokes.

"Clarice could you give us some privacy?"

The woman looked up at my sisters voice. I had the impression of short blonde hair, sparkling green eyes and startling beauty before she left. She nodded, scooped up a couple of scrolls, her quill and ink-pot and left rapidly.

"A private study sister dearest?"

"Yes well. A place where I can keep the paperwork. I have another office where I meet with people that's full of empty binders and blank scrolls so that when spies break in looking for something to catch a lead on us then they always go to the wrong place first meaning that we're more likely to catch them."

"Do you get many spies?"

"Oh yes. King Radovid himself sent many spies to get looks at our ledgers in an attempt to make sure we were paying enough in tax and later to make sure that we weren't holding any liquid capital back from the war effort. He denied it of course and we also know that Dijkstra was not involved, otherwise we might have had to do with professionals, but the head of intelligence was too busy looking at the bigger picture."

"You also seem to have developed a secretary as well."

"Yes well. Part secretary, part maid, part companion."

"You never needed a maid before." I said with a grin, she used to loudly protest whenever our parents tried to give her a personal servant declaring loudly and publicly that she could take care of herself.

"As you say," Emma grinned back. "I never needed one before. To be fair she's astonishingly capable and has helped out much more than is required of a maid. If I'd known how much maids can help I would have got one much sooner."

I grunted my agreement as I sat in one of the chairs as Emma poured us a drink. She offered to water it down and I nodded. I needed to think and my brain was not working properly yet.

"So who's this Countess that has been writing to me?" She asked out of the blue.

"What?"

"This Countess Ariadne of Angral. She seems quite taken with you and has enquired as to your marital and betrothal status."

"What?" I said again. I had not missed this. My sister is very clever and likes to distract you from your current train of thought by abruptly changing directions.

I swore a little bit.

"Language," my sister admonished automatically.

"I thought she might have only been joking."

"It doesn't seem so. A Countess in her own right rather than through inheritance. Very progressive for that part of the world." She harrumphed a little disaprovingly. Not at Ariadne's rank but more because she herself who was more intelligent than most of the local lords put together could not inherit anything herself.

"I like her." Emma said although she was watching me carefully.

"Because that's the most important thing."

"A big sisters approval is very important in this kind of thing."

"You understand that she's an ancient vampire right?"

"She did mention."

"Also a Sorceress."

"Yes, that too. But on the other hand she is a Countess."

"Of Angraal. Not that Nilfgaard would recognise that. To them she would be a Baroness at best."

"Yes but that's still better than some other prospects. You're not getting any younger Frederick."

"Look who's talking."

"Pfff, We're talking about you now."

"What does mother say?"

"She's left it in my hands. She's lost interest in "worldly things" which includes your marital status and has told _me_ to deal with it and so I am dealing with it. Would it truly be so terrible to marry her?"

"I'm not thinking about that now,"

"No, I suppose not."

She looked up at the wall.

"Emma?" I said quietly. It was like she was a puppet and that her strings had been cut.

She slumped in her chair and her head fell into her hands and she just shook with the sobs.

Feeling rather embarrassed I got her a cup of water with just a touch of wine in it and found a handkerchief which I passed to her.

"I'm sorry," she whimpered. "It's just it's been so..." but then the sobs overcame her again.

I pulled my own chair over so that I was sat next to her and just put my arms round her until she was ready to speak. My sister is a strong woman. Much stronger than me but sometimes you just need to let it out. Flame knows this situation has been reversed on more than one occasion with me sobbing my heart out with my sister comforting me.

I'd missed her a great deal and we sat there for a long time until she eventually calmed down and came back to herself.

"I'm sorry," she said dabbing at the damp patches on my shirt with a handkerchief. "I've got snot all over your shirt."

"Well it could have been worse." I summoned a smile up from nowhere in an effort to get one back. "I could have gone to my room to change before talking to you."

"That's true," she laughed then. Red eyed, large black bags under her eyes that had been concealed with some clever cosmetics and tear streaked cheeks but at least she was smiling.

She got up and poured herself another cup of wine which she drank at a gulp and then another one which she nursed a little more steadily.

"What happened?" I asked declining another cup for myself having barely touched the first one.

"About which one?"

"Either, both. Lets start with Father though as it happened chronologically."

Emma nodded and sat back, stretching her legs out in front of her, staring into space.

"I've been thinking about it for a while," she began, "I've tried to see if there was something that gave it away. If there was something that happened that morning that was different but the truth was that there was nothing. Edmund was back in Oxenfurt, home from...wherever he gets to when he's not here at the castle as well. He had come here to speak with Father about something. In fact he had been and gone several times but that's not unusual when he's short of money and Dad's feeling stubborn about things..."

She trailed off and stared into space for a long time. After a while I realised that I was using some of the interrogation techniques that Kerrass used when speaking to Monster victims and trying to figure out what had happened. I stayed quiet and just let her work it out, using the silence to draw the story out of her.

"So that morning, out of the blue, Father comes down for Breakfast in his hunting clothes and declares that he was going for a hunt. There are always a couple of merchant types and even more minor nobility hanging around asking for favours and various negotiations so a hunt was rapidly organised and off they went. Truth be told there wasn't really anything to think about. There were plenty of other things to worry about at the time, negotiations and so forth, the market turmoil is settling down, steel is cheap again and so on and we just assumed that Dad was just having one of his blow-outs. You know what he gets like,"

I nodded a response even though it wasn't a question.

"Anyway, the message turned up early afternoon. Just after lunch in fact. Dad had fallen from his horse and onto a jutting branch of some kind. Cracked ribs, punctured skin and probably lungs... It sounded like a horrific list of injuries and I thought he would die then and there. We rushed Mirten out there..." she saw my raised eye-brow. "Our new castle surgeon, and we got him home. Mirten isn't too precious about things, he bound him up and did the best that he could but admitted that there were some things going on here that were beyond him. He sent for help from the university and when we asked him how serious it was he told is that the injury was probably fatal.

"We sent out messengers. Mark was quickest as there's a magical relay in use now between Oxenfurt and Tretogor where he's based. He would have been quicker but he refused to use a Mage gate. Edmund arrived and to be fair, was making all the right noises. Sammy was stationed a little further away but he came running in. We had news of you to the north and your professors agreed that that's where you probably were so we sent word out to try and find you. We decided that Frannie would be better off staying where she is though. Her place at court is fragile enough and she has friends there, more friends there than here anyway..."

"And Father would want her to use the sympathy to her advantage." I guessed, trying to keep the anger out of my voice. I would have sent the message and given her the choice. Emma had the good grace to look a little guilty.

"But yes, Mirten's superiors arrived, confirmed his diagnosis, told him and us that he had been right to call them and told us that they would do their best but that even if he survived then his life-span would be significantly shortened. They advised us to call a Sorcerer for a healing and left with guidance as to Fathers care."

"I know the answer," I said, "But I have to ask anyway. Why didn't you hire a Sorcerer?"

She ticked the names off her hand.

"Father first and foremost, Then Mark who swayed Mother to the chorus and Edmund of all people weighed in on the issue. Sammy proved that he's a family and social coward just as much as he is brave on the battlefield and stayed out of it mumbling about "Fathers wishes" leaving me alone and I was forbidden from calling one."

"Come on Emma. You and I both know that that's never stopped you before."

"I know but at the same time, he really was so against the idea that I honestly found that I couldn't do it. Anyway, he got worse, then he got better, then he got worse then he got better. We finally heard word that there was word of you and that you would be getting the message imminently but Father was getting better. He even managed to get down to breakfast.

"Oh Freddie, it was like the sun came out in the castle as everyone breathed a sigh of relief as he sat in his favourite chair and started to order people about. Then he fell asleep and Mirten got worried. Father was carried off to his bed again and he's been sinking ever since. You'll see what he's like when you go there and he does _want_ you to go."

I waved her off. "I'll go and see him. I think I would regret it if I didn't despite any harsh words we've said to each other."

Emma nodded.

"So Father got worse and then Edmund started to revert to his old ways. To give him credit he had actually been helpful at first after Father's accident, taking up some slack and seeing to some of Father's other duties with proper tact and energy but then... The maids started to scurry about as though they were afraid again, food would go missing, a groom turned up having plainly been beaten by someone although he wouldn't say who did it, you know the kind of thing."

I nodded, recognising the symptoms of Edmund's presence in the castle.

"Then one day Father's study was closed. It's normally open so that myself and other people can get in for records and things, even when Fathers away. The only reason for the door to be shut was if Father was in and taking an important meeting. Father was still in his bed, obviously so we opened the door and found..."

she just shrugged.

"He was sat at Dad's desk with his feet up on the corner, for all the world as though he was surveying his new domain. He'd been stabbed in the neck and the blood had run down his chest and onto the floor. We're going to have to..."

She looked as though she was about to burst into tears again but then she swallowed it and carried on.

"We called the Watch who went through everything, questioned everyone and then settled on you as the suspect just as we got word that you were coming into the territory. Mark suggested it was a political thing from that dreadful little man Robart but by then he had the gatehouse closed under his authority and then... well you know the rest."

"So there are no other suspects?"

"Oh there are plenty of suspects. Including me for that matter. Edmund had made plenty of jokes about how I was going to be married off quickly and how I had ideas above my station. He already had one of his cronies picked out. I met the man at one point. He visibly dribbled at the prospect of having me to himself."

She shuddered and I didn't blame her. Edmund's friends had traditionally shared his taste for bullying and although I was no longer worried about such things I could see how Emma would suffer.

"Right," I said. "I should clean up and pay my respects. Where's Mark and mother?"

Emma Harrumphed.

"Either praying or in the sick-room wringing their hands. Mark's a good man but he can't half wring all the emotion out of something."

Mark was someone else who disapproved of Emma's lifestyle.

"Careful though. Mother's taken Edmund's death a bit hard."

"Not a surprise. Losing a child can do wacky things to you. What are we doing about Edmund's death? Sir Robart seemed to be out of ideas and more interested in the politics of the thing than anything else."

"I don't know. Lets just get through Father and Edmund's internment and then we'll talk about it."

"That might be too late to find anything,"

"I know but there are only so many things that I can worry about at the moment."

The answer was not satisfying and we both knew it.

"Right then, Mother." I leapt to my feet with a pretence of energy.

Emma nodded. "She's fragile so be gentle. If you can talk her into getting some rest I'll up your allowance."

"So generous of you."

She threw her hanky at me and I fled.

I got myself cleaned up and had a brief crisis as I had to decide what to wear. On the road I wore the cleanest and most comfortable item of clothing or I would wear whatever I had to until I could next get some cleaning done. I had worn the same shirt for a week at one point in an effort to cut down on things so that I could change into something clean when I got to the end point of a journey. You do what you have to when you're out on the roads but now I was in a quandary. The first problem was that I had developed some musculature since I had last properly been home for any length of time and my old clothes didn't really fit. Doing something too formal or too...dressed up seemed inappropriate. In the end I found a plain shirt that was probably a hand-me-down from one of my elder brothers at some point and a pair of trousers. As for footwear there was nothing to be done but wear my boots. I did manage to give the a quick clean though.

I found my mother in my Father's sick room.

She was sat next to the bed, also wearing a plain black dress which I found odd at first given that father was not yet dead but then I remembered Edmund. She was dressed plainly and her hair was already under a wimple calling to mind the nun that she intended to be. She was reading one of the catechisms of faith aloud to my father. The fact that he would have fiercely objected to this had clearly been forgotten.

She looked up when I entered and for a moment her eyes shone in the candle-lit. I've never figured out why sick-rooms tend to be dark and stuffy but they are and I felt instantly uncomfortable, as though I was twelve and standing before my parents for inspection before a feast.

I'm told that everyone feels like that though when seeing a parent after a long time.

She waved to stay where I was and finished up her prayers giving me time to look around.

My father's rooms hadn't really changed since I last saw them. It was still, relatively sparsely furnished. A comfortable chair next to the window and another one near the fire. There was a small writing desk as well which I knew was reserved for the most private of private letters. There were a couple of pictures on the wall. One was a portrait of a much younger version of my mother. When I was younger it was the painting that told me that my mother had been beautiful. Later when I became more cynical and had met more than one artist I realised that even had my mother been ugly the painting would still have shown a beautiful woman. But even then, the fact that my father kept it in his most private room was comforting to me.

The other picture was a massive hunting tapestry that displayed the castle in it's heyday without all the unsightly peasants hanging around it. To his credit, Father maintained a good relationship with the villagers, craftsmen and farmers around the castle and didn't keep the picture where it could be seen by them but he liked the image of the castle in all it's glory without the wooden scaffolding and signs of more modern life.

There was a prayer stand that was new and I could well imagine Brother Mark using it to keep vigil over Father and a pile of papers that were next to the window chair. Curious I wandered over to have a look and saw that they were various copies of the magazine that has been publishing my public accounts of my adventure with Kerrass. They were obviously well thumbed as well.

Unbidden, a lump rose in my throat.

"He would never admit it but he was proud of you you know?" My mother can move silently when she puts her mind to it.

I grunted trying to swallow the lump. "I notice that the past tense is already creeping in." It was a bad thing to say and I know it but I was feeling rather bitter at the time. Father had been rather hard on my chosen career path.

Mother did me proud by not flinching.

"Unfortunately, though it is accurate. He will never talk again, even if he wakes. The extraordinary effort needed just to breathe in and out is too much for him really."

"I know, I'm sorry."

"It's alright."

We hugged each other. A mothers comfort traded for a sons strength.

"Was he really proud?" I couldn't help but ask, thirsty for even second hand praise from the man.

Mother nodded. "He liked that you were using your skills to help people. That you were finding out, and using, useful things as well as so obviously living your life rather than being locked away in a library somewhere reading things that other people have already written."

I nodded and took a juddering breath.

"I'm sorry about Edmund." I managed.

"Yes, well. I'm sorry that Sir Robart went after you as the chief suspect even though I told him that it was plainly ridiculous and that you didn't care enough to commit such an act especially as I understand you now have higher prospects?"

"What?"

"Your sister tells me about a Countess, a Countess of a place called Angraal."

"My sister talks too much."

She does at that but at the same time I am happy that you are getting some interest." She gave me a pointed look. "At long last,"

"It's a little odd to say this as I said the same thing to Emma earlier but... You do know that she's several hundred years old don't you?"

"And a vampire. Yes, your sister did mention. I can't say that I approve of that bit and you should probably be aware that your brother Mark did not take that piece of news well. Nor will he enjoy your companions presence in the keep."

"Well, he doesn't really live here anymore does he and Emma offered Kerrass hospitality so..."

"Yes but we both know that Emma would give beggars full hospitality if it would annoy Mark."

"True," We stood in silence for an uncomfortable minute. "I should ask your opinion on the lady mother. Will I have to come home for a wedding soon or do you intend to reject the offer?"

"In all honesty, it's a little out of my hands. Your sister brought the letters to your father in an effort to cheer him up while there was still a chance of him surviving. When he heard the word "Countess" he told her to proceed that was pretty much the end of things." She smiled sadly. "Yes, the lady is a Vampire and a Sorceress but other than that she seems like a lady of learning and culture from the letters that I have read. I have written myself although it's your sister that is pursuing things with early negotiations." She looked at me intently for a moment. "I will be honest Freddie, I would not have given my agreement if your Father had not already given his blessing."

"And now?"

"You have not begged me to step in the way and so my guess is that you are not completely against the match in the same way that you have for others. Do you want this...creature as your wife?"

I thought about it again. I had put some thought into the prospect when we had first left Angraal all that time ago and things had happened since.

"I don't know," I said. "She is clever, charming and beautiful in a way that only people who can control magic are beautiful. Even without her magic she will be easy on the eye by now. Having said that she is still a vampire and yes, she does terrify me."

"A good kind of terrified or a bad kind of terrified,"

I looked at my mother and was shocked to see the humour in her eyes.

"I don't know," I said.

There was a period of silence as she led me back to the bed and we sat down.

"He really is very proud of you you know?" she said after a while where she had been staring at Father's face.

I grunted something non-committal.

"No really," she said with a little exasperation. "He was."

"A shame he never said anything like that to me,"

"That wasn't his way and you know it,"

"There were times that I could have really done with being told that though. Times when I had come back from another denied marriage proposal or after I'd been thrashed by Sammy on the practice fields."

Mother said nothing. She didn't approve but at the same time it was an old argument and it wasn't going to get solved now.

"What are we doing about Edmund?" I asked suddenly. The question surprised me if I'm honest but as I said it I realised that it had been pressing on my mind.

"Do?" She shook her head as though I had distracted her from more pleasant thoughts.

"About his murder," I prompted. "You'll forgive me if I have no faith in the proper authorities to sort things out."

She smirked a little. "What can we do?"

"I have no idea."

"We can pray."

"All due respect mother but that isn't really going to bring the killer to justice."

She sighed and closed her eyes a little.

"Justice?" she asked, "There is no justice here. I'm losing my husband and I have already lost my first born son. There is no justice here, only tragedy. Truth will come, or it won't but I am too tired of the world to want to chase after it now."

I stared at one of the candles.

"So you really are going to retire to a nunnery?"

She smiled sadly, "Yes, I never fancied the idea of being a Dowager and I was going to anyway. To be honest I wanted to have taken orders by now but..." She shrugged.

"We'll miss you,"

"You could always come and visit."

"Do they allow that?"

"When it's done properly and you aren't there for some other reason,"

I nodded. "Could you visit us?"

She shrugged.

We stared at Father lying on the bed.

"On the way here I had so much to say to him but now..." I rubbed at my eyes which felt suspiciously hot. "Now I can't think of any of it."

"Maybe it will occur later," she said with a smile. "Should I leave the two of you alone so you can talk?"

I thought about it. "Does anything need doing?"

"No, I'll come back before the next time he needs dosing and he won't die just yet."

I nodded, "You should get some rest mother. We'll call you if anything happens,"

She glared at me, "Not you as well, telling me to get some rest and look after myself."

"Emma can be awfully persuasive when she puts her mind to it."

"I should have got that girl married years ago." It was an old complaint but she left quietly afterwards and I sat in the closer chair.

I sat in silence, unsure as to what to say or do. It was some time before I could even see the fact that he was breathing. The skin on his hands was pale and I guessed that they would be cold to touch. He looked very old, older than I had ever seen him and I realised that it was the absence of life that made it strange. The thoughts behind the eyes. Father was always thinking. You could see it on his face. Always looking for the angle and ways in which he could continue the hustle.

We sat in silence together, after a while I took his hand and gave it a squeeze and thought that he squeezed back but I cannot be certain. I did tell him that I was there and that I loved him which was a truth that I hadn't admitted before but other than it was silent.

I dozed listening to the sounds of his wheezy breathing. Somewhere my medical training told me that his lung had been punctured and that there was some liquid in there. Not enough to do anything about but enough so that you could hear it.

I also spoke to my father, at length, about various things. I'm not going to share them here though as it was rather too private for public consumption. I'm sorry if that offends you.

I don't know how long I was sat there but eventually the door opened to show Brother Mark.

Of all of us, Brother Mark is the one who was designed by nature to be a fighter. He's a huge man, massive frame and enormously strong. It's very possible that he was born in the wrong time and in the wrong place. If he had been born Skelligan he would have been a famous battle-king but instead he was born as my father's second son. Due to the fact that he sits arguing with officials and reading rather than actually doing things (his words, not mine) he has gone a little bit to seed in recent years meaning that his massive frame tends to make him look fat rather than simply huge. He's the kind of man where you always imagine him as being fatter than he is but then you see one of his occasional acts of sudden strength or speed. If you would take any advice from me at all about meeting brother Mark, or Archbishop Mark if you prefer, it is this. When meeting him you need to make a choice which is the gesture you make upon meeting him.

If you bow then you are inviting a blessing which means that he is placing his hand on your head and then he will press down on it (They do this so that the blessing has extra emphasis to you and so that you will remember it. The things that you learn when you gossip with churchmen) at which time you will feel your skull being pushed down into your body and that cracking noise that you can hear is the sound of your spine being compressed.

If you offer your hand to be shaken then he will take that and shake the hand vigorously and squeeze it. This is not a sign of dominance but more that he doesn't know his own strength sometimes.

Finally you can hug him. I'm sure you get the idea.

I love Brother Mark even though we disagree on a number of things and when he came quietly into the room I was overjoyed to see him.

Cautiously we went over to a quieter side of the room at which point we hugged and I was reminded of all those fights where I have been thumped in the ribs.

Every

Single

One.

"It's good to see you," he rumbled with genuine pleasure. He was wearing what he calls his "family cassock" which is a plain, dark red cassock without other ornamentation. He wears it around the castle so as not to throw his rank around given that technically speaking he could order every one of us to attend upon his every word. He wears it when he wants to be my Brother rather than the Archbishop of Tretogor.

I took that cue and proceeded to tease him.

"Your Grace," I bowed very low and he cuffed me round the ear. I have no doubt that it was meant affectionately but it did send me staggering into a table.

"Ow,"

"Cheeky sod," he said grinning before hugging me again.

"Just wish it was under better circumstances," I said after getting my breath back.

He was solemn instantly. "Indeed, but let us be honest with each other..."

"Oh?"

"My duties keep me in Tretogor now and your calling keeps you in Oxenfurt over the only time where families traditionally spend time together."

"You are not wrong," I admitted ruefully.

"And sad though it is, I am glad to see you."

"And to see you Mark. How've you been?"

"Interesting times Freddie, interesting times. The church no longer has royal support and although we are well spread now there are those who hold us accountable for the sins of our more zealous members."

"Yes, I remember you telling me that you didn't expect to get beyond Bishop,"

"Well. The Emperor did me a favour there although I would have rather got the rank by any other method. My predecessor hated Nilfgaard and said so loudly and often until he went too far by making the mistake of calling Empress Cirilla a Whorish deviant, monster and harlot. An officer of the Empire heard it and he was encouraged to retire."

"Rather forcefully I imagine,"

"Indeed, some very _pointed_ words were made,"

"Along with some _sharp_ comments,"

"Delivered by very _blunt_ men. Yes I see you understand what I mean. As I wasn't important enough to have been asked my view on such a matter I ended up being the most senior person that survived the ensuing cull and reorganisation and therefore an Archbishop I now am."

"You'll be Hierophant yet."

"Don't joke about such things," He shuddered comically. "Ambition is it's own cure, seeing the amount of work I have to do _now_ let alone what I would have to do as a Cardinal or Hierophant. Do you know it's been over a month since I last heard a confession? I don't suppose you could be convinced to..."

"Oh no," I said raising my hands in protest. "I remember what your penance's are like remember,"

Marks face fell. "You can't blame a priest for trying,"

We stood together. "It is good to see you though." He said.

"Shame about this," I waved at the bed, "And Edmund. What's happening with that by the way?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well you're next in line aren't you? Isn't there some rule or something about churchmen inheriting?"

Mark winced.

"There is but it's complicated as there have been many interpretations of those rules over the years depending on which way the political wind is shifting. Which is why I'm staying out of it."

"The murder?"

Mark winced again,

"Dreadful business but I wish I was surprised. Shocked, definitely. Upset, yes. But Surprised? No. He led a life of sin and as such it caught up with him I have no doubt. He owed someone too much and then..."

Despite being a clever churchman my brother can be stupid sometimes.

"But he was about to inherit. He could pay off all the debtors he wanted to with Fathers wealth being in his grasp."

Mark winced. "Money isn't everything to these people though is it?"

I refrained from commenting.

"Anyway. On any list of suspects I must be near the top and there are already rivals circulating for even a whiff of scandal so I'm staying out of it."

He looked at me sidelong.

"I would have stepped in if they'd actually managed to cart you off though."

"Reassuring,"

He grinned at me before another thought crossed his mind.

"Listen, while I've got you away from the others as it's really important,"

"That's always a good way to start any kind of conversation."

He waved the comment off.

"I can understand a scientific interest in these things Frederick, really I do. I can even understand your travelling with a Witcher, despicable Magic using mutant that he is, and I will admit that his accompanying you on this most sad of occasions speaks well of him. I can understand all of these things but please. I beg you, speak to your sister about calling off this marriage contract between you and that... that monster."

I felt my eyes roll into the back of my head and my anger rise.

"Really?" I hissed, suddenly furious. "Really? that's what you want to talk to me about?" I tasted bile. "Our father lies dying less than ten feet away. Our eldest brother and presumptive heir to the Barony von Coulthard was murdered in our family home by a mystery assailant. This morning I was threatened with arrest, torture and execution for that crime. I know that I am innocent so that means that the killer is still out there and not one of us, not one, seems to care what that's about. Is there a threat out there against the family or was that just about our brother? Is there some secret that you are all trying to keep from me? Are there people plotting against us?"

"Yes but," he put his arm on my shoulder. Possibly an attempt to try and calm me but much to my later astonishment a lot of the days stresses were now streaming out of me and I shook him off.

"We might be under attack. Our sister is in Nilfgaard and might be in danger, alliance be damned, she's still in a foreign court surrounded by strangers and you're worried about a damn marriage proposal?"

"Freddie, you need to calm down,"

"You are not wrong, but surely you realise how stupid that comment was?"

I felt like I was pleading with him.

"It's not stupid Freddie. She's a monster. A centuries old Blood-sucking creature. You mean to marry her. That means congress, physical congress with a demon of ancient proportions. This would consign your soul to eternal torment. It cannot be allowed, the rest of the church would condemn..."

"Let me stop you there," I said sharply. "Is this about brotherly concern or how the rest of the church will view it that _your_ brother is marrying a monster."

"You know that that's not..."

"No, no I don't. Look here it is. I've travelled a lot and studied this subject. The first thing that I learned was the term monster is not confined to species. Humans, elves, dwarves, halflings, gnomes and more than a few churchmen could be called monsters. I've even talked to former monsters that have reformed like a certain Father Jerome that you might have hear of?"

"Yes I've heard of him and I am grateful for the help that he gave you but..."

"No, no buts. I've also met other creatures including trolls, spirits, ghosts and others who are perfectly reasonable members of society and do their best to help out those who live in the same continent that we do. Yes there are creatures who prey on mankind. I am not disputing that for a moment. They prey on us according to their nature. Ariadne is one of those that wants to help and integrate. The church of the Holy Flame had not been founded when she was active and as such she pre-dates it. When I left she was spending time with the local priest to see if the church and its laws were for her. She had yet to make her mind up."

"Yes but,"

I was tired and too angry to listen.

"Yes but," I mimicked him "Further to that, it's not my decision. It's mothers decision, she's the one that arranges these things and she has told Emma to deal with it. Emma is working things out and before his accident, father approved. She brings rank that I could never dream of otherwise, prestige, land and wealth as well as a cross border alliance with a minor Dukedom of Kaedwen that brings in new things for our local area. The contract is still being worked out and it's out of my hands. Hell, if Frannie gets into the Empress' ear and becomes a favourite, then we might even have to ask _her_ permission for me to marry before my input is even consulted. One day I may just receive a letter inviting me to my own wedding which will go ahead with or without my presence."

"But you could object. Emma would listen to you."

"But I would listen to Emma and if she tells me it's a good idea for the family then I will do what she asks me to as I was taught to put family first from a young age as well you know."

"But what about you? How do you feel?

"She is intelligent, charming and open-minded. Her physical appearance is variable but I find I don't care that much. She makes me laugh and I can talk to her on a variety of topics. She listens Mark which is more than many humans do. I will admit to liking her. But I will also say that she terrifies me."

"A sensible reaction."

"Yes, and here's a point. She knows that, and understands that and has told me that she intends to prove that my fears are without grounds. But in the meantime those negotiations are ongoing. Right here and now, I am here to help support my family and I have bigger things to think about than my potential future."

Mark gave up.

"You're tired and upset. Who can blame you after all."

I nodded as his elder brother authority settled over me.

"Go get some rest of your own, we can talk about this later,"

"Something to look forward to," I commented.

He smiled a little, "Indeed."

He hugged me again. "But it is good to see you."

I give him enough credit to believe that he meant it.

I left quietly and went wandering. It turned out that the sun was setting and an immeasurable weariness settled over me.

It was good to be home but at the same time I had changed. I didn't feel as though I fit anymore as though the castle had changed shape like a shirt sometimes shrinks when you wash it. I stomped about restlessly and I found that it was a little time before dinner would be served.

I eventually found Kerrass in the courtyard chatting with Sam. He had all of his tools out in front of him and was doing maintenance, sharpening, cleaning, oiling, all the things that you have to do when you carry weapons on daily basis. Sam was asking questions and the two men were talking companionably. "Talking shop" as Kerrass would later put it.

I hadn't realised that I was looking for him until I saw him. I stomped over.

"Well?" I demanded of Sam,

He looked at me for a long moment, obviously bemused. "Well what?"

"Don't you want to talk to me about my potential betrothal?"

"You're betrothed? Congratulations," He beamed.

Kerrass raised an eyebrow but otherwise peered intently at a spot on his long knife.

"Not yet, Mark tried to talk me out of it."

Kerrass coughed carefully away from his weapons,

Sam's forehead creased in thought. "Is she Rich?"

"Yes,"

"Does she have rank?"

"Yes,"

"She prestigious?"

"Pretty prestigious yes,"

He seemed to think about it for a while.

"She pretty?"

"Oh yes," said Kerrass answering for me.

Sam nodded,

"Does she have a sister?"

"Sam..."

"Then what's the problem?"

"She's a vampire," Kerrass put in.

"Oh," his eyes widened. "Oooohhhh. Yeah, Mark would have a problem with that. Good luck brother mine. His gaze darted from one of us to the other before narrowing slightly. "Anyway, I need to go and change for dinner. You two have the excuse that you've just come in but the rest of us don't." He leant over to Kerrass.

"Mother keeps a strict table," he stage whispered. "See you both later."

Kerrass nodded and I sat next to him.

He looked at me for a long time.

"I like your sister," he said, a gleam in his eyes.

"Don't," I groaned,

"I'm just saying that she's an attractive, unmarried lady and..."

"Don't even joke about it. I couldn't take it,"

Kerrass snorted. "How are you coping, pending nuptials aside?"

"Not well. Listen, I need to talk to you,"

Something about the way I said it caught Kerrass' attention and he carefully put his knife down,

"What about," his eyes glittered.

I took a deep breath.

"I have a contract to offer you,"

Kerrass nodded, his eyes widening in surprise.

"Interesting."


	27. Chapter 27

"Absolutely out of the question. How could you possibly even think of doing something like this, letting a stranger, and a mutant at that, investigate our departed brothers murder,"

It was not a question. Brother Mark was in fine flow.

I found a seat and just let him get on with it.

"I refuse, I absolutely refuse to be questioned by a freakish mercenary mutant as though I am some kind of criminal."

"You have to admit Freddie," Sam piped up, meaning that I didn't have to admit anything. "That it is a bit..."

"Wrong," Mark was clearly not done with the floor and still wanted to have his say. "It's wrong is what it is. Why not just say what you're thinking Frederick?"

Uh-oh. I was Frederick now. I must be in big trouble,

"You think we're all keeping something from you. You think this is all some kind of vast conspiracy against you and that you need to crusade to write some wrong. That's it isn't it." Mark spun on Emma, "This is your fault for encouraging him you know. Bringing that Witcher friend of his into our home and encouraging his fantasies about marrying a Vampire. They've clearly used dark magics to get inside his brain and are using him to take control away from the rest of us."

Emma opened her mouth to respond but Mark hadn't stopped his tirade.

"I forbid it. I absolutely forbid it. I know that the matter of inheritance is still up in the air while Father still languishes in his sick-bed but I have authority here as both the first-born and as a senior member of the church. You all know that I don't like to throw my rank around when it comes to family matters but in this case I feel absolutely justified." He stalked over to me and wagged his finger at me in an attempt to exert his afore mentioned authority over me. "You will leave this investigation in the hands of the proper authorities. You will expel this mutant heretic from our home and after this family crisis you will either return to the university to carry out some proper scholarly work or I will have you sent to a monastery where you can properly study the articles of faith. You will call off your engagement with this Vampire of yours and live your life according to my direction and my law."

The day had not started well.

Kerrass and I had sat in the practice yard the previous evening as I told him about what I had wanted. He had argued a little bit pointing out that he hunted monsters, not mundane murderers and he had added his voice to the argument that I should let the proper authorities deal with the matter but then I had countered with pointing out what we had _seen_ of the proper authorities when we showed up. He had agreed with me.

"But there is another problem Frederick. Something that I should warn you about as you and I are friends. This is the kind of thing that never turns out well for the family unit. Ever. You and I are friends. Your siblings know this. To properly find a murderer I am going to need to look at all of the different angles of the problem which includes having to go through all of your families private affairs and dirty little secrets. No, you don't understand," he held his hand up to stop me protesting.

"There are always little secrets. Things that you don't know about each other, little things that will shock you rigid about each other. I don't know what they are and to the outside world, it might not seem like very much but to each of you. It might turn out to be important. Do you see what I'm saying?"

I nodded and he looked at me sceptically.

"The other thing is this. For all the time that you have been travelling with me, you have been the outsider. Witcher's need to be outsiders so that we can properly do our job. We have to examine things from every angle without mercy or consideration. If the town is cursed then why is it cursed and how are we going to free the town from the curse. Can we cure the curse by killing one little girl or will the entire town suffer instead?"

I shifted uncomfortably.

"That's an extreme example of course but we look in from the outside so that we can remain objective. But now you are on the inside. It is made worse by the fact that you are one of the people that I have to investigate."

"Me, what did I do?"

"Off the top of my head? You came home. Under escort by a knight which is, therefore a cast iron alibi. Maybe there's something else going on that involves you. You are supposed to be a scholar but now you are a man of the world, why? If your sister gets her way you're probably going to marry into the nobility at a level which puts you ahead of even your oldest brother should they survive. You might protest and say she isn't a real Countess but to everyone else, a Countess in theory is still introduced as a Countess.

"Let's see, what else.

"You're a fighter now. You travel with a Witcher. You've started making your own list of contacts outside of the university. You've provided several letters of recommendation for various merchant types to your father meaning that, no matter what your father decides. Some people are getting richer because of your actions and some people are getting poorer.

"But how different might things have gone if Sir Rickard had never found you. If he'd been even two days later or if we'd been held up on the road. We rode for four days straight, give or take an hour or two. Your brother died half way through that. Is that significant? Was a message sent to someone that you were on the way home with a Witcher in tow?"

He shook his head.

"Of course you don't know. Neither do I. I will even admit that it's unlikely but at the same time it will need to be examined which means that I need to keep you out of it. You are used to tagging along and helping me bounce ideas around. That will not be the case here. There will be times when your perspective might be useful but there will be just as many times where it will not be. Do you understand all of that as well?"

I nodded.

Kerrass grimaced.

"I'm not sure you do. I tell you what. Sleep on it. Have dinner tonight, sleep in your old bed and we'll meet down here for practice in the morning because if you think you're getting away with not doing that now that you're home you need to think again. But after all that. If you still want me to look into this then we shall work from there. That's the deal, take it or leave it."

"I understand," I responded. I could already tell that he wasn't going to budge on the matter.

Dinner that night was relatively quiet. Just the family and a few others that were staying in the castle pending taking up other cargoes. Everything felt on hold until father died so there was an odd kind of feeling of being frozen in time. Of all people it was actually Kerrass who started to liven up the evening telling, at Emma's insistence his version of how the two of us had met. He went on a long and flowery account of how he had found me drowning in a relatively light rainfall and how he had been generous enough to take me under his wing. He went on to give a fairly good account of our destruction of that first ever Nekker nest that both made the company laugh at my expense but also made me out to be some kind of hero. I did notice that more than one person in the hall started to look at me somewhat differently after that. I put in the odd joke and made similarly humorous observations about some of Kerrass' own behaviour so that the two of us were able to keep the conversation relatively light and fluffy for the rest of the evening. All the while my family and a couple of acquaintances picked over my new found monster hunting expertise and my teacher in the ways of the world. It would have been a pleasant evening but at the same time we were still avoiding the topic that our elder brother was lying in the coldest basement that we had, awaiting internment and that our father was upstairs fighting for his last breath.

My mother was the first person to excuse herself from the company claiming fatigue and wanting to check up on Father and Mark followed. Emma and Sam kept Kerrass and I company for some time until I was yawning so hard that I was beginning to be concerned that the top of my head was going to fall off. I made my excuses and sloped off to bed.

Where I couldn't sleep.

Isn't it always the way. I was physically exhausted after several days of hard riding, my legs ached, my backside was sore and by the morning I absolutely expected to be stiff as a board. I hadn't slept properly since receiving my sisters message and by anyone's estimation, I was exhausted.

But I couldn't sleep.

The bed of my childhood which had nursed me to sleep so many times just felt uncomfortable. Another sign that I had physically changed shape. I no longer seemed to, well, fit in my own home. I lay there on a blanket, it being far too hot to curl up underneath the blanket, and stared at the ceiling looking at the old cracks in the stonework. Old shapes that I used to imagine were armies and faces. I had mapped whole continents into the patterns on the ceiling and imagined wars and treaties and trade pacts between the nations that I had invented. It had been an almost hypnotic exercise that I used to use to quiet my brain after a hard days study or another days unjust beating out on the practice fields.

But tonight it didn't work. It all seemed so small.

Eventually I pulled on a shirt and went for a stomp around the castle in search of old nooks and crannies. An effort to get the castle under my feet again. To see if I could find something that would remind my tired body that I was home.

I crept along the halls as quietly as I could, a habit formed from not wanting to be caught doing this same thing when I was younger. I justified it to myself that I was trying not to wake anyone else but the truth is that it was a habit so ingrained into my body that I couldn't shake it despite having every right to stomp about my home at night if I so wished. The sounds of the castle slid into my mind. As I passed Mark's chamber I could hear his deep bass voice snoring and mumbling in his sleep and grinned. From elsewhere I could hear the guards on their nightly patrols both inside and outside the castle, keeping us safe while we slept.

Maybe that was why I couldn't sleep. I was so used to taking care of my own safety that allowing other people to take care of me seemed alien somehow.

Somewhere I could hear the sounds of a woman's pleasure. I couldn't tell where it was coming from and I didn't try to find out as it seemed rude.

That was a new sound.

Definitely a new sound for this wing of the castle where my family and guests stayed.

I grinned at the thought. Kerrass had probably found himself a willing maid of some kind. Judging by the looks he had got from some of the serving maids at dinner, he wouldn't have found it too hard.

I moved on.

The Kitchen was just where I left it. At least that hadn't changed with the night staff frantically cleaning everything ready for the breakfast cooks to come in in the early hours of the morning. Here again there was a sense of waiting, as though the storm was about to break. As soon as the funeral and the wake were going to be announced then these rooms would be a flurry of activity. The guest rooms would be packed to the brim and the kitchen would be a 24 hour industry. But for now, they sharpened knives and cleaned out bowls. Sweeping out fire-pits and cleaning ovens to produce the maximum possible heat.

The biscuits were still in the same place though.

As were the herbal teas and the drinks taken out for the guards to keep them warm.

The courtyard was deathly quiet as I stomped up to the walls. A couple of people called their greetings. One strange incident was that a new Sergeant to the garrison told me to get my head down so that I would be properly rested for the morning drills. It took me a minute to realise that he had mistaken me for a new recruit and I laughed. Things might have gone badly had a family veteran leant over and whispered in the Sergeants ear. There was some good natured chuckling all round and then we all hushed up like errant children who had been caught making noise in a church.

I walked round the walls and climbed the towers. More sign that I had changed. That exercise would once have left me out of breath but now I took the stairs two at a time and barely noticed the strain. More and more I had the sense that I had moved on.

It is a strange realisation to know that the place that you grew up in is no longer your home.

I chatted with those men that I knew, shared drinks out of flasks and told old jokes. I even got some more respect from the armed men as I could now talk about weapons, and fighting techniques with all of them as well as telling a few filthy jokes of my own. I was happy that I seemed to fit in with these men that had had a habit of terrifying me when I was much younger but another part of me was sad. I was a fighting man now and for some reason that loss of innocence didn't really sit right with me any more. I promised that I would be out in the morning for some training which surprised many of them. It was an easy promise to keep as Kerrass would be hammering on my door when the sun was coming up anyway.

I found myself looking forward to the activity.

My legs were jumping and felt as though they wanted to run. To sprint somewhere, to jump and skip as though my muscles were overflowing with extra energy. All the while I was yawning so wide there was a danger that my open mouth might catch flies.

Eventually I found myself at my sisters door. There was light flickering under the door so I knew she was awake. My sister was one of those lucky people who only needed to sleep for five to six hours a night and as such she is often the last to go to bed and beats most of us down to breakfast in the morning boasting that she likes her porridge hot. I knocked and was permitted entry.

"I had wondered if you would come tonight," she said with a fond smile. She had clearly been in bed herself, the bed-clothes in some disarray and a book was on her night stand, upside down on the page breaking the spine. My inner scholar winced at the wanton cruelty to the perfectly innocent written word.

"What can I say? I find I can't sleep."

"Your bed too comfortable?"

"Something like that." I smiled as I sat. "The truth is that I find I'm... I don't even know the right word."

Her smile echoed my own. A little sad but with some humour deep down in there somewhere.

"You've moved on Freddie. This isn't your life any more. Even if it ever was."

"Close, and that's certainly part of it." I accepted a cup of tea. "I find I'm just so... dissatisfied."

Emma's eyebrows shot up. "You know that there is more than one willing maid that can help you with that nowadays." Her eyes were glittering.

"No it's not like that,"

"You can't have mine though,"

I threw a cushion at her that she caught with a laugh.

Then a thought occurred.

"Really?" I said, "There are maids that would be into that now. They never used to give me a second look."

"You've filled out Freddie. Word has spread about you threatening that Under-sheriff, Odious little man, and suddenly you are exotic and interesting."

"Interesting?"

"As I say, you can't have my maid though."

"She struck me as more of a personal aide than a maid anyway."

Emma cackled at that. "An aide. I like that. I will have to tell her."

"And you want me to go ahead with this Marriage?" It was one of the things playing on my mind.

"I do,"

"Even though she's hundreds of years old?

"And a vampire. Yes."

"Why?"

She thought for a moment.

"I received the first letter a little while ago so it will have been sent shortly after you left her neighbourhood. It was very formal and she has since admitted that she asked someone about what should be put in such letters and then just added a few bits. But her way of writing and her wit came across quite well. What can I say? She made me laugh. I wrote back and we talked like that for several letters. Doing the maths she sits down to write a response the moment that she receives a letter herself and I approve of that kind of industry and care as it makes me think that she does things quickly so she doesn't forget. She doesn't take herself too seriously, she is clever and has an interesting point of view that I found appealing. In short, even if you don't marry her, I would still attempt to maintain a friendship with her and have told her so. She was enormously flattered by that and I guess that I have a firm friend there in her own way, but the real reason that I am for this marriage is this.

"I think she's genuinely interested in you. I don't know if that is her form of love or affection or a crush or anything else but I think she likes you and I think she cares for you despite only knowing you a little."

"In her own way,"

Emma toasted me with her own teacup. "As you say, in her own way." Emma seemed happy, relaxed in a way that was unusual in my sister and I found myself wondering about it.

"What about Mark?"

Emma pulled a face.

"You let me worry about Arch-Bishop Mark. Don't you worry. All you have to worry about is deciding whether or not you like _her_ enough to go through with it. If Mark is not happy then I can soon find another churchman that will bless the union. In her last letter she told me that she kept threatening the local Bishop that she wanted to get baptised."

I laughed at that.

"No it's not my pending nuptials that's bothering me." I said after settling down a little, "even though I will admit that I thought she was joking when she first asked who would be in charge of arranging my marital status."

Emma looked at me over the top of her tea-cup. Big sisterly cynicism radiating from her eyes.

"OK, it's not _only_ about that. I just... Why aren't we _doing_ anything?"

"What do you mean? What would you have us do?"

"I don't know, anything. Searching the castle for a murderer for a start. Questioning people, shouting, getting upset."

"That's not how things are done?"

"WHY NOT?" I was exasperated.

"Because we have to be seen not to fly off the handle whenever we get the chance. We are the Lords of this domain Freddie. We're in charge. We are it. If _we_ start disrespecting the authorities where does it stop. In this case we would be protesting about the conduct of someone appointed by the Sheriff. He answers to the High Sheriff who in turn answers to the King. It might change now that Nilfgaard are involved but that's still the thing. At what stage does our little protest turn into a rebellion? At what point would we get an army turn up and oust us from our homes to the execution block?"

It dawned on me, about here, that she was as frustrated as I was.

"This is how things are done Freddie. I don't like it and I will be sending a protest letter to the Sheriff to complain about the conduct of his underling but as there isn't another under-sheriff we might just have to live with it."

"We could investigate ourselves?"

"At what point does that become interfering with an existing investigation?"

"I already interfered with an existing investigation when I booted that little shit in the head."

"Yes you did. It was wonderful. I wish I could have seen it. Luckily Sir Rickard has taken that off us but don't think it might not cause other problems."

"I do have another solution."

"Oh yes?"

"I could hire someone to do it. Private investigators do exist."

"Not often as they tend to be hired to go after the wrong person. You're thinking of that Witcher fellow aren't you." It wasn't a question.

"I am. In fact I'm going to."

She sighed. "I wish you wouldn't but I can't stop you. It will work if we can depend on his discretion which I suppose we will have to. Mark will have your hide though and I'm not sure he would be wrong to do so."

"I know, but I can't do nothing. Edmund is our brother."

"Edmund was our brother," Her Rage was sudden and overwhelming. She reminded me of a cat, hair on end, teeth bared and claws out."You didn't know him like I did Freddie. You don't know what he was capable of. I hated him and I am glad that he's dead."

Her words, along with the hate that they contained, echoed in my mind as I left her rooms that night to return to my own for the night.

In the morning I went down to train with Kerrass and a couple of the other guards. Kerrass pushed me hard and I had to really fight to hold my own against him. It was only afterwards that I discovered that the guards were cheering my name as I fought. At one point I thought I noticed Sam watching a little way off but by the time I thought to check he had vanished.

Kerrass asked me whether I still wanted to proceed with my contract. When I told him that I did he insisted upon gathering my family and informing them of Kerrass' new contract.

As my sister had predicted, Mark did not take it well.

"You are done Frederick. Done. Finished. You will find yourself a proper career and then, if I'm feeling generous we will find you a proper, Flame fearing woman to take you in and marry you where you can properly obey the tenets of the Holy Flame."

I opened my mouth in protest at the decrees of my brother as he so casually disposed of my future but as it turns out, he _still_ wasn't done because then he spun back to Emma.

"And as for you. You've been swanning around here as though you own the place for far too long, it's time that you properly settle down and..."

"That's enough Mark," my sister snarled. It was an old argument between the two of them. "As of yet you still have no right to tell us how to live our lives and until the matter of inheritance is sorted out, you _still_ don't have that authority. It was myself that offered Witcher Kerrass hospitality when he arrived at _my_ home. Not yours, as you so obviously have an Arch-Bishops palace to call your own now and this is the first time you've set foot in this castle for what, three years?"

"That's beside the point,"

"No it's not. It's exactly the point. You become a priest and you give up all rights to earthly possessions. I've seen some of those palaces, they look pretty earthly to me. But in the meantime whatever else happens, the Witcher stays."

"But..."

"Secondly. The proper arrangements of a child of this house for marriage are none of your concern. They are the concern of the child's parents which has been delegated to me, his elder sister and the eldest daughter of this house, which gives me precedence on this matter over you. Father gave his blessing to the union and actively _told_ me to proceed. But apart from anything else... it hasn't been agreed yet and won't be until both parties, which includes her by the way, agree to it."

"You know that..."

"Thirdly," Emma growled. "Every single one of us here are over the age of our majority and you have no control over our lives. Tell me what to do again and we'll see how your prestige in the church continues without the constant stream of capital that I send into it's coffers."

"Ah so we get to threats now is it..." Mark was red in the face.

"I think we've got somewhat off topic." Sam piped up seeming quite calm which leant some much needed quiet to the room. "Freddie, I will admit to some concern here. You turn up, see something suspicious and then decide that you're going to get your pet Witcher to investigate this murder."

"He's not my pet." I managed. I was struggling to decide how to feel. Furious? Definitely but I was also amused. The entire family had reverted to type with alarming speed. The fragile alliance of my Fathers injury and pending demise had shattered and everyone was at each others throats. I would have laughed but it all seemed a little tragic as I had honestly assumed that they would all have supported my decision.

"I misspoke and I apologise," Sam. SAM of all people was being the calm one, "But nevertheless there are things that you do when this kind of thing happens. Regardless of how you feel about the matter and how you feel about the officers in charge of the investigation. Feelings that I for one think are justified by the way. You have to let the proper authorities pursue this. That's how society works." he was appealing to my sense of civic responsibility. A good play for my brother. "We can't all go running off to protest when we don't like the way things are going. That leads to vigilantism which can be worse than the crime, or equally as misguided and dangerous. Surely you must realise that, especially as you are far from unbiased in this matter."

"You're right," I said, finally wanting to get my words in edge ways. "You're right, I'm not unbiased. I'm absolutely furious. I am spitting mad, hopping up and down with it and so angry that I am barely able to speak."

"Yet I notice that you are speaking."

"Mark!"

"What astonishes me is this." I was trying desperately to keep my own temper in check. Trying so hard to keep it tamped down and myself restrained but it was getting difficult. The moral high ground can be awfully lonely sometimes and the overwhelming desire to get mucky with everyone else is sometimes a little too much. "None of the rest of you seem to care. I'm livid, absolutely livid. I'm also terrified. So scared that I can barely speak. Our brother was killed. The presumptive heir to Fathers titles, lands, status and wealth was murdered. But from a distance there is another word for that kind of death. A death that sits at the top of society and that word is 'assassinated'."

Mark shifted his weight uncomfortably. Emma wouldn't look at me.

"There could be any number of reasons as to why Edmund was killed. Personally I prefer the theory that he got in too deep with someone but that argument doesn't hold water as with all due respect, he was about to become the wealthiest man in this neck of the world and therefore more than able to pay his debts. There are other possibilities. Someone in the castle could have killed him from jealousy or rage or any other number of reasons."

"Preposterous," said Mark, "None of us would have..."

"By the flame are you even listening to yourself? We are not the only people that live in this castle. We are also not the only people that spend time here with servants, merchants, soldiers and all the families of those people coming and going. With apologies to Emma and our mother, Edmund was well known for putting it about a bit. He beats and rapes some woman on the lands only it turns out that the husband, father, brother, son of the woman in question saw an opportunity for revenge. They took it. That's if the woman herself didn't take the opportunity herself. Are they done? Will they be satisfied with just our brothers corpse or, having tasted noble blood, will they want more? I don't know, do any of you?

"What if there's a foreign influence. What if someone in Nilfgaard's court has finally heard of the Baron von Coulthard and decided that they want our money for themselves and this is the first step in an attack. What if this person seduces and marries poor Frannie, Sammie is killed in a Battlefield incident. I get "eaten" by some monster. None of this is proven to be anything but occupational hazards and suddenly, with no other heir and Emma being unmarried. He inherits according to the law."

"You didn't mention me there?" Mark put in. He was caught up despite himself.

"No because the church is so frightened about the Nilfgaardian worship of the Emperor as a semi-divine being that if Nilfgaard told them to then it would be found illegal for you to inherit."

Mark began to protest but I could see the realisation in his eyes.

"You know he's right there Mark." Emma had spoken up again.

"The proper authorities is a nice idea. I like the idea of someone finding out the culprit and not carting me off for interrogation on the basis of, and I quote, "there are no other suspects". As I have just demonstrated there are _plenty_ of other suspects so my question is this. Why aren't the rest of you climbing the walls, tearing those walls down and in the offices of important people RIGHT FUCKING NOW demanding that they take this seriously and find out WHO MURDERED OUR BROTHER?"

There was a pause as the echoes died down.

"You didn't have to live with him over the last couple of years. You wouldn't care either." Emma said into the floor."

"Maybe not. But even though I didn't like him very much either and yes, as I've said before I did hate him as well occasionally. He was our Brother and we need to know, we _have_ to know what happened. For our safety and the safety of those that we care about as well as those people that fall under our care. I do not trust the "proper authorities" so I am asking someone who I know to be skilled in this kind of area to look into it. That's all."

"That's all?" Mark snarled. "THAT'S ALL?" he thundered giving me the feeling of what he would be like on his pulpit when he had the fire in his belly.

"He is a mutant, a heretical mutant and a magic user. That he was a friend to you was disquieting enough but the fact that he's got so far into your thoughts and feelings that you are so set on letting him tear through the families private affairs. He is gone, he will be thrown from the castle right now."

"I saw him practising with those swords of his." Sam put in, "This morning on the field. I have to admit that I wouldn't want to be the one that has to try and make him go anywhere he doesn't want to go." He grinned, it was a noble effort to try and calm the situation down.

But then he ruined it by agreeing with Mark.

"But I have to agree with Mark Freddie. I will not answer to some... Mutant freak of nature who goes against Nature. I simply will not. I refuse. Emma is right. This is not my home and for my money, the freak is pleasant enough company but I would suggest that he make himself scarce before we do have to call out the guard to remove him from the place."

He put an emphasis on "freak" and "mutant" that made them sound like grave insults and I felt my the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

"There you see." Mark nodded approval to Sam. "The mutant leaves. I also refuse to answer any questions."

"His name is Kerrass," piped up my sister. "He is my guest. I welcomed him and he stays, as my guest until he wishes to leave. I share Freddie's concern about what happened to Edmund but at the same time I think this action is foolish." She looked at me. "This investigation will not go ahead."

I subsided a bit. I felt defeated and beaten. A younger son again, a failure and a fraud.

"I think it's time for me to say something now," said Kerrass. He had stood silently at the end of the room where he had stayed and kind of drifted away from people's perceptions even though he had clearly been listening intently.

"I find your discussions fascinating, not having a family of my own I can honestly admit that I find your interactions extremely interesting from an outsiders perspective of course."

"Your observations are not important to us now, you may..." Mark tried to dismiss him with a wave of his hand. Exactly the kind of gesture that my Father used to use that made me so angry.

"I wasn't finished." Kerrass' cold words slashed across the room like a whip-crack. He didn't speak loudly but there were teeth to those words. He stepped forwards until he was in the centre of the room.

"I am Fredericks friend and I have to say that after close to eighty five years on the road I have met many good and fine people during those travels and Fred here is one of the best. I am not given to exaggeration so you know that to be true. If anything his faults are that he tends to care a little bit too much and he is a little too innocent but given enough time, I think that he will be a great man some day. I am proud to call him my friend and as such I would have words to say to each of you.

"I would ask you, _Priest,_ what good you have done. You might claim to have saved many souls from your pulpit, sitting in comfort in the Arch-Bishops palace that I too have seen, or you might even have gone with the armies to give solace to the troops. I don't know, but I do know how many lives Frederick has saved. Actively saved. Some were people that I needed help to save, some were people that I wasn't there to save and he stood over them, knees shaking, with his spear in front of him. He's run into burning buildings and plucked babies from the gaping maws of monsters that would make you piss your cassock. By my count he has saved forty two lives. One of those lives is mine and that one he has saved several times."

It was a strange feeling listening to Kerrass talking about me then and there.

"Next, you, Samuel the soldier, Sir Samuel the knight. Here is my question for you. How many people have you killed? Don't bother answering, you've fought in a war so it must be quite a few but I will ask a follow up. How often do you think about those people that you, personally, have killed with your weapons? How many other people have you killed? How many children and women and old, sick and crippled men? You might think that you have not killed anyone but in that case I would call you naïve. You are a knight. How often have you gone out to forage for food? How often have you taken grain, or meat, or the villages last cow or horse from the pleading peasants as they begged you to be merciful. How many people have died because you took that food? You might say that it was war, that you were defending those self-same people but in the end, you killed them just as surely as the encroaching enemy armies would have. When you thought about them at all, if you thought about them, you would have thought that it was their duty to give those things up. That it was their right to take them. Didn't you?"

Sam said nothing and although he tried to meet Kerrass' gaze, after some time he found that he could not.

"I thought so. How heroic of you. Frederick? How many men have you killed?"

"Seven," I answered promptly, "With my own hands."

I saw the family take that point in.

"Now," said Kerrass and I saw that he was addressing the room again. "That might not sound like many to a hardened soldier like Sir Samuel but I know something that Frederick does that I have seen no-one else do. He goes out of his way to find out the name's of the men he has killed. He writes them down on a piece of paper that he hides in his diaries and at every available opportunity he takes that piece of paper out and prays for the souls of those men that he has killed.

"He prays, _priest,_ even though everyone, including me would say that those deaths do not fall at his feet as he has only killed to defend himself or to defend others. But he punishes himself because of those deaths, even when he has saved other lives in that killing."

It never ceases to astonish me how Kerrass, like any great orator, can keep the attention of the room centred on himself when he is speaking.

"Madam, we come to you last." Emma shook her head defiantly. "I am a Witcher madam which means that I can see, hear and smell better than most men due to my," his mouth quircked, "mutated nature and as such I will admit to knowing your secret. Of all the people that you know, of all the people in this room you are afraid of letting that secret out to, and after this little meeting I can see why as well, but given all of this, which of your siblings is most likely to accept that secret without comment?"

He straightened and I was astonished to see Emma pale and lower her head.

"I have never had a family," Kerrass said, "What little I remember of my birth mother tells me that I was sold to the Witcher's school but even then I am not convinced that she didn't do me a service. But you people, the richest people in this area of the world. I would have thought you could _afford_ to be more understanding.

"I am Frederick's friend. I came here to support him and help him through what must be a difficult time and I was glad to do so. As his friend I would stand beside him. I would help him in his hardships and it shames you all to look at him so... so scornfully when I would be glad to fight and die for him. I would certainly challenge all of you for the wretches that you have proven yourselves to be."

"But now I am not Kerrass his friend, instead I must be Kerrass the Witcher. He is my client which changes the nature of things. I work for him and I have already accepted the contract which means that you do not get to dictate the terms of those things. The contract has been accepted and the price has been agreed. I will investigate the murder of Edmund von Coulthard. You can try to stop me if you wish but I will exercise my own judgement on those matters, including acting to defend myself should it become necessary. When I am done I shall make my report to Frederick where he can decide what to do with it. That is what is going to happen."

Mark opened his mouth,

"You can always refuse to answer, but such refusal will be part of my report and I _will_ find out why you refused."

The raw menace in his voice was startling and for a while there I felt shame.

But there was another person in the room. Someone who, until then we, including myself, had all forgotten.

My mother stood up from her chair.

"Witcher Kerrass. Your assessment of my family is rather brutal but the rebuke, although harsh which I have no doubt is well meant on behalf of my son, is not _entirely_ unfair."

She skewered us all with that look. Sooner or later we all have to remind ourselves that our mothers are still our mothers no matter how old we grow and how powerful we become, our mothers still have the ability to reduce us to tiny mewling babies.

"Frederick also makes some valid points about defence of the family and our people. Witcher Kerrass operates outside the normal legal system and as such he can pursue his own investigation independent of the process being used to discredit Frederick and the rest of the family and is therefore a good solution. I would also like to know the reason for this crime. Witcher Kerrass?"

"Yes Ma'am," Odd how military he was suddenly behaving.

"I look forward to your report and encourage you to start right away. You may begin with me if you wish. However this little conference has kept me from my husband's side for too long so you will need to come to the sick-room."

She nodded to the room,

"Master Witcher, _children_." She turned and left. She was dressed as the most common nun but she was still lady of the manor.

It was some time before anyone else spoke. To no-one's surprise it was Mark.

"Well, Mother might be happy, but I am not. I will not associate with a deviant mutant and refuse to have anything to do with this."

"Oh give over," sneered Sam, "You don't need to convince us of your separation between church rank and family."

Mark stormed off at that.

Sam stood after that and approached Kerrass. "Valid points Witcher, you have given me much to think about." Sam extended a hand. Kerrass hesitated a moment before shaking it.

"I was possibly a bit cruel,"

"A bit?" Sam grinned and raised an eyebrow.

"Only a bit," Kerrass agreed. "Soldiers are renowned for their inability to think independently."

Sam laughed. "At your service Witcher," he said.

"In which case I will start with you. Please have a seat?" Kerrass poured himself a cup of whatever drink was in the pot, raised his eyebrows in the question at Sam who declined before turning back to me where I was back to taking a seat.

"Thank you Frederick." he said simply.

"What?"

Kerrass took a sip from his cup and tipped a large spoonful of honey into it.

"That was a dismissal Freddie."

"I don't understand."

"Yes you do, you're just being obstinate. This is the part of the job that I don't need you for. I work for you but my method is my own and, as I warned you, you are also under investigation. I will send for you when I need you. You too Milady."

He sat down facing Sam with a patented Kerrass smile.

"Ummm," I heard myself say.

It's an odd thing. On the one hand there was the ingrained habit of being Kerrass' assistant over some time and sitting in on most of his "interrogations" coupled with the fact that this whole thing was happening because _I_ had put these events into motion. I wanted to see what Sam had to say for himself. On the other hand, I was well aware of what it was that Kerrass was talking about and realised that my feet should already be walking.

It took me a moment to realise that I hadn't moved.

"Fuck off Freddie," Kerrass put a little emphasis into it as though he was talking to a child.

Emma tugged at my sleeve and we fled together.

"Do you want to talk?" she asked when we were some way down the corridor.

"I don't know," I was frowning. The world had changed again and I wasn't entirely comfortable with it. I liked being on the inside. I enjoyed being part of the solution when Kerrass walked into town. Now I was part of the problem and I couldn't complain about it because I had put myself there.

"Do _you_ want to talk?" I asked her instead.

"I don't know," she looked confused and upset. "No, no I don't think so. I want to think. Kerrass said some things there that caught me off guard and I want to... I want to think about them."

She was frowning now and seemed a little vacant.

I nodded.

"I think I will go and try to work up another sweat then, try and take my mind off things."

"Good idea. Don't forget to eat something though. I know you when you get into one of your concentrations.

You just forget to eat."

I nodded. She wasn't wrong and we separated.

A thought occurred. "Should I try and speak to Mark?"

Emma thought. "Nah. Let him stew in his own juices. Mother will deal with him and I still control the purse strings and I will until I get told that I don't by Daddy's lawyer which will take time. Even if he dies tonight."

I nodded and waved before moving off.

She was probably right. Mark would either calm down or he wouldn't there was no point worrying about it at the moment. Although the thought that I might have to marry Ariadne to avoid the fate of being a church scholar was not a pleasant one. I didn't want to marry someone for a reason other than the fact that I wanted to marry them but it seemed that that choice was being taken away from me. Family duty or personal freedom, not Love or even affection.

Hardly seems fair.

I couldn't say that I hadn't been warned though.

I did go out to the practice yard and got my spear out of the armoury to discover that it had been cleaned and polished from the mornings drills. Kerrass would be cross with me as he always insisted that a fighter should maintain his own weapons. He was not wrong.

I did a bunch of slow drills in an effort to calm myself. The point was to do all the set of moves that you would normally do in a drill but as slowly as possible while keeping the movements smooth. It's not as easy as you might think but in the right circumstances it can be quite calming.

It didn't work this time.

I sat back down and began to maintain my own weapon.

That didn't work to calm me down either.

I realised that I had been working on the same spot for some minutes when Sam sat next to me and handed me a plate.

"What's this?"

"What does it look like?"

"Umm, a Pork sandwich. With apple sauce."

"Yeah,"

I took it and took a large mouthful. It was delicious.

"Thanks,"

Sam sat next to me.

"Don't thank me yet. I fucking spat in it." He grinned.

"I deserved that,"

"Really?"

"Oh yes." I stared at the empty plate. The food had vanished in short order.

"Why?"

"Lets just say that when you wiped that gunk out of your eyes this morning. It wasn't sleep."

Sam stared at me before exclaiming in horror and recoiling.

It was a joke that one of Sir Rickards men told me. I hadn't got it at the time but now I understand the genius. The imagination is much crueller than a punchline.

"You look very innocent when you sleep." I said with a grin.

"Fucking hell. That vampire _has_ gotten to you you sick fuck." He grinned back.

We laughed and I felt better.

He had a play with my spear and I examined his new coat of arms that had been engraved into the pommel of his sword. The blade was heavier than I would have liked and I said so. He told me that it was to break through armour.

He said that he didn't understand the long cutting edge of the spear head rather than just having a point. I said what Kerrass had said to me all that time ago. That points work well in formation but not so well on foot and that sometimes, monsters need sharp edges.

"I'll bow to your superior knowledge,"

"As I will to yours."

He nodded as he re-sheathed his blade. I found myself admitting that he suited his uniform and coat of arms and let go of the resentment that I had held for a long time at my more athletically gifted brother. He moved now as though the sword was part of him like an extra arm or a leg.

"How did it go?" I asked suddenly.

"The interrogation. It was fine, a lot less angry than I was expecting to be honest. I tell you truthfully brother that I had not imagined a Witcher telling jokes."

I snorted. Kerrass had once admitted that one of the best ways to get people to open up is to make them laugh. I said so.

"That sly fucker. Anyway he asked me about how we found Edmund and the events before and after within about a day. Then he asked about Dad's accident a bit and then asked me to escort him up to see mother."

"Dad's accident?"

"Yeah, I asked him why he cared so much and he shrugged. Heh. I did hear that he was forcefully kept from Mark's rooms though."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah, Mark still has his church guards. They've started guarding his door in pairs and the rest are put up in the barracks down in second level. Captain Froggart is really pissed about it. Apparently they just walked in and demanded one of the buildings to themselves without asking. Not that Froggy wouldn't have been accommodating but still... You know Froggy?"

"I know Froggy."

Captain Froggart was an old soldier who was responsible for the family and castle's security. In the event of an actual attacking force into our lands it would be Knight-Captain Froggart who would command the Coulthard response. He was frighteningly competent, ridiculously good at his job and as far as I could tell he was universally hated by his men. But if anyone insulted old Froggy in _front_ of any of his men then that person could expect to wake up with a shock.

That shock being that someone had removed their lungs.

"But your Witcher..."

"I notice that he's _my_ Witcher now."

"Shut the fuck up I'm telling a story."

"Sorry."

"So you should be. Anyway, your Witcher goes up, all polite and asks to speak to the Arch-Bishop. He's all polite and everything. The guards tell him to Fuck off. The Witcher insists that they check with the Arch-Bishop, still all polite and stuff, the guard pokes his head through, there's some mumbling before the guard comes back and says some flowery words about the Arch-Bishop being indisposed. The other guard then tells the Witcher that what that means is "Fuck off." The Witcher listens to these words politely and then tells the guard that he will enquire as to the Bishops health on a daily basis, and indeed whenever he was passing. He says that he has some extensive knowledge of herbalism and that he might even have an ointment that has just been prepared by his own fair hand for the use of soothing troubled brows at which point the church guards start getting a bit more aggressive."

"Oh holy Flame."

"That's exactly what I said. The Witcher, all innocent good will wishes the Bishop well and it was such a shame that the guards wouldn't let him past when he might be able to help with his _indisposition_ before walking off."

I was giggling. "That's beautiful."

"I know, I thought you'd like it."

"So if Mark does emerge for whatever reason then Kerrass can say "Aha! You are no longer indisposed, ready to answer some questions now?","

"Yep, and also. I've known your Witcher for an hour at best but I can just tell that he's going to turn up at all hours of the day and night just to check on the Arch-Bishop's health."

"That sounds like him."

We were both laughing when Emma's maid found us and handed me a piece of paper. She nodded to me and frowned at Sam before leaving just as quickly.

The note said that I was to meet Kerrass and herself at Dad's study.

"What's her story?" I asked as I got up to leave,

"Who?"

"Emma's maid."

"The flame only knows. She was here when I got back. She's got more status in the castle than everyone but the family and the Seneschal. Cold one though."

"Tried your luck did you?"

"Some of us don't have sinister Vampire ladies to keep us warm at night so I gave it a try yeah, I mean look at her, she's gorgeous."

"Knocked you back did she?"

"With enough force to leave a bruise."

I hissed in sympathy "Serves you right."

"Probably."

"Anyway," I said with a grin. "Duty calls."

"Yeah well," Sam's smile faded. "Good luck."

I grunted and left.

Kerrass and Emma were waiting for me outside of Father's old office. This was the hallowed place, the room where the vast empire ran. I had rarely been in here but those times that I had been in here had made my head spin.

I am a clever man. I don't say this to boast but I am smart. Some would say intelligent and some others would go even further and suggest that I am gifted. An enormous compliment that I don't really think that I deserve. Believe me when I say that I got absolutely nothing on my father.

That room was like a whirlwind. A tornado of paper, people shouting and arguing. Often with each other and against each other. Pieces of paper were flying everywhere, draws and shelves were emptied and filled. All the while with a couple of scribes who spend their entire time just sitting in the corner and recording everything. At any one time Father ensured that he had six fully trained members of the Scribes guild in the castle attached to his staff at any given time. They worked in a shift pattern so that they could attend father around the clock and all day, every day. As well as their abilities to write, transcribe and record all of fathers daily meetings they were also expected to keep up with Father in all of his other activities. Hunting being the most obvious one so that if someone tried to discuss business or politics during the Hunt, there could be a record of it.

Along with all of this flying paperwork their were lawyers, servants, merchants, nobles and all of the other people that father needed to run his commercial empire and ask Father for little favours. All the little favours.

Always sat in the middle of it sat my Father, listening, taking it all in. He liked to sit perfectly still, his fingers pressed together in a way that always made people think of a church roof. This attitude that he was half asleep or not really listening meant that people thought that they could get one over on him and he would say that this was when people's real thinking came out. Then he would move suddenly and pounce on a comment, or make a decision here or order something else to be done. Emma had once said that he looked like a spider in their web. Sam said he looked like a general amongst the generals staff. To me, he always put me in mind of a cat. A well fed cat who is surrounded by mice and birds and other animals that would normally be the cats prey. The cat lies there with his eyes close and lets them all come closer, closer still, closer and then just when they prey thinks that he is asleep... He Pounces and purrs as they all flee.

I hadn't been in here in a long time.

Emma was pale, her hair tied up in a tight bunch at the top of her head. She looked as though she had been crying a little. I got a little angry at that but when I raised my eyebrow at her she smiled a little and nodded.

The small interactions that exist between people never cease to astonish.

Kerrass was frowning intensely at the door but was clearly waiting for me.

"You summoned?" I managed with little humour.

"Yes," Kerrass was all business and turned to us both. "Frederick, you are here because I may need some practical help, Lady Emma, you are here because I suspect that this room is familiar to you and I need a guide but also as a witness to see that I don't move anything or interfere with anything."

Emma and I nodded.

"Milady, you are well?" Kerrass was all polite solicitude. "This can wait."

Emma seemed to straighten herself.

"I am fine, please proceed."

"Now just to be clear, the door was closed when the body was found."

"Yes, it seemed indelicate to occupy the room while Father was ill so we shut the door."

"And locked it?"

"Yes,"

"Was it unlocked that morning when the body was found?"

"Yes,"

"Who has the keys?"

"I do, Mother does, Father had a set of keys as well as his chief scribe and lawyer. Also the housekeeper who let the servants in who were responsible for keeping the place clean."

"So lots of people then."

"Yes, but all of those people are trustworthy."

Kerrass nodded.

"Is it locked now?"

"Yes, Sir Robart insisted on that."

"A point for Sir Robart. Open it please."

Emma produced a large key from a pouch at her side and opened the door.

Kerrass did not enter. Instead he knelt down and examined the lock in detail as well as the side of the door before grunting.

"No signs of forced entry so either Edmund was let in first, or the killer was in here waiting for him. Lets go in. Please keep to the edges of the room."

We filed in. Kerrass fell to his knees and over the next several minutes spent a good deal of time frowning at the carpeting on the floor. Knowing what to look for I could see his pupils dilating and contracting and he audibly sniffed several times.

Emma and I stood next to the large window and, not for the first time in this whole affair, I felt like a school child waiting to be scolded. You know, that thing where you look at everything around you, your shoes, the examination of the dust motes floating through a sunbeam. Then you shift your weight a bit from one foot to the other and realise that you've got no idea what to do with your hands so you try out a couple of different ideas. In your belt, behind your back. One hand in different positions from the other before you eventually settle on just leaving them in the same place they were originally.

Kerrass meanwhile was edging his way across the carpet, nose along the floor until he got to the desk where he stood up and stared at the chair that was behind the desk at an angle. There was a large blood stain on the carpet underneath the chair and across the chair itself. I shuddered to think how much blood would be on the corpse itself. He looked at it all from different angles and different distances, frowning all the time.

I cannot emphasise how boring and frustrating it was to watch him doing this.

I can however admit to a certain amount of pride that I wasn't the first person to crack.

"Seven people?" my sister said quietly.

"What?"

"Seven people. You've killed seven people?" There was a look in her eye as though she was seeing me for the first time.

I blew out some air.

"Yes. There are possibly some more but those are the ones that we can absolutely confirm. They're not the ones that I severely injured or the ones that might have died from their wounds later."

There was a long pause. I was disturbed by what I saw in her gaze then and I looked away.

"Was it hard?"

"That depends on the circumstances."

"Don't mince words with me Freddie," I couldn't tell what she was thinking. Whether she was mad at me, worried for me or just curious.

"Physically it's very hard. Much harder than I thought it was going to be and I was surprised about how much training was involved. It's not just about strength but it's about where you hit them and what you hit them with and how you hit them. Otherwise you're just... Hitting a slab of meat with a stick."

"That's not what I meant."

"I know but there are many different areas to it. Mentally?"

I took another deep breath.

"It's not as hard as you might think to kill while defend yourself. When that guy means you harm and he absolutely intends to kill you and it's a choice between killing him or dying yourself then that's easy. The harder one is killing someone who isn't attacking you but is attacking someone else. That I found really hard but I was cured of that when it nearly killed me."

Emma nodded encouragement. "Does it haunt you? Do you have nightmares?"

"No. Not about them. Not really anyway. Combat nightmares happen as I imagine all the things that might have gone wrong and all the ways that I might have died or those times when I really wanted to run away. I get nightmares about the people I've killed mixed in with those for a while but then they tend to go away after that. I get nightmares about those times I personally faced monsters. Without going into it, well, you've read the first account with the village and the Nekkers right?"

She nodded.

"That boy in the cottage having blood explode from his mouth as the Nekker bit down. That shit haunts me. The sound of his Mother's screaming..."

I shook my head in a half shudder, half conscious effort as the scream echoed through my skull then before I could banish it from my mind.

"Oh Freddie."

I took the risk of looking at her and I was ashamed to think that I had expected condemnation from my sister of all people. Instead I saw sympathy and understanding.

Oddly, it was worse.

"But with the people, you try and find their names?"

"Yes,"

"Why?"

"I have thought about why I do it. In each case it was either kill or be killed, directly or as a result of other things, or allow something worse to happen to other people. I killed a knight that had me hostage who was trying to use me to force Kerrass into doing something. I started the fight but he had a knife to my throat so I feel justified in that one. But I digress.

"I look at these men and I think to myself that the only difference between them and me is an accident of birth. Of seven people, Three were bandits, another three were knights or soldiers who had been ordered to kill or detain me. A sixth was a city thief who tried to rob and kill me and he died because he didn't expect me to draw my own knife and ran onto it. The seventh was a poor, stupid man who tried to lynch Kerrass and I after we had helped with their monster problem and had decided that they no longer wanted to pay us. Of all of them he's the one who I feel sorry for as he was coerced into it by a ringleader who didn't dare attack us himself and instead coerced and pleaded so that others did his own dirty work."

"And you know all their names?"

"No, I tried but no, I don't know them all. That haunts me occasionally. I try and pray for them but...his companions fled and he died before he could tell me his name."

"What happened?"

I smiled a little sadly.

"It's a more common story on the road than you might think. People like Kerrass and I don't generally get attacked by bandits because we're obviously armed and there's only two of us so they weigh up the benefits of how much we're carrying against how many of them might be hurt. He insists that I wear basic clothing so it doesn't look like we're particularly rich. At worst the bandits jump out, try to look intimidating, we draw our weapons and tell them to fuck off. Eventually it turns out that they don't dare attack when their targets are ready for them and we move on.

"But every so often we come across those people who are less fortunate.

"We were heading South into Nilfgaard and along the road we came across a peddlers wagon. You know the type, festooned with scraps and odd things to be bought and sold. The Tarp that covered it had been torn and there were items strewn all over the road. The horse was dead, filled with arrows and there was a Man and a woman nearby. He had been killed as he had dismounted for whatever reason and she was a little distance off near a tree. I won't go into detail but it was an unpleasant scene."

"I'm grateful for that." Emma was already pale and looked as though she was beginning to regret asking.

"But then we heard a young woman screaming. Kerrass tried to stop me, it's one of those circumstances where he tries not to get involved. But I didn't listen and charged off into the woods. We found the couple's daughter held on the floor and there were six bandits arranged around her. You can guess what was happening. I charged in and ran one of the men through. The others grabbed for clothes and weapons but it was clear that things would have gone badly for me if Kerrass hadn't appeared, sword drawn and killed another. The other four put up a little fight but they cut and run quickly when it was obvious that Kerrass outclassed them after killing another.

"I remember trying to help the girl. I took a blanket and offered it to her so she could cover up but she pulled a knife from the corpse of one of the bandits and slashed it at me. I recoiled and she ran off into the trees, following the direction that the bandits went. I didn't understand it at all and I still don't but Kerrass insists that it isn't unusual for that reaction in victims."

I shook myself and my eyes focused again.

"Anyway. I couldn't get his name as he was already dead before I could think to act."

Emma was watching Kerrass again.

"I can't imagine," she said after a while.

"No, neither could I. I still can't despite having seen it for myself."

She nodded and we stood together in silence for a while.

"Do you want to ask me?" she said suddenly, her voice small and timid.

"Ask you?"

"My secret." She shook her head, a bit more defiance leaking through.

"Nah," I said. "I did think about it but then I thought that you would tell me when you were comfortable with it or when it was important. Until then, it's not my business."

She made a small sound, like a cross between a sob and an explosive expulsion of relief. She took my arm and rested her head on my shoulder.

"Thank you Freddie."

Kerrass was watching us.

"Have you two done making up and getting your family in order?"

Emma and I looked at each other, her eyes were suspiciously misty.

"Yeah," I said, "yeah I think so."

"Good, in which case I have a number of questions for the Lady."

"Please Master Witcher, could you not call me Emma. You have saved my brothers life, from what he tells me, on several occasions and I feel that you are deserving of it. If matters were different I would say that you were almost part of the family."

Kerrass twitched a little. "I would be honoured to call you by your given name milady, however I do not feel that it would be appropriate at this time as I am still engaged professionally."

"I understand."

Kerrass waited for a while while Emma wiped her eyes a bit. It was turning into an emotional day.

"At the end of the day's business. How does things work. In other words, who is the last person out of this room before it being closed for the evening?"

"Father, every time."

"Why?"

"He said that he liked to keep everything in order and wanted to make sure that it would be for the following day."

"When is the room cleaned?"

"First thing in the morning."

"And the cleaning staff are let in by the Housekeeper?"

"Yes."

"Is this room ever used when your father is absent?"

"No,"

"I understand that there is another filing office where people who are not in the loop of awareness come in and leave their reports?"

"There is,"

"To help protect security?"

"Yes."

"Do you know what's in the drawers and cubbyholes?"

"Yes, Father had a particular system that he liked to institute. The system is occasionally shifted so that it isn't the same all of the time."

"Interesting. And Impressive from a security standpoint. Did you not find that this made life more difficult having to shift things round all the time."

"Not really. Only those of us who knew the formula for the filing could properly put things away and we were the ones that were trusted to do that filing."

"Interesting. Who were those people?"

"Myself, Obviously Father as he invented it. I think Mother knows it but I have never been sure. Father's lawyer and his chief accountant..."

For a moment Kerrass dropped his professional mask. "He has more than one accountant?"

"Oh yes. No one person could keep it all in their heads."

Kerrass shook his head in amusement before the Witcher in him came back. "Anyone else?"

"The scribes and one or two of his chief agents."

Kerrass nodded. "Are there any cubbyholes, cupboards, drawers or safes that do not have their contents

rotated?"

"A couple."

"What makes them different?"

Emma grimaced. "They are the ones with the expensive Gnomish locks."

Kerrass nodded. "How expensive?"

"I never found out but it is really expensive."

Kerrass nodded before turning back to the rows upon rows of shelves. He shifted his view and closed one eye, then the other. He told me to close the drapes and the room was plunged into darkness. Kerrass clicked his fingers and a candle sprang into light which Kerrass held aloft.

"Thank you Freddie you can open the drapes again. Now milady, if I point to a couple of drawers and cupboards could you tell me what's in them. I don't need to look inside yet but a brief overview of the contents will be important."

"I think so."

"What's in this drawer?" Kerrass pointed at a relatively small drawer that was in a bank of about twelve drawers of similar size.

"That one is... That one is the travel itinerary for last month."

"Last month?"

"Yes, who father visited, where he went and who he spoke to and about what."

"Did anything interesting happen last month?"

"Not that I remember."

Kerrass nodded before moving to a much smaller cabinet. He spent a bit more time peering closely at the door and the lock. "What's in here."

"Father's journals."

"Have they been emptied since this accident?"

"No,"

At first Kerrass seemed to be surprised but then his face smoothed over again.

Finally he moved to a drawer at the bottom of a small chest of drawers. The draw was quite wide but not very tall. This time Kerrass didn't bother examining it. "This one?"

"Fathers appointments diary. Those people for when he books meetings with specific people."

"Can I have a look at it?"

Emma grimaced a little.

"Very well, I won't force the issue at the moment." He stood up and had another look around. He walked back to the chair behind the desk. He examined the desk carefully.

"So the body was sat in the chair?"

"Yes,"

"With it's feet on the desk?"

"One foot. The other foot was resting under the chair."

"Was the body slouched?"

Emma frowned in confusion.

"Did it look like he had slid down the chair after his injury?"

"I don't think so,"

"Why not?"

"Because there were no scuff marks on the blood soaked carpet."

Kerrass smirked a little.

"And he was resting his head on the back rest?"

"Yes,"

"Well done Milady. I can see where Freddie gets his eye for detail from."

He turned back to stare at the chair. He then peered at the carpet and adjusted the chairs position slightly.

"Was that him paying me a compliment?" Emma asked me as Kerrass froze staring at the chair.

"Yes, enjoy it. They don't come often when he gets like this."

Emma nodded.

Kerrass meanwhile made a couple of strong stabbing motions towards the chair before nodding.

"OK. I've seen what I want to see. I understand that the body is still in the cellar?"

"Yes,"

"Freddie, could you get my kit and meet us down there?"

Kerrass left as I went on my errand and I found them in the deepest wine cellar that we owned.

It was cold down there and although I had prepared by finding a thicker tunic I could see that that Emma was feeling uncomfortable.

"In here?" Kerrass asked.

"Yes,"

"Has he been cleaned?"

She nodded, hugging herself.

"Stripped?"

"I don't know."

Kerrass thought for a moment before nodding and opened the door.

Edmund was lying a little way in. He had been cleaned and stripped and although I had seen many corpses by now and helped Kerrass with a number of different autopsies to help identify what had killed them. This was different. I felt uncomfortable and dirty.

I hadn't seen Edmund in a number of years now but even then I found that I was a little surprised at how much he had changed. I knew that he was, or at least had been, a skilled duellist. A skill that he used to protect himself from various angry husbands, fathers and brothers and so he was always thin and lean. A fact of which he was exceedingly proud. The man lying on the slab in front of us had begun to develop a paunch, his muscle definition had reduced considerably and he was balding with his hair obviously having been dyed back to it's original black. No natural hair is _that_ black. I find myself now remembering the Edmund that I knew. The bully of the castle who I, as a young boy, couldn't help but look up to and worship as my social superior until I discovered, much to my pleasure now, that I lacked his taste for hurting others both socially and physically.

Kerrass of course was all business, lighting torches and laying out his tools.

Emma asked if she could go at one point but Kerrass pointed out that he wanted to make sure that no-one could accuse him, or me of interfering with the corpse and she nodded and proceeded to suffer in silence.

It was a long half an hour as I held the torch close to the body and helped examine it in minute detail. We lifted the arms to check the armpits, the groin for other signs (Incidentally, there is no embarrassment quite like discovering that your elder brother had suffered from a particular nasty form of the pox while inspecting his dead body in the company of your elder sister) as well as the backs of the knees and the soles of his feet.

Try as we might we could find no other injury before we finally came down to the injury on the neck.

The wound itself was a very precise wound and talking it over we decided that the entry had been fast and strong with a very sharp knife but that there had then been some tearing as the knife was withdrawn, either from the movements of the killer or from the thrashing of the victim.

The blade itself will have been very small with one edge fully sharpened and only the tip of the other edge similarly sharpened. Kerrass thought it could be a kitchen knife or a sewing knife of some kind. The sort of thing that anyone might pick up, sharpen for use and then drop unobtrusively somewhere and we decided that looking for the weapon was a bit of a waste of time.

We packed up and moved back to the courtyard so that Emma could sit in the sun for a bit.

"Just a couple of questions Milady before we...I beg your pardon, I let you get back on with your day. I imagine that you would have mentioned it if someone had prominently lost their favourite knife as that would have been looked for by even the most amateurish investigator but has anything else gone missing?"

Emma thought,

"Such as?"

"I'm thinking specifically of your dressmakers or seamstresses losing a dressing dummy or a fighting dummy being missing from the armoury."

"Not that I can think of. Why?"

"Just a thought. Does everyone have an alibi?"

Emma snorted. "Quite the opposite in fact. None of us have alibis. It happened late at night. Any one of us could have committed the murder. Also every one of us, theoretically of course, had reason to dislike or hate Edmund."

Kerrass nodded. "That in and of itself is significant." He pursed his lips and frowned in thought again before he visibly gave up on whatever line of thought had caught him. "Very well, in that case what I need now is a list of the biggest castle gossips. It doesn't matter who they are or what social status they are but Anyone that would notice even the smallest detail changing in the castle. Also if you have a record of events in the castle as to who was visiting and why at any given time within the period of about a week before your fathers death and now. Can that be arranged?"

"Certainly. You want Debbie the cook and Theo the gate guard for gossip and the Chamberlain can provide you with records."

"Can you introduce me, or give me a guide to take me to them."

"I can do that," I said, feeling a little peeved to be left out.

"No you can't," Kerrass said shortly. "You're done for now."

"But..."

"Nope. I will tell you when I find something to tell you about but I do not work with the client hanging over my head. You of all people should know that."

I was stunned into silence.

"Your maid can guide you." Emma put into the awkward silence.

Kerrass nodded and stalked off without a word.

Emma followed him after putting her hand on my shoulder for a moment.

I lost track of how long I stood there for.

Because then I spent the rest of that day and a good chunk of the following day waiting for something to happen.

Kerrass meanwhile had wandered off.

Literally.

He spent the remains of the day that we examined the body chatting to various servants, making friends with guardsmen. I found him chatting and making jokes with the gate guard and sharing some dwarven spirits with the serving staff. I'm told that he even stood the early watch with some of the men and took a sword fighting class in the morning with some of those men who the Captain thought could handle the Witcher's teachings. I have it on good record that he spent a good hour wading through the cess-pit and those areas where the toilets in the castle emptied out onto. He marched out like a man with a purpose and spent a good afternoon climbing through the kitchen waste that goes into a heap a few hours away from the castle where it gets composted down for the fields. There didn't seem to be anyone who he didn't spend time with or make friends with, other than the family itself. He even vanished off to Oxenfurt for a day to "pursue enquiries there" and didn't come back until late that evening.

Even though I had been warned, both from my own experience and from Kerrass' mouth itself that this would have been hard I found the entire process immensely difficult and frustrating. Eventually I found myself an empty office and got down to some work. The university had gotten wind that I was a days ride away and had forwarded a lot of my correspondence onto me. It turned out that I was becoming an authority on several subjects that I wasn't entirely comfortable with and had a large number of letters to write. I began my write up of our adventures in Angraal as well as taking the opportunity to work with Emma on my first private letter between myself and Ariadne. I was bemused to discover that even this has a lot of tradition and routine in it. That although it was supposed to be "private" correspondence that only I wrote and Ariadne would read, there was a lot of things that needed to be said as well as more than a few things that ABSOLUTELY COULD NOT BE SAID UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES.

Those things seemed to be all about titles, negotiations, any potential dowry or transfer of wealth or anything like that. A union between the two of us would need to be gone through with a fine toothed comb both by Ariadne's people and my lawyer. It turned out that I have one. If anyone can recommend a cream or some other agent for me to remove a lawyer legally then please pass it on. Kerrass has also refused the contract claiming that even he doesn't hunt certain kinds of monsters.

I jest as the man is as inoffensive and funny as they come while also being terrifyingly intelligent.

I also spent as much time as I could at Father's bedside but I will admit that it was deathly boring. He was comatose for much of the time and whenever he did manage to wake up he was only awake for a few moments at which time he would eat something laced with pain relief so strong that it would flatten a decent sized horse.

Over time I could see my Father wasting away before my eyes becoming more and more skeletal, Splotches began to appear on his skin and what remained of his hair was falling out which was when that most insidious of thoughts crossed my mind. That first time that I thought to myself that it would be better for everyone, including him, if he could just die. That it would be a mercy for him that he would no longer be in pain and then everyone could move on. I thought of his brilliant, if strict, mind caged in that dying body swimming through drug and fever induced nightmares and more than once I had to have a quiet little weeping session to myself in some out of the way area.

I was not alone. The time dragged on for the rest of the family as well. Notably my mother was eating less and less as well as praying harder and harder. Mark didn't emerge from his rooms except to go to chapel and to stand his own watch over Fathers living corpse and only then when it was confirmed that Kerrass was out of the castle and that I was nowhere to be seen. Emma spent her time making sure that the entire families holdings didn't collapse but she reminded me of a swan. That old saying about a swan that they seem calm, placid and beautiful on the surface but underneath they are paddling like hell and I grew concerned about what would happen when she came to a stop. Sammy was Sammy and spent his time training. I joined him as often as I could manage it. He was surprised by how good I was but criticised that I wouldn't be able to fight in a unit. It was an ongoing argument but I pointed out that I never intended to fight in a unit and that was that.

So all things considered I had actually re-adapted to castle life really well. I was a little put out about how fast I had re-acclimatised to it all. I had spent significant amounts of time trying to get away from that place but there I was back to old habits and doing old things same as I ever had. I won't try to suggest that it was all unpleasant. I enjoyed reconnecting with Emma and Sam, spending time with some of the more well to do servants that had had a hand in bringing me up. I visited a couple of the surrounding villages to see some old friends and things. It was soured a little bit that Mark didn't want to talk to me at all because I would have liked a little bit of religious guidance but according to Emma he was still nursing his anger against me and it would take time for him to calm down and be able to talk to me like a reasonable human being.

It got to the point that I was actually rather shocked when I received a written message from Kerrass to say that he wanted me to come down to the stables.

The stables that the former Stable-master and my father had put together in the bottom courtyard were a thing of beauty. That's not an exaggeration. Everything that could ever be needed for the care and upkeep of horses was there. I've already mentioned a herbary and tack-making shed but the foaling area, the breeding area, the exercise yards. It was enough to bring a tear the eye of even the most devoted equestrian in the world.

I found Kerrass chatting amiably with the new stable master. The stable masters in our home were very well thought of and enjoyed a certain amount of prestige amongst the rest of the castle. My father gave them the authority to run the stables how they wished, providing that Fathers, and only fathers, requirements would always be met. Anyone else, from royalty down, had to abide by the stable-masters rule. I had not met the new stable-master yet although I understood his name was Gregory and was struggling with adapting to his new station in life and the extra authority that it gave him. Kerrass had, of course, put him at his ease and was talking about all kinds of things until I arrived. Kerrass greeted me with a happy little smile and a wave while he gestured for me to wait a little while he finished his conversation.

I found a piece of straw and greeted one or two of the horses that were down in the stables. My own horse had arrived from Flame knows where in the mean time so I gave her an apple.

Kerrass approached me,

"Come with me,"

"Oh hello stranger. How are you today?" It was possibly a little more bitter than I had originally meant it to be.

Kerrass frowned.

"Are you angry Freddie?"

I thought for a moment.

"Yes, and it's unfair. I apologise." I made a little bow. "What have you got to show me?"

"It's over in the tack room,"

"What is?"

"Is your Father still alive?"

"If you can call it living. We reckon a day or two at most, although we've been saying that since I got here."

Kerrass nodded. "That might be important." He blew out a breath.

"I think your Father was murdered."


	28. Chapter 28

(Authors Note: Any medical mistakes or mistakes regarding horse-riding equipment are my own and nothing to do with anyone else's mistake. However thanks to a nurse of my acquaintanceship told me some stories about what happens at a death bed so thanks to her.)

"What does this mean Freddie?"

"I don't know Sam, I really don't,"

Sam was pacing nearby while I sat with my head in my hands. I was feeling more than a little bit light-headed and I had once been told that sitting down with your head between your knees was a good way of helping with all of that.

Emma's office is not very big but Sam was using the entire length of it to pace. He was holding his sword hilt hard enough to turn his knuckles white and I can't say that I blamed him. My own head was spinning and I felt as though I was speaking through a tunnel and looking at things that were a long way away while at the same time being really really close.

Have you ever been stood next to an explosive fireball as it goes off? Neither have I but I understand it's very similar. My ears were ringing and people's voices had a hollow and tinny kind of quality. As though they were speaking through a muffling sheet or it was echoing off a thin piece of metal.

Or both.

I felt sick.

Kerrass had showed me what he had wanted me to see in the stables and I had started to feel the outlying reaches of my brain shut down. Kerrass took charge and we picked the stuff up and carried it up to the castle, Kerrass talking our way past the guards at the various gates but he was pretty well known by now and could get away with most things with a joke, a wave and the promise of some dice-playing later.

We had found my sister at her paperwork and when she saw my pale face and Kerrass' stern expression she chased her assistant/maid out and scooped the letters that were on her desk off to a corner of the room so that we could put down our burdens.

We were each sent to fetch a person. I found Sam fairly quickly as we'd passed him on the way back to the keep while Kerrass went to get Mother and Emma went for Mark on the grounds that she had done the least to piss him off recently. I wasn't entirely convinced by her logic but at the same time I'm not sure I could have faced those guards on his door at the moment.

My head was spinning and now that I had stopped and sat down it all threatened to overwhelm me.

"By the Holy Flame that protects us all, what's happening?" Sam demanded helping himself to Emma's secret stash of Skelligan whisky.

"I don't know Sam,"

He went back to pacing having knocked back the generous measure of spirits in one gulp and had resumed pacing giving no indication that he had heard me at all.

Very carefully and slowly. With a deliberate and measured motion, Emma came back in to the room. She must have seen the question on my face because she shook her head. It would seem that Brother Mark would have been protecting us from his sanctimony today. Possibly better for everyone.

She sank into a chair and, not for the first time since I came home, I was reminded how much older she is now. She looked very tired as she took the drink that Sam offered her, all the while her eyes stared into the middle distance as though she was looking at something horrifying.

Kerrass came back afterwards. He had an extra chair to seat himself as there weren't enough chairs in the already crowded office for everyone.

"Can I have one of those?" He gestured at the whisky decanter.

Sam poured as Kerrass lowered himself carefully into his seat.

"I take it mother isn't coming down either?" Sam asked as he handed the drink over.

"No, Not wishing to be indelicate but she said that she was concerned that things might come to a head if she leaves your fathers bedside at the moment. She also said that Emma can act for the family."

"Is she right about Father?"

"No,"Kerrass stretched a little, "I give him another day at least looking at that injury but I'm not an expert. In fact it's what the experts have been saying that brings me to the point."

He made a face of appreciation as he sipped at the spirit.

"Yes, finally. What is the point here and why all this secrecy?" Sam demanded.

I glanced at Emma who said nothing.

"What _is_ going on her here?" Sam wasn't done with his questions. "What's this all about?" he gestured to the desk and what was on the desk.

On the desk was a couple of horseshoes, a few nails, a saddle and a full set of horse-tack.

Kerrass took a breath and carefully place the Whisky glass off to one side. I noticed that he hadn't really drunk any.

"What this means is that your Father was murdered. Or is being murdered depending on your point of view. There are a few things that I want to check and I do need permission for him to be examined by a friend of mine just to be sure. But I'm pretty confident about my conclusion."

"You were hired, forgive the term and forgive me if I'm talking down to you and treating you as a servant or merchant of some kind but I'm a little out of sorts at the moment." Sam was blathering. Not that great a sign. "But you were hired to solve a mystery. Not make another one."

"I didn't make the mystery, I found it. And I do think that it is part of the mystery of your brothers death."

"Why?" Emma looked at Kerrass for the first time. I had seen faces like it before on corpses. People for whom life has already happened and death is the final insult. "Why do you believe my Father was murdered?"

I saw Kerrass nod. It was a little thing and I wasn't sure if I saw it properly but looking back I am sure of what I saw. I think he was confirming something in his head, as though life was getting back on track.

"Fredderick has already seen these things so I won't hand them all round. I'll start with the saddle."

He turned the saddle over and laid it on the floor so that we could all see it. "If you look here, and here," he pointed, "you can see small holes in the saddle where something has been inserted. I opened one and found a small blade inside. Given enough time it would have worn through the saddle and gouged into the horses back causing it pain and discomfort."

We all made a play of examining the saddle.

"Sir Samuel. You're a knight and know about horses." Kerrass went on. "Your Father's hunting horse, how would it react if it had been shod with one of these shoes?" Kerrass tossed one of the horseshoes at my brother who caught it automatically. He turned it over a few times.

Kerrass also handed over a nail. "The stable-master pulled that one out of the foot with that shoe at my request."

Dawning horror crossed Sam's face. "No wonder," he breathed. "This explains a lot." He slotted the nail through the shoe. "That poor thing,"

Emma frowned curiously which Sam saw. "The shoe is crooked, the wrong size and the nail is at a slant. If given enough time the horse would have gone properly and catastrophically lame." He turned back to Kerrass. "That horse has been limping and acting all out of sorts since I came back. We had assumed that it was mourning Father or something which horses do some times. It wasn't really a limp or anything that we could lay our fingers on as to why it was happening. The shoes had been put on by our own blacksmith who shoe's all our horses. His work is beyond reproach so we never thought to check."

"Nor would you, nor would your father probably saying something like. "She seems a bit restive this morning." or something similar. So far, all of these things prove that someone was interfering with your fathers horse gear. But that didn't kill him. The thing that killed him was this."

Kerrass pulled out a section of reins.

"The reins broke."

Sam's mouth hung open.

"But reins don't break."

"Precisely." Kerrass said. I saw the pleasure there, he was being proven right. "The people around probably never realised as they were too busy worrying about your badly injured father. But..." he held the leather for us all to see. "These are the bits that broke. Notice how they stretched before breaking? But also notice this discolouration here and here. Then look at the ends of the broken piece."

I had seen this moment from the other side of the fence. That moment where you saw the people that you are speaking to realise what you are saying.

"See how the leather has been partially cut through with a knife that produces that neat, uniform and shiny cut to the leather?"

We all nodded.

"Then the rest was allowed to break which is what tipped your father off the horse."

"But Father would have checked. Dad wasn't stupid. Remember all of those times he lectured us on checking our own gear?" Sam asked Emma and I, "He would have checked.

"Unless he was in a hurry." Emma piped up. "Or was angry about something." Her head had fallen into her hands and she was speaking to the floor. "And he was very angry that morning. I was going to check when he got home. DAMMIT!"

"Sometimes it takes an outsider to see things that people do not see normally." Kerrass put in gently. "I can demonstrate all of these things if you wish. The discolouration comes from an acid that weakened and dried out the leather making it easier for it to snap and the knife gave it a start to get going. Then the killer just had to make sure that your father was agitated enough to not check his own gear. Was he angry often at that point?" He asked Emma.

"He was. He didn't want to tell me what it was about which isn't unusual but he was angry. A lot."

Kerrass nodded.

"So he was being provoked on a consistent basis. All the killer had to do was bide his time and wait for your father to have an accident while maintaining your fathers rage."

"But what if the injury was healed or got better?" Sam asked.

"That's the part I have to check but I'm pretty sure I'm right. Your Father was poisoned afterwards,"

We all stirred in our seats then.

"Poisoned?" Emma cried.

"Impossible," Sam yelled.

Kerrass held his hands up for calm.

"As I say, I'm not sure. But think about it... A fall, even a serious one is hardly ever instantly fatal. You can probably think of many people who have fallen, including yourselves but those people who have been killed doing it are rare enough to stand out in your memory. Especially horsemen of your Fathers skill and experience."

We nodded.

"So lets take it further. This," he gestured at the saddle and tack. "Is evidence of a calm considered mind. It took planning and implementing. So whoever your Father's killer was, would have taken that into account and would not have allowed such things as how serious a fall was to be left to chance. I think they were poisoned. I think that your Fathers injury _was_ serious but I don't think it was immediately fatal until someone poisoned them. Furthermore I think it was a slow poison that looked like a wound infection so no-one would look for an alternative."

"Can you prove that?" Sam asked.

"No, but the person who can lives in Oxenfurt. I have already sent a message that she should come here as soon as she is able."

"Who is it?" Emma asked.

"A university graduated, army medic called Shani. Nice girl, you'll like her even though calling her a girl now is almost an insult as she must be in her mid to late twenties by now. You might not have heard of her because she has a stupid thing called a "sense of duty," which means that she signed up for the Redanian armed forces and served at The Miracle of Brenna. Unfortunately for her she is also "common born" and a woman meaning that people don't exactly encourage her to progress. Given that though she got through the university on merit and is good enough that Redania regularly sends for her when they have a medical problem that needs fixing. If it gives you a measure of the lady's character. She was one of the few who travelled _into_ Temeria when the plague broke out in Vizima."

Emma nodded. "So she won't be political which would be the problem in any of the other doctors that we've used."

"Who may also be suspects." I said. "Especially if they are the ones that were called first of all."

Emma looked horrified at that but then nodded sadly.

"I suppose you're right. When will she arrive?"

"I sent the message early this morning so she might be here by evening or first thing tomorrow."

"I have another question," Sammy started. "Why do you even think of poison?"

"Precisely because your father has stayed alive for so long. Physical strength and the stubbornness that Fredderick describes will only help you pass an injury for so long but your father has been languishing for weeks now. That's a long time to be natural."

Sam nodded his acceptance of that point.

"How did you find these things?" Emma asked. "You're the first person in the castle to even vaguely suspect murder."

Kerrass took a breath.

"It's a good question and I do want to answer it but first of all there is something else that needs doing for which I need Sir Samuel and Freddie as well as a contingent of your guards. I shouldn't think that they need to be heavily armed though."

Sam, Emma and I exchanged glances.

"Why?"

"Because of the former stable-master. He must have known something and he fled almost immediately after the accident."

Light dawned on Sam's face and he left.

"Also Milady, it now becomes vital that I see your Fathers itinerary and will so we can narrow down who might want your father dead. For this I absolutely understand that you will need to consult people and I would not wish to do so without your Accountant," his mouth twitched again at that. "And your Father's Lawyer, or Notary being present. I can answer the rest of your questions later as I suspect those fine gentlemen will not be as... expedient as the medic."

"I understand. I shall send messages directly." She pushed the rest of the leather off the table as though they might be contagious and pulled over a sheet of paper, a quill and some ink.

Kerrass and I left but I stopped him in the hallway.

"How did you find those things?"

Kerrass shrugged and for a moment he was my friend again.

"I went looking for them," he said before striding off.

"Bastard," I said to his rapidly departing back.

The explosion of activity was exhilarating and intoxicating at the same time. I fairly ran off to my room to collect my armour and equipment and was down to the courtyard with my horse saddled and ready long before I needed to be. Then I was chafing at the lack of activity wanting to yell at people to hurry them along even though I knew that they couldn't go any faster. Putting chain-mail on properly is long and careful work if you don't want to get unfortunate bits of yourself tied up in it.

We were going to be carried by five men and a standard bearer so that no-one who saw us would think that we were anything other than official Barony people. The far too real danger of people running away specifically when we wanted to talk to them was foremost on Kerrass' mind and rightly so.

In the end we managed to get everyone sorted out and left the castle heading Southwards.

Sam was unhappy.

"Why Southwards?" he demanded after about half an hours worth of riding.

"Why not?" I countered.

"Don't get picky with me," he snapped.

I sighed. "You get used to it after a while,"

"Used to what?"

"The direction seeming random."

"That's lovely and everything but why are we heading southwards? Byarby's family is to the north, surely he would go there before starting to look for help?"

"Which is precisely why he didn't go in that direction," Kerrass murmured.

"What?" Sam's face got red. "Are you calling me..."

"Sam," I held up my hand to slow him down. "Don't take it so personally. As I say, you get used to it after a while."

Sam took a breath. "I don't want to get used to it Freddie. I want to know what's going on."

"We all do,"

"So why are we heading South?"

I took a breath and glanced at Kerrass' back. He seemed oblivious to what we were saying or the armed men riding behind him, his eyes were wandering from side to side, occasionally he would tilt his head back with his eyes closed and take a good deep breath of the summer air before riding on.

"I don't know Sam. But he's right." I cocked my head at Kerrass. "Byarby (which was the name of our Stable-master. My family do occasionally fall into the noble privilege trap of only knowing people by their position and rank rather than their actual given name. Odd really as there is nothing that made Father quite as angry as when he was greeted with the phrase "Ah, there you are Coulthard". It had a tendency to make him all...irrational) was never book smart but lets face it, he was cleverer than Froggy and Cook put together."

"So?"

"So, where would anyone look for him and his wife."

"Oh," we rode in silence for a while. "I feel really silly now," Sam admitted.

"Don't, otherwise you will always feel silly. It took me ages to break the habit."

"What do you mean?"

"Much though we would both like to think otherwise our habits of thinking are ingrained. I think like a scholar and a nobleman. You think like a knight, or a soldier and a noble." I grinned at a sudden thought. "Look, I'm already lecturing you,"

A short burst of laughter barked from Sam's mouth. "You do have a habit of doing that."

"Even though I spend all my time trying not to. Anyway, Kerrass here is one of the greatest hunters in the continent. He can think like whoever he's tracking. It's a trick, it's hard and it makes my head hurt just thinking about it, but it's a way of thinking. The other thing is about the Witcher mutations meaning that he might actually still be able to smell old Byarby."

"All of which are good theories," Kerrass piped in having obviously been listening. "But at the end of the day, he told Cook, who's name is Agatha by the way, that there was work for an experienced horse breeder away South and that's where he was going to head. Now if I could just have some quiet so that I can concentrate."

Sam and I giggled like schoolboys before schooling our faces to proper steadfastness.

Unfortunately it wasn't long before we found what we were looking for.

Byarby had made it just out of sight of the castle before he had made camp well of the road in the trees. Kerrass found it first, his head jerking up just a fraction of a second before his horse started to protest along with mine. He took a deep sniff turning his head from one side to another before deflating a little.

"Damn," he muttered.

"Oh no," I groaned. I dismounted and tied my horse to a nearby tree.

It was a fairly large camp for two people. They had been camping in summer so a tent was made out of an oilskin pegged out over a line tied between two trees. There was a small fire surrounded by larger chunks of firewood and there was a cooking tripod over it with a metal bowl resting over what would have been flames. There was some evidence that some dirt had been kicked over the fire.

Byarby was on the edge of the camp, he had a stout club near one hand a knife in the other, neither of which had any blood on them. When Kerrass had had a look around he told me to examine them and I quickly found a stab wound in the chest where he had been run through. That had practically killed him but then the killer had cut his throat, presumably to make sure.

We found Byarby's wife some distance away. She had obviously been running and then tripped over her skirts where she had backed away before being killed rather inelegantly by being stabbed a few times through the chest.

I closed their eyes as gently as I could.

I almost didn't recognise Sam when I got to the main group. His face seemed, odd somehow. He certainly looked angry, but also upset, afraid maybe. He looked as though he was torn between sobbing and snarling.

He saw me looking at him and turned away.

"Anything unusual?" Kerrass asked as he approached me."

"Not really," I explained what I had found about the stab wounds and the throat slitting.

"Are you sure she fell?" Kerrass asked.

"Oh yes," I let myself smile a little bit. "Your lessons are beginning to pay off. There are scuff marks on the floor and plenty of dirt, bits of leaf and twig on her skirts. I also found a bit of her dress on a root. I would even go so far as to suggest that she might even have got away if she hadn't tripped."

Kerrass's eyebrows rose. "Interesting,"

"Isn't it," I tried to probe him a bit further. "Does that tell you something?"

"It might. You're not going to be offended if I check what you found?"

"No. Animals have already been at them so..." I trailed off and Kerrass gripped me by the shoulder before heading off in the direction of the ladies body.

It was a slow procession back to the keep with the two bodies. Sam had wanted to burn them so that they could be given the final blessings of the flame. Kerrass put his foot down though saying that he wanted/needed the two bodies to be examined.

Many of the men were openly weeping as all had known Byarby for a long time, many some since they were children running around underfoot in the kitchens.

I was one of them and I rode in silence, lost to a thought pattern that I can no longer remember.

No, that's a lie.

I was thinking about Ariadne and wondering if she would understand what I was feeling. The thought that my father would never meet her and that the castle of my childhood, for all of it's faults and problems had been the sight of much laughter and joy over the years and now it was irrevocably changed. I found myself immeasurably sad that I would not be able to take her riding in Byarby's paddock or formally introduce her to my Father. I suddenly found that I had been looking forward to watching her destroy Edmund as he met her for the first time.

The constant fretting of the last few days had kept my grief at bay for a long time and slowly now, very slowly I could feel that grief beginning to settle in to the back of my brain and my heart began to ache. Not for those people that I had lost but for the holes that they would leave now that they were gone. The circumstances and events that would no longer happen. The dreams and fantasies that had once seemed out of reach would now definitely never happen and all the things that I thought I should have done would now never be done.

I had not been one of Byarby's darlings. I was far too clumsy, ungainly and impatient to be a good horseman. I learnt to ride and care for my horse as I was supposed to but it didn't hold my interest the way it had for Emma who still loves riding, or Sam who became the martial master of the joust that Byarby had long wanted to train a steed for so I had not associated with him much and I could certainly not claim a friendship with him. But I liked the way that he treated his horses and the way that, even though he was the master of his domain, he still checked to see if anyone was looking before feeding his horses a peppermint or an apple.

We were a sorry little procession as we came into the castle as the sun was setting and I didn't object even remotely when Sam took charge of the two covered stretchers and took them off. Instead I set about seeing to my own horse and Kerrass' as well as he had sped off. Obviously with things to do and places to go. I took solace in the simple chore and it felt like a fitting tribute to the dead man to spend some time doing a relatively simple chore in the presence of those beings who he had spent his life caring for.

It was only afterwards as I put the brushes and things away that I saw that there was an extra pair of horses in the "guest" part of the stable.

I made my way up to the keep slowly trying to sort out my feelings. I had time to change and clean myself up a bit before dinner and it was as though we all had an agreement not to talk about the dead man that night, or the fact that there was another strange medic upstairs examining our Father for signs that his descent towards death was anything other than as a result of a stupid accident.

It was oddly peaceful, the only sound being for someone to ask to be passed the salt or the wine. We had decided that other than having the food brought up tonight that we would give the rest of the servants the night off for their own rituals of grieving. I don't remember anything being said but I remember not... noticing it and when I did realise what was happening I remember thinking that it was right.

Normally we obeyed the old custom that the ladies of the house would retire through to a drawing room after dinner and that they would be followed by the gentlemen at a suitable interval. Apparently it was so that the men could discuss business while the women were sent away to discuss whatever it was that women talk about when the men aren't around. I remember the first time I was invited to join the other gentlemen and thinking that I was ever so grown up but I also remember choking on the strong tobacco and struggling to stomach the brandy. I have since formed the opinion that the reason that the men retire separately is so that the women can't disapprove of us while the men get quietly sloshed and then the women can get on with fixing all the problems we've made over the course of the day without our input.

In quieter moments I have wondered who first started the custom and whether or not it was first invented by a woman rather than a man.

Food for thought.

But that night we all retired together and sat around in silence. Mother wasn't present as apparently she had wanted to be there while the examination was being carried out.

The rest of us just sat there. Sam and I were sat on a sofa, Kerrass was sat with his legs stretched out and staring at the fire. He looked so relaxed and at ease that I found myself hating him for a moment. Emma sat with her maid, the absurdly beautiful woman, and the two were playing a kind of quiet game of Gwent although they seemed to be playing according to rules that I didn't recognise.

"Is Mark coming down?" Sam asked suddenly.

It was a jolt, jerking us all out of our own reflective hazes. My resentment shifted over to Sam from Kerrass.

It seemed somehow sacrilegious to break the silence.

Emma looked up and I finally saw that she had been crying. She shook her head and returned to looking at her cards. Her maid tried to look at her, an expression of concern on her face.

It hadn't seemed odd that she should be there before, but then it did seem strange, but then it was explained away by that concern. She was keeping an eye on my sister.

How very proper.

I felt myself chuckle rather than do anything else and the maid glared at me.

Silence returned and wrapped us all up in the blanket.

I don't know if I've spoken about it often but in these moments before action while we are waiting for the next thing to happen but more often than not I find those moments frustrating. Nervous energy spreads through me, my arms and my legs jittering in an effort to keep moving, to do something, anything at all that might be of use.

This time though it was …. Instead I didn't want to do anything. I didn't want to think, I didn't want to stir instead I felt as though this moment was peaceful and that it might not be peaceful again. That we would look back on this moment and wish that we could come back here before anything had happened.

Kerrass reacted first, of course he did. With his heightened hearing he would have heard her coming down the stairs. He straightened up, waking from the drowsiness that seemed to have affected us all and looked at the door just a second or two before it opened to admit the tiny red-haired medic.

Shani, what can I say about Shani that you don't already know?

OK, well lets start with this. Anyone who only knows her from the Tales of the Bard I have to tell you that you run a serious danger of not getting the whole story. Or rather you run the danger of grabbing only a small part of the story and to her, not a very important part of the story either.

Shani is possibly the most complex, mature, chaste, worldly, naïve, romantic, cynical, intelligent and moral person that I know.

Yes, I realise that there are some contradictions in that sentence.

Shani is one of those people that when you are not in her immediate presence you find that you remember her different than she actually is.

Shani is quite short. I wouldn't dare try to measure her from head to toe but she is certainly shorter than me. I think that she was meant to be quite slight and delicate as well but unfortunately (or fortunately depending on your point of view) she has a not inconsiderable amount of muscle tone from her years serving in the Redanian military. She keeps her startlingly red hair cut short as she claims that it stays out of her eyes better but I'm not convinced of this truth but I am not satisfied with any answer that I have ever come up with.

I should also say that the reason I can talk about Shani in this amount of detail is that I was a student at Oxenfurt university and that she has her medical practice in Oxenfurt. It's also as a result of a certain amount of... research on my part as I will not deny that I had a huge crush on Dr Shani from almost the first moment that I met her.

To all of the people who live and work at the university Shani has been Daughter, Sister and Mother. She is fiercely intelligent and I think it's an amazing shame that she is not a fully accredited Doctor of the University.

She's... I have seen Shani drink two dwarves under the table. But I've also seen her blush at a relatively small lewd jest.

She is a complicated woman.

I once saw her rebuff the unwanted advances of some kind of mercenary until he got physical in a way that she wasn't comfortable with. Her hand moved in three sharp jerks and then he was on the floor cradling a broken arm and with blood running from the cut on his head. Then she crouched next to him, set his arm, splinted it, cleaned up his head injury and all but carried the man off so that she could "properly have a look at him." She did all of this without help from anyone else. Nor did any of us that were there think that she needed that help.

Shani is one of those hero's that you don't read about in the saga's. From the works of the Bard you will know that she served on the field at the miracle of Brenna. You may not know that when an outbreak of plague was declared in Temeria she was one of the few, and by few I mean handful, of people who marched _towards_ the place where the plague had broken out.

The plague that makes most of us, including me, piss ourselves with terror and check our armpits frantically for the black swellings that signal it's onset whenever we sneeze. That plague and Shani walked _towards_ it.

I like Shani, now that I feel that I have grown up a bit and moved on, (Not to mention the attentions of a certain terrifying Vampire,) I can look at Shani in a different light.

Shani is also lonely. A lonely, helplessly romantic and cynical patriotic woman. One day some Shining knight is going to sweep her off her feet. Once upon a time I had hoped that it might be me. Instead I hope that that person will come soon and make her smile.

And yes Shani, when you read this I will come to your wedding and laugh at the funny faces you make when you get drunk.

I may even dance.

That night though she was deathly tired, pale and with large rings under her eyes.

She came in through the door, looked around and very carefully walked over to the drinks cabinet where she, equally as carefully poured herself a large brandy.

Father would have been incensed as she gulped it down and made a face at the taste. Then she poured another one.

None of the rest of us had moved. We were watching her as though she was some kind of axe waiting to fall onto our heads.

Kerrass had stood though.

Shani brought the second drink to the group and fell, rather than sat down, into a plump armchair and closed her eyes.

After a long moment Kerrass cleared his throat.

She snapped awake and was back to being Dr Shani again.

"Yes," she said rubbing her eyes, "I'm awake, what?" She blinked blearily at Kerrass. "Oh, right. Yes, well. Definitely is the answer. I have already recommended to her Ladyship that the Von Coulthards change their family physician."

"Incompetence or something else?" Kerrass asked.

Shani took a small sip as she considered before shaking her head. "No, definitely incompetence, or ignorance and laziness which is more likely. The long and short of it was that they simply didn't look for it."

Kerrass nodded.

"What do you mean?" I asked having the strong feeling that I was only hearing half the story.

Shani jumped as though she was seeing me for the first time.

"Of course you're here, how stupid of me to think that you wouldn't be." She sighed and visibly fought off the urge to rest her head on the back of the chair. "In all accidents of this nature the main concern is whether or not something has been punctured by any kind of broken bones. Not just the lungs although that is one of the main killers meaning that blood can go into the lungs and drown the patient, but also liver, kidney's or any of the other exciting bags of poison that we all carry around in our guts."

Sam was looking confused and Shani noticed.

"You would be amazed at the amount of poisonous shite is in the water that you're drinking Sir knight. Let's just say that there is a reason that we add wine to water before it gets drunk."

Sam's eyes goggled as Shani got up again and added some water to her glass. Only a little though I noticed.

"That had happened with the Baron and there was not a great deal of things that had been done to the injury by your physicians to eke out their fee but there was absolutely no reason why a healthy individual would not have survived that injury without disaster."

She sat back down and answered Emma's and Sam's unspoken questions without really thinking about it. Another of Shani's problems is that she would be much more famous if she actually stayed at the university and lectured rather than running off around the country wherever the armed forces sent her. Otherwise she is a good teacher and is used to talking to Laymen and women. If you ever get the chance to hear her speak at the university, even if it's just a seminar rather than a lecture then I would recommend it.

"Those disasters are most commonly an allergic reaction to whatever herb is used in the bindings, a foreign body such as clothing dirt or twig in the open wound if there is one or the patient not doing what they're damn well told and getting up and running around the place before they are ready. Also medical incompetence cannot be discounted in these matters."

She sighed and this time did rest her head back and close her eyes.

"These problems cause something called "infection". You can tell that infection is happening because the injured area can turn black, or one of many wonderful shades of green. It swells, smells bad and any open injury leads to pus, a clear or more often creamy discharge that... well... Lets just say it's not pleasant."

Emma nodded gratefully. As did Sam, and the maid I noticed.

Interesting. I would have thought that Sam knew about these things.

"In the event of injury it is more often these things that are responsible for a persons death as this infection causes the nearby organs to shut down or stop working properly. That infection moves to the heart, or the brain or something else equally as unpleasant and then the body just throws it's hands up and surrenders."

Shani leant forward suddenly.

"Your Surgeons and Physicians know this. As soon as they saw it they prescribed a treatment that would combat the infection. This was correct. What they _didn't_ do was check to see if there was anything else causing the infection symptoms?"

She stood up then and started to pace.

"There are also substances that can be introduced to a person that can increase the rate of infection. They can be introduced in varying doses to accelerate that infection, decrease it's progress or even balance it with the other treatments so that the patient seems to stay in limbo for too long. Your physicians didn't think to look for them. I did and I found the presence of some of those chemical agents."

The ripple of that went through us all visibly.

"Is there anything you can do?" Emma asked timidly.

Shani locked eyes with her. She didn't believe in the thing about sugaring the medicine.

"No, he will see tomorrow but he will not see tomorrow night. The best I can do is make him comfortable with some proper pain management." The word "proper" was slightly emphasised. "Speaking of which I should get back to my patient."

She got up to leave, just as Sam was getting to his feet.

"Why should we take your word for it? I've known Dr Gannomack my entire life. He helped deliver my baby sister."

I started to speak, to defend my friend. But she pinned me back to the chair with a glare. She hates being defended.

"Tell me, Sir Samuel is it?"

Sam nodded.

"Do you know what Suckrose and Aakwa is and what it's used to treat?"

"No,"

"Neither does Dr Gannomack. I have no doubt that Dr Gannomack was a very good Doctor about ten years ago but medical science is moving on at a rate that is astonishing. I've been a fully qualified Doctor now for five years and was serving my apprenticeships in surgery, herbalism and trauma before that. I have been studying medicine for about fourteen years now. I _still_ attend more lectures than I give as new things are being discovered and tried every day. Many fail but some succeed and produce astonishing results that save lives. I continue to work hard at my job whereas Dr Gannomack believes that he knows everything that he ever needs to know."

She shrunk then and subsided.

"In the meantime I am tired and don't have the energy to put your opinions right. I was up at dawn this morning to help with a case of dysentery up at the university and then I've come here at the request of a friend which was not a short or easy journey pulling another horse that carried what I need. Your brother knows me and my expertise, as does Kerrass and I presented my findings to your Mother who saw my prognosis and agrees with it. I suggest you take it up with them."

She turned to go.

"What is Suckrose and Aakwa?" I asked. I knew she wanted to explain and I was indeed rewarded with a smile as she turned.

"Crystallised honey shaped into a pill and water. It's called a placebo. You give it to people who feel ill but there's nothing wrong with them and they feel better but it physically does nothing. No-one knows why. Go figure"

Her smile was tired though as she walked back through the door.

Kerrass went after her and could be heard speaking to her in the hall for a couple of moments before he came back in.

"Is she any good?" It was Sam's question.

Kerrass looked up. "What?"

"Is she competent? Can we trust her?"

"Oh yes. Dr Shani is one of the best as I'm sure Frederick will agree."

"Flame," Sam got up and poured himself a stiff drink. If nothing else happened it meant that we were all doing some serious damage to our families collection of alcohol. "Don't take this the wrong way Freddie but I'm really beginning to wish that you had just left well enough alone,"

"What and let a murderer get away with it?" I retorted.

"I still want to know," Emma asked quickly jumping in before the whole argument started up again. Her maid was clearing up the card game, clearly having given it all up as a bad idea.

"Know what?"

"Why did you even look in the first place? Why did you think that Father had been murdered?"

Kerrass smiled, a little sadly I thought.

"You'll be disappointed I'm afraid. People generally are when you point out this kind of thing. It's like a

magic trick."

"Never the less I..."

"I wasn't trying to get out of it." Kerrass sighed and rubbed at his temples before accepting the offered drink from Sam. "I'm afraid it seemed fairly obvious to me that this entire thing started with your Father's death. Without wishing to speak ill of the dead your brother Edmund was not a nice person."

"That's putting it mildly," Emma commented. Sam glared.

"So the question is no longer "why would someone kill him?" It instead becomes "Why now?" or Why hasn't it happened before?"

Kerrass took a long drink.

"Having spoken to all of you about the events around the day of the murder there is nothing out of the ordinary, no thefts or supplies missing that aren't taken into account as part of the normal run of the mill things. Nor has anything more exciting than a round of cheese been taken from the kitchens.

"Your brother was murdered by a simple Kitchen knife. Kitchen knives go missing all the time. Your cook insists on clean and well sharpened knives being on hand at all times. In fact your mother has even had cause to complain to the cook about the number of knives that have been used up due to over-sharpening. So everyone knows that they are there and as such, if they need a sharp knife then they take one from the Kitchen."

Kerrass shrugged.

"In a murder investigation, regardless of whether it's in this case or whether it's in the case of something supernatural happening you need to look for a murder weapon. As such we can identify that such a weapon would not be hard to find, or hide. Simply clean it thoroughly and leave it where you found it. Even if we found which knife it was, that wouldn't help us."

"So then you look for capability. Who could actually do this deed? Your brother was sat at a chair and leaning back, probably with his hands clasped behind his head and his feet up on the desk. Like this."

Kerrass demonstrated in one of the smaller chairs that were around the room.

"He would have been looking up at his assailant like _this_ meaning that his throat would be exposed to the killer. The killer then approached, your brother didn't react suggesting that he knew the killer and he was stabbed, probably with some force. So first of all who could approach your brother without causing him upset or distress?

"The answer is, anyone. Your brother's character was remarkable in the amount of arrogance that he displayed.

"A sharp knife will make the blow easier so all that is left is knowing where to stab.

"I did spend a bit of time looking around to see if there were any signs of someone practising. A dressing dummy had gone missing from the Seamstresses quarters but again, I understand that this is a relatively common occurrence and not to be remarked upon. Also there are regular training dummies in the yard for someone to practice on or to be used as a pattern for making a similar dummy. That discounts anyone who already knows where to stab to kill someone.

"So what that leaves us with is the question of why. Why would someone kill Brother Edmund in the hope that the answer will lead us to the killer. Well, as we've said, there are plenty of reasons for someone to kill brother Edmund so the question becomes "Why now?"

"The answer is obviously "Because of your Father's accident,". Running through he various scenarios as to why someone should kill your brother. A wronged person be they, husband, brother, son, or indeed victim of his lusts,"

My sister stiffened. I'm sure I wasn't the only person who noticed the concern in her maids eyes.

"In which case the question was, why now? I checked. Your brother has been on remarkably good behaviour for the last six months. Meaning that the motive and the Method don't measure up."

"What do you mean?" Emma asked.

"A crime of vengeance is a crime of passion, of opportunity and often considerable violence and unpleasantness. One, simple and precise stab wound? In the middle of a well guarded castle? Why not on the road to Oxenfurt where he keeps rooms, or in Oxenfurt itself which, although it's no Novigrad or Vizima, still has it's own underbelly? This was not a crime of passion it was a crime of... necessity or is my reading of it or maybe the work of a professional but we're not finished there."

Kerrass topped up his drink.

"There is some room to think that he was taken in by those who he might be in debt to but I don't think that argument holds water given what we know at the moment. He was about to inherit one of the largest inheritances known on the continent. Any creditor, or blackmailer for that matter, would be rolling in potential wealth when Edmund comes into his own. So there must be something else. The answer? Your Fathers death.

"Why would your Fathers death trigger the death of his older son?

"I don't know, yet but there are several possibilities. The most obvious one would be that Edmund was about to inherit. Someone wanted to stop that.

"Even so that means that your Fathers death was the triggering point. It was that moment that caused your Brothers death. It was made even more suspicious when I learned that it was a riding accident. I knew that your father was a well practised rider and yes I know that even the best rider in the world can fall off at any given time. But, when you couple that with the fact that your stable-master has also left suddenly?

"That looked suspicious.

"So I went to have a look at where the accident happened. There was nothing there that would spook a horse into throwing it's rider. Therefore it was something wrong with the horse. You know the rest."

"Why would someone kill Father and then Edmund?" Sam asked.

Something clicked in the back of my head and I groaned.

"It's not the same person." I said.

"What?"

"Think about it. I said." Father's murder was well thought out. It was planned and implemented over time.

The only reason anyone looked into it being anything other than an accident is because Edmund died. Edmund's death was a sudden, maybe even spur of the moment thing."

"I doubt that," Kerrass interrupted. "I think someone decided to kill Edmund and then acted on it. But this is what I think was that chain of events. Someone planned and carefully went about killing off your Father. When that was achieved your Fathers killer realised that the Stable-master knew, saw or suspected something, hunted them down and killed them. That was their part of it done and I agree with Freddie that this was one person. They wanted to install Edmund as Lord of the Manor giving him access to the money, trade and therefore power that comes with the name of Baron von Coulthard. That is what that aim was. Then someone else, working against the first party realised that the weak link in the chain is Edmund and killed him, either for their own reasons or to counter your Father's murderer."

"So why kill Father in the first place?" Emma asked. "Edmund was still going to inherit eventually."

"Precisely. Why now? Again I don't know but I can guess. I think your Father changed his will. Or, I think your Father found something out and he was being silenced. I'm hoping to know more when I meet your Notary and accountant tomorrow."

Emma nodded, finished her drink. "In which case, Gentlemen?"

We stood and she left, followed quickly by her maid.

"I think I'll head to bed myself," Sam said, clapping me on the shoulder with a tired looking smile. "From the sound of things it's going to be a long night."

I nodded back to him and he left leaving Kerrass and I alone in the room. He was staring into the fire as though he could see things dancing in the flames.

"So what do we do now?" I asked.

Kerrass sighed again before pinching the bridge of his nose.

"Now? _We_ do nothing. Shani is of the opinion that your Father will not make it through the day tomorrow so I would suggest that you get some rest. I've never stood a family death vigil before but I would guess that there will be too many emotions. Before you ask, no, you cannot help me. The things that I want to be told and want to be shown tomorrow will not be given in your presence, nor should they."

"But,"

"Dammit Freddie..."

Kerrass shook his head in what I thought was exasperation.

"I'm not going to stand here and tell you that I know how you feel. I don't. My blood relatives are long gone and I didn't know them well enough to care. My _brothers_ die. Every year I hear about another Witcher who dodged left when he should have dodged right or was told incorrect information about a monster and so prepared for the wrong thing. So no, I don't know how it feels. What I do know is the feeling of longing for something to do to distract you from everything else that is happening. I know that feeling all to well."

He put his hand on my shoulder.

"Go to bed, get some sleep." He gestured towards the brandy. "Take something to help you if you like but tomorrow you need to spend it with your family. They need you and although you might not know it yourself or even want to acknowledge it. You need it too. You will regret it for the rest of your life if you don't...make your peace."

"How do I make my peace if he won't talk to me."

Kerrass blew out his breath.

"I don't have the answer to that as well you know it. So don't get on your high horse, or look for an excuse to get angry at me."

I nodded. He was right and I turned to pour myself another drink. By the time I had turned back, Kerrass had quietly made his exit.

Since I started my travels with the Witcher I have spent longer nights without sleep, waiting for the dawn. The night before the journey into the woods at Ambers crossing is a good example. Indeed, if I'm honest with myself I have spent longer nights not being able to sleep before important exams during the long years of my education.

But this one was no picnic.

With a certain sense of victory I managed to drift off to sleep somewhere around midnight but I was awake a few hours later. I remember waking up and looking out of my window to see the eastern sky turning a slightly lighter shade of blue and thinking to myself,

"Well then, this is it. The world changes today."

I went down to the bath house and gave myself a thorough cleaning before returning to my rooms to arm myself for the day. I have watched and helped knights, soldiers and Witchers prepare before a fight and a certain hysterical flutter at the back of my throat made me laugh at myself as I prepared for the day. I was not in mourning yet but it would not do to be too gaudy or decorated. I laid out my clothes, inspected them carefully for wear, tear and dirt before putting them on piece by piece.

Shirt followed by trews, vest, boots and so on and on. Settling each one and examining myself before a mirror before moving onto the next one.

Despite my expert level procrastination The sky was only just beginning to turn towards Orange by the time I was done.

Breakfast was next.

It was still early, even for the castle kitchen but despite that there was a feeling in the air today, servants and bondsmen were already up and about, going about their business and I was able to eat a quiet breakfast in the corner, guarded by one of the cooks assistants who turned well wishers away with the threat of a beating with a ladle. No set of crown jewels was ever guarded so well.

I ate, making sure to eat every last morsel before I stood up and walked slowly upstairs towards my Fathers Deathbed.

There were no guards. There didn't need to be and as quietly as I could I let myself in and shut the door behind me.

It had not changed really from the last time I had described it.

Mark was kneeling at his prayer book stand and was mumbling to himself. From a quick listen he was reciting one of the psalms, one of the more cheery ones about what it's like to cast off this mortal shell and how, although the body itself will turn to dust, the soul will fly, loosed of it's bonds and rise towards the light.

He looked up at my arrival and nodded a greeting to me. Our brief enmity forgotten in the wake of what was going to happen. He was wearing his plain red cassock and his holy symbol was in his hands. I put my hand on his shoulder and he covered mine with his for a moment before he shuffled sideways a bit to make room on his kneeling mat. After a brief moments thought I shrugged.

Why the hell not?

I knelt down and started to recite the familiar verses. They were a comfort after all.

The other difference was that Shani was asleep on a small cot over in the corner. Still dressed she was covered in a blanket and was snoring gently. She looked so tired that a flash of tenderness towards the small Doctor flashed over me. I was glad it was her who had come to care for my father on his deathbed. She would look after him at the end.

Mother came in a short while later. It turned out that Shani had summarily ordered Mother off to get some rest and had already arranged that the drink that was brought would be laced with something to help her sleep so now, Mother looked as though she wanted to be angry but found that she couldn't really argue that what had happened wasn't done for her own good.

I stood to make room for her on the cushion and moved to a chair near the bed and examined the dying man on the bed as Mother's voice joined Mark's.

When I had first returned home after my sisters message I had thought that Father had looked close to death then. But I had been wrong. He still had a long way to go regarding that.

This was not a man that lay before me. This was a corpse.

A corpse who by some miracle or some curse was still breathing.

He just lay there, flat on his back with his arms out of the covers next to him. His eyes were closed but we could all tell that he was still alive because we could hear his breath rasping in his throat.

A fire started in my gut then.

It looked so neat and orderly. As though he had been arranged to look as perfect as he could when he died.

Just so that people would be able to say that "It was beautiful," and "He died so peacefully."

There was nothing peaceful about this. This was robbery as a poison, a disease and an injury were taking my father from me.

He looked so old. That was the thought that kept coming back to me. When had my father gotten so old? He looked ancient. Pale, blotchy skin stretched over a skeleton which, although it looked tiny to me then, looked as though it was to big for the amount of skin it had been given to cover itself.

I found that I could no longer look at him and I let my head sink until I was staring at my boots.

Sam came in next. He was dressed in his Barony uniform. Someone must have spent an age pressing that thing for him and for the first time I seemed to remember that he was a knight and wondered who his squire was. More than that, why hadn't I thought of that before. He came in, looked around the room before choosing his post next to the door. Then he place his helm on his head and drew his sword before placing the point on the ground and resting his hands on the pommel. I had seen this before as men stood the death watch for fallen comrades on the field of battle. I thought it a little inappropriate at the moment but if this was his way of coping with what was going to happen then who was I to argue.

Emma was last. She looked tired and pulled up a chair sitting next to me at the bed side.

It was a long day.

I hope you will forgive me if I don't talk about that day very much. I suspect it wouldn't be very interesting to anyone and the other thing is that it was quite a private affair. Anyone who's had to do something similar will know what I mean. Standing or sitting there is a constant struggle between wanting to be somewhere else, thinking up reasons to be somewhere else and then thinking up reasons to stay. The man on the bed didn't care whether we were there or not as he was so delirious from the infection that was killing him along with the amount of potions and herbs that were stuffed into and down every orifice that he was probably existing on another level of consciousness as it was.

If father had been awake then it might have been a different story and I would have sat there talking him into his grave and providing comfort where I could but this... This was another beast entirely. This was...maudlin and incredibly depressing. I longed for something to do, something, anything to do, shout at, help with or hit. Instead I stayed in that room. Sometimes sitting, sometimes praying and sometimes pacing backwards and forwards.

I won't talk about the small and ridiculously cheerful conversations that we shared before we realised that they were inappropriate. Nor will I talk about the small amounts of bickering that happen whenever you put together an extended number of siblings in the same room for an extended period of time. I won't tell you about the small jokes that were made and the sudden outbursts of laughter, or that period where Emma started to weep and nothing any of us could do could stop that so gradually we all joined in, sitting there, or kneeling there and the tears flowed freely.

Before they dried up and left us feeling numb.

I won't detail the debate that I struck up with brother Mark, all of our previous enmity over the investigation forgotten as we stood the vigil, about the prophet Lebioda and the location of their final resting place.

Nor will I mention the desultory lunch that we shared. Small pastries and sandwiches that had been put together by a Kitchen that was clearly as on edge as we were.

What I will talk about is the curious sense of pride I had in the old man.

He didn't go easily.

He fought.

His constant wheezing breath became a battle. As we all arrived it was an accompaniment to what was happening, slow and relatively steady despite being a bit ragged on occasion.

But slowly, so slowly that we barely noticed, it began to lessen, becoming more ragged. Then every so often he would miss a breath. We would look up, exchange glances, conversations would stop, we would all look up at Fathers bed, then over to the small medic who would shake her head and then the breathing would start again.

I judge that it was around three hours after noon when something changed in that breathing. I don't know what it was and I would imagine that you couldn't either. But Shani knew. She was playing a strange variant of patience with a set of Gwent cards that I didn't recognise and her head shot up to look at her patient. She cocked her head on one side and listened for a moment before declaring "Not long now," and returning to her game. I can only imagine that it was an instinct that was bred out of long hours sitting next to the beds of dying men and women but she knew.

Then we listened. We all returned to the bed side, kneeling and sitting. Mark started to pray audibly as we listened to those last few breaths. But still Dad fought it every step of the way.

Breath,

Breath,

Emma was crying again, silently this time as she watched the blankets covering fathers chest rise and fall.

Breath,

I could feel dampness on my own face and could no longer look at the other people in the room.

Breath,

Breath,

Then he gasped, Shani was there, the only sound was Marks mumbling prayers

Breath,

Breath,

Then he sighed. A long drawn out sound. I had heard it before, as had Shani, Sam and Mark too I think. But mother and Emma looked at Shani.

Shani held the mirror over Fathers nose and mouth and examined it before shaking her head.

We all sighed a gradual expulsion of tension.

It was Sam that broke the tableau moving to raise the sheet to cover Fathers face but Shani stopped him,

"Not yet," she whispered. "He isn't ready."

We waited a little longer watching as the already pale man started to pale even further.

Shani shivered and I saw a similar quiver go through us all and in the end it was Shani who pulled the sheet up and over to cover his face.

Sam stood first, furiously brushing tears from his face and left quickly. With a gentleness that surprised me, Mark led Mother away soon after that. Shani had already vanished without me noticing leaving Emma and I together in a room with our Fathers corpse.

I don't know how long we stayed there together, sitting and staring at the corpse without speaking.

"Are you Ok?" She asked after a long while, I don't know how long.

I took a long breath and considered.

"No," I said after a long while. "No I'm not."

I stood up and stalked to the window where I threw aside the drapes to let what remained of the day in.

"I'm angry," I said. "I'm furious, I'm so fucking... Flame but I want to smash something."

The fire in my belly that had started earlier in the day had grown, slowly at first and entirely without my noticing but it had grown to the point where it was leaking out. The same way that fire gradually escapes from the charcoal burners mounds to lick up and consume the hillock.

"I'm raging, I'm, I'm burning up. I want to scream and shout. I want to yell at him. At you, at mother, at Mark, at Sam and especially I want to yell at my sweet ass fucking self. Selfish Cunt that I am."

To my shame I spun and started screaming at my father's corpse.

"Are you happy now you bastard? Are you happy now? You're dead you piece of filth. Are you happy? Flame of heaven you couldn't even do it now could you? You couldn't find a way to tell me that you were proud of me. That you loved me."

"Freddie?"

"Flame," I turned away. "I know that he did. I know that he was even." I yelled at him again. "I knew it, I saw through you you withered up old wreck. Couldn't even stay on your fucking horse when someone was trying to... Flame damn it but they were trying to kill you and you fell for it."

The sobbing came then and I didn't try to hold it back.

Emma just stood there.

"I knew it but he never told me. Not once you know that? He never told me he was proud of me. It was always you, or mother or some servant. All I could ever see was the disappointment when I got clouted in the practice yard by Sammy's sword. All I could ever see was how much he praised him and not me. All I could here was him telling me how utterly _stupid_ it was to try and be scholar."

"Who ever heard of a man of learning?" I mimicked fathers voice. "No man ever attracted a bride with a quill and ink-spattered robes."

"Freddie?"

"You know it too. You heard it all the time and I came running to your...Flame damn you to hell old man. Flame damn you and here you are, lying there all nice and wrapped up in your fucking blankets and it's me. Me and the friends that I made..."

"Freddie?" Emma put her hand on my shoulder and I flinched away from her at first. "I miss him too Freddie."

Slowly, as though she was coaxing some wild animal to her hand, she wrapped her arms around me

"Flame, I'm sorry," I managed as I sobbed into her shoulder.

We stayed there for a while sobbing quietly together.

When we did pull apart we examined each other.

"I've got make-up on your shirt," she said.

"Well that's alright. I've got snot on your dress."

She laughed and I laughed with her.

"He did love you you know."

I sighed. "I know. I've always known but Flame curse me I wanted him to tell me that himself."

"He just didn't understand you."

"I know that too. Made even worse that I never understood him either and I really tried.

I found a cloth and blew my nose loudly.

"You ready?" she asked and I nodded.

We left together, I held the door open for her to find Kerrass waiting outside. He had a chair and had found a small table that had some papers on it and he stood to greet us.

"Allow me to offer my condolences," he said formally.

"Thank you, Now it's just a matter of doing the proper mourning period and getting him interred along with Edmund." My sister said formally. "Speaking of which, have you heard anything?"

"I have," said Kerrass, his eyes gleaming which normally means that someone's about to get murdered.

"Your lawyer has told me some very interesting things and has given me written permission to look into some other things which includes, but is not limited to, your brothers quarters in Oxenfurt as well as his vault. A place where I have not yet been able to go. So tomorrow I go to Oxenfurt to yell at people, find things out and maybe, just maybe, bust some heads."

He turned to me,

"You wanna come?"

"Oh yes,"


	29. Chapter 29

(A/N: Hey folks, this chapter got out of hand awfully quickly until I looked down at one point and realised how much had been written. So I've stopped half way through, edited as well as I could and am posting it now. The next Fanfic chapter will be part two of the chapter to save any confusion.)

(Warning. Described scenes of extreme, ritualistic and sexual violence. Clinically described by Watchman as having been done to another person in past tense.)

I had wanted to do this bit myself but Kerrass had argued, correctly, that one of us needed to carry the box that we had found and that person would not be able to fight properly. Also of the two of us, he was the one that could reasonably be expected to take on three to five highly trained church guards as well as the fact that he could probably get away with it given that he wasn't part of the family.

Having said that, it is all well and good to say that you are alright with someone attacking your brother's guards but it is a whole other thing to watch it happen.

My brother had taken up a large office in one of the quieter parts of the keep. He is, after all, an important person in larger church affairs and even though he is away from his home diocese he still gets a large number of visitors and it is useful for him as well as the rest of the family for him to be able to differentiate his visitors from the rest of the people who come to the keep on other errands.

It sits at the end of a corridor before the corridor itself turns a corner which leads to some more guest rooms and it was down this corridor that we strode purposefully. Me with the box in a sack over one shoulder and Kerrass with his sword on his back and the iron bar part of my spear swinging easily in his hand.

"Greetings my friends," Kerrass called as we came in sight of the room and the guards standing outside. "So good to see you on this rather pleasant morning. My compliments to your master but it is rather urgent that we speak to him."

The lead guard seemed rather bored.

"Morning _Witcher_. This game of yours is no longer funny and neither ourselves nor the Arch-Bishop are amused. His Grace has informed us that he is indisposed and as such is not to be disturbed for any reason."

He fixed his eyes on me, "For _any_ reason at all." He was sneering slightly.

Some people just seem to fit the stereotype and despite everything you do to try and help them move past that stereotype, they just give up and jump right into it.

"Ah," Kerrass looked comically crestfallen. "I notice however that he was disposed enough to come to his office which is some distance from his room. But that is not important today. Today I'm afraid that I really must insist that I be allowed in to see the Arch-Bishop. It is a matter of faith, religious learning, family history and his brothers murder. I am sure that he will understand in this case. Please check with him."

Kerrass made a little 'shoo' gesture with his left hand.

He had warned me earlier that he had done his best to annoy the Arch-bishops guards at every available opportunity. He regarded it as part of a game but also he felt that he had a certain duty to annoy self-righteous pricks who don't know what they're talking about. His words, not mine. Personally I had found the church guards that had come with my brother from Tretogor to be relatively harmless. When not on duty they had passed the time with our family guards and myself and seemed relatively friendly. There were a couple of... more uptight individuals who seemed to think of me as being somehow 'soiled' from being associated with a Witcher and had treated me exactly how you think they might have but for the majority of them, they seemed like reasonable human beings.

"The order stands that His Grace not be disturbed for ANY reason, _Witcher._ As well you know."

I particularly enjoyed how the man sneered while he said the word "Witcher" as though it was somehow badly flavoured or that it sullied his lips with the sound of it.

"Darn," said the Witcher.

Helmets are useful things. They are particularly good at protecting from overhead strokes. That is why Kerrass brought the heavy metal bar up to the offending guards chin with a hard underhand movement. It was hard enough to lift the man almost completely off his feet with an accompanying crack and crunch. He fell backwards between the other two astonished guards.

The guard on Kerrass' left knocked on the door in a pattern that I didn't follow while the remaining guard thrust his shield at Kerrass while struggled to unsheathe his sword.

Kerrass grabbed the top of the shield and tugged at it causing the man to stagger forward. Kerrass then used the momentum to spin on his heel to bring his makeshift club around in a semi circle and clout the man on the back of the head. He fell forwards.

The remaining guard looked a little resigned but he certainly seemed cleverer than his fellow. He dropped his shield and didn't bother going for his sword, instead he drew a dagger from a sheath on his back and used his other hand and arm to take hold of the club and trap it. It was a good plan.

Unfortunately for the guard, Kerrass was unmoved and simply let go of the club, took hold of the man's head and rammed it into the wall. Once, twice before checking for consciousness and then a third time for good measure.

Stooping he retrieved the club, gestured me further back and made a hand gesture.

A golden light seemed to flicker over his body before another gesture made the door explode off his hinges and into Brother Marks office, flattening a fourth guard under the heavy Oak and iron reinforcings. Kerrass stepped into the office, another guard brought his sword down hard onto Kerrass' head from where he had been hiding behind the door. Again, another good plan.

There was a flash and an explosive concussion which caused me to stagger a little but I had seen this before and had been prepared. The guard that had attacked the Witcher was not so lucky.

Kerrass gestured me forward and I followed him into my brothers lair. One guard was struggling up from the remains of the door before an unceremonious boot from Kerrass connected with his chin causing him to slump. The magical explosion had caused the last guard to fly backwards into a shelf which had rained other books and scrolls so that his unconscious form was half covered.

Mark was behind his desk on the far side of the room with an absurdly small knife in his hand. He was plainly terrified and snarled at us in his mix of anger and terror.

I deposited my burden on the floor and checked to make sure that Kerrass hadn't killed anyone.

He knew his craft though.

Never being one to let a good opportunity go to waste, my brother was calling for guards. Red in the face.

"Yes," said Kerrass grinning nastily. "Bring the guards. Then they can see what happens when a group of trained church soldiers try to prevent an innocent Witcher from fulfilling his contract and duty. Just count yourself lucky that I wasn't a Sorcerer or Wizard as they would have done much worse and they would not be frightened by your little knife any more than I am. They would also want to know what the presumed master of the castle had to hide that he locks himself away from any encroaching person who might be able to ask him questions. Questions that might call into doubt his very inheritance."

"I have nothing to hide, least of all from you. And your comment on Sorcerers and Wizards is unfair." Mark showed that he could also smile horribly. "We burned many in Novigrad with only our small and unimpressive knives to help us,"

Kerrass winced. "I had friends on some of those pyres Arch-Bishop. Friends who had never hurt anyone. Friends who had even gone out of their way to help and heal others."

The two men glared at each other. Kerrass spoke first.

"But that is not why I am here. I also know that you had nothing to do with those deaths and I even know that you protested them in the strongest terms for which I am grateful so I would thank you not to attempt to provoke me."

The two men stared at each other. I was fascinated at this meeting of two minds. Mark has been and I suspect will always be a great influence on my life. He was my earliest confessor and as such has had a great impact on my spiritual progression which is still important to me despite my dislike of discussing it too much. To see him challenged so much by another equally as strong personality was... enlightening.

It was Mark who looked away first.

"What do you mean "presumed" master of the castle? And also, how would my reluctance to talk to a heretical mutant on a matter that I don't agree with have any bearing on the case. I did not kill my brother and I was provably somewhere else on the matter of Fathers death."

Mark's disdain for Kerrass struck me as lacking a certain something. He seemed tired and more as though he was trotting out the old "heretical mutant" thing as though he had to rather, than if he believed it.

The distant sound of people running came to me in my position by the door.

Kerrass waved his hands dismissively. "Distance is not a concern to a man with wealth and power but that is not something that I am concerned with. But I do have questions, questions that I would be willing to believe that only an Arch-Bishop can answer and that might be able to shed light on. Questions pertaining to what's in the sack that Frederick is carrying."

Mark looked at me. There was a question there and I saw how well he had been played. My brother is a clever man but like anyone he is susceptible to flattery.

"Show me."

The guards arrived as I was stooping and Mark gestured for them to wait.

The first thing I did was to move some of the rugs aside that were on the floor and I produced a wooden board that I put in the middle.

Next came a box. Putting it on the floor next to the board I put on a large, thick pair of gloves.

Kerrass was watching my brother carefully but he needn't have worried. Mark was rapt.

Flicking the lid open with my foot I reached inside and took out a Large round wooden stone and placed it on the wooden board.

Mark hissed in anger and rage. "You dare?" he snarled. "You bring that...that thing here. Into my rooms. You invoke _her_ presence here. How dare you?"

"I take it you know what that is then."

"Of course I do."

What it was was a round, flat stone that had been smoothed on one side maybe 2 feet in diameter. Upon the surface of the stone there had been carved the pattern of a spiders web. In the centre of which was a large spiders body with the head of a Lion.

"The Lion-headed spider." Mark hissed. "The Lion-headed Spider. How dare you...?"

Kerrass held his hands up. "The tablet has been desecrated by me as well as someone whose opinion I trust so therefore holds no power. I ensured that before I brought it here as I had no desire to bring _her_ gaze on the house of a friend and afterwards I was hoping that you would help me destroy it."

Mark was visibly relieved which surprised me.

"Unfortunately that is not the only thing we found," Kerrass went on nodding to me.

Equally as carefully I reached into the box and pulled out a Silver Ankh symbol. It was heavy, about 2 feet tall. The fact that the size of the Ankh was the same as the stone tablet had not been lost on Kerrass and I.

I placed it next to the stone.

Mark recoiled visibly.

"We found them together," Kerrass said carefully, "The ankh was strapped to the stone by thin leather straps. I have already burned the straps."

Mark nodded. His eyes had gone wild and he was visibly sweating.

"Good," he said. "Good, the Ankh will need to be melted as well."

"I am having an impromptu furnace built away from the walls for that purpose."

Mark nodded and visibly made an effort to control himself.

"Where did you find these things?"

"Alas we still haven't told you everything that we have found, perhaps we should sit?"

Mark nodded.

The guards were dismissed, wine was brought and we sat down to talk.

It felt as though years had passed since Father had finally died but in the event it had only been a few days.

We had talked to Emma about things and our plans to make sure that the funeral would leave us enough time to go away and come back. Fortunately even a Barons funeral can take time to organise, for the necessary guest invitations to be sent out, frocks to be cleaned, decorations to be taken down and put up again so there was still some time yet in which I could... "Go and play" as my sister so encouragingly put it.

We rode over to Oxenfurt in that early evening with our family lawyer. He had long been known to me and I had always remembered him as a fierce grey-haired old man with a receding hairline and who's whiskers bristled fiercely when he was annoyed by small children. What I had clearly forgotten, or missed was the way that his eyes would crinkle when he was amused and his great booming laugh which he employed often.

He and Kerrass had struck up some kind of partnership which was the very original version of the old saying about "opposites attracting." The Lawyer's name was Barnabus Krayt of Krayt, Morgan and associates and although this is not an advert for their services they always did right by my family.

We parted ways at an inn just outside of Oxenfurt. There's an old chess club there where people can sit around and play each other on the provided chess sets for hours at a time while downing a suitable amount of wine and ale and start carousing until the early hours of the morning. Kerrass insisted on pulling us over there and bought Mr Krayt (although he tried to insist, I still can't bring myself to to think of him as Barnaby) a large pint of frothy ale which the old man drank with envious speed. They told many jokes and stories and they even managed to entertain their audience with their witticisms and jokes at each others expense. I was fairly quiet despite their best efforts to get me drunk. In the end Mr Krayt promised Kerrass faithfully that he would be at the watch house in the morning insisting that Kerrass and I be allowed access to Edmund's rooms. I was all for heading there straight away but apparently the people who have the authority to be yelled at by lawyers "simply don't work like that," so I suffered in silence.

After he left Kerrass took me over to a corner table. He was stone cold sober of course and called over the barman. The company was in good cheer and Mr Krayt had been generous with his money so we were all quite popular and everyone, other than me, was in good spirits but the barman paled when Kerrass spoke to him.

"This is awkward," Kerrass began with one of his more disarming smiles. "But I was hoping you could answer a question for me."

"And why would I do that?" The Barman was a tall, thin man but other than that he was fulfilling the stereotype of pub landlord with ease. The question wasn't accusatory but rather an invitation for further jokes and good cheer.

"Because I've spent a good amount of money,"

"Do you intend on spending more?" There was some laughter from some of the nearby listeners who thought that some kind of competition was still going on.

"Maybe," Kerrass responded quickly. "That depends on whether you answer the question,"

This was met with general applause as though Kerrass had won a point.

The Barman mused but seemingly couldn't think of anything else he could say that would be funny enough to satisfy the audience.

"What's your question?" he said as though he was granting us a huge favour.

"Does the name Eloise Karnak mean anything to you?"

As a historian or as a scholar, storyteller or writer or whatever people seem to consider me nowadays you have to do a small amount of research. One of the ways that I have done this is by reading other peoples works. These particular writings from my journals are published in a magazine and so it is meant to entertain as well as to inform so I wanted to make sure that I get this right. But there was one definition that always surprised me. That was when someone is described as having "paled". It's a simple enough word and yet it conveys so much meaning as well as everyone knows precisely what you mean by it. It describes a person when the red pigment leaves their face. Unfortunately the rest of it lacks a certain something, in other words, why are they losing their colour. Are they sick? Are they in pain? Angry? Sad? Shocked?

This bar man looked as though it was all of them put together as not only did he "pale" but he also staggered, started sweating and his eyes widened.

A couple of the other patrons asked if he was alright?"

"I'm fine," he snarled back in a sudden fury. "Now fuck off, we're closed."

I was as astonished as anyone else there as it was still relatively early in the evening (for Oxenfurt) and the crowd seemed more than capable of drinking much more yet.

"Seriously. Fuck off," He bellowed at them.

A shocked silence fell. Some men looked angry and might have started something but then they realised something that I hadn't which was that the Barman was weeping openly.

A large man, a labourer of some kind I gathered, stood up, finished his drink and loudly said that he would see the barman tomorrow.

One by one the other patrons did the same.

The Barman went and found himself a bottle. It was black and came in a whicker basket which he started taking large swigs from.

I noticed that we weren't offered any.

"Sorry," he said after a while, "Sorry it's just... It's just that it's been a long time since I... thought about her."

He sniffed, wiping his face with the back of his sleeve before looking back up at the Witcher.

"Is that why you're here. Did you catch the bastard thing that did that? Someone once said they were going to put up a notice about that as only a monster could have done something so evil but the Watch claimed that it was a man."

Kerrass sighed and shook his head.

"I'm sorry but that's not why I'm here. The name came up in this region in connection to something else that I am working on. I don't yet know how the two were connected but I can promise that I intend to find out."

The man nodded. "Well if they are, and if they do turn out to be connected, then you come and see me Witcher. I'll give you a reward to see that things head or if it does turn out to be a man I would pay to see the bastard swing. If not, come back and I'll hire you myself."

Kerrass nodded, "Why don't you start by telling us what happened and how you know that name."

"She was just a nice girl," He looked at us with red eyes. I felt guilty then. I had my own grief that was clawing at the back of my mind like a hungry animal which I knew would break free eventually but this man's grief was just as real and just as raw. I could no longer look at him and studied the table, looking at the grain in the wood and the patterns it made of the spilled beer and wine.

"She was just a nice girl. Dark blonde frizzy hair that used to stand up when we had thunder storms. It was always a mess and always getting caught in things but she steadfastly refused to allow anyone to touch it or cut it any shorter claiming that she would look like a cloud or a dandelion."

He didn't say anything for a while.

"She was fourteen when she died. Maybe a little bit younger than me so that puts it at about thirteen years ago when we found her. We all loved her, all of us but she never tried to make us fight for her affections and I would guess that I wasn't the only one who planned to propose when she came of age. That makes me sound all grown up but I was fifteen? Yeah, I think I was fifteen years old.

"Heh

"You have to understand, she wasn't beautiful or anything, not like these great ladies that you see riding past or those Sorceresses that the Holy Flame insisted on scarring before they threw them into the fire but she had this kind of...light in her eyes. Her entire face lit up whenever she smiled and it was like the sun came out from behind a cloud."

The poor man sobbed.

"She went missing one day. Just went missing. Her mother had died some time before that and her father was always away on the ships. Her uncle was a drunk and her aunt spent all her time working to pay for them all to survive so Ellie had to make do. Most of the older folk decided that she had simply run away. Joined one of the groups of travelling players or nuns or something to get away from it all. Maybe even a mercenary company or something in her general effort to get away but we who knew her best said that she would never do that. She had a sister to look after see? She would never leave her sister. That's one of the things I liked about her otherwise she could have gone off and got work as a maid out at one of the estates or even in one of the whorehouses in Novigrad I imagine, not that she ever seemed to go for that kind of thing.

"We searched the entire island. We couldn't get off our little stretch of land because the guards would stop us so we thought that she would have the same problem. She wasn't that great a swimmer so she wouldn't have tried for the water. The Dock-workers claimed that she couldn't have stolen aboard any of the ships that had stopped at the docks so she had to be somewhere on our little patch of land.

"It was maddening. We would rush through our chores before running off to join the search parties. It was almost a game.

"But then we found her and it was no longer as funny.

"It wasn't me. I was away doing something else but the little lad who did find her was about eight and he killed himself shortly afterwards. He drowned, jumping in the river when it was flowing too quickly for anyone to help him.

"She had been mutilated. Horribly. Torn in places and there were other parts of her... missing. The only reason that anyone recognised her was because there was no-one else like her with that hair of hers."

The man sobbed again.

"The guards came and got her. Another guard came, asked a bunch of questions. The Holy Flame came to take away her body and then we were told to forget about her.

"Nothing ever came of it. No-one was ever caught. We used to fantasise about what we would do if we ever found out who had done it. What we would do to them. How we would punish them but we never found out what had happened. Never...Never found out what happened"

Silence fell for a long time. But the man wasn't done yet.

"I can't think they tried very hard though. Girl like Ellie doesn't get much notice when she dies. Not like some of those grand high mucky-mucks who go up to the university in it's day. Bet if one of their daughters died then the killer would be found.

"If you find them Witcher. If you find them or find out what happened to them if justice has already found them then you come back and you tell me. You hear? You tell me and I'll reward you. I promise. You come back. I promised myself that if I ever found out I would shit on his grave."

Kerrass nodded and spent a bit of time soothing the man. I didn't want to hear that part and I went to stand outside where I leant against a nearby fence and stared at the stars. In the distance I could hear the river lapping at the shore and the stone of the bridge where it crossed over and into the city and I felt very small there. A small, lonely and very angry man berating the world for not being a fair place where murderers were brought to justice and good, innocent young girls could live their lives free of any harm or threat.

Eventually Kerrass joined me. It was only a short journey from there into town and I found that I wanted to take the time so we walked the houses.

Those people that have been to the university will be able to tell you that there is a strange kind of energy that comes with being in your student city wherever it might be. For many of us it was the place where we grew up, our first time away from home properly and experienced the heady tonic that is being an "adult" for the first time. It was in Oxenfurt that I lost my virginity shortly after I first arrived. It is an action that I now regret as I lost it with undue haste and rushed the entire experience rather than taking the time to properly do the moment justice. I am told that I am not alone in this experience. I got properly drunk for the first time, that state that is only achieved after being drunk, where you get to being drunk, AND THEN GO FURTHER.

Where you wake up and thank the Gods that you are in your own bed, or when you wake up somewhere else and wonder how you got there. When you wake up next to someone else and there's that awful moment of... Did we...you know?...Do the...thing? When you all get together the following day still massively nauseatingly head-achingly hungover and you can only communicate through grunting and yet _still understand each other_?

I got into a proper fight for the first time (I lost). I gambled for the first time. I sampled foods and drinks, discussed religion and politics, history and arts that I had never experienced or even dreamed of. Then I debated them as if I even vaguely knew what I was talking about.

Oxenfurt is a wonderful place, especially if you have lived there for any period of time but you have to be careful. Sometimes it will chew you up and spit you out.

There is an energy about the place, a strange level of existence. Oxenfurt almost exists on a separate plane of reality.

But then you leave it.

I left to go and find a Witcher to travel around with him for a while and make some notes that I, somewhat naively, hoped that I would be able to publish to get my Professorship or even to be able to publish a book. I recently had cause to look back at the earlier chapters of these chronicles and I wince at the naïve nature of the person that I was with my intellectual and cultural biases. It was like the real world hit me with a frying pan saying "This is what it's really like out here." Then when I went back to Oxenfurt last winter I spent my time wandering round looking at old friends and professors thinking to myself "How naïve must I have been to look up to these people?" because Oxenfurt had seduced me again into thinking that I was superior to all of these people. These people that have never been out there and looked, really looked at what was going on and how events _really were_ shaping up in the world.

I found that I didn't want to go back to that, I wanted to stay here in the quiet and the dark for just a moment longer.

Kerrass didn't react when he saw that I was leading my horse. Instead he just joined me and we walked alongside each other. The bridge is still guarded after the war by more than just a simple pair of guardsmen that couldn't hold off a group of starving beggars. They knew me though as I had spent some time getting to know the guards last winter and they waved as we went by. A couple offered their condolences.

"Are you alright?" Kerrass said as the walls got closer.

I blew out a breath.

"No, no not by a long shot."

Kerrass nodded and handed over a waterskin and I drank several strong swallows before I realised what I was drinking.

"Peach schnapps?"

"Yeah, I bought it off the barman as it seemed unfair that we had chased all his custom away. He refused the money but I imagine his wife will make him see sense in the morning."

I offered him the bag back but he refused.

"You finish it. Drink as much as you can anyway and save the rest. You wanna talk about it?"

"What's to talk about?" I replied quickly.

Kerrass thought about this for a moment. "Plenty I, thought."

"You're not wrong. Did you know what story he was going to tell us when we stopped there?"

"No. I knew the name, the place and the date but I didn't know what had happened. Then you always ask the barman first as they are the gossips of the world."

"How did you find out about her?"

Kerrass looked at me for a moment. I thought he was considering something, but then he nodded.

"Your father had a set of notes that he had been adding to for some time. It was in one of the locked cupboards in his study. I don't think even Barnaby knew it was there. It was just a list of names, rough locations and dates. It was one of the things that I was going to look into while we were here as a good portion of them happened around the Oxenfurt area. Barnaby warned me that the watch are likely to be uncooperative and to rebel by making us wait so I wanted to check a few of them out. As a side project I was going to use it to tire you out physically."

"Now though?"

"I'm resorting to other methods. Drink your Schnapps."

I obediently took another large drink.

"Interesting brew this." I mused, "Doesn't taste like any schnapps that I've drank before."

"That's because I've drugged it to help you sleep. It should get us to your quarters before you start to feel drowsy though."

I thought about it for a long time.

"Fuck it," I said and took a more cautious swallow. "Remind me to get some extra stuff though before bed as it almost feels like it's coating my throat in goo."

"Fair enough."

We walked on.

"It's just..." I began. "I've been on the road with you for what, a year now?"

"More than that I would have thought."

"Yes but we took a break over winter."

"You're right then, about a year."

"I've changed so much from the person who I was when we first met and don't get me wrong I like most of the changes. Then I go home and I'm there for a week and already I need to check my noble privilege. I'm stomping around, yelling at people and generally getting cross but at the end of the day, people die all the time in horrible horrible ways. I'm no different than them but I feel as though I should get some kind of special treatment. He was right you know. If it had been a noble-man's daughter or a rich merchant's daughter, the killer would have been found ages ago."

Kerrass considered this.

"No they wouldn't. I've seen far too many of those kinds of cases. Give it another fifty years or so when those people who remember Eloise start dying and I come back here, there will be a notice somewhere for a Witcher to come and remove the girls spirit. The Watch, led by the Sheriffs and the under sheriff's of this world are not there to catch criminals. Their job is to preserve the peace and if that involves catching and prosecuting the criminals then that is a bonus. Even if they know who the killer is the likelihood of that person being brought to justice is relatively small. If it would cause more of a problem to arrest, try and prosecute the killer than it would to arrest say, a vagrant, the town drunk who can be persuaded that he saw and did anything with enough vodka in his belly or another local ne'er do well then that's what's going to happen.

"I'm a Witcher and I don't have to abide by those truths or these guidelines of, heh, modern society so I can just go and investigate without strings attached. We would make good private detectives it's just that's not what we're for and no society would accept us as a mutant branch of law enforcement. Correctly too in my opinion as I think people should police themselves so they can understand themselves. But I look at that circumstance and I think differently.

"Without assuming anything else given how we found out about poor Eloise, I would look at that and I would think "Young, pretty, no real family to speak of, regularly unattended. I would expect that she had been watched for some time for this purpose. I expect that if we were to look into it with any kind of depth that there would have been a stranger or three that had hung around on the lead up to her disappearance, who would have hung around afterwards for a bit before moving on and more importantly, they would have a cast-iron alibi for the time where she was missing. This person would have been hired by someone to find someone like Eloise. That would be the way that I would investigate it. That drink kicking in yet?"

"A little," I slurred the words and was minorly horrified at the fact that I was getting drunk so quickly.

"Good, well we're nearly here,"

I don't remember much after that. I do remember waking up the following morning to find a large pitcher of water with just enough wine in it to be drinkable. Kerrass had left a note on it saying "Drink. All of it. You'll feel better."

I did as I was told and I really did feel better.

I found Kerrass at the tavern just over the way from where I keep my rooms. He was tucking into one of those giant breakfasts that he seems so fond of and he waved me over.

"I really don't know how you can eat that stuff." I said ordering one of the meat buns and some coffee. Coffee was expensive at the moment but I felt that I needed it.

"Sets me up for the day," Kerrass commented, "And it looks like it's going to be a long day. Barnaby's already at the Watch house. I offered to turn a few tables over for him but he declined saying that he was too used to playing bad watchmen to suddenly switch to being a good watchman. He's promised that he would leave word here when we can go see your brothers rooms."

"Why can't we go now?"

"Sealed and guarded. Especially since they know that I want to see inside them. It was one of the first things that I did when you gave me the case but it was still guarded then and so they've kept it guarded. We could murder the two watchmen guarding it I suppose?"

One of the women sat next to us, who was optimistically suggesting that the man next to her should buy her a drink, gasped at Kerrass in horror. He grinned at her showing all his teeth and she fled.

"Probably not, I do want to come back here at some point." I tried not to laugh as the man next to us shot a grateful look at us.

"But in other news we are meeting someone here while we wait."

"Who's that?" My food came. It was a roasted pork that had been mixed in a spice mix that I didn't recognise. Food prices hadn't gone down much since the war but at least the supply and quality had improved.

"Retired Watchman. All Watches have a guy like this if they're lucky. Especially the big cities. He's the guy that gets sent to all the murder cases to try and figure them out."

"I thought you said that the Watch only keep the peace rather than actually solving the crimes." The Pork was gorgeous and I ate it far too quickly.

"They do, but they still need to solve the odd one. For the look of the thing more than anything else. I'm being cynical but you'd be astonished how many times I've been accused of murder just to say that they have _someone_ in custody."

I grunted at that.

"But anyway," Kerrass continued. "I asked a bored looking Sergeant about some of the names and dates in your Fathers journals and I was told to contact a retired Captain Wyber."

"I know him. Nice guy, gets maudlin when you get a drink or three in him. Tells the most blood curdling stories though.

"Yes, man like him would. He's just got a mind for it is all. They make themselves sick after a while and retire to get a quiet life."

"Sick?"

"Yeah, they can't stop thinking about whatever case they're working on to the point that it begins to ruin their lives, children and marriages and jobs fall by the wayside as they do everything that they can to catch that _one_ person that got away. Sad really but obsessive personality is one of the things that makes for a really good detective."

We sat for a bit longer just talking. There was a student protest happening and we watched as the entertainingly colourfully dressed young students walked past to the age old marching song of protests everywhere.

You know the song. It goes:

"What do we want?"

"Dum-de-dum." (This bit changes according to the protest)

"When do we want it?"

"NOW!"

I have taken part in several of those marches in the past. Mostly because it's a fairly good opportunity to meet girls.

Eventually Captain Wyber managed to turn up.

Now Captain Wyber is a good man and if you find him in any tavern or bar then buy the poor man a drink. But the poor man has had a rough life and has served more faithfully and seen more horror than any one else that I have met.

Yes more horror than Kerrass.

The reason I say that is that Kerrass sees atrocities that are committed by monsters. It is in their nature to do the things that they do whereas men like Wyber see things that sentient creatures do to each other every day. He's also among the smartest men that I've ever met. Not book smart although he can read and speaks several languages and can swear convincingly in several more. But he sees things that you or I would miss. Then he puts the patterns together.

"To put it another way I was sat in a pub once enjoying a few drinks when Wyber walked up to the girl that I was hitting on. We were enjoying the game, there was no way I was going to be successful and we both knew it but it entertained us both and for that matter we were still friends for a while until she was forced to leave the university because her father had found her a husband. Wyber walked up to her and started drunkenly leering at her and pawing at her without ever touching her. I saw but didn't hear him say something between drunken lechery, my friend said something about getting the poor man home and we left.

"Losing all pretence of drunkenness, Wyber led us across the road to a patch of shadow where we waited until a large group of young sailors left the pub, looked up and down the road before grumbling "having lost her,".

Turns out that my friend had spurned the advances of one of the sailors two nights ago. He'd gathered his friends while the ship was still at anchor and went looking for her to "teach her some manners." Wyber had been enjoying a quiet drink, saw the situation and had headed it off.

In short don't judge the book by it's cover.

He's short, maybe 5ft 3in tall, naturally inclined to be heavy set due to the vast amounts of time eating street food and drinking poor quality alcohol. His greying hair is long and unkempt although still short enough to fit under a helmet and he sports a bristling grey moustache. He is old for his mid to late forties and his face seems drawn and pallid. He completes the effort of looking like a tramp by wearing clothes according to comfort rather than fit, fashion or cleanliness. His wife died some years ago and he has long since despaired of finding another woman who would put up with him and now he spends his days fishing, playing chess against anyone foolish enough to challenge him and drinking himself to death. He still does the odd bit of work for the watch when they get stuck though and he resists any efforts (including mine) to get him out of Oxenfurt and into the country away from the things that are driving him mad.

"Now then Cap'n," I said as he turned up.

"Oh, Flame curse it Coulthard, if I'd known it was you I wouldn't have come. Scruffy little oik like you." He sniffed hugely.

"I didn't know it was you you scruffy bastard. This is Kerrass."

Kerrass stood up and shook the offered hand.

"Witcher eh? What you doin' hanging round with this little shit?"

Kerrass smiled.

"Trying to keep him alive generally."

"Must be a tough job. Never met a snot like this one,"

"He's getting better at it."

"Is he now? Well you wouldn't think it to look at him."

"Some men just aren't born to be as handsome as us," Kerrass' smile was getting broader and more genuine.

Wyber considered this.

"There's some truth in that,"

We all traded insults for a short while and I was able to forget the business that had brought us all here. We bought Wyber some brunch before going somewhere more private where Kerrass handed him the notes. It was two sheets of paper with my fathers precise handwriting, dates, places and names.

He didn't look at them for too long.

"Yes I'd heard that the old man had died. Poor sod."

"You knew my father."

"Only a little. Contacts me out of the blue he does, with a few of these names and numbers. Some of the earlier ones at least. I notice that he's added a few though."

He sniffed again before producing a huge handkerchief and blowing his nose loudly.

"Never found out why he cared though your dad. Don't suppose he told you before he died did he?"

Wyber peered at me over his papers.

"Alas no,"

"Damn, I hate mysteries."

"Why did you become a cop then if you hate mysteries?" Kerrass asked.

"Precisely because I hate them so much. I want to eradicate them from the world."

Wyber looked up and down the list again before tossing them on the table in disgust.

"I hate mysteries but real mysteries are actually quite rare. You don't find them very often, even in police work."

"Why's that?"

"Investigations go like this. If someone has something stolen you go down the local fences and start kicking things over until they give you a name. Money, food and some other things just get stolen and there's rarely anything that you can do about it. Sexual assault is a matter of finding out who fancied the girl and doesn't have an alibi or a quick run of the local perverts. You'd be surprised to learn that even scum has standards and they can't wait to dish the dirt on kiddie fiddlers and rapists. Murders?"

I was surprised. He was drinking but drank in sips rather than the gulps that I was used to seeing him swallow.

"Murders are interesting but are often the easiest to solve. You both understand that I've worked as far as Novigrad?"

We both nodded.

"Well, to be honest, most murders are committed in the spur of the moment, when a person finds out that their significant other is playing around or the victim has recently wronged someone. When you find a dead man with a woman standing over him with a poker bent at right angles, tears in her eyes and screaming something about "He promised me..." then there's only so much you can do to stretch that investigation along. Likewise when you find a known criminal dead then it's a matter of finding out which gang was operating in that area, that night and you soon find that you've got your man.

"These murders though. These murders were always interesting."

"Interesting?" I was appalled.

"From a professional level."

He reached for the notes and pulled them back towards him.

"I could never figure them out. They're obviously connected as they have so many things in common with each other and yet many of them, we caught the guy."

"Really,"

"Oh yes, beyond a doubt. But their similarities. All young people, all physically attractive or at least they were before their killers got at them."

He sniffed again and took another drink.

"All of them were mutilated horribly and often sexually. They had also, all of them been raped multiple times, yes including the men." He caught my look and grinned bleakly at me. "Yes, men can be raped as well." There was some evidence that they had been held in captivity and the bodies had been dumped in the places that they were found. All of them."

"Can you tell us anything else?" Kerrass asked.

"Certainly. The first one that I heard of that fit that pattern in the local area anyway happened when I was twenty five. I'd joined the watch out of the army, had solved a few things with help from superiors and I thought I was the shit. The victims father told us that she was missing, sixteen years old, real pretty as they often are being free from menial labour and living on the road with caring parent figures. Went missing in a village north of here while daddy was selling his wares. They assumed that she had been kidnapped by son of local lord but he was well alibi'd. Then it was thought she ran away to be with someone and the case wasn't really pursued."

He had another drink.

"She was eventually found in one of the horse stables on the edge of town. It's not there anymore as they pulled it down afterwards. Groom found her the next day. She'd had all her teeth pulled out, we know that because although there was no bruising around her mouth, the teeth hadn't been beaten out as that amount of damage would be obvious. She had been raped repeatedly by objects as well as male members and was internally damaged. She had been whipped, bound, mutilated and generally abused. Poor lass. In the end she had died because she had been skull-fucked. We think it happened while she was alive."

Another drink.

"To make matters worse, there were...bits of her missing. It was the first time I threw up at a crime scene."

He paused for a long time.

"We didn't find that killer. The next time it was a similar circumstance 2 years later. This one in fact."

He pointed at another name.

"Similar situation and similar injuries but this time there were signs that she had fled her attackers through some trees so it was suggested that she had escaped to be chased down and recaptured."

"What about the name between the two?"Kerrass asked.

"Not my beat I'm afraid I know nothing about that one."

Kerrass nodded and gestured to continue.

"We caught that bastard and we took great delight in watching the mewling fuck have his neck stretched. He'd been watching and following the girl about at the town where her father had been working. He was a merchants son who though he had been treated badly by his father and had wanted to "take what he deserved."

"The next one was a man. Poor kid was raped to death until he, quite literally, burst. Medic said that he had split before bleeding to death internally. He had also been castrated with his own member forced down his throat post mortem.

He looked down the list.

"All of these were the same. Young kid, out by themselves, relatively few people to care for them or watch out for them. Few people give a shit when people like _this_ go missing or get murdered horribly. Sometimes we caught the bastard that did it. Sometimes we didn't. Sometimes we caught the murderers scout..."

"The scout?" I asked.

"Yeah. They send a guy to look for someone suitable. The scout is often poor as muck, starving, desperate or just plain greedy. Once one turned himself in crying of the shame of it after he'd heard about the murder in the pub. He had a knife and was cutting himself as punishment while he confessed making sure that we had everything written down. He signed his confession and then hung himself as punishment in his own cell saying that he deserved death and would see to the matter himself to save us the trouble. Another poor sod who had been taken advantage of by an entitled prick with more money than morals."

He looked at me. "No offence Coulthard."

"None taken. I've recently had my noble privilige thrown in my face by the world."

Wybers face softened a little before hardening again.

"The bastard that did that one was so wealthy he was beheaded rather than hung. Too good for him I thought."

Another drink.

"The other difference was the mutilations. They were all whipped and beaten but sometimes it was with objects, sometimes with flails, lashes or whips. Also the levels of expertise varied."

"What do you mean?"

"One lucky girl was beaten with a heavy rope. Cracked her on the back of the head and the impact broke her neck. Everything else happened after she had died. Others were kept alive for hours, some for days we think."

"But the similarities are the same." Kerrass prompted.

"Oh yes. The victim is attractive, poor, with few people to miss them, certainly no-one of influence. They are beaten, flogged, restrained in some way before being mutilated with their eyes being put out and their teeth being pulled out before they are raped repeatedly until they die from that or from other injuries that are performed during or post those rapes."

"Did you ever think that these killings might be ritualistic?"

"Course we did but what kind of ritual? Also there were no accompanying magical events that went with them. Once the watch could afford a Sorcerer to come and look at the bodies and when he had finished puking up his breakfast he told us that there was no vestigial magical presence that he could see or recognise. Also the bodies are always dumped elsewhere. In the river or the cess-pits or the pig pens. We never find the place where the death took place and the killers, when we do catch them refuse to admit where they took place. Even under... persuasive methods."

"Interesting," Kerrass mused.

"That's one word for it." Wyber scorned. "Anyway. They are connected but we could never figure it out."

"Why did Lord Coulthard contact you?"

"Buggered if I know, I was hoping that you could tell me." Wyber shifted his weight and scratched himself. "He got in touch with the current commander who put him onto me. I wrote down what I knew and sent it off."

"Is there anything else that you told him that you haven't told us?" Kerrass asked.

Wyber considered for a bit. "No. Just a note that if he does figure it all out that he should let me know. Same goes for you by the way. Let me know yeah?"

We both nodded.

"But," Wyber added. "I'll add this warning. I'm an old street copper, and sometimes you get this feeling you know? Like you should just leave it all alone and let someone else deal with it. Of course that's when men like me dive in with both feet but for you Witcher, or you young sir? Stay out of it. This has got the feeling of a rabbit hole that goes deep and far. I know that sounds cryptic and as though I'm keeping things from you. I'm not, but it's just a feeling. I told him that too."

"When did you send him this information?" Kerrass asked.

"Few months back. Why?"

"Because he only died recently."

A strange look came over Wyber then. A cross between curiosity, hunger and a strange kind of self-loathing.

A friend of mine was a fisstech addict. He eventually managed to get to the medic who gave him some herbs to help wean him off the stuff and after a few months he managed to get himself straight. He came back tot he university to take up where he had left off just before I left to find Kerrass. He was fine, had lost a little weight but was roughly his old self it was just that when we went out he would drink milk or heavily watered wine and every so often he would pale and get a look very similar to the one that Wyber was wearing now before he would insist that we all leave and escort him home. It would always turn out that there was fisstech nearby. How he knew? He didn't know the answer to that and the rest of us never asked.

We thanked Wyber by buying him a bottle of whisky and he left.

We sat in the bright sunshine and watched the throngs of people walk past. Colourful, beautiful and wondrous in their variety.

I felt cold.

"Kerrass, do you know what's happening?"

Kerrass just looked at me.

"You do don't you. You know what happened." I was not asking questions.

Kerrass sighed. "This is why I warned you about my taking the job. I don't _know_. But I'm pretty confident. Details aren't in place yet but I'm pretty sure."

"Tell me,"

"No,"

"Dammit tell me,"

"No," he insisted. "I will tell you the lot when it's done."

"Fuck you Kerrass." But there was no strength behind my anger. I found that I was tired. Locked into the habit of going on.

The Watch came looking for us. We were taken to Edmund''s rooms first and if I had to imagine what Edmund's rooms in Oxenfurt were. If I'd laid out, point by point, what Edmund would have looked for in a set of rooms in a city such as Oxenfurt I would have chosen almost the complete and total opposite of the building that we were taken to.

It was relatively small, out on the outskirts of Oxenfurt, well away from the university and the amenities of the centre of town. There was even an outside toilet for crying out loud meaning that Edmund would have had to get out of his nice warm bed, put some clothes on if it was cold (he insisted on sleeping nude and would entertain himself by "forgetting" to put some clothes on in the morning) and run down through the mud and probable rain if he needed the toilet urgently. Of course there might have been a chamber pot but even so, despite the obvious evidence that there was more to Edmund than I had previously thought possible, I couldn't imagine him living with that stench for more than a minute or two.

It was a small house, that stood out by itself in the end of the island that Oxenfurt stands on. Largely timber construction with the odd bit of stone at the base. There was also no chimney, meaning no fire, meaning that it would be freezing cold at the height of winter. The owner was an oldish fishermans widow whose husband had been lost at sea some years ago. Another shock was that the poor woman had obviously been beaten down by life and as a result she walked with a stoop, had a squint and was less than attractive to a man like Edmund.

By her own admission she made her living by fixing fishing nets, renting her upstairs room to students of the poorer persuasion and off the charity of her husbands former shipmates who still felt a sense of responsibility towards her. She was the kind of a woman who never complained about things, would wear an extra scarf if it was cold rather than burn some more firewood and would rather starve than admit she was hungry. When asked about this she told us that there were plenty worse off than she was and that she had no cause to complain.

She also kept pigs in a small fenced off enclosure near the house.

We spoke to her briefly about her tenant but she told us that he had his own entrance up a set of steps to the side of the house and as a result she had very little idea of what he would get up to or when he would arrive other than the fact that the rent had been paid promptly, without complaint and up front to the tune of six months. She also expressed some surprise that such a fine lord would want to rent such a small room from a woman such as herself. I couldn't agree more but didn't want to say that out loud in front of her.

We climbed the stairs, greeted the young watchman who was stood "on guard" although Kerrass later commented that the poor lad was clearly asleep on his feet and was being hazed by his fellows.

The room itself was just as underwhelming as the rest of the situation. A small bed that wouldn't have looked out of place in a monastery although the sheets and pillows looked a little more expensive. A bedside table with a copy of "The Holy Flame" on it that looked as though it had been well read, over and over again, the pages stained and crinkled. There was also a wash stand with a basin and jug standing on top of it. A chamber pot under the bed that looked as though it had never been used. A wardrobe and chest of drawers.

That was it. If we were hoping for clues this place looked as though it was not going to provide us with what we wanted.

Kerrass walked in and scanned the room.

"Well shit," he said after a while and scratched the back of his head. "I don't suppose you've got any ideas?"

"Not me." I told him. "If this hadn't been the place where we had sent his letters and other things for years then I would assume that he didn't live here. Where are the flowers and things so that he didn't have to smell the stench? Where are the masses of clothes all over the floor? Why would he live here where, with all due respect to the land lady, he might as well be sleeping outdoors?"

Kerrass smiled at my joke.

"Let alone where are all the letters that you kept sending him."

I smiled at that. "You are not wrong."

We stood there for a minute looking at the ceiling, the walls and the floor whilst at the same time trying not to look at each other.

Kerrass spun on the poor unsuspecting watchman who had brought us here.

"And there's been nothing removed?"

"No sir,"

"Nothing added?" Kerrass asked hopefully,

"No sir," The watchman seemed a little smug. Enough so that I wanted to punch him.

"Were there any personal effects?"

"No sir,"

"What about the rent?"

"Paid for for the next two months sir."

Kerrass nodded and then sighed.

"Ah well. I suppose we'd better do this properly."

We set about the place.

Kerrass got propped his sword up in the corned, pulled his medallion out and held it by the chain as he examined the ceiling, walls and floor minutely. In the meantime I had the dubious pleasure of examining the things that were still here. The chamber pot (sorry to go on about it but it does kind of stick in the memory) was clean and made out of a relatively cheap tin. The bed itself was a sturdy wooden frame with some planks across it making up the bed itself. What passed for a mattress was filled with straw and it had been wrapped, presumably by Edmund, by several large and fluffy sheep skins in an effort to make it more comfortable. I could find nothing of interest or particularly lumpy in the mattress.

The blankets were rich and thick and they were the one thing in the room that was wealthy in appearance. They were well made, sturdy and although not particularly decorative were certainly warm. Again, I could find nothing that wouldn't normally be found in a blanket.

We moved the bed aside so that Kerrass could examine that patch of floor.

The wash stand was next, four legs and a top. Basin and jug were made out of the same cheap metal that the chamber pot had been made of. I suspected that if I tried to I would be able to bend it or damage it with my fingers.

The bedside table was similar to the wash stand in that it was simple to look at.

I had a look through the book of scriptures. They were the kind that you could find in any small book shop or that get handed out by missionaries in the optimistic hope that people will read them rather than use them for toilet paper. I guessed that it had probably been left there by some previous tenant and Edmund had never bothered to get rid of it. Having said that I did check the spine for hidden papers, read a few bits that were known to me to make sure that it really was a book of scripture and flicked through the pages to make sure that there wasn't anything hidden between pages.

The chest of drawers then got moved before it's contents, including the drawers were emptied onto the bed.

Spare socks, underwear and shirts greeted my efforts. The drawers themselves failed to have anything stuck to the back or the bottom and the main body of the thing was just a shell and annoyingly free of secrets for me to find.

The wardrobe contained two cloaks and a pair of trousers. They were well made enough to have probably have belonged to Edmund. There was also a pair of old boots in the bottom of the wardrobe that were caked in dirt. Another thing that chimed with what I knew of Edmund. He would rather go out and buy new boots rather than clean an existing pair of boots. That's if they were even his. They looked rather cheap for a pair old Edmund's boots.

I laid them out for Kerrass' inspection when he was done.

He looked at it all thoughtfully from a distance before diving into it all with his medallion in hand. I watched feeling my own frustration mount.

"Is there anything in all of this that stands out to you?" He asked.

"Plenty. None of this feels right."

Kerrass grunted.

"This isn't a room where someone lives. This is a room where someone comes to stay occasionally. Does that fit with your brother?"

"It might, but no not really. He might depend on finding someone good natured enough to keep him in hearth and home for a certain amount of time but for extended periods? There's just none of the normal...detritus that comes with Edmund's long term residence."

Kerrass grunted again.

"Kerrass?"

"Mmm?"

"You've read the will. Did father disown Edmund, or was he going to?"

Kerrass put down one of the cloaks that he was examining minutely and stared into the middle distance.

"I did think of that. You're thinking that your father disowned your brother or put him on some kind of notice and as a result your brother was active in your fathers death?"

"That's what I'm dreading."

Kerrass nodded. "Look, I can't say that you're right or wrong. But I can discount that motive. There are provisions in the will for him predeceasing Edmund and all kinds of conditions and sub-clauses to keep everything safe. Barnaby is going to have to spend some time putting together a draft to declare who gets what and under what circumstances because as far as we know Edmund didn't leave a will or an heir."

I felt relieved.

"Did Edmund kill Father?"

Kerrass looked at me for a long time. "I don't want to answer that."

"Please Kerrass... I,"

Kerrass held up his hand to stop me.

"I know Freddie. It's eating you up worrying that your brother killed your Father. I've been here before with other people who long to find that some monster was responsible for someone's death and not their nearest and dearest."

He blew out a breath, as he picked up one of the boots. "You've even been with me on some of these things and so you know that it doesn't work like that. I think that your brother was involved in some way. That is almost certain but we don't know to what extent, on which side or why. He could have been trying to save your father, he could have been trying to protect something or Edmund could have found out something about those murders and was working with your father to sort them out."

"That sounds a little far fetched to me if I'm honest."

Kerrass looked at me with some sympathy.

"To me as well, I'll be honest. But what little I know of your brother from what you've told me and what I've gathered from other sources is that your brother was not capable of coming up with the plan that killed your father by himself. He was too impatient, too headstrong and...too lazy. He would want a simpler, easier, more certain method rather than the chain of events that led to your fathers death. There is someone or something else involved here but..."

He threw the boot at the wall with a sudden snarl.

"Damned if I can think of..."

He stopped, mid sentence.

"Kerrass?"

"Shh," he took a deep sniff, shut his eyes and sniffed again. "Do you smell that?"

"Smell what?"

Kerrass got up and walked over to the boot that he had thrown against the wall. Some of the mud that had been caked onto the side had flaked off, the dust from it floated through the air. Carefully Kerrass picked up some of the dirt, crumbled between his fingers and sniffed it. Before picking up the boot and the area where the mud had broken away. He turned back towards me, eyes blazing and holding the boot like it was the holy flame itself.

"Pig shit," he said.


	30. Chapter 30

"What?" I blinked a couple of times to see if the picture of a Witcher holding a mud and shit encrusted boot towards me as though it was a holy record was some kind of hallucination that I could wake up from.

"Pig shit," Kerrass' eyes were blazing fiercely.

"Sorry Kerrass I don't..."

"Pig shit. There's a pig pen outside where the land lady keeps pigs."

I blinked again a couple of times.

I am still a student. I have sat many exams and there comes a point in any exam, especially if you are sitting an exam in amongst a stream of other exams as for whatever sadistic reason the exam co-ordinators put all of _your_ exams on the same few days when they had an entire couple of months when they could have set the papers, there comes a time where you are staring at the paper and at a particular question. You look at it and for whatever reason the question won't focus, you can't think of an answer and you reach through a fog of fatigue to get any kind of inspiration as to how you can answer this STUPID DAMNED QUESTION and then you can feel that part of your brain is saying "We know this. We know the answer to this," and you reach for it, blindly and hopefully and then, like lightening from a clear sky, it happens. The dawn breaks and it's as though the holy flame itself reaches down and points to you and says. "Don't worry my lost pilgrim. I will show you the way," and the answer crystallises in front of your eyes before a burst of energy (often with a split quill) means that you get the answer out and onto the paper.

I stared at the boot.

Slowly I raised my eyes to Kerrass.

We both moved at the same time, barging past the bemused watchmen and all but jumping down the stairs in our haste to get to the pig pen. Where we stood looking down at the piles of muck, dirt and crap and no amount of gold, jewels or art had ever looked so beautiful.

"He put the boots on to come out here whenever he had to bury something or get at something." I said through gasps of breath."

Kerrass nodded. "We're going to need some shovels."

After shouting our excitement at the increasingly amused, Landlady we managed to gather that there was a shovel inside the outhouse.

Then there was an entertainingly frustrating few minutes where we tried to herd the pigs out of the pen. A chore for which a Witcher and a nobleman's youngest son are manifestly unsuited and we only got anywhere when one of the watchmen (the younger one on guard, not our escort. The lad had worked on a farm before running away to the city to find his fortune) and our fine lady host lent a hand and managed to get the pigs tied up well away from the pen.

Heedless of the dirt, stench and general filth, Kerrass fell to his knees with his medallion in hand and hunted over the floor of the pen until even I saw that the medallion jumped.

I needed no further encouragement and attacked the spot with my shovel. I was soon joined by Kerrass as we frantically and furiously started digging. I was giddy with excitement and I worked far too hard and far too fast quickly discovering that there is a firm difference between being in fit condition for extended horse-riding as well as fighting but it requires a different kind of fitness to shovel dirt. I also learned that there is a technique to it which I was lacking as I tried to lift too much and threw out a muscle.

Laughing at my discomfort the young watchman took the shovel away from me and got in the hole himself, our escort having gone off to send for more watchmen to help keep back the increasing number of locals who had come to watch the crazy Witcher and nobleman digging a hole in a pig sty.

In the end what we were looking for was surprisingly far down given Edmund's inherent laziness but the three of us took it in turns with our two shovels. A couple of other Watchmen had joined the group by then and were keeping people back as the growing pile of dirt started to get higher and higher. I began to suspect that there was nothing there but Kerrass insisted that his medallion was still twitching.

It was Kerrass that found the box. Hard thrusts of his shovel into the ground were eventually met with a solid thunk. The ground was hard now and it took us a while to pull the box away from ground. The earth around it wasn't hard packed as it had obviously been dug and re-dug so we didn't really struggle all that much. But as we held the box aloft and moved it out onto the ground there was a general cheer from the people watching.

If there had been wine we would have toasted each other. Even the other watchmen were grinning at our find and I will admit that I was giddy with the joy of it. Finally a lead, something that I could use, to go further forward. But I hesitated at the same time. Did I _want_ to open it? What if all it contained was another disappointment. I stared at it for a long time wondering what to do.

Kerrass crouched next to the box, with his medallion out and was examining the lock in great detail. All three of us, the Witcher, the young watchman and I were dripping in muck and the crowd was getting bored when, evidence that no cliché exists without some kind of burden of actually happening sometimes, a high, shrill voice was shouting.

"Stand aside, stand aside," and Sir Rickard the under-sheriff forced his way through the crowd to stand over us all with a look of glee. "Well Witcher, here it is then. Evidence of you and your young, noble patron interfering in my investigation."

The crowd started to drift away a little faster. No-one wants to have been seen watching and enjoying something that might have been against the law and Sir Robart had brought several armed Watchmen with him.

"Sergeant?" Sir Robart called with relish.

"Sir?" A man stood forward. He was tall, missing an eye which he covered with a black patch and his armour looked rather battered. He looked...bored I thought, almost resigned.

"You will take the Witcher and the young gentleman into custody,"

"Sir?" Military men have changed the word "sir" into an entire language of it's own. I have heard it used to mean many and varied wonderful things. This particular time the Sergeant meant to say, "What?" as well as "seriously?"

"Arrest these men Sergeant."

The Sergeant nodded and gestured. Two guards walked towards me. I looked at Kerrass and he shrugged. His sword and my spear were propped up in their scabbards against the outhouse wall and even if we fought there was still a cool dozen men, not including the filth encrusted boy who was watching with dawning horror.

"Charge sir?"

"Murder, interfering with an investigation, consorting with magic users and treason. That will do for now."

I laughed as I held my hands out to the Watchmen who took hold of my arms to restrain me. They looked a little concerned and apologetic. I grinned at them to let them know I didn't hold it against them. "Treason. That's a bit of a stretch don't you think?"

Sir Robart started to walk towards me.

"You can get your barbs in now, murderer. You found this evidence, why didn't you come to the watch with it?"

I stared at him unbelievingly. "Well you're just too stupid to live. Did your mother drop you on your head when you were a baby? We'd only just found the damn thing and..."

Anger blazed in his eyes and he stepped into me and slapped me across the face. I've got better at taking a beating since I first met Kerrass. You roll with the punches to lessen the impact but here I was restrained.

"Sorry," I said to him, "Sorry. With you it would have had to be your wet-nurse wouldn't it."

He hit me again.

"Ridicule me will you?" he whispered to me quietly. "Threaten me will you?"

"The watch was standing right next to us as we were finding the evidence that you had missed due to your ridiculous levels of incompetence you..."

He hit me again.

It's an odd sensation to hate someone. To really hate them and want them dead. I flatter myself that I'm a fairly good person and as such I try not to hate people but this man?

"Tell you what," I said quietly before I spat blood out of my mouth from where his blows had caused me to bite my own lip. "Why don't you and me just go off somewhere, real quiet like eh? Me and my spear against you and your sword and shield."

"Why would I do that?"

"Because otherwise I'm going to scream about your cowardice to anyone and everyone whether they will listen to me or not."

"You are assuming you will get a chance,"

"You going to murder me on the way to the prison?"

"If you try and escape then it won't be murder. Jumped up little sod like you from your stupid family who think they're better than everyone else."

I laughed at him again. "So that's it. Father wouldn't lend you money."

"Your jumped up little bastard of a father can rot in the paupers grave that..."

I surged upright and head-butted him under the chin. It was the oldest fighting trick that I had but it was still the best. I only just got him by the chin though.

He laughed at my gesture.

"I'm going to kill you Robart." I hissed, straining at the men who held my arms. "I'm going to call you out and fillet you like the cowardly little fish that you are."

"You will be dead long before that happens. In the meantime, lets see what you've been trying to hide from us shall we?" His grin of triumph was sickening as I was dragged over to the box,

"You, the disgrace in uniform." Robart gestured at the young Watchman who had been helping us. "Open the box."

"Don't do it," Kerrass was standing upright and spoke calmly, clearly and so that his voice could be heard by everyone watching. "The lock is cursed and I have yet to figure out how to..."

"Cursed is it?" Robart was too far gone now. "How do you know this?"

"Really?" I bellowed. "He's a Witcher, it's his job to know this."

"More likely that he cast the curse." Robart shouted back. I gave up and decided that the man was mad. One too many insults, real and perceived had got to him.

"Open it," Robart demanded of the young watchman again.

"Opening that chest without proper precautions will result in, at best, death." Kerrass went on calmly.

"Open it," Robart yelled.

"Don't do it," The Witcher said again louder this time. "This is a warning, take it how you will but I am trying to save that Watchman's life. I will not be held responsible for..."

"BE SILENT," Robart screamed. "You have no further place here Witcher unless it is on the scaffold or the pyre and as for you," he turned on the hapless young Watchman. "I am already inclined to have you flogged for the disgraceful state of your uniform. Do you dare disobey a direct order from a superior officer at that. Not to mention a nobleman of long and proud lineage, unlike some I could mention."

That poor young man. Poor man. He looked from Kerrass to Sir Robart.

Kerrass was shaking his head.

Sir Robart was practically vibrating with incandescent rage.

The boy looked at the Sergeant whose face was ashen.

"OPEN IT."

The boy jumped at the outburst and quickly bent to the lock.

"Don't...called Kerrass who was suddenly struggling against the men holding him.

The boy reached out to the lock and touched it.

The flash was purple.

The boy's mouth opened in a silent scream as his entire body went rigid. His hand didn't move from the lock.

Then he started to shake, not in the natural pattern of someone shuddering or shivering but more of someone who's muscles were acting involuntarily but his hand never left it's contact with the box.

The guards next holding me froze. Kerrass was struggling with his guards.

"Pull him away," Kerrass shouted, desperately trying to get his hands free to cast one of his signs to knock the poor young Watchmen aside. "Pull him away or..." He slumped as someone hit him in the temple.

I wrenched an arm free as my two men were still frozen in shock, punched the other and dove at the young Watchman whose name I still didn't know and managed to make contact.

The pain was indescribable.

It felt as though I had been been dipped in liquid fire while all my bones had turned to brittle ice.

I blacked out.

There were dreams that went with the pain. Horrible dreams that threatened to suck me down paths of madness and fear. I have no words to describe them but as I sit here in the safe and warm, I shiver as I try to describe them.

I was a fly, mummified on a web waiting for the spider to come and eat me.

I was prey being carried through the sky in the talons of some enormous bird of prey.

I was being eaten by a horrific monster it's fangs tearing at my flesh.

For a moment I did not believe it when I woke up. My limbs were shaking uncontrollably and when I finally managed to open my eyes. I was strapped down on a bed.

My brothers bed in the room that he had rented.

I could hear people yelling along with a kind of general thrumming that set my teeth on edge.

I had also been gagged.

Odd that that last one would be the thing that I realised last.

But it wasn't the last thing, as I turned my head and spat out the piece of wood that had been wrapped in leather thonging a huge shudder racked my body.

"So," said a woman's voice. "It's been a long time since I've had to sit next to your sick bed."

"Emma?"

"Yep. Sure enough I leave you alone for what? A day? And you're already putting your life in danger to save someone else." she was mocking me but there was just an edge to the voice.

"To be fair, last time I left it was some months after seeing you before I put myself in danger."

"True, but this time I get to slap the shit out of you for it."

"Are you going to warn me in advance or..."

"No no, I already hit your head on the side of the door when we got you in the room so my vengeance is already sated."

My head was a bit sore but separating this pain from all the other little pits of pain was something of, well, a headache.

"Are you going to let me up?"

"Not yet, I've been told that you have to stay there until the tremors stop."

Just as she spoke another one of those massive shudders worked it's way from my head to my toes.

"Like that one," Emma said helpfully.

"I had gathered. Can you tell me what's going on?"

"Only roughly. I should mention that there is another guard in the room by the way as technically you are still under arrest."

"Prophets preserve us,"

"I thought the same as it happens. But anyway, when you tackled that poor young lad you both fell away and the curse hit the young man in full force. I'm sorry Freddie."

"He died?"

I heard her dress rustle, "Sorry, I just nodded before realising that you couldn't see that."

I stared at the ceiling.

"In the end it was Kerrass that put the poor boy out of his misery. All of his muscles were experiencing extreme spasms to the point where his limbs were breaking multiple times and in multiple ways. I'm told he was screaming... Horribly as well before Kerrass managed to reach his sword and well... You know the rest. He couldn't have survived. I was unlucky enough to see the corpse. It looked like one of those jelly-fish that sometimes wash up on the coast."

She audibly shuddered.

"The working theory is that you got the back lash of the curse but they managed to get the curse undone before it killed you."

I hadn't heard her properly. There was a buzzing in my ears.

"I'm going to kill him Emm. I'm going to take my spear and I'm going to kill that Robart fuck."

"Watchman present..."

The man helpfully cleared his throat.

"I don't care," I said. "Robart practically killed another Watchman by ordering him to his death without need. I doubt that the Watch will stop me. I'll find a second and get it organised properly anyway and that way I'll be able to skewer him properly."

Emma was quiet for a moment.

"Yes, well. I think you may have to get in line."

"I would stake my claim ahead of others."

Emma was quiet.

"You done?" she said quietly. "Macho posturing is pointless. Anger I can understand. Let it cool and then make your choice."

She wasn't wrong so I did my best to try and remember how to breathe. Another shudder.

"How long is this going to take?"

"Not long I'm told, half an hour?"

I nodded.

"So what happened?"

Emma took another breath.

"You got the lad clear which stopped the curse from spreading from him and into other people. Kerrass was yelling, Robart was demanding that they find a rope to hang the two of you from the nearest tree, villagers were screaming and apparently it was all going to get a bit messy. Fortunately for everyone, as well as summoning Sir Robart to the scene, the Watch had ALSO summoned The Watch Captain who arrived with a whole bunch more Watchmen."

I sighed in relief. The Captain of Oxenfurt city watch is a steadfastly unimaginative man and managed to hold order throughout the most recent war. He was crippled in the second war in that he lost his left hand when his shield shattered, mangling it to the point where it needed amputating. The army people told him that he wouldn't be allowed to serve in the army any more so he went back to Oxenfurt and signed up in the watch pointing out that he could still fight with a sword and that all they had to do was to strap a shield to his left arm and leave him to it.

He rose through the ranks over the course of the next war until he was given the position of Captain because there was no one left who had the noble rank to hold the job. Much to everyone's surprise it turned out that he was born to the role. He married an academic and settled in although rumour has it that he enjoys messing up the society dinners that he gets invited to and is a little too fond of just bludgeoning everyone into unconscious and then sorting everything out afterwards for my taste. But he appoints people to ranks based on talent and skill rather than noble bloodline, is a gifted administrator and has that gift of those people who aren't gifted with an education at a young age to see through the bullshit to the heart of the problem.

Unfortunately he still had to deal with the subordinates of the High Sheriff of Redania however.

"The Captain turned up and demanded to know what was going on," Emma continued. "Sir Robart told his side of the story and demanded that you and the Witcher be hung for using Witchcraft on the Watch."

I groaned.

"The Captain listened gravely and then said, if I'm quoting him right, "That's lovely and everything but what actually happened?" When it became clear that the Captain wasn't going to get anything out of Sir Robart he asked Kerrass what had happened. Kerrass laid out the events. All the while, you and the young Watchman were screaming and moaning in agony. Then the Captain asked the Watchman that had escorted the pair of you to the scene what had happened. The Watchman told his captain the sequence of events. The Captain nodded, placed Sir Robart under arrest and had him removed. He conferred with the Witcher for a while and let him get at his sword despite still being under arrest as well and it was decided that the curse was still active and that they needed to send for a proper Magic User.

"The Captain wondered why Kerrass couldn't serve in that capacity, Kerrass spoke about specific knowledge of a Witcher but said that he could lay his hands on a Sorceress providing that she be given amnesty.

"The Captain mused for a while, during which you and the young lad were still screaming, and agreed. Kerrass sent off a message and I was brought here."

"Wait a second, what?"

Emma wouldn't meet my eyes.

"Ummm,"

"Emma is there something you want to tell me?"

Emma looked at the ceiling and burst into tears.

"Dammit," I swore, "Watchman, could you untie me please?"

"I..."

"I will deal with the consequences, just untie me."

Emma had curled herself up into a little ball, her hands scrunched into fists and pressed against her eyes.

The Watchman beat a hasty retreat.

"Emma," As gently as I could I pried Emma's hands away from her eyes which were swollen and red with tears.

"Emma you don't need to protect yourself from me,"

"I know I know it's just," She looked at me, "I don't want you to hate me,"

"Why would I hate you? You're my sister."

"I know but you were almost as religious as Mark at one time and the church has certain views on things that..."

I took hold of her arms again.

"Emma look at me," She did although it took a bit of time.

"That was a long time ago. I am religious but in the last eighteen months I have seen more good from people that the church says are evil and more evil from those that the church says are good. You're my sister and I love you even though it might take me a little while to get used to the idea of you being a Sorceress."

"What?" she looked shocked.

"What do you mean what? They sent for a Sorceress and you came,"

Emma's eyes widened. Then she laughed. "No, Oh flame no, I'm not the Sorceress. I've got all the magical talent of a plank. No, it's my maid."

"Your maid?" My brain was too busy realising that it was bulling off in the wrong direction and desperately trying to turn itself around.

"Yes my maid." She laughed at what must have been the most stupid expression that I can wear multiplied by several thousand. "You don't think that someone who looks like _that_ would be working as a maid for someone do you? Even if her family wasn't noble then she still would have attracted some important persons eye and been whisked off by now."

I stared at the ceiling for a long time as my brain worked away quietly. "She certainly caught Sam's eye." I heard myself comment.

Emma giggled. "Yes, she told me about that."

"So your maid's a Sorceress."

"Yes, her real name is Laurelen de Bismoor."

"I've not heard of her."

"You wouldn't. She would say that to be noticed as a Sorceress you need to be involved in politics and as she could care less about politics, no-one knew who she was. She was part of the community that grew up in Novigrad where magic users worked together to get themselves out of the city."

"I'd heard they were all led north to Kovir and Poviss."

"They were. Laurelen decided not to go."

"Why? It would have been safer, there are still plenty of people that would cheerfully burn her as a magic user."

Emma looked scared again.

"She didn't want to go. There were several reasons. I gather there was something of a rivalry with someone in the rest of the group and..." Emma turned away. "She didn't want to leave,"

"Why? Research in the area? What for?"

My sister just looked at me.

I could feel my brain jumping up and down trying to tell me something.

"For me." She said simply.

"Oh," I said stupidly. "Ooohhh,"

A shudder struck me then and I held onto the bed for dear life.

"So you and she are...?" I waved my hands suggestively.

"Yes,"

"With everything that implies?"

"Yes."

"You're...Lovers?"

She laughed aloud suddenly. "I've never heard it said like that. Certainly we haven't said it like that. I like that. Yes, she and I are lovers."

"Ohhhh." Another long pause as I took a long time to add two things together and re-evaluate my life. "Damn but do I feel stupid."

I sat back and rested my head against the wall.

"That makes so much sense." I looked at her. "That's why you never married."

"Yes, men don't interest me." She reminded me of a cat where you've accidentally stood on it's tail. It's screamed and run off so you find it later with some treats so it slowly and furtively comes out to take the food from your hand. "They never have."

"How long have you known?"

"Known what?"

"That you prefer women?"

"I was twelve. There was a serving woman who drew water from the well, it was a hot day and she had pulled the water up and then she stretched her arms up and stood on tip toes as she arched her self backwards yawning. I could never remember seeing anything more beautiful. Of course I couldn't have put it into words then."

"Heh, Flame I never would have guessed."

"So you're not angry? I thought you would be angry."

"Nah. You're my sister." For me it felt as though that was the only thing that needed to be said. Emma is my sister and if you don't like the way she chooses to live her life then I'll fight you.

Emma seemed to want more than that though.

"Look," I began. "I won't deny that this is going to take some getting used to. I also won't deny that if I had found out about it a couple of years ago, or even eighteen months ago then I might have reacted differently, but... of course I'm not angry. You're my sister and if you love her then I love her."

"Thank you." She said formally before hugging me fiercely. "Oh thank you I have so dreaded this

conversation."

I hugged her back. "Remember that I'm the guy that might be marrying a vampire."

"That's true isn't it." Some of her old humour seemed to come back.

She pulled back and wiped her eyes before blowing her nose.

"I do have some practical questions though," I said.

Emma nodded.

"Did father know?"

Emma nodded. "He figured it out fairly quickly actually. I think he might have been annoyed at first but then it seemed that he largely just forgot about it. He would keep throwing suitors at me in an effort to marry me off or in some kind of vague hope that I might have changed my mind or that I might tolerate them enough to marry them and take a lover of some kind. The thought did cross my mind more than once for the politics of the thing but although I've met many women I find attractive I have yet to see a man who I think is attractive in more than an aesthetic level. Your Witcher is good looking but I don't find him attractive. _You_ have grown into your looks and are no longer _bad_ looking."

"Eewww." I said.

"Precisely."

"Does mother know?"

"I think so, we've never talked about it though she has just left me to it. I find it hard to believe that she didn't know. Laurelen and I have shared a bedroom for the last year easily."

"So that night I came to see you, was she under the bed? In the wardrobe maybe?"

Emma shook her head. "She uses a spare room when family come to stay. Guests use a separate wing so that the...we don't bother them,"

"So what doesn't bother them?" I prompted.

Emma reddened. "Turns out I can be quite...vocal."

I laughed at her.

"Stop it," she snapped.

"Oh come on," I cried. "you can't expect me not to have a little fun at this?"

She glared at me.

"Does anyone else know?" I asked.

"The rest of the staff have made it clear that they know, castle gossip being what it is but have also left us several signs that they all approve. Then there's Kerrass who tells me that he smelt her on me and knew that she was magical when they saw each other.

"Then there's you."

I nodded as another spasm hit me.

"That number has gone up today."

"It certainly looks like it." She nodded regretfully. "I suspect that I will be moving on soon as Mark won't want to have me in the castle. Godless lesbian that I am. "Woman shall not lie with woman," he will say waving his fist in the air," Emma could mime and imitate Mark perfectly when she put her mind to it.

I laughed again.

"Maybe but I actually have an argument against that nowadays."

"Really?"

I winced as another shudder seemed to shake my very bones.

"Yeah. Friend of mine debates doctrine for a living. He came up with a theory that that whole rule is a man made thing entirely. He points out that when compared to other religions, Melitele, druidism, Veyopatis, ancestor worship, the prophets and so on... The holy flame is relatively new and has only started spreading about more recently. For a religion to grow it needs followers. One of the best ways to do that is to have people _born_ into the religion. Therefore you need children born and raised in the faith for that same religion to spread. Therefore you can't have women going around loving each other as then they won't have children. They need to be at home, making babies."

Emma's smile was crooked. "Laurelen has some ideas about that. She thinks there may be a way for her to make me pregnant."

I laughed. "One way or another, I want to be there when you tell Mark _that,_ "

She giggled.

"Look," I said. "yes I am more religious than I let on or like to publicize. Yes I pray every day and make offerings at shrines whenever I can. But for me the Holy Flame is different from the church. To me the Holy flame represents hope. It represents warmth, comfort and welcoming. It is the fire of the hearth when you get home after a long day. It is also the light of guidance.

"To me it is not the burning of pain or punishment but the warmth of a blanket or a hot bath to wash away the grime of every day life.

"If that is true? and a lot of the original scriptures would tend to agree rather than the more modern dogmatic interpretations, then why is that not the warmth of love. The flame would welcome your love and I cannot bring myself to believe that love is wrong. No matter what form it takes. Even if that form is not one that I can understand or necessarily agree with. Who am I to judge? If you're happy then I am happy. If you love her then I will love her,"

"Thank you Freddy."

We hugged again.

"Huh," I said as a thought crossed my mind.

"What's that?"

"I hadn't thought of it like that."

"Thought of what?"

"The vampire and I. What's true for you should also be true for her and for me. I must think about that."

"Do you love her?"

"She terrifies me Emm. She's gorgeous and beautiful. She's intelligent, charming and funny as well when she puts her mind to it but she terrifies me. She promises she would never hurt me but that terror would only go away with time as I would have to learn to trust her and I'm not sure I want to give that time. But one of the things that was giving me pause was the religious aspect. If the holy flame would accept your love as I've just argued, why not ours? Moment of self-realisation is all."

"Indeed," She was grinning at me.

"Are you mocking me?"

"A little,"

"Alright then. As for brother's Mark and Sam? We'll deal with them when we get to it."

"Will you help me with that?"

"Absolutely. But can I get out of bed now? I've got things to do."

Emma nodded. "I'm going to wait here."

Slowly and cautiously I made my way down the steps on the outside of the house. I felt stiff, the same way you do after a long ride or after a brisk training session when you have let your conditioning go for a while. That wasn't the worry though. Every so often my muscles would start jumping and twitching in unusual ways. I was escorted down the steps by the Watchman that I assumed was my permanent shadow while I was under arrest. It didn't seem to be a particularly strict form of arrest though as I was clearly allowed to wander around. A mad impulse struck me to just walk off in a random direction and see how far it would be before I was either caught or gently but firmly told that I shouldn't go any further. The landscape hadn't changed much while I had been unconscious but the number of people that were around had been vastly reduced and what remained had seemingly decided to put Watch uniforms on.

I decided not to comment.

In the downstairs part of the house I found Kerrass, the Watch Captain, several other Watchmen and my sisters maid. I was still unable to think of her as my sisters lover, partner or whatever she was but having seen her for the first time properly I wondered how I could ever have mistaken her for someone who was "in service". Another sign of my noble privilege I supposed.

She wasn't tall but she dominated the room. It was more than her physical beauty which was considerable but it was as though the rest of the people that were there just kind of faded into the background to be replaced by her towering presence. The curious thing was that she hadn't changed her clothes or her appearance either. She still wore her hair just long enough to be pulled back into a pony tail, the make-up that I could see was subdued and I thought that I could only see it because I was actively trying to look for it and her clothing was still the drab colours and cuts of a maid's outfit. Now that I looked a bit closer I could see that the fabric was considerably better than I had previously supposed but it wasn't the dress of a noble lady let alone a Sorceress. Other than that she was lacking in the jewellery and other ornaments that I would normally associate with the more stereotypical image of a Sorceress and taken objectively she looked like a normal beautiful woman. Never the less though it was clear who she was and it astonished me again that I hadn't seen it.

People looked up as I entered and at first I stood there not really knowing what to do.

"Good," the Captain of the Watch said, "perhaps now we can finally get to the bottom of this entire business," he sounded bored and fed up as though what he really wanted to do was to get back to whatever business had previously been occupying his mind.

"Sorry what?" I said helpfully as I walked into the room. "You'll have to help me out here as I've been, you know, unconscious for a bit. What's happening?"

I was at least rewarded with seeing that Kerrass smiled.

The Captain bristled. "Box needs opening, _apparently_ you are the only one nearby that can open it." the man sniffed as though he was still not convinced as to the efficacy of this plan.

"Ok, can we take it back a bit..." I turned and addressed Kerrass. "What's happening?"

Kerrass opened his mouth to speak but the Captain had other ideas.

"Look, whatever your name is, I don't care if you're noble or whether your mother shat you out this morning. I'm tired, I'm cranky, I lost a watchman today and I want to get to the bottom of this."

I took a deep breath in a hopeful effort to try and calm myself down.

"Captain. I understand your frustration. I really do." I was really trying for calm reasonable voice but somewhere it got away from me a little bit. "But please understand me when I say that I could give a crap about how cranky you are."

"Now look here,"

"No, you look here." Somewhere in the back of my mind a small part of my brain registered Kerrass shaking his head in exasperation. "Kerrass and I found this, despite your investigators already having been over the place in an effort to find things out. Furthermore we were delayed in getting to the scene. Then when we found the box it was one of _your_ investigators who _ordered_ the watchman to open said box, despite the warnings of the qualified individuals on the scene and without proper precautions. Therefore it was _your_ officers fault that that young man died."

"I..."

"Kerrass has found more since he started your investigation than your investigator has. Your investigator has since fixated upon me as the culprit despite the fact that I am proven to have been elsewhere at the time of both my fathers death and my brothers death and was _actually in the presence of your watchmen_ when we unearthed the box. Nevertheless I have been threatened with execution and the prospect of being killed while _trying_ to escape on the way to _your_ cells."

That same part of my brain that noticed Kerrass' reaction also noticed that a couple of the attending Watchmen shuffling their feet a bit uncomfortably.

"I acted in the hope of preventing further magical... _incident_ and under the advice of my resident expert in an effort to save further lives but when I wake up I find that I am _still_ under arrest. So you will understand, Captain, my anger, frustration and outrage when I am ordered to do _anything._ So I ask again. What. Is. Happening?"

In my defence I was tired, angry, in pain and still suffering from shock.

The captain nodded met my eyes. "I understand and acknowledge all of your points. However I will point out that Firstly Sir Robart is not _my_ investigator but rather the Sheriff's investigator. He and I have already had words on his handling of the case but as he is not an investigator of mine he is allowed to do what he likes. Secondly, your state of arrest in my custody is all that is keeping you from carting you off under his authority so I am in fact saving your life. Thirdly..."

He trailed off and his eyes unfocused a little. "I swear I had a third thing but I forget. In short, mind your damned tone. What you have done is make a simple little mystery become more complicated. I understand that is not your fault because I'm not a complete moron, but I want it cleared up and off my desk as soon as possible. That means that I need to know what's in the box. Your self same experts claim that only you can open the box, we were just waiting for you to wake up. So open the damned box."

I thought about this and considered my next words carefully. After all, he did have a point.

"No," I said,

"What?"

"No, No I'm not just going to open a box randomly to see what's inside on your say so. As I recall, the last person that did that at someone else's order died. Horribly."

A sense of movement in the corner of my eye suggested that Kerrass was shaking his head sadly.

The Watch Captain stared at me before a sly smile crept across his face.

"Would you _please_ open the box so that we can clear all this up and go home?"

"I'll think about it. But I need some assurances..."

"You are only under arrest because it's easier to explain than why you might need protecting."

"Ok, fair enough but I need the full process of "why me" explaining to me first. That point is not negotiable."

The Captain nodded.

"Second, Not myself, Kerrass the Witcher or the Lady Laurelen will be prosecuted for taking part in this or any venture that involves this action."

"I have already agreed to that."

"Good. I also want assurances that no-one who knew about the Lady Laurelen's true identity are free from any and all prosecution. I don't want a team of watchmen descending upon my fathers estate and starting a witch-hunt after she has aided in dealing with this problem."

"Done, although I can only speak for my men but I will say that as far as I'm concerned, any attack upon the lady is an actual attack and she, or others may defend herself accordingly. Other than that the law would fall into the feudal hands of the estate, whomever that may be. Anything else?"

I considered.

"I would like a private word with the lady without witnesses on a separate matter before anything else happens."

The Captain nodded, "Although that would be between you and the lady so I am unsure as to why you are

asking me.

"There are an awful lot of Watchmen about Captain."

He nodded.

"Everyone clear out." then back to me, "Ten minutes milord."

They all filed out including Kerrass who gave me a warning look.

It took some doing but I managed to turn around and actually look at the woman that my sister had fallen in love with.

My first observation upon seeing her was that she was indeed, intimidatingly beautiful, almost frighteningly so. This was above and beyond what I had seen before from anyone now that I was alone in the room with her.

Ariadne in her human form is certainly beautiful but she takes a certain delight in appearing like a normal human being and as such, although she could probably adjust her appearance accordingly she chose not too for her own reasons. I suspect that part of this is so that she doesn't cause even more fear among the rest of us and cause us to think things like "dark vampire magics".

This woman had no such constraints. He blonde hair had been cut fairly short to go with her appearance of being a servant but the rest of her appearance was...startling. It was like a physical slap, or a hammer blow. But at the same time I found that I wasn't particularly attracted to her. It was more as though I was observing her beauty from a distance in the same way that I would look at a painting or a statue.

She was looking defiant as well, chin jutting out as well as up, face set and she had made a visible effort not to fold her arms.

"So," she said after some time had gone. "You've only got ten minutes. What do you want to talk about?"

"Everything." I said, I was looking around for something to drink. "Nothing." There it was, a large jug in the corner and I strode towards it. "Everything in between." I poured myself a goblet and offered her one which she declined.

I sat down.

One of my many university friends, and by friends I mean people that I know and would not object to buying a drink when they've hit on hard times, is the son of a diplomat for hire. The man's job is to bring two parties together who might generally be angry at each other and to get them talking and making inroads towards friendship. Apparently one of the best pieces of advice that has ever been passed down from father to son is that if you ever find yourself in a tense situation with someone else... first of all sit down. It takes a cold man to kill someone who's sitting down and if they're that bad then you've got a bigger problem to begin with. It's also a lot harder to get angry when you _are_ sitting down. Secondly, get food involved. Not alcohol but food and some other kind of drink.

Milk is good for that.

I had watered wine to work with but I did my best.

"So you and my sister," I said after staring at her for what was probably too long to be strictly ok.

"Yes,"

"You're lovers." I was not asking questions.

"Yes."

I nodded and stared into my cup.

"Do you love her?" I asked. I had no idea where the question came from.

Then she proved that, underneath the unearthly power and startling beauty, she was human after all.

"What kind of question is that?" she demanded. "Would you demand that same question of any woman who started a romantic thing with any of your brothers or do you feel you need to protect your sister because she's a woman? Is this where you warn me off? Is this where you say words to the effect of "You'd better not hurt her because otherwise you've got me to deal with," How dare you interfere in my business, I don't have to answer to you and if you're going to try and threaten me then I have to tell you that you've got some nerve, that I could fry you in an instant and that you are not even remotely scary."

Her eyes were blazing in a sudden fury that I judged was driven by fear as much as anything else.

I carefully set my cup aside.

"What kind of question is that? I would say it's a valid one for these circumstances madam." I had to try really hard to keep my voice level and calm as her anger had caught mine. "Let me make it very clear. I love my sister a great deal. I love both of my sisters a great deal, and my brothers as well. If I didn't we wouldn't be in this mess. But I love Emma in particular as she has been sister, mother and friend to me for the entirety of my life. She has been kept down because of her gender and for that I am sorry as if she had been born male I truly believe that she could shake nations if she put her mind to it but instead she is a woman. She is a woman who lives in a society that frowns on who she is and what she is.

"She loves you madam and my sister never does anything by halves so you have the ability to do something that no-one else has ever been given which is to destroy my sister with the very real possibility that she would never recover. If you were a normal person I would still be concerned but you are not a normal person. You are a Sorceress and that comes with a certain kind of baggage."

I stood up then but I didn't realise it.

"I have no idea how old you are. To look at you I would guess somewhere to the tune of early to mid twenties but I have studied my history books enough to know that you could be aged anywhere between that and several hundred years old. For all I know she is a passing fancy of yours. For all I know this could be your way of showing gratitude to a woman who saved your life and kept you safe. I have read the tales of the bard and his comments about how Sorceresses and Sorcerers play around among themselves. Even if there is no truth to the specifics that he wrote there are still enough other stories to call up the old saying about smoke and fire. You are a beautiful woman madam but I would imagine that you know that. What happens when Emma starts to age, what happens when her hair turns grey and her eyesight weakens. You will still look as young and beautiful as you are now. When do you get bored?

"Or even worse, at what point does Emma, and I know her so I know that this is a possibility. At what point does Emma break her own heart by chasing you off because she thinks that someone like you should be free to follow your own heart?

"Another thing, Sorceresses are renowned for getting involved in politics. You can't deny that. Are you a member of the lodge? When some well meaning monarch decides to have you assassinated, will Emma be caught in the cross-fire?

"I don't care that my sister loves another woman. I'm as surprised as she was that that was my reaction but I am concerned about is that the woman that she has fallen in love with is you."

She began to open her mouth.

"Oh and by the way, if we're trading threats," I interrupted. "You are in _my_ city and although I might not look like much, my publisher tells me that I reach a wide audience of many different ranks. My best friend is a Witcher, my sister loves me as well and it looks like I am about to be betrothed to a nine hundred year old vampire who has studied magic in all that time with nothing to do over the last four hundred years other than practice her technique. So if you're not scared of me now then you might want to consider who you're talking to when you threaten to fry me in an instant."

We stood there glaring at each other, almost nose to nose. I didn't remember getting that close but suddenly the whole situation seemed ridiculous to me. I don't know which of us blinked first but I do know that we both started laughing at each other almost simultaneously.

"I'm sorry," I said wiping tears from my eyes and sinking onto a nearby bench, "It's been a long day."

"I'm sorry too. I just got defensive suddenly when I don't really know why."

"I do," I said as I got up and got my drink. This time she did accept a goblet. "I was being a tit and not asking the right questions or thinking before I speak. It's a bad habit but in my defence I've never had to talk to someone who's shagging my big sister before."

She stared at me, horrified before a bark of laughter exploded out of her mouth just before she clapped her hand over it, her shoulders shaking.

"I'd never heard it put like that before." She said after the hilarity died down although we did giggle occasionally just afterwards. "how to answer you though... I understand your fears. I really do and I have to say that they're not invalid although I would suggest that she has less to worry about than you do regarding the lady Ariadne."

"I know," I said glumly.

"But anyway, practically speaking, magic does have it's uses. I can age with Emma if I so wish or I can keep her young if she wishes. It's not a conversation that we've had yet as we've just been living day to day. I can certainly keep her brain from deteriorating so she will still have the mind she has now so it's just the stream of memory that she would have to worry about. As to breaking her heart?"

She sat down next to me and stared off into the middle distance. As I watched she seemed to fold in on herself, drawing her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms round them. Emma did the same thing when she was thinking deep thoughts.

When she started talking again I felt as though she wasn't talking to me.

"I can't see the future. If I could I would have been astonished by this whole circumstance as much as anyone else. I'm fifty-five years old and I've looked as you see me for the last thirty."

Her voice became almost haunted.

"Before that I was...I looked somewhat different."

I said nothing, just letting her talk.

"I am aware of the effects that magic can have on a body and I am aware of what I look like. I have never wanted for sexual or romantic partners whenever I have felt the need."

She stared into space for a moment.

"Your Father was one of the people that helped fund the Mage's underground. Whether it was Emma that began it and your father that merely allowed it to continue or whether it was the other way round I do not know, but that's how I met her. Before I met her I had never once. Not once have I ever, or did I ever feel even the slightest bit of attraction towards another woman. Not once. I don't say this to boast but I've not been without male lovers and loves, or so I had thought, but one day I looked into your sisters eyes and I felt the rest of the world go away.

"We lived in fear at the time, the other mages and I, in the sewers and tunnels underneath Novigrad and I was escorting our contact with your father to the docks. Emma came with the agent, I had no idea who she was and she was dressed to blend in but when I saw her I stood stock still. She seemed to make all my troubles fall away and I knew, I _knew,_ that the only place I could find comfort and feel safe was in her arms.

"When Merigold came to us with the plan to go to Kovir, I agreed with her. It was a good plan, a risky plan certainly because of the changeover at the docks but our current position was unsustainable. I agreed with her. I helped her make the plans and plot out the routes. I led one of the groups to the ships. But when it came time to step aboard the boats and while Merigold said goodbye to who I gathered to be her former lover. I found that I could not step aboard.

"I walked away.

"It didn't even occur to me that I should do anything else."

She wiped at her cheeks.

I was astonished. The Sorceress was weeping.

I offered a handkerchief.

"She took me in and I became her maid. Not that I performed any of that kind of work. It was a convenient fiction. Her parents never commented, the other servants seemed to accept the arrangement and cleared a cellar for my "work" as though they knew and approved of me. Your other brothers were annoying when they were here but only Edmund wouldn't take no for an answer and I had to sleep elsewhere whenever they were around."

She looked at me then.

"I can't answer your question but the thought of losing her? I can't I just can't..."

Her voice broke and I was moved enough to embrace her.

We sat there for a while as I held her until her shaking stopped.

"Welcome to the family," I said when we pulled apart.

"I can see why your sister likes you," she said wiping at her face with a hanky.

"I'm glad."

"Will I cause her problems?"

I thought about that. "I don't know. I think, I _think_ that if father didn't know about the two of you then he was a lot more stupid than I give him credit for."

"Your father was not stupid."

I nodded. "So I _think_ that he would have made provision to protect Emma when he was gone regardless of her romantic feelings. Sam won't care beyond being "outraged" but he will secretly be quite pleased that there is a reason for his rebuffed advances. Mark is the problem. You may end up running away together in the end but that's the worst case scenario and I will help where I can. I am not without resources nowadays and many, surprisingly powerful people owe me favours."

"Including a certain vampire."

I smiled but then frowned.

"Yes, including her. Terrifying though that may be."

She chortled again. "Would it be so terrible?"

"Maybe not, but that's part of why it's most terrifying."

I stood up. "Anyway, shall we get this over with?" gesturing at the door.

She made a complicated gesture and the streaks of wet make-up vanished.

"That's a good trick," I said before I opened the door to allow an irate Watch Captain inside.

I carefully did not watch while my sister came in looking terrified to be reassured by her...I'm going to have to write it sooner or later... Her girlfriend.

"Well?" demanded the Captain as he inspected the box to make sure that I hadn't tampered with it or anything. "Are you going to open it."

I'm possibly doing this man a disservice but I was not on my best behaviour at the time. He's even told me his name more than once but the part of me that is still a little student being frightened into behaving properly in town still wants to think of him as some terrifying monster called "The Captain," that comes into places and stops us from having fun. I kind of don't want to give him that name and friendly exterior because that would lesson who he is. It's a lot like realising that your parents are people too and once got drunk and had sex but regretted it the following morning.

I ignored him.

Kerrass raised his eyebrows in question at me. I shook my head and he shrugged. We knew each other well enough now to know that what this means is "Everything Ok?" and I responded with "I don't know, maybe? I'll tell you later."

"Ok," I said to Kerrass, "For hopefully the final time. What's happening?"

"It's not great." he said beckoning Laurelen over from where she and Emma were talking quietly and quickly.

"In short the box is trapped with a curse."

"That's a good sign," I muttered.

Kerrass snorted. "Yes and no, that means that the box is significant but the curse itself is, and I say this with all proper inflection so that you get the proper weight of it, fucking horrible."

"Oh goody. Why?"

"I'm not really qualified to say," Kerrass answered.

"I am though," Laurelen said approaching. She had her business face on again. She was the remote, unapproachable Sorceress. Cold, austere, arrogant and absolutely justified in her arrogance. "What the curse does is literally suck the life energy out of a person to an unknown source."

"Is it a difficult curse to cast?" I asked noticing the look of boredom on the Watch-Captains face and guessed that he had already asked all these questions.

"I couldn't cast it and I would guess that I'm the most powerful magic user in the local area."

"So how was it cast?"

"Ritually," she said simply.

"What that means is that this magic has been built up over time." Kerrass explained and he raised his voice so that everyone around him could hear. "As you are probably aware magic is a kind of force that is all around us, it's kind of like water in many ways and good Sorcerers can track lines and points of force in the same way that a water diviner and his rod can find hidden wells and water sources."

"However," Laurelen took up the narrative, "This "force" takes different forms and all of us that are attuned to it can, and do, use it in different ways. But those are just the mortal users of the magical force. Even those of us who have studied the force in particular detail are unaware of how it works but there are other entities that use the magic in different ways. We know, for instance, that priests and priestesses of various religions can use magic to cast their spiritual miracles. Are those "miracles" just a priests method of casting a spell or are they given to them by God or Gods using the "force" on their behalf, we do not know." her eyes glittered for a moment, "Also people who do not have any innate magical talent can direct the force by repeated use of what we call "rituals". The more they practice the ritual they will, eventually, get better at it and produce a magical result."

"This curse is one of these latter," Kerrass started again. "I've examined the box, as has the Sorceress and we agree that it is keyed not just physically, but magically to a single person. This magic has been ritually reinforced over time with the performance of a ritual over and over again and as such the curse has been empowered more and more over time."

"Almost like wine can be turned into port?" The Captain asked.

"Precisely," answered Kerrass although I thought I could see Laurelen squirm a little bit at the explanation.

"Having gone over the curse," she said spoke up, "We have discovered the key that was hidden in the hole as well as the box and we have discovered that the ritual was designed to keep the box closed unless a specific person open it."

I opened my mouth to ask the obvious question.

"That person, was your brother Edmund," said Kerrass.

"Which is where you come in," Laurelen put in.

Kerrass nodded. "The lady Sorceress believes that she can adjust the magic sufficiently so that you would be able to "masquerade" as Edmund and be able to trick the curse into believing that you are your brother."

I looked the question at Laurelen and she nodded. "You are the same gender, you're born of the same parents, but for physical circumstances you should almost be physically identical so it would be much easier to convince the curse that you are Edmund rather than say, Kerrass or the Captain."

"You make the curse sound like it's alive?"

"In many ways it is. It is certainly more useful if you think of it in that way."

"Are you confident?" I asked them both quietly.

"Confident enough to risk your sisters wrath," Laurelen said. Kerrass nodded.

I shrugged.

"Lets get it over then before I change my mind."

Kerrass started shooing Watchmen out of the door and to the far corners of the room. Laurelen stood in what looked to me to be a random spot in the middle of the room but then she examined the floor and shifted slightly to her right before beginning to chant under her breath.

The low hum that I had begun hearing in the room upstairs got louder and more insistent. I saw Emma leave.

Kerrass came back to me.

"I'm going to step out of the circle in a minute."

"There's a circle?"

"Yes, don't worry if you can't see it. It's designed to stop any knock on effects like what happened with you and the lad."

"Reassuring."

"I know. Try not to think about it though. It should be simple. Walk to the table, you see that knife?"

"The unpleasant one with the unnecessary spikes and grooves?"

Kerrass grinned horribly. "Yes, that one. Pick it up and touch the point of the knife to the lock on the box. You should then be able to open the box. Whatever happens though, do NOT, under any circumstances touch what's inside. There may be further traps and protections. This curse was unpleasant enough."

I nodded.

"I don't know but I think that this is likely to be unpleasant so concentrate on your task and get it done as soon as possible. You ready?"

"No,"

"I'll let her know then."

Kerrass caught Laurelen's eye and nodded. The hum increased in pitch. I waited until Kerrass was standing next to the Watch-Captain and walked to the table.

The entire sensation left me feeling dirty. I felt old, my knee was sore and my back was stiff as well as there being a kind of odd numbness in my left hands finger tips. When I moved I felt clumsy and uncomfortable in my own skin. I looked over at Laurelen and I felt an unspeakable and horrible lust wash over me that made me want to vomit.

There is a difference between a normal, I want to say healthy lust for a woman or someone that I am attracted to and what I felt in that instant. Normally when I feel "healthy" lust I want to kiss and stroke and fondle. Here I wanted to do... I can't even write it. It lessened me to feel these feelings. Normally I want to worship and enjoy my sexual partners. This time I wanted to destroy her, I wanted to break her and torture her until her beauty was no longer visible. I felt my teeth bare until I was snarling.

My stomach heaved and I swallowed.

Focus on the task.

II took a step forward. Another step. There was no pain it was more a kind of feeling... uncomfortable in my own body.

I took another step and I was at the table.

I took up the knife and it seemed to fit in my hand as though it was made for me. There were razor-blades hidden in the hilt wrappings and I could feel them cutting into my skin. The pain was wonderful. It was a work of effort not to grip the handle tighter to increase the sensation. I could already feel a certain dampness. Looking down there was blood and it felt wonderful.

I made the mistake of looking up at Laurelen again and that awful awful lust took hold of my body. I wanted to use the knife. To cut at her, to tear at her, to remove strips of her perfect skin and to hear her screams.

Focus on the task.

I was gritting my teeth now and I could see the box. A sudden wave of pleasure went through me and I grabbed at the box greedily. I felt like a drowning man who has suddenly seen a floating piece of wood or a starving man seeing food.

Quickly I took the knife and touched it to the lock which sprang open at the touch as though it had barely

been kept close.

Still holding the knife I quickly unclasped the lock and threw the box open.

I didn't think. I wanted what was inside so badly that I reached inside.

Kerrass tackled me at the waist, my neck snapped backwards at the impact as I landed on the ground hard. Kerrass rolled free but his training was in me and I sprang to my feet. I was still holding the knife and I went for his eyes. Always go for the eyes as a man will do anything to avoid being blinded.

He avoided my strikes and I snarled in frustration as I went forwards again. Again and again he flowed out of the way like water.

Someone else was shouting.

Someone else was screaming.

I backed off to find some room and think about my strategy and I felt my wrist grabbed in an iron vice like grip. My arm was twisted and the agony was indescribable. I went with the movement so that the arm was twisted behind me. I drove myself backwards. I felt a strike on my wrist before hard fingers dug into tendons, forcing my hand open.

The knife fell.

An arm wrapped around my neck and I was yanked backwards as I scrabbled for the knife but it had been kicked out of reach.

There were footsteps, rushing feet and voices. I thrashed madly but I was ensnared now.

I screamed and then all at once I stopped.

I just stopped, I couldn't tell you why but it was like a light came on in my brain. My body fit myself again.

I wept and sobbed.

Then I vomited as the memory of how I had felt and the horror of it claimed me for a moment.

I had been turned face down. Immobilised completely, turning my head I could just see Laurelen kneeling beside me, heedless of the vomit on the floor squelching under her knees.

"I'm sorry," I screamed at her. "Flame I am so sorry,"

"It's alright, hush now."

Emma was stood a little way off, her hand covering her mouth, eyes wide in horror.

"Dear flame Emma," I howled. "What has he done?"

"I'm sorry." I screamed it over and over. Screamed until my throat bled and my voice cracked.

Screamed until, in anguish, Emma begged Laurelen to help me. She spoke a couple of words of power and I dove head first into a black pit of oblivion.

(A/N: This story about Freddie's family has been planned for a long time. Specifically the red-herring regarding his sisters "secret" was planned and intended as far back as when Freddie and Kerrass were getting ready to go into the woods at Ambers crossing. This means that Emma's sexuality was planned and put in place when the character was first devised all that time ago and has never changed.

Neither she, nor I, are here to talk about, or make a point about, diversity in fiction, fanfic or otherwise. I am just here because I like telling stories and it just so happens that one of my stories happened to feature a gay woman.

Completely coincidentally it turns out that I ended up writing this chapter where Emma comes out to her baby brother (how she thinks of him) during the month of "Pride," where people all over the world have been coming out and marching to celebrate their sexuality in all of its wonderful variety and glory.

This needed to be pointed out to me. (As I say it was a coincidence) but maybe it is fitting that this should be the case.

I do not celebrate 'Pride'. This is because I am a happily married, heterosexual male. However I am proud. I am proud that my house is a place of safety and welcome for people regardless of their sexuality or gender identity. I am proud that my friends, some of whom fall elsewhere in the spectrum of sexuality and gender from myself, feel able to talk about such things without being made to feel uncomfortable and I am proud of the fact that they were able to march with pride in my home town without fear.

I am proud of all of those crazy diamonds, so shine on. You do you and keep rocking. I hope I've done a good job here.)


	31. Chapter 31

(A/N: I seem to be making a lot of these notes at the moment. The following contains scenes describing the results of third party torturing of children.)

"So it was those... _things_ that were in the box?" Mark asked us after a long period of silence during which he had sat back in his chair looking pale and sweating. I couldn't speak for Kerrass but I for one was certainly convinced of his innocence in this matter now. He had been genuinely shocked at the appearance of the stone tablet and the silver ankh and had asked numerous questions during the narrative about how we found the box and what had happened before and after. He had examined the reports and offered insightful comments supporting some of our theories. He had also been genuinely frightened for me about opening the box.

"So you're definitely alright now?" He said to me then.

"Yes, I'm fine." I answered with a smile. It is always nice to realise the genuine affection that a family member holds for you, especially when that affection has been somewhat doubtful in the past.

He nodded. "Anything I can do," he said to me, "If you need to give confession or hold a vigil or _anything_ that might put that awful experience behind you."

"Thank you," I said again. "But I think I'm alright. It wasn't me thinking and feeling those things. Part of my...distress was that those thoughts were so alien to me. I couldn't have felt that. If my, I suppose that the right word is "tastes" ran in that direction, however deeply buried they might be buried, then I might be a little more upset."

"True, true and that speaks well of you. It really does. So why come to me?"

"Because, we are still missing the last piece of the puzzle," Kerrass chimed in. Mark sat back in his chair.

"We don't know what those, items or relics might be or what significance they have and as such we don't know what was going on. Despite being, and I flatter myself and the lady Laurelen here, experts in our relevant fields, other than the fact that these items have religious significance we don't know what they mean together. So we came to our local religious expert for several reasons. The first is that you know more than us. The second being that you can be relied on to keep the matter discreet as it concerns your family rather than the university experts who will want to discuss, debate and argue with their fellows on the subject,"

Mark snorted at that but was nodding.

"Finally we wanted to check you had nothing to do with it."

"Are you now convinced of my innocence?" Mark asked slyly with a small smile and a gleam in his eye.

"Mostly," I answered with a similar smile.

Mark laughed at that and it was another glorious release of tension. My sisters confession had cleared the air between us and now Mark felt less like "Arch-Bishop Mark," and more the "Mark who used to sneak me sweets in confessional". It felt good.

"First tell me what you understand them to be." Mark leant back into a lecturer pose. I imagined him teaching a group of young priests in a seminary somewhere.

"Separately. The Ankh is a symbol of life." I said. "People wear them as jewellery similar to the way you might wear a symbol of the eternal fire. I can name some famous people that have done so and publicly as well. I understand it was from the south originally and might come from Zerrikania or further but beyond that..." I shrugged. "The stone tablet is a portable alter of the Lionheaded Spider. Otherwise known as the Goddess of death and murder. I know that her worship is forbidden although her priests and priestesses have genuine power."

Mark winced a little, presumably at my ignorance and simplifications.

"I know that much but more to the tune of how to deal with such things when I find them in crypts." Kerrass admitted. "I know that you desecrate a shrine to the Lionhead when you find one, most commonly by kicking it over till it breaks and then pissing or defecating on it. I also know that...begging your pardon Arch-Bishop, but that they are only dangerous when unintended. If the shrine is attended by a holy person or priestess then they only cause a problem when interfered with."

Mark nodded some confirmations.

"You are mostly correct although I would always recommend against defecation as a means of desecration. I would not want to bare my arse to an angry alter to an angry God. To the layman you should always send for a priest. Between these four walls that recommendation extends to a priest or priestess of any religion."

"But you don't deny that the Lion head is not necessarily evil?" I asked. I will admit that I was shocked. When learning about the Lionheaded Spider from my tutor it was full of doom and damnation and that worshippers should all be burnt at the stake.

"I think that the Witcher will agree with me as to the fact that a things nature does not necessarily make it evil."

"One of the few things that we might agree about," Kerrass commented with a smile.

"True," Mark had an answering smile, "but that's a conversation for another time."

"I also know that when the two symbols are found together, bound together and inverted then they should be destroyed to the maximum degree."

"Quite right Master Witcher, do you know why though?"

"No,"

Mark sighed. "I sometimes feel for the Witchers,"

"Not often though," Kerrass put in,

"No, it's not their fault that they are Godless, heretical mercenaries." The two men laughed. It was good to see them getting on.

"But no, I sometimes feel sorry for them. Mages created them, gave them the tools and the knowledge to fight for us but none of the reasons as to why."

"To protect people surely," I said, noting the dangerous glint in Kerrass' eyes.

"Undeniably," agreed Mark, "In the Macro scale but in the Micro scale? Why do we destroy these things? Why do we tell Witchers what to kill but not why that thing and not the other thing? The Witchers must make their own minds up. What if they get it wrong?"

"Witchers have studied these problems since their creation," Kerrass said carefully. "But we are getting off topic. Perhaps we could table that conversation for another time? I look forward to hearing your thoughts on that though."

"Do you really?" Mark's smile was a challenge.

Kerrass grinned back.

"Anyway," I said, "The combination."

"Yes, the combination of the two." Mark agreed and bent down to root around in a drawer in his desk producing several things that looked like empty cotton reels, a ball of wool and then, seemingly dissatisfied, added a couple of bits of stick and a paperweight. "Please forgive the crudeness of the demonstration but my teaching days are a little behind me now and my tools are back in Tretogor so this may go wrong."

Kerrass and I watched, fascinated as Mark busied himself tying lengths of wool to the bobbins, the stone and the twigs. He worked quickly and efficiently, his fingers surprisingly nimble with the movements obviously much practised.

"Can you clear my desk please?"

Kerrass and I leapt to work carting notes and books to far corners of the room. When we came back Mark had tied all the threads together in the middle so that the pattern looked like a star only with many more arms.

as an example.

"So," Mark began. This is what we call "The Web of life"." He looked up at us again. "There is a reason why it's called "Web" so just bear that in mind. I should also add that this demonstration represents our "best guess" as to the way the world works. Study of the subject is problematic and you may see why. Now then each strand of string is a persons life where the bit in the middle is where you are born. Each of the weights" Mark pointed at the twigs, rock and bobbins, "represent the many powers that there are in the world. Some people might call them Gods. Some are simply "Powers"."

He mused for a moment.

"The judges are still considering the difference between the two but that's a story for another time. Anyway, as exampled, the Holy Flame is probably one of these powers and a significant one to humans as it was one of the first ones to reveal itself to humanity upon landing. There is also Melitele, Veyopatis, the various Nature "Gods", the sun God of the Nilfgaardians..."

"I thought that they deified their emperor," I put in,

"Yes, don't they just." Mark was grinning, clearly enjoying himself. "But where does that worship originate I wonder. That's another story though,"

"There are a lot of stories building up here," Kerrass commented.

"Indeed, I'm trying to compress several years worth of theologic study into a short space and so I'm missing bits out."

"Fair enough."

"There is also the Elven Gods, I understand that the gnomes have Gods of their own. People worship their ancestors, the Skelligan gods... There is even argument that some virtues and vices are becoming Powers in their own right such as Greed, Ambition, Love and so on. We have nowhere near identified all of them. Some of them are "evil" and some are "Good," Most are grey areas with their own drives. All these powers pull at the strands in various ways."

Mark stared at the pattern, his lips moving before he started moving the "powers" around, seemingly at random. Every so often the strands would meet, cross and knot together but Mark paid no attention just kept on weaving. I didn't count but he was about his task a long time. Periodically he would also take a large pin and use it to anchor a knot or a thread. He kept going, even when strands of thread ran out it didn't seem to bother him at all. Instead I found myself wondering when he started sticking his tongue between his teeth when he was concentrating.

"Right," he said after a while, standing back to admire his handiwork. "It's not the best version of this kind of demonstration. If you ever get the chance you should go to Tretogor seminary where they have a full 3 dimensional version of it, all the strands are multicoloured making them much easier to follow. It looks like an explosion and when you stand back it looks truly beautiful. The main problem is that we have no way of visualising time in our boring visual spectrum so it loses something. Anyway, in this version the centre is the point of origin. We call that birth although it also represents the past. I stress again that this is an oversimplification because where does life begin and all that.

"We know that Melitele is about fertility and the act of actually giving birth but is also about healing and it all gets very confusing and contradictory so anyway. This point is birth for now."

He singled out a piece of string. "This is an individuals life that we have picked out for the purposes of this demonstration. Here is where he was born. His life coming from the knot of birth and if we follow the strand, each time he meets someone else his _strand_ interacts with their _strand_ causing a knot. Sometimes they interact multiple time in the cases of close friends, family or loved ones and other people they just meet them randomly in the street. Some people they don't interact with them at all."

At each point that he referred to, he pointed to one of the knots that he had pinned down and I realised that his first seemingly random movements, were in fact entirely intentional.

"And then in the end, as we track the strand, this person reaches their end as the strand runs out in death. You see that?"

Kerrass and I nodded. Another moment of insight struck me then although I had always known it really. I had always thought of myself as being different than the rest of my family in that I was the one that rebelled and followed my own desires rather than the path that Father had laid out for me. In truth I had plenty in common with some of my siblings it was just that my parents had tried to force me into a certain path for which I was unsuited. I could imagine myself easily following a studious theological route such as Mark had taken or he following my academic route into the university. But I had forgotten the fact that he was also a good teacher.

"So if you take a step back from the whole it looks like a rather chaotic web. Do you see the similarity? There was an effort to try and refer to it as the tapestry of life because if you have enough strands and weave them together, from a distance enough it looks like an ordered tapestry but that doesn't take into account the extra dimensions of time, distance, numbers, locations and all of the other variables that can be taken into account in a persons life. If you look closely it's much more chaotic."

"I'm beginning to see where the arguments come in," said Kerrass. "It doesn't look much like a web to me as Spiders are a lot more ordered in my experience,"

"You are correct, but would you agree with my points so far?"

Kerrass nodded. I was too busy being fascinated.

"Spiders may seem chaotic to us but their more chaotic web patterns serve a purpose to them and as such I find I like the analogy. But anyway, staying on topic here...If we tug on the various "powers," gently please, we find that our original string is manipulated."

I was again reminded that a physical demonstration is always better than the theory.

"Even if we tug on those strings that, in theory, have no influence on the original string we can affect it. Do you see this?"

As a note to my readers. If you have trouble visualizing this then you can perform this experiment yourself with several lengths of string. You might not get such a perfect example as to what we were discussing but... Just try not to tie the knots so tight so that you can see the full range of movement.

"Now, the full demonstration grows more complex when you introduce strands with different widths and strengths which demonstrate the power and importance that a person may be born with, regardless of what you think of this person. But that doesn't have any relevance today. What I will say is that if you use any one power or strand to tug the overall web in one direction or another you get a particular result. If you'll just let me..."

Mark took the rock and gently started to pull on it and therefore the attached thread.

"Watch our original strand carefully."

As we watched, our strand started to unravel from it's greater weaving and eventually, the end sprang free.

"If we pull on it for long enough." My brother said a little smugly. "That happens. That person's life is no longer confined within the strands of the greater..." mark waved his hands expansively in the air, "Life and existence for want of a better word and he is flapping free, pulled in too many directions."

He sat back down and pulled his chair over to the web.

"Now this brings us to the Lionheaded Spider and what she does. She is not a power and as such she doesn't or rather she shouldn't, have any influence on the greater web. Her job is to cut off the various exposed ends."

Mark demonstrated by taking a knife and cutting our thread off.

"This is the other reason that we don't like the term "Tapestry" as that suggests the presence of a "weaver of the tapestry and as such, why would any being or power allow enemies of theirs to influence their creation."

"So what are you saying?"

"Here is the nub of the matter. Calling the Lionheaded Spider the Goddess of death is a simplification. What she is, is the Goddess of _necessary_ death. The theory goes like this. When the strand is tugged into too many directions and springs free, what happens in the real world is that the person goes mad or gets sick. It should end in old age when the Spiders arrival would often be seen as a mercy. But sometimes those powerful influences tug a person in so many directions that they go mad and become dangerous. This is what gives birth to psychopaths. Those men and women who are just so mad that you can't help them or cure them and to keep them around is actively dangerous for the safety of those surrounding them. Then the Lionheaded Spider turns her gaze upon them and they are killed.

"In an ideal world there would exist a shrine to the Lionheaded Spider in every community and there would be no offerings or worshippers but there would be one single priest or priestess. Practicalities would suggest that there might be an apprentice as well. The shrine should be maintained by the populace and the local authorities. The priest earns their keep by specialising in death. They bring the last solace to the suffering by comforting the dying and euthanizing where necessary but they also act as Executioner's when society demands it."

"But this is not an ideal world," Kerrass said after we both realised that Mark had stopped talking.

"No, more's the pity. Instead people decide to worship her as a Goddess of death. They pray to her to visit their enemies or they prey that they themselves might be visited to alleviate suffering. Children prey to her when their abusive parents beat them. Women pray to her when husbands abuse them. But then Assassins pray to her to bless their work and use her as an excuse for the evil that they commit. Executioners often pray to her and they are the only people who have a right to and should."

"And we know that she has power because her priestesses are known to curse people," I said, feeling that I needed to contribute something.

"Precisely which is why it's dangerous and why governments and people like me have taken the easy option by simply banning her worship rather than engaging people in long, complicated theological debates."

"So the ankh means life," I began, "And the Web means death? Sorry, necessary death. Surely they shouldn't be brought together, they are almost intentional opposites."

"Exactly. That's why people who do this are so dangerous."

"I don't follow."

"It's the denial of the pattern, it's the denial of life, of death and everything that comes between." Mark had become, if possible, more passionate. His face was red, he slammed his hands on the table and he was breathing rapidly. "Life and death, inverted and bound together in such a way, cancel each other out. They...corrupt each other. We don't know enough about death other than the fact that it involves some kind of "moving on". To what, we don't know but we know that ghosts and spirits happen because of some form of unfinished business, am I right Kerrass?"

"You are. We also know that spirits can be corrupted but also cleansed depending on their mood, circumstances and physical situation. A colleague of mine was recently able to encourage a spirit to return back to her normal human state and then to move on so we also know that the process works both ways."

"Yes, but these symbols represent the ultimate forms of such. If the Ankh which represents life in it's purest form is corrupted by "death" and the Web, corrupted by life into some unrecognisable form?" Mark shrugged an answer to his own question.

"Does it represent a power, or a God?"

"We don't know but we suspect not given what is identified around the items but it is what it represents that worries us. Here's why the church is so against it. This web that I have demonstrated to you is the natural order of things. It's complex, varied, chaotic, terrifying and it applies to all living things on this continent and beyond. But this," he gestured at the symbols. "Exists outside of that. It's the denial of the natural order. Perhaps I should state that the destruction of the natural order is our version of the end of the world. So an outside influence of it all is worrying, nay terrifying."

"Do you know what it is?"

"We don't _know_ but we _think_ it's magic. This... This totem and the way it's worshipped represents a worship of magic. Magic can do... pretty much anything. We know it denies death as Magic users can live for centuries and Mages have talked about _creating_ life and indeed have made progress in that direction by creating Golems and elementals.

"In worshipping this idol and it _does_ take the form of worship. The followers deny the natural order. They do this in various ways but the most common form of this is a form of cannibalism and soul stealing. Their rites include horrible, horrible torture of young individuals as well as the consuming of their flesh. They believe that the torture convinces the souls to leave the body prematurely and by imbibing the flesh of the person then the soul will go to where it's familiar,"

"The flesh of the victim which has been consumed."

"Especially as the rites tend to attract those people who enjoy such...debasements and therefore the new surroundings are a lot more attractive."

"So cannibalism, mutilation, torture and rape as forms of worship." I said shuddering. "Lovely."

"Indeed."

"Why do you connect these things with magic?" Kerrass asked. "All the Magic users that I've ever met would be equally as horrified."

"Yes, well. What we've found is that the totems and relics that you've found are imbued with magical energy, presumably because magical talent happens in small ways sometimes. We think that those people, in performing these rites and rituals they eventually produce that power and makes it happen. In believing something they create it. It gets imbued and then they see magical results.

"We can argue about magic and the moral implications for years, ignoring the fact that someone who has narrowly survived the misuse of magic sits here amongst us,"

"Thank you," Kerrass muttered dryly.

"But one thing that everyone agrees with is that magic came out of the conjunction of spheres."

"Along with humanity."

"Probably but we can't prove that." Mark responded. "We do know that there was no magic before then as the dwarves and gnomes who _definitely_ lived here before the conjunction tell us that that is the case. This means that although this pattern, which is what we think of as the natural order, existed before magic's arrival. Magic upsets that and tugs the pattern, violently, in all directions."

Mark demonstrated and sure enough the pattern fell apart.

"Magic can do all of these things and more. That is why we find it so...terrifying. Along with the fact that many magic users do things because they can, long before they ever think about whether or not they should."

We looked at each other for a moment.

"I feel like we got off topic again," Kerrass said finally.

"Probably," Mark agreed. "I tend to get... passionate when magic comes up."

"Yes, well, just to summarize. The idols represent life and death cancelling each other out and removing their worshippers from the natural order of birth life and death."

"Yes."

"The methods that they use involve torture and cannibalism."

"Yes."

"They are magically connected but we can't say why or definitively say how."

"Ummm..."

"I should point out that the magic user that was present was as horrified at the artefacts as you were."

"Really? Interesting."

"That's one word for it." I said helpfully.

"Does that answer all of your questions gentlemen?" Mark asked.

Kerrass and I looked at each other and chuckled.

"Not even close, but it's a good start." Kerrass laughed. "We should ask though. Are you and your church soldiers up for some heretical smiting tomorrow evening? We could do with your advice and some professional church soldiers would be useful.

"We might? I have a question of my own now. What's happening and why would you need those same soldiers? I think I've been accommodating enough given that you blew my door down. How is Edmund involved in all of this and what does that have to do with anything."

"It's not a great story. In fact I think it's rather sad." said Kerrass. "But nevertheless it is dangerous and is close to being really evil."

"Do continue."

Kerrass frowned. "There are two players in the story so far. Those players being your father and your brother Edmund. We don't know in which order these things happened and as far as we know they happened independently.

"Edmund was unhappy. We know that he resented his home life, his parents, his family and indeed everyone concerned. His father put the weight of the entire family on his shoulders and he responded by lashing out. He was not as clever as he was supposed to be, not as strong or as pretty or as fast. He didn't have the mind for figures that Emma had, he wasn't as clever as Frederick or you are, he wasn't as strong as Samuel or as pretty as Francesca and even worse than that, no-one criticised him for that aloud despite his, to him, obvious failings. He just wanted to be left alone to enjoy himself.

"He fled home and fell in with a group of friends. He started to indulge in various vices, gambling, women, drugs, alcohol and all of these were a form of lashing out against his family and his surroundings. We can't identify those friends but we know it was happening. Gradually the crowd he associated with got worse and worse and their depravities got worse and worse and before Edmund had turned around he was in too deep and over his head."

Mark just nodded frowning as he listened to Kerrass speak.

"At some point, and we don't know when, he was inducted into this "religion". We believe that this induction was slow but at the time of the induction your brother was very angry. He believed that he was being hard done to and was being looked down on. He was impatient to take on his birthright and take on the responsibility and privilege of being the Baron von Coulthard while he was still young, vigorous and pretty enough to enjoy it. Then, given that your father showed no signs of wanting to retire or to do the decent thing of dropping dead and leaving Edmund to inherit, he fell in with a group of other rich, entitled people who felt the same. We believe that a priest of these idols, or a superior figure of some kind encouraged these feelings and fed on them inducting them all into the church. Then they would start preying on young people all over the countryside to slake the thirsts of their new religion.

"Now, we believe that this next thing happened independently. Your father was aware of a number of similar deaths happening in the countryside around Oxenfurt, including on his own lands. These deaths were always the same. Young, beautiful people would be kidnapped, horribly abused and mutilated sexually and physically over a period of days before the bodies of these poor unfortunates would be found, abandoned in out of the way places. The victim would often turn out to have been identified and tracked before hand as well by a third party before they were taken. Sometimes someone was caught, sometimes not, sometimes the body was found, sometimes not. We think that your father believed that it was some kind of circle of young nobles or entitled people who were rich enough to believe themselves above the law,"

"Which was largely true," I put in,

"and who would then kidnap people who they believed were unimportant and then torture them for kicks, confident that they would get away with it."

"Still, largely accurate."

"Yes, but what your father missed was the religious or magical implications. Sometimes when, someone needed to be sacrificed then a member of the group would be thrown to the populace to keep them sweet and to keep eyes off the larger, overall group."

Kerrass poured us all some wine and took a drink from his cup.

"So far the two stories act independently. At some point, and we don't know how or why, your father realised that Edmund was involved in the group that he was tracking. He spoke to Edmund and told him, rather bluntly, that he needed to cease these activities. We don't know if there was any threat attached to this order but we _do_ know that Edmund felt that he was under threat of being disinherited.

"The group were, by now, treating Edmund as their cash cow. Whenever they needed money it was always Edmund who provided the money as your father was always willing to provide the cash when required. When he was threatened with this source of money being removed they started to cut him out. Before long he knew that he would be one of the members that would be thrown to justice when the group felt that they needed to divert attention away from themselves.

"He had another friend in the group and we don't know who this friend was. We hope to identify this person tomorrow night when the group intend to hold another rite but this is the figure that is the author of your families woes. He devised a scheme by which your father would die in an "accident" so that Edmund could inherit and therefore he would have access to all the money that they could ever need. The plan was implemented and resulted in the injury and eventual death of your father."

Kerrass then went through how Edmund had interfered with Fathers horse gear causing the horse to throw it's rider injuring Father and how the injury was then poisoned to make it look as though the infection was spreading faster than it should.

"Unfortunately," Kerrass went on, "The Stable-master had noticed the problem with the horse and the saddle and innocently brought it to the attention of your brother, presuming that your brother would inherit and therefore that he was now in charge. Your brother did not take this well and the Stable-master realised that Edmund was the perpetrator and fled.

"Edmund reacted badly, followed the stable-master and ran him through, also killing the poor man's wife when she tried to flee. Interestingly they might have got away with it too if they had simply fled at sight of him from which we can infer your brothers lack of physical conditioning."

Mark finally reacted, shaking his head and was no longer able to meet Kerrass' gaze.

"The unknown person who had been encouraging Edmund on from the side lines realised Edmund's mistake and panicked. They then snuck into the castle, presumably under the guise of wanting to pay their respects or maybe because they had some kind of hold over other members of the castle or whatever, they got into the castle, found your brother and killed him to prevent any other repercussions falling on their heads."

"How do you know all of this?"

"Your brother told us."

"Necromancy?"

"No no, Flame no," I said, "Edmund kept a diary."

"This is Freddie's bit and to be fair to him it is really impressive." Kerrass said with a grin.

"When we finally managed to get into the bank to retrieve the contents of Edmund's safety box we found his diary inside. The beginning was fairly simple moaning about circumstances and family but then it changed into numbers."

"A code?"

"Yes,"

"Frederick cracked it. Long story short otherwise his ego will inflate his head until he won't be able to leave the room, it was a book code."

"Four numbers." I said. "Page number, Chapter number, verse number and word number. That word was what he said."

I saw my own realisation hit Mark between the eyes. "He was using the Litany of faith as his code book."

"We found his only copy on his bedside. He had it next to him, hidden in plain sight."

"Ok stop." said Kerrass. "How do you two know so much about codes? I know Freddie saw coded messages in the war and would often help decode them but you your grace?"

"We all served in our own way." Mark said with a grin.

"That was cryptic,"

"Now don't grumble Kerrass. Please continue."

"That diary told us about future plans but the thing we're missing is names. He uses initials in the diary so that even if a third party decoded the diary then they wouldn't know who he was talking about. It seems that Edmund had realised that he was in danger and had started to keep the diary in earnest as evidence and record about the groups crimes to be used as a trade and blackmail device should they all be caught."

Mark nodded.

"Poor Edmund," he said.

"Poor Edmund?" Kerrass remarked. " Your brother murdered your father and two members of your household. He has murdered, tortured and mutilated many young people and conspired to keep it from the proper authorities as well as doing things that give the rest of us magical people a bad name. Forgive me Your Grace but it rather seems that he got what was coming to him,"

Mark looked at Kerrass sadly. "You are probably right Witcher, But you don't remember playing with him as a boy."

"No," I said, "But I also remember him using a magnifying glass and the sun to fry a line of ants in the courtyard to upset Francesca."

Mark nodded and his gaze sank. He looked old. Sick and old.

We talked long into the night. Lots of conversation and planning that I don't really need to go into here. The long and short of it was that we were organising a raid on the intended site of worship. The objective was that we wanted to pull the entire damn weed out to the very last of the roots so wherever possible we needed to take them alive. Especially the high priest.

Our forces came together that evening and one by one they joined us in what had become our war room. Our forces were not inconsiderable in training and expertise but at the same time we didn't know how numerous the enemy were going to be. On our side, we had already sent word and Sir Rickard and his men had returned from their patrol in the nearby countryside. By patrol we were led to understand that they had been patrolling the nearby inns and taverns most diligently and had found absolutely no enemies of the state. I was pleased to see them all as they arrived and saw to it that they were well fed and "watered".

We also had Brother Mark's men, fifty trained soldiers of the church. Culturally it's an interesting thing that Church soldiers have almost become folk villains since the death of King Radovid. You can wander round various places and listening to the bards stories and epic poems and as you listen you can begin to see a pattern emerging. Whereas before the villains of these pieces tended to be spurned, abusive, conceited, rude lovers there has now been a subtle change that one of these additional character flaws there has been added the term 'church soldier'.

Well I am here to say that this is unfair.

Church soldiers are a lot like the rest of us in that they run the entire spectrum of morals and character from good to bad and they should be treated as such. I cannot deny that there were in their number, people who would have been better left out of them. The cruel fanatics and such who would burn and torture a person for simply using a herb to help ward off bad health, but they did so under royal encouragement and the promise of eternal bliss. You also have to bear in mind that these particular factions within the church, the questioners and the Witch-hunters and so on were at their most... aggressive around Novigrad and Oxenfurt where they were protected and encouraged by King Radovid. These places also being the largest concentration of poets and bards in the world which now spread tales of church soldiers raping and torturing good folk for implied Witchcraft to the entirety of the Northern Continent.

But I have to say that all of the church soldiers that I have met are reasonably good people. Certainly the ones protecting my brother fell into the category. They talked, laughed and grumbled along with the best of them and the only real differences between them and my Fathers guards was the need to gather and pray at particular and regular intervals.

So we had the church men which meant that we also had an Arch-Bishop on our side which was useful for his knowledge and experience.

The Oxenfurt watch were involved in the operation in as much as they would be keeping normal citizens away from the particular patch of land where the next rites were going to be held but it had been decided that the Watch wouldn't be involved in the actual raid itself. The argument made was that some of the Watch who, again, might be vulnerable to men of power ordering them to turn away and as such should not be put in a position where they might be forced to choose between their integrity, their duty and the threatened survival's of their family.

Sam and the guardsmen from the castle wanted to be involved as well but after much arguing it was decided that we could not prove that Edmund had not managed to corrupt any of the men to his cause and as such they were...vulnerable. The other problem was that if the castle emptied, spontaneously and without warning then this might give any potential watchers a clue as to our intentions.

We also had the Sorcerous power of the Lady Laurelen who was waiting for us in Oxenfurt itself.

We knew where the rites were being held as well which was fortuitous. Brother Edmund had shown that he wasn't entirely that stupid when he had realised that he was potentially under the axe. He had dates, times and locations of any and all future meetings. It was kind of frustrating to read his diary as he told us so much else but missed out names referring to people according to initials or nicknames or code-names or names that he made up on the fly in an effort to remember specific people but it did mean that we had been able to scout the location carefully well in advance as we set to our plan.

It was absolutely vital that we capture as many of the people involved as we could. Preferably alive but dead if necessary due to not knowing who else might be involved and that was the basis of our plan. In the end we agreed that Sir Rickard's men would be the scouts on site. They would be hidden around the place in pairs waiting for all the cultists to arrive. When it was clear that no-one else was going to turn up, one half of every pair would then return to a separate staging area where the church soldiers and Laurelen would be waiting. Those soldiers would then be led to the various places where they would need to be to prevent a massed break out.

This was going to be the tricky bit as there was a danger that if any unit got lost or made a noise then that could alert the cultists and they could escape.

Laurelen and Mark would be set back from the site so that she could work her magic to make sure that the cultists couldn't hurt any of us, even in their ignorance at the power that they were wielding and Mark might be needed to decipher or offer advice on what we found.

The signal to begin the attack would be given by Kerrass who would be stationed with Sir Rickard's men and I, unhappily, would come up with the rest of the soldiers. There was some concern that I might lose my temper and start shouting when I saw innocents being tortured or held against their will.

Funny that.

It was an unfortunate truth that we didn't know when the cultists might start torturing captives. They might, and it puts my teeth on edge just writing this, start casually raping the women while they were waiting for the rest of their fellows to arrive and it was felt that I wouldn't be able to contain myself watching this.

They were probably correct and I don't feel at all ashamed although I am ashamed that a decision was made that the well being of any captives was put secondary to the _potential_ future of any other captives.

I know why and on an intellectual level I can understand why sometimes the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few but at the same time I imagine myself having to go to the parents or the significant others of the captives and saying. "Sorry we didn't stop your mother/sister/daughter/wife from being horribly raped to death but we were trying to catch everyone involved."

I guess I just have a hangup about these kinds of things.

Which, a couple of people have since suggested, is no bad thing.

Mark and I had a very public and a very loud argument where I called him a lot of things and he called me a lot of things and so he, and all of his men left in a cloud of dust in the early morning in an effort to throw anyone who was watching off our sent. They would travel East towards Tretogor for a while before doubling back and making their way to the staging area under the guidance of a couple of Sir Rickard's men who were used to moving through the countryside without being seen.

Kerrass and I rode gently back towards Oxenfurt where we met Laurelen and Emma for an evening meal before picking up Shani as she would be acting as a medic for the night. I had to hide a certain hilarity as the female medic spent some time looking at the Sir Rickard with a certain calculating expression. When I mentioned this to Emma later she grinned and told me to leave it with her. Time will tell what happens there although if Emma does manage to get the two of them together then Sir Rickard will be breaking hearts all over Oxenfurt, including mine a little bit.

We spoke genuinely and affably until it was time to leave. We met Mark and his men, none the worse for wear despite having to march through countryside with Mark having a nap leant up against a tree. There was a small moment where there was a discussion as to how we would be protecting Mark, Shani, Emma and Laurelen (Emma had refused to be parted from her girlfriend). In the end Sir Rickard chose two of his most villainous looking men to do the protecting and two of Mark's guards insisted on staying behind. Everyone was a little perturbed when Sir Rickard's two men appeared to vanish into the trees.

"Do those men have any experience in protecting people?" Mark asked, a little worried.

"Quite the opposite actually," Rickard said, beaming from ear to ear.

"What do you mean?"

"Those two men are trained assassins."

Mark had to be slapped, soundly on his back to help him with the choking.

Kerrass went off into the trees with the rest of Sir Rickard's men.

Then it was time to wait.

I hate waiting, but this time there was a bit more entertainment to it. That entertainment was being able to watch what Mark, Emma and Laurelen got up to while they were also counting the minutes.

My routine is fairly simple. Check my equipment, make sure my spear and dagger are as sharp as I can reasonably expect. (I had it done at a blacksmith in Oxenfurt earlier that day) and make sure that my light armour doesn't restrict my movement in any way. Then I warm up a bit with some stretches before settling down to consider what I'm going to talk about in future versions of these notes.

Mark was both the most entertaining but also the most heart-breaking. He took the time to have a nice long prayer but then he spent the rest of his time ignoring Emma and Laurelen being all coupley. They had interacted earlier in that Mark had issued a full and, to be fair to him, enthusiastic written pardon for Laurelen's use of Sorcery in the protection of the realm from dark magics. They had also discussed collaborating on some kind of treatise that could be passed around churches and Sorcerous academies as to how Sorcery can be used to help protect against dark cults. Mark had also spoken easily with Emma as well but whenever Emma and Laurelen interacted with each other be that holding hands, talking quietly together with their heads bent in conversation, hugging or just sat against a tree enjoying being together, Mark couldn't look at them. It was as though his brain just refused to admit that the two women existed in the same space, as though he saw it, his brain said "No that can't possibly be true," and then erased it from his memory. It would have been funny if it wasn't so tragic.

For their part, Emma and Laurelen didn't seem to notice. The existence of their affair was now public knowledge and so they didn't see the point in hiding it any more (More power to them). They were revelling in it but it was also quite sweet. There is nothing quite like the sight of your older sister who is a good six years older than me shyly holding the hand of another person to make you giggle in memory at all the times that she had teased you.

Shani spent the time putting together what she called her "Medic pack," You might imagine some kind of back pack like soldiers carry but this was different. She had a portable operating table that she carried on her back and used it as a frame for everything else. Her "tools" which included a collapsible fire-bowl and several potion bottles as well as the saws and knives necessary to her trade were then strapped to the back of the table. I had tried lifting it up myself and had struggled all the while Shani had carried it easily from Oxenfurt.

On foot.

While Jogging.

Heaven help Sir Rickard if she decides to set her sights on him.

As darkness fell though I saw the nerves begin to show in the others. The soldiers all did their thing though in the same routine that soldiers have developed since the first war when men organised together to go and fight those other men. Mostly, they slept. Then as time passed they started on the small things. The jokes started to creep in as some men were told not to where their helmets during the fight so that their faces could scare the enemy. They scoured armour and inspected it on the minutest scale looking for patches of rust or broken, worn links in the chain where the armour may weaken and allow the wrong kind of blow to come through.

Mark sat next to me as I was half watching, half dozing the time away while at the same time, reminding myself that my spear wasn't going to be any the less sharp since the last time I had checked it ten minutes ago. It was a well made spear, it could hold it's edge and hardly needed any maintaining but I could still feel the ache in my fingers, longing to do something.

"Is it always like this?"

I looked at Mark sidelong who had woken up a little earlier.

"Is what always like this?"

"The waiting?"

I laughed at him, well, chuckled is possibly the better word.

"The first time I was sat somewhere waiting for a fight to happen I wet myself in terror." I said helpfully.

"I notice that you didn't mention that in your written account of the event."

"No, but then it was a while ago that I wrote that and I was still worried about my personal image."

"Do you not worry about that any more?"

I thought about it.

"A little I suppose. The things that I worried about at the time seem a little bit more... superficial now. At the time I wanted the respect and love of Dad. I wanted to be someone who walks by and people look up and say, "see him, That's Frederick the scholar, he's really wise." I also wanted to be more attractive to girls so writing that you pissed yourself in terror doesn't seem like the right thing to say when it comes to attracting the fairer sex."

"You know that Father did love and respect you right?"

I felt that swell of anger and grief again and hung my head until it passed.

"Yeah I know." I threw a small bit of twig away, "Would it have hurt the bastard to tell me that aloud a couple of times though?"

Mark had nothing to say to that.

"So how did you get on with the rest of your goals?" he asked.

I looked at him to see if he was joking. I think he was, at least a little bit.

"Well, by accident it seems I'm now the university expert on Witchers. Whenever I'm anywhere near the place they talk about Witchers like "Those Witcher people of Freddie's," or when they talk to me they say, "That Witcher of yours Freddie," as though I own him. As though I know the first thing about Witchers that they haven't told me themselves."

Mark chuckled.

"Also," I continued, "I suspect that the reason I'm not considered an expert in monsters is due to two things, the first is that I keep telling them that the term "monster" is incredibly racist and misleading given that, by some margin, the most monstrous things that I have met during my travels have been humanity. The second thing is that I'm not in residence and therefore unable to tell them all how wrong they all are on a regular basis."

"Is that why they keep sending you out on the road so that you don't have time to settle down and write a book on the subject."

"I suspect that's a significant part of the reason. Although my publisher has agreed that a good number of my essays on a couple of creatures that they have are going to be compiled into a textbook. I wonder if it'll look anything like what I actually wrote when the editors are all done with it."

"It's a common problem."

We sat in silence for a while.

"I don't know how you stand it." He muttered after a while.

"Stand what?"

"This, this life of yours, these challenges to your world view, this, sleeping on the road or in taverns this... this..."

"Waiting?"

"Yes, but..."

"Wait, is this about Emma and Laurelen?" I had followed his gaze and realised that he was watching them.

He couldn't meet my gaze.

"Holy crap!" I giggled, "It is isn't it?"

"Don't blaspheme."

"Don't make this about me. What is it about them that you don't like?"

"It's... Flame curse me for not giving me the words it's just... Flame, it turns my stomach and I don't understand, I don't...get why it doesn't turn yours and I don't know why it turns mine."

I swallowed my anger again. My brother was in distress.

"Forgive me Mark but, I've seen more of the world than you have. You've been inside the church since you were what, five? Living and reading the scriptures and catechisms and psalms and hymns. You didn't go to university or to travel so that your horizons could broaden themselves. You've never been drunk and woken up to a partner that you don't remember their name, let alone what you did."

Mark's expression changed to horrified curiosity.

"Have you?" he petered off.

"Have I ever... what?"

"Have you ever, you know..." He blew out his breath with a sigh as he realised that I wasn't going to help him. "Have you ever _been_ with a man?"

It's a brothers lot to tease their siblings but I decided that now was not really the right time.

"Nah," I said. "Not by choice though. It just never interested me particularly and I've never found a man that attracts me. Also I wasn't the sort to get invited to those kinds of parties. As well as that there's the thing that I'm all but betrothed now."

Another wave of disgust and anger flashed across my brothers face.

"And that's another thing how can you even consider..."

But he didn't get to finish that thought. Just as well really because if he'd started talking church dogmatic nonsense about Ariadne I might have hit him.

In a clearing full of church soldiers I don't think I would have come out of that very well.

The church soldiers reacted with remarkable efficiency. Several of Sir Rickard's men appeared out of the undergrowth while one whispered into the Captain's ear who just gave a quick whistle and made a complex gesture.

The plan was that we would split into several units of around seven or eight who would be guided in to the site of the ambush by one of Sir Rickard's men to each group. In that way we would surround the cultists and be able to prevent any escapees. I led one group. Shani went with another although from the way she was speaking I had the distinct impression that she was leading it. All told I think there were five groups of soldiers.

To me we moved with painful lack of speed and with far too much noise but Rickard's man didn't even flinch as we moved quietly through the trees. Fortunately the moon was out and when we got a little bit further out from Oxenfurt's noise and light, there was no disguising which way we were going.

There was a huge fire that lit up the sky.

We edged forward, armour clinking, swords clattering and my teeth were bared in a snarl that I could no longer keep from escaping. I had to keep telling myself over and over that there was nothing we could do. That I was leading soldiers, not scouts or woodsmen like Rickard's troop but men in heavyish armour who had already had a fairly long march today but every time I heard a little tinkle of chain-mail I could imagine more and more cultists escaping into the night.

As I say though, we needn't have worried.

The closer we got, the more that we could hear them chanting.

We crept slowly forward, now able to see roots and dips in the ground. We almost tripped over the sentry that had been left at our deployment area.

"Evenin' your Lordship" he said as he announced himself by spitting a wad of tobacco stained saliva onto the boot of a churchman.

"Evening Dan," I managed. I'm told that he was an old soldier, one of the few old and established soldiers in Rickard's troop that he had rescued from languishing in the proper, formal army. He had been a poacher since he was old enough to use a slingshot against pigeons to feed his family and had been told to use those skills in the army. He travelled with a selection of bows ranging from the huge War-bow that was longer than he was down to a short, powerful recurved bow that he could use from horseback. He cradled them and cared for them as though they were his children and I've never seen a better shot.

"All in?" I asked him.

"All in, your boys know their business?"

I gestured and a Sergeant came forwards. I'm under no illusions about my own military prowess and I'm no soldier. The Sergeant knew what he was doing and asked a few questions and saw to the deployment of the men.

The chanting grew louder.

"How long?"

"Ten minutes before everyone should be in place."

I nodded but couldn't help but count the seconds away while forcing myself not to listen to the chant.

I rested my forehead on the cool metal shaft of my spear and found I was banging my head against it in time with the cadence of the chant.

Dammit.

I looked around and realised that I wasn't the only one on edge. Hardened soldiers were uneasy, shifting their weight from one foot to the other, counting to themselves or making the sign of the flame against their breasts over and over and over.

I've had to wait before a fight before but this was something different. There was a weight to the air, as though we were being pressed down into the earth by invisible weights.

"That's it, we go." Dan said having hear a sound that the rest of us had missed and despite being absolutely desperate for some kind of action, we hesitated.

Then someone screamed.

Screamed horribly. Like a pig being gutted.

Suddenly I could move and the air seemed to be filled with a golden glow and I could feel my legs moving. The chant had vanished to be replaced by Laurelen's voice speaking words that I could hear clearly but without understanding.

I charged into the clearing.

I didn't see much as I went in there as it was all happening so fast. All churches that I have ever been in, including some ruined shrines to Gods and Goddesses that have long been forgotten, there is a space for the worshippers and the holy bits are all at one end of the building. Often behind a rail or a screen as if to say that what's behind the screen is far too holy for anyone else to be seeing and touching. It's like another world beyond that place and in my more... cynical moments I suspect that this is intentional as it creates a yearning, a physical desire to go there and see the forbidden treasures that our holy people get to touch and be involved with.

That was not the case here.

What we saw was a spiral. A spiral of men that eventually converged on a raised platform on which stood a post. The post was carved in a jagged pattern that both fascinated and repelled the eye and my bile was in my throat making me want to vomit. Chained to the post and to the platform was a girl. I later found out that she was fifteen and had been kidnapped from one of the smaller shrines to the holy flame. She had been one of those women who tends the fire to keep it lit so that it can provide a guiding light in the darkness, to keep evil things at bay and to provide a refuge for those who need the solace and sanctuary of that holy light.

Standing next to her was a man in a long white robe that was cut in imitation, or mockery of the cassocks of the Eternal fire with jagged spirals of all kinds of colours that put me in mind of unclean things. Vomit, pus, puke and bile were those colours. He was cowled and masked, the mask was painted so that it resembled a vast and gaping maw, a mouth of some unspeakable and hungry creature, the bottom of which was endless promising only cruelty and torment. He had his hands aloft with a horrible looking knife in one hand and a lamia flail in the other. Both were dripping in a black liquid. It was him that had screamed as Kerrass had leapt from the trees and put his shoulder into the man's midriff sending him tumbling aside.

The platform was guarded on the four corners, which I would later learn agreed with the four points of the compass, by large men. Similarly hooded and robed except there were no patterns on their robes and the robes themselves were black. Black although they made me think of the deep black that blood is when you have pierced the more dangerous of the internal organs. They had wicked looking Guisarmes that they seemed to wield with not inconsiderable skill.

I would later learn that there were sixty-eight men in that clearing. Sixty-eight men who were worshipping and performing the foulest acts that a man can imagine. There were only men there and I find that I am glad of that, I could not have imagined how I would have felt if there had been women there. I cannot imagine how I would have felt if I had known that women were capable of such cruelty and hate.

I guess I'm not that progressive after all.

The men were arranged in a spiral out from the centre. It was still early in their act of worship. They spiralled out, clothed in plain white cloaks under which they were completely naked. Each of them carried a single instrument of inflicting pain. Some men carried whips, others flails and paddles. I would later learn that had their act of worship been allowed to continue then those instruments would have been swapped for instruments of the owners choice although now they would contain edges. Razor blades, knives and the like. Later the instruments of torture would have taken sexual form.

I walked away before we were told what form they took as I don't think I would have been able to contain myself.

All these things, all these details I would find out later. Small things.

I didn't see it at first but there was a large box wagon in the far edge of the clearing like the ones that are used to transport prisoners to their trials or to their prisons.

I also didn't smell the meat that was roasting for the feasting that was also planned for later.

I am glad.

All these things that I had to find out later.

Because at first there was work to be done.

Kerrass had started the attack by going for the "High Priest". Being a Witcher he could identify which of the people was channelling the power that was being generated by the narcotics and alcohol that they had all taken. Specialised herbs that had come from Zerrikania that had cost their consumers a fortune. In knocking him aside the magical aura that was dominating the place ebbed.

The soldiers knew their business as they strode into the clearing, their faces were grim.

A Worshipper rushed at me, his flail hauled back over his shoulder. I reversed my spear and drove the but of it into the man's nose that exploded in blood.

He fell and I ran on, aiming for the platform.

Another Worshipper ran at my side, the soldier next to me held out his shield and the man ran into it full pelt. He bounced off, slipping on something unspeakable and fell to the ground.

I ignored him.

Kerrass had knocked the... priest, for want of a better word, from his feet. The hood and mask had come off and he rose up and I saw his face for the first time.

He saw me then and grinned as I recognised him although I didn't know who it was at first.

The fight was all but over by then. The Worshippers were in a kind of ecstasy and had easily been dealt with by the trained soldiers and by now they were being rounded up by the bleak eyed church soldiers. The only real fight was happening around Kerrass. After barging the "priest" off his platform he had been rushed by the black clad "guards" and was still in the process of defending himself although I could see that one of them was down but I was looking at the priests far too familiar face.

"I know you," I heard myself say.

He laughed at me, his voice was cruel. "Perhaps you recognise your better. Edmund spoke often about his brothers and how..." he spat and drew a sword from under his robes, "weak they were."

His face was _so_ familiar but I didn't know him. So familiar that I felt sure I should know him.

He reminded me of...

Mother.

"Well," I said as I gestured the other soldiers back. "I didn't know that Uncle Kalayn had a son. Hello Cousin."

He saluted me with his sword before leaping at me.

He looked... He looked like a classical noble. There's no other way of putting it. He had a high forehead with a receding widows peak that was accented by being pulled back into a severed pony tail. His facial structure was pronounced with prominent cheekbones and a large nose and chin. His eyes were pale with obscenely long eyelashes and he moved with a kind of predatory grace that put me in mind of a hunting falcon or a cat stalking a mouse.

He was a good swordsman, I will give him that much. But he suffered from the same problem that a lot men from his level of stock suffer from which is that he had only really practised his fencing on the training field.

He lunged at me and I sidestepped him. He lunged again and I moved away. His smile lessened a little and I allowed myself to grin at him.

I was already planning his death.

"Take him alive Frederick." Someone called. I think it was Kerrass.

"Yes," said my cousin. "Take me alive Frederick." he mocked. "Take me alive, don't kill me. You'll never be able to kill me." He laughed and did a little dance.

I wanted to kill him so badly that I could taste it.

"You know I'll survive if you don't kill me. There won't be a trial, father will send some money and it'll all be alright. Something that you will never understand. You with your peasant father."

He laughed again at my silence. He was drawing patterns with his sword point in the air, moving from one side to the other. Seeing that I wasn't going to be baited he pulled his robe off and wrapped it round his fore-arm.

"We always laughed you know? Your brother and I. Edmund was wasted with such a father. Wasted. Edmund could have risen high if he had had the fortune to have a better father. A man of real breeding. Of proper noble blood."

I ignored him.

The stereotype is that you should always watch a man's eyes when you fight him. However this has been the case for so long that everyone knows it. Including the man who's eyes that you are watching. Therefore you can train yourself to lie with your eyes when you attack someone. The one thing that you can't disguise though is your hips. Your hips and your breathing.

"If you kill me, you'll hang. Someone like you. A minor son of an ill bred bastard. The nobility hate you you know. You and all your mongrel kin. I understand your sister is even a two bit whore. Whoring herself out to the magic users in an effort to make your families position better."

I ignored him. I suspected that he was goading me.

"What? Can't find your tongue. I had heard that you were a scholar of some kind. That's the right place for someone like you and I suppose that I must applaud your efforts to better yourself in a field where they rely on knowledge rather than breeding to get ahead. At least, that's what should happen."

He was presenting with his feet. Interesting.

"Have you even known a woman yet? They don't open their legs for just anyone you know? They like breeding. You look too much like your ill-bred mongrel of a father to be attractive to a woman. All the money in the world couldn't make _you_ attractive to a whore."

I gave up and laughed.

"This from the man who has to invent phony, idiotic religions to get women and even then, the only people that you seem to attract is other men. What does it say about your so called "breeding" that you have to attract women by stalking and then kidnapping them instead?"

I apologise for the homophobia but I was trying to make him angry. I was astonished that my feeble jests seemed to hit home with remarkable accuracy.

"The great worm is no phony. He is far more powerful than your petty little flame."

I laughed at him. There was nothing left.

He leapt to engage me. I side stepped, ducked and dodged. Truthfully I was too astonished as to how easily I had made him angry.

"Tell me," I said, and again I apologise for the homophobia but I was trying to play on his biases. "Have you not considered trying it out with your other "worshippers". Some of them would almost certainly wriggle properly."

People laughed. I could definitely make out Kerrass' and Sir Rickard's voice.

My cousin roared and charged me. I knocked his attack aside before dropping my spear and in almost the same movement that I had once used against Sir Robart, I stepped inside his reach and head-butted him in the face. He howled and flailed at me with his sword but I was too close to him for it to hurt or to even mark my clothing. I grabbed his sword arm with my left hand and punched him twice. Once in the arm making him drop his sword and once in the face, making his already broken nose even worse.

He fell, howling.

I kicked him in the guts and he curled up in a ball.

I wasn't satisfied though.

I stood on one of his ankles and stooped to lift the other. Hauling off I kicked him as hard as I could in the testicles.

He screamed as I walked away.

"Tie him up," I said to a waiting soldier who was wincing in sympathy. "I want to talk to him."

We had a lot of prisoners. A LOT of prisoners.

Most were gibbering wretches, their pupils huge with a combination of fiss-tech and religious fervour as well as self righteous smugness that comes from thinking you have too much money, too much influence and far too noble a name to do anything wrong. As they came down from their fervour there were several cries of "Take your filthy hands off me," and "don't you know who I am," thus proving that no cliché can ever be unused in whatever circumstances.

They had that look.

If you don't know what that look is then you have never been the least favourite pupil in the class or the least favourite child. The "look" is that look that the teachers pet has when they survey the other members of the class, or the apple of daddy's eye gets. They get the "look" when they've been caught doing something that they know they shouldn't be doing but at the same time they _know_ that they aren't going to get in much trouble for it.

The church soldiers responded in kind. Each man had been carrying manacles and the prisoners were chained up and shoved into order relatively quickly and we were all in the process of congratulating ourselves on a job well done.

I had been promised that I would be allowed to interrogate the "High Priest" at my leisure so I was just walking around letting people do their jobs. It is the height of rudeness and poor leadership to try and tell people how to do their jobs when they know it better than you do.

The alter was still standing, Kerrass and the newly arrived Laurelen were staring at it carefully in the way that people do when they're eyeing a dangerous animal. The poor girl who was tied to the post was still there but it had been explained that she was safe and that they were checking for bad magical vibes.

There was still the matter of the wagon though at the edge of the clearing.

Sir Rickard was there with one of his men. A man referred to by the others as "fingers" who had been offered the choice of joining the ranks or going to the scaffold. He was peering at the lock.

Sir Rickard nodded to me as we approached.

"Is it safe?" I asked.

"Kerrass tells us that there isn't anything magical there so that means that there is only the possibility of practical traps."

"Ok."

Fingers produced a set of lock-picks and started working on the large padlock that barred the door.

"Are those legal?" I wondered aloud over the lessening hubbub of people being chivvied into order.

"I won't tell anyone if you don't."

The lock sprang open fairly quickly and the door was thrown open.

It seemed like I wasn't done with horror for the night.

"Sweet suffering Lebioda," I heard myself breathe.

I turned away from the sight and looked at the prisoners that we had taken. One or two of them managed to have the good grace to look ashamed.

One of the church soldiers saw what was inside, drew a knife and gutted his nearest prisoner, spilling the man's guts onto the floor before hurling the knife down and howling into the night sky.

Someone vomited.

"I ummm," I managed, forcing myself to turn round to face the horror that the wagon contained.

Rickard knew what I meant though. He gargled and spat to moisten his throat. "I'll make sure that Shani gets here quickly."

The rest of the clearing had gone silent. Deathly silent.

The Wagon contained children.

Fucking children that had been mutilated beyond recognition. Children who had obviously been tortured, beaten and abused in the worst ways possible. So bad that as a result I can't bring myself to describe them.

No you know what... Fuck it.

In the weeks and months since this event, numerous noble families have complained at the treatment of the prisoners that we took that night. Noble families that have gone back centuries have been up in arms calling for the heads of the soldiers and churchmen that were responsible for the trials and grotesque punishments that took place afterwards. Even as they were taken to the stake to be burned, some of these men were protesting that it was their right to do those things. That those children were their subjects and so they had the "noble right to do whatever they wanted to them".

I've heard still others that have said that men had been trained for war. Had been bred for war and that they needed and outlet for all that pent up violence and that this was a result and should excuse them.

If those people are reading this then I say "Fuck you".

One of those children had been skinned.

Another had had her nose, eyes, teeth and ears removed. She still had her tongue though because, and I quote from transcripts of interrogations, "She sucked my dick better,"

When we started to release them from their bonds so that Shani could look at them. One of the older children, maybe thirteen years old managed to lay her hands on a soldiers dagger and killed two of the bound children before we managed to restrain her. She was still saying that it was a kindness and that she was just trying to take care of them before Laurelen managed to spell her to sleep.

That was the level of horror that we saw.

One young boy who with an angelic face had been flogged to the point where the lashes had damaged his spine. He will spend the rest of his days in one of my fathers orphanages where he is not expected to live another year.

Another young lad of four had been beaten so bad that all we could do for him was take away his pain. One of his internal organs had burst and was slowly dying of the poison that had gotten into his blood stream.

The wagon reeked of Piss, excrement, terror and a terrible rage that only children in their simplicity, are capable of.

One of the more lucid children asked a newly arrived Mark why the soldiers hadn't come sooner. Mark looked up at the rest of us in appeal for an answer but none of us had one and he wept as that child was taken off to be examined by Shani's caring hands.

The church is guilty of many sins in it's time. The liberal persecution of magic users or anyone who _might_ be a magic user, followed by the persecution of non-humans was awful and un-called for. It has since been shown that many of those efforts were down to political efforts by some members of the church hierarchy to supersede the advantages that the mages had in royal circles.

But the trials of those men that we took that night?

They deserved every piece of that.

Children.

They were torturing, abusing and sacrificing children to slake their own thirsts and to appease a dark God that they didn't even understand.

Anyone who claims that there are _any_ circumstances where that is alright. Where that level of EVIL is justified can come and see me.

I will be waiting, at dawn and with my spear ready for you.

In the end I didn't manage to see my cousin until the early hours of the morning. When the day had started I had looked forward to this entire thing being over. I had looked forward to meeting the mastermind behind my families pain and looking him in the eye but I had to force myself to enter the room where he was chained to a table.

I didn't want to see him. I didn't want to look at him. To acknowledge that the two of us were related by blood made me feel sick. In the end I managed to work myself up to it in the same way that you go to get a sore tooth removed because it's better if it's done quickly.

He was wearing fairly ordinary clothing when we walked in. A shirt that looked as though the best that could be said for it was that it was clean and a pair of trousers made from some rough cloth that had clearly once been something else.

"At last," he said when Kerrass and I walked in, "Finally, we can get this whole thing sorted out."

He held his manacled hands out to us.

We sat down carefully. There was a guard in the room. Not because anyone thought that my cousin might escape but at Kerrass' request in case I decided to murder my cousin there and then.

It was not a mistake to request that.

We had been directed to stay on the other side of the table and I deliberately moved the chair a little further away from the table.

Realising that we weren't going to unlock his bonds Cousin Raynard lowered his hands back into his lap.

"So you're one of those bleeding heart, commoner lovers are you. You're angry because of what was happening are you?"

I took a deep breath as I tried to reach for the calm that I need when I'm interviewing people that I don't like.

"It shames me to admit." I spoke carefully. Slowly so as to make sure that I was biting off each syllable correctly. "That we would never have stopped you if you had just left Father and Edmund alone."

"Hey I had nothing to do with that. Edmund killed your father,"

"What about the Stable-master and his wife?"

"I didn't know anything about that, besides they're not important. Edmund must have just panicked."

He lounged back in his seat, stretching out his legs as far as the chains would allow him to.

"So you're not going to let me go then?" He asked as though it wasn't really that important. "Ah well. Someone will turn up eventually."

I had to swallow my next words and took a moment to calm down again.

Kerrass took things up.

"Why don't you tell us about your little cult and what Edmund has to do with it?"

"Why don't I?" Anger dripped into his words for a moment. "Because I refuse to speak with such as you."

Kerrass smiled an equally venomous grin. "But you will won't you? You want to. You and your kind always want to tell your stories." Kerrass doesn't often remind me of the cat that his Witcher school takes it's name from but he did now in the way that he was smiling. Seeming so utterly relaxed but at the same time, so confident in his ability to murder.

"You want to tell us because you want us to know how... clever you are. How superior you are."

"Don't you cast your spells on me."

"I'm not casting spells. What you sense now is the truth of my words."

Kerrass and Raynard stared at each other. Neither moving.

Raynard looked away first, into my eyes.

"I will talk to you though, cousin. I will admit that I'm surprised. Edmund said that you were weak. That you had no steel in you. He said that if you were surrounded by naked women that you wouldn't know what to do with them except wet your trousers."

"Better soiling myself than soiling them." I said. "Tell us what happened."

"Are you sure you want to know the depths that your brother sank to? Are you sure you want to know how he killed your father. I had nothing to do with it. I am innocent of those things."

"Come on," I said. "Edmund wasn't that clever and we both know that."

Cousin Raynard laughed. "You are right you know. He wasn't that clever. Your father was though. He figured it all out. Well, not all of it but enough to be dangerous."

"When did it begin?" I prompted.

"Of all things it was actually Edmund that found me. He'd just had a fight with his latest paramour, whatever or whoever that was and he came to see me in Novigrad. Your brother was a hedonist. He saw things and he wanted them, money was no object as your father was obsessed that both he and his family had everything that your father had never had. Edmund was the first born and so... I might argue that your father learned his lesson with those children that came afterwards looking at what he made of you... But for Edmund, nothing was ever enough. Women and wine weren't enough so he moved on to fiss-tech. From there, fiss-tech wasn't enough so he moved on to Women and wine while being on fiss-tech. But that wasn't enough. So then he needed the taboo, he needed to know that he was doing things that society as a whole wouldn't approve of.

All the rest of us had to do was to suggest something to him in an almost joking kind of way and he would want it. He would _need_ it and then we would provide it for him."

Raynard laughed.

"I remember the time we suggested bestiality to him and you could visibly see the disgust along with the interest warring on his face."

Never have I wanted to punch someone in the face as much as I wanted to punch him then. Even Sir Robart was not as loathsome as this man was and it physically sickens me to think that I am related to Cousin Raynard.

"Where did the Sacrilege start? The Heresy and the magic?"

Raynard started to look furtive and nervous. His eyes started looking around the place and he licked his lips several times.

"I'm not sure I should answer that."

"Oh come on," I said. "We saw you doing it? What's the worst that could happen? They burn you at the stake a little bit more than they were going to previously?"

Raynard tried to wave a hand dismissively and frowned at the manacles as though he had forgotten that they were there.

"They won't burn me." He said. "It's not entirely unlikely that we won't get to finish this interview before someone comes to set me free. I'm the future Count Kalayn."

Kerrass snickered.

"When did it start. The worship of your dark God?" I asked.

"When did your brother start? Or when did the worship itself start?"

"Either," I said rather stupidly. "Both."

I'm a historian. I should have asked better questions. So that I could note them down as a way to ward off future stupidity. I know this now. But then I was tired, aching and massively, achingly sad.

"Crom Cruarch. The crooked man of the mound."

Say what you like about Cousin Raynard but he knew how to draw in his audience. He lowered his voice and started speaking quietly so that we had to strain to hear him, leaning forward to catch his words.

"No-one knows when his worship started. No-one knows the first time that offerings were made to him. We gave the offerings to the golden idol on the hill and he responded with his gaze. His terrible, wondrous, terrifying gaze. Ancient he is, and terrible.

"He rewards us who worship him, unlike your holy flame. Flame can be put out, can be doused and extinguished. It is a small, fluttering, guttural thing but the lord Crom Cruarch. He is strong.

"The more we offer him. The more he rewards us. The more we give him. The more he gives us back. We give him our pleasure, he gives us more. We give him youth and vitality, he returns more to us."

"That's lovely," Kerrass said. His harsh words cutting across Cousin Raynard's smooth and melodious tones like a hammer breaking glass. "So you sacrifice others and throw them into his gaping maw and he shits out a drug high is that it?"

Raynard grinned.

Kerrass has a repertoire of smiles, many of them horrible and nasty but never have any of his smiles made me feel sick. Raynard's did.

"Oh, so much more." he said. "And he takes the sacrifice of others as well."

"When did Edmund start with this...cult."

Raynard tried his negligent waving thing again.

"He was always heading towards the crooked man. Always, although he might deny it. It was in his blood one might say and as soon as he heard about it he wanted to try it out. More pleasure? That was a gift to Edmund. More of a feeling of defying societies normality? More of a feeling of rebellion against your fathers conservative leanings? The very idea gave him excitement. He started with that, maybe eight years ago? A handful of years after he left home."

I nodded. I felt sick. I didn't want to know any more. I wanted to go home and be violently sick. I wanted to puke until I couldn't puke any more. Then I wanted a bath followed by getting drunk until I could no longer remember anything that had happened.

Kerrass had warned me of this back when I first hired him, but I hadn't listened and now I had to see it through.

"What happened about Father?" I heard myself say. I couldn't bring myself to look across the table at my cousin any further.

"Your father got wise. He recognised the pattern that we were using without realising that we were doing him a favour, removing undesirables from his lands but he spotted it and somehow managed to put two and two together and get the nineteen result that meant that he found out that Edmund was involved. I almost regret his death so that we could find out how he figured that one out. But he summoned Edmund and told him, in no uncertain terms that these activities would stop.

"Edmund panicked. He was already living in a heightened state with the drugs and the heightened state that Crom Cruarch provides and this made it worse, his lusts and desires grew at the thought of deprivation but so did his paranoia and fear. Vast spectres of being disinherited, cut off and thrown out onto the streets began to rear their ugly heads and a life without money just seemed like too much of a hardship to him. Like so many things, he brought the problems to those of us who are in the priest hood of the man on the mound. We were drunk and somehow he got the idea to murder his father."

"Somehow?" I snarled. "You told him to didn't you."

I was not asking a question.

"No, we were drunk. We were higher than the clouds and dancing in the air streams with the dragons. He got the idea and then we talked about how to do it."

"You're lying. You made him do it." It sounded childish and I got angrier because I could hear my own petulance.

"No, no I didn't," Raynard was smiling at me. "He thought so though. He really did think so. The first thing I knew of it was that he had bought the poison and that he was telling me that he would be going home for a while to sort things out. I didn't believe he could be that stupid. Your father would never disown him as he would know that your family would never survive the scandal but your brother had it in his head by that point. It might have even blown over if Edmund had had the good sense to simply deny everything and come back to warn us all that someone was putting it all together so that we would have to move our base of operations to... I don't know... Vizima maybe. But your brother went off on a cocked mission to kill your father. Successfully it would seem as well."

"I don't believe you,"

"That's your prerogative. I would challenge you to a duel for failing to believe my word but frankly you are so far beneath me that I wouldn't accept."

"Fuck you," I said but I didn't have the strength or energy to put any real venom behind it.

I sighed and stared at the ceiling. There was my answer. Edmund killed my father. My eldest brother was a patricide. His motives and reasoning were those of simple, paranoid fear, guilt and greed.

How...disappointing.

"Still," he went on. "The money's the thing though isn't it."

"I don't follow."

"Well, obviously they're not going to kill me now and I stand to inherit from your brother."

"Yeah, I still don't get it."

"Your brother left me everything. The castle the lands, the money. Everything. I'd be getting your family to move out if I were you."

I just stared at him, feeling stupid.

"I don't know what you're getting at."

"Your lands." Raynard said, practically licking his lips. "Your Father died which means that Edmund stood to inherit. Edmund dies and we made sure that I stand to inherit from him. It's all tied up and legal, you can check if you like."

He sat back and tried to cross his arms before the manacles stopped his efforts.

I shook my head in disbelief.

"That's just not going to happen."

"Come on, I'll survive this. I'm going to be a count before too much longer. Then they won't dare try me in court and I'll walk away. I'll probably even be able to get you hung for assaulting me."

I gaped at him.

"Well you're just too stupid to live. You killed Edmund before Dad had died. That means that Dad's will has precedence..."

"You wanna bet. By the time I've finished throwing money around at court, you'll be lucky to have the clothes on your back. Not that sister of yours though. I'll keep her. Fine looking woman that. Besides, I didn't kill anyone. Not anyone worth noticing anyway."

"You killed those peasants?"

"So?"

Hate is an interesting thing. I went for him but fortunately Kerrass was there to hold me back.

"You're forgetting something else." the Witcher said calmly, his hand felt like an iron vice clutching my bicep. "This isn't a civil court. It's a church one, and their rules about prisoners are a lot less dainty than the civil or royal courts. And the nearest church authority is Arch-Bishop Coulthard. You will survive to tell everything you know about your little cult to your little god. Then you will be tried for heresy, found guilty and executed."

Kerrass' deadpan tone made the sentence sound all the more awful. "Arch-Bishop Coulthard is unlikely to forgive you killing his brother."

"But I didn't kill him."

"Of course you did," I said having sat back down. "He was going to tell everything. He was going to pass on all the details and his mouth would run off."

"Why would I kill him. We had won. He was going to be "Baron" Coulthard with all the money power and prestige that went with it. We could tell him what to do with it and he isn't clever enough to do otherwise. Why would I kill him?"

His eyes narrowed at me.

"You killed him. This is a stitch up, a frame job by your pet mutant monster.

"I always thought one of you killed him. I always thought it was a bit dodgy and he always spoke about how much you all hated him and were jealous of him. You killed him didn't you?"

"Don't be daft."

"No, you did didn't you. You killed him. It wasn't me so who else could it have been."

He was getting angry now, the fear of his position finally getting through or his drugs high wearing off.

"You killed him. You murdered him for the money and now you're going to take it from me too by having me burned as a heretic you fucking murderer. Who's next? The rest of your family. Admit it you fucking piece of filth."

Kerrass caught my eye and jerked his head towards the door.

"Who killed your brother Freddie? Who killed him?"

We left but his words still echoed down the corridor after us as he screamed the question.

"WHO KILLED HIM? WHO KILLED EDMUND?"


	32. Chapter 32

(A/N: Some brief description of historical child abuse and sexual violence)

Our family's chapel is situated at the end of another long corridor. It's actually in a completely separate wing of the castle from everything else as I understand that father was extremely taken aback by the request from my mother that he have a chapel built inside his grounds. All the outside buildings and space were taken up by existing needs and plans so that when we moved in, everyone was already moving to their allotted areas when I understand that Mother turned to father rather abruptly on maybe their second day of residence.

She said something like...

"But where's the chapel going to go?"

Witnesses claim that father was utterly taken aback by the question. The historian in me notes that no specific person knows what was said, or actually witnessed the discussion but everyone _knows_ that it happened in the same way that everyone _knows_ that fire is hot.

I was maybe four or five at the time that this conversation was taking place so I, of course, remember nothing of it. What I _do_ remember is the flurry of extra activity that went into the building of the new wing of the castle. Father was determined that we should be... well considered in the local area, that we should be social climbers and pursue an agenda that results in our climb to the top of the ladder so, as well as the chapel, there were several more guest rooms built as well as a number of studies and school rooms for the use of churchmen whenever they visited which, given the reportedly obscene amounts of money that father donated, was regularly.

As an aside I should mention that it's one of these rooms that brother Mark uses as his study.

But one of the other things that I should say is that, despite the fact that it was clearly an afterthought on the part of my father and although the other rooms in that wing of the castle are rather perfunctory, some of which have only rarely been used, the chapel itself is rather beautiful.

It's a corner room on the highest floor of the castle on the side that would be least accessible and therefore the least likely to be assaulted in the event of an actual siege. There are several small stained glass windows and it is blissfully quiet there being so far away from the rest of the castle's bustling activity although it can get cold in the winter there is an overall feeling of warmth and coziness about it. The ceiling is clad in wood, carved into many intricate patterns so that if you look up you can follow them with your eyes and spend time looking at the patterns and counting the points if that's the kind of thing that you want. There are six, simple wooden pews on either side of a central aisle, each pew could comfortably seat three people if you want plenty of room, or four people if you squeeze together. They are cushioned with surprisingly comfortable padding which have been embroidered and patterned with the stories of great holy people from over the years including the prophet Lebioda and others.

At the front of the chapel there is a prayer rail with more cushions that at various times have been the pride and joys of Mothers, Emma's and other women's industry. Behind the rail there is a prayer rest and chair for an attending priest as well as an assistant. The Alter is a simple wooden block made from a tree that had been uprooted from within the castle grounds where my father had wanted to build some of his barracks. The wood then being used for various purposes round the castle but it is perhaps most fitting that it had been used here. Craftsmen had worked on that alter, carving holy words and symbols into it and I'm told that it is a true work of art.

Not that I've ever seen it. The alter is then covered with a plain white cloth and a golden trim. On the top of the cloth in the very centre of the table there is a fire bowl filled with oil which is refilled on a daily basis by my mother, by Mark if he's around or if neither are present then a servant does it. The bowl is always alight.

The warmth of the flame along with the sound and smell of the burning fuel are what lends a sense of peace to the place. More than once I have slept on one of the pews, just listening to the sound of the fire and being hypnotised by it's movement.

The chapel feels like a refuge from the rest of the world. As though it's it's own little bubble of contained peace, separate from everything else. I used to spend a lot of time here when I was living at the castle as I could take my books here and perch in a corner to read or make notes on my learning and it was rare indeed that I would be disturbed.

My religion is important to me in a small way. Kerrass is correct in that I try to pray every night and leave offerings and prayers for the souls of those men who I have killed. Who I have murdered, no matter the justification. I find I have had to make a conscious separation in my mind about my religion. My faith in the Eternal flame and my ideas about it being a guiding light rather than a scourge, of offering warmth and comfort rather than cleansing fire has never changed from the gentle teachings that I received at the hands of good and kind men and women from a young age. I keep those thoughts close to me and they have been no small comfort to me during those long vigils on the road waiting for whatever darkness might crawl out from beneath the earth to be slain by the hands of a waiting Witcher.

But I have had to separate those opinions from my feelings towards The Church.

The Church worries me. More recently, the history books will show that the systematic destruction of magic users as well as the persecution of non-humans was largely politically motivated prejudice. Churchmen in the greater hierarchies of the church wanting the change of beneficial progress to come quickly and resenting the positions of power that the Council of mages and more recently the Lodge of Sorceresses have had over the Northern Kings. So they used the madness of King Radovid as well as fear of Nilfgaard as an excuse to pursue their own goals.

I will admit to dismay that so many, otherwise good and devout men and women have fallen into the trap of practising religious hatred of others and encouraging those feelings in the rest of the populace. It was not an exaggeration the thing that I said to Mark about the most monstrous acts that I had ever seen had been committed by humans rather than so called "monsters".

I had talked with Mark about this in the time after our arrest of the cult of Crom Cruarch and to my brothers credit he agreed with me. Talking about his earlier demonstration regarding the web of life I had asked why the recent activities of the church had been so violent when, by his own demonstration, such actions were catastrophic to people's lives.

Mark told me that I was correct. That the church was divided into two halves of thought. The first being that the activity did indeed need to be slow, gentle and careful. That we needed to take our time and gently guide and help people towards that light. Towards that flame.

The other school of thought was the more doom-saying school of thought. That the eternal frost was getting closer and that the only way of stopping it was for us all to worship the flame as soon as possible. That there was no time to waste and that people should be saved despite themselves.

My brother favours the first school of thought whereas the previous Hierophant went the other way with the support of King Radovid.

But that separation in my head still exists although I am grateful that my brother was supportive and understanding of my...crisis of faith.

But even despite all of that. The family chapel has a special place in my heart. I had visited it when I had gotten home.

(I left that bit out when I was writing about it because it didn't seem important)

I had prayed there for Father's health and lack of pain. I had read and wept and laughed and talked there

many many times. It was a communal room and it was important to all of us. My family was in those walls and in those chairs and kneeling at those prayer rests.

I loved and still love that room and more so than the castle, it is that room that I look forward to visiting whenever I go home. In reality it is that thing that is home to me.

But this time I didn't want to go there.

Kerrass and I arrived back at the family castle having taken our gentle time to travel back. We had spent the previous night at my lodgings in Oxenfurt.

The order of events was that we hadn't really slept more than a couple of quick, stolen hours the night that we had brought so many heretics to justice. We had to give statements and answer questions about it all many many times, both to the Watch and to the Church investigators. Cousin Raynard had been right in that there were lots of people there that were DEMANDING that their darling children, or more accurately, their client's darling children be released IMMEDIATELY so everyone involved wanted the whole thing to be done properly and without any mistakes being made. My own interrogation was carried out by the High Sheriff of Redania who had been in Novigrad on some business of state, but had ridden south when he heard what had happened.

I was very good, I didn't criticise his subordinates even once.

He took my statement and I answered his questions in as much as detail as I could. He brought in a minor wizard who I allowed to ensorcle me to tell the entire truth and I understand that the answers that I gave were sufficiently close to the ones that I had given earlier.

Kerrass had a bit more difficulty in convincing everyone that he was telling the truth as he was immune to those spells so instead they asked the same questions over and over and over again until, in his words, they got bored of listening to the same words all the time and let him go.

Much to his amusement although I'm told that this situation was not uncommon.

Afterwards we were both rather in demand from people demanding to know what was going on. Sir Rickard managed to smuggle Emma and Laurelen out of the city to avoid criticism from the numerous families who would seek to discredit the investigation, although I should mention that this was done so with the High Sheriff's permission. The High Sheriff is a good man trying to maintain order in a realm that doesn't have a King or even a client head of state yet so is finding that he has to make far reaching decisions himself that he would normally have deferred to the King. He was living in Novigrad so that he could still work in Redania while sending daily reports as well as daily requests for governance and guidance for the North. I promised him that if he needed any help from the Coulthard family then we would happily render such aid as we were able.

Looking back I am lucky that he took the offer with the correct intentions rather than a comment about how his life would be much easier if I had just minded my own business.

I spent some time wandering about Oxenfurt so that people could direct their anger at me rather than anyone else. Fortunately in Oxenfurt that anger tends to be of the Eggs and Tomato kind rather than being dragged into an alley and being murdered. I kept telling people that it was in the hands of the church and that they should stop pestering me. Even then I was eventually driven to seek refuge in the University where a set of very grim faced guards kept every one out until the crowds dispersed.

That evening I drank myself insensible in the office of my tutor who was full of sympathy (despite wanting a considerable account of the events for posterity) and have no memory of making it back to my own bed.

Kerrass was sleeping on my couch, we had a large breakfast and made our way back to the castle at a leisurely pace while we discussed what to do next.

I think we were maybe a third of the way home when Kerrass groaned. He actually had to get off his horse and pace around a bit to walk it off but even despite the massive thought that had clearly just hit him, I still needed to force him to tell me what it was.

We rode the rest of the way back to the castle in silence.

Shani once told me that there is a mood or a state of being, called disassociation which is when you feel almost distant from the events and circumstances around you. It's like you are controlling your own body through an elaborate system of levers and puppet strings. It doesn't really feel like yourself doing and saying these things. It's like watching the events from the corner of the room like watching a play or as if the events were happening to someone else.

We rode up to the castle and through the gate. I acknowledged the salute of the guardsmen that was standing on duty before slowly walking my horse up to the stable. I proceeded to take proper care of my horse, brushing, feeding, watering and a good rubbing down. She had been with me a long time now and I suddenly felt as though she deserved the proper attention of a companion rather than just a thing. Possibly sensing something of my mood she nuzzled me a bit in the way that horses do when they're hunting for an apple or lump of sugar.

I left reluctantly.

Kerrass had already finished caring for his own horse and was leaning against a fence post while he waited. I knew he was worried but at that point there was nothing really that he could say or do to make me feel any better.

We walked up to the keep.

The courtyard was deathly silent, black flags and bunting were everywhere and those servants that we did see were also dressed in black. At first I was surprised at the lack of colour and noise but then I realised what had happened. I had forgotten that my Father and Edmund were going to be interred tomorrow. I looked around at those places where I was used to seeing noise and colour for a moment before Kerrass put his hand on my shoulder. At some point I had stopped walking so I started to move again.

Father and Edmund. My thoughts had told me "Father and Edmund" rather than "Father and Brother". I would need to think about that.

Emma greeted us in the entrance way with a sad smile but her cheer faltered when she saw us. Kerrass reacted first and moved forward, taking her gently by the elbow he steered her away. They talked quickly and quietly for a moment before she put her head in her hands.

I ignored them and went up the stairs to my room where I asked one of the servants to run my a bath.

For a moment I looked for a piece of paper and a quill to note down a thought. I thought that the noble world was divided into two camps, the first was those people who ordered their servants to fill a bath and the second was those people who _asked_ their servants to fill a bath. I wondered what made a person fall into one camp or the other.

I bathed thoroughly. So thoroughly that by the time I was done, my fingers had shrivelled but I felt the need for it. I felt so tired and dirty as a result of the events of the last few days. It was a bone deep weariness that went beyond physical or mental tiredness. Physical fatigue can be cured by eating, or sleeping. Mental fatigue can be cured by spending some time with friends or taking a break and thinking about something else. This was a soul-deep fatigue. I wanted to crawl away into a warm, dark hole and scream until my throat bled and oblivion came for me.

I dressed. You needed to dress properly for these kinds of things. I didn't want to look rumpled or scruffy. I took care with my clothing making sure that each piece of clothing settled right on my frame and that it looked... correct. Some enterprising soul had put my mourning garb onto a stand in the corner. For a moment I considered wearing that instead but no. That would send the wrong message.

That was tomorrows problem.

I spent a long time looking at my weapons stacked against the wall next to the head of the bed.

When I had first been given the spear it had been uncomfortable and ungainly in my hand. I was awkward with it and it had taken many long hours of practice and training drills with Kerrass before I could even be considered "OK" with it. Truth be told, I still considered myself to be far from "good" with the weapon. Most of those people that I had fought and beaten had underestimated me, giving me an advantage that I could use. Others had been surprised by the fact that I knew how to use it or simply didn't know how to fight a man with a spear. But that spear had become as close a companion to me as my horse, or Kerrass.

The dagger was newer. Short, thin and designed for up close use, sitting across my belly at an angle designed for easy use by my right hand. I was still at the stage with it that I still noticed the weight of it when it was on my belt but at the same time, in some way I had compensated for it, and missed it when it wasn't there.

I left them where they were.

Something struck me as I turned to leave and I stood at the doorway with new eyes. There was something different here, more than just the changes in furnishings (I had needed a bigger bed) and I didn't know what it was. It took me a while to figure out in all truthfulness but the simple fact was that this was no longer _my_ room. It was a truth about the entire castle really.

It is a strange thing when you realise that the place where you grew up is no longer your home.

I left the room and walked slowly towards the chapel.

It felt oddly like saying goodbye.

The halls and landings of the castle are filled with paintings, tapestries and other ornaments that Father had seen in other castles that he wanted to emulate. My favourite picture in just about the entire castle is on the landing just as you go up the stairs. It's just on the left before you go down the second corridor.

What the picture shows is a landscape of a vast marsh at twilight. In the distance you can just about pick out a large mountain range but all they really are are shadows against the sky as the sun sets behind them. In the foreground there is an island in the marsh made where a few trees have grown up on a small hillock. One tree has fallen over creating a small barrier against the elements. A man has made camp. His horse is tied to a stake in the ground with it's saddle and things next to it and a blanket over it's back where it's eating from some of the tufts of grass around the place. The man himself has already laid out his bedroll and is staring into the fire, poking it with a stick. The important detail that catches a young man's imagination is that the man has long white hair. When I was younger I had always wondered if this person might be the famed Geralt of Rivia, the White Wolf himself.

Nowadays I know better of course. There is no way that a Witcher would camp in such a spot unless at the absolute end of desperation. There are likely to be all kinds of monsters in such a swamp, drowners, the drowned dead and large insects. Kerrass would have spat out his incredulity at such an amateurish mistake.

How the illusions of childhood are shattered.

I walked on down the long corridor towards the chapel.

I didn't bother knocking and just opened the doors.

There are rituals that you have to obey though.

After I had closed the door I bowed deeply towards the flame on the alter before walking down the aisle to the prayer rail and bowed again.

The little rituals are important. There is comfort to be found in performing them.

I knelt, slightly to the left of the centre line of the chapel, and I started to pray. My hands clasped together in the oldest ways of prayer and with closed eyes I began the first prayer of the prophet Lebioda.

Old rituals to soothe the heart and soul.

After a long time that I wished might have been longer I opened my eyes and looked up at the flame that danced before me.

"We know almost everything." I said as clearly and distinctly as I could. "We know that Edmund was angry and upset at the pressure that Father had placed upon his shoulders, regardless of whether he was right to think that or not. We know he wanted to enjoy himself and fled home to sample the worlds pleasures where he fell in with "The Wrong Crowd" although that term doesn't seem to do the lot of them justice.

"He joined a cult. The cult of what is described as "The crooked man" although Mark tells me that they have just put one of many faces onto a different entity that is much more terrifying than "The man on the mound" who is, in reality, one of the older pagan gods who were worshipped to give people comfort when the crops failed.

"That cult was lead by Cousin Raynard of all people.

"I wish I knew that I had a cousin, not that I know that I would have done anything different but it would have been nice to have known that he existed at the very least."

I sighed and rubbed my eyes. My vision was flickering in the way it does at the edges of extreme fatigue. I so desperately wanted to run away and hide somewhere but these things needed to be seen through. I so wished, right then and there, that I had been somewhere extremely remote when the messages had been sent out so that I wouldn't have had to deal with all of this. But I wasn't and I did.

"We know that the cult made a hobby, as part of their worship, of kidnapping and brutally torturing young people in rites that include, but are not limited to beatings, whippings, rape, mutilation, cannibalism and living cannibalism although the fact that I have to make a distinction between two different kinds of cannibalism is frankly disgusting, and degrading. We don't know what kind of actual effect these rites had but estimates range from the considerable to the "hardly any changes at all".

"We know that father found out about this. We know that he found several victims and was researching others. We fount out that he had made provisions for the families of some of the victims in an effort to make restitution. We also know that he told Edmund to stop.

"Edmund did not.

"Instead Edmund panicked and ran back to his friends and Cousin Raynard. During a drunken evening involving wine women and generally awful depravity, Edmund decided that Father needed to die. During that evening a plan was concocted to make this happen. Arguments differ as to who actually started the entire thing with cousin Raynard blaming Edmund but I feel, as does Mark, that Edmund was simply not intelligent to come up with such in intricate plan let alone having the nerve or the knowledge to implement it.

"That point is likely to go with Cousin Raynard to his grave as we can't find anyone else who was at that meeting."

I sighed.

"Edmund engineered the accident and administered the poison to convince everyone that Father had died from complications arising from his accident. Unfortunately, Fathers chief groom and stable-master realised that Fathers riding equipment had been tampered with and brought the problem to Edmund's attention. During that conversation the groom realised who the culprit was and ran for it taking his wife with him. They were caught and killed a few hours away from the castle.

"Putting it together we think that you also knew about all of these things. Or figured them out somehow and that finally, after all these years you decided that enough was enough. You obtained a knife from the kitchen under the pretence of needing it for some sewing task which is well within your capabilities. You had a mannequin from the tailor to practice your strike a few times which you then hid somewhere.

"Then, when Edmund was gloating over the business empire and the amount of money that he was about to inherit, you walked into the study and killed him with a short, sharp and strong thrust to his neck before you left so that he could bleed to death.

"My guess is that you are astonished that you haven't been caught yet. I bet you even walked through the castle with the knife in your hand on the way to that study. But in the end you wiped the knife clean on Edmund's clothes, secreted it about yourself and left. You had the keys to the entire place and so... no-one would even think that anything was out of the ordinary."

I shifted my weight a little as my knees had gone numb.

"But," I went on.

"What I don't know is why you encouraged us to investigate. Without your input, Mark would have run Kerrass and I off. I've no doubt that he would have cooled off eventually in the event of Father's death but without your speaking up to encourage us to investigate, you would have gotten away with it. So why did you speak up?"

There was a long pause, the only sound being the guttering of the lamp flame.

My mother looked up from where she had been kneeling in prayer, just a little further down the rail. It was the first time that she had moved since I entered the chapel. She stood, slowly, and smoothed out her plain dress and made the sign of the flame before sitting down on the nearest pew.

"The answer is not complicated." she said after correcting a few creases and wrinkles in her dress. "It wasn't that I wanted to be caught, nor is it because I thought that you wouldn't figure it all out."

"In truth, the reason that we did figure it out in the end was because it could be no-one else." I found myself smiling. Not good. I needed to be cold and hard.

"Be that as it may." She said carefully. "I once made a promise to your father. That neither you , nor anyone else, within this family or outside, would ever know about my families secret history. I could not tell you all what had happened without that coming to light. Also, you and Mark were about to murder each other. I was confident in your good natures that you would have gone away to calm down and that he would forgive you but I find that such things are easier to forgive than forget. I was concerned that a rift in the family at this stage would be...irreparable.

"But also, I don't know why. Both of those reasons are correct as well as some others. I must think on them."

I waited a while but it seemed that there wasn't going to be anything else said.

"Very well," I said, standing up. I stood straight and forced myself to look her in the eye. "Madam. It is my duty to inform you that you are being placed under arrest for the crime of murdering your own son. This power has been given to me by the High Sheriff of the client Kingdom of Redania who has instructed myself to try the matter as I see fit. As there is a connection to the possibility of Heresy according to the teachings of the Mother Church, permission was also sought from the ranking church official present and permission has been given."

I took a deep breath. I held my mothers gaze as hard as I could although I desperately wanted to look away. I have held the gaze of Lords and ladies, monsters and non-humans, creatures of darkness and an elder vampire but, up until that point. This was the hardest to do.

"You will be taken from this place to somewhere where you will be able to give an account of yourself to the ranking church official and ranking feudal lords where a decision will be made regarding your future. When I leave this room, two guards will enter the room who will escort you to this place with every courtesy unless you resist or try to escape. You will be given as much time as you wish to make your peace but those men are under orders to prevent you from harming yourself by any method, including starvation or deprivation."

I took another breath. I thought through all of the things that needed to be said and couldn't think of anything else.

"Do you understand what I have just said?"

"I do,"

I nodded and marched to the door.

"Frederick."

"Madam?" I turned to look at her. She had stood again.

"I am very proud of you."

I couldn't speak. I nodded sharply and fled.

I took a few minutes to splash some water on my face before joining everyone else downstairs. My stomach was churning with acid.

Mark had done me proud. Despite having, by now, been told what Kerrass and I had figured out and therefore being told that he would have to sit in judgement over our own mother. He had done nothing to make the situation formal. I had been terrified that I would go back downstairs to discover that our main hall would have been transformed into some kind of inquisitorial docks with a rack and torture implements being laid out.

Instead Sam, Emma and he were sat in comfortable chairs taking their ease as much as possible. Kerrass was sat in the corner, watching everything without moving in the way that he doesn't want to be noticed.

Sam was pacing quietly next to the fireplace. Emma was sat, trying to read a book and Mark was sat on the couch. I joined Mark and he squeezed my shoulder as I sat down.

As it turned out we didn't have to wait for long.

Mark stood as Mother was escorted into the room by the two church guards. They waited at the door but Mark waved them off with a wave and a nod.

Mother came and stood before us all as Sam pulled out another chair.

"Here I am," Mother said.

"Would you like to sit down?" Mark asked carefully.

Mothers eyebrows rose. "No thank you."

"So," Mark sat back down. "Do you deny the charge of murder?"

"No,"

Mark nodded.

"Then this is your opportunity to explain. I cannot say that it will mitigate your sentence. Oh, I should say that as this is a feudal court as well as a church one, Emma, Samuel and Frederick will be acting as advisor's regarding this as the feudal position is still pending. If you wish, this can be put off until feudal responsibilities are...set down. We are aware that this means that you have a familial relationship with your judges."

Sam snorted in what I assumed was bitter amusement.

Mother seemed to consider things. "No," she said after a while. "Better to get it done although I would ask to witness my late husbands internment before whatever sentence is carried out, whatever that sentence may be."

"That will be taken into consideration." said Mark. "Then do you have anything to say. I should say that the church, at least, requires an explanation for your actions." He put a certain hint of steel into his voice there.

For a moment I pitied those potential heretics in Tretogor.

It took a long time for my mother to start speaking but when she started, it was almost impossible to stop.

"There isn't really that much to say." She said after a while. "I haven't told anyone about my past, at least I don't think I have, certainly not in one go. Your father knew, he'd pieced it together from the various bits and pieces of gossip that he'd managed to pick up and put together in his brain.

"Flame but I loved your father.

"I was inducted into the family religion by my father who was rather forced into it by my Grandfather. Grandfather was one of those dyed in the wool kind of heretics that like to tell people that things were much better back in their day. Looking back I kind of think that it was treated a bit like an old man's club where they got together for a bit of idle child abuse and raping to keep the young folk servile and knowing their proper place."

It has been said that I get the dryness in my sense of humour from my mother.

"Anyway, I was finally inducted by my Father who raped me at Grandfathers insistence for my eleventh birthday. I remember it being really strange that I got up, was bathed, got given gifts and a pretty dress before being raped. Then my big brother was given a turn which he was unable to finish. He was only a year older than me and as such he was still struggling to see girls as being icky.

"Then the religion, the cult I should say, fell into the back ground. It was simply there, in the same way that many people treat the church of the holy flame. My brother and I would do our studies, be presented at court and things but then on certain days or other "holy" days, we would be stripped, beaten, degraded and raped by sinister old men in robes.

"Another sad truth is that I don't remember much about it. There are reasons for this. I was often amazingly tired and so used to it that it kind of became normal after a while. They also drugged us until we were high enough that we would be properly...attentive and behave properly. Grandfather used to complain about that kind of thing saying things like "We didn't drug them back in my day. They struggled and we had to hold them."

"It went on and on until eventually it had to stop so that I could attract a husband. I had tried to kill myself, I think twice on the whole. The first time I took a razor blade to myself although I had no idea how to do it so you can only see the scars if you know what you're looking for. The second time I tried to overdose on some kind of herb that someone told me could kill me but instead of killing me it just made me vomit it all back up again. But all the hell that I had been through up until that point was absolutely nothing compared to the hell of drug withdrawal.

"Eventually I sweated, swore and bled my way to sobriety enough to be properly able to receive guests and one of those guests was your father.

"My family had fallen on hard times, largely due to the fact that Grandfather was an elitist imbecile who refused to deal with anyone that he saw as being of lower station than himself and insisted on living to a certain standard which our lands could no longer support. My father had caught some of this illness and by the time my brother inherited the family was in truly dire straights financially. As a result of this my dowry was less than impressive. With Grandfathers death, the families religion started to wane and Father would go to fewer and fewer meetings. It turned into that which I had always thought it was which is an old man's club for old men where members would sit around, drinking and taking drugs while complaining about how commoners didn't know their place any more.

"I should say that my brother is a lapsed heretic in the same way that you get lapsed followers of the eternal flame. They go to church when they've got nothing better to do at the time and pay lip service to it.

"But, your father came a calling. He was well aware of our lack of funds but he wanted the "noble" name to add credence to his growing power base and popularity. I didn't care. He was my knight in shining armour and swept me off my feet. I was besotted with the man and I loved him fiercely giving him everything that he could possibly want including two sons and a daughter.

"Proving that there's no fanatic like a convert I was baptised into the church of the holy flame, I made my confession and was given the penance of bringing up one of my sons to serve the church. I thought that it was fairly lenient but my confessor pointed out that I had been forced to become a heretic and therefore it wasn't my fault.

"All in all he was a progressive before being progressive was trendy."

She took a small drink of heavily watered wine that Mark poured for her.

"It was all going so well for everyone until my Father asked for money."

"I didn't know that," Emma put in.

"Oh yes. Some of you have wondered why there was a gap between Emma's birth and Samuel's? That's why. Father sent a message one day saying that he required funds and that should those funds not be forthcoming then my secret would be made public. Your father had already made several concessions regarding our marriage and told the then Lord Kalayn to go and fuck himself. The language was more flowery than that of course but you get the idea."

It's always a special moment whenever my mother swears.

"Your father assumed, correctly, that Lord Kalayn wouldn't spread the word of my losing my virginity in a godless cult. The Holy Flame wasn't as powerful back then as it is now but at the same time, such cults would have gathered the wrong kind of attention. Lord Kalayn tried to put nasty rumours about anyway but they got lost in the muddle of all the other people who were trying to discredit the Coulthards in general anyway and as a result of that they were ignored.

"Except they weren't because my husband now knew about the family secret.

"I have often wondered if he hated me then.

"Time passed and eventually your father's temper cooled and we reconciled. My father died and my brother inherited. My brother is a reasonably good man despite having been far too under the spell of his father and Grandfather but unfortunately he couldn't prevent the fact that his son turned out to be the most vile and contemptible piece of human waste that has ever been produced.

"They came for a visit shortly after my brother inherited..."

"I remember that," said Mark. "I also remember being surprised when it ended really abruptly."

"Yes, do you remember why?"

"No,"

"Good, we worked hard at keeping it out of the light. Your cousin, all of fourteen at the time, around Edmund's age went for a ride with Edmund. The two boys came back muddy and laughing as though they had shared the best jest ever. They were laughing and giggling all the way through dinner and when questioned, Edmund said that his cousin had "baptised him,"

"Of course I knew what he meant.

"We eventually found the farmstead in question where a young woman had been raped with her husband killed and the woman lying dead next to him having bled to death from some kind of internal rupturing. She'd had the tendons in her legs cut so that she couldn't move. The boys were laughing at the "funny" movements that she had made while she lay there and they raped her. Your cousin said that "The wriggling was most satisfactory" and complimented us on the quality of entertainment that the locals provided.

"I have never seen your father so angry.

"You all know your fathers rages as cold things, about how he freezes and goes deathly quiet? This was different. It was explosive and could not be contained. He thrashed your cousin, dragged my brother from his bed and dragged him down to the yard where he would have killed him had the guards not prevented it. My brother, his wife and son as well as his servants were told to clear out immediately. Their belongings were confiscated to pay restitution to the deceased's family members. My brother complained to the King but the King had seen which way the wind was blowing regarding the church of the holy flame gaining power as well as the fact that one of his chief advisers was a woman so he was given short shrift.

"Your father never forgave me for bringing my brother here. He saw those events as having spoiled Edmund, ruined him in some way. My family tainting his. We spoke about it often and he apologised for it equally as often. He just couldn't forgive me for it.

"But what he couldn't see, what he was incapable of seeing was that his reaction to those events made me love him all the more. He didn't understand it, he couldn't understand it. That was the point and even more than that, he tried to help Edmund. He really did try.

"Unfortunately it was not to be.

"I don't know when we lost Edmund. It might have been four or five years ago. I've spent some time thinking about it over the last couple of days and have come to the conclusion that there was no single defining moment. I think it was a gradual creeping thing. Edmund's appetites had been growing for sometime. Your father had already paid off some creditors directly, taking it from Your brothers allowance, we tried having him taken off to a monastery to get him clean and sober. An experience which was awful for everyone concerned. But in the end there was just no stopping him.

"By then your Father and I had grown apart. I had made it clear that I wanted to take holy orders, partly to atone for my past but deep down we did still love each other it was just that when we looked at each other... Everything we had got so wonderfully right in the rest of you, we had gotten so terrifyingly wrong for Edmund and he was the one that was going to inherit. I understand there was some provision made to protect the five of you from Edmund when your father passed on but other than that..."

she shrugged.

"Then Edmund came home a few weeks a go. He seemed like a dutiful son as though something had changed. The accident happened as you know and then...

"I don't know what to say. It was shortly after we had been told that your Father's injury was fatal. I didn't know then, about the death of the Stable-master and his wife, but I looked at Edmund and there was a look of triumph there that chilled my soul. I realised what he had done and that this... thing... in front of me was no longer my son."

She took another drink.

"It was an odd thing really. I remember numerous events in my life where I have made decisions. Decisions for the positive. I remember deciding that I was going to marry your Father. I was sat on a bench in the gardens at my families estates, looking up at the house and realising that I wanted to get away from it all and that it was your father who had been kindest to me when I met my other suitors.

"I remember deciding on the names of all my children.

"I remember deciding to take holy orders.

"But I remember no such moment, no such critical, thought out moment where I decided to murder my son. Or rather, murdering the _thing_ that my son had become. I almost thought of it like I was having to put down a sick animal. But I didn't decide it.

"I just realised that that was what I was going to do.

"I was inspecting the Kitchen as part of my duties to make sure things were in order and discussing with the cooks what could be served for your Fathers internment feast when I looked over at the selection of knives and thought that one of those would do the job nicely. It was just...

"Oh I don't know what I'm saying.

"I just...I just knew that that was what I was going to do.

"It's not as if there weren't plenty of reasons _to_ kill him either. Safety of the family, safety of the surrounding people who owe our family fealty, safety of our family name and business and all the people who depend on us for their profession. All of those are true, and all of those are the reason that I have been able to live with the deed afterwards. If Edmund had been allowed to survive, our people would have suffered. Our family would have been destroyed as well but that seems superfluous. I kind of see it as my duty, both as his mother and as a duty to my husband to give the land and it's people someone who will look after it."

She shrugged again.

"I cannot judge the correctness of those sentiments but that is how I've managed to justify it to myself.

"I took the knife. No-one questioned me, I borrowed the dressing mannequin to practice a few times but in all truth it wasn't that difficult. He demanded the keys to the study one night and I saw that this would be the perfect opportunity. I waited, followed him in where I found him at the desk, surveying his Kingdom as it were. He said something although I don't know what it was.

"It was so easy.

"I just walked up to him, he was looking up at me which meant that his throat was all but open. I leant forwards and the knife went in.

"Pushing the knife in was easy. Taking it out was much harder and I had to jump backward to avoid his blood spraying on me.

"He looked so surprised.

"I returned to my room, cleaned the knife and that was it. Between you, you know the rest."

Mark nodded and looked around at the rest of us. His face was like a mask and I wondered if this is how he looked when he was dealing with confessions and the like.

Probably.

"So that's how it happened." He said. "Also it explains the why. I do have a couple of questions though. Why did you not bring the knowledge of your families heresy to the attention of the church?"

Mother was still standing. I saw that it had cost her to stand there before her four children and tell that story, her hands were trembling.

"I, ummm, I don't know. It was normal to me. That was just... how we lived. I had to be _told_ that it wasn't ok. I had to told that what had happened was heresy, that these things were not normal in everyone else's household. By the time it was coming up. I hoped, I prayed that my brother was making his own way apart from the rest of his families past and when it became clear that it wasn't..."

She shrugged again.

"Your Father begged me and made me swear on the fire that neither any of you, nor the rest of the world would find out about it from my lips. It was a promise that I was not reluctant to keep."

Mark nodded.

"Then following on from that. If you knew that Edmund had descended into madness or into the nearest equivalent and decided to put him down like the sick dog that you saw him to be. Why not confess your deeds?"

"I did consider it. I would have done so had Sir Robart pursued Frederick any further. But I couldn't think of a way to do so without breaking my promise to your father who was still alive at the time and thus my promise still held me."

Another nod from Mark.

"Well I don't have any more questions for this witness. Does anyone else want to ask anything?"

Emma, Sam and I shook our heads collectively. I can't speak for the others but I, for one, just wanted the entire thing to be over and done with.

"In which case," Mark went on. "Does anyone want to say anything in particular about the case or about the accused and her confessed actions?"

"I do," said Kerrass from his corner.

I had honestly forgotten that he was there and from the look on Mark's face as well as mothers, I wasn't alone.

"I do actually." Kerrass got up and moved over towards the middle of the room and took a deep breath. "I am a Witcher. As such my... involvement in these kinds of affairs has often come to a close by this point in the proceedings. When I am hired to do a job, I find the culprit and then, if said culprit is a monster, I destroy the monster and move on, happily pocketing my fee. This time is slightly different as I originally came here to support my friend through a difficult time and as such I was quite surprised to find myself working during these events.

"It is not uncommon for the results of a more regular job to match up with what has happened here. People hire a Witcher for a variety of reasons, but one of the more common ones is that the death of... whichever person is so... horrible, so grotesque that it can't _possibly_ have been performed by a human being, therefore the crime must have been committed by a monster and that's what Witcher's are for isn't it? The extermination of monsters?

"The people who say that are correct. That is what we are for. It is our reason for existence. It is our calling, by destiny some say or by being suited to the task. But sometimes we investigate these crimes against nature and against, heh, sentient being and we find that the culprit is another sentient being whether that being be Human, Elf, Dwarf, Halfling, Gnome or otherwise."

"Otherwise?" Mark raised an eyebrow with a slight smile.

"You'd be surprised Your Eminence. Anyway.

"Normally in those circumstances it is our practice as Witchers to hand over our findings and the culprit to the local authorities and let them do with the culprit what they will. Sometimes though there is a problem. Sometimes we find a monster that is wearing a human skin, or the skin of authority of some kind.

"So what do we do then?

"It is a discussion that has kept some of us awake at nights as to how we are _meant_ to proceed. It should also be said that this is a problem that is getting worse as the days and years continue in their onward progress. More and more monsters that I track turn out to be the result of bored people out for...

"Fun,"

Kerrass grimaced.

"Handing these people over to proper authorities will only result in disbelief."

Kerrass' voice took on a high and wheedling tone,

"Oh no Master Witcher, It can't possibly have been him. He's our son. You must be mistaken and there is something darker at work. That local old herb woman gave him the evil eye last week and maybe she's influencing him. Or those sprites that live in the hills. _They_ are the real culprits."

His voice returned to normal.

"What to do then? Some Witchers wash their hands of the entire thing and leave. Some Witchers take a more...strict view of things. They say to themselves: "I kill monsters. There is a monster and I must kill it." and as a result the culprit is killed and the Witcher does their best to escape unhindered. Often with the gratitude and fear of the townsfolk speeding them on their way. The townsfolk having long known who the real culprit is.

"For myself and how I handle things in those kinds of situations. I look at my reflection. In a mirror, a pond, some other body of water or, failing all else, in my sword blade. I ask myself whether I could look myself in the eye if I did nothing."

Kerrass took the time to look each of us in the eye. Mark definitely looked away, as did Sam and my mother I think.

"If the answer is that I couldn't live with myself? I destroy the monster and live with the consequences. If I can, I ride away without looking back.

"I recognise myself in the Lady's story. I recognise the symptoms of having a close friend or someone you consider as family go mad. Some of you may have heard stories about Witchers from the Feline school and their occasional tendency to go mad. In those instances they have become monsters and it becomes a Witchers duty to investigate and, if necessary, destroy those monsters.

"Sometimes, what society needs is a person with a sword. A person who is willing to use that sword no matter the cost.

"Because sometimes, the monster in question would normally be protected by society to the detriment of itself.

"To my mind... In that moment where the Lady decided to destroy her son, and yes I use the word destroy. Men are killed. Monsters are destroyed. She became a Witcher. Although for the briefest of times.

"It is clear, having read Edmund's diary and hearing stories about him, that Edmund had descended into monsterdom. That he had been driven mad by too much alcohol, drugs, hedonism and the worship and demands of his dark cult was evident and although he might have been able to fight off those effects for a time, sooner or later it was in his nature to go back to those hedonistic ways. If the church had caught him, there would be little doubt in my mind that he would now be waiting for his own funeral pyre.

"If he had been allowed to inherit?

"Think about what that would have meant. Not just for yourselves but for the other inhabitants of this castle. Or the inhabitants of your lands and your business parties. If he had been discovered at a later date, the results would have been catastrophic.

"The lady saw the problem and she cut it out in the same way that a surgeon removes a cancer.

"Or in the same way that a Witcher destroys a monster."

Kerrass thought for a moment.

"No I think that's everything. If the court will permit me a small gesture..."

He fumbled in a pouch on his belt.

"Every so often we hear of a Witcher who has died or come across a place where a Witcher has been killed by a local monster or misunderstanding."

He grinned nastily for a moment.

"Wherever possible we do our best to avenge the death and recover that Witcher's medallion. As such I have a small collection."

He pulled out a medallion and turned to my mother.

"These are not given out often." He said to her. "More often than not they are returned to our private places where they are kept so that those of us who still live can see them and remember the men who wore them, no matter what happened to them."

He held out the medallion. I would later learn that it depicted a Griffin.

"This is not a gift. Nor is it an honour to receive one although some people take it as such and I would not tell them that they are wrong in believing that it is. Rather it is an acknowledgement. A token, given from a professional to a person who he thinks should have been wearing one at the time."

Mother appeared to think for a moment before holding out a hand and taking it, she wrapped the chain around her fist in the same way that you would a rosary symbol of the fire so that the medallion itself rested on her fingers as she examined it.

I think, I _hope_ that she was moved.

I certainly was.

"In that moment, Madam, you were a Witcher and I greet you as a sister."

He took her hand and grasped it while clapping her on the shoulder with the other. When he was done, he nodded to the rest of us and left the room.

"Well," muttered Mark. "Schooled on humanity by a Witcher."

I saw small answering smiles on the faces of Emma and Sam.

Mothers face was unreadable.

"Ok, so," Mark carried on. "The next thing to do is to decide what to do next. There's an even number of votes so we can't just vote on things. When that happens in those trials that I've been a part of where there is an even number of judges..."

"Hold on," said Sam. "You're talking about Church courts. This is a civil matter surely as it's a straight murder without anything to do with heresy."

"True," Mark answered. "But there is no civil leader here as Father died. Normally, the feudal head of the area would make the decision, judge and jury style but we don't have that luxury. We could wait until after the will is read I suppose but... I don't feel comfortable with that."

"Apart from anything else, it is a little cruel to make the accused wait for her sentencing for a couple of days. Especially after a funeral." Emma put in.

"The responsibility is ours." Mark added.

"Well, you're the almost certain leader. Why don't you just do it?" Sam asked. "Not that I want to pass this off but... I do want to make sure that this doesn't come back to bite us."

"I was given authority to deal with this." I finally felt as though I had something to say. "I think this needs to be done. It will also send a message, as a whole, to Father's enemies that we will not allow anything to come between us. We may argue about the result but once we leave here we need to be united and a decision made."

"I agree," said Mark.

"I would like to hear what Mark's advice is." Emma nodded.

"Well I would say this. We appoint a head judge who doesn't have a vote. That judge narrows the choice for the others, in this case, the remaining three people. The Three make a vote along with any additions that they want to add. The head judge will take the vote. Further votes may come up for instance. The person must die, what method is used? And so on."

"Ok."

"So who's going to be the head judge?" Emma asked after a pause during which we exchanged uncomfortable glances.

"I think Mark." Sam said. He had his arms folded.

"Yes, he has experience here and as such, that role best suits him." I agreed. "Also, he's the most likely to inherit estate and title barring legal wobbles so it's a good image when people question this decision."

"I notice that you say "when people question" there," Mark smiled sadly.

"Because they will."

"You're probably right. Everyone happy with me as the head judge?"

I nodded, as did Emma.

Sam felt the need to say it aloud. "Yes."

"Right then." He spent a long time just looking at our Mother who was examining the medallion on her hand while covertly looking at the four of us and when he spoke again he seemed a lot more formal. I began to think of it as his "Inquisitor" voice.

"The lady's guilt is without doubt. She has confessed after all which means that the question is not a matter of guilt but rather what we should do about it. The penalty for murder, especially the murder of your own child, is death. But there are also, undeniable, circumstances that may excuse her actions. The Lady has many times expressed her wish to take holy orders after her husbands death. That can easily be changed or adjusted to form a penance rather than a steady and spiritual retirement.

"So that's the question. Do we execute or do we let her live? Either result will mean further debate. I suggest that we vote and speak in order of descending age. Remember to express reasoning as well. Should we take a break to consider?"

"No, I want to get this over with," Emma said and I must say that I shared the sentiment. "which means that I start."

She paused, presumably to get her words in the right order.

"There is one thing that sets me apart from you all gentlemen. Including even our surprisingly eloquent Witcher, in that I am a woman and as such... The victims...appetites hold special horror for me in a way that they wouldn't for any of you. My sex and my social standing in being a woman in a man's world has it's insights as well. I suspect that I share with the accused a particular experience which is that of serving people coming to us to complain about the actions of the victim."

I was watching Mother carefully and I am sure I saw her twitch at that.

"There is one serving maid who is no longer working at the castle who was raped and impregnated by Edmund. He swore to me that she was willing but she remembered nothing of the events having taken a drink earlier that evening. According to law, Edmund was well within his rights and as a noble _man,_ his word is considered as greater than hers. I could not prove it but I am sure that the girls drink had been tampered with.

"The man was a predator and he preyed on those weaker than himself.

"Also, I have the perspective of being heavily involved in the family business and therefore having to do with the people who live round the castle. All of the hard work that we have all put in over the years, including Father and Grandfather would have been undone. Our place in the nobility is not as stable as we would all like to think, so imagine what would happen if Edmund had inherited. Broken his word to the merchants which would render the business void and raped the daughter of a visiting nobleman. The family would be destroyed as an armed force appears on our doorstep. Our men desert as they would rather serve reasonably honourable men rather than a rapist, cheating murderer and suddenly... The Coulthards are no more.

"I will admit to personal bias as well. I had been assaulted many times by Edmund under the guise of brotherly affection. What he called affection, I called assault. If Edmund had lived, then I would have been, at best, raped and murdered. It is very likely that the accused saved my life in doing what she did.

"I wish I had had the courage.

"I vote for a stay of execution and that the accused be aloud to retire in peace."

Mark nodded, his face betraying no emotion. He was really good at this.

"Sam?"

Sam shook his head.

"I will say the word.

"Mother.

"She is our Mother and it would be useless to try to think otherwise.

"Mother. We all keep sitting here and saying "The accused", or "The victim" but what we're really talking about is our Mother and our Brother. Our Mother killed our Brother.

"That fact alone has a bearing here and I am astonished that we are being aloud to govern it ourselves so much so that if I didn't know Frederick, another brother, I would have said that it was strange enough to warrant checking that we weren't acting outside our authority.

"The other thing here is that this decision is going to picked over by those who come after us. Our descendants as well as our rivals which, and I agree with Emma here, are many.

"This decision will dictate what people think of us and whether the Coulthard family are seen as grim and hard law-keepers who uphold the law without mercy or compassion. Or limp and soft men and women who only uphold the law when it suits them.

"I love my Mother. I do but I must ask myself what I would do if it was anyone else here. Anyone else who spun me a tale, no matter how provable, of her victims crimes.

"I would uphold the law.

"The law says that she dies."

He looked over at Mother who met his gaze. He shrugged.

"I'm sorry,"

Mark nodded and turned to me.

"So it comes to me, as I kind of knew it would." Again I had that sensation of speaking down a long tube from a far away place. "It might even be said that it should come down to me as some would say that I set these events in motion.

"That the murder took place is not in any doubt.

"But I also agree that Edmund needed to die to save our people as well as ourselves and those innocents whose lives would be impacted by his actions.

"I could argue, incorrectly, that as the widow of the murdered man, she has the right of vengeance.

"But none of that fits.

"Instead, I will say this and it's this that makes me most angry.

"It will take some time to get to my point so, please be patient."

I saw Mark's lips quirk towards a smile.

"I have travelled with Kerrass the Witcher now for sometimes and I would say that I have seen humanity at it's best and it's worst. We have shared dangers and hardships and I am enormously flattered that he calls me his friend and as such I am sympathetic to his viewpoint.

"The deed was done. The accused, our Mother, saw that an unpleasant thing needed to be done and so she did it."

I looked my mother in her eye then and strove to keep her gaze.

"To me, that was not a crime. It was something that needed doing. If she had then confessed to her actions to the sheriff's deputy saying, "See, this is why I did it." Then we would have found everything out much sooner. Including the heresy and the torture and the victimisation and all the other crimes that Edmund and his slimy little cronies committed.

"Instead she kept quiet and hoped that it would blow over.

"One of the things that Kerrass said was that a Witcher sometimes makes a choice between doing the right thing. He said that he destroys the monster and lives with the consequences.

"The accused did not do that.

"Instead she allowed the Under sheriff to accuse one of her children."

I saw her mouth begin to open.

"The lady might say that she would have spoken up if I had been imprisoned tortured and executed but to that I say this. The Under-sheriff told me that he had every intention of summarily hanging me from the nearest tree. If he had gotten me to imprisonment and had me questioned, I am sure others will agree with me that a man will say anything to escape the pain including to confess to the crime. How would the lady stop things if I had confessed under torture. She would be seen as a woman who would do anything to let her child escape the sentence."

Mother looked away. For a moment I felt a sense of triumph, but then, after a while, I just felt sick.

"I agree with Sam, it is impossible for me to distance myself from these events.

"But, there is another consideration here that we must take into account.

"How many of these awful, awful events would have been avoided if someone had had the courage to do something about them before we got to this terrible climax. If that maid had spoken to father. If Father had told what he knew of his wife's family to the church. If Mothers confessor had spoken up... All of these things are as the result of shameful secrets being kept and as a result, more harm is done in the long run.

"Sam was right when he said that our decision will be examined by the people who come after us.

"So what do we tell them.

"All along there has been a sentiment said which is along the lines of "Flame Frederick, if only you had said nothing," or "If only you'd left well enough alone."

"I've even expressed those feelings myself but I was wrong. These things need to come out.

"What we need to tell people is that we will not suffer evil to exist. We also need to tell people that they should bring that evil to our attention and that we will act on it and investigate no matter who the culprit or the accuser are.

"Our mother's real crime was to stay silent after doing the deed and for taking the law into her own hands rather than going to the proper authorities. Our Father is also guilty of that crime That is what should be punished. If we kill her, all we are telling people is not to bring things up and to take matters into their own hands."

I laughed suddenly, startling myself.

"Remember what our parents taught us. It says what I'm trying to say much simpler and more eloquently."

I turned to mother again and waited until she met my gaze.

"It's not what you did, it's the way you did it.

"We shouldn't punish the murder. It needed to happen. It was the way that murder was performed and the way that the aftermath was handled that needs to be punished.

"Death is too much for that crime."

"What do you suggest instead?" I couldn't tell from his tone whether Mark approved or not.

A thought occurred.

"I approve of Witchers." I said after a moment. "I think that they are needed sometimes. That necessary blade like a surgeons knife or an executioners axe.

"Mother wanted to take holy orders. I suggest that this be denied."

I think Mother sobbed. She certainly paled.

"Instead, she should certainly live in a convent. But it should be one of those convents that is active in it's community. They should be a healing order where mother could learn to heal the sick and help those who help others. In all other ways other than the most important one she should live as a nun, observing the services and the rites and prayers but she should not be allowed holy orders.

"Instead she should treat that medallion as her holy symbol. She should pray with that in her hand even though she might pray to the flame and the prophets and she should wear it round her neck in place of her symbols.

"I suggest that the mother superior be made fully aware of her penance and when it is time for our Mother to pass on... Then the Mother Superior should make the decision as to whether she can take holy orders on her

death bed.

"That way, she can work towards redemption for the crimes that she allowed to be committed by staying silent."

I stopped speaking. I felt dizzy and took a small drink of water.

After a long while Mark spoke again.

"I find that I agree with Frederick. Does that suit the other judges?"

"It does," said Emma.

"Aye," said Sam after a moment.

"Well madam there is your punishment. You will be denied holy orders until such a time as the abbess of the order that you are sent to deems you worthy. Mother Nenneke of the order of Melitele is well known to me and I shall write a letter of introduction to her. She is well versed in healing and also the nature of Witchers and so I think you will be suited to her care. I see no reason as to why you should not be present for your husbands funeral before you leave. Do you have anything to say?"

"May I address the court as a mother to her children?"

I did not look up.

"You may," said Mark.

"I am very proud of you all. I made a mistake with the first but the rest of you are a credit to the holy flame and to your father."

"Then the court is adjourned."

I was up out of my chair like an arrow leaping from the bow-string. I made it the courtyard before vomiting. But only just.

It took a while but by the time I looked up Kerrass was there waiting for me with a large cup of honeyed milk.

"Drink this," he said. "It'll help with the reaction."

I downed the cup,

"Feel better?"

"Much."

"Your brother tells me that you've gotten wise in your old age."

"Oh Flame is there a cream for that." I joked feebly.

"No." He paused for a long moment, "You did well today."

"Good." I said staring off at the walls. "Because I feel damned awful."


	33. Chapter 33

So as I write this I am back in that place that I still, even though I've tried really hard, think of as my father's castle. I have been given an office of my own which is kind enough, it has a desk and a couple of comfortable chairs so that I can sit with visitors if they come. I have a couple of shelving spaces to store anything that I want but it still feels a little empty to me. What it does do though is give me a nice quiet place for me to sit with some paper and set my thoughts down.

It is winter now and outside the snow is falling carrying it's normal feeling of peace as the snow deadens the sound for miles around while also making it all but impossible for large scale armies to march through the white wildernesses that greet them. I'm told that the autumn harvests have been bountiful enough this year to feed everyone that they need to feed over the winter and into spring so that with a little bit of luck, the famine that always greets the end of a significant war will be drawing to a close. It only took four years this time rather than the three years it took after the second Nilfgaardian conflict.

It has been pointed out to me that a possible reason for this is that this time, the Northern Realms lost their battles and as such it might have taken longer.

There is even talk among some of the brasher northern lords that I have met that now would be a good time to start thinking of some kind of Rebellion. That now would be a good time to try and "Throw of the yolk of southern Oppression." Personally I remain sceptical of that especially as there doesn't seem to be that much oppression as far as I can see. Having now had the chance to read up a bit about King Radovid the Stern I am not entirely sure that his rule would have been any the less...oppressive. Even now some chroniclers are trying to have him re-labeled from "the stern" to "the mad" and I am not sure that they are incorrect to do so but that isn't my province. If there is one thing that I am learning in my self-appointed role of scholar to the Witchers, then it is that there is nothing that I hate more than someone else muscling in on my area of expertise and as such I am trying not to be rude in return.

Certainly, under Nilfgaardian rule, the other borders are returning to their original states, client Kings and Queens are swearing their oaths of fealty at the feet of the Imperial throne. People are getting paid and commerce is recovering. Like many I believe that this should be a time of peace. A time for recovery and reflection. The world has changed, it has moved on and as such we need to accept that this is the new normality. That this is the new status quo.

One of the events that mark this new status is still to come. We have received notice that we are invited as a family to witness the coronation of the new Empress of Nilfgaard in the spring. Of course I'm going. I'm a scholar and a historian and the opportunity to witness actual history in the making is impossible to turn down. Especially as I strongly suspect that if anyone can unite the fractious kingdoms of the North and the South then it will be this young woman. Especially as it will give me the opportunity to see Francesca who I haven't seen since she left for the south. We are told that she has become a firm friend of the Empress to be and is therefore predicted to become a person of note in the future.

Good for her. If there's any member of my family that deserves the rise to greatness then it is her.

The coronation is going to take place in Toussaint as that, most fairy tale of places, is still a Nilfgaardian protectorate but is so separated from the rest of the world that it's as neutral as anywhere can be. I was once told that the reason that Toussaint can afford to be the way it is is because no-one would dare interrupt the flow of Toussaint wine. We are still several weeks from having to even begin preparing though. One of the benefits of having a Sorceress involved in the family is that we can now just teleport to a local area with all of our goods and belongings.

Kerrass never approved of travelling by portal but I must admit to looking forward to it a little.

Ah well.

But anyway.

I had wanted to start talking about the adventure that Kerrass and I had after we had dealt with my families problems. Those events are still sore in my memory and as such I am ready, if not eager, to move on. Certainly, all of the important information has now been published, but the magazine editor who publishes these works, as well as my sister, inform me in no uncertain terms that if I leave things there then I can expect to be lynched next time I go to Oxenfurt.

"It's called a Denouement," my sister yelled at me as she read the last article. "Where's the ending?" she cried at me. "You can't just leave it there, people will go mad not knowing what happened to us all after that and I'm not spending the next several months answering letters about whether or not we're all ok and do I need somewhere to live and how's mother and all of those kinds of things. So damn well write them down."

I'm paraphrasing you understand. She was actually using a lot of language that I was mortified to learn that my big sister knew but there you go. There's no accounting for class or sub-standard educations.

Please don't take offence at that dear reader. That comment was meant for my sister and I am currently chuckling at the thought of the noises that she is currently making as she reads this.

Not a great deal happened after my mothers "trial". That day was spent in preparation for the following one. I had already bathed that day and my stomach was still roiling from the after effects of the last few days discoveries. I got the castle barber to shave me and give me a proper hair-cut. It's all very well shaving myself, and I can, but I never get quite as close a shave as I should with my own razor as I always end up tilting my head at so strange an angle that I can't see properly and miss bits. For tomorrow I needed to look my best so I had a professional do it.

Kerrass would approve.

I also had a meeting with our Chamberlain. The truth about our Chamberlain is that he's a man of 60 trapped inside the body of a much younger man. He's a traditionalist and as such he dislikes anything being out of place. He demands that everything be done properly and according to proper etiquette and style. He believes that people should know their place and their place is to be wherever he tells them to be. He rules the keep's servants with an iron fist and nothing escapes his notice. I've caught him walking around with white gloves in the early hours of the morning inspecting underneath and behind various bits of furniture in corners of the castle that no-one else ever goes, to see if they had been cleaned properly. He has a piece of wood that he carries around with him like a field marshal carries a military baton. On it are a series of notches that he himself has carved that dictate measurements regarding the proper distance of plates and cutlery from the table edge and the positioning of candlesticks.

I called him up and told him what I required for the evening meal.

It was one of the few times that I have ever seen him smile. He told me that he would see to all details.

That evening's meal was as informal as it ever is in our household.

I should talk about this.

There is a modern method for seating people at a dining table which is that people are seated _opposite_ their partners, spouses or guests. For example, mother would sit opposite father, I would sit opposite Kerrass or Ariadne should she visit and so on. Father didn't like this as it can often mean that people end up sat with complete strangers and as a result, on those occasions where formality is less of an issue, he makes sure that we all sat next to our partners and friends so that we have someone to talk to.

But I had decided to take certain steps.

That evening as we all went down to dinner there was an extra place set for dinner. After the family and Kerrass had taken our places I caught the Chamberlain's eye and he nodded. He gave a hand gesture to one of the other servants who vanished into a side door and two minutes later I was rewarded by Laurelen arriving in the room. She looked a little bewildered and bemused. The others were clearly as surprised as she was although I could tell that all of the other servants were already aware of what was happening.

I rose and approached Laurelen as formally as I could manage and bowed deeply.

"Madam," I said, projecting properly so that everyone in the room could hear me. "Would you do me the honour of allowing me to escort you to your place at the table?" I held out my hand.

I saw her eyes widen a little in surprise. I hadn't expected much else all things considering. She is a trained Sorceress after all. She gently placed her hand atop mine and I walked her over to the extra place which had been set next to Emma. I held the chair for her and pushed it back in when she was seated.

I then walked back round the table to take my own seat as the servers started bringing in the food giving no-one any time to protest before the food was served.

The plan hinged on my behaving, and the servants behaving as though nothing was out of the ordinary and as such I made no eye contact with any of the other members of my family and just ate my food calmly and quietly.

There wasn't really any conversation anyway although later I was able to pump Kerrass for information and I'm told that Emma's expression was priceless.

As was Mark's.

Apparently Sam watched it happen for a moment before shrugging and then eating his food.

Mother didn't react.

The crisis point was past. Laurelen was one of the family now.

Flame help her.

I had also left instructions that said that Laurelen and Emma would be sharing a bedroom from now on and that if anyone objected then they could come and see me.

The chamberlain told me in no uncertain terms that I might have to get in line.

I was pleased to see how much the household approved of Emma and her romantic choice. I had been concerned but it would seem that the servants, at least, were on my side.

There were two comments that rose up from my little stunt. The first was from Mark as we had withdrawn to a different room to chat and while the rest of the evening away. He just looked at me and muttered "Well played," as he was still managing to ignore the two women who were sat on the couch enthusiastically chatting to Kerrass about something or other while holding hands.

The second was from Emma who wordlessly gave me the fiercest hug that I have ever received as she past me on the way to bed.

I remember little else about that evening.

The following day, the day of the internment, mostly passed in a blur. I was up early to get to use the bathhouse unhindered. Guests started to arrive almost immediately to pay their respects with barely hidden contempt. Father's debtors where there of course, vainly hoping that the debt might be forgiven in the wake of his death. A possibility that was unlikely. Also in attendance were a lot of merchants who had built up, if not friendships, working relationships with father. You could tell who they were due to the smugness which they exuded as they walked around, rubbing shoulders with their "betters". Emma was in her element here, talking to people, shaking hands and accepting condolences. It did not go unnoticed that she knew everyone's name as well as how they were related to each other and to father and was able to do that oh so special little trick which was to make everyone there think that they were the most important person that she had to speak to today.

Unfortunately there was one other group in attendance. That was the group that had relatives in the cells in Oxenfurt. More and more I found that I was having to field questions about what was happening as well as criticism about what had happened and what was going to happen. My previous plan of telling everyone that the matter was still under investigation by the church and by the sheriff kind of backfired as the Sheriff had chosen to attend. He was one of the few people who seemed genuinely upset about my Fathers death after all the aid that Father had given the Redanian military during the war. But rather than pay his respects in the way he wanted to he had to deal with all of those angry relatives. I do not envy him.

Mark was in a similar position. He was also let down by the fact that he was the presumptive heir to Father's position and fortune so he was having to deal with people who wanted to press on him the details of agreements that had been made under the strictest of confidences with Father before he died (mostly false), angry relatives of those people arrested as well as his own feelings regarding the death of his father and brother.

Kerrass though, did me proud. He was the master of the menacing stare, the sly comment and the cutting barb. He was playing the "Witcher friend" card for all it was worth in my support. He made sure that I was never without a drink of some kind and I don't think I was imagining the fact that the levels of water and wine changed according to whatever he thought I needed at the time. He had this trick that whenever someone was talking to me who I didn't like or didn't want to talk to, he would just stare at them and start smiling. The thing was that he wasn't staring into their face, what he was staring at was their throats. Then he would occasionally lick his lips. The effect must have been extremely off-putting because no sooner had he started doing this than the person that I was talking to would give up and go elsewhere.

Eventually though, the critical moment occurred and six members of Father's guard each sealed the coffins properly and carried them up on their shoulders. With fathers coffin leading we followed them out of the keep, down the steps and through the many courtyards. Where the condolence and grief had been carefully measured and acted out in the main halls with the "nobility" the surround townsfolk, farmers and villagers had gone all out. All of them appeared and stood, heads bared and lowered as the coffins were carried down and through the throngs.

Looking back, I kind of wish that I had been able to look up and notice the reaction of my fellow noble at the display but the truth is that I was too busy maintaining what my brother would call "proper decorum". The funeral procession wound it's way down, snaking through the crowds. I've spoken to several people who have complimented me on my displays that day but the truth was that I had locked up. I suppose I felt numb to it all. The disassociation that I had felt through the more horrific parts of the investigation into my brothers death was still there. I hadn't come back into my own body yet. I remember little of what I said or did that day but apparently, what I did was very good and especially "decorous" so there you go.

The family crypt was built in a small hill, maybe ten minutes walk away from the outside castle gate. You get there by walking through a small copse of trees which is where you will find a small stone archway with a metal gate. Normally that gate is locked but today it was open and guarded by two men in their full "Coulthard house livery." You go through the gate and walk down a flight of stairs where you come to a large room with niches in the walls. What happens is that the body gets slid into the niche head first and the hole is then plugged by a stone, on which is carved the name of the person who lays there as well as a small picture that is supposed to represent the person. A small picture to sum up the persons character.

The only occupants of the vault (so far) where Grandfather and Grandmother. They had been placed there when we moved here from our old castle. There are plenty of other spaces though which had always left me feeling maudlin. I always thought that it was tempting fate a little bit to have so many spaces for the dead as though you are inviting death to fill them up for us.

My own niche has already been picked out. Third column from the left, second from the bottom. It had been the first time I had visited since leaving on my adventures with Kerrass and for the first time I wondered what would happen should I not make it back to the castle. What would happen if there wasn't a body and I ended up residing in the belly of some great beast. Do they just seal it up and hope for the best? I also wondered what my little carving on the stone would be. Grandfathers was a kind of artful piece about a man, working with a farm implement of some kind but looking up into the distance. It was meant to signify hope for a better future as well as representing his ambition and rise to prominence. I always thought that he would have hated it.

I suspect that mine will show a man sat at a desk writing.

I will be alright with that.

The other thing that I should say is that when you imagine crypts you imagine somewhere dark, dank and foreboding. While it is true that there is no natural light down there, this is in fact rather far from the truth given that our family crypt is almost brand new. The head stones are carved from a local quarry which has produced a rather lighter stone which can be polished into a smooth, white surface by the dwarves that work there. The floor is well swept and properly clean and there are plenty of wall brackets for torches. In the middle of the room there are a series of benches with cushioned seats meant for people to come and pay their respects. Father was not all that religious, or at least, he never talked about it but I do know that he viewed the crypt as being more for the living than the dead. A place for the living to come and gain comfort or inspiration from the presence of their ancestors. As such he insisted that the crypt be open and you can view it at any time if you go to the castle and ask for the key from the Commander of the Watch.

The coffins were carried down into the crypt where the torches had already been lit. Waiting for us down there was a small silver tray with five cups on it and a crystal decanter with red port in it.

The five of us, Mother, Mark, Emma, Sam and myself descended into the firelight while our fellow mourners waited for us at the entrance. The guards slid the coffins into the holes that were prepared for them and lifted the sealing stones into place. At first, I had wanted to do that as I had heard that some people carry their parent's or friends coffins and then seal them inside their tombs but apparently most guards dislike this as there is a possibility that the bearers get upset and drop the coffin or seal the tomb improperly which can lead to the body being subject to possession or getting up and wandering about if it's buried in a place with a bit more background magic than normal.

When they had done their work the guards left, I had bent to have a look at the pictures that had been carved into the headstones with astonishing artistry. Father had been depicted on horseback with one of his beloved falcons on his wrist and a hunting dog playing around his horses feet. All of them looked as though they had just caught the scent of some kind of prey. As though the carver had just managed to catch them in the pose before they shot out of view, chasing after whatever had caught their attention.

My brothers picture depicted a stranger to me. The figure was sat in a chair, leaning back with his legs outstretched. He was smiling happily and toasting the unseen artist with a mug of ale. The figure looked like my brother but was so utterly unlike him that it was startling. After a while I decided that this person was who Edmund should have been rather than who he had become. If he had made some different choices or if he had been born after Mark or Emma.

My hard won numbness and distance shook as I felt a lump rise in my throat.

Mark was pouring some of the red liquid into the five waiting cups.

One of the traditions about going hunting, for those of you who have never known it or have never been near a hunting pack as that form of hunting is going out of fashion, is that the hunters are brought a small cup of an alcoholic drink to fortify them. I always thought it a little silly in truth as it seemed the height of stupidity to hand out strong alcohol to people who were hunting game with weapons but there you go. This is called a stirrup cup and it was five of these vessels that we would drink port from as it was Father's favourite drink. I took my cup, still looking at the carvings and sipped the liquid which I always found surprisingly sweet. It's as though my mouth goes into shock as it was expecting something almost sour like a good red wine and then the sweetness hits it and it's too busy being shocked to react quickly.

We stood there, awkwardly looking at each other.

"Well," said Mark after a long time. "I've officiated many of these as priest but never as a mourner."

"Does it feel different?" Emma asked, she had sat next to Mother who was staring into space.

"Yes and no." He said, "There's a certain amount of distance from everything. I absolutely expect to go into shock later and just fall asleep for a few... you know... years."

"It's been a hell of a week," said Sam. He'd been looking at the graves, same as I had.

"Hasn't it though?" Emma said with a weary smile.

We all managed some awkward tittering before silence fell.

"How long do we have to stay down here?" Sam asked. "No that I'm eager to leave but... Oh dammit that came out wrong, I'm just wondering if there's some kind of etiquette to this entire thing."

"Not really," Emma spoke up. "This is our time and if we want to leave quickly saying that we wanted to celebrate life rather than death then we can. Likewise, if we decide that we want to stay down here until tomorrow then we can do that too."

"I don't think we need to, or even should, stay down here too long." Mark suggested. "People want to talk to us and Dad would be furious if he thought we were passing up the opportunity to make contacts and network amongst the other nobles."

Sam laughed genuinely and even Mother managed to smile. "He would at that."

"Well then," said Emma standing and helping Mother to her feet. "Mark, do you want to do the honours?"

"No," Mark answered, "but I will." He raised his cup. "To Father. For the running head start in life that he gave us."

"For the tasks still ahead of us." Emma added

"And for the things that he did for us," Sam's toast.

We drank. I bent to inspect the picture on Edmund's stone again. I wanted to feel something, anything, but it was warring with the desire to stay... stoic.

"So I suppose there's someone else we need to talk about," Sam said. He was right. We had toasted father the way we were supposed which meant that we could leave but none of us had moved. "Does anyone want to say anything?"

There was a long pause.

"I do," I said. I think that I was as astonished at hearing my voice as everyone else was. I held my cup out for more port and Mark refilled it.

"I didn't know Edmund very well. Now that I have found out more, I find that I am glad. People have said that he was sick somehow, that he had an illness of the brain. I can't answer for that. But I wonder what I would have done in his place. If I had gone through what he did."

"You would never have done what he did," Emma said.

"Wouldn't I? I wonder. Anyway. If he was sick in some way that we can't fathom yet, then we should all count ourselves lucky that it didn't happen to us. If it was his circumstances that made him that way, whether intentional or not, imagined or not. Then we should count ourselves lucky that it was him that had to go through those things and not us. If it was a combination of both things, sickness and circumstance. Then we are all doubly lucky."

I stopped and looked again at the picture of the brother that I had nearly had.

"I suppose what I'm saying is. It's only by the grace of the Holy Flame that it's not me lying there."

Mark nodded. "I'll drink to that."

"So will I," Sam added.

Emma nodded and Mother had already raised her own cup in a silent toast.

"I'm sorry Edmund," I said as I raised my cup.

We left and went back to the party.

I've been to a couple of wake's now. Mostly due to the fact that I've been so involved with the monster slaying business that we tend to get invited to them, either as part of the "investigation" part of the monster hunt, or because we get invited after the dead party has been avenged. Kerrass accuses me of "gentrifying" him as he claims that he's been invited to many more parties after his association with me than he ever was before but I think that is more down to the fact that I've been trained from a young age to talk to nobility and express proper condolences and as a result they always feel guilty for not inviting him.

I must say that he doesn't complain too much. He always seems to "get lucky" at these things as his air of danger attracts young and impressionable nobility to him like moths to a flame. There is something to be said about the life affirmation of it that acts like an aphrodisiac.

I find wake's fascinating. It's a morbid subject I will admit but there might be something to the suggestion that you can tell a lot about a culture by the way they mourn the dead.

Relatively recently I had the opportunity to attend a wake for a Nilfgaardian coastal lord. He was a naval officer charged with policing his particular patch of coastline against pirates. To no-one's surprise, the vast majority of those pirates were Skelligan.

His keep was situated over the top of small bay and harbour that was used for his fleet and a sizeable merchant and fishing docks. A large sea monster of some description that has, thus far, escaped classification had started to attack passing ships. The Lord had led his knights out to fight the beast and had been pulled into the water.

In his armour.

Kerrass had been hired to destroy the beast. He had failed to kill it but had succeeded in chopping large chunks of it off, setting fire to, and poisoning those wounds so there was every possibility that it would die out at sea after being driven off. To be fair to the Lords widow she still paid a considerable chunk of the fee and invited us to the wake. Everyone was astonished when several large Skelligan longships turned up at dock. Paid the docking fees and marched up to the castle to, politely, ask if they could help honour their fallen enemy.

It was an education to watch. The normally stoic and withdrawn Nilfgaardians who were stood around muttering to each other along with wailing and gnashing of teeth combined with the boisterous and cheerful Skelligan pirates who had brought their own beer as apparently they didn't care to toast the man with wine.

At one point I found myself sitting next to a group of Nilfgaardian noblemen who were arguing over who should talk to the Skelligans to get them to quieten down and pay proper respect. I was forced to step in and point out that what the Skelligans were doing _was_ paying proper respect. Indeed, in their culture, what they were doing was considered a high honour.

The Skelligans left as peacefully as they came, nursing huge hangovers as well as several bruises and broken noses that had been inflicted during some good natured tussling with the Nilfgaardian landsknechts that lived at the castle. They had also promised the widow of the castle that they would refrain from attacking her fallen husbands stretch of coastline for a year and a day out of respect and had gifted her with a large and obviously expensive, well crafted golden torque.

But now, in my father's castle, I was one of the people that was close to the fallen. I hadn't met them then but I suspect that I might have enjoyed the Skelligan version of a wake a bit more. My head swam with eating not enough food and drinking a little bit too much wine despite constant effort to moderate myself.

My mother, Emma and Mark retired early and so I took the position of host upon myself. I made sure that I was there to personally thank every guest as they were leaving and to console everyone who was upset whether they were crying genuine tears or not.

Eventually the "party" wound down somewhere around midnight. Those guests who were spending the night went to their beds while Sam and I took one of the last couple of bottles of my fathers wine that had been opened but unfinished to a quieter sitting room and sat together, staring at a fireplace.

Despite my drunkenness I still felt relatively sober though, my mind still racing in the way that it often does after a fight. Sam had started to snooze so I helped him up to his room and went to my own bed to stare at the ceiling for a bit.

I couldn't sleep.

In the end I gave up, changed clothes and went back downstairs. Commandeering a couple of the remaining bottles of wine I went off to the barracks and handed those bottles off to the Sergeant at arms so that the men could have proper vintage with which to celebrate my fathers passing. The gesture was cheered, much to my amusement as father would have been absolutely mortified at the gesture. Not that he would have thought it wrong but at the rate with which the men drank the wine.

"Proper wine should be savoured," he would say in horror watching one of those men grab a bottle by the neck and lifting it to his mouth.

I grinned at the thought and left as quietly as I could.

It was still the height of summer and I was quite warm as I picked a patch of the wall to sit and watch the sunrise with one of those bottles as my company.

I must have dozed because I woke up stiff and hungry.

Barnabus, the family lawyer hadn't stayed long the previous day as he had to return to Oxenfurt to collect Father's will and to receive final authority to enact it's contents. He was expected in the new day to read the will and so that we could all find out what would happen.

I was confident that my lot wouldn't change very much although I suspected that my student days would now be behind me. I thought that I could rely on a small sum that could be used or invested as I saw fit and a share of the family business that could provide a small income. It kind of all depended on what would happen to the rest of the business though as to what I would do with it. I had no idea what Mark, a churchman through and through, would do with so large a merchant enterprise as he rejected physical wealth but I had no idea what else could happen. I thought I would reinvest my sum into the family business and continue my travelling for a while before the spectre of marriage, to a vampire or not, became a little more real.

Kerrass eventually found me. In a mirror of an earlier scene he had woken up the kitchens and brought me a huge bacon sandwhich along with a hot drink of some description.

"Good morning." he said grinning that special smile that told me that he got laid last night.

"Is it?" I asked.

"Not bad if you go for that kind of thing. You didn't sleep last night."

"Are you going to tell me that it's some kind of special Witcher thing that you can do to tell you such things."

Kerrass had his own drink and took a long gulp.

"Nah, I have spies."

"Really? It took you that long to infiltrate my fathers castle?"

He just grinned at me.

"Serious question though," he said after snagging a piece of bacon from between the two slices of bread. "How long are you planning on staying? It's just I thought I might go for a ride and see if I can find some work in the local area if we're going to be here more than a couple of days."

"So keen to get going?"

"My aren't we touchy today. Should have found yourself a nice warm woman to keep you company. Anyway, I get that you might want to stay for a bit but time's a wasting and although your family has been more than generous. I'm beginning to get itchy feet. Also there's the matter of that favour you owe me."

"So quickly given and already your chasing me for that?"

Kerrass looked at me for a long time.

"You know what? If you're going to be this miserable then I'm going back to see if I can find that woman I was talking about."

I sighed.

"I'm sorry."

"I know. Grief makes people say odd things. Just get it out of your system before we head off though right?"

"I will. I've had some thoughts in that direction anyway."

"Will I be needed for them?"

"You might _want_ to be."

"Oh good."

Barnabus, our lawyer had gone back to Oxenfurt overnight and returned about mid-morning where we gathered in the same room where the four children had passed judgement on our own mother. This fact was certainly not lost on me. Nor was it lost on me that Mother went to exactly the same place that she had stood previously.

Barnabus looked tired and old. He had been drinking heavily the previous evening in a corner with some of the older people that Father had worked with over the years. He had a leather satchel with him from which he pulled several envelopes, a scroll and a large piece of paper. There was some movement as we all found seats, drinks were poured and the older man wiped his face a couple of times.

"I've been thinking about this for a while." He said after a long pause where he just stared into space. "I've decided to retire as your family lawyer and indeed I'm going to pass the firm on to my partners."

We all exchanged glances but mother gestured for us to stay silent.

"I see." she said after another long moment of silence. "I think I can speak for everyone when I say that we will be sorry to..."

"It's just," he interrupted. I don't think he was being rude. I think that it was because he genuinely hadn't heard her. "I'm getting old. Some days I feel in fine form and a credit to my profession. But in other ways I can feel myself slowing down. I had enormous affection for your father and over the years I came to admire the man. This small slice of heaven that he had managed to carve out of the countryside where his people had as much importance as the nobles that came to visit him became dear to me and I hope that you will accept it when I petition to be allowed to become one of your feudal subjects and build a home for my retirement on your lands."

Mark looked left and right at the rest of us as he rubbed at his temple. "I think I speak for everyone when I say that we would be honoured."

The old man nodded and shook his head as if to shake free of something.

"Enough of that. I will of course make some other recommendations if the old firm don't meet your requirements.

"First of all, you should all know that there has been much debate on the subject of your fathers will. In the matter of inheritance of title and lands, normally it would just be the King that would decide the matter and in a family where there is a male heir then normally that would just be a simple affirmation from the King's private secretary but in this case we have neither King, nor private Secretary. The matter was referred to the High Sheriff who, in turn referred it to Nilfgaard. Fortunately, as we had some warning as to what was to come, we have had time to receive an answer which was a long and flowery one. When you boil it all down though it basically says that the Emperor and Empress-to-be have discussed the matter and decided that they don't care enough to replace the family in that position providing that the family don't rock the boat and foment rebellion. We have also been in discussion with the church hierarchy for reasons that will become clear.

"I do however have another sad piece of news. My lady?" He spoke to mother directly.

Mother looked up expectantly.

"It is my duty to inform you of the death of your brother and nephew. Your Nephew was executed at the hands of church soldiers by being burned at the stake for heresy. Your brother, it seems, had made it to Oxenfurt just in time to witness the execution and hurled himself on the flames where he died."

Mother bowed her head for a moment before looking back up. Something fierce glittered in her eyes.

"I see," She said carefully.

"Further to that I have a message for the new Lord Kalayn. Lord Samuel?"

"Eh? What?" Sam was startled. This was indeed unexpected.

"Your uncle's will was simple enough. He left everything to any surviving male heir that was specifically not a member of the church hierarchy. The genealogies have been checked and that means that those lands and titles belong to you. I'm afraid it isn't much but there is a little income and I'm told that the land is quite scenic."

Sam snorted.

"Well, somewhere to retire I suppose."

"Indeed, Lord Kalayn." Mother smiled. "I'm pleased. Those lands and people's have been abused for too long. You'll look after them won't you?"

"I will do my best." Sam was clearly thinking furiously.

"If I might make a suggestion." I spoke up. "Kerrass would be furious with me if I didn't at least suggest that you take a priest or three with you when you go there. Years of heresy can have an effect on the land. Also some church soldiers, maybe a Sorceress, or a Witcher."

"I'm sure some priests can be arranged." agreed Mark. "It's a good thought Sam."

Sam nodded.

"Would Kerrass oblige?"

"He might. I owe him a favour and we need to sort that out first which may take time. Talk to him though. He's a craftsman so the promise of fair pay might influence him."

"I'll talk to him."

"Good." Said Barnabus with a smile. "In which case, please allow me to congratulate you. Lord Samuel Kalayn." He got up and bowed solemnly as he handed over a scroll.

"Heh. I like the sound of that."

"I'm not calling you milord." I said, smiling myself.

"You'll have to." Sam said grinning from ear to ear. "I have the feudal rights there and could have you executed."

"You'd have to catch him first."

Family squabbling, good for whatever ails you.

We calmed down after a moment to hear the rest of what Barnabus had to say.

"First of all. Your father wrote to all of you. Letters to be read. In those days when we had begun to hope for the best but it became clear that he was sinking, he called me over and had me draft these letters."

He passed them all out.

"I am instructed to inform you that those letters are to be read after you have heard about your inheritances. The contents are private and you are admonished to read them first before discussing their contents with anyone else. These are his instructions."

We all nodded. I thought of a teaching seminar or when tutors would come out to the castle to lecture us all on a specific point of history. Deduct ten years or so from everyone's age and that would be about right. Sitting here at father's instructions listening to someone inform us about things.

I hid a smile behind my hand.

"The will itself is divided into sections. The vast majority of them are not relevant to you and pertain to other people within his sphere's of influence. Some of which will be discussed with relevant parties afterwards, however there are a couple of things that I am instructed to read aloud to you here. The sections regarding Edmund have been removed."

He lifted a piece of paper and held it away from his face as he tried to focus on it. I desperately wanted to offer to read it for him.

"First of all to my wife." said Barnabus in a manner that was so like my Father that I had to hide a smile again. Then I felt guilty and cruel at the jibe. I wondered if Father had learnt that manner of Barnabus or if it had been the other way round.

"First of all to my wife. I would like it known by all that hear this declaration that I love my wife dearly. She has had a hard life and I have been too poor a husband for her. Over the years I have so desperately wanted to take her in my arms and protect her from all the cruelties that the world might throw at her but at the same time I have been unable to do so. She deserved better from this world and better from me. I do have further things to say but those things will be said in private. Publicly however, she has often stated that she wishes to take holy orders and in my selfishness I have refused her permission as I wanted to keep my wife around me. I would always pretend that I wanted my children to have a mother and the castle to have it's lady but the truth is that I simply couldn't bare to be parted from her. I would like to take this opportunity to beg for her forgiveness."

My mother's gaze fell. She was holding her own letter in her lap and was staring at it as though it was something both precious and deadly. There was a look on her face that was too raw and primal for a son to see.

I looked away.

"I have left a sum of money to the temple that she chooses to attend and I wish her the best for her retirement and spiritual fulfilment." Barnabus finished and set aside that particular bit of paper.

There was some passing around of tissues, some coughing and avoidance of each others gaze.

Barnabus was watching us and I had an insight.

He was dreading this next bit.

I carefully did not lean forwards expectantly as our lawyer picked up another piece of paper.

"It is my wish that both Frederick and Samuel should continue in the manner to which they have become accustomed. Further to this they will continue to receive an income that will fall in line with rates of inflation blah blah blah, and they will also have no less than a 5% stake in the family mercantile endeavours that can be cashed in the event of them settling down. Another 5% each will be released on the event of their marriage."

Sam and I exchanged glances. Neither of us had expected anything different, indeed it was quite generous for a knight who expected his money to come in from patrons and military hierarchy as well as a wandering scholar.

"The title of Baron von Coulthard will descend down the male line." Barnabus looked up. "At the time of writing this was meant to be Edmund however since his death that would be you. I have discussed matters with the church offices and as such they have no objection to you using the title "Cardinal Mark, Baron von Coulthard and as such that will be added to your heraldry. At the moment they want to put a mitre on top of the coat of arms."

Mark nodded but that was only part of the news that we were all waiting for. The lawyer looked back at the paper.

"As it is customary for churchmen not to marry and produce heirs. That title will then pass down to the next male of my _direct_ male line. Which means Samuel, then any male issue of Samuel followed by Frederick, followed by any male issue of Frederick,"

There was more nodding. I saw the lawyer lick his lips. This was it.

"It is my wish that my lands, deeds, funds, endeavours and patents should be kept by my eldest daughter Emma in trust of the birth of my Grandson."

"What?" I don't know who said that. It might even have been me.

"It is my requirement that my lands not fall into the hands of a wastrel or the church. I wish for the families lands to be kept for the future of the von Coulthards and not for the furtherment of the churches agenda nor the paying off of debts. There is no better person to keep these lands in trust than Emma. My daughter of whom I am unspeakably proud and she has my eternal trust. She is charged with further matters that will be discussed in private..."

Mark shot to his feet. His eyes were goggled and the blood drained out of his face. His hands were clenching at his sides.

"Mark?" Mother said carefully.

Emma said nothing. She looked as though she had been struck in the face with a hammer. Her eyes were shining with un-shed tears.

"But..." Mark stammered.

"Putting it more simply." Barnabus stayed seated although he put the paper away. "Mark is now Baron von Coulthard. However, everything else... Goes to Emma to hold until either Sam or Frederick produce offspring."

"So confident was he that Emma wouldn't produce children..." I heard myself growl.

"But I..."

"Mark," Sam stood up slowly and reached out for Mark's shoulder. "He didn't trust either of us either. The wealth passes over us to our children and..."

Mark shrugged him off violently. A thought visibly struck him.

"He left it all to..."

He realised that he was holding the letter that had been meant for him. He'd crumpled it in his fist. Feverishly he unfolded it, tore off the end and strode over to the fireplace where he read it. Sam, mother and I had stood as he moved.

Emma looked as though she had been pinned to her chair.

Mark straightened the letter and read it again.

Then again.

He angled it in the light. If possible, he got paler and rubbed at his temple as he examined the envelope, looking for more paper.

Then in a frenzy, he tore the paper up and hurled it into the fire. He was still staring into space.

At the time there was too much emotion in the room. Looking back I should have realised what was happening. Mark was terrified.

Carefully mother approached him.

"Mark?" she said.

"Of all people," he said quietly in what sounded like amazement. "Of all people it's me that he spurns. Me. My mother's a heretic, my sisters a whore to a Witch and my brothers..."

I snarled and lunged at Mark. I like to think that I don't anger easily but he shouldn't have said that.

Sam stopped me. His soldiers instincts held me back.

But mother did it for me. Her slap echoed in the room.

"How dare you?" she whispered into the silence. "After everything this family has been through. You can call me what you like but don't you ever talk about your sister like that again." Her voice was steel.

Nothing happened.

The only silence was the roaring of the fire.

Mark abruptly stalked from the room.

I shook Sam off and went over to Emma who was still sat, unmoving. I knelt in front of her.

"Emma?"

"He said he was proud of me," She burst into tears.

Sam left the room. I don't know where he went but I was later told that he went off to find Mark to have a

blazing row with him.

Looking back I think that some professor of some kind could make a fascinating study about our family dynamics during those few days. We had all come together for the illness, funeral and then, no soon was our father in the ground than we shattered again.

I spent some time consoling Emma who had fallen apart. After a while though it became clear that I was not who was needed and I sent for Laurelen. Something that I should have done much earlier really but in the heat of the moment it simply didn't occur to me.

I left, sneaking into the kitchen for a chunk of bread and some cheese as well as a skin of wine before going off wandering. I set out with no particular destination in mind, just the rough and unformed determination to put one foot in front of the other until I came to a place where I wanted to stop. The cook put the food into a bag for me and I slung it over my shoulder as I walked.

I felt numb really. I've spoken before about feeling as though the entire world felt too noisy, as though the sounds of footfalls and voices were echoing harshly into the very centre of my skull where they were becoming focused into a point that was growing into a headache for the ages. Dimly I was aware of the unfairness of that. I hadn't been drinking, I was tired but not _that_ tired. It felt like a hangover. I had been running around, non-stop for a while now, ever since I first thought that Father was dying.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, the scholar and writer in me was making notes and I was dimly aware that he had decided that I had gone into a delayed shock. I wanted to run, climb things, Fight something, rage, shout and scream. I wanted to pound a person with my fists until their cheekbones shattered and their teeth splintered. It didn't seem to matter who it was either as the picture in my minds eye changed from Kerrass, to Mark, to Father, to Sir Robart, to Cousin Kalayn, to Edmund and on and on. Several times it was even my own face that I was trying to destroy.

My legs twitched oddly.

Since receiving that first message I had travelled solidly for several days. I had jumped straight into a murder investigation that had gone too far into places that I didn't know that I would come back from. I had discovered that my own brother was a rapist, heretic and murderer and that those...tastes seemed to run in the family.

Sitting here now it seems ludicrous to think but right then and there I was afraid that I might have developed those tastes myself.

Did I want to murder and rape women?

I didn't of course and I never would but for a while there I was terrified that I might. A lot like a friend of mine whose parents are drug addicts and has to stay away from the stuff because he knows that he might succumb himself.

Right now though, I wanted to be outside. I wanted to hear the leaves in the trees and the blowing of wind through grass.

I wandered down through the castle courtyards and out through the gates with still no idea where I was going.

The guards greeted me at the gates and I made a couple of silly jokes. I don't remember what I said but they seemed to be better for it.

I wanted to leave. Jump on my horse and ride off. Life was a lot simpler on the road as well.

Something to be said about the Witcher way of life. You know who your enemies are. Everything is a routine. It's implicit in a Witchers code to be neutral in matters of state and politics. Don't get involved, ride on by, do not look back.

At first I had thought that this made them uncaring but instead I had begun to believe that it wasn't that they were uncaring. It was more that they had the potential to be too caring. The other possibility is that Witchers are uniquely suited to tip the scales of politics one way or another. They are trained and built to the peaks of physical and mental prowess. If they decided to get involved in a cause or ideal then they could truly change the world. So if they don't just walk on by, then things would spin out of control with a speed that was potentially terrifying. Suddenly Witchers would become the concern of massively powerful heads of state and then Witchers are no longer monster slayers, they become soldiers, spies and assassins.

Two Witchers are famous for this. Obviously there is the White Wolf, Geralt of Rivia, adopted father of the Empress-to-be in Nilfgaard. The other is the Kingslayer who slew two heads of state so that his brothers and history could be preserved.

Two men, forced out of their neutrality by circumstance and love of those closest to them and look at the differences that both men made in the world.

That fabled neutrality suddenly seemed like an immense luxury that I could no longer afford.

I walked in amongst the trees and realised where I was going.

I remembered the thing that mother had said about killing Edmund. That she didn't remember deciding to kill him but rather had just realised that that was what she was going to do.

I had not decided to come to our family's crypt. Instead I had just come here.

There were two guards on the gate. A number of people had wanted to pay their own respects and it had been felt prudent that the tombs needed to be protected in case some of the people wanted to pay their respects by taking a steaming turd at the foot of the grave stones.

I nodded to the guards and entered, slowly descending the steps.

It was dark down there and quiet. There were still lit torches on the walls. Mark had given orders that they should be kept burning for a week to honour the fallen and to keep evil spirits away. Kerrass had kindly suggested that the application of certain oils would work just as well. I had seen that the guards in question had applied both methods.

Just to be sure.

Fathers grave had been decorated with various wreathes of flowers. A couple of roses, a few daisy chains and such. Several bottles had been left as well as notes had been tacked on. I had seen several graves before and had always wondered what these things were about.

Someone had left a small straw doll version of my father in amongst the flowers. For some reason I found this incredibly funny. I never remember Father being interested in dolls or wanting to play with small children. Even Frannie had only ever played with her older brothers and sister.

I suddenly felt a little foolish and guilty for making light of a touching gesture. I carefully put the doll back where I had found it.

Edmunds grave had nothing on it. Almost suspiciously so.

In fact it looked as though the stone had been scrubbed clean.

Someone had taken the opportunity to make a gesture that we had all been afraid of.

I sat down with my back to the wall and stretched out my legs into the centre of the room and let out a long sigh and shut my eyes.

It was peaceful here. A very similar kind of feeling to what it was like inside the family chapel. I felt monstrously tired but at the same time my mind was working over time. I had once seen a gnomish device in the university when I was still trying to decide what I wanted to study. I wandered into an engineering class which mostly seemed to be about trying to catch up to what the gnomes and dwarves have already been doing for hundreds of years.

On the lecturers desk was a device that seemed to be made out of clockwork and springs. The lecturer used a key to wind the contraption up and then let the key go at which time the machine started to move, the cogs and springs moving together in perfect harmony. But then it became clear that the machine was increasing the speed of it's operation. The movements got faster and faster until eventually the machine shook itself apart, but still there were parts of the machine that were still trying to move. The demonstration was clearly set up as the lecturer took the mishap in his stride and started putting the machine back together so I strongly suspected that the machine had been deliberately built to shake itself apart for the purposes of that demonstration.

But that day, I felt like that little machine. It always struck me as being very sad. The little machine that had been built to fail. Built to break and tear itself apart and yet still fought to exist without knowing how to fight or how to keep going.

As I sat there I tried to doze or even better to catch some sleep but my mind was still going over things. Over and over, trying to see if there was something that I had missed, something that I might want to pursue, some kind of... Explanation as to why, otherwise, perfectly normal people would do such despicable things to their fellow human beings.

The answer that they did them because they could was not satisfactory to me.

I ate a little and stared at one of the fires as I remembered why I had come here.

Taking out my fathers letter from where I had scrunched it up and thrust it into my pocket, I carefully unfolded it and smoothed it out over my knee with my hands.

I took a long drink of the wine and began to read it.

It took me several attempts to focus on the words to the point where I felt that I was taking them in.

Frederick.

I come to you last, not because you are least in my thoughts but because I find that you are the person least in need of my advice or instruction. I do not say these things as an admonishment or as a scourge but to simply state that you have changed my mind.

Your elder brothers and sisters have become major people now. Edmund has become a great man in his circle, no matter how much I might despise those people or disapprove of his life choices.

Mark is heading for the highest office that he will be able to attain in the church and I am very proud and pleased for him. He has worked hard at it although I cannot help but wonder if he might have climbed higher if I had been less successful at imparting a decent set of morals to him.

Your sister Emma is probably the best of those three. I sometimes think of my children as being divided into two halves representing the two periods of my life where your mother and I loved each other without hesitation or holding anything back. Emma is the best of those three and I will explain why in a moment. She will need your support Frederick. Not with money but with your love and your integrity. She will struggle in the field that she must now walk and it shames me that I will not be there to help her through her future endeavours.

Sammuel is a good lad and he hides his arrogance well. It is a familiar arrogance to me as it is the arrogance of a man who can defend himself. Who can fight. Who looks at others in a way that says that he is measuring them up as threats. To Samuel he looks at the world in terms of those people that he could fight and win, and those people against whom he would lose.

Francesca will do well no matter what she does and as such she is the one child of mine for whom I did exactly the right thing.

For you though...

You do not know it but I have just spent some time staring out the window.

I am dying as I write this. I know it, deep down in the pit of my stomach. I look out the window and I can see the extent of my lands and the beauty that I have helped create and I still don't know what to say to my youngest son.

Of all of my children, you represent my biggest failure.

But you do so in the best possible way.

When we last parted there were harsh words spoken between us. I ridiculed you and attempted to lessen you as a way to force you into my way of thinking. I wanted you to be a minor courtier and lordling. I envisioned you as a pawn to be moved around the chess-board of dynastic squabbling that the nobility seems to have become. I thought I could find you a wife that would make you happy and some form of realm to manage that would provide you with the right kind of intellectual stimulus to contain your energy. I had failed but rather than seeing that as my own failure as a parent, I saw that as your failure as my son.

In the time since I last saw you I have realised that what I was trying to do was to force you into a role for which you were unsuited.

Barnabus has just put it best. I was trying to force a square peg (you) into a round hole and was angry at the peg for being unable to fit.

I then got angrier as that peg wandered round looking for the hole into which it did fit.

You don't know this but I started reading your "Witcher journals" shortly after they started to be published. At first I had refused to do so as any indication that you might be succeeding went against my established order of the world but eventually your sister forced me to read them.

The first thing that caught my eye was the remorse you felt that you couldn't do more for the people that you had saved.

Then I read about you seeing evil behind the mask of beauty.

Then I read about how far you were willing to go for the well-being of others.

I read every journal avidly and I realised that I was becoming proud of my son. Everything that I had tried to impart to others, every duty and responsibility that I have tried to take on and pass down to my children...

You had gone out into the world and found the same things and taken them to heart, independent of me. Without my guidance.

In your travels with your Witcher companion you have seen the world to the point where you now know more about the real world than the rest of my children combined. You have seen the potential for evil and the potential for good in mankind.

And then you seek to educate others in what this means by way of having your journals published. You may have started out with different goals in mind but I rather think that if you put your mind to it, you would already have your doctorate and be lecturing at the university, but instead you are still out, travelling the roads despite Emma's efforts to find you. Instead you have continued your travels, continued your good works and continued educating yourself in what it means to be human.

I am immeasurably proud of you and it is a great pleasure to me to see the man that you have become. The fact that you did so despite my interference is not lost on me.

I had intended to tell you these things when I saw you next but it seems that I drove you away far too efficiently and that I was incorrect when I assumed that I had time.

I am sorry for that.

I do have a couple of requests however.

First of all, it was Edmund who was responsible for my injury. I trust that you will make him remember this fact.

Secondly, I would ask you to thank your Witcher for me. For keeping you safe, for being your guide into the wider world and for standing next to you in times of strife.

That's it.

On a personal level I would also tell you that I have left instruction with Emma that when you decide to get married that the company will foot the bill. I have read some of the correspondence between Emma and this Countess Angral and I suspect that she will suit you well.

The fact that she is a vampire also seems to suit you well and is the source of much private amusement on my part and I was looking forward to seeing the meeting between her and Mark.

But I encourage you to follow your heart on the matter.

Once again, please allow me to apologise for trying to interfere in your life and to say that I am so proud of the man you have become despite your father.

With all my love.

Dad.

I would like to say that there were tears. That would be the poetic thing to say. That I sat there in the darkness of my fathers tomb and wept for the fallen.

But I didn't.

Instead I read the letter several times before carefully folding it and placing it back in my pouch. The terrible rage that I had first felt when Father had died was back and I gulped down some air in an effort to calm myself.

I was restless again,

I finished the food and wine, climbed to my feet and left the crypt without looking back.

There is not that much left to say really.

Mark left that day in a huff. He gathered all his soldiers together and just marched off without saying a word to any of us. After his earlier behaviour I was rather glad that I didn't have to talk to him really but at the same time I had thought it odd. I'm hoping to see him when we all gather for the coronation as my temper has cooled considerably since then. But at the time, I was glad that he had gone. There was a feeling as though a dark cloud had lifted from the castle, I don't know when it arrived or what had caused it but there was definitely a feeling of doom. It was the kind of thing where you only notice it when it's gone. I may have been imagining things but I doubt it.

Mother left a few days after that. She waited until the rest of our guests had left to go on their merry little ways. She didn't want to cause a fuss and left quietly in the company of two nuns who had volunteered to escort her to Ellander. It had been a long time since I had seen her as happy as that. I don't know how long it will be before I see her again but I intend to visit her and she has already written to say that she will be permitted leave to visit in the event of family events such as marriage. She hugged me warmly when she left. I asked her to forgive me for everything that I had done. She looked shocked before admonishing me not to feel guilty.

"Of all my children, you have the most well defined sense of right and wrong," she said. "Never apologise for doing the right thing. Your morals serve you well. Stick to them. You did me proud."

She smiled and waved as she left.

I still did not weep as I watcher her depart even though I wanted to and felt as though I should. I started to get a persistent headache and jaw-ache that nothing could lift. I refused to drink more than socially although I desperately wanted to get drunk, but I saw that as a bottomless hole that I would never climb out of.

Sam waited to leave at my request as I had something to do and I wanted him present. It is required for a gentleman to have two seconds when he is issuing a challenge to a duel. Sam and Kerrass rode into Oxenfurt the day after mothers departure. They were dressed in our house colours and loudly declared that they were seeking Sir Robart de Radford on my behalf. They strode into the watch office demanding his presence before taking a tour of the city, loudly shouting for Sir Robart and that he, or someone that knew of his whereabouts should come out and make themselves known. Several people came forward but none could direct them to Sir Robart's location.

Instead, they had begun to gather something of an audience about themselves which they led into the town square. Sam stood on the stage with a glowering Witcher standing next to him, where he produced a scroll that I had prepared earlier. I won't go into detail but the long story short, the scroll declared Sir Robart to be a pox-filled sack of shit as well as a cowardly, yellow-bellied streak of piss that would rather have sex with animals than find a willing human being to copulate with.

I demanded that he meet me on the field of honour just outside Oxenfurt with the melee weapons of his choosing where we would fight, on foot until one of us was dead. I told him to meet me at dawn in a weeks time. I also said, loudly, that I had sent similar messages to Novigrad that wasn't that far away where the same message would be read out by every town cryer and that my message should be carried to Sir Robart by all who might call him friend. If he failed to show up, or contact me with an alternate place and time before that day then he agreed with me regarding all of the rather colourful things that I called him.

Needless to say, the man never showed up. I was there from the evening before until the morning after. I had visions of him turning up just after I had given up and left and claiming that I had fled the field. I needn't have worried. I haven't heard from him either but if he, or anyone he knows reads this then they should know that his sexual organs have a horrible, scaly disease that he has contracted by trying to have sex with fish. My spear awaits his response.

The men that we had captured with the strike against the cult gave the church some useful information about rooting out that particular heresy. The families of those men were incensed that they were even being held, let alone interrogated and were demanding their release. They had enough political clout to make things uncomfortable for the church in Oxenfurt and there were such things said as "We didn't have a problem when they were interrogating the mages or the non-humans but now they have come for us." or words to that effect.

The men had already been sentenced to death by being burned at the stake in line with the laws on heresy but such was the political pressure being brought to bear on the matter that I'm told that those sentences were nearly reversed. It is my belief that this might have caused a riot at best, or an uprising at worst. It might have gone badly and those men might have even been released but a group of what we are supposed to call "religious zealots" amongst both the church, the watch and the townsfolk, broke the heretics out of prison and took them out of Oxenfurt to a clearing where they had built a huge bonfire. The men were tied to stakes and then burned alive according to the original sentencing. You can still find a burned patch of ground outside Oxenfurt which is where those men died and to date, no-one has been caught, nor has anyone claimed responsibility for those deaths.

Sam left the day after this little party. Kerrass told him that he had business in the south that would probably see him too occupied to come and look at the castle Kalayn before spring but if his services were still required after that then he would be more than happy to take the contract.

Kerrass and I stayed on for another day to support Emma while she took over the Lordship. There were occasional visitors who demanded to see the "Lord of the castle" and wouldn't accept that Emma was the legal Lord. I would then make myself known before very publicly deferring to Emma in every way. But I was feeling restless and so Kerrass and I made our farewells and rode out of the gates.

I owed Kerrass a favour and so our plan was to take the road up to Novigrad where we would take ship to a Nilfgaardian port that I had never heard of. Kerrass was acting all mysterious regarding the favour that he required of me but at the same time I wasn't very talkative myself.

I was... preoccupied with myself. I still had not managed to feel anything regarding either my fathers death or the massive changes that had taken place in my family. As we left I took one long look back at the castle, from a distance it looked as though nothing had changed and I felt as though this said something about the world. I had a thought about that and wanted to write it down but I couldn't summon the energy and the words turned to poison in my mind.

Instead I turned my horses head back to the road where Kerrass was waiting for me.

She met us on the second night. Because, of course she came at night.

The first night, Kerrass had taken care of the camp work and just left me to it. I spent the evening staring into the fire and I'm told that I was unresponsive to comments beyond monosyllabic grunting.

The second night was going much the same way as the first. We were camped just off the road in a small group of trees. We were not short of money and could easily have stayed in one of the local taverns but I didn't want to spend the evening dealing with questions from the locals about recent events. Kerrass was sympathetic so we camped. He went into the nearby village for some food which he heated over the fire. He had tried to engage me in conversation but had failed before returning to maintaining his weapons in silence.

I was sat on a tree stump staring at the fire again, occasionally giving in to my male tendency to play with fire.

Kerrass looked up sharply and frowned, slowly drawing a sword. He climbed to his feet and scanned the tree line before relaxing.

"Hello camp?" shouted a woman's voice.

"Come on in," Kerrass said and Ariadne stepped into the circle of firelight. She spent a bit of time pulling bits of twig and leaf from her cream dress and what looked like a travelling cloak.

"Is that for me?" she asked looking at the sword.

"You did teleport in without warning," Kerrass commented drily while putting the sword away.

"Yes, and then it took me a while to find a twig dry enough so that I could break it and announce my presence. I thought that just teleporting into your camp would end... badly." She grinned at Kerrass who grinned back.

"More than likely," he commented. "You're looking well,"

"Thank you," she said, she was examining a nearby log for a clean patch to sit. "I'm still getting used to current fashions. I'm still weak as vampires go but my physical form is now all but back to normal."

"I'm glad."

There was a long silence, I had barely lifted my head.

"Well, it's been a while," Kerrass began, "So I'm gonna...go off to... do some training. Yes, training. Too much castle life. I hope you'll forgive me," he bowed formally to her.

He later admitted that he winked at her with his back to me.

He left.

"So I'm sorry that I wasn't there to help you with your father's funeral." She began. "But it was only after it happened that anyone thought to give me the news. I'd been out dealing with matters in my lands and so had missed all the gossip. I'm so sorry, I would have come to help you and your sister but I was too late. I'm so sorry about that."

"It's ok," I managed.

"I'm trying to get used to not using magic as much. I'm told that your society is not as...understanding about magical creatures and so habitual magic use is sometimes dangerous. As a result I'm trying to live a normal life with using as little of it as possible. It means that I'm recovering quicker but at the same time it does make life so boring. Long periods of waiting although the carriage ride was very instructional. The world has changed so much."

"Carriage ride?"

"Yes, I thought that your sister could do with some friendly company. You are not the only member of your family that I am... fascinated with."

She smoothed her dress across her knees and arranged the folds of her skirts.

"She's worried about you you know?"

"Is she?"

"Oh yes. It was her that told me where to find you. I'm going to stay on with her for a bit as some support as she's still having some problems with, less desirable types. Also it means I can get to know her... I'm not sure what the term is, lover? Laurelen?"

I nodded.

"Fascinating woman. She's getting used to the fact that she's been "outed" is the word that she uses. I like her. She was only moderately terrified of me when I introduced myself."

"Rather than "absolutely terrified"?"

"Indeed. The people of Angraal are getting used to me but as soon as other folks find out about me they get all... shivery and start to avoid my gaze."

"Funny that."

Ariadne grinned.

"I thought so, but Laurelen is a good woman. Good head on her shoulders. I can see why Emma likes her."

"They do seem well suited."

I could feel my brain fighting against her efforts to pull it out of the slump it was in.

"Yes." I managed.

"Such a shame that your church doesn't allow women to marry each other. It seems eminently sensible to me. But anyway, we've got a pattern where I keep Laurelen company while Emma's off discussing business or matters of state."

"What do you talk about?"

"Magic, mostly. She let me use her lab."

The way she said it was as though Laurelen had allowed Ariadne access to her underwear.

I nodded and went back to staring into the fire.

"So how are you?" She prompted.

I shrugged.

"I'm so sorry about your father Frederick. I would have liked to have met him."

I nodded again.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"What's to say?"

"Anything." She answered. "Everything. Nothing. Everything in between."

I looked up at her properly for the first time. There's no hiding it. She looked beautiful but a little unearthly in the firelight. She had taken her hood down and had pulled her hair over her shoulder in a braid. She was sat, her knees together and her hands clasped easily in her lap.

Slowly, very slowly at first, I started to talk. Ariadne has that talent of listening that good interviewers have. I've talked about this before. You create an aura of silence around you so that your interviewee just feels the urge to fill that silence. She sat still, not fidgeting or moving except to follow my movements when I eventually gave in to the nervous energy and started to walk around the clearing.

I told her all of it. From the moment I got the message about father to the point where I had left the castle. I talked to her about my feelings, the events, my suspicions and conclusions. Everything that I have told you, my readers, and more.

It took a long time and she just sat there and listened.

Eventually I just petered out due to exhaustion.

"Well?" I demanded of her. "What do you think?"

"I do have one question?" she said staring at me. "How am I doing?"

"What?"

"It's been a long time since I've had to console a grieving human and I am out of practice. So how am I doing?"

I stared at her in astonishment.

I barked out a laugh. It was an involuntary thing, a simple sound but it was like the moment that a dam bursts. Or the first stone that starts an avalanche.

I fell backwards as the flood of everything that I had held back since my fathers death came rushing forwards. All of those fears, griefs and frustrations. My rage and sadness all rushed onwards in a tide that swept me away.

I howled in my grief, scrunching my hands into fists and covering my eyes as the tears that I had held back for what felt like ages came rushing out.

I wept as a child does at the loss of innocence.

Gentle and hesitant hands helped me into a sitting position and Ariadne cradled me as I wept into her shoulder for everything that I had lost.


	34. Chapter 34

"Ok Kerrass. I think I've been really really patient up until now. We haven't seen any other sign of civilisation now for over a week other than this stupid track that we keep following. I'm tired, dirty and desperately in need of a drink so I hope that you take all of those things into account when you consider this question. Where, the fuck, are we?"

"We're in Nilfgaard."

"I'm an educated man Kerrass and I know how to read a map. I know that. But what I also know is that Nilfgaard is a big place. One might even go so far as to describe it as being Fucking huge. So I will ask again. Where the fuck are we?"

Kerrass smiled a little. "Don't worry about it. We're nearly there."

"I ask because, as you might have noticed. It's beginning to head towards autumn now, the leaves are dying and it's beginning to get fucking cold. These things tend to pray on a man's mind when he's miles from fucking anywhere."

"As I say, we're nearly there."

"That's lovely and everything but where exactly is that?"

"In Nilfgaard."

"You know that I can tell when you're winding me up right? Your back has this particular tilt to it that tells me that you're being a smug bastard."

"Temper,"

"Temper? My left tit. I want a bath Kerrass."

"I once knew a man who lived to be a hundred and forty years old. He claimed that the only reason he lived so long was because of his steadfast refusal to take a bath."

"I've heard this story before Kerrass. The man you're talking about was a Witcher. He further went on to claim that his stench used to do half of his work for him to subdue the monsters in question. I also remember hearing you say that he could clear a nekkers nest by stench alone. I, however am the son of a nobleman and as such I do not require such aromas to be announcing my presence three days in advance of my actual arrival."

"It would at least tell you who your friends are."

"Yes. My friends are those with no sense of smell. Where the fuck are we?"

"We're nearly there."

"I also seem to feel as though you've been saying that for several days now."

"I know, it always used to shut you up before."

"Yes well that was before I caught on to your gambit. Where the fuck are we?"

"Wrap your cloak around you, you're beginning to shiver."

"Now, you're not going to catch me out with that one either. That's because we've been climbing steadily for the last three weeks. I'm not good at guessing but we're considerably higher than sea level now."

"I'm impressed. Does that mean that you shouldn't wrap up warm?"

"Why so interested in my health all of a sudden?"

"Because Ariadne threatened to pull out my spleen if you die up here."

"Yes, but she meant it affectionately. Also, don't think that you've changed the subject. Where the fuck are we?"

It has to be said that I have since looked at a map. The area we were moving through was well forested on either side and was also well away from any of the major trade routes. It was indeed sparsely populated where the odd village seemed to be in place because it had been a while since people had settled anywhere. I tried to look up the history of the area and there is an astonishing lack of anything happening. As it held little to no strategic value, nor did it have any mineral wealth to speak of then the people there were left well enough alone to enjoy their freedoms. It was the kind of place where the imperial tax collectors would have to collect their payments in goods rather than in coin. What they did have, were trees.

Lots of trees.

The people there were large and heavily built. They maintained long dark hair and beards, men and women were both heavily muscled and wore heavy woollen clothing. They spent their days hunting and felling trees which were used to make, just about anything. Animal skins were their only real export to speak of and as such, everything else was used up.

I had the feeling that they were good people over all but at the same time they had a way of staring at you that would kind of put you off. As though they were measuring you up with their eyes and finding you wanting in every way.

We had landed on the shores of Southern Nilfgaard some three months before hand. We spent a couple of weeks on the coast line where Kerrass spent some time working and getting together what he described as "Capital" as he didn't want to be working while we travelled further inland. He gave me an odd look when I suggested that I could happily provide for us while we did any kind of travelling before insisting that he would be providing our travelling expenses.

This from the man who had used to insist that I pay for my own way as well as often demanding that I pay for certain amenities for himself as well.

He saw it as a responsibility now. Because I was doing something for _him_ then that meant that he had to provide for me. As I say, he needn't have bothered. I had discussed my finances with my sister before departing in the summer and with the added amount that had been left to me by father, I had more than enough money coming to me on a regular basis for Kerrass and I to live in relative comfort for the duration of whatever errand it was that had brought us this far south.

He wouldn't hear of it though because he was a stubborn wretch.

I also knew that Emma had taken it upon herself to pay Kerrass for his time. Even though I had commissioned Kerrass to find my brothers killer and my payment had been in the form of performing a favour for him, Emma had insisted on paying Kerrass with Family funds.

I also know that that sum was not small and that Kerrass had made no effort to refuse payment.

But now we slept outside as often as we did inside and we ate frugally.

When we had been back at my fathers castle I had found myself looking forward to being out in the open air, of dressing simply without having to wonder what the current fashions were and who I might be offending if I wore blue rather than red. I had also been looking forward to plain and simple food rather than the carefully crafted dishes that our family cooks had implemented all of those times.

But now that I was out here, on the road. I found that I was becoming desperate for those small luxuries that people take for granted. Mattresses, pillows, properly cooked fresh meat and bread.

"Seriously Kerrass, where the fuck are we?"

"Patience."

"I don't want to be patient Kerrass."

"It's good practice for you."

"What do I need the practice for?"

"When you get married."

"Who says I'm getting married?"

"I would say that Ariadne has already decided the issue myself."

"Yes... well... Don't think you're distracting me. Where the fuck are we?"

"I've told you before, I want you to see it for yourself and draw your own conclusions."

"Fucking Witchers and their fucking air of mystery and their stupid, superior..."

"What was that?"

"Nothing. I just belched."

"Well you can't be that hungry then can you."

I swore loudly.

It was around four months now, since father had died but try as I might I couldn't quite get myself back into the mind set that I had used to occupy. So much had changed now, even just between Kerrass and myself. His attitude towards me had changed. Now he acted more like some kind of mother hen, fussing over my clothes and preparations, clearing up after me and making sure that I had had enough to drink and eat and that I was getting enough to sleep.

There was also the other thing that seemed to have happened, without much input from myself. As far as women went I was now off the market.

Ariadne had spent that first night consoling me before I eventually fell into an exhausted sleep. She was gone when I woke up however I did get to discover that she had brought us a cooked breakfast from the castle.

That would set the pattern for the next little while. Kerrass and I would ride on, taking our time to get to Novigrad. She and Kerrass seemed to have come to some kind of understanding although I never saw them talking about it. We would ride on the main road for the majority of the day, taking it easy and eating from the saddle but at various points, Kerrass would look up as though he had seen something and lead us off the road to a place where we could camp. There we would always find Ariadne waiting for us, food preparing over the fire, firewood stacked, fodder for the horses as well as fresh supplies for the day ahead. The three of us would sit and talk while Kerrass and I ate. Ariadne claimed to have eaten at the castle with Emma and Laurelen although I never had the nerve to ask her what they had eaten. She and Kerrass kept the tone light, her asking comical questions about modern civilisation and courts while he asked her about the habits of various monsters and alchemical ingredients that she might know about.

At some point over the course of the evening, I would find myself alone with Ariadne. Sometimes it was Kerrass that would wander off to "train" but just as often it was the pair of us that would go off for a walk. I remember waiting for some gesture of intimacy. For her to take my arm or to offer a cheek or a hand to be kissed in some way. I don't know what I expected really as I had never really had the opportunity to be part of any kind of formal courtship but what I do know was that it wasn't happening. She seemed perfectly content to just walk and talk with me.

For my part, I talked about my family mostly. I did a lot of grieving during that week or so that we took to get to Novigrad. One of the first things we had been told by Ariadne was that Emma had booked us passage on a ship that wasn't due into port for a little while so we took the time. I was grateful for that. Novigrad is a wonderful place, second only to Oxenfurt in my opinion but at the same time there would be far too many people who would know who I was there. Far too many people who might harbour ill will towards my family and I and I didn't entirely trust my temper to stay subdued.

Not that I needed to say that to Kerrass. He either knew, or had his own reasons to want to stay out of the city.

But mostly Ariadne and I spent time talking about my family or the works that she had begun to take in Angral. She talked excitedly about the new manor house that she was having built and about how she was entertaining herself by asking for open planned buildings with lots of light and ventilation rather than the dank and unpleasant buildings that people expected of her. She talked about her meetings with the Lodge of Sorceresses and her thoughts about them. She had lots of questions about those women, about their past history, about what they did, what they had been doing and what they intended to do.

One of the important things to be said was that she not only heard everything that I said, but that she _listened_ to what I was saying. There is a difference after all but she listened to my opinions and took them on board.

I liked that.

But she said absolutely nothing about any potential betrothal or even a remotely possible wedding. Every time I tried to steer the conversation towards the subject she, just as deftly steered the conversation away.

When our ship came into port, the visits stopped. She told us that she didn't want to risk teleporting onto a moving ship but that she would do her best to be in touch when we reached port. Her intention was to return to Angral after all as Emma was getting stronger and more assured in her new position.

We parted on the docks. I bowed as formally as I could manage and she nodded a reception to that bow and told us that she would see us in Nilfgaard.

The voyage was long but relatively peaceful. We did have one exciting period where the captain had us run from some pirates. Whether by skill or luck, we lost them in a small grouping of islands before making landfall in Nilfgaard.

Ariadne was waiting for us on the docks.

I'm not entirely sure how I feel about a potential wife who knows where I am at all times.

She greeted us and told us that we had rooms booked and paid for at the local inn so that we could get a good nights sleep before heading off.

I was still feeling a little bemused by the entire thing but was lead by Kerrass who seemed to take the entire thing in his stride.

Ariadne was waiting for me when we got downstairs.

Technically Kerrass was waiting for me. He had managed to snag us a table but when he saw me he pointed over to the bar where Ariadne was standing. She was gently, but firmly declining lewd suggestions from a couple of the locals who were suggesting things like "Dangerous night for a lady," and "What's a nice girl like you..." and things of that nature.

Never let it be said that I am not at least a little bit shallow and the fact that Ariadne is clearly a beautiful woman.

She seemed to be enjoying herself though but she deftly disentangled herself from their clutches when she saw me before leading me outside.

"Are you alright?" I asked.

"I'm fine. There are always going to be people like that."

"They would run a mile if they knew who you are."

"You mean, if they knew what I am,"

"That's not what I said,"

"I know," she smiled a little, half teasing, half melancholy. "But it was what you felt. Anyway, I wanted to talk to you and also I have something for you."

"Right," I said it a little more guardedly than I had at first meant to. We sat on a nearby bench.

"This is awkward," she said before laughing a little.

"More than a little bit,"

"Right then, I'll just come out and say it. I'm not going to talk to you about romantic things. My general feeling from you is that you are still too..."

"Terrified?"

She smiled a little.

"That as well, but I was going to say that you have a little too much on your mind to be worrying about romance. That's not to say that you would necessarily say no to a roll in the hay with some willing woman but long term intimacy is not something that you are really ready to consider yet. Am I wrong?"

"No you are not wrong," I admitted after a while. "I will also admit that you surprised me when I got home to find out that you had opened negotiations with my family."

She smiled at that. She has a wonderful smile when she does so genuinely. She sometimes has a habit of hiding her mouth with her hands to hide the fact that she has fangs rather than teeth.

"I'm glad, I wanted it to be a surprise but...I also know that...Dammit." she chuckled again. "This is a lot harder than I thought it would be."

"Conversations like this often are." I said. "Try it from my end. I'm talking to an undeniably beautiful woman," I ticked the points off on my fingers. "Who is of higher noble rank than I am, from a different time and a different race. Not to mention my trained prejudices as well."

"Does it make it uncomfortable for you?" she sounded fascinated, as well as delighted by the effect that she was having on me.

"Arousal, plus terror, plus shyness, plus nervousness plus Flame knows what else. Discomfort and confusion in equal measure I think."

She nodded, clearly delighted. "You really think I'm beautiful?"

"Of course you are."

"I should tell you that I' not wearing an illusion at the moment."

"Really?"

"Really." She peered at me to try and guess my reaction.

I felt a little stunned.

"Wow,"

"Is that all you can say?"

"Hey, don't just lay that on me. Terrified remember."

"Oh yes. I forgot. Anyway..." She was all business again. "I wanted to tell you that I don't consider you to have any kind of obligation towards me. Of course I would like you to tell me if you find someone else to marry and I will admit to being disappointed if that happens but at the same time I have no objection if you decide to have the aforementioned, "Roll in the hay" with a willing woman."

"Right?" I felt as though there was a catch here somewhere.

"I will also say that you seem a lot better after the sea voyage so I will no longer be keeping tabs on you. I will continue to write to your sister in an effort to maintain that relationship. I would like to think that even if negotiations between you and I fall through, that I would be able to maintain that relationship. I will also write to you as well if you are agreeable."

"Of course."

"Good, I am pleased." She said it as though We had completed a business transaction. "But I want to give you something."

She produced a small cloth bag.

"It will be a small effort of will not to keep track of you because I know that the life you are living at the moment is a little dangerous. I...worry about you." She looked away as she said it. "And I would hate to think that something happened to you when I could have done something about it. So I have made you this."

She produced a small pendant. It was a beautifully made holy symbol of the eternal fire wrought in silver with the fire made from some jewel. I could not imagine how much it must have cost.

"You didn't have to do this." I said as I looked at the pendant in wonder.

"No," she said with a slight smile. "But I want to. I made it with my magic as crafting from silver was an old skill amongst my ancient people and I wanted to see if I still had it. I also had it blessed by the Bishop of Angraal who said he was honoured to do it."

"It's beautiful. Thank you so much."

"Before you get too grateful there is something else I should say."

I looked back up at her.

"This pendant is tied to me as well. If you take hold of it with your right hand and call my name, I shall come to you. Kerrass knows about the pendant and what it does."

"What did he have to say about it?"

"He said that it would be nice to have some artillery support. Whatever that is."

I laughed. "What should it be used for?"

"For any reason. Although if it's combat then you might want to give me some warning so that I don't accidentally throw balls of fire into your allies."

"That would be problematic."

"That's one word for it."

She held it out and I ducked my head so that she could fit the chain over my head.

"Thank you Ariadne."

"You really like it?"

"I love it."

"Good, I am so relieved." She laughed again. "Well I'd better get going."

"You won't stay for dinner,"

"No, you have fun with your friend."

"Did Kerrass tell you where we're going?"

"No, although he did tell me what might happen there?"

"Is that bad?"

She laughed again. "No, I don't thinks so. Indeed, you should enjoy it if what he says is true. Take care of yourself."

"I will,"

She took a moment to stare at my face for a moment before abruptly walking off amongst the buildings. A blue circle formed in the air and then she was gone.

Kerrass was eating when I went back inside.

"Do you like the pendant?" he asked without looking up.

"It's beautiful."

"That's not what I asked."

I thought about that for a moment.

"Yes, I like it."

"Did you kiss her?"

"No,"

"You should have kissed her."

It seemed that that was the end of the discussion as far as he was concerned as he took that opportunity to shovel spoon full of vegetables into his mouth.

Two months later and I'm still getting used to the extra weight around my neck.

Kerrass spent a lot of time procrastinating around the area where we landed, taking various jobs and working monsters that I didn't think that he would have bothered with previously. I found the entire situation rather amusing, certainly from a studious perspective. Kerrass is always the most comfortable person in the room.

He lounges while other people fidget. He has the soldiers trick of being able to fall asleep in the most uncomfortable positions in all kinds of strange and wonderful places. I found myself wondering if this was his version of being uncomfortable. If this was his version of wasting time, or putting off a task that he didn't want to do, in the same way that I used to put off writing a particularly long essay, or cleaning out my horse.

Very carefully though, I said nothing. Nor did I do anything that might interrupt whatever was going on in his head. I figured that he was doing something, processing something that I didn't know about, something that he hadn't told me about.

So I watched, waited and did what I was told.

I made some new contacts in the south. Many more letters of introduction were given to various nobles who wanted to make the acquaintance of the new Baron Von Coulthard and the lady who would be heading up the Coulthard trading company. I made some notes on some of the monsters that could be found in the southern areas of the continent that don't turn up in our more northern climates. I was even able to perform a couple of autopsies and send off some samples to the university.

In the end, Kerrass' decision seemed to come on him fairly abruptly. We were sat on the outside of a nearby town. That curious state of being where a place is bigger than a village but much smaller than a city and Kerrass was negotiating the destruction of some kind of beast that was haunting the outskirts. Abruptly Kerrass just stared off into the distance for a long moment, much to the concern of the villagers that we were talking to at the time. Then he turned and told them that he had to leave. He left some instructions as to how the beast should be driven off and methods to be used to render the beast harmless. (Apparently they really like milk. A small bowl of milk left outside will send the creature into a torpor where it will sleep for days at a time) Then he turned his horses head and without another word we started to ride South East.

After several weeks travel of travelling through rather boring farmland I became aware that we were beginning to climb. The terrain started to become rockier and with a lot more trees dotted around the place. There were other changes as well. People stopped farming sheep and started farming goats instead. Cows started to become a much hairier variety and I was informed that they were called Yaks.

Still Kerrass said nothing, other than to tell me that there were less likely to be bandits attacking us and more likely to be wandering beasts of some kind. For himself, the silver sword was strapped next to his steel one so that he ended up wearing the two together. I've only seen him do that kind of thing when he's really concerned about the kind of place we're going in to.

Regardless, the signs of civilisation became less and less. Villages became fewer and fewer. The road became less and less maintained. There was a frontier kind of feeling to the place. As though humanity made occasional efforts to set out into that wild place and yet that same frontier fought back.

We even talked about the subject once. Sat near the camp fire while Kerrass roasted some animal over the fire. I didn't recognise it's shape and when I had asked what it was Kerrass told me not to worry about it. It was an old subject for the two of us to chew over around the camp fire which was whether or not "monsters" were dying out and whether or not Witchers were still needed. I had made the observation that there were obviously still monsters lurking around the place. In the dark areas off the road and moving through the undergrowth. Kerrass had had several enquiries of work being available as we moved through the region so why had the Witchers not moved south. Why wasn't the place crawling with monster hunters who make their money off hunting these things. Not just Witchers but mercenary groups like the Crinfrid reavers or the dwarven Trollhhunters.

"It's not as simple as that." Kerrass said sticking his knife into the meat to check on it's level of being cooked. "As well as monsters to hunt, we also need to find people to pay us to hunt them. Otherwise why bother. In that regard, Witchers are very similar to everyone else. When we get paid we like to spend that money on luxuries like food, wine and women. I'm not as keen on gambling but I can understand the allure of it. Out here there is simply nothing to spend it on and the kind of people who also like to drink and enjoy the company of the opposite sex gravitate towards those centres of civilisation where the most money can be made. Out here people are wanting to get away from those kinds of things so that they can think of themselves as being free.

"Then there is the problem that once they get out here. Who's to say that they want to hire a Witcher. Yes there are plenty of monsters but how would they pay me. I can't eat rabbit skins and most taverns or whore houses would laugh at me if I tried to pay them with a goat, and rightly so."

"So why aren't there the other kinds of monster slayers. The knightly orders who claim to have a duty to make the countryside safe for the common folk."

"Come on Freddie, you're not as naïve as you used to be. You know the answer to that."

"I do, but I want to hear what your answer is."

"Because the important thing about being a holy knight who walks into danger for the good of their fellow men is so that they can be _seen_ to do so. It's all well and good being holy and wonderful if no-one's there to tell you how holy and wonderful you are."

"That's fair enough. So where are we going again?"

Kerrass grinned at me and threw some rosemary into the fire without saying anything.

It was a long way. A very long way that we travelled. I had a rough idea that there were some more signs of civilisation ahead of us. I knew that at least one city lay between us and the wastes that were in existence further to the east but I also knew that most people travelled via the trade routes to the south or went via the middle of Nilfgaard to the north. All that was in the direction that we were travelling were a few rather sharp hills that the locals referred to as mountains.

It was the cold that should have been the thing that had begun to warn me that something strange was starting to happen. When you spend so much time exploring old ruins and strange places, temperature is one of the things that you look out for. You start to watch your breath in case it starts to mist, or billow in any way that is out of the ordinary. Cold can betray any number of things, mostly it tells about the presence of spirits or a pervasive aura of magic.

But in this case I didn't notice it. It was a slow, creeping thing. It was also not entirely uncomfortable.

I've spent a bit of time trying to think about how I should describe this feeling and so I shall try this.

Imagine that you've lived through a really hot and humid Summer. Even if you're the most ardent lover of the sun, sooner or later the constant heat and thickness of the air can become oppressive. Now imagine that the air has started to cool, that a breeze has blown up and wraps round yourself, finding the little holes and gaps in even the thickest of woollen blankets before one day you are walking around outside in your "summer clothes" and suddenly you shiver for the first time. You laugh at yourself and at your stupidity in wearing the thin garments this late into Autumn and you resolve to start wearing more clothes starting the following day. Then you climb into bed and where you had been leaving the vast majority of your bed clothes aside and been forced to lie separately from your bed partner, suddenly this is the first time that you can wrap yourself up and appreciate the comforting feeling of being properly wrapped in a nice warm blanket.

That's what it felt like.

There were other clues of course. One of those clues would have occurred to me if I had any knowledge about what one of my friends described to me as "human geography" which is about how humans found Kingdoms, settlements or cities. He would have taken the map and pointed out that their _should_ have been a Kingdom there. Or at the very least a settlement and a significant one.

He wouldn't have been wrong. The strategic value is significant, any castle would be extremely defensible. There is plenty of wood for timber as well as stone and the enormous potential for mines of various ores. So why wouldn't there be a settlement. Or industrial community that mined and chopped before sending their goods further away.

All of these clues should have occurred to me. But they didn't because I was cold, tired and bored.

Instead, what I did do was to wrap my cloak tightly around me and began to doze. To allow my thoughts to slowly sink into a stupor where I just stared at the horse in front of me without moving or commenting.

I don't know how long it took or how long before I eventually just let it happen but what I do know is that Kerrass was waiting for it as he caught me just before I fell of the horse.

"You alright?" he asked as he tried to push me back into a seated position.

"Tired," I managed, blinking at him stupidly.

"We're nearly there. Hold on a little bit longer,"

"Need sleep. Eyes heavy." I grumbled.

"I know Frederick, just a little bit further though."

With quick movements he tied me to the horse and led me onwards.

I slept.

I woke up to some kind of demented hellish landscape. It was dark and I was beyond exhausted. My eyelids were heavy as though weights were pulling down at them. I felt sick and feverish and I raved like a madman.

I was screaming and it was my own screams that woke me.

Kerrass pulled me from my horse but he still held my arms tight. Other men joined him and I was carried somewhere. All around me was fire and smoke and the sound of axes chopping, always chopping deep into fleshy wet trunks of things that I didn't recognise.

The smoke was choking me and I screamed more and more until I was hoarse. I felt the shadows leap out at me and the fire leaping towards me. It burned me and all the more I screamed. Sharp blades tore at my arms and at my clothes, shredding my skin and muscles with lines of fire.

I pleaded with Kerrass to kill me.

There was a woman's voice.

"Handsome isn't he," she said, almost matter of factly. I didn't know the voice but a ringing slap exploded against my cheek.

"Believe me when I say that it's just his fucking luck that I get him here just as _she's_ having a nightmare."

I came to. I was in a wooden building although the planks that made up the wall seemed oddly shaped as though the trees that they had been cut from had twisted together while they grew. The grain of the wood almost seemed as though they were weaved together as though they were a tapestry. It looked beautiful.

"I take it it's his first time here?" the woman said.

"Yes," Kerrass' voice.

"You should have left him outside and come in by yourself to find out how things stood."

"Yes I should but I was already pressed for time."

The woman snorted as she grabbed me by the chin. Just as I was about to sink back into sleep and into that nightmare.

"You're always pressed for time aren't you." her dislike for Kerrass dripped from her voice. "You always leave it till the last possible minute before coming here and then, when you do turn up it's the rest of us that have to deal with your messes."

I felt her thumb prise back my eyelids and bright, stabbing light was held close.

"Luckily, if we can keep him awake for the next couple of hours, I don't think he'll go mad. Why, didn't you send a message ahead?"

"Would you have answered?"

"No," The woman sighed. I still had no idea of who she was or what she looked like. I fought to keep my eyes open but I felt sick. It was like I was out the other end of being drunk where the nausea and the dizziness hits you."

"Can you help him?"

"Yes, at least long enough until _she_ gets back into a normal sleep."

"Good. I'll be outside."

"What's his name?"

"Frederick. He's a good man Sonja. He'll feel guilty if _she_ does the whole..."

"Yes yes, I know the drill. Go on, get out there. The axes are still in the same place."

I heard a door close. I started to nod off again and felt my head loll.

Once again I heard the flames and the screaming before a sharp pain in my ear brought me back to myself.

"Drink this," her voice was much more gentle. "I know it taste's awful but it helps."

I drank the thick, viscous fluid that she gave me. It was salty and bitter although it left a feeling of fire in it's path.

I tried to focus on the figure in front of me.

"Don't try. It's pointless. Just try to hold on for a bit longer. _She's_ been going like this for a few hours now so she should be due to go back to sleep in a little while just hold on."

"This is getting worse." said another woman's younger, but enough like the first that I automatically thought of her as a daughter.

"You're not wrong."

"You always say that it was easier when you were younger."

"And I'm right. Take some water out to your father."

The door opened and closed again.

"Now listen to me, Frederick's your name?"

I managed a nod.

"Well I don't know how you managed to fall in with Kerrass the puss filled bag of puke. But whatever crime you might have committed isn't worth it. If we were anywhere else and you rode in with him I would have given you a horse and a bag of money so that you could get away from him. But here?"

She sighed and grabbed at my ear again before I dropped off to sleep.

"You need to listen Frederick as this is important. It's going to be some time before you begin to get used to this. So in the meantime there are some things that you need to know in order to survive. When you wake up it's vital that you eat as much as you can stomach before going back to sleep, otherwise the danger is that you might starve to death. So eat."

I felt a fork full of something that smelled like porridge being held near my lips. It was pleasantly smooth and well honeyed after the salty mixture from earlier.

"The other thing is that, this is awkward. At the moment, _she's_ having a nightmare. Sometimes that dream becomes more... lustful. When that happens, do not feel guilty about what happens next."

I tried to speak but another spoonful of porridge interrupted my voice.

"You'll know it if it happens."

I ate as much as I could before even the sharp tugging at my ear could no longer keep me awake.

I slept.

I awoke slowly. The bed was comfortable and warm and it took a long time to clamber towards wakefulness. The climb made even worse by the fact that I didn't really want to wake up. After the last nightmare my sleep had been blissfully quiet and uneventful. My eyes opened by themselves so that I could stare at an unremarkable, if spotlessly clean ceiling.

"You're awake." A young woman's voice came to me along with the scent of chicken soup that almost physically reached down into the depths of my being to grab my stomach and shake it. "Half a moment."

Strong arms grasped me and helped me into a sitting position. At first I fought against them wanting to tell the person that I didn't need help but as it turns out I did. My head swam and for a moment my vision blurred.

"Eat," said the voice. I had a blurry vision of Green cloth and red hair before a spoon all but forced it's way between my teeth. I chewed and swallowed automatically. The soup was delicious.

"Try some more."

Another spoon followed another and I could feel the warmth sliding down my throat and into my stomach. The dizziness began to recede as my body started working furiously to take on the nutrients as fast as possible.

I closed my eyes to concentrate on the sensation.

"Try and keep your eyes open, if you can. You need to concentrate on staying awake for as long as possible so that we can get some food into you."

"Why is it always chicken soup?" I managed to gargle out between spoonfuls. "When we've been ill, why, chicken and not beef soup?"

The voice laughed delightedly. "He told us you were clever, but not that you were funny.

I took another spoonful.

"I didn't think that was very funny."

"It's better than some of the lines we get fed. Take some more."

I swallowed.

"Why am I so tired? I feel weak as a kitten."

"Just a little more, that's it. I promise I'll tell you everything later. Good. Rest now."

Her last words were a little redundant as I was already sinking back down to sleep.

I dreamed. I cannot remember much about although I remember it being particularly vivid at the time. I felt as though I was living an alternative life where I had never left to go to university and I was arguing with Father about how crop rotation really worked.

When I did wake up I felt his name on my lips and then the crushing realisation that he was still dead hit me like an avalanche and I felt tears welling at the corners of my eyes.

"It is good to remember the dead."

I looked over. A young woman was carefully putting a bookmark into the volume that she had been reading from before placing the book on a nearby table. She was startlingly beautiful. Long, curly red hair that edged just towards a lighter shade of ginger at the edges. A heart shaped face with green eyes that was covered in freckles and her cheeks dimpled when she smiled. She wore a plain green dress that looked as though it had been made with simple, hand woven cloth over which she wore a waistcoat made of dyed green leather. She had a belt that tied the entire thing down that had several pouches attached, including a sharp knife that I recognised as belonging to a herbalist as well as several pouches that looked as though they were designed to house specimens.

"Do I pass inspection?" she asked with a sly smile.

"I'm sorry." I said, looking away. "But your beauty startled me."

"Charming as well."

"Hang on, am I naked?" I felt myself blush.

"Yes," she said simply. "You have been in bed now for several days and it became necessary to clean you. There is no need to be embarrassed."

"Wonderful."

"I thought so. My name is Marion and I have been assigned as your companion while you are here."

"Marion. Where are my clothes?"

"Off being cleaned. They will be returned to you."

There was a knock on the door. Marion got up and let in a woman who must have been her mother as the family resemblance was significant. A large tray of food was handed across and Marion set it on my lap.

"Eat," she said. "There's no better cure for what ails you then food and rest."

"What ails me?" I will confess that I spoke with my mouthful but the smell of the meat and gravy had set my mouth watering.

"Do you not know?"

I shook my head. Not wanting to waste time with silly things like words when my mouth could be better employed by eating the delicious green vegetables.

She sighed and rubbed at her temples. "That Witcher companion of yours is more trouble than he's worth. Believe me."

"That doesn't answer my question." I managed between mouthfuls.

"No it doesn't. There is a significant magical spell that affects this entire area."

"That makes us sleepy."

She smiled a little mischievously. "Among other things. You truly do not know where you are?"

"No."

"In which case, may I say that you are taking this all remarkably well. I would have been climbing up the walls by now."

"You say that you are assigned to me. Why?"

"I will answer that question later, but you are already tiring. Eat. Keep eating and then eat some more."

I felt more questions bubbling towards the surface. I opened my mouth to ask them but Marion came over to the bed and took my eating implements off me and started shovelling the food into my throat almost faster than I could eat it.

She was not wrong though. My brief spurt of energy was already waning.

I don't remember when I dozed off but I do remember waking up again. Marion was asleep in the chair next to the bed, her head back and a blanket was tucked in around her as though placed by a loving hand. Another tray of food was next to the bed and remembering her previous instructions I ate as much as I could before beginning to feel the pull of sleep I set the tray aside.

I only just made it.

The next time I woke up I was alone. My clothes were laid out on the chair next to the window and a slow rhythmic sound came to me which at first I couldn't identify. I had heard it before in the midst of my nightmares but this time the noise was far from frightening. As I listened carefully I could hear music that went with it. Many male voices rose in song over the beat, working together in automatic harmonies that I couldn't follow. There were words in that song that I couldn't hear properly but I resolved to find them.

Next to the chair, on the table was a large platter of bread, butter, meats and cheeses along with an apple and a large jug of milk that was cold enough for condensation to form on the outside of the jug. A note was propped against it which read simply "EAT".

I dressed and did as I was bid before leaving the room.

Outside the room was a landing with a number of doors leading off it. I climbed down some stairs and into an open area, at one end was a large bar behind which was another woman. Again she was astonishing in her beauty, although where Marion was young, this woman was older and more mature with her beauty. I guessed at an aunt of some kind although her hair was long, dark and straight where Marion's was frizzy and ginger.

She caught my eye as I climbed down the stairs and poured some kind of steaming liquid into a large mug that she placed on the counter top.

"Marion will be along shortly." She said.

"Alright?" I was confused. The way the woman said that was as though I had just asked for her or was wondering where Marion was. The woman noticed my confusion and frowned a little.

"Marion was assigned to you wasn't she?"

"I have no idea. Although she did mention something like that."

"Ah, you're the ignorant one."

I drank from the mug. It was a pleasant, nutty drink. "Ignorant?"

"I meant unknowing. In your case it isn't really your fault although you could do better in your companion."

"People don't seem to like Kerrass very much around here do they."

The woman looked at me, flatly and carefully neutral. "No," she said before moving off.

Marion came running into the room, looking as though she was out of breath. She was taking off a wide brimmed hat from which hung a thick veil as well as un-wrapping a scarf.

"I'm sorry," she said dashing towards me. "Are you alright? I wouldn't have left you but I keep the bees you see and they needed some care."

"I'm fine, also, your life is your own business. Why would I care where you went to?"

"Because I'm your companion in this."

"In what?" She was peering into my eyes and frowning slightly and I was finding it rather off putting.

"In this place, at this time." She said before subsiding in what I thought looked like satisfaction. "But I think you're over the worst of it."

"Worst of what?"

She sat back and looked at me. She was smiling and I realised I was staring.

"Sorry," I said looking back down at my cup. She really was beautiful.

"Don't be." She said simply, putting her hand on my arm. The touch was electric and I found that I was hyper conscious of it. My tongue seemed to become thick and I struggled to find something to say. Anything to say.

Holy flame, Was I nervous?

"I've sent word. Your...companion will be along shortly."

She took her hand from my arm and asked for some drink that I didn't know. She was poured a mug of what I had and I thought it was endearing the way she held it with both hands. I looked away.

"Is that," I cleared my throat, "Is that important?"

She smiled again and I realised that I was noticing how her eyes sparkled.

"It is. It's for him to tell you what this place is. Then I will explain it and answer any questions I can. I should say that he owes you an explanation."

There was just a hint of steel in her voice as she said that last part.

"Why?"

"That will wait until you see where you are."

"You aren't telling me very much."

"I know and I'm sorry." Her hand found my arm again. I so desperately wanted to take that hand in my own and hold on to it. I wanted to tell her that she didn't need to be sorry.

"This place is a place of rules by which we must live if we are to remain here. Please understand,"

Her eyes pleaded with me and I wanted to reassure her.

Dear flame was I falling in love with her?

"I don't understand." I forced myself to say. "But I will wait for my explanation. For now."

She nodded and seemed mollified by that. She went back to sipping her drink which left a small frothy moustache on her upper lip. I longed to wipe it off for her but instead I just pointed this out with a gesture.

She rewarded me with a radiant smile.

"Are there any other rules I should know about?"

"No weapons," she said promptly. "They are kept under key which is held by others in a safe place. If you wish to leave here, those weapons will be returned to you. The reason for this will become clear. You are exempt from the working rule as this is your first time, even more so because you are _ignorant_ which is how we describe those rare souls who are lucky enough to find us by accident before something worse finds them. It is no insult."

"I take it that the reason for these rules will be forthcoming."

"Yes,"

I had to force myself not to look at her as otherwise I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to look away.

It had been a long time since I had last been crushing on someone this hard.

"The last rule is that you do not force yourself on anyone..."

"I thought that was self-explanatory." I was appalled and frantically trying to keep the tone light.

"I wasn't finished. The full rule is that you do not force yourself on anyone other than your companion."

I stared at her appalled.

"What?"

She wasn't looking at me.

"Please don't leap to conclusions Frederick. You do not know everything yet."

"Marion I... I would never force...I couldn't."

She silenced me by putting her finger against my lips.

"You are a good man," she said. There was a deep sadness in her eyes as well as a pain that I thought was deeply buried. "I can tell. But you do not know everything yet. Kerrass will come, then come and find me. I will be beside the bee-hives and I will explain everything."

She left. Almost at a run and I stared after her, my mouth hanging open in horror.

The woman behind the bar leant over and put a kind hand on my shoulder but I barely felt it. I turned to her.

"I would never..."

"I know son. We all do."

She went back to the small chores that always seem to need doing in a tavern, wiping surfaces and cleaning cups.

I don't know how long I sat there but it was a long time before the door opened again to admit Kerrass. He was stripped to the waist, was covered in black ash and sweat. He propped a large woodsman's axe against the door frame.

You don't often think of a Witcher sweating, but they do. The thing about them that's different is that the sweat is all but odourless so as not to give away their position to monsters.

I didn't look up as he walked in but I heard him. Something about his tread sounded so familiar that I just knew it was him.

"Dear, sweet flame Kerrass where have you brought me." It wasn't really a question.

"Would you believe that I've brought you to one of the number one vacation spots in the southern part of the old Nilfgaardian empire?"

I felt my self growl.

"That's not fucking funny Kerrass."

"I know." He sighed as the tavern woman put a mug of frothy ale on the counter top for him. He took a long swallow. "But it's true none the less. I am so sorry Freddie. I've seriously messed this up."

"You think?" I bellowed at him.

He remained un-ruffled but I saw the inn-keeper reach under the counter top for a moment.

"Flame Kerrass but if anyone else, including you, had told me what she just told me I would have done my very best to plant them in the fucking ground."

"I know."

"What kind of place," I looked up at the woman behind the bar. "No offence, but what kind of place needs a fucking _rule_ that says you only rape the person that they provide for you? She didn't say, "don't worry about it," or "you don't need to be gentle with the product" or any of the other bullshit sayings that they give you in cheap brothels, she said "don't rape anyone but me." What kind of a place does that Kerrass? Where the fuck have you brought me?"

Kerrass took a long drink from his cup.

"Humanity or any of the other sapient races are not the only people who act without thinking. I should have known how this would affect you Freddie and I'm sorry, I truly am. I promise that I'll find a way to make it up to you."

"Why did you bring me here Kerrass?"

"I need you to do something."

"What is that?"

"Come outside and I will show you. It's easier that way."

"It fucking better be Kerrass or I swear to the holy flame and all of the prophets in heaven on earth that I don't care how much I owe you or how many times you've saved my life but I will walk away and if you try to stop me I will do my very best to put you in the fucking ground."

"I know." he stood up. The innkeeper handed over a large water-skin that was bulging and he led me outside.

We were on the top of a hill over looking a vast valley between two mountain ranges. I thought that there might be an entrance on the other end of the valley, but that entrance was already capped in white snow. For want of a better word, the view was beautiful. Straight out of a story book, or out of an oil painting.

Kerrass led me out to a point where there were several picnic benches on a flat piece of ground that gave a wonderful view. As we walked, the same rhythmic sound could be heard as well as the singing rising up and down like the swell of a wave. The air was heavy with heat and I could smell wood fires.

Where we sat we could see all over the valley floor which was covered with vines. There were trees there as well but even those were covered with long thick, tendrils, the tendrils themselves were black in colour with Silver highlights. The trees bloomed from between the thick, rope like vines and this gave the impression that the valley floor was muted in colour. There was only an endless sea of greenery. There were birds down there but I couldn't see any other signs of life.

There were also some hills in the distance and I thought that I could make out ruins on the top of those hills.

"Where are we Kerrass?"

"Wait, it will come to you. She normally hunts at this time of day."

"She who? Is this the _she_ that was having a nightmare?"

"No, it will come to you."

In the distance a vast bat like shape rose from one of the hills. It's extended wing span was made small from the distance and so it was impossible to tell how large the whole thing actually was. However big it was it was certainly huge. As we watched it seemed to circle around the hill."

"We are on the outskirts of the ancient Kingdom of King Stefan and Queen Leah. This is the small part of land that has been reclaimed from the forest of thorns by those members of the kingdom who were outside it's borders when the spell was actually cast. They returned to find their Kingdom had been all but swallowed by those vines that cover everything. The silver flashes that you can see from here are the blade like thorns that jut out from every trunk of the vines."

Kerrass spoke evenly and almost quietly.

"These people managed to clear an area so that they could live in their own kingdom rather than be beholden to anyone else. They only agreed to a client status from Nilfgaard because they had no other choice. The sound that you can hear is the axes that work constantly to keep the thorns at bay. They work at it morning noon and night so that they can keep this land clear and free."

I didn't speak. It seemed, somehow sacrilegious to interrupt. It was like Kerrass was praying.

"The fires that you can smell are the pyres where they burn those vines and the fires form a bank that protects the settlement from the encroachment. Your companion will be able to explain more."

I caught my breath as the huge, bat like creature suddenly dove, even from where we sat I could see a long string of flame shoot out from the front of the creature.

"Wait," I breathed. "Is that a dragon?"

Kerrass said nothing.

"Is that a fucking dragon? Did you bring me here to help you kill a dragon?"

"No. Witcher's don't hunt dragons. It's one of the few things that all the schools agree with. We don't hunt dragons."

I thought for a minute. There was something on the tip of my tongue. We sat there for a long time as I watched the dragon as it, presumably, hunted for it's dinner.

A thought occurred.

"Wait, I know those names."

Kerrass said nothing.

"This is where the sleeping beauty myth comes from isn't it?"

Kerrass turned to look at me. "Yes it is,"

I looked back to the valley. "All the stories say that she was woken up by the prince."

"Yes, those are the northern versions that want a happy ending. The truth is much different."

"So you want me to wake up Sleeping Beauty?"

"No," I looked at Kerrass' face for a moment and it was wearing an expression that I had never seen before. I have seen Kerrass with signs of fear, amusement and relaxed contentment. I have certainly seen rage and sometimes even confusion. But here there was a naked and raw longing that I could not have put into words. Indeed, up until that point I didn't think that he was capable of.

"I want you to help _me_ wake up Sleeping Beauty."


	35. Chapter 35

(disclaimer: Later on, an opinion is made about the dreams of 16 year old girls. The opinion was made by a woman and was confirmed by several others. I suppose that what I'm saying is that the thoughts and opinions of the characters in this story do not necessarily reflect any particular person involved)

I found Marion next to the bee-hives just like she had promised. She was sat nearby, a reasonable distance from the hives themselves with her back to a fence-post. She had drawn her knees up to her chin and was staring into space with the kind of thousand mile stare that spoke of much practice or a great deal of thinking going on.

"I'm sorry," I said as I got closer. "I spoke without thinking." I held out a bottle of the local mead that I had been supplied with earlier along with the small sack of food that the innkeeper had forced on me. "Peace offering?"

She looked up at me for a long moment, her eyes searching my face for something that she didn't quite seem to find, before taking the bottle and lifting it to her lips and swallowing a surprisingly large amount of the liquid. I had sniffed it earlier and it made my eyes water.

"Don't be sorry," she said, slowly unfolding and stretching out. "You have nothing to be sorry for. In fact it just shows you to be an unusually kind man compared to some of the people we get here."

I sat down next to her and crossed my legs. The grass was a little damp but somehow I didn't feel like moving. "I also have bread, cheese, some smoked ham, a few apples and a large cherry tart that your mother insisted that I bring with me."

Marion smiled, a little more genuinely this time as I started to pass out the food.

"She's not my mother but she sometimes acts like it." She arranged the food around us with quick and expert movements. I noticed that the cherry tart was positioned behind her.

"Is that bad?"

"Sometimes, not always."

We ate and it was almost possible to actually _see_ her relaxing again. After a little while she reached out and grasped my arm and smiled.

"Thank you Frederick."

"What for?"

She shook her head. "It's difficult to explain."

"Fair enough." My heart had started to beat faster when she reached out.

"Feeling better?" I managed.

"Much," she grinned this time as she toasted the mead. "The medicine you brought is working. How are you feeling?"

"A bit tired if I'm honest."

"Don't worry, that's perfectly natural. Try and eat as much as you can."

"But not the cherry tart."

"Not the cherry tart. Well, maybe a little bit of the tart."

"So generous."

She laughed then and it felt like rainfall after a long and heavy summer. I began to suspect that I was falling in love with this woman which only goes to show that the person to whom it's happening is often the most stupid.

"Why so keen to get me to eat anyway?" I asked.

"Of all the questions that you must have, that's the one you decide to begin with?"

"It's rather on my mind." I belched then and she laughed again. "Better out than in,"

"My father says the same thing." she said giggling. "The truth is that you have been asleep for four days, we managed to get _some_ food into you during this but it was not easy. You fought us on one occasion and we had to pour some soup down a tube and into your stomach to stop you from dying of malnutrition."

"Wow," I stared at her for a moment.

"That's one word for it."

"Do many people die of that?"

"Only if we don't find them. People who try and sneak in or get lost in the mountains occasionally trip over things and we need to step in."

I nodded.

"I feel like I'm getting ahead of myself a bit but before I start at the beginning so to speak..."

"Generally the best way."

"What?"

"To start at the beginning and work your way through until you get to the end."

"That's a quote isn't it?"

"Yes, but it's also sensible."

"True," I got distracted for a moment by the curve of her neck. I sighed and looked away.

"It's ok," she reached round and cupped my cheek in her hand before turning my face back towards her. "It's ok." She said again and I realised that I was much closer to her than I thought I was.

"You, are a good, kind man." she said after a while of staring at my face. "I can tell these things. There is no easy way to say this so I'll just come out with it. These things work best if you don't fight them. Just let them happen."

I tried to avoid looking at her but she held my eyes. There was a pull to them that I could no longer avoid.

"I'm sorry," I said and tried to pull away.

"Don't be," she said with a smile as she gently released me. "What's her name?"

I sighed. "Am I that easy to read?"

She laughed again but it sounded gentle to me. Kind as though she cared.

"No, but it's not a new situation. Stop me when you start to recognise yourself. There is another woman. She is relatively new to your life and you are unsure about how you feel towards her. You are a noble man of noble birth which do not always go hand in hand and I would guess that the two of you are in the very early stages of a formal courtship. You like her, but you are unsure about how you _feel_ about her. You worry about whether or not you are forcing yourself to feel things that are not really there for her sake, or for the sake of your family..."

"I won't lie but that's a little frightening."

she laughed again. I somehow felt as though the constant laughter should make me angry but instead I found that I liked it.

"What's her name?"

"Ariadne."

"Are you attracted to her?"

"She's a beautiful woman."

"That's not what I asked."

"I know." I looked over at Marion. There was nothing judgemental in her eyes. Instead I saw kindness and understanding. "Is talking about people's problems part of what you... _do."_

"Partially. I am your companion for a reason and that reason is what we call "compatibility"."

"Is that "companion" business another thing that comes with extended questioning?" I was finding that if I kept the questions about less personal matters, then I was more comfortable.

"It is, but I also notice that you're diverting the conversation." She was still smiling. "Very well though, I will let you off the hook, for now." She smiled at me wickedly.

"I am grateful."

"I'm sure I can think of some way to pay you back."

My face must have reddened as she laughed again.

"Before we go any further and start at the beginning, as you say, there are a couple of questions that I want to get out of the way."

She straightened her shoulders. "Go for it. I'll answer as much as I can, and if I don't know it then I can soon find someone who can."

"Your people hate Kerrass. Not just the normal kind of dislike that often follows him around, but they _hate_ Kerrass. Kerrass but not me, his companion. Why is that?"

"You had to start with one of the easy ones didn't you." She sighed. "What did he tell you?"

"He told me that what he did, and why it's so bad require context and that context would need to be provided by you."

"He is possible not wrong, however what he did, I cannot and will not tell you. In short, he committed sacrilege."

"That's what he said."

"He would. The fact that he was remorseful and has taken steps to correct the problem is, unfortunately, not a mitigating factor as far as we're concerned."

"I see, but you don't feel the same about me."

"No, his crime does not colour you. We are not the kind of people that would tarnish a man for another man's crimes."

"Progressive of you."

"Not really. We don't have time for that kind of nonsense. We make a lot of what money we have from what we are given by visitors and so... Pragmatism dictates that we not be idiots about such things. The fact that it's the right thing to do is a decent bonus as well."

"It's always nice when ethics match up with pragmatism and practicality."

"My thoughts exactly. Have I answered your question?"

"I think so, do you know why he brought me here?"

"Yes, he brought you here to help him wake _her_ up."

"What are your thoughts about that? If we were successful, is that a good thing? A bad thing?"

Marion smiled, there was a little sadness there but she hid it quickly with a swig from the bottle. "You must be really good at this scholaring stuff. You don't ask the easy questions do you."

"It's the training." I was rewarded with another smile.

"No it would not be a bad thing. I think that in the long run, it might be the best thing for us all. The people that live here. But not all of us would agree. The men, certainly wouldn't but they don't have a tendency to see the big picture."

"Which is?"

"We're a dying people."

"What?"

"Oh don't get me wrong. I'm not dying of a disease or anything. Neither is anyone else but... We can't survive like this for much longer. Another couple of generations at most. It is more than likely that my Great grandchildren, should I have any, will be among the first people who start to display overt signs of disfigurement."

"It sounds like there is a lot of _context_ here for me to get through.

"Again. You are not wrong."

"Best get started then..."

I opened my mouth to start speaking.

"Very well, but first I need you to promise me that if you start to get tired then you will go to bed without complaint.

"Done,"

"Don't sound to keen yet. Also, if _I_ decide that you need to go to sleep, then you will do so. Without complaint."

"Why?"

"Just promise me or I stop talking here and now."

"So serious all of a sudden." I was trying for a lighter tone.

"I mean it Frederick."

"Ok, Ok." I held my hands up tow ward off an attack.

"Sorry," she said "But it's just that men sometimes seem to get stubborn when they get challenged by a woman."

"I will allow myself to be led by you."

"Good. First question then."

"It's actually around the fourth or fifth."

"Small details like that are insignificant."

"Ok, so here's my question. What the fuck is happening?"

Her long peal of laughter was lovely.

She passed the mead back to me.

"Are you trying to get me drunk?" I asked.

"Is that the scholarly question or a personal one?"

"Both,"

"Maybe." She looked a little sly and it was unbearably cute. I cleared my throat desperately.

"So how much do you know about the legend of Sleeping Beauty?" she asked. "I don't want to start telling you stuff you already know."

"I know what most people from the north know. I know that she was a Princess born to King Stefan and Queen Leah after a long period of childlessness."

She nodded as I spoke and ate a piece of the tart.

"I know that three good "fairies" turned up at her naming ceremony to give the child magical gifts of beauty and song..."

Marion snorted in what I took to be amused disgust.

"But then an evil Witch arrived, angry that she hadn't been invited to the naming ceremony and as a result cursed the child to prick her finger on a spinning wheel on her sixteenth birthday where the girl would then die."

Marion nodded again stealing the bottle of mead out of my hand.

"The last fairy tried to undo the majority of the curse by saying that she would not die but instead fall into a deep sleep until she should be woken by true love's kiss, or words to that effect. Long story short, she was forgotten about for a while but was woken up by the kiss of a visiting prince. They married and lived happily ever after."

Marion nodded, taking a long drink from the bottle before passing it back to me.

"Almost completely false." Was her verdict.

"Now that I'm here I can kind of see that, yes."

"There are many variations of the story but the basis of it is always the same. Beautiful princess cursed by angry evil Witch to die due to pricking her finger on a spindle. The curse is then mitigated to eternal sleep to be woken by "True Love's kiss". Whatever that means."

"Cynical about True Love's kiss?"

"No, but here's a question for you. You are not a poet so answer me with this. What is Love? Answer that question without using the word Love."

"I know this riddle though. I also know the poets answer which is that it's like a pear in that it is shapely, sweet and difficult to define. I agree that True Love is...undefinable and is different from one person to the next."

"And the evidence of it having any kind of effect on a curse is circumstantial at best. One of the problems regarding this entire situation is that we don't really know what happened back then. My ancestors were simple folk who, for whatever reason, were out of the Kingdom at the time of the curse actually being enacted which means that they were hermits, merchants, shepherds and wanderers. Hardly any of them could read and it was a couple of generations before anyone actually started to write things down as to what was happening.

"One of the biggest things that we lost was the poor Princesses name. There are several versions of that including but not limited to, Princess Aurora, Princess Buttercup, Princess Talia and Briar Rose. All of those are possible although, personally I think that Aurora is a bit far fetched myself. Aurora describes the winter sky lights from the far north and as such I doubt that anyone from this far south would think of that as a name for their daughter."

"It does seem a little unlikely."

"Anyway. Here's what we know."

Marion carefully set aside the last of the tart and kind of straightened herself up. I almost laughed as I had seen such gestures many times. Indeed I have used it myself as that's the attitude of someone who is getting ready to deliver a thesis.

"We know that King Stefan was a womaniser and as a result he didn't marry until much later in life. We also think that he was a bit of a romantic at heart as several records from the time describe him as always being vaguely unsatisfied. He would ride for miles to gaze at an attractive woman who would always tend to fall for his charms, whether of the looks, personality, rank or money variety, and he would have another conquest but, for whatever reason he didn't manage to secure a wife until well into his forties. Those reasons tended to fall into the categories of his dissatisfaction or the parents of any intended bride feeling a little nervous at the man's womanising.

"Another fact behind this could be that, at the time, anyone who owned and maintained a castle could call themselves King and as such, a lot of people were rather sceptical.

"But I digress."

"But so well." I managed to put in with a smile.

"Flattery will get you... somewhere." She tried to look mysterious but she couldn't help but laugh.

"Anyway, eventually he convinced a lady to marry him and much to everyone's astonishment, including hers, he settled down to marital bliss. He doted on his wife, lavishing her with gifts, affection and love so that no-one could be in any doubt that he loved her. She, in turn was astonished and pleased at this treatment and soon began to reciprocate with ardour.

"There was just one problem."

"Lack of children." I guessed.

"Top of the class."

"Do I get a prize?" I asked quickly but I was unprepared when she moved forward with astonishing speed and kissed me on the cheek.

"Have I made you speechless?" she teased.

I gargled something and she laughed at me.

"Anyway, back there and back then, the production of an heir was still very important. Probably even more important than it is today due to the fact that there weren't extended royal families to find cousins or uncles or whatever to fill the gap. Again, King Stefan confounded his critics by absolutely refusing to set Queen Leah aside for a Younger and more fertile lady and instead sent out his people in "all the directions of the wind" to find some kind of cure, or remedy that would enable the royal couple to have children. Any advisor who tried to even faintly suggest that the Queen should be set aside was chastised if it was a mistake or meant in good faith but after a single warning then the perpetrator would be exiled. Sometimes to recalled if need arose but even so. It was a very real situation for them all to be in."

"All the directions of the Wind," I mused. "That sounds like a quote."

"It is, and a very poetic one. One of the few written records that we have are some of the messages sent out from King Stefan at the time begging his nearest neighbours to send anything that they might have to help in his direction. At first he was mocked for his reactions to the entire thing but then people began to admire his... faithfulness to his wife. It was described as the great love affair of the times in these parts and there were several songs written on the subject although many of them lack the quality of polish that more modern verse might have. That line is from one of those songs."

"I should like to read them." I was fascinated despite myself and the beautiful woman in front of me. Those documents would be a treasure trove.

"We only have copies I'm afraid."

"Why?"

"Imperial historians took them away, years ago. It was never explained as to why. We were told that it was "too preserve a living history," and apparently they _can_ still be viewed in the Imperial archive if you have enough clout or know the right person to ask."

I smirked at that.

"Was there some scandal do you think?"

"Probably although at the time, those politics would have been a distant future that no-one cared about. Anyhow. Much to everyone's astonishment the Queen declared that she was pregnant one morning. There was much fuss and wrapping of the Queen in the softest blankets and she was whisked away to a remote castle in the Kingdom where she would be in seclusion until the child was born. The King would often visit his wife while also coming back to the capitol to take care of business during the day.

"Much wailing and gnashing of teeth was done and many of the other local Kingdoms viewed this place as a ripe fruit for the plucking as, again, the production of an heir was really important at the time but in the end a tiny baby girl was produced and presented to the populace to much rejoicing. The locals were a little bit more pragmatic about passing down titles to girls and it was often argued that, at the end of the day, marriage would be just as valid a way to get a King as the Queen giving birth to one. The locals stopped sharpening their knives and started grooming their sons instead and apparently this was one of the first signs that Kingdoms would start to join together to form the much larger nations and empires that we know today.

"But now we get to the crux of the matter. The Princesses first birthday and her naming ceremony. Sorry it's taken so long to get to the point."

I waved off her objection. "Context is important in these things. So just to make sure I've got this right. King is a "player" who likes the ladies. Finds an unlikely love but they can't have Kids. Eventually, he manages to get his wife pregnant, whether by luck or by some other means is unclear."

"Correct."

"Right then." I chose that moment to yawn. Her reaction was instant.

"Are you alright, do you need to take a break?"

"I'm fine," but I yawned again just for the effect.

"I should point out that I'm not strong enough to get you into bed on my own."

"Cheeky," I tried for humour and although she did smile, I could tell that she wasn't really that amused.

"Look, just tell me about the ceremony and then I'll go to bed."

"Promise."

"I promise."

She frowned a little teasingly at me before continuing.

"The royal family came down and child was presented. All the wealthy subjects came down to offer fealty, oaths and presents to the little princess including seven magical women."

"Sorceresses?"

"Probably. All we know for sure about them is that they were definitely not fairy's. Even their names change according to the accounts. What we do know was that these Sorceresses gave the young Princess several blessings. These were, in no particular order: Beauty, Wit, Grace, Song, Dance and Goodness."

"Awfully broad terms."

"Quite. Of all the things that a woman wants in order to help her rule a country or to run her husbands castle, Song, Dance and _Goodness_ , whatever Goodness means. Dance and Grace especially seem to cancel each other out as the one invariably means the other.

"Also, what does "wit" mean. Intelligence? Humour?"

"My thoughts the same."

Marion gave a little snort.

"Anyway. Just as the seventh Sorceress was about to bestow her gift. The "dark Sorceress" appears. Now, before you ask. No, we don't know who she was. Nor do we know why she was referred to as "dark". What we do know is that she wasn't invited and it was _this_ that pissed her off. It should also be said that she was, by far, credited as being the most powerful of the magic users there at that time."

"Of all the people to forget to invite."

"Exactly. You would have thought that she would have been somewhere near the top of the list." Marion laughed at something. "A few years ago, one of our guests commented that there is nothing quite like having an evil Sorceress as a friendly "Aunt" figure. A good one will comfort you in the dark times. An evil one will make the bastards suffer for it."

I laughed with her.

"Anyway. Long story short as I can see you drooping, don't pretend you're not. The evil Sorceress cursed the Princess to die on her sixteenth birthday when she pricked her finger on a spinning wheel spindle."

"That's a bit harsh. It wasn't the babies fault that her parents had been careless."

Marion smiled at my comment. "Also, an awfully specific curse. Why not, pricks her finger? Why go to all the effort of specifying that it was on a spindle?"

"Interesting."

"I knew you'd like it. Anyway. Evil Sorceress leaves in a huff. Final good Sorceress informs the royal couple that she can't reverse the curse as she wasn't strong enough. Instead the curse is changed to say that she would just sleep until a cure for the curse would be found. The whole "True Love's kiss" thing is one of those solutions rather than being a part of the actual curses."

"Yes, well, "True love's kiss" is supposedly a traditional remedy for all kinds of magical ills."

"Indeed. So, that was the naming ceremony. Time to get you to bed."

"But..."

"But me no buts. You promised." She pouted and I laughed as I submitted to her efforts to coddle me.

It felt like a long way back to the inn. The rhythmic sound that I now knew as being wood aces chopping into vines, made the afternoon air feel even more soporific. On the breeze I could still hear people singing and resolved once again to find those men and to learn that song.

Marion held my hand as we walked.

When she first took my hand I had almost felt as though I wanted to protest in some way but this was soon taken over by the fact that it felt quite... nice really.

She got me back into the room and helped me take off my boots which was a long, drawn out task that I had never before, really appreciated how complicated it was until I tried to do it under the influence of mead, magic and the presence of a beautiful woman.

"Can I ask you something?" I said suddenly, wondering at the sound of my own voice.

"Certainly. Not too complicated a question though as you need to get some rest before you fall over."

"Did you know?" I asked. "I'm not judging you, nor will I think any the less of you, regardless of your answer but... did you know how I would react to all of this?"

She straightened and looked down at me.

"Did you know about Ariadne and my feelings for her and how I would behave? Do you know how to make me laugh, smile and get angry? In short... How substantial is your training?"

"Are you asking me if I'm a trained courtesan of some kind, a trained...whore?" her face was blank.

I thought about this for a moment.

"That makes it sound harsher than I meant it. You are a beautiful woman and you knew what I was thinking. You talk about companions here..."

I realised that I was beginning to lose focus a little and started blinking, stupidly.

"You talk about companions and you talk about them in a sexual context. You are... almost... my perfect woman."

A certain part of my brain was screaming at me that this is not the way to talk about any woman. Especially not to her face, regardless of feeling.

"I don't want to upset you and I'm sorry if I have but... I find that I wonder about how easily you've disarmed me... I need to know how much of that is real and how much of that is trained."

"Your fragile male ego is showing itself a little." I thought that there was a hint of amusement in that tone.

"A little," I admitted. "More than a little."

"You are right in many ways." she said after a long moment. "I am an educated woman and I was educated so that I could talk to people like you who are also educated to a substantial level and so that they, so that you, can see me as a clever woman. Yes I have been trained to be as good a companion to you as it is possible to be. Yes, that companionship contains a romantic and sexual element. I can explain more about how we pair up the right man or woman to the right visitor when you are more awake but for now I will say this. Yes, I know how to make you smile, or laugh or how to touch other more complex emotions should the need arise. Yes I know how to seduce you and how you would react under certain circumstances. Yes, in theory I could make you love me."

"I see,"

"I'm not finished." She was definitely smiling now. The smile seemed kind to me also a little sad and a little amused. "No, I was not briefed on your personal situation. You surprised me with how you reacted to the rules of the village. I have not seen so strong a reaction before although I will say that it improved my opinion of you by several notches."

"Yes, I know how to do all of those things. I have been a companion to six men before now as well as one woman. The relationship is not always sexual unless certain circumstances present themselves which I will describe when you are more...awake."

"Fair comment."

"But you Frederick, you are a good and kind man. You are also not at all bad looking."

"Talk about back handed compliments."

"Shush. But I will say this. I know how to make you laugh, smile, relax and engage intellectually and react emotionally. But with you, I find that I _want_ to do all of those things just because I _want_ to give you those things. I would also say that, with you, I do not feel as though I have to pretend in any way. I am just myself. That is rare."

"I see."

"Do you?"

"Do you want the truth?"

"Always, even if it might hurt me."

I nodded and considered my next words carefully. It was an odd feeling my eyes desperately wanted to close but at the same time, my mind was working furiously.

"I hear what you're saying and on some level, I understand what you're saying but at the same time, all I want to know is what your hair smells like."

She laughed delightedly and it seemed that the tension between us had lifted. I started to turn myself to lie back on the bed but she stopped me.

"Wait. Is that truly all you want to know about me? Not in general but right here and now."

"Right here and now?"

She nodded, I could see her clearly now and there was an impish amusement in her face.

I spoke without thinking.

"I want to know what the skin on the side of your neck feels like, that line from your jawline and cheek down to your collarbone."

"Anything else?"

"Also that part of your midriff just above your hip. Not your belly or your breast because I don't think I could cope with that at the moment."

She nodded and visibly tried to stifle a smile.

"Close your eyes,"

"Only too eager to obe..."

I stopped speaking when she took my right hand and brought it up, her own hand on the outside of mine, guiding it up to her face where she cupped my hand around her jaw. Ever so gently. There was a noise that I couldn't identify although it sounded like rustling cloth but then she took my left hand and placed it on her, still clothed hip.

I felt like a man who has just had some kind of beautiful wild animal walk up and climb into his lap. I was so startled that I hardly dare move or even breathe. Her skin was so soft and warm although I could feel the hard jawline underneath.

Her hip seemed to fit perfectly into my palm. I couldn't hold my breath any more and breathed in. Startled, though I found that she was holding her hair close to my face for me to smell.

It smelled of apple blossom.

"How does that feel?" her voice was gentle, curious.

I cleared my throat on my second attempt.

"I don't know, I'm just trying not to lose my mind at the moment.

She laughed again. That same, delighted sound.

"Then hold on tight."

She leant forward and kissed me. Gently and softly. I don't know how long it lasted because my brain was overloading itself. She broke the kiss and pulled away. I must have reached for her or made some kind of disappointed sound because she spoke as she helped me into bed.

"Don't worry. I'm not going anywhere."

She removed her shoes but I was already sinking towards sleep when she climbed into the bed next to me and took me in her arms.

"I will be here when you wake up." She promised.

I don't know how long I slept. What I do know is that when I woke up, the world felt different somehow. I felt calm, at peace and so very relaxed. Marion laughed at me when I commented on this.

"It is not a new phenomenon. You've slept more in the last few days than you have in several months."

I nodded as though that explained everything but I think there was another reason. There was no denying how I was feeling towards Marion now. I was falling in love with her, but at the same time there was a kind of, finite quality to our romance. Somehow I knew that this thing that was happening between us would not last forever but for the here and now I was enjoying myself immensely. The attentions of a beautiful woman will do that to a man although she seemed to be enjoying it just as much as I was.

That morning, we took a blanket and supplies out into the woods, further away from the sounds of woodcutting. There was a sense of inevitability about what was happening as well. We both knew what was going to happen and what we were going to do but it was unspoken and at the same time, more delicious for it.

I had the sack of food over one shoulder as we set out and Marion held onto the other hand.

"Do you mind if we continue our conversation from yesterday?" I asked as we walked. We took a gentle pace, the kind of feeling that we had some distance to go although neither of us had a destination in mind but had resolved to take our time getting there.

"Which one?"

"The one about you, me and about you and me."

She smiled at me and hugged my arm.

"Feeling insecure?"

"A little. You talk about companionship as though it's some kind of task. An occupation, a thing that needs doing that is not always a particularly pleasant thing to do. What does this mean and why is it necessary?"

"The what, I can answer now. The why is more complicated and will need the other conversation to progress a little first. The task of being a persons companion is a necessary one. You have to understand that we've been doing this for over a hundred years now and we have it down to a fine art. Our rules have been brought into place due to necessity as a result of the magic that was cast over this place. The most obvious result of that spell is the fatigue that you have already experienced. It acts, not unlike a disease in that regard and I understand that someone has written many essays on the subject regarding the similarities between this spell and the spread of a virus in someone's system."

"How so?"

"Well, you can inoculate yourself against it. If you expose yourself more gradually then you would notice a loss of energy levels and extended sleep periods until eventually you get to the point where you just realise that you're used to it now and that your body has adapted. It's true that the further into the heart of the forest you go, the stronger the effects are but even so. But that's another topic. The spell has other effects as well which include increased feelings of romantic longing. I should stress that we don't know too much about how this works but what little we know is that it doesn't arbitrarily cause you to fall in love with someone random. What it can and does do is to _increase_ that feeling if there is any existing attraction."

"Interesting."

"I'm not done yet." She smiled as she said it. "We first realised that this was a problem maybe ten years after the spell was first cast. Two men became attracted to the same woman. They fought and one of them died. It was noteworthy because up until that point, both men had seemed level headed and kind men, swearing eternal friendship. We realised what was happening and took steps to adjust our behaviour. It took us a number of attempts to get it right. One of the things that we tried to do was to segregate the male and female population but we found that both sides would simply hide, or sneak through the fences to visit their paramours. In the end we reached a point where we took a more...pragmatic view of romantic entanglements. We are taught from a young age that the heart desires what it desires and that it is wrong to try and deny it. To do so here is demonstrably unhealthy."

"But that doesn't explain the enforcement of the companionship rule."

"No it doesn't. There is another aspect to the magic and as I say, I must ask you to be patient here as the why is unknown but we are pretty sure we know what's going on. But as I say, that lies with the other conversation."

"I see."

"The thing is that sometimes, the romantic feelings are overwhelmed by another feeling. Overwhelmed is the right word by the way. When it happens it is...terrifying. It can be wonderful if you manage to catch it right but it is still a little frightening. The feeling that I'm talking about is one of lust. That lust is overwhelming as I say and it cannot be denied, no matter how hard that you might try. There are records of people going mad trying to deny themselves during this feeling. There is also a physical _need_ for sexual congress and release that goes with this wave of lust. And again, otherwise calm, rational and normal people start tearing their own clothes off to get to their chosen partner. In the vast majority of cases this is absolutely fine and indeed, it is the desired outcome as the partner is also swept up in these moments but I'm sure you can imagine the problem."

"Unrequited love, more than one person going for the same partner..."

"Yes. There have been deaths on this subject and also, otherwise good men have been horrified to wake up to discover that they have murdered their best friend while also raping the man's wife."

I took a deep breath. "Wow." My mind was still struggling to contain this and I will admit that at the time I thought that Marion was overstating things a little bit.

"The main problem was that some people would turn up and they would be without a partner. Onanism can only take you so far after all."

"Onanism?"

"Self love."

"huh,"

"So, very early on it was decided that there would be volunteers that partner up with incoming visitors if they have no-one with them or are outside established relationships. As I say it was born out of pragmatism more than anything. There is magic in the air here and to deny it would be pointless and as such, we need to protect ourselves, our visitors and learn to live with that increased level of magic and it's effects. We live off our visitors as our only real export is the massive amounts of lumber that we chop down on a daily basis but because we produce so much of it, the price is kept low on an almost permanent basis. It only needs one person to say, "Oh I went to visit the land of Sleeping Beauty, fell in love with a girl and murdered another man who was looking at her funny"."

She made the voice sound funny and I laughed with her despite the very real and solemn sentiment that she expressed.

"The duty is not unpleasant. More often than not we are partnered with those people who suit our characters and interests. It is still mostly a volunteer thing."

"What happens when someone turns up and no-one wants to partner up?"

"We draw lots."

I stared at her for a moment.

"So that begs the question. Did _you_ win, or lose?"

She grinned at me and ran off into the woods.

"That's not an answer," I called after her. The musical sound of her laughter drew me on.

I found her in a wooded clearing. At first I thought she was dancing, jumping at the wind and laughing as she did so. It took me a while to realise that the very first, very early leaves of autumn were beginning to turn and fall and she was jumping to try and catch them as they fell. Her face flushed and was full of joy and I was struck still by the sight.

She finally caught her prize and crowed in triumph. I set the sack of food down next to a tree as she approached and offered her prize as though it was the most precious of gifts. I bowed as I took it and she curtsied her response.

An awareness of how close she was physically came over me as I looked into her shining eyes. I wanted to reach out to her but something held me back.

She caught my hand though and again she was close to me, gently turning my face until she was looking into hers again.

"What's wrong?" she asked gently.

I thought of all the reasons that I had. I wanted to tell her about Ariadne and about how I felt an obligation to her. I wanted to tell her about how it felt wrong to take advantage of this place and this moment.

"I'm afraid," I said instead and was horrified of how my voice wavered.

"Of what? Hold that thought."

She dove into the sack and pulled out a large blanket which she spread on the grass. Autumn it might be but it was far from cold. She pulled me down to a seated position.

"What are you afraid of?" she said gently.

"I don't want to hurt you."

She smiled and stroked my face.

"You don't need to worry."

"But I do. This place frightens me. I have fought monsters and demons. My soul has been torn from my body and kept in the dark where it was tortured to satisfy the whims of a dark creature. I have huddled, terrified in a villagers hovel while waiting the result of a Witchers hunt. I saw a dark cult worshipping their own depravity and discovered to my horror that those same appetites have run in my family for years. I look at you and I see a young, beautiful woman."

She smiled and blushed a little at that,

"But I am scared that those family appetites will resurface. I am scared that what I feel at the moment is as a result of this place rather than because I am feeling those things for myself. I am afraid that I am taking advantage of you and your obligation to me. Taking advantage of your "companion" status. I understand everything that you've just said about how you have had to adapt to this place and the magic that is here but that doesn't make me feel as though it's right."

She listened carefully. I hadn't wanted to look at her face as I spoke but then I turned back to her.

All I saw there was kindness, concern, a little humour and something else that I couldn't identify.

"This Ariadne that you speak of is a very lucky woman." She said after a long time.

"Marion I..."

"Shhh, it's ok. I have lived in this place for the entirety of my life. Believe me when I say that all of this..." she waved at the surrounding area. "All of this has an effect. But all it does is accentuate what is already there. I am your companion yes, but I chose that. I knew what I was getting into and I _chose_ you. We could always have had you thrown off our lands if we didn't like you. I did like you and as I say, I _chose_ you. You asked me earlier if I won, or lost. I won and I am so pleased that I did.

"You are a good man Frederick. I can understand why you are afraid and I know that feelings can be terrifying, even overwhelming. But right here. Right now, here with me. You do not need to be afraid. If you are being affected then know that I am affected to. You do not have to worry."

She had somehow got closer to me.

"I don't want to take advantage."

She was so close then,

"You cannot take something if I give it to you," she whispered. I could no longer see her face, only her eyes which were huge. She closed them and I kissed her.

It lasted a long time.

"Whoa," I managed after a while.

She laughed gently. "Have I left you speechless again?"

I smiled at her. "Wha?"

She laughed again.

"Then that's a good start. Do you mind if I kiss you again?"

"Mind?"

Again we kissed and her arms wrapped around me.

"Gently," I managed. "My mind is spinning."

"It's ok. No rush."

We lay there for a long time and we talked about many things. Her life, my life, our families and our histories. She told me that her father was one of the woodsmen who worked on the edge of town and that her mother, mostly worked alongside him, clearing branches and bundling up wood for use in kindling and other such things that people will always need and use wood for. She had always been curious and educated herself on the villages surprisingly large collection of books. As a child she had spent time as a guide to the many visitors that came here, explaining the history of the place and what had happened.

Every so often one of us would reach out to the other and stroke a cheek, or brush a stray piece of hair aside.

The tension was building between us though. We held it off with occasional periods of kissing.

She asked about my family and my recent history. She had read my travel diaries with great interest as although they universally dislike Kerrass they seem to be oddly fascinated with him and collect news of his travels. I suspect that Marion knows more about Kerrass than I ever will, and indeed, more than Kerrass himself is probably aware of.

She asked about local news and the politics of the north.

She asked about Ariadne and I found myself telling Marion everything. It was odd to discuss Ariadne with a woman who I was growing increasingly intimate with. I talked about my fears and my hopes. My dreams and my worries and Marion gently asked the questions that led me through that darkness.

She also told me to stop worrying about the potential desire for depravity telling me that the odd bit of depravity between two consenting adults is fine and can be fun. It's when it is forced on someone who is unaware of what they are getting into that it becomes a problem.

Marion was startling in her innocence but also surprising in her worldliness. She spoke of matters of the heart as though she was an old campaigner and had insights regarding myself, Ariadne and my sister's attraction to women that I could not have seen coming. I was glad that she approved of Emma. That still felt important.

I am aware that I should have been researching the situation that I found myself in in order to help Kerrass but at the same time. My mind was just too full.

In the end though, the inevitable happened. We were kissing and almost of their own accord our hands began to wander and I realised, almost independent of myself that things were moving to the next level.

We made love on that blanket in that forests clearing. It was a special thing, a wonderful thing that I cherish, even now.

Afterwards we wrapped ourselves in blankets and cloaks as getting redressed seemed like so much effort. We ate and giggled to each other and I marvelled in this woman and in this moment.

"How are you feeling?" She asked after we had eaten the food and sat down in a daze.

"Tired," I said. "Not physically before you start trying to cart me off back to the tavern, but mentally tired. As though I've been working too hard at something and now I've stopped.

"A good orgasm will do that to you."

"heh."

"You are here for a reason though. Are you ready for another history lesson?"

"Yes and no."

She laughed. "Don't worry, we have plenty of time. So where did we get to?"

"The curse at the presentation ceremony."

"Ah yes. So the curse had been cast and relaxed a little bit. King Stefan went a little bit mad. Understandably so given that his longed for daughter had been threatened and went on a rampage throughout the Kingdom."

"Let me guess, no Spindle or Spinning wheel were safe."

"No, in a spectacular display of not giving a crap about major exports and clothing, the king outlawed spinning wheel. All future wool making would have to be spun by hand."

"That sounds... Arduous."

Marion smiled at that.

"But other than that, the Princess grew up healthy and strong. She was educated in all the proper _feminine_ arts," she said the word "feminine" as though it was some kind of insult. "And she became a beautiful, clever and caring young woman. The future for the Kingdom seemed assured, several marriages were explored with every expectation that the princess would be running the Kingdom from behind the scenes. There was just the spectre of her sixteenth birthday looming.

"Now this bit is important. No-one knew what happened that morning and anyone who claims to know is mistaken or simply lying. The reason for this is that the entire Kingdom promptly fell asleep when the curse was triggered. We know this due to those early expeditions into the Kingdom after we had started to become accustomed to the magical effects. But I'm getting ahead of myself here.

"The first successful man who returned to the Kingdom was a knight called Sir Mannfred Crawley. By successful I mean that he returned and didn't immediately get overwhelmed by the sleeping spell. He himself describes the events in his own travel journals which were extensive and are the main source of our records from that time and place.

Sir Mannfred was quite open about his own faults and history, he had made several mistakes in his youth as well as having accrued several large debts due to living above his means and in the manner to which he had become accustomed. He married a young and pretty wife who took him for everything he had before running off with a younger version of him. To his credit he seems to maintain a fairly pragmatic view of the entire circumstance and treats it with more than a little humour.

He was away from the Kingdom visiting an old friend of his in an effort to borrow some more money to pay off the more angry of his creditors when his friends court Wizard came running into the room that he was using at the time to tell him that a disaster had befallen his Kingdom. Sir Mannfred then remembered that the Princesses sixteenth birthday had come and gone and guessed that the curse had come into effect. He bade his friend farewell while, at the same time, borrowing the unfortunate Wizard and brought them back to the Kingdom.

Sir Mannfred was far from a perfect man and he admits this himself but one thing that he did not shirk was his responsibilities to his fellow man. When the Wizard nearly fell off his horse in terror Sir Mannfred credits that Wizard with his survival and the survival of the others that were with them. He describes a line in the pathway, beyond which several travellers had simply fallen in their tracks. They looked, from that distance as though they had made some small efforts to their own comfort such as pillowing their heads on cloaks and such like but beyond that they appeared to have just fallen asleep where they had fallen.

Sir Mannfred organised the, by now, increasing numbers of people that were returning to their homeland and got them to work clearing a space for a camp which is the basis of the town that we now live in and set about rescuing those people that were just across the line of the spell.

Sir Mannfred draws some criticism from some of his immediate successors for not being able to break the curse and some have even gone so far as to accuse him of cowardice in the face of what was going on. If I'm honest though, I think that these people are rather unfair towards Sir Mannfred. By his own words, his first concerns were to those people who had survived on the outside as when he was working, no-one had figured out that you could properly acclimatise to the spells effects.

"They spend five or six days just rescuing those people that they could by asking for volunteers who would tie a rope around themselves before charging into the magical area as fast as they could and hoping to grab one of the sleeping people before they themselves were overwhelmed by the magical effects. They would then be dragged out by onlookers. This effort died out when they began to realise that those people who _had_ fallen asleep, were still breathing,normal people. They were not preserved in any way and as such, those people who were in there for too long would eventually die of malnutrition and not taking care of themselves properly.

"Sir Mannfred set the pace for maybe that first decade. He set people to work and came up with many of the rules that we still abide by today. Not the rules for visitors as they would come later but it was him that decided that everyone _must_ contribute to the efforts to keep the Kingdom moving forwards. Those nobility that returned did not like this as they had a sense of entitlement about the entire thing and thought that manual labour was beneath them. My personal theory is that this is where some of the later dislike for Sir Mannfred comes from but I can't prove it as the only real historical source from that time is Sir Mannfred's diary. It was also Sir Mannfred who hit on the idea of using the lumber harvested from the encroaching forest of thorns to provide some income for the ailing Kingdom.

"Sir Mannfred eventually went missing around eight years after the curse was first enacted. He had had enough of the criticisms that he had drawn at the hands of some of the others and set out on a quest to try and lift the curse. He went into the forest of thorns and was never seen again."

"That seems a shame."

"It was, to me and to some of the people that I agree with."

We had finished eating and now she rested her head on my chest as we lay there together.

"As time went on it became clear that the stasis effect was not a thing, so all of those stories that you might have heard, or read about how her family and Kingdom will wake up when she does are, I'm afraid, false. We know from expeditions into the now ruined kingdom that many of those villagers and townsfolk who fell asleep themselves when the curse was enacted, died where they fell. We also know that the Princess lies in a protective casket. The casket itself can be moved within a limited field and it can be opened. But we would later find out that the curse is actually centred on her. So if we moved _her_ then the curse would move with it. The casket has been moved to a former cellar of the castle as the encroaching thorns were causing the castle to crumble and as such, the room she was in was becoming unsafe."

"Hang on," I said as thought occurred. "If everyone fell asleep, the curse was triggered when she pricked her finger right? So how come she's in a casket?"

Marion smiled at me, "Another good question?"

"Do I get another prize?"

"Maybe later."

"Fair enough. Where does the dragon fit into all of this?"

"Ah yes, the Dragon. Your guess is as good as mine I'm afraid. It was first sighted shortly after curse was first triggered. It is unusual for a dragon as I understand that most dragons vary in the colour from Green to brown and all varieties that come between those two colours, whereas our Dragon is black. Black and has two giant horns that sit atop it's head. It is also, seemingly unaffected by the curse and makes it's living off eating some of the many treasure hunters and adventurers that have gone down into the valley in an effort to kill it, rescue the princess or steal our Kingdoms former wealth."

"Was there much wealth to steal?"

"Not as much as people seem to think but the more that we deny the existence of gold, the more people are convinced that we are keeping it from them. Go figure."

"For my part there is at least one precious jewel on the outskirts."

"Oh, that was a good line." She kissed me thoroughly.

"I thought so,"

"I bet you say that sort of thing to all the girls." She went back to resting her head on my chest.

"Not as many as you might think."

She looked at me for a long moment before snorting her opinion on that and settling back down again. Her hand started to wander southwards and I suddenly started to struggle to think straight.

"Umm, So is that it?"

"Just about. That's the history in a nutshell. You're welcome to read through the books for yourself when you get back if you like."

"I might, ah, do that."

I gave up and hauled her up for another kiss.

One thing led to another and we didn't talk again for some time.

This time it was my turn to rest my head on her lap as she leant against a tree and stroked my hair. I felt astonishingly peaceful.

"Any more questions?"

"Oh Flame, many questions. So many questions but they are all spinning round in my head at the moment and I shall ask them as my brain settles down onto one or another."

"Take your time."

We sat in silence for a while as I allowed myself to be hypnotised by the sun shining through the leaves above us.

"Here's one." I said after a while. "You know the cure for the curse. Even if there were people who didn't want the curse to be broken for some reason. Why hasn't it been broken before now? You know that she's in a casket which means that someone has been and come back right?"

"We don't know. It's easy to say that "True love's kiss" will wake her. But define true love for me and we'll still be here this time next week."

"Not an unpleasant prospect."

"It can get cold this time of year but still. We know that many people who have loved her, or have claimed to love her have been down into the valley, got to the princess and attempted to wake her up with a kiss. It has never worked. We also know that it has been tried since the one hundred years is up. It still didn't work."

"Do you know why not?"

"We don't _know_ , we think. There are several theories on the matter and most of those theories are founded on the nature of true love. No-one who ever knew the princess is still alive and so, how do you truly love them if you don't know that person. Most of the knights errant who have since tried that thing love the _idea_ of Sleeping Beauty. They like the _idea_ of being the knight in shining armour. The prince charming of legend who rides into the forest and rescues the beautiful princess from a fate worse than death. She is beautiful, we know that much and from a purely physical standpoint, she would be very easy to fall in love with. But personally? I don't see that as true love. There is another theory that says that True Love isn't True Love until it's reciprocated. She's been asleep know for at least a hundred and twenty years. None of the people that she knew then are still alive. How can she be expected to love anyone?"

"Good thoughts, all."

I went back to staring at the leaves. Sometimes I have to allow the thoughts to settle randomly after a lot of information has passed. This is why it is always best to have a seminar after the lecture by a couple of hours to let the thoughts and questions mix and open up in the brain so that you can fill up all of the gaps that you might have missed.

"So what's with the rest of the stuff then?" I asked suddenly.

"What do you mean?"

I had to think for a minute to realise what I had spoken alive.

"All of this other stuff. The passions and lusts and things that you talked about."

There was silence and I shifted so I could look at her face a little easier and she noticed my scrutiny.

"It's not that I don't _know_ the answer. It's more that I don't _understand_ it."

"right?"

"When the curse was first triggered there was a sense of palpable panic. It was one of the events that triggered a lot of the historic dislike of magic users in our part of the world. It terrified the local barons and Kings that a magic user could cast such a thing, or do such a thing and they all felt, justifiably frightened. But after twenty or thirty years, the excitement started to die down and one of the things that happened, as it all seemed to become mundane was that we were visited by several Sorcerers and Wizards and so called "knowing-ones" who wanted to study the curse and see if they could figure it out. It's from a couple of their essays and books on the subject that we get most of our understanding on the subject.

"The objective of the curse was to kill the Princess and all of the people around her. That death was mitigated to sleep was only a small thing because only she was protected from an ageing effect. One person described it as though she had been put into stasis, whatever that means."

I nodded. "Would you like to know?"

"Go on then,"

"It means that they are un-changing. She cannot affect the world but neither can the world affect her. She is separate from existence."

Marion thought about this for a while.

"In which case she is not in stasis but lets not get distracted. The Curse was cast so that the rest of the people were safe, until she pricked her finger, at which point, everyone falls down dead. So it follows that the curse is centred on _her_ before moving through the rest of the populace in, presumably, some kind of radius effect. She is the epicentre of the curse is what I'm trying to say. Patient one if you want to think of it in terms of a disease."

"Right, I think I get that."

"So the curse was mitigated to sleep. So therefore, her sleep is passed down to everyone else. It was her _death_ that would be passed around but now it''s her sleep. You follow?"

"I think so."

"Good, it took me years to get that. So our Princess has been asleep for a hundred and twenty years. So she dreams. Sometimes her sleep is relaxed and deep which is when the _sleep_ part of things is so active. But sometimes she dreams of other things. Sometimes she dreams of her past, which are still recent things to her. Sometimes she dreams of her family and her hopes and dreams for the future. These dreams trigger similar dreams in the rest of us while we sleep but when we are awake, the dreams shift our behaviour and our thinking. When she dreams of her family we think of our own family, when she dreams of her hopes and dreams, we think of our own hopes and dreams."

"I see. So if she is dreaming about a fantastic meal that she had the day before her birthday, we all get hungry."

"That's right, although our tastes would naturally shift towards what she had. It was steak, in case you're wondering."

I felt my mouth begin to water."

"Wow, ok. So her dreams effect us as well. She loves her family therefore we love ours?"

"Correct."

"Interesting."

"Yes, but with a complication. Remember the six gifts she was given?"

"Beauty, Grace, Dance, Song, Wit and Goodness."

"Well, done."

"I was always a teachers pet."

She laughed.

"Well, it turns out that our Princess was a romantic. She believed in romance and sunbeams and other such things. It's probable that she was a bit more realistic than that in real life as times could be brutal back then but when she dreams?"

"So that's why we all have this romantic overdrive."

"Exactly." She giggled at a thought. "One of our methods of gaining income is that we offer our services to married couples who have felt the spark leave their marriage. They come here and get it back as they suddenly remember why they loved each other in the first place.

"That doesn't sound too bad."

"It's not but it does also create jealousy. We're pretty confident that the Princess had never had her heart broken but she still becomes afraid of it from time to time which causes an outbreak of jealousy and paranoia from time to time. It's thankfully rare though and we just tend to lock ourselves up with our chosen other and ride it out. It's an odd feeling to _know_ that your brain is struggling with something. You feel the pain and worry and anxiety. You know why you're feeling it but somehow, that doesn't help.

"Then there are the nightmares. Which are hellish."

"I can imagine."

"Again, she had a fairly nice life which means that her nightmares aren't too bad but sometimes..."

She suddenly looked so afraid that I picked myself up and put my arm round her and she snuggled up.

"Then there is the fact that she's sixteen." Marion went on. "She's sixteen with all of those hormones and things and sometimes when you're sixteen and a girl. You just want to get fucked senseless."

I almost laughed but Marion's face was serious.

"It's true," she went on. We're pretty sure that's what happens when the lust waves hit. She's sixteen. What did you want to do when you were sixteen?"

"You're right. I just wanted to drink and fuck."

"She's the same and when she dreams those dreams, all the women in the realm that are above the age of fourteen and under the age of seventy suddenly, just want to be fucked. And all the men just want to do the fucking."

"Wow,"

"As I've said before. In theory, it's not that unpleasant but in practice, it can be dangerous."

"I... I was about to say that I could imagine. But I can't."

"It's the kind of thing that we say that all visitors should experience it once. Just once though."

"This is fascinating stuff."

"You think so?"

"It really is. In many ways it sounds like she's some kind of living deity. Someone whose arbitrary mood decides what you all feel and what you all do from a day to day basis. Is there any kind of reflected thing so that when you all feel something then she does as well?"

"We don't know, but we do think there might be something. It's one of those things that's impossible to prove though."

"Lovely."

After a while we got up, dressed, tied the now empty sack to a tree so that we could come back for it and went for a gentle wander. I wanted to feel the fresh air on my face and let my brain work away on the problem without too much input from myself. She held onto my arm as though she was hugging it. Our stride was roughly even so we didn't hold each other up. I just let my mind wander.

Marion said nothing.

"I just have a couple more questions I think and then it's on to research, reading some of the books that you mention and trying to come up with a way to help Kerrass. You and your people don't like Kerrass right?"

"No although I think the term is hate."

"Yet you don't hate me?"

"No, you did not do what he did?"

"But I am associated with him."

"If a man hurts you, do you hate his wife, friends or children? What Kerrass did was unforgivable. It was a mistake and he knows it was a mistake. The fact that it was a crime against us and a crime against her makes it the most serious crime that we can conceive. We allow him to live because he keeps on attempting to make it right without seeking forgiveness. He is sorry but he doesn't beg our forgiveness as he knows that he will not get it."

"It sounds harsh."

"As I say, it was unforgivable."

"What did he do?"

Marion smiled sadly. "You will need to ask him."

"I will. But it leads onto another question. You know what he wants me to do?"

"Yes. He wants to try and wake _her_ up and needs your help."

"Right, so here's my question. Do you _want_ him to succeed? Why? And is your opinion different from everyone else? You spoke about it a bit earlier but could you go into it in more detail."

Marion thought about this for a long while. I was just glad that the question hadn't made her angry or hurt her in any way.

She seemed to come to a decision and took my hand. "Come with me, I want to show you something."

We walked swiftly through the trees and we came out, a little further down the mountain side into another clearing. This one was deliberately kept away from the encroaching bank of thorns but it was a sea of wooden posts. They were flat on one side and there was writing there. They had been laid out in even rows and there was so many of them. So many that it boggled the mind. It kept drawing the eye away at the horrible lines and then my mind just rebelled at the thought that this could be true.

"Holy flame,"

It was a graveyard. Not a crypt like so many people would use but a graveyard and it had been planned out. I have sat in many graveyards now waiting for Kerrass to do his thing. Graveyards tend to be quite, disorganised, the graves are forced in wherever there is space. Sometimes a body is piled on top of another body in an effort to make more room and the headstones are worn, cracked and badly maintained.

"Most of these graves are empty." Marion's voice came to me as though it was from a long distance. "When Sir Mannfred came back, at first his concern was rescuing those people that were trapped inside the Kingdom but he was self-aware enough to know that there was no easy way of identifying everyone. He managed to get hold of some records that stated how many people lived inside our little Kingdom in an effort to know how long they should keep going, you know, at what point have we rescued everyone. But after a week it became obvious that there was going to be no-one left alive inside the Kingdom. He ordered this cemetery built with one stone for everyone who we had records for. We didn't have enough stone but we have enough wood to last for years so we use a chunk of wood instead. We carve it, varnish it and then put it in place.

"Even with that the Cemetery has had to expand on four occasions.

"People just keep dying. They don't listen to our warnings or they find their way in from another direction, therefore missing us completely. Sometimes they do everything right and get eaten by a dragon. But then there are ourselves. As best as we can make out it's been a hundred and twenty years since the Princess first pricked her finger. We have never been a large settlement. Some people have not been able to cope with the rules, or knowing that what they are thinking or feeling is not necessarily their own thoughts or feelings. They leave and never come back. But that's still a hundred and twenty years of people who have lived, worked and died here while waiting for our Princess to wake up.

"Someday I will be buried here. Just over there, underneath the apple tree. Not because I like apple trees but because that is my allotted space."

I had been unable to turn away from that awful field of graves and Marion took hold of me and turned my face to look at me. I had not realised it but there were tears streaming down my face. She kissed me.

"Come away now."

She led me a short distance away and we sat on a bench that seemed as though it had been left there for this purpose.

"There is a practical reason as well. Something that we don't like to talk about. Twenty years ago another Sorceress came to visit us. It was just before I was born but she asked a lot of questions and did various physical examinations such as weight height, skin, eye, hair colour and so on. What I only found out recently was that she had picked up on something that we had known for years. There are maybe a hundred and twenty people who live and work here. That's not enough. Purely from the level of interbreeding. We have delayed the inevitable mutations and madnesses that come with that because we occasionally have influxes of new blood when one or other companion becomes pregnant. This is not a bad thing in our society as it really does mean that there is a new...person here. There is new, fresh blood.

"That Sorceress wrote in her book that there needs to be a minimum of three hundred people in a genetic base to be able to form a viable society. That model requires a larger portion of women to men and requires that polygamy is a thing so as to properly spread the gene pool about. That just doesn't happen here. We fall in love too easily. In theory that isn't a bad thing but for the spreading of our people it is deadly. As I say, we keep any children that are conceived here, and you don't need to worry as my last bleeding time was a week or so ago..."

"I wasn't worried. I would have been proud."

She gave me a squeeze.

"But already there are signs that we have interbred too often. You can't tell it to look at us but we are dictated to by our Princesses dreams. Our women are all beautiful, our men are all handsome in the traditional sense. You won't have really met them yet but they are broad shouldered, lantern jawed men. Heavily muscled and beautiful to look at. Many women who visit us swoon at seeing them but if you spend too much time with them you realise where the problems are.

"From a young age, all our men do is swing axes at trees, they chop it all, dress and plank it up but beyond that?

"They are badly educated and don't see a need to. That's alright because they're not that clever either. Years of interbreeding and training to pursue purely physical activity means that that's all that they are good for.

"We think it's another unconscious prejudice of the Princess. Men have to be manly men who chop wood, fight wars and joust for the entertainment of the ladies. Not that she would think that that's a bad thing, that gift of goodness again but it means that she dreams of those men and as such, our men conform to her views.

"It's one of the reasons that I like you so much. It is so nice to be able to talk to a man who doesn't lose the thread of a conversation or who thinks that talking to a woman is more than just getting them into bed. Sometimes that is nice but sometimes, I want my mind to be complimented as well."

"So there is a physical problem as well. I'm not sick and I imagine that it won't be until my Grandchildren are born that we might get some visible problems. But that time is coming.

"But the real problem is that there is no freedom here. We are born and live and die according to our Princesses dreams. You were right earlier when you said that she is like some kind of deity, her whims dictating our actions. As I say, our men work all day so the women have to do everything else. It was a woman who came up with the rule of companionship. It's a woman who organises the cometary. It's women who organises our trade deals and sees to the political actions of our country. Not because we want to but because we have to. The men have to do the physical labour so we do the other thing. We are a matriarchy by accident.

"We've tried to do it the other way round. We've had women take up the axe to help out the men and it doesn't work out. They are ungainly and clumsy. I've heard of women soldiers and axe-women and all kinds of things. I've even seen women fighters come here and when they get up to train, they find that they are incapable of even the most basic movement. Because it doesn't fit in with _her_ dreamt view of the world. That's not a dig on her. She's dreaming and no-one can be held responsible for their dreams.

"We are tied here. Some people have left, that is true but most are tied here by a vow of duty that cannot be broken. I would like to go travelling. I really would but to do so I would have to leave here and I can't do that. These people need me here. My Princess needs me here and I love it here.

"I once did an experiment. I tried to hate this place. I tried to leave but then I just couldn't. I tried to walk out of town and I felt as though I was physically ill. I was nauseous and there was a pain in my head that made me dizzy.

"We are slaves to her will. She is the kindest, most wonderful person in the world. The best of Princesses and certainly a benign Goddess if that is what she has become but we are still slaves.

"All of those are good reasons for our wanting you to break the curse. All of them but there is one more.

"Ever since Sir Mannfred heard about the curse, we have had one purpose in life, which is to wait for her to wake up. That is our reason for existing. So that when she comes out of those woods, with her rescuers at her side... Her subjects will be waiting for her.

"No, I will not be sorry if you manage to break the curse."

I nodded after a long time. She had been speaking so rapidly and with such passion that I thought there would be more. But she was done.

I held her close.

"I'm sorry." she said. "I've realised that I went off a bit there."

"No it was useful."

"Good. What next?"

I took a deep breath.

"Kerrass is next. I need his story."


	36. Chapter 36

(Authors note: Wow, this chapter was hard to write. Even knowing what would happen and how it would happen and knowing it was a part of the sleeping beauty story. It was hard to write. So...

WARNING! The following chapter contains scenes of sexual violence against women. As I hope is made clear from the way it is written, I feel that such acts are absolutely disgusting and are not Ok. Not to give too many spoilers but I am already taking great delight in writing what happens to the characters that performed these horrible acts.

For those who might wish to avoid that section for whatever reason I have marked a section with three stars ***. The part in question is just before a long note from Frederick towards the end. If, for whatever reason, the thought of this might make you uncomfortable then I urge you to stop reading at the three stars. The events that take place can be inferred from the wiki entry from Sleeping Beauty. See you next chapter for Kerrass' vengeance)

Frederick's note: The following is the transcript of the interview that I performed with Kerrass a little while before we descended into the valley of thorns during our attempt to wake Sleeping Beauty. As best as I can, these are as close to Kerrass' actual words as I could manage. He always hates it when I do this as he feels as though he's being put on the spot. Which I am, so he's not entirely unjustified in his opinion. I think this is only the second time that I have done this with regards to my travel writings. Those people that are lucky/unlucky enough to have been subjected to my more academic work will know that I have conducted several more interviews with Kerrass on the subject of various monstrous species. But I've talked enough now. Over to Kerrass.

I have a little game I play.

I sometimes wonder if Frederick has caught on to my little game but so far he has given no signs of being wise to the depths of my cunning.

The aim of the game is to put him off when he's doing one of these little interview things of his. I may have given the game away at this point, now that I've said this aloud but that's all part of my cunning plan. I'm determined to make today the day that I manage to get under his skin.

The reason for the game is not particularly malicious. What I'm doing is entertaining myself at Frederick's expense. You see, he does this thing when he's interviewing me. It's like he freezes up and doesn't speak. He doesn't even give the impression that he's even looking at me. He just seems to stare at a point, somewhere around my collar bone and unfocus. It's an extraordinary act of concentration as he just sits there as my words flow into his ears, seemingly bypass his brain altogether where they flow out, through his hands and into the thin spidery writing that he refers to as "scholar's short hand". I had much amusement once making him read those words back to me and it seemed that he wasn't...unaware of what he was writing down as when I prompted him on several subjects he seemed knowledgeable.

The other reason is that this level of concentration on one thing to the exclusion of all other things is so different from what I was taught. Yes, during a fight with a monster or creature I must be focused and determined but the input that I need to fight that fight comes from lots of different places. Only one of those things is my hearing and you also have to be aware of everything else that's going on around me. If you're in a cave and fighting a monster and some rock is disturbed behind you... Was that the creature? Or has our fight triggered the beginning of a cave in? So I have learnt to filter out everything that is surplus to the hunt but Frederick has gone one step further than that and has filtered out his own thoughts and experiences. His self-confessed biases and prejudices to just sit down to listen and write. An untainted view, a direct thing that I have said, written down and preserved on paper. It's as though, he becomes the pen and I am the writer for I could not write anything down nearly as quickly as seems to come so naturally to Frederick.

To write, just as much as Frederick has already written down over the course of this very conversation would have taken me hours and anyone watching this would have been entertained at the sight of a Witcher, tongue clamped firmly between his teeth as he struggled to make the words and the pen strokes go where they're supposed to go and in the right order.

I can see the benefit of course and I suspect that more people should have this skill.

It strikes me as being a little sad that even now, several centuries since humanity first landed on the banks of the Pontar and Yaruga, people still prefer my skills than Fredericks.

But that's a digression.

Frederick came downstairs this morning with something of a purpose. He had already eaten up in his room with his companion and they came down together. As they walked down the stairs, arm in arm, their heads bent together Freddie said something quietly that made her smile and he kissed her on her cheek before telling her that he would see her later. She smiled at him, glared at me and left.

I am glad for Freddie. He and Marion are well suited to each other. I met her for the first time eight years ago when I was last in these parts. She has a good heart which is often needed in this part of the world, is much more intelligent than I am and has a smile that lights up the room. That and her startling red hair means that she is rather hard to forget.

Still no reaction from Freddie.

I think that this visit has been good for Frederick. He has been through a lot since he first started travelling with me and he needed a break, although he would feel that this is more of a "working holiday" and I suspect that he resents me a little for bringing him here and subjecting him to the effects of this place without consulting me first.

I also think that Marion has been good for him.

Don't get me wrong. I remain convinced that he and Ariadne are perfect for each other. I think he grounds her in all of the right ways and she challenges him in the same way. He cannot see it yet but I think that, as he gets to know her and gets better at reading her emotions, he will begin to see how profoundly he has affected Ariadne and how much they could give each other.

Having said that I think it's been good for him to have a little affair of the heart with a kind, gentle and good woman. Frederick has been withdrawn since he was subjected to the beast of Amber's Crossing, the night that almost cost him his soul. He has been afraid of many things that he did not need to be. One of those things was physical intimacy as well as more serious romantic feelings and commitments. I had been concerned that that might drive a wedge between him and Ariadne but Marion has found a little hole in Frederick's defences and has exposed that dark place to a light that was not as terrifying as he, Freddie, first thought it was. All Ariadne has to do now is to widen that hole and I think he will be snared.

I am glad.

I wonder if I could arrange a meeting between Marion and Ariadne so that they could exchange notes.

Nope, still no reaction.

He's really good at this.

So Frederick came downstairs and he had his writing satchel with him. The bag that contains his ink, paper, a bundle of quills, his sharpening knife and some blotting sand. I knew what I was in for then and I wasn't looking forward to it.

He sat opposite me and started setting out the tools of his trade before looking me straight in the eye.

"Kerrass," he said after a while. "What the Fuck are we doing here?"

I rewarded him with a smile.

My companion, the innkeeper, did not bother to hide her amusement. The people here treat me with a kind of affectionate contempt. I will not hide the fact that they hate me and with good reason. The things that I did are unforgivable but having said that, I hope by now that they know that if they needed anything, _anything_ at all, then I would come running. They don't approve of me but I understand that only _they_ are allowed to hate me in this local area.

The innkeepers name is Sarah and she has been my companion the last couple of times that I've been here. I try not impose on her and she is mostly glad to leave me to my own devices. Her husband died in a logging accident and as such she is content to play mother hen to everyone that doesn't work down at the tree line which includes visitors and the other companions. She and I have come to an understanding. I leave her alone unless she needs me and vice versa. She has an unerring gift for knowing how to deflate my ego and to bring me crashing back down to the ground when I need it. I am more than a little devoted to her and, of all the people here, I would like to think that she understands me best.

She still hates me but I hope that it is a more...affectionate kind of hate.

Heh.

Still no reaction from Freddie.

So what are we doing here. It's a good question and I don't know if you can tell but I'm putting off answering it.

I have spoken before about the many trials that face a young Witcher. (Frederick's note: He hasn't, yet. Those conversations took place in that adventure in the north between when we first met Ariadne and we received notification of my fathers injury. I still intend to write those things up but this adventure was more immediately on my mind.) I have spoken about the three official trials and the other trials that come afterwards that no-one talks about. The trials of Heroism and the trial of Death.

I have also talked about some of the many things that have happened to me in my life that I am not as proud of. Those times where my personal journey led me aside from the path of the Witcher. I have briefly talked about my time as a bandit, assassin, innkeeper, thief and straight up murderer. I have always been drawn back to the life of a Witcher as it turns out that I am manifestly unsuited to any other line of work. If I look back at all of those times I can honestly say that I have made many mistakes. Not just the kind of mistake which means that I dodged left instead of right and got a new scar for my trouble. Instead I'm talking about those choices in life that I still regret.

This is one of them.

Of all of them, this is also the first thing that happened that caused me to hate myself.

I was still a young Witcher. I had been on the path for around four years. Still at the stage where I would return to the Feline keep during the Winter where the other newer Witchers would gather and exchange notes of all of the things that we had seen, swap potion recipes and observations on some of the monsters. Things that we had seen in our more...practical... experiences that are left out of the more formal Monster Manuals.

The older Witchers still looked down on us with a gruff kind of familiarity, affection and the same contempt that old folk always show towards younger people. There was no maliciousness there though, they were just wary of making friends with the more inexperienced people when they might be dead over the next year on the path. We would also take great delight in tormenting the young novices, helping out in their training and visiting every torment that we had saved up from our own training on the new kids. It was a good time I think. My own little madness had not yet reared it's head and I was still enamoured with the lifestyle of being a Witcher. Someone who's coming is a looked for respite from the darkness and danger that surrounds us.

Just before the Winter weather had closed in on us I had been lucky enough to snag a contract with one of the more local lords. There was pair of Griffins that were attacking his flock and he had offered a rather large purse to anyone who could bring them down. The majority of my fellows had passed on the contract as they were in a rush to get back to the keep. I however harboured an ambition.

I had begun to want to travel and see the rest of the world. The area local to the keep was well covered in Witchers and the local villagers could depend on a Witcher turning up to deal with whatever problem that they were having in fairly short order. They still didn't like us, the madness of our school still manifested itself occasionally and as such, those same villagers had learned to fear us. But I had begun to want to see strange shores and distant lands. To see and battle new monsters that I had not seen before and bring news of them back to the school.

So I took the contract and pocketed a large sum of money from the Lord on the grounds that he hadn't wanted to wait until Spring for the problem to be removed.

Come Spring I took the money and bought passage on a ship with the farthest to go which turned out to be the Southern part of the Empire.

I landed. One of the few times that I have actively given thanks to my teachers for making me learn how to speak several languages and I set to work.

At first I was disappointed. The only difference between Southern Nilfgaard and the north seemed to be in the language that they spoke. There were the same monsters, the same petty squabbles, the same assumptions as to the Witcher's trade. There was even the same arrogance about people other than themselves. They would loudly declare how much better they were than the north using almost identical turns of phrase for this including, but not limited to "Their woman don't wash, their beer stinks of piss and everyone is rude and uncouth." I have heard many people in the north comment about the people in the south in much the same way.

Sad really that humanities similarities are vast but only serve to push them apart.

But anyway, I'm digressing.

I came south, there were some monster variants and there were some small differences and so on but it wasn't different enough to gather comment.

I was just beginning to save up some money for the sea voyage to come back when I was passing some place that had a noticeboard by the side of some tavern. I don't know where it was but I remember scanning the noticeboard for anything that might be of interest. It's a habit that they try and get you into back at school "Don't walk past a notice-board without checking it out," they would say. "You never know what's going to be on the board, or what it might tell you. Not just the notices for the various Witcher jobs but also the other notices that might tell you that there's a monster nearby and no-one has realised it yet. A little girls lost dog might let you know that there are several lost dogs which leads you to some kind of marsh hag that is capturing and eating the local canines."

I remember checking this one out and as well as the usual kind of "Lost rake," and "Flax for sale," there was also a Witcher's notice.

There is an art to taking out a Witcher's notice. The very least of matters is what the message says. In this case, the message read "Witcher wanted. Medium term contract. Discretion required. Apply at Castle Bortrund," which basically told me sweet fuck all as it is a mistake to try and guess what's going on without all the necessary data. The comment about discretion suggested that there might be an attempt to keep me quiet at the end of the contract but if that method of keeping me quiet was going to be out and out murder rather than, say, a hefty purse, then I thought that they wouldn't have put anything about discretion on the original advert.

However there were several other things that could be guessed from the notice. First of all the notice was made from wood. It is a mistake to assume that notices are always paper because at the end of the day, weather happens and paper and ink tend not to stand up to heavy rain. You get notices on leather, or cloth mostly. Carving wood takes extra effort and is designed in the knowledge that someone might not see it for some time and that therefore they should build the notice to last.

The notice was next to the inn where I intended to spend the night. I spent the evening asking around for information regarding Castle Bertrand and to see if it was something that I should be concerned about or whether I could go to the meeting and expect to actually get paid for my work rather than finding some overstuffed Lord who expects that the entire world revolves around him and that people should do what he wants them to on the grounds that he was the lord.

After asking around and getting the normal kind of glares which can basically be translated into "You're not from round here are you?" I bought a round of drinks and people soon started loosening up. Lord Bertrand was an older man who had managed to marry into the royal family. The lady in question had died in childbirth but had managed to produce a son at the same time which, at that time was the presumed "Prince" of the local area.

As an aside I should mention that the term "Emperor" was just coming into fashion. Emperor means "King of Kings" in their language and so it had kind of become another layer of nobility on top of royal family so now it went Baron-Marquis-Count-Duke-King-Emperor. So the locals still saw themselves as Kingdoms with their own royal families. These various Kingdoms now form the majority of Nilfgaards ruling families.

The Bortrund family seemed to be relatively well to do. They were as fair as any noble families in that day and age, not oppressing their folks as much as some and being generally fair to the various people that lived in their territories. Importantly though, and this was the part that I was checking for, they had a reputation for honour. They paid their debts and once having given their word, they didn't go back on it. I took that on board and in the morning I put on my best "Witcher face" and rode up to the castle.

It has to be said that for everything that would happen later and in my life since then, that was one of, if not the, best and most courteous receptions that I've ever had as a Witcher.

It was a nice castle, smaller than yours (Frederick: my families) but it still had a nice "working castle" feeling to it. There were soldiers drilling, a couple of knights tilting at the dummy. Supplies being piled up and the whole thing was conducted to the music of blacksmiths hammers. I dismounted and walked up to the gate where the guardsmen there saluted me, which was a courtesy that I wasn't really used to, and a messenger was sentto let someone know that I had arrived.

A squire to the family came down, young lad of maybe fifteen years old, dressed in the castle livery and with a sword belted at his hip but he walked easily with it. Holding it properly so that it didn't trip him up which is something that a lot of younger people forget when they've been given an important task.

He was all courtesy, a groom took my horse and I was led up to the keep. I was asked if I had eaten and whether or not I needed or wanted to freshen up leaving me feeling as though I was being treated as a guest rather than as some kind of mercenary. I was led into the castle, I wasn't asked to remove my sword which is always a good sign when it comes to probably not being murdered on the spot and was led down some halls and into a private reception room. There was a table, a map, a desk and several chairs of various comfort levels ranging from solid wood to cushioned couch.

I met Lord Bortrund and Prince Jakob Bortrund who were talking before a fire. They were discussing a trade taxing tariff of some kind with someone I took to be a merchant. Lord Bortrund was a an older man, good looking in an elderly, distinguished kind of way. I thought that if he put his mind to it he could still cause a stir amongst the various maids in the castle. He waved me to a chair while they finished their discussions.

Now as I've said before, it's absolutely vital to listen carefully in this kind of situation. I was in a strange castle with strangers who I had heard very little about. I knew their language but at the same time that means absolutely nothing when it comes to things like idioms or codes. I listened carefully, reversed the chair so that I could sit and still get to my feet as quickly as possible, made sure that I had my back to a piece of wall that wasn't covered by a piece of tapestry so that I could see the door, window and all other entrances and spent the few minutes that I had while I waited, studying the room.

As I say, it was a private reception room that I guess was meant for those more private, back-room deals that seem to make the world keep moving in the direction that everyone thinks that it should be. The kind of place that two people who need everyone to think that they hate each other but actually get on quite well, that kind of place. There was a drinks table that had several bottles on it as well as a decanter of wine and water. The desk was covered with a map which I couldn't identify at this angle but there were also several other small bags and pouches on the table that had been pushed to one side. The bags had labels on them which I couldn't read.

Lord Bortrund finished the business with the merchant while his son listened closely while feigning disinterest. I had heard of such tricks before where the lord's son and presumed heir pretends to be incompetent and stupid in order to trick those people who are watching and listening into being overconfident. I didn't think that the merchant was falling for it though as after a couple of pieces of small talk the Prince was asked about his future marriage plans. The Prince shrugged offhandedly and made a non-committal comment that was trying to come off as though he didn't really care but again, I don't think that the merchant was convinced.

The merchant left and I rose to my feet as Lord Bertrand turned to me.

Etiquette is a tricky business. I had been taught much during my training about the various ways to bow and under what circumstances. This time I chose a wary looking stiff bow, the kind that soldiers might give, with my hands by my side and still maintaining eye contact.

Lord Bertrand surprised me by smiling and holding his hand out to be shaken.

"None of that Master Witcher,"

"Kerrass, Lord Bertrand. Kerrass of Maecht."

"It is _Master_ Witcher isn't it. I don't want to insult your guild by suggesting rank where there is none, or too little rank when the prestige should be higher."

I smiled. It wasn't a new comment to me. This man knew how to deal with guilds-men and was aware that masters of their craft cost more money. He was already bargaining the price down.

"I cannot speak for other Witcher schools Lord Bertrand but I belong to the Feline school. If we are not masters of our craft then we are not allowed to walk our path. Anything other than a _Master_ Witcher is rotting in a cave somewhere."

The Prince laughed and Lord Bertrand smiled. "Very good, very good. I was just a bit concerned as you seem a little young to be a craftsmaster."

Another common gambit. "It's the mutations Lord, I am actually much older than I look."

I'm always careful not to call someone ' _My_ Lord' in case it gives them the wrong idea.

"I see, I see. Well, the least we can do is offer you something to drink while we discuss the contract that we have in mind. Wine?"

"Yes please," I was already used to the fact that they drank more wine in the south than the ale that I still preferred.

"Water?" asked the Prince who was pouring.

"Yes please, plenty of water while discussing things."

I noticed Lord Bertrand nodding again as though I had passed another test.

"Is it too early in proceedings to ask if you have any going rates? Are there set prices and things?"

Lord Bertrand asked while the Prince handed over a pair of cups.

"There are not, Lord Bertrand as prices depend on costs, danger and required method. One monster is different from another but also... You have Centipedes on your lands?"

"Not us but a neighbour has. I saw one while hunting with him once. Terrifying. And we only saw the portion that came out of the ground."

"Precisely. But there is also a difference between an old centipede that has been established in an area versus a young centipede that is new to the area but is also guarding their young."

"What an unpleasant thought."

The Prince seemed happy to let his father do most of the talking and was watching carefully. He had dropped the earlier pretence of lack of interest.

"It is, and should be. But one would require me to lure the beast to the surface and destroy it. The other requires me to go into the burrow and destroy the eggs as well. Two jobs that are about Giant centipedes but both are so different."

"I see, I see."

"The way I prefer to work, Lord Bertrand, is that the client, yourself, tells me what the problem is. I have a look at the problem and see if it's workable. While I'm doing that I tend to require Room and board. When I have a plan I can then deliver an estimate of cost to the client. You can then pay me or not as the case may be and if one or other of us is not happy, then I walk away with no obligation."

"Sounds sensible enough."

"So the question to be asked is, what do you need from me?"

"It is both complicated and simple. I will let my son explain as this is his project really."

"Wait," I jumped in. A sudden premonition gripped me that this job was going to be a political one. "I should say up front that I am not a politician. I am neither assassin (This was a lot earlier in my career) nor am I a bodyguard. I also make it a requirement that I know everything that there is to know about the job."

"We understand. Perhaps it would be better if we all sat down to discuss things."

I decided to risk a comment.

"This sounds like there might be a story to it."

The Prince laughed and I decided that I liked the young prince as we all sat down.

"The long and short of it is this." Lord Bertrand began. "My son is planning an expedition."

"That's not normally Witchers work." I put in.

Lord Bertrand smiled. "You know I've never met a craftsman so determined to talk himself out of a contract before."

I smiled with him. "No, Lord but I find it saves a lot of time and unpleasantness later if I am upfront and honest with you."

"Well said. Do you know of my son's position?"

"What my father means to ask is, do you know about the family situation?"

"Please be honest with us Witcher. Again, it will save time."

I considered for a moment. A nobilities desire for honesty balanced with a Witchers desire to keep his own head.

"I know that you, Lord Bertrand married a member of the royal family. I know that the only result of that union was the Prince. Beyond that, I'm afraid I know nothing." That wasn't strictly true, I knew plenty of rumour and innuendo but I didn't think it would be political to talk about that here and now.

"Well, the problem is a bit broader than that. The King, may he reign for many years yet, is advancing in years and is now on his third wife. Not a one of those wives has ever produced a son, they've only produced daughters. Those daughters were used in the normal way of being married off to the Kings nobles in an effort to try and maintain our loyalty. There have however been several sons born of several of those marriages however."

"I think I begin to see the problem."

"Indeed. To make matters even more interesting, the eldest Princes was born to the youngest daughter. My son is the middle Prince but born of the Kings eldest daughter. Several of the Kings advisor's, including me, want the King to choose an heir to avoid the prospect of civil war but what this means practically, is that people are playing favourites and jostling each other for position. There are three Grandsons. Objectively and within these four walls, all three have valid arguments as to why it should be them that sits on the throne. Obviously it should be my son who gets there."

"Obviously," put in the Prince with a smile,

Lord Bertrand smiled a little for himself. "But there is no telling, on any given day, who the King is going to choose. The King is also, no longer a healthy man and his physicians as well as his court Wizard claim that he could liver for another four years but at the same time, the next messenger at my door could be the royal herald that tells us that the King is dead.

"Again, between these four walls, I secretly think that the King is enjoying himself. All of us attached to these heirs are throwing gifts and favours his way in an effort to sway him one way or another and he wants for no comfort. If it wasn't my son that was involved then I would say that he deserves his retirement. At the moment the whole thing is kind of funny to everyone and the populace are _kind_ of enjoying the whole thing. However that might change at a moments notice. Some of the older and more steady lords are beginning to predict that the problem will erupt into violence soon and that it's only a matter of time before the first assassin is sent out."

"As I say, Lord, I am no bodyguard."

"No, no. We have people for that. But... this is where my son takes over the story."

The prince cleared his throat.

"What this is all about is who can curry the most favour with the King as well as who can be the most deserving of the crown. My cousins and I are all relatively clever, none of us are married as the use of potential spouses could make or break our claims. So we are all doing things that would sway the King over to our way of thinking. I think I have found one. An artefact that is contained within the castle of a neighbouring Kingdom."

"I take it that it's not as simple as just wandering over there and asking if we can borrow it."

"Not quite," the Prince grinned.

"Tell me Witcher. Have you ever heard of the tragedy of the Princess Dorn?"

(Frederick's note: I've since looked this up. The name roughly means Thorn. Making her name, in this case, Princess Thorn if it was translated into the Northern tongue.)

"I haven't. I've spent most of my career in the North,"

"Princess Dorn was from a neighbouring Kingdom although no-one goes there now. Around forty years ago, the Kingdom was cursed by a powerful Sorceress who was angry with the royal family there. Apparently it was some matter regarding an insult given despite services being rendered."

"We have books on the subject if you want to read up on the subject." Lord Bertrand put in. I nodded my gratitude.

"But anyway, the entire Kingdom was put under a curse which means that everyone within the Kingdoms bounds fell instantly asleep. There were other effects as well which means that huge Thorn trees have sprouted from the ground and grow at an unnatural rate which means that people can't get into the Kingdom itself."

"There is also a dragon."

I sighed theatrically.

"Don't worry. We don't want you to slay the dragon. We are well aware of Witchers feelings on that matter." Lord Bertrand said with a smile.

"Here's the thing. In the valley itself is a tower which was where the centre of the then Kingdom used to be. What we want you to do is to help protect the expedition on it's journey to the tower. Do what need to be done there and then bring them back out again."

"Why do you need a Witcher then?"

"We know several things about that area. We know that there is a large magical effect over the entire valley. We know that it effects everyone and that we have to spend some time getting used to the effects before we actually head in to the valley itself. We also know that just about the entirety of the original Kingdom died under the effects of the magic."

"You are concerned about animated corpses."

"And spirits. It can't be a pleasant death to die under the effects of endless sleep. Waiting for the morning that would never come."

"You are not wrong there."

"So we have a good tracker on staff. Several trained soldiers that are going along for the protection of the Prince himself and a Priest."

"A priest?"

"Yes. To ward off evil."

The ability to keep a perfectly straight face is a skill that is trained into you from a young age when you are a Witcher. The mutations help but there is also a certain talent to it.

"I see. So the job is that I escort this group into this magical Kingdom, spend enough time in there to recover whatever thing or artefact it is that we need and then come out."

"That's pretty much it, yes."

"Not exactly a common contract."

"No it isn't but we have no doubt that you will come up with a price for that. It's an escort, but also consultancy. We understand that there are oils that you can give us to help us to fight the spirits and whatever else is in there that might have gone in there to feast on the many bodies."

I nodded, already thinking. "You are concerned about Necrophages."

"And whatever else might have crept in now that the place is all but free of it's natural predators."

"I see." I mused. "Do you have any idea as to how long we are going to be about this task?"

Lord Bertrand turned to his son.

"Most of the party are already in residence here at the castle so that will save time. The tracker lives locally, so say a couple of days for him to get his things together and get here. It's about a weeks travel to get there, a few days to get used to the magical effects. Then two to three weeks to get in, find the thing and get back."

"Right then, so can the priest fight or are we protecting him as well."

"The priest can take care of himself but at the same time, he shouldn't be fighting."

I nodded.

"You also say that there will be several guards. How many is several?"

Both men opened their mouths to argue at the same time. "Two," said the Prince. "Eight," said his father.

"Right,"

They then had what sounded like an often repeated argument about how many guards the young prince would need to keep him safe on the road. The Prince wanted fewer as he reasoned, not incorrectly, that fewer people would draw less attention and that they would be able to move quickly. His father argued, again, not incorrectly that the more people that were sent, the safer that the Prince would be.

I stayed out of it and was doing some working out in my head.

The two men eventually settled on four guards.

"Right," I said, "So the Prince, myself, four guards, a priest and a tracker. Party of eight to be equipped. Fair enough."

The Duke nodded.

"So are you ready for the bad news?"

The two men exchanged knowing glances with each other.

"Go on then."

"Room and board for the duration of the expedition which starts now and ends when the Prince gets back here, not when he gets out of the enchanted Kingdom."

"Agreed."

"For the oils, we're looking at eight people's worth of oils for shades, spectres, necrophages, draconids, insectoids and hybrids. That's the bit that's going to be expensive. I will need some kind of laboratory equipment. A cool and dry cellar would normally do the trick as I have some basic equipment with me. I will also need certain ingredients which I can give you a list of. The more ingredients that you can provide in advance will reduce the cost. If I have to go out myself then that will cost more but you're looking at around 600 Nilfgaardian Florins."

The two men shifted their weight a little.

"That's a lot of money." Lord Bertrand admitted.

"I am aware but you should also know that that is a lot of oil that you want me to make. Eight people, plus eight people's weapons as well as oils for all the different varieties of monster that _might_ be on hand. The last thing that anyone wants is for us to to turn up and not have the required oil for the monster that's trying to eat the Princes face."

"A valid point." The Prince was smiling as he said it.

The Duke grimaced but nodded his agreement.

"As for my services. That is a long time for me not to be working and seeing to contracts. A full month during which I could normally expect to have earned around 800 to a thousand Florins. So I would want at least 800 florins for the time, plus a bonus of say 50 florins for every monster head that is delivered by my hand."

The two men exchanged glances again.

"Agreed," said the older man. "That is well within the boundaries of what we had expected."

"Good. There is one last point however."

"Which is?"

"I am a trained Witcher, a master of my craft. I don't care about rank, status or power. When I say that there are monsters present and when _I_ start giving orders regarding placement of people and things to do and not do then I expect, nay, demand to be obeyed. I will not be moved on this point and if you are unable to grant me this then I shall leave now."

"So insistent Witcher?"

"If I am responsible for your life Prince Bertrand, then I am responsible for your life and I will not allow anything to come between it, including your ego or the ego of your guards."

The Duke laughed.

"Done and done. Shall we say 400 florins now plus the other 400 plus bonus payments when you get back. Ingredients and such things can be discussed and sorted out as you go. I'm fairly sure that we can find you a room to be used as a Laboratory."

I nodded.

"That is acceptable."

And that was that. I was hired. The Duke insisted on drawing up the terms of the contract on paper for his to sign and myself to sign. Under the pretence of going looking for ingredients I rode down into the town to leave the first part of my wages with a bank to prevent any ambitious people from assuming that it would be easy to mug me for my pay and then I got to work.

The number of people that would just stop by the laboratory to see how I worked and see what could be seen and if they could guess at any of the processes was almost comical in their frequency. In the end I made use of a formula that had been given to me for just this purpose. A few basic herbs, put into a bowl of hot water produce a steam which is noxious and causes people to feel faint and dizzy if you don't know the counter potion. I just set a bowl of this stuff to stand and my visitors soon retreated from the fumes.

The castle treated me well all things considered. I was fed, watered and ate at one table removed from the Duke and his family among the other men at arms. I didn't work particularly hard to make any friends but people were accepting of me.

In the end it took us three days to set out. The tracker that had been hired arrived with very little fanfare and we set out all but immediately. I say that but that even took us a good few hours to count, pile and pack all of the provisions. Pile up the food, water and various other things that we would or might need on the journey. For my part, the only thing that I had insisted on that everyone brought was spare water skins for when we were actually travelling into the valley.

It was a fairly congenial party.

The tracker was a man called Erick. He was a large man, massively strong and heavy with it. To look at him you would never be able to tell because he was rather fat to go with it but he could move with astonishing grace and silence when he wanted to. As I say, he was hugely strong and would carry massive amounts of luggage, by himself without complaint and would often boast about how he had once crushed a man's skull with his bare hands. I believed him.

The four guards were reassuringly professional. Hard worn armour, spotlessly clean but obviously so due to hard work and elbow grease rather than because their armour was ceremonial. The leather straps that held it all together was well oiled and greased, their swords were clean and spotless and the four men had spent their evenings caring for their gear with the slow determined care of men who knew that their survival depended on their equipment. They took the watches of the night which was fine by me as it meant that I could get some proper sleep rather than the light, fitful sleep that normally goes with sleeping on the road. Their names were Mark, Matthes, Gottfried and Gunther. The four of them seemed to spend most of their time together and rarely looked up other than to answer a query or to accept an order. They kept the camp, groomed the horses (other than mine) and did all of the little things that needed doing. Other than the cooking which was unceremoniously dumped on Erick's plate.

The priest was called Alphonse. He seemed like an ok sort of man. A little bit young for me though as I kind of want my priests to be old and bearded. I like my priests to look and feel as though they have seen a bit of the world and lived a bit of their lives before they start trying to tell me how I'm supposed to live my own life. He was fascinated by me to the point of annoyance, asking me questions about my history, upbringing and training. Disliking him would be disliking a small puppy in that he was cute and enthusiastic about everything but at the same time, he could still be annoying and disturbingly clingy at times.

The Prince was one of those rare nobles who had the gift of being able to keep company with both the higher echelons of the nobility but also being able to converse with the lowest peasants. The group soon split into two with the four guardsmen being one part and then Alphonse, the Prince, myself and Erick the tracker in one. Erick became very talkative in his wine, which he would drink plenty of as he claimed that it helped him sleep but his language was not the kind of thing that you would normally want to hear in the presence of royalty.

The Prince, however, took it in his stride. Laughing at all the right moments and adding the odd comments of his own. The journey itself was longer than we had first guessed because the Prince would often stop and talk to whoever was passing by and seemed to have a small but informative conversation with each person about whatever the person had to talk about. Whether that was trade, farming, tanning or the security of the realm. He was beginning to come across as that, oh so rare beast, man of the people as he always left people smiling or commenting along the lines of "I hadn't thought of that," or "Good man the Prince."

We got to the village. All but the same one that we find ourselves in now. I think some of the buildings weren't there. This inn is certainly new since then. But the villagers greeted us with kindness and friendliness. We paid for our way and had a good enough time. We were told the rules which made a couple of the men goggle a little bit at the thought of what was happening. You've (Frederick: Me) been here now so you know what effect that this place has on you. I slept the first dreamless sleep that I could remember having since before my Witcher training had begun.

I had been reading about the curse from the Princes library since the beginning of the journey. Much to the amusement of the other men that I was travelling with. Many comments about "An educated Witcher" and suchlike, jokes at my expense went on and on but I was absolutely fascinated by it all. At the time we knew both more and less than what the villagers now know. We still didn't know Sleeping beauty's name. We didn't know any more than the barest minimum of reasons as to why the curse had been cast. But there were several interesting works on the curse itself that I read with detailed and careful eyes. I'm not sure how much I can add to what you've already been told and a lot of the information was pointless and harmless.

We knew that the spell has a radius of fifty miles, centred on the princess herself although effects of the spell can actually be felt up to a hundred miles away. I don't know how much Marion has told you about some of the other effects that the curse can have but even today, men and women from this area of the world are known for their beauty. There were also other notes about the shape, and flow of the magical force which I didn't entirely understand but also a theory that the Princess herself is responsible for the spell and that if the Princess is slain then the curse would be broken. That theory had been tried in an effort to put the Princess out of her misery but it would seem that she is immune to poison and disease while weapons and such leave no mark on her.

We stayed in the village for four days. In case you are wondering, yes, I had a companion. Her name was Rose and she was a perfectly nice and amiable young woman. She was a little bit amused and dismayed about the fact that, being a Witcher, I was immune to some of the effects of the curse and was able to acclimatise a lot faster than some of the others but we spent an entertaining few days in each others company. I questioned her in some detail while also spending some time at the wall of thorns which was already an industry. I discovered that the community was adapting to their environment.

Out of wedlock childbearing was no longer a taboo and those children were taken in by the village as a whole. There was a decreased sense of parenting there. Children were brought up by the community as a whole rather than by their mother/father pairing. It seemed to work in a general kind of way but there was also more than a little bit of a sense of the fact that the reason that it was working was because the local people _made_ it work as they had little other choice.

Until you actually go down there. There is nothing in this world that can prepare you for what it's like to descend into the valley of Thorns. Describing it as "The Valley of Thorns" makes it sound like it's actually quite a small place but it's not. It's vast. Remember that this used to be a Kingdom. Yes, that's from back in the day when Kingdoms used to be able to be walked across in a couple of days but this was by no means a small Kingdom. It's also a mistake to think that because the entire place is covered in Thorn vines...Tough, thick, sinewy things with thorns the size of short-swords that will just as easily cut through chain-mail as it will through flesh...Just because it's covered in those things it would be a mistake to think of it as being a dead place.

Dark? Yes.

But it's not dead.

For a start, trees and other plants still grow down there. Now I know, because extremely wise people have told me so, that plants need sunlight to be able to grow. I can't answer to that but there are places down there that haven't seen the sun, literally, in over 100 years and yet they still are covered in grass enough to support local herd-beasts.

Yes, there are cows, and deer, and rabbits and squirrels and sheep and whatever else you might think of. They soon learn not to go near the thorn bushes and I would say that those animals are a hardier lot than exist normally in the normal course of things as they have to move around the trees and the huge trunks of Thorn vines. But they are down there.

There is also the noise.

You see, here's the thing. Those vines, are obviously not natural. They grow at a rate that is ridiculous. Fast enough that if you stand still and watch, you can see them growing. But there are areas that it leaves alone so the best way to travel through the forest is to move _between_ the thorns. That isn't always possible so you take a knife or an axe to them. But then the vines grow back. The dead vine will fall aside as though it's been pushed by the other vines like you or I might push aside a distasteful piece of food. Then the vine grows back. As though it's healing itself, and it happens at such a rate that you can hear it. Then you realise that that kind of groaning, stretching, cracking sound that you can hear all around you is the sound of thorns reaching for you. Reaching for any sign of humanoid life and then killing it dead.

Yes there are bodies.

No sooner had we descended into that old Kingdom than we found a camp of treasure hunters that hadn't taken proper precautions against the encroaching forest of thorns. Two had been stabbed while they slept. Another had clearly been trapped and cut off from the rest. Had panicked and then run on to one of the thorns. They had cleared an area for sleep without realising that the thorns would return to their own territory. You have to move with the forest. Move _with_ the grain as it were.

The villagers don't send search parties to look for people that go in there. There's no point. You either know what you're doing in which case you will come back. Or you ignore their warnings in which case you deserve whatever happens to you.

They act as though what we're doing is pillaging their past. Which in many ways, we are. They can't stop us of course, but then again, why would they want to. Greed leads to a lack of caution which, in turn leads to death. They also know that their numbers are small. They haven't really increased in number over the years. Not many people can cope with their lifestyle and as such, young people from their village often leave. Whereas you would think that their numbers would grow if you assume a steady rate of growth, they haven't. As such, they also know that if they started to get angry about anything then the persons guards would make short work of them.

They are a hard people but they bend around force like water.

We descended into the valley. We took our time going carefully as we had listened to the warnings that had been given to us and, to be fair, we went rather well. Erick was a skilled huntsman and set traps every night around our camp-site, when we were next to a river he put down lines and was a decent shot with his crossbow. We lived well off the land and our party was fairly amicable. They listened to my advice and we circumvented some areas that were obviously infested with spirits. They kept within the lines of protection that I drew for them and the two or three times that we were attacked by necrophages, animated corpses and spirits of the dead. They used the oils that I gave them properly and stayed out of my way. There is little else that you might want from as merry a group of professionals as all of that.

We found the castle on the sixth day. It sounds absurd to say it like that. How does one _find_ a castle? As I say, one of the things that you have to remember about the entire affair is that the thorns cover, everything. We found it because we all but walked into it. Suddenly there was dressed stone in front of us, not earth, brick or wood from some of the other buildings that we had found, searched and camped in.

It was an odd castle in that there's absolutely no reason for it to be there. I've spoken to some other historians and scholars on the subject of strategy and tactics on the subject and come to a couple of conclusions. The first thing that needs to be said about it is that there is absolutely no reason for there to be a castle there. Castle's are supposed to be places of strength where, should an enemy attack, you and your villagers can retreat to a place of safety where your enemy can't get to you.

There are things that you look for in having a castle. You want it to be easy to defend for a start. Preferably you want it to have it's own water source and method of taking in supplies while at the same time keeping enemies out. But above all, a castle is a fortification. Your (Frederick: my) father understood that. Even if his castle was more of a centre of commerce and trade, he went out of his way to make sure that it is also a working fortification. This place had none of those things with only a token effort to have any kind of garrison at all with walls so thin that it would only take a few strikes of a battering ram to bring a wall down, let alone a gate.

I have though about this since and one of the suggestions about this whole aspect of the Kingdom was that, as a Kingdom, they didn't really need a castle. If the Kingdom was under attack, there is only really one way into the Kingdom where you could get a decent sized invading force into it which is the way the we came in. So if you found that you were under attack, then you would simply move your army and militia there to defend your Kingdom.

So why did they even bother having a castle rather than some kind of elaborate manor house or something. What it might be is that they simply felt that as a "Kingdom", they needed a castle because Kings live in castles. We may never know.

I should say as well, that it isn't really a castle any more. As I say, it wasn't really built to last and years of pressure from the growing thorns as well as a general lack of maintenance mean that the place has crumbled to a shadow of it's former self. You might walk past it now if you don't know where you're going. Now, there isn't so much a castle with rooms as it is a series of interconnected and geometrically sound caves that have been buried under rubble. Anyway...

We had a map of the place that had been given to us by some of the villagers and we followed it round until we found an entrance that was relatively accessible. In this case it lead is into the castle's Kitchens.

I've been in ruined castle's before. It might even be said that I wouldn't have a job if it wasn't for ruined castles but this place seemed different in some way. There were still corpses here although the decaying had long since taken place so that now they were skeletons in ragged, faded strips of clothing. A couple had been disturbed from their original poses by scavengers who had managed to make their own way into the castle. But those that hadn't been disturbed looked so peaceful. So quiet and collected. One skeleton sat at a table where he had clearly put his hands on the table to act as a pillow before laying his head down to grab a quick nap. You could even see where he had carefully moved his food aside to make space. In another room someone sat in the corner, legs stretched out, head resting on the wall and with their hands folded comfortably in their lap.

I went first, medallion held out in my left hand, silver sword at the ready but in truth, I already knew then that I needn't have worried. The spirits of this place were restless in the extreme but they weren't angry or as aggressive as they are now, given that they now know that they are dead. They were confused. Lost might be a better word. One came up to us and asked whether we were guests and whether or not we wanted to be taken to our rooms to freshen up before being presented to the King. Another offered to take our packages to those self same rooms. We said nothing as we moved through those hallways and galleries. It felt... disrespectful to speak in that place, like we were walking through this ancient cathedral.

We set up camp in a large room near the ground floor. I don't know what the room used to be but I do know that it was one of the places that had been suggested to use for this purpose. We laid our camp-fire in the hearth that was still drawing air so that we wouldn't suffocate on our own smoke, I set wards in case any of the spirits did start to become more aggressive in their agitation we cooked, ate and slept in relative silence. I kept the watch that night and was grateful to those spirits that I was mostly left alone with my own thoughts.

In the morning we were gathered together by the Prince. He ordered that Alphonse the priest and Erick the tracker would remain behind to guard the camp while the rest of us take some time to search the castle. At first Erick kicked up a bit of fuss as he was looking forward to doing some good old fashioned looting. I tried to tell him that the place had already shown signs of being picked clean but he wasn't having it and in the end the Prince just had to put his foot down and say that he expected to be obeyed. At which point Erick shut up. The rest of us left to perform our search.

The Prince was rather close lipped on the subject of what we were looking for. He described it as a "treasure fit for a King's treasury" and that he would know it when he saw it. He looked as though he was hungry, like a starving man being shown a succulent stake. He was licking his lips a lot and his hands would shake occasionally but even despite that we were cautious as we moved through the castle, searching slow and carefully. We checked the doors for traps, carefully worked out whether there were false flagstones or holes due to ruin, neglect or mischief.

We did find some other treasure, some gold coins, a necklace and a small trove of jewels in one of the servants quarters that I presumed a maid had kept quietly adding to in an effort to provide for some nebulous retirement or to pay for her own dowry or something. Nothing that we found seemed to satisfy the prince though and he became more and more anxious as time went on.

I should have known what we were looking for. I should have seen it. I should have seen the clues and actually listened to what was said. I should have seen it and then maybe I could've... I don't know. But in the end, we found the Princes treasure.

She was in an upstairs bedroom, the floor was already precarious and as we walked we had to be careful as we could feel, as well as hear the stones grinding in an effort to spill us down to the lower floors, but there she was, surrounded by decaying signs that this once might have been her actual bedroom. The walls, covered in too much lace with pictures of fairy tale scenes that young children might think are cute, but teenagers think are awkward.

She lay near what might have been her bed. She was in a wooden coffin that was slightly warm to the touch, painted in gold although later experimentation showed that you couldn't get the gold off. Inside the coffin, it was made up like a bed, the floor was padded and it was much larger than a coffin needs to be, certainly for her as she is not a large person, her head rested on a pillow as she lay there. To all intents and purposes as though she was about to wake up.

Yes, I know I'm not describing her. I don't know how to.

Looking at her was like looking into the sun.

I don't know how else to describe her. I've really spent some time trying to think about that as well but she's...she is beyond the realms of my capacity to describe physical beauty. To do so you would need a poet or an artist of some kind who could cast her likeness into clay or use oils to paint her likeness onto a canvas or other such situation but such things are beyond me. I tend to fall into the category of describing physical characteristics in the same way that I would describe a monsters anatomy.

She is blond, with long, golden, yellow hair that fans out underneath her head like some kind of blanket. Her complexion is healthy, she is neither pale, nor overly ruddy with her skin almost painfully smooth and blemish free to look at. Her facial structure is aristocratic, certainly with chin and cheekbones well defined. Her eyes are closed but her eyes are large in her face and her eyelashes are long.

Listen to me, I sound like I'm describing an animal of some kind.

I have known many beautiful women in my time. So have you Freddie, you surround yourself with them. From an outside perspective you should consider yourself lucky. Ariadne, in her natural form alone is breathtakingly, achingly beautiful with an added air of danger as well as an otherworldliness that adds to the attraction. Shani, your friend has the kind of beauty that makes men dream of home-coming. Of happiness and laughter at the end of the day.

Your sister is beautiful in the kind of strong, capable, approachable but untouchable way and it is no surprise to me that she attracted a similarly beautiful woman when she set her mind to it.

I have seen many of those women who might be considered the most beautiful women in the world and those that I haven't seen with my own eyes, I have sought out and seen their portraits. Francesca Findabair, Yennefer of Vengerberg, the soon to be Empress Cirilla, the Lady La Valette.

I have seen beauty in roadside taverns, in the eyes of tired prostitutes and bored merchants wives.

But _her_?

I have no words.

Some women are hard in their beauty in the same way that swords or axes can be beautiful. Others can be soft like looking at lakes or countryside.

She is neither.

To see her is to love her.

In all things she is Sleeping Beauty.

I was struck dumb. At first I could not look at her after that first glance, but after a while, I found that I could not look at her.

I remember being startled as the Prince spoke, his voice sounding ugly in my ears whereas before he had seemed refined and well cultured.

"There she is," he said, his voice thick with an emotion that I should have recognised. "My treasure. Bring her, we will need more stable footing,"

The four guardsmen acted, despite their own slack-jawed amazement at this vision that was before them. Between them they lifted the casket with little apparent effort and it was carried down into what must have once been the main hall of the keep.

I should have seen what was coming. I should have seen it and I should have acted. I have spent the years since asking myself why I didn't act at the time. What possible reason could I have had for not stepping up and doing the right thing.

I have blamed my training for it and that is certainly at least partially true. We are taught not to get involved, to remain neutral in all things, not to express an opinion, to walk on by, to let matters be. That was certainly on my mind as I watched what happened next.

The Prince ordered one of the guards to summon the priest.

(Frederick's note: Kerrass went still for a long time after this. We were sat at a table during the entirety of this extraordinary narrative and when he's not eating Kerrass sits sideways on to the table, astride the bench with his left side to the table so that he has a proper view of the room. He had stopped talking for a long time and I sat there, pen poised for his next words in that strange, almost meditative state that I go into when taking down someone's words, similar to how I feel when riding long distances. I remember looking up at him. He had his left elbow resting on the table to allow his hand to stroke his chin. He didn't look at home in his body and when he did speak again it was as though he was speaking from a distance. The voice was quiet, monotone and detached. The way people talk when they survive something horrible)

The priest came. I was surprised when I saw him as when he had travelled it was in a plan cassock which told all who and what he was but now he was dressed in his full regalia.

I should have known. I should have seen it.

Erick, The Hunter came with him. He was carrying a set of candles and a large book. He was grumbling about being used as some kind of pack mule but the words seemed to dry up in his throat as he saw _her_. He stood for a moment, mouth slack. The Prince said his name and it looked as though Erick had been slapped. His face reddened and for a moment, rage flashed across his face before he remembered where he was.

I should have stopped it.

Erick had clearly been given his instructions though. He set out the candles on a table that the guards had carried over to be near the head of the casket. Four candles, spaced evenly along the table and the book was placed on the table.

The priest argued with the Prince. So much easier now to think of them as their titles. So much easier to think of them as things rather than men. Men who lived and loved. Who might even have been kind and loved their mothers.

The priest wanted something.

"This changes things," he said. He was sweating, licking his lips nervously. "She is alive. You didn't tell me that she was alive."

"I am not a necrophiliac," said the Prince. He was putting on some finery as he spoke. Tow of the guards were dressing him in more ceremonial armour. "You knew what you were brought here to do. You had no complaints then but now that we are here you are full of misgivings. It would be worse, according to the scripture, if she was dead would it not? You are always telling women about how they should stay quiet and obey their masters and not speak out against their husbands are you not? So what are your misgivings?"

The Priest's lips moved, working silently.

"Shall I take a guess? How would a couple of hundred extra florins sound?"

The priest nodded.

The part of me that is a mercenary. The part of me that knows that I need money to be able to order food and survive wondered what would happen if I asked for more money. I hated that part of me then

But then the ceremony had started. Because it was a ceremony then. A marriage ceremony.

The guards had formed up around the casket as an honour guard. They stood, swords drawn and resting at attention. The Hunter stood on the other side of the casket from the Prince, openly drooling and fondling himself as he looked down at the Princess. The Prince stood, he had taken the Princess hand in his own and stood, looking at the priest.

The wedding ceremony was short. To the point. I was so stunned that this was what we had come for. I was dazed, confused and shocked I suppose. What could I say? What could I do?

I should have stopped it. I should have seen this coming.

I should have drawn my sword and turned that place into a red ruin. I could have. I could have made that hall into a room from nightmares.

I wish I had.

But it was as though I was frozen in place.

No that's not true.

I should be honest here. I should say what actually happened. I didn't move because I was still listening to that, oh so trite saying of Witcher's past. That Witcher's should be neutral. That they should walk apart from other men and not let events affect them.

I stayed still because of a Witcher's neutrality.

And I am still paying the price for that days inaction.

The marriage ceremony came to a close. It was heavily truncated as it was but it lasted all of maybe twenty minutes.

The Prince undressed quickly while the guards set a fire to keep the room warm.

"So we are married now?" The Prince asked

The Priest nodded.

"Then time to gather the first fruits of love."

The Prince took a small knife from one of the guards and cut the Princesses dress from her.

I should have known.

I should have stopped it.

He climbed on top of her and raped her as she slept.

He laughed. One of the guards, I think, said something like "Lucky Bastard".

He laughed as he did so.

He finished and climbed off awkwardly. The Princess still looked as though she was asleep. Just on the verge of waking up. One leg hung out of the casket now where the Prince had moved it for access.

I wondered why they hadn't put the leg back.

Some way off I could hear a beast roaring. It wasn't me though. I looked down at my feet.

"Can we," Again it was one of the guards. They were wearing at this point and they had their backs to me so I couldn't see which one was which. "Can we have a turn?"

"Yes," The hunters voice was thick and slurred as though he was drunk. "Let us have a turn."

The Prince looked at them all. He was in the process of getting dressed.

He shrugged.

He just shrugged.

The others were frantic in their haste to disrobe. Pieces of armour and clothing fell to the ground in a clatter.

I remember wondering if they might kill each other in their haste to get at her.

It might have been better if they had.

But Erick the hunter had already forced her mouth open and pushed himself into the hole while the guards were still taking their trews off.

I remember it as if it was Yesterday.

Erick looked up at me after the Prince had left. He was slapping the Princesses face as he moved and spoke.

"How about you Witcher? Do you want a go?"

I tried not to run as I fled that awful place.

I should have known what was going to happen.

I should have stopped them.


	37. Chapter 37

Frederick's note: Kerrass went outside for a bit after that. I've never seen him in tears or even close to outright being overwhelmed with any kind of emotion other than Fury but I think that was as close as I'd ever seen him. I sat there for a while, Sarah brought over a couple of tankards that she set down without comment and avoiding eye contact. I know that she heard what we had been talking about. Kerrass had made no particular effort to lower his voice and the village's feelings towards him mean that what had happened must be general knowledge. But what do you say to that?

"Sorry" just doesn't seem to cut it really.

Kerrass came back in, his hair was wet and I guessed that he'd gone to the well or horse trough to dunk his head in the water.

I spent the time tidying up the notes. Shorthand is an interesting technique but can sometimes be prone to ink splatter, especially if your subject is a fast talker, which Kerrass is not, but by the same token, it's better to be safe than sorry and I wanted to check it while the narrative was still fresh in my mind.

Kerrass sat opposite me and nursed his drink, waiting for me to finish. I selected a new piece of paper, dipped my pen and gave him a nod.

"That's it Freddie. That's the entire story."

I laughed at him.

But he wasn't joking.

"No, no it isn't." I said after staring at him in astonishment for a moment or two. "No, you can't leave it there. What did you do? What happened? You can't tell me that you just left it there I wouldn't believe you."

Kerrass raised an eyebrow in answer.

"What do you think I did?"

"I think you burned the place down. I think you sought vengeance and painted the countryside red with blood but that's not the point. I know you. There are plenty of people out there who do not. People who maintain that Witchers are unfeeling monsters. This..." I pointed at the paper in front of me, "is what we use as evidence to point out that you are not. That you are as alive and as...fuck it, as human as the rest of us."

"I've met elves that would take that as an insult."

"And they're more human than most. What's the line from that elven poet "Prick us do we not bleed?" I know he meant to say that as an excuse for everything the non-humans were doing at the time but all he did was point out how similar we all are."

"I always took that line to mean the opposite."

"It means both at the same time and from all perspectives. That's the beauty of the work. But we're getting off topic. This is history. Whether you, I, or the people here like you for those events. They happened. We need to learn from those events. We need to remember them. All of them. Even the things that we don't like or would rather forget because otherwise we won't learn from the mistakes that our fathers made and our children won't learn from the mistakes that we make."

"I'm a Witcher. I can't have children."

"That's beside the point and you know that."

"Yes I know..."

Kerrass sighed and I knew that I had won this argument. I'll hand over to him here.

What happened next?

Nothing happened. Nothing at all. I went back to the room where we had all made camp and I went to sleep. I honestly wish that it was more complicated than that.

We stayed in that castle for maybe three days before the Prince decided that he'd had enough. Before he decided that he had gathered enough of his "fruits of love" and we turned for home. I don't remember much of that return journey though. I don't remember saying anything or doing anything. Either while we rode or while we were still camping there.

I didn't go back into that hall again so I didn't see anything else that happened. It all seemed a little gauche, a little distasteful to me. I know that the guards had enough self-control after that first flurry of activity to take it in shifts so that there was always at least one of them that was with the prince whenever he left his "bride". Erick hardly left though. I seem to remember someone telling me that he didn't even leave to relieve himself and I just shook my head.

Even the so called "priest" got in on the action after much cajoling and pressure from the other men.

I stayed out of it and no-one tried to pressure me. I don't know why.

But we left after several days. We came out of the valley with relative ease and it was a rather subdued party that returned to Castle Bertrand. Erick wanted to go back and nearly came to blows with one of the guards before the Prince coldly informed him what would happen.

"Did you see those villagers as we rode back through?" he asked.

"What about them?" Erick sneered. Something had shifted in his character to make him more loathsome. He sweated almost constantly and his eyes had become blood-shot and furtive. Like a fiss-tech addict when they've gone without a fix for a few days.

"Did you not see it? It was in their eyes Erick. Always in the eyes."

"Fuck their eyes. I'm going back."

"Then you will die. They hated us Erick and their hate was so strong it was like we were being beaten with sticks as we rode back through."

"Fuck 'em. They won't do anything. They're cowed, the lot of them or they would have done something there and then."

"Maybe they are cowed but you mark my words. You go back and you die. I would hate to lose a talented tracker and huntsman."

We rode in silence for a little way. Erick rode with a deepening scowl.

"Did you see that corpse?" The Prince asked after, I don't know, maybe a mile. "The one that had been tied to a vine?"

"I did," said one of the guards I think it was Gottfried but I could've been wrong.

"It had been tied on Eric. Tied on with one of the thorns through the chest. Who do you think did that? Those villagers have been living and working there for forty years. They won't harm us when we ride together because they know how tenuous their hold is and attacking a royal party will cripple them. But a lone man. A lone hunter? They know those tracks better than you do and you will simply go down there and not come out again."

"It would be worth it." Muttered Erick.

"Only if you got to the castle first Erick but I don't think you would get that far. Tell you what. I _do_ intend to go back. We know what to look out for now so there won't be that much difficulty in getting back to the castle. We'll go back and you can come with me. How does that sound?"

Erick nodded his agreement and started to relax.

We made it back to Castle Bertrand without further incident. I took my pay which was handed over with a firm reminder that I should remember my promise regarding discretion and I went on my way.

(Frederick's note: Kerrass stared into space sometime after that. I didn't know what to say to get him started again so I kind of just left him to it. When he spoke again it was like a statue just suddenly starts moving again)

I didn't think about this entire situation then for... I don't know, I think it was about a year. A whole year before I finally had my first psychotic break.

That's what they're called you know.

The Feline school of Witchers has actually spent quite a long time studying the subject of mental...illnesses.

We had to you see so that we could spot those brothers who were having troubles and take them aside and either put them out of their misery or help them gain the tools that they would need in order to be able to survive out there in the real world. New Witchers are watched like Hawk's or indeed...heh... like cats looking at a mouse for any sign of mental...issue. I know that at least one medical journal was published by a Cat Witcher writing under an assumed name on the various problems, or things that can go wrong with a persons brain.

In many cases there are supposed to be warning signs that things might be wrong. The patient might start complaining about voices in their head or that normal background noise is like the crashing of thunder from inside their brain or like being stabbed in the eyes with knifes of liquid fire.

Yes I know that makes no sense and that is kind of the point.

Some people react violently to even minor stimuli or react passively to things that would get anyone else into a fit of temper.

Or they might sit there. To outside observers they are otherwise perfectly healthy but they feel as though their world is coming to an end and that it all weighs heavily on them and them alone.

This is not funny under any circumstances and the pain that these people have is very real and anyone that thinks differently can answer to me for it.

My problem was with temper and occasional bouts of the deepest, hollowest depression that I cannot even describe to you.

I had thought that I had escaped the curse of my school. I am not a particularly religious man as it seems wrong to me that we should give thanks to an unseen Godhead in return for our shitty lives. If our lives were easier and full of ease, pleasure and plenty then I could see the cause for it but I remember that one of the few times that I have prayed is after one of the times, during my novitiate, when it was my responsibility to help look after the "Lost souls of the Cat school."

I saw those poor men in their cells, staring out of the darkness at me with those eyes, so similar to my own but lacking in any kind of real intelligence as they howled for my blood. Or the man who was highly educated and read every book that was brought to him. Indeed he taught many classes at the school on the subject of alchemy but he used to beg for the taste of human flesh and if he thought that he was in with a chance of a "tasty morsel" then he would become the most unhinged gibbering madman that you would ever wish to avoid.

But worse were those men who would plead with us, plead for us to end their miserable lives. They would beg for anything, poison, a blade, a rope, anything so that they could put themselves out of their own misery.

I remember one day after one young novice had been careless when feeding the Alchemy tutor and had still been alive as he saw his own liver being eaten raw. I had helped clean up and restrain the teacher who was weeping in sorrow at what his own brain had _forced_ him to do while at the same time trying to get at my leg so that he could take a bite out of me. I remember calmly putting away the mop and bucket after cleaning them with some scouring sand before leaving the cave and going to the stone circle that is nearby. I fell to my knees and thanked every power that I could think of, including some that I possibly made up out of the hallucinations that go with the mutations. I thanked all of them that I was not so afflicted as my brothers.

For my brothers they were.

But it seems that some mischievous God was listening to my prayers.

I've wondered often if I there were any warning signs for what was to come. The only one that I can think of was that I started to get sloppy. I started being just a tad too hasty, just a little bit too rushed with my preparations. One or two monsters that should have been relatively easy pickings, got closer and closer to ending me. I knew it was happening too and berated myself constantly for the sloppiness. But still it crept on, little mistakes. An oil not being as potent. A dodge just being a bit too slow.

After the Bertrand contract I started to work my way north. I didn't have any particular goal in mind but I was roughly intending to work my way overland, through what is now the empire and back to the Northern realms for the winter. As it turns out this was a bit of an ambitious goal and I ended up spending the winter in the company of an agreeable Lord who had hired me to rid his vineyards of Arachnomorphs. It was a large job, he knew it, I knew it and it needed doing or his following year harvest would have been even worse. He couldn't really afford my proper rates for the job so instead I told him that I would do the job in return for food and lodgings for the winter months while all the passes were closed. He agreed readily enough and I got to work.

Come spring I was back to meandering slowly north again. I was taking my time. I wasn't looking forward to having to explain some of my new scars to my teachers back at feline keep and I found that I was enjoying the life at that point. If you had asked me at the time, I would have told you that I was happy with my lot.

I was somewhere south of Cintra when the bandit's attacked.

There were six of them all told. Not that many for a bandit group but still more than average. They must have been either particularly stupid or particularly desperate to try and mug me as they were all on foot and I was obviously armed. Most bandits in that part of the world were fairly reasonable people as a whole who were only markedly different from your average tax collector in that they were able to negotiate their fee with the people that they were mugging. As I've said before though, attacking an obviously armed man is a risky prospect for a group of bandits as it is almost certain to result in injury or death for at least one of their number and they're more likely to wait for a fat merchants wagon or pedlar who is more susceptible to "We'll just throw a lit torch into your wagon and you can watch your livelihood burn. Or you can pay us."

Regardless, experienced bandits never take everything from a traveller as otherwise people will just walk around them or hire guards to protect them. It's just good business sense to encourage people to just pay up without conflict. Things should only get bloody during wartime when supplies and commerce are scarce or when the bandits in question are particularly desperate.

I don't know what was the case here because the first think that happened... The first time I realised that something was wrong was when my horse was shot out from under me.

Two arrows in the side. Thunk, thunk. The poor thing reared and I kicked free.

I remember rolling back to my feet and running back to the horse who had fallen and was trying to get up. A voice said "Ah well. Horse meat as well tonight lads."

There was laughter.

"Give us yer money." Said the voice again from somewhere behind me.

Have you ever lost your temper? I mean really lost it?

It was as though the world shrunk although I stayed remained the same size. The surrounding area seemed to press down on me, pushing down on my skull to the point where I thought that my head was going to explode. My breath started to hiss between my teeth and there were noises with it as I looked down at my horse that was whickering in distress.

I remember turning.

I don't remember anything else.

People talk about their vision going red when this kind of thing happens. I can't answer for that. This was the first time it had happened to me so I spent a long time afterwards trying to get to the bottom of that gap in my memory. I remember flashes. A man with a spear lunging at me. Another man who's blood was spraying from his neck in such a way that it actually made a kind of whistling noise.

I remember laughing.

I woke up, I don't know how much later but it wasn't that long. I was kneeling in a drainage ditch amongst the nearby fields. Up to my waist in water. My sword was still in my hand and I was covered in blood. Nearby was the horribly mangled corpse of what had once been a man. It was spread eagled, massively broken with it's limbs every which way. Parts of it were smouldering and as I say, it had been mutilated to the point where it was barely recognisable as a man.

There was a stench in the air of burnt crops, burnt meat and human waste.

A man was calling to me from a short distance off.

"Sir?" He had the attitude of someone who was prepared to run at any moment and he was holding a pitchfork as though he was ready to use it to defend himself.

"Sir?"

I was breathing hard and fast and my head was pounding. I tried to regulate my breathing in the way that we had been taught since the moment I joined the Witcher school.

It was the first time in years that this simple exercise did not come easy.

"Sir? We saw what happened. I sent my boy Johann off to fetch the guard Sir."

It was not lost on me that the man had sent his son out of harms way.

"Sir? Are you alright?"

I laughed. Not the most politic thing that I've ever done but it sobered me up quickly as even in my shocked state I could hear the edge of hysteria that had crept into my voice.

I tried to stand to find that my joints had kind of seized up.

"Sir, do you need help?"

I managed to turn my head to look at him. He must have seen something there that began to overcome his perfectly justified fear of me. Holding eye contact with me he carefully turned the pitchfork over and pushed it into the ground. Slowly, so slowly he edged closer to me, licking his lips nervously he climbed into the water. All the while he was talking as one would talk to a frightened animal in an effort to calm it. Soft words that mean nothing but at the same time are so reassuring to the animal that is hearing them.

"Right, can I get you to let go of the sword?"

I just looked at him helplessly.

He was an ageing man. Still hale and hearty given his years of working in the field. He was tough as well, like old boot leather. Beard and hair were long and more grey now than the black that I guessed they had once been. As I looked at him he must have seen something else.

"Yes, I had a friend like that once." He went on, "Fought in the war that time the Old Flower's lot decided to invade."

(Frederick's note: I have no idea what war this refers to. I take the reference of "Old Flower" to be someone's heraldry and guess that it was some kind of border skirmish between neighbouring nobles. The term "war" has taken on new meaning since the three great Nilfgaardian wars and as such what this old man might have considered a "war" would be laughable by any modern standard."

"He came back, hung his shield and sword above the hearth and refused to talk about it."

The old man gently took my hand and helped me un-prise my hand from the hilt. I had been trying to do the same thing for what had felt like hours. He had to physically peel the fingers apart to get at it. I couldn't decide whether or not to resist, protest or help him. In the end though I decided to take him at his word and let him help me. In all truth he could have quietly drawn a knife and slit my throat in a leisurely sort of fashion and I would have been too weak to stop him.

He got my sword off me and cleaned it in the water.

"I know that you're supposed to clean your sword though. I remember that. The same way that you clean your butchering knife after you've killed a pig. Otherwise it gets damaged. I could do a better job for you back at the house but for now I'll just get as much as I can off and dry it on my shirt which is little more than a rag anyway. Not that you should tell my wife that I said that you understand. Then, I'll just put that in the scabbard on your back here. There we go. Now lets get you up out of the water before you catch cold or something worse."

He pulled my arm over his broad, farmers shoulders and levered me to my feet.

"There we go. So that friend of mine that I was talking about. Fought in the war you know. Brought his weapons back and hung them up. Just like he promised his wife."

He pushed me out of the ditch before scrambling up himself and getting me back to my feet.

"Then he was set on when walking through one of the more risky bits of town. They found him throttling one of the worst cutthroats in the local slums. Died of his wounds though but they say he was screaming his own battle-cry as he went. Later, he asked those men that came to his aid what had happened. Sad really."

As it turned out it was about ten minutes walk away from the road and where my horse lay. Someone had put it out of it's misery. It took us twenty minutes to get there. There was another cart nearby manned by a couple of boys who looked enough like my rescuer to be his sons. They were busy butchering my horse and wrapping it up in cloth to be carted away. There were also a trio of guardsmen there. No real heraldry and cheap bits of armour that had been put together roughly. They looked like old retired soldiers. The youngest boy was gesturing excitedly to the leader of the guardsmen as to what they had seen.

As soon as we trudged into sight, one of the guardsmen ran over and helped the farmer get me to the wagon where I was sat on the end. With a rough professionalism the guard checked me for injuries while the leading guardsman listened to the farmers story. He approached after the Farmer was done.

"So, Witcher?"

I just stared at his chest.

"Old Whil here tells me that you killed those bandits single handed. Says it was a sight to see."

I said nothing, still staring at his chest. The guard tugged on his moustache which was long and drooping and sighed, turning to the farmer who was nodding nearby.

"They attacked him first?"

"Yessir. Minding 'is own business he was."

"Less of the sir Whil. We've known each other long enough."

"No sir. Not while my lads are watching."

The guardsmen sighed. "You can teach your lads respect for the law on your own time Whil,"

"Yessir,"

"Well Witcher. You're not to know this but in killing those men you've done the locals round here a service. There is a reward in it for you when you're well enough to claim it. Come into town and ask for Dirick Granger at the chapel and they'll tell you where I am. We're not big enough for us to have a proper watch house."

"I need to get back." I said, seemingly out of nowhere.

"Where too Witcher?"

I didn't answer him because I didn't really know myself but explaining that seemed a little like too much effort.

The guard sighed and turned back tot he farmer.

"You alright to take care of him?"

Whil nodded.

"I've seen this before. Get him stuff to eat including some of your wife's honey-cakes if you can and then let him rest until he comes back to himself. Might take as long as a day, you still ok with that?"

"Yeah. I was friends with Gareth too."

I never found out who "Gareth" was.

"If he's not back in his own head in a day, let us know and I'll send Father Durstan to talk to him and see if we can get him into the cloister to recover."

"I will."

"And I'll have one of those horse steaks as well."

Whil grinned and nodded.

My gear ended up in the wagon nest to me along with the wrapped parcels of horseflesh. Whil put one of my

blankets over me and I just went to sleep.

I remember being almost carried into a bed in the farmer's house. I slept for a few hours, woke and ate that relatively poor family almost out of house and home but I finally woke up and came back to myself in the early hours of the morning. I remember walking out into the early morning air, taking a deep breath and for the first time I regretted being a Witcher. There have been moments since then, possibly moments even more profound than that first one but for the first time I found that I envied that poor little farmer with his wife, his sons and daughters. He knew what he had to do in the morning and what he would get up to the following day. He knew that no matter what else might come the following day, be that war, famine or pestilence that sooner or later. His job would be to make the ground give it's harvest. He wouldn't have to worry about the moral implications of his actions or worry about foreign nobles and their pursuits or what we were going to do about it.

I found my sword, cleaned it thoroughly and spent some time working some of the kinks out of my muscles. My body felt stiff and ungainly, strange pops were coming from my joints that left me feeling un-prepared and I needed to work. I know now that what had happened was that my muscles had all clenched up in that moment to the exclusion of all other things. They had fed off themselves in a way during that brief flurry of activity as they had over-exerted themselves during that exertion. It's the same brief exertion of superhuman strength that means that a mother can lift a beam aside to free a trapped child.

I needed to think and I worked the sword forms for a long time into the morning. Losing myself to the familiar rhythm of the movements. It wasn't the forms themselves that needed the work, it was my mind. I found that I needed to think and think hard at that.

What to do?

I remembered that in that moment, as the bandits attacked I had been brooding on the plight of the Sleeping Beauty. I had been turning those events over and over in my mind, thinking about what I could have done and what I should have done. As I put my mind to it then I realised that I had been thinking about these problems for some time and it had been _that_ that had been distracting me from my overall activities. It was clear that I had to do something but I didn't have the first idea what to do.

What I wanted to do was clear. I wanted to take everyone that was responsible for the horrid things that had been done to her and torture them horribly so that their screams could carry through to whatever realm that she existed in now and she would be able to follow those screams back to the waking world where she would see what I had done for her and forgive me for my own crimes before kissing my worries away. That was what I wanted to do but I was not so naïve to think that she would actually appreciate that and I could easily recognise if for the day-dream that it was. It was just that to see her is to love her and there was a small part of me that hoped that she would love me back.

The other thing was that as a Witcher, my course was clear. Climb aboard my horse and ride on to the next task, the next hunt and put all thoughts about that sleeping girl behind me. I had been trying to do that for a year and it hadn't worked. It was clear to me now that if I tried to follow that course of action then sooner or later I would make one mistake too many and it would cost me my life leaving me with five, maybe six years on the path to show for all of that. I was not enamoured of this plan.

In the end I decided that Justice needed to be served. Some might call it vengeance and I saw that I was also guilty. If I delivered justice or vengeance on those other men then surely the first person I should kill would be myself. For my crime was to allow the crime to take place without doing anything.

I needed guidance.

I remembered the guards offer of a reward, collected my belongings and walked into town. The town was grateful for my disposal of the bandits and my reward came in the shape of a new horse as well as some money. From that money I took what I estimated to be funds for a ship to carry me quickly back south and supplies for the road. I still had some funds left from the previous hunt so I wasn't that concerned for money. You have to understand that the monster hunting game wasn't like it was now. Now you have to go looking for the monsters. You have to find them and then see if there's anyone who wants to pay you for getting rid of the monster. Then you could be confident that you ride for a day and find a contract on the road.

I took the purse that I was given and spent a good long time looking at it. A third of it went on the travelling expenses. I took the rest and split it in two. One of those thirds went into the donation box for the local church who did good work looking after the sick and cared for the cripples from the regular skirmishes that happened. I rode back to the farm and gave the rest of the reward back to a clearly astonished farmer's wife. I remember that she asked why as they had clearly written off the expense and they weren't that concerned as her sons were still smoking up the horse meat that they had taken from my horse.

I told her that I didn't deserve it and rode away before she could ask too many questions or she could call for her husband. I didn't want gratitude. I wanted... I wanted to be condemned. Fortunately I knew exactly where I had to go for that. I rode north to the Yaruga and caught a barge to the river mouth where I caught a ship bound south. I hired on as a guard for a merchant's caravan as it provided me with camouflage enough that I could travel incognito. I didn't want anyone to know that I had come back south. For a long time I rode with my sword strapped to my horse rather than to my back so that people had to come up close to tell that I was a Witcher. I kept my medallion under my shirt.

It was raining when I came back here. I remember that distinctly because a lot of people were still indoors. The guards back then, as they still are really are there to catch travellers who have wandered off by mistake and get caught in the magical effect. At the time they were still using men for this job rather than needing all the men at the wall of thorns and as such they tended to be large men and easily spotted. I dodged them with ease. I found the cottage that I was after. Checked to make sure that there was only one occupant and knocked on the door.

"Come in,"

I waited and knocked again.

"The latch is off. Come on in." The voice said again.

I sighed and knocked a third time.

A sigh of feminine exasperation came through the door and it opened.

"Hello Rose." I said quietly.

My former companion's hand came up to her mouth in shock as she stared at me.

"I didn't want to just barge in." I went on quietly. "I thought that things might get out of hand if I came in unannounced and..."

She slapped me. Hard.

I'd seen it coming of course but she deserved that one and I deserved much worse.

"How dare you?" she whispered. "How dare you come back here after everything that you did. You and that...that... excuse for a prince."

I held my hand up to halt the flow of words.

"I know Rose I know and you aren't saying anything that I haven't thought myself. I am guilty and I deserve your hatred. I won't stay long but I wanted to talk to you first."

"Why? No you can't come in. You can damn well stay out there in the cold. It's not as if you can catch a chill. Oh hang it all. Give me your cloak and warm yourself up."

I liked Rose. She was a large woman with a big smile and a big heart. She hurt, laughed, loved and hated with equal passion. I don't understand your (Frederick: my) obsession with slim women. I like women with a bit of Oomph to them and Rose certainly fit all of those requirement. I think of her whenever I come back here and I miss her still, doing my best to lay some flowers near her grave.

For all that she wanted me gone as quickly as possible, Rose spent plenty of time looking after me. She hung my cloak to dry, put my boots next to the fire and stood over me impatiently until I'd changed into dry clothing. She also put her own cloak on to stable my horse without letting me do it and cooked us something to eat before finally asking me why I had come back.

"I had two reasons Rose. They're simple reasons really. You've already dealt with one of them."

"You could have told a girl that you came back to see her Kerrass."

"I came to your house Rose before anyone else's."

"Because you thought that I wouldn't kill you."

"No. Because of all people. You were the one who I cared about."

She took that in silence.

"What were your reasons Kerrass?"

"You all knew didn't you?"

Her mouth hung open in astonishment.

"Of course we knew. How could we not? We're _her_ people Kerrass, of course we knew. Leaving aside the horrible dreams and the actions of our men folk. Goddess Kerrass (they still paid lip-service to the Southern version of Melitele down there in those days before the deification of the Nilfgaardian Empire started to take over.) Did you think we would not know?"

I stayed quiet. Her eyes were blazing then with a fury and a remembrance of pain. I wasn't at all certain that she wouldn't try to kill me then and I wouldn't have stopped her.

"The Dragon roared. That was the first sign that something was wrong. The Dragon roared, sending a huge spout of flame up into the sky. It started skimming the treetops setting fire to the trees and the thorns as it circled up higher and higher before it plummeted down to earth. Then there was a wave of anger. This torrent of red rage that swept through our women folk. I don't know how to describe it but I was so angry. So angry that I couldn't speak or think. I took up a knife and went out into the village looking for blood. I was one of the lucky ones though as I didn't find anyone. One of the few.

"All of us went out into the streets. There have never been that many of us Kerrass and we suffered that night. Twelve men died. There were sixty eight of us then, in total. Twelve men died. Two men at their own hands. Three of them were boys no older than fourteen. We hunted them in groups as they fled. At first they tried to restrain us but it was no good. Our hate and the violence was so much that it even overcame the strength of a woman's love for her husband.

"We cut their balls off and left them to bleed to death Kerrass."

I nodded. What do you say to a revelation like that. This idyllic little village converted to a place of horror. I could well imagine the women of the village rushing through town like a tide with screams of horrible anger. The fear of the men as they fled before the women that they loved. Or died screaming at their hands.

"I was one of the lucky ones Kerrass. Of course we knew. How could we not?"

I nodded when I realised that she wasn't going to say any more and finished my stew.

"I will leave in the morning." I said after I had finished and cleared away the remains of the meal. Rose had sat staring at the fire after she had finished speaking and I hadn't wanted to disturb her from whatever train of thought that she was having. "I'll sleep in the stable or if you prefer I can go out into the woods and make a camp-site. The rain doesn't bother me too much."

"Do you need any supplies?"

"No. I'm well stocked."

"What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to do what I should have done at the time. I'm going to kill them Rose. I think I stand a bit more of a chance of actually surviving now though as I can take them at the time of my choosing. Will you do something for me?"

Rose nodded.

"I'm not a Witcher in this. I would also be kidding myself if I tried to tell myself that I was doing this for _her_. I'm doing this because it needs doing and because I want to do it. I _need_ to do it. Will you keep my silver sword, medallion and potion equipment for me?"

"I will. What should I do with it if you don't come back?"

"Bury it. Give it a year though. This might take some time but if I don't come back pour the potion's into your cess-pit and bury the sword and medallion carefully. Someone will find it someday. Those things tend not to stay lost."

She nodded again. "You haven't said sorry."

"No," I said quietly.

"Why not?" I don't know if she was curious, angry or hurt then.

"I don't owe you an apology. On the day that _she_ wakes up then I will be there if I'm still alive. If I'm not there then as soon as I hear about it I will turn my horse and go to her as fast as I can. I will tell her what happened and I will apologise to _her._ Then, if she wants my life in payment, she has only to ask for it and I shall fall on my sword then."

"But what of the harm you did to us?"

I was surprised at the anger I felt then.

"You knew Rose. What was it you said? "Of course we knew" you said. "How could we not?" Yet you did nothing. She is your Queen. Your Goddess it might be said and yet you took no steps to protect her from us. I didn't know what was going to happen but you knew of the possibility. In fact, having seen the effect that she had on those men. At least one of whom was a happy family man. I would be _stunned_ if this hasn't happened before. Why is she not guarded? Why is she not hidden? We found her after half a days searching. Ok the spell moves with her and you don't want to harm others. Are there not caves? Hollows? Hidden secret places? We found her because she was in the castle. You even gave us a map to that castle. All you had to do was carry her casket into one of the outer buildings and we would never have found her. You did not warn us about the affect that she can have on the male mind, or the female mind for that matter.

"Then after the event took place. After those men came and... used her for I did not and I swear that I will kill anyone who suggests that I would. After you knew what had happened. Why were we not met with a hail of arrows? You have excuses certainly. Not wanting to anger neighbouring Kingdoms. Fair enough. But fill the Prince full of arrows, steal and bury his treasure and then dump him or bury him some way off and claim ignorance.

"But you did nothing. Absolutely nothing against the world's most predictable crime. You do not deserve my apology."

"Get out." She hissed.

I nodded, collected my cloak and walked back into the rain.

I didn't sleep well that night but I was by no means alone. In the morning Rose came out to me in the same clothes as the evening before with some eggs, bacon and some toast that she had made and insisted that I eat. Then she took my sword, medallion and potion box as I climbed back aboard my horse.

"Kerrass?"

I turned back to look at her.

"Kill them quickly Kerrass. _She_ would not want them to suffer in _her_ name. _She_ is better than we are."

I nodded and rode back down the hill.

I had made my mind up and I was going to kill the people responsible. The first time I took a step off the path and now I was an assassin. But I didn't want to be an assassin. I preferred to think of myself as an executioner so as I rode carefully off towards Duke Bertrand's lands, carefully so I could avoid attention, I had to decide just how I was going to do it and in what order. It would be easy enough to sneak into places and just slit their throats while they slept. Or poison their food or similar. The other problem was that I didn't want to just kill anyone. I could poison the well at castle Bertrand but that would probably kill lots of other people who were...circumstantial to the crime. I needed to kill those men that came with me. If someone went out of their way to stand between me and my target then they were fair game. I spent a couple of days, living off the land as I considered my methods and how I was going to set about this.

There was also the problem that I was as guilty as they were. I had condemned Rose in the village with harsh words and I had meant every single one of them. But if I was tarring everyone with the same brush then I deserved punishment as well. At one point I tried to defend myself with the argument that I was attempting to make it right but I decided that I was deluding myself. The Princess had been blessed, or cursed, with "goodness" and as such she would not condone these actions. I was doing this for my own benefit. To make _me_ feel better about what had happened.

In the end I decided that there had to be some kind of trial. It was a sham of course, I was not _that_ self-delusional but I thought that...The local area had a tradition of trial by combat. It's based on a simple matter. Two men enter an arena with a choice of weapons. The survivor or the surviving champion has the right of the matter as the Gods have been seen to choose who was right. It's a lot less prevalent now as increasingly the crime is brought before the feudal lord who pronounces judgement. The newer method is still open to corruption and I heard of more than one person taking the trial by combat because they knew that a death in an arena was often cleaner than starvation, crucifixion, impalement, hanging or any of the other inventive ways that a man can be executed.

So I would challenge each man to a duel. If the target agreed to a one on one fight then I would fight them fair. No signs, no potions. Just my sword against their weapons.

If they cheated, fled or if they turned up with friends and an effort to mistreat the affair. Then anything was game.

I wanted the Prince to be last. As the instigator of the entire thing I wanted him to suffer a little. It made sense that he would know what was happening and I thought that the knowledge that I was coming for him would be an extra punishment. Regardless of whether or not I failed.

I also took to praying. Not to Melitele or the sun god of the south. Not even to one of the Northern gods of my childhood. Instead I started talking to _her._ I tried to explain my actions and to set them out in detail with explanations, reasons and so on. Sometimes I pleaded for forgiveness, sometimes I spoke about the future, the past and what I hoped for.

Mostly though I just begged for forgiveness.

My first target was going to be Erick. There were several reasons for this. The fact that his home was outside of the castle so I wouldn't need to infiltrate the castle. There was also the fact that he wasn't military so he wouldn't have the excuse of "I was just following orders". But most of all, I just wanted to. I remembered his large face, pale and sweaty as he asked whether he could have a turn with the princess. He didn't just rape the Princess, he raped her in the most unspeakable ways, the most degrading ways. He commented that he wanted to destroy, to degrade something beautiful.

I wanted him dead.

But I didn't want to rush in. Even though I felt such rage I reasoned that if I went in, murdered him because it was murder whether it was a duel or not, then everyone would know that some stranger with yellow eyes had come in and asked questions about where he lived and then, any future plans would be made more difficult.

I scouted first. I found my targets, other than one but I will get to him in a moment.

But the first target was Erick the hunter. He was not hard to find.

In the year or so since we had descended into the Valley of Thorns, Erick had taken to drink. He hadn't mentioned it during our journey but he had actually been a married man with two young children. When he came back, his wife commented that he had seemed changed in some way. As though he was dissatisfied in all the little things. Whereas before he had enjoyed the simple life that he and his family had built up for themselves with him acting as huntsman to the Duke. They liked the fact that they had the prestige that they did but weren't forced to live "up at the castle" with "All the airs and graces" that come with living in that atmosphere. He had not been a great husband and had been more than a little bit of an absent father. Often going away for long distances on the Duke's business, scaring up game or guiding one of the Duke's many hunts. But he always came back with some kind of gift for the children as well as a kind word or two.

That changed when he came back from our mission. He had taken to drink and had started to find fault with everything that his wife did. She told me about several instances where he would explode into violent rages at the slightest provocation and about how the children had started to hide from him. She asked him what was wrong several times and he claimed that there was nothing wrong but it was clear that he was no longer satisfied with what he had.

He started to ask her to... _do_ things in their marital bed. One time it went to far and that was the first time he hit her. It was not the last, nor were her children immune from his attentions

I won't repeat a lot of the things that I found out about Erick over the course of those few days. None of it was pleasant. I remember feeling guilty for having liked the man during our journey out there. I felt awful at the fact that I had smiled at his jokes and wondered if that made me a bad person.

In the end, his wife took the children and ran back to her mothers house. Not because she was afraid for herself but because she was afraid for her children. The eldest of which was eleven and had long blonde hair. She had caught her husband looking at their daughter in a way that made her uncomfortable so she packed a few belongings and fled as soon as he fell into a drunken stupor. Her father was a retired veteran of the Duke's guard and in the way of parents, had suspected that something was wrong for some time. When Erick finally appeared, drunk and abusive the father heard him out and chased him out of the village, reporting the crime to the Duke's court. The ruling was that she couldn't divorce her husband but as Erick's drunkenness had caused some other problems it was decreed that she, and her children could stay with her parents until such a time as Erick proved that he was capable of taking care of his family.

He had not, soon losing his job with the Duke due to drunken behaviour.

So yes I found him. He was still living in his original family cottage out on the outskirts of town. It was about ten minutes walk from the town that lived, worked and supplied both the Duke's castle and those people that came to visit the Duke. There is a path that goes from the back of the mill, down through some trees. It skirts a long the bank of the stream for a short way and then fords the stream to a clearing. It's actually a nice place all things considered. Near the house was a large tree from which hung a swing. It was easy to imagine that there had once been a happy family living here.

Off to one side there was a large stone lined hole that was clearly used as a fire pit for cooking of food and providing warmth while working outside. There were several seats there with empty bottles and cups that showed signs of having been there for years. Racks for the curing of hides, piles of tusks and antlers, some of which showed signs of being worked to turn into tools and ornaments. Inside the home had a nice large hearth, toasting and cooking tools nearby, stew pot and large kettle hanging from iron fixtures that had been long set in the ground.

But it was decaying as well. Showing signs of neglect and misuse. One of the corners of the house had a stench that was overpowering from where Erick had been relieving himself the night. The hearth was long cold and I don't think it had been lit for some times. What supplies there were were old, rotting and not in nearly enough quantity for the season.

There was a hole in the roof and one of the ropes in the swing was frayed and coming apart to the point that I didn't think it would support a child's weight and certainly didn't want to test it myself.

I found the entire situation incredibly depressing.

I carved my message into the wall with a knife and drove a hatchet in after it so that the message couldn't be missed. I knew that Erick could read so I had no doubt that it would be found.

"I am outside. I will be waiting and watching. Come out and face me when you are ready."

I had thought about that message for some time, getting the words just right and in the right order.

He had left earlier that day and was in the town drowning his sorrows. I had watched from a distance, pretending to look at some goods in one of the market stall as he relieved himself in an alley and threw his arm around an acquaintance before steering the poor man into the tavern in an obvious effort to get the man to buy him a drink.

He was in his "cheerful drunk" state which meant that he would be the life and soul of the party for a couple of hours. Then he would start to get morose and aggressive before the innkeeper threw him out. Then his pattern was that he would stagger over to the house where his wife now lived and shout at the building for a while until some guards were called and he would be seen off. The only question then would be whether he would make it home or collapse asleep under a bush.

I waited until he was well surrounded by "friends" before I left. It had been some time since I had seen him and although it was true that his circumstances had become pitiable in the extreme. Whenever I saw him, all I could see was his fat, pale and sweating face as he asked if he could have a turn with the Princess before licking his lips.

The easiest way to hide myself in a crowd is to not wear my sword on my back. In such times, especially in towns where fighting distances are so small, I often carry a large knife to defend myself. I left then, retrieved my sword from my hiding place, scratched my message and settled down to wait where I could see the cottage door as well as the air opening in the back. I was not convinced that he would stand and fight and thought that it would depend on how much he had to drink. I definitely wanted to fight the man and if he fought, I absolutely intended to honour my promise and kill him quickly but if he ran... then I could do what I wanted.

In the end he came home fairly early for him. He was singing some kind of ballad that was remarkably on key about lost love. A large bottle swung from one hand which I took to mean that someone had bribed him to leave with a bottle.

It took an astonishing amount of time for him to walk across the clearing to his home. Several times I thought he was going to stop and be sick but he managed to swallow down whatever was wrong with him and manage to struggle on. He opened the door and staggered through. From my hiding point I thought I could hear the crash as he fell headlong into his stinking bed.

I settled down to wait.

Waiting is an art form really. It's a skill that must be practices if you get it right. One of Freddie's (Oops, still no reaction) earliest adventures talked about his waiting in a forest for the proper timing of setting off some bombs to destroy a nekker nest. He is right in that many ways it is the worst part of the whole experience of hunting monsters. That and the aftermath where the potions start to leave your body, leaving the excess adrenaline, endorphins and hormones behind which express themselves in shivers shudders and spasms of varying sizes. You must wait, still and quiet. Minimising your noise and disturbance of the surrounding area. Even breathing while you do this is dangerous for some monsters can feel the differences in the movement of air through the fine hairs that some of them have covering their bodies.

But.

You must also remain limber. You cannot allow anything to distract you from what you are doing next. The next thing that happens. The monster could wake up and start moving and your limbs and body must be ready to move at a moments notice without cramps.

There are several tricks. One is to clench and relax each muscle in turn in order to keep them relaxed and supple. This also helps pass the time.

Another is the use of Witcher potions, but again, I had deliberately denied myself that luxury. So there I was. Already plotting this man's death.

I forced myself to wait. Something that I had been so good at over the, now, five or so years that I had been on the road but that time it was a struggle, the blood-lust scrabbling at my throat and sanity.

He came out in the early hours of the morning.

"You want me?" He bellowed. "Come out where I can see you, you pox-bellied son of a whore." He was carrying a long knife or short sword, broad bladed and nasty looking. In the other hand he carried a similar lengthed axe, small headed and vicious. He clashed the two together.

"Come out. You tired of me being a drag on the "family name"". He laughed.

I stepped out into view.

"Witcher?" He looked surprised and then laughed again. He almost didn't look like the same man. His eyes were blood shot and wild. Hair unkempt and now that I could see him up close his skin looked sallow and unpleasant. I found myself thinking that I was lucky to have caught him as in my estimation he was on the verge of drinking himself to death.

"Who did you think it was going to be?" I said as I drew my sword, tossing the scabbard out of the way under the tree's.

"Honestly? Anyone but you. Probably my father in law. What did I do to offend you?"

"You know what you did."

He peered at me for a long moment.

"By the Goddess' perfect tits. You're as bad as the Prince and that Gottfried fellow. You actually fell for her didn't you?"

I didn't respond but took up a fighting stance.

"Dripping Cunt of the Goddess. She was just a thing Witcher. An object, a...a toy for our pleasure and our eyes to feast on. Life-like as all hell and by the Goddess I promise you it felt real enough but no-one could have slept through what we did to her."

"I bet you're a real hit with the ladies Erick. Is that how you proposed marriage to your wife. Did you call her an object? A toy for your pleasure?"

Erick roared and I realised I had misjudged him. He was mad now. Not angry although that might have been part of it but he had taken complete leave of his senses.

I had also forgotten how fast he was.

He charged me.

A wise fighter once said that the best swordsman in the world isn't afraid of the second best swordsman. Rather he is afraid of the worst swordsman as they can and will try anything to win, including the thing that you would never think of. I nearly lost my life that day. Not because I was a worse fighter than he was but because I nearly over thought what was happening. He ran straight towards me and I saw no sign of defence. No sign of a move or a thought. I spent so much time looking for a play, a feint or some other kind of ploy that he was nearly on me before I thought about what I had to do.

I stuck out my sword and Erick fairly ran on to it.

As it was he nearly had me because the other thing that he hadn't lost was his incredible strength. He ran onto the sword, impaling himself on it and even then he nearly made it up the entire length of the sword and was in range of taking my head of with his axe before I realised what was happening and let go of my sword hilt, pushing him off balance. He tumbled and fell onto his side.

I stood there looking down at him. It hadn't been my victory but I felt absurdly pleased as I realised how close I was to death.

"Well that's that." he wheezed. "Heh." He struggled to sit up for a moment. "Goddess that hurts."

"That's what happens when you run onto someone else's sword." I said after looking at him for a long moment. After some consideration I pushed over one of the tree stumps that had been used for a seat around the fire pit. I was careful to stay out of arms reach of him though.

"I suppose there's some truth to that."

"Was that your idea of a noble suicide?" I asked as he levered himself up to a sitting position.

"Nah," he said. "Pull this thing out Witcher?" he gestured at the sword that was still stuck in his belly.

I pulled the sword out. It took a lot of effort as I hadn't had time to twist properly as he ran onto it so the suction was tremendous. The blood that came out of him was black and foul.

He groaned as I did it.

"No, it wasn't suicide," he said after a moment to get his breath back. "That would have meant that I had given some thought to the whole thing but I would be lying if I said that I wasn't..."

"Relieved?"

"Yes that's it. Relieved that it was all over."

"What happened Erick. You were a good man once. Your family loved you."

"I've thought about that I really have. But once I'd seen her. Really _seen_ what true beauty looked like. The rest of the world just looked so...so dull." He stared into space for a long moment until I thought he was dead but he wasn't done yet. "I started to look for her you know? I tried with other women, with my wife, with the drink and thank God that my wife took our children away before they disappointed me or even worse..."

"They're safe now." I was struggling with this. I felt sympathy for this man now and it left my vengeance feeling empty.

"Help a man out Witcher. I've got a pipe somewhere." He tried patting his pockets as though he was looking for something.

"No," I said. "Your other hand is still holding a knife. You mean to get me close enough and then stab me with it."

"True, one last service to my Prince."

"Did he go back?"

"I think so. Bastard wouldn't take me though. I'd fallen out of favour by that point of course."

"Of course."

No longer looking so weak, his hands found a pipe and clamped it between his teeth.

"Are you going to kill the Prince?" he asked

"Yes." I said.

"Good. Bastard ruined me. I thought I had it figured out you know. Loving wife, beautiful children, good job and then he took me to see _her._ Goddess but she was beautiful. Wasn't she beautiful Witcher?"

"She was Erick. She was at that."

"I thought Witchers didn't feel emotions."

"As it turns out, I do rage pretty well."

He laughed and choked a large amount of blood out of his mouth.

"Goddess but that hurts."

"Do you want me to end it for you?"

"In a minute. I've wanted it to end for a while now but now that the end is coming, I find I want to hang on."

"That's a stomach wound Erick. If I leave it you're going to die ugly."

"I know, I know. I saw a guy once, gored by a boar. Sat there for an hour until he puked up so much blood that we thought he might have bled to death. He was pleading with us to end it but the Duke wouldn't let us."

"Did the Duke know what was going to happen?"

"I don't know. Wouldn't surprise me either way. Miserable old sod."

"Why did you do it Erick? Why did you want to degrade her and do those things to her?"

"Honestly?"

"Yes,"

"Honestly, I don't know. It was like I couldn't help myself you know? No, of course you don't. I saw her and she was so beautiful that she didn't seem as though she was real. She was _so_ beautiful that she was distant. Knowledgable. Unreachable so it seemed impossible to me and I had to reach out to her. To make her real. To bring her down to our level. I don't know what I'm saying. You want to know why? I wand to know why you didn't. How you could walk away when she was there and so unreal. So...beautiful, so bright."

He shook his head and a huge spasm of pain gripped him.

"A light Witcher?" He waved his pipe.

I snapped my fingers. A simple Igni sign and his tobacco flared into life.

He groaned again "Damn but I always loved that trick."

Another groan. Sweat stood out on his face.

"Witcher?" He moaned.

I picked up my sword and cut his throat with one strike and severed his spine, fair decapitating him with the second.

I left him there and carved the word "rapist" into the ground in front of him. I briefly considered burning the cottage to let people know that something had happened but in the end I decided that his wife and children might have belongings of their own in there that they might want to recover.

I walked away without looking back.


	38. Chapter 38

"What is evil Frederick? What does it look like?" Kerrass asked me after describing the Hunter's death.

"Kerrass. Such a question has been asked by philosophers and thinkers since the dawn of time, we're hardly going to solve the problem here and now. A Witcher and a Scholar of history, sitting in a pub."

"I don't know. Many important things have been decided over the years in back rooms of taverns and the like."

"Yes, but here we're talking about the really deep questions."

"True, but where else are we going to find proper answers?"

I sighed and put down my pen for a moment.

"My tutor once said that "Evil exists when good men do nothing." He was quoting from some old philosopher and I was a twelve so I wasn't paying that much attention. He argued that because of this that True evil comes from apathy. To do nothing."

"That sounds like your tutor was trying to persuade you that you were lazy and that laziness was bad."

"You're probably right. I did read another argument once that said that there is no such thing as evil. The argument was long winded and tedious. In my mind it was written by a man who was trying to fill a word count in order to be published but he said that evil is in the eye of the beholder. There is no such thing as a truly evil person because even the most evil of people in history believed that they were doing the right thing. That there was an explanation for whatever actions that they had taken. Where there wasn't, it would inevitably turn out that that person was absolutely mad and had a side hobby of barking at the moon. Therefore if that person was successful. If that "evil" turned out to be victorious then history would then portray "us" as evil."

"I've heard this argument before and it does have some merit although there are exceptions to every argument there. You have already pointed out the exception of the person who isn't thinking rationally. I am a Witcher and in theory my task, my entire reason for being is to combat evil. To destroy monsters and to protect those who lack my skills, conditioning and experience, from the things that lurk in the darkness. But the vast majority of those things are not evil. Not really. If you study the monster enough it nearly always turns out that the humans in question have encroached on their territory or have interfered with a breeding cycle or similar. Their behaviour is measurable, quantifiable and instinctual. Not really evil."

"Precisely. So therefore, what we see is that evil, in whatever form it takes, is in the eye of the beholder. A farmer doesn't ask the griffin that's nicked his sheep whether it was hungry. He just says that the creature is evil and needs to be destroyed."

"But saying all that, the answer that evil doesn't really exist is unsatisfying."

"I know an answer to that as well."

"Oh?"

"I'm not saying I agree with it of course."

"Oh of course."

"But it goes like this. Humankind is unhappy with the way the world exists. Bad things seem to happen to good people and good things happen to bad people. The chaotic nature of the world makes it so and we don't want to accept that this is the way it's meant to be. We want to inflict our own perceptions on it and invent God's, spirits and moral codes on it in order to reconcile it in our own minds. As a result of this we refuse to accept that there are simply creatures out there that happen to enjoy eating babies, or that the impaling of thousands of people on spikes is a valid terror tactic. We are terrified that, in that position, we might do the same thing so we call him evil and as such we feel better because that makes us better than him."

"So in short what you're saying is that we need the terms "Good" and "Evil" in order to make ourselves feel better about ourselves."

"Yes, I suppose so."

Kerrass made a non-committal noise.

"I take it you don't agree."

"No, I don't think I do."

"That's good because I don't like it either. Which I suppose, in a roundabout way, also proves that that argument is true."

Kerrass smiled.

"So good and evil are abstract concepts that we have invented so that we can make sense of an otherwise chaotic world."

"Yes,"

Kerrass sat in silence for a long time.

"I have another answer for you."

"Oh yes?"

"Evil happens in small moments. Just small moments, tiny little ones. It happens in the form of a decision. It can be a big decision or a small decision. But what's important is that you have plenty of time to make that decision. The evil happens when an otherwise normal person makes the decision to harm others for their own ends. Not for the good of the kingdom, survival or for the good of their children but purely for selfish reasons. Any man can commit murder on behalf of their children and I would say, in times like the recent wars where famine and disease has hit the continent hard and people have had to make lots of hard decisions upon which their, or their families survival depends. But when you harm others to satisfy your own ambitions, or greeds or comforts. That is evil. But also, evil is when you force otherwise good men to commit evil actions. That is also evil."

I nodded.

"Why did you bring this up Kerrass?"

(Frederick's note: I'll hand over to Kerrass here)

Because I saw an evil man.

I decided to kill Alphonse, the priest next.

It's not really that big a secret as to why the decision was made that way round. I _hated_ that man. I mean I really hated him.

Erick and Alphonse were the two men out of that group that I didn't really understand. The Prince was a prince and I was still a Northern man enough to think that royalty was a kind of breed apart. That they had their own reasons and their own methods for doing things. It never even crossed my mind that the prince might not know what he was doing when he commissioned that expedition out to another country. The venture was a risky one. He had been quite right to comment that if the villagers here had been feeling more belligerent then he wouldn't have survived the journey. He was _lucky_ that he had made it out alive.

The other guards were just following orders and their princes example. He demeaned the Princess and as such he _allowed_ them to do the same. That was no excuse of course but at the same time... I understood that.

I had hated Erick though. When I thought about all the horrible things that were done to the Princess it was Erick's face that came to mind. His pale, sweaty face as he licked his lips while thinking of degrading and humiliating that girl. Now though, I was free of that as Erick was dead.

But Alphonse? He must have known what was going to happen. He was prepared. He had the tools of his trade, the candles and the book and the vestments to conduct the marriage ceremony. He must have _known_ what the whole thing was about. And he took money to do it.

In many ways, sitting here now in the calm day light of a Tavern tap-room, Erick's sin was cleaner than Alphonse's sin. Erick didn't know what was going to happen when we got to the castle. He wanted the treasure, he had spoken about the many wonderful things that he was going to buy when he got back, laden down with the wealth of a kingdom that he imagined that he could carry back with him in his saddle-bags. He had been as amazed and astonished as the rest of us when he had seen what the Prince's treasure actually was and had been driven to madness at the sight.

But Alphonse knew.

I wanted to know his reasons. Why would a priest do something like that. Why would a priest allow someone to take advantage of a helpless young girl in that way. Some might argue, and they have, that the Prince ordered him to do it. But to that I would always argue that Alphonse had been able to argue, successfully, for more money. He had been bribed to do this thing. To give the Prince's crime that thin veneer of legitimacy.

There was a commotion after Erick was found dead. It all happened surprisingly quickly really. The following day, when he didn't appear for his normal descent into drunkenness and debauchery the locals asked each other where he could have got himself off to. They held a brief discussion, came to the conclusion that Erick must have gotten drunk and fallen and hurt himself. A search party set out along the path from the village back to the cottage and they found him soon enough. I hadn't gone to any particular lengths to conceal my crime and they wondered over what they found.

The general consensus was that Erick had tried to force himself on someone's daughter or wife while in a state of drunkenness and that the woman's husband, father or brother sought out their revenge. I did have a little chuckle at myself when the guard were summoned and this theory was underlined by the fact that the stabbing stroke to the stomach was so inexpertly done.

They were right. I hadn't thrust so much as just held my sword out for Erick to run on to.

The town and the castle was always full of strangers however and nearly all of us were armed in one form or another. It was also thought that since Erick's disappearance, any number of merchants or travellers had departed and as such it was decided that catching the criminal was almost certainly a wasted effort. The story of Erick's life was decided as that of a good man, ending badly. Various people said that they chose to remember him as the man he used to be before the "demon drink" got hold of him.

The irony that this was said in the tavern when the same "demon drink" was being served and drunk with abandon was not lost on me.

Alphonse was the priest of a small church from a nearby town. This in and of itself was a little surprising. I had been lead to believe that Alphonse was the castle chaplain of Duke Bertrand but this turned out to not be the case. Instead he spent his time ministering to his flock from a small stone church in a nearby town.

Having asked around, Alphonse spent a lot of his time at prayer and had a habit of inviting people to come and pray with him. Predictably a large number of these people seemed to be young and pretty. The church in question seemed to be going from strength to strength. There was a small monastery attached to it which was populated by a small number of monks who kept themselves to themselves and seemed to do precious little else other than pray and disappoint the locals. It was one of the peculiarities of the south that they liked their religious people to be heavily involved in the community, working the fields, helping out with the elderly, looking after the sick and teaching the children and so on. But these monks stayed in their cloister.

There was also a large and well appointed rectory for Alphonse where he entertained many guests. The locals proudly claimed that many important men came by, nobles and travelling clergymen who would spend some time "in prayer" with the Reverend Alphonse before moving on.

Alphonse seemed to have an inexhaustible fund of money from which he drew considerable funds in an effort to further his goals. All the locals saw was his generosity in providing more and more things for their aid and local prestige but in my cynicism and dislike for the man, what I saw was an ambitious young priest who wasn't willing to make time and hard work lift him up the ranks of the southern church of the sun.

(Frederick's note: I don't know much about the prevalent religion of the area other than general things but generally at the time the Nilfgaardians were getting together to form the "Cult of the eternal sun" which would go on to form their more famous heraldic device. From their they started to see their Emperors as being personifications of the Sun. Whether this deification of their leaders was to put their claim beyond doubt or not? I'll leave to you.)

The locals were beginning to refer to Alphonse as "Bishop" Alphonse and one of the local woodcarvers was in the process of carving a large and ornate wooden "Bishops throne" for this purpose. Apparently all it took in those early days of the sun cult was a throne and a church to call a man a bishop and Alphonse intended to take good advantage of it.

The entire thing made me sick.

As far as I could see, Alphonse was simply an ambitious man who wanted to climb up the ranks before his time. He had taken the money that he was given and either invested it wisely to see considerable returns or was now using that money and his influence to become a great man.

I hated him. I wanted to kill him. But almost as much as I wanted to talk to the Prince. I wanted to talk to this man. I wanted to find out why. Why had he done this? Why would a priest stoop to this kind of thing? There were and are plenty of ways for an ambitious man to make his way in the world but in the priesthood. I struggled with that.

I wondered if it had been _her_ beauty that had corrupted him, in the same way that it seemed to have driven Erick mad.

Or was it simply that the Prince had found his price. All men have one it is said and I wondered if they had simply found his. It was not a pleasant thought that one.

I had left Alphonse a note a little bit before I was actually able to catch up to him. I was confident of his ability to read but what I wasn't prepared for was just how popular he had managed to make himself in his local area. No sooner had I managed to creep into his house and leave him a note on his desk with a knife driven through it so that it wouldn't be mistaken for just another piece of paper than he had the entire countryside out and hunting for my blood.

I'm not ashamed of saying that I fled. He was promising salvation in heaven in return for my head and as he had spent the year since I had seen him last whipping the surrounding area into a religious frenzy, they were fair falling over themselves in an effort to see me dead.

I had some other things that I could be doing. I still wasn't satisfied as to the proper locations of the Prince and a couple of the guards that had accompanied us. Two of them were still in the Duke's service but I had some leads to hunt down on the other two.

I managed to wait for a month before I turned my horses head back for him. A whole month waiting for his death. He had resorted to using threats and innocents to protect himself so I had no qualms at all about torturing him to death. I was also concerned that if he were to get more important, what else would he be capable of before I finally managed to catch up with him.

He was still terrified however, even after a month so I had to hunt him in the same way that I would hunt any other kind of monster. I put myself in his shoes which meant that I felt dirty but at the same time I needed to see results.

His followers were still looking for me and if there was ever something to confirm my opinions that this man needed to die then it was visible in his followers. People were neglecting their other tasks... I want to say duties... to look for me. They were doing this at the urging of the priest and so, the blacksmith wasn't doing his work. Instead he was guarding Alphonse. The hunters weren't hunting game and skinning it for hides.

They were combing the trees and woods, looking for me. The Duke had sent some guards to look after him and they guarded Alphonse in his rectory and his church, both of which had been converted into veritable fortresses so as to keep me out. I even looked into whether or not I could sneak into either and catch Alphonse unprepared before coming to the conclusion that I could... and I could kill Alphonse while doing it. But he would certainly shriek or call for health which would mean that I would end up killing a guard or two on my way out, presuming I survived the adventure at all.

So I settled down to think. The searchers had passed my hiding spot so I was able to camp there in relative comfort and spend some time plotting.

What are the roots of corruption? What are the things that you use to corrupt a man?

Those were the things that I thought to myself.

The most obvious thing was money. But in this case? Alphonse had plenty of money. He was taking in huge sums of money from already taxed peasants. He also had the, not small amount of money that was brought to him by his visitors and other "donations" that more than satisfied his needs. I would later find out that he was spending a large amount of money in bribes in an effort to climb up the hierarchy of the cult of the Sun.

So I discounted money. If he was living in a more...rich area where the cost of living would be higher then I could accept that as well.

But he wasn't.

The next thing that is used to corrupt people then. Power? Influence? He was pursuing these things but they weren't that...He was already well on with them. He was already delivering bribes and talking to whoever they consider the "right" people to be in these kinds of situations. Powerful men and women were already making the time to come and visit him as they passed through the Duke's domain.

So what was left.

I'm afraid the answer was sex.

Regardless of what some people might say, sex is important. There might be some snickering but it is something that defines us, defines all sentient beings. The elves hate humans because of sex. Humans do it all their lives with a relatively high success rate whereas elves do it rarely during a particular period in their lives and their success rate is small. So they hate humans because they are grasping the truth that sooner or later there will be no more room for them because humanity has simply out-bred them. Some elves see this and have made efforts to integrate and breed with humans to ensure their survival. But many simply take solace in their hatred.

Alphonse was definitely not asexual. He had been just as...aroused by the prospect of the helpless princess as any of the other guards. So I reasoned that he would still want this. That he would also look for beauty to satisfy that part of himself.

So I did a bit of scouting around. I wasn't able to ask as many questions as I would have liked for fear that sight of me would result in people seeking my death. I found that there were several young and beautiful people around the area so I watched, and I waited for the opportunity.

I was extraordinarily lucky in many ways that this worked out. If I had seen Alphonse actually assaulting someone I'm not sure I would have been able to wait for another circumstance. I would have waded in, sword swinging and damn what happened next.

It was a farmers lad that was Alphonse's undoing in the end. I watched them from a distance. As best as I could tell Alphonse had seen the lad while visiting the farmer in an effort to cajole more money or goods out of the father but that happened before I returned to the area. It was like a game of chicken. The most disgusting and reprehensible game of chicken that you can imagine. Alphonse would get closer and closer to the young man. Sometimes he would watch from a distance as the lad was busy tying hay bundles for movement off for fodder for the horses. Sometimes he would get close on some excuse or another, wanting to talk, exchange words or small pieces of advice.

As I watched I began to wonder if Alphonse even knew what he was doing. He was like a moth who had seen the flame. He knew that the flame would burn him but at the same time he couldn't keep himself away.

The lad was young. Muscled from his days working hard at the farm under his father's watchful gaze. Unruly blonde hair under a square jawed face. Blue eyes still showing the sign of innocence by which I mean he was still ignorant of the effect that he had on the local young girls. Just on the cusp of when girls change from being icky into fascinating. It was summer at this point so the lad was working hard, often sweaty and his clothing clung to his body in ways that passing women found interesting.

As did Alphonse as it happens.

I was watching. Always Watching.

Alphonse was never without his guards. Somewhere between two to four men. Only the basics of armaments. Arming jackets and pot helms carrying clubs and hay-forks rather than sword and spear but it wasn't that I was afraid of them. Far from it. It would be laughably easy for me to jump in the middle of them and cut them down like the local farmers would cut down their crops with a scythe. But these men were victims of Alphonse's corruption just as much as the Princess was. Killing them would be just as wrong. If it came to it and it was a choice between them who had chosen to guard Alphonse and the life or innocence of this young lad then I would happily make that choice. But only if I was forced into it.

I waited, and I watched. All the while Alphonse got closer and closer to his target. To his victim.

I never found out if the lad's father began to suspect anything. I did notice that the lad stopped going to the chapel to pray and attend services. I couldn't find out why but he could be seen angrily throwing bales of hay around as if they had done something to offend him.

I guessed that a crisis point was happening.

I watched and I waited.

Alphonse's path took him out to the farm and the lad fair shot across the fields towards the priests party. I wasn't quick enough to hear what was said but he spoke with Alphonse quickly and insistently for a few moments before the farmer bellowed something that I didn't catch. The lad ran off after a rather more hurried exchange with the priest who then walked back down the hill.

I watched, waited and made my preparations.

It started to get dark. There were still some rumours of "yellow-eyed demons" in the area so people thought it was better to be safe than sorry. They finished work and went home, doors were locked and windows shuttered. The more extreme people put lines of salt around the entrances to the homes (a precaution that I always found laughable) and left out saucers of milk. (A thing that only works in a particular corner of the north. Never laugh at this as the threat is very real but as it only works against these things. Do not think it will protect you unless you _know_ it will protect you. No I will not tell you what it protects you from as to speak their name is to draw them to you.) Of the two players, I elected to watch the farm. The lad was innocent. Painfully so and like all who have lost theirs I found that I was driven to protect that innocence. I took up a position and waited.

The sun sank towards the horizon and sure enough. Just as it was seriously beginning to get dark, the shutters on one of the windows began to open. Carefully. Far too slowly they opened and the young man emerged. I dread to think how stuffy and unpleasant it was in that house and he took a moment to enjoy the air before sealing the shutters behind him. He lit a torch and set out. At first he moved quickly, presumably to distance himself from the farm house but then he slowed down to a more normal pace as he left a path between the fields and started to cross some of the pasture land to where there was a barn or shelter of some kind. A simple store house that needs to be built occasionally when it is better that some things are kept sheltered and away from the elements.

There was a light there. Quite a lot of light in fact.

When I was sure that that was where the lad was going, I sped past him towards the building and made my entrance as quietly as I could. What I _wanted_ to do was to sneak in and abduct Alphonse before the lad arrived but I was too slow, or the lad sped up when he saw the building.

I got in and climbed into the roof of the building so that I could watch. My sword was drawn and lay on the beam next to me. There were no signs of any guards. My plan changed. I didn't want to involve the lad if I could possibly get away with it, so I waited.

Alphonse was already there. He had lit several candles which he had set around the place as well as having a large symbol of the everlasting sun. The blatant disregard for fire safety aside, he seemed impatient. On edge as it were.

The lad rushed into the candlelight.

"Sorry I'm late father." he said a little breathlessly.

"It's alright my son, it's alright. Take a moment to get your breath back." Alphonse put his hand on the lads shoulder in what I supposed he thought looked like a caring gesture. It made my skin crawl.

The lad nodded and took several deep breaths.

"Now," Alphonse said after a long moment. "You said that you wanted to talk to me about something."

He spoke slowly, carefully drawing out every syllable. His tone was low and careful. I guessed that he had practised this in an effort to sound more...priestly, more authoritative.

"Yes father."

"Come then. Tell me what has you so afraid."

Alphonse took the boys hand and led him over to a hay bale where they sat. I wondered if it was my imagination that made the distance between Alphonse and the boy seem too close to be proper.

"I'm afraid father."

"Of what my son?"

"I'm afraid of my father."

"Why?"

Alphonse had raised his hand, almost to the point of touching the lad's hair or face. I gathered myself to jump down but Alphonse himself changed his mind and stood.

"I...I haven't been able to come to chapel recently."

"Yes. Your absence has been noticed." The priest made his voice seem dark and dreadful. "Your soul is imperilled my son. I needs to be seen in the light of the sun so that your sins be cleansed in the light. So no darkness may hide in the corners of your soul."

"I know that father I know. And I tell Dad all that but he won't let me come to the chapel any more."

"I see. Does he tell you why not?"

"He says that I have work to do. He says that the harvest needs to be prepared for or none of us will be able to eat over the following year. That we won't be able to pay our taxes or our tithe to the church. He says that we would lose our home if I don't work."

The lad was getting agitated.

"But I tell him. I do father, I tell him that it doesn't matter if we get kicked off our land if our souls are in peril."

"You do right my son. We must see to our souls above all other things."

"I think he might be in league with the yellow-eyed demon." The boy whispered the words as though he was afraid of the very sound that they made.

"Why is that my son?"

"He keeps us from our worship father. He doesn't let us join in the hunt for that most dark of creatures. He keeps us from our proper duties (he pronounced it doo-tees) to the church and to you father. Why else would he do that?"

"Mmm." Alphonse lifted his hand to his mouth. "You do right to bring this to my attention my son."

I watched as a thought struck the priest. "I will do what I can to help you and to help your father but I will need your help to do it. I cannot do it without you."

"I will do it father."

"You will?"

"Anything Father. How could I bathe in the sun's eternal light without my father. How can I know true happiness if that same is kept from the rest of my family."

"You are a good and dutiful boy my son. Come, pray with me now."

Again, Alphonse took the lad by the hand and led him back into the candlelight. It was warm in the barn and I could see clearly that the lad was sweating. Again, causing his thin, night time clothes to stick to his body. The lad knelt and Alphonse placed his hand upon the boy's head.

After he read through the blessing they started to pray. I say pray but what actually happened was that the boy knelt in the centre of that circle of light while Alphonse walked around him in a circle calling out things for the lad to repeat.

I was not a student of the scripture of the holy sun back then and I cannot remember a lot of it now. The cult of the holy sun has since been absorbed into the cult of personality surrounding the Emperor but I remember thinking that Alphonse was making it up as he went along.

The circles that his foot-steps made changed size almost continuously. He would get closer and closer almost to the point of reaching out for the lad. I would grip my sword and make ready to jump down before he would seem to change his mind and the circle would increase in size.

That poor lad though. He believed so completely that I had no doubt that he was honestly praying for his fathers soul and trying to save that self-same soul from damnation. All the while his "priest" seemed to be feeding off that worship.

I was caught in the same spectacle. It took me a while to see it but see it I did. The entire ritual was sexual in nature. Alphonse was getting closer and closer before moving back and prolonging his pleasure. The sick fuck was actually getting physical pleasure from this. I saw him once. He was so fast that you could barely catch it, it must have been a skill that he was practising that as he walked, beneath his cassock or robe, he would occasionally shake himself, shiver almost. I realised that what he was doing was adjusting his genitalia.

My face must have been horrible. I was gritting my teeth with the effort of not jumping down into the barn. I still didn't want to destroy the lad's innocence.

But then Alphonse jerked. Went rigid and almost shook for a moment before breathing deeply.

"Father?" the lad said. "Are you alright?"

"Forgive me my son. The spirit of the holy sun was upon me."

I lost my shit.

I managed to do so in a relatively controlled manner but at the same time I knew perfectly well what had happened. The tension in that place, the proximity of a young, beautiful individual being completely in his spell, under his control. All of that had brought him to a climax.

I moved off the ceiling beam and landed on the dirt floor. Two strides later and I drove my fist into Alphonse's stomach. It was a cold fury though, how dare he? Regardless of what you think of religion, what had just happened was wrong. Alphonse doubled over as the breath left his body in a whoosh. I brought my sword pommel down on the back of his head and he collapsed.

The lad looked up from his position of prayer and his moth fell open.

"The demon with yellow eyes." He whispered.

To his defence I must have been terrifying. A dark figure descending from the ceiling with my yellow Witcher eyes shining in the reflected candlelight. My expression can't have helped. I took a breath to calm myself but the lad left me no time to calm down as he charged me, arms out stretched.

"You killed Father Alphonse," he bellowed.

There was a moment, just a small moment where I had time to realise that I was flying through the air as he bundled me off my feet.

I was lucky though. He had little training and I was able to roll as we fell so that I ended up on top of him.

"Careful you fool or you'll have us all on fire." I yelled at him.

I limbed off him and stamped the small flame that was beginning to lick at the hay from where we had knocked a candle over.

He wasn't listening though and bellowed as he charged again. But this time I was ready for him. A half turn and a push sent him staggering away. I had let my sword fall when he had first hit me and I scooped it up with my foot and held it out so that the point faced him.

"I don't want to hurt you boy."

"You killed Father Alphonse," he snarled he began to circle me. I kept my sword pointing towards him as he moved. He bent and picked up one of the candles that was still lit and brandished it at me.

"Begone demon. I may not be a priest but I still know the... the exercism."

I sighed, in what I hoped came across as a very human kind of exasperation. "Flicking my wrist I snuffed the candle out with my sword. "It's pronounced "exorcism" son. It won't work but if it will make you feel better, go right ahead."

He started to say some words. Put together correctly they _might_ have come to some kind of banishment spell... but I doubt it.

He stopped speaking when Alphonse gave an incredible groan.

"Listen," I said after a while. "Will you just listen?"

"I won't listen to you demon."

"Not a demon. Just a Witcher. But regardless. Go and fetch your Dad for me. Tell him everything and then bring him back here."

"And leave you alone with Father Alphonse?"

"Alphonse and I are old friends."

"Do you greet all your old friends like that?"

"Only the ones I hate. Listen... Go and fetch your Dad. Tell him he can bring as many men as he likes but I mean him, and you no harm. I promise that I will not harm Alphonse..."

"Father Alphonse," the boy corrected.

"Oh no," I let my anger show for a minute. "He is no-one's father." I took another calming breath. "I will not harm him. I will, however tie him up to wait for your Dads arrival."

"How do I know you won't kill him in the meantime?"

"You don't. But on the other end of the scale. If I wanted to kill him, do you think you could stop me?"

I was pleased. He was still thinking calmly and rationally despite the fear and anger that he was displaying.

He darted out into the night.

"Take a lantern or something." I shouted out after him. "You won't do anyone any good if you fall and break your neck while you're running."

He sheepishly returned, took up a lantern and sped off. I watched the bobbing light for a few minutes."

"We're alone Al," I said. You can stop pretending now."

The priest didn't move.

"Let me make things very clear." I said after a while. "I hate you with a considerable passion. You did not take up my challenge which means that I have absolutely no qualms about torturing you to death. If you do not wake up and start talking to me I'm going to take one of those candles and pour molten wax into your open eyes."

Alphonse groaned and tried to sit up.

"Begone demon." He tried.

"Try harder Al."

He sat up properly and glared at me.

"What do you want Witcher?" He spat the word Witcher as though it was some kind of ultimate insult.

"What do I want? Interesting question. I dearly want to torture you to death but for now I'm going to settle for tying you up." I grabbed him by the collar of his cassock and dragged him over to the pillar of the barn where I tied him securely using some of the string that tied together some of the hay bales.

He screamed and yelled throughout the entire process.

"Oh be quiet." I snapped eventually. "It's not that tight and believe me, I know how to tie someone up. Also if I wanted to hurt you, you would know about it."

"Is that meant to be reassuring."

"Not in the least. What it is meant to do is to get you to be quiet for a moment while I work."

He started screaming for help. I grabbed his arm and elevated it in a direction that nature didn't agree with and he groaned in pain.

"See what I mean?" I let him go and he subsided. I finished his bonds, dragged over a hay bale and sat on it facing him.

"So what do you want Witcher?"

"Your death. But I think that that ship has sailed. So instead I want you to answer a couple of questions."

"What's in it for me to answer them?"

"Absolutely nothing."

"Then why should I answer them."

"No reason."

I stared at him for a long time. At first he was defiant but gradually I saw him begin to shrink in on himself.

"Why?" I asked him

"Why what?"

"Why did you do it?"

"Do what?"

I sighed.

"You know, out of all the people who went with us on the expedition into the valley of Thorns to get the Princes "treasure" you are the one that I can't understand. To be fair it was you and Erick but I know what happened with Erick now. He saw the Princess and lost his mind. He went looking for some actual treasure and instead went mad. That expedition cost him everything."

"Which one was Erick again?"

I nearly killed him. My hands actually clenched with the desire to close around his throat. I took a couple of calming breaths.

"The other soldiers..." I stopped and swallowed. "The other soldiers were just following orders. I don't know but I think they were just swept up in the entire thing but you... you must have known why we were going there. You must have known that you were going to perform a marriage ceremony. You must have known that what you did... what we did was wrong. But you did it anyway. I want, I need to know why."

"I don't expect you to understand."

"Try me."

"You are a godless, deviant, mutant freak. A veritable crime against nature. Who are you to decide what is right and what is wrong? Who are you to sit in judgement over me? You want to know _my_ reasons? We know what your reasons were. You were paid. So what elevates you above me. Why are you right and I am wrong?"

"Even if all that was true. I have the same answer a soldier does. I was paid. But then, knowing that, I have come to make it right."

"Heh. You were paid. So was I."

"Yes you were. But you are a priest. You are supposed to be better than the rest of us. We went there in ignorance of what was waiting for us but you... you had a choice. You cannot tell me that it was right and according to the teachings of the hold sun. That deity that you are so quick to worship. I know for a fact that marriage is supposed to be a joining of two souls. Not the forcing of one on another. You must have known that it was wrong but you did it anyway."

"And look what has happened since then. I have taken the money. Yes, taken all of that money that I was given and I have given it back to the people. The people of this land knew nothing of the Holy sun before I came here. I have saved their souls Witcher. I have gone amongst the heretics and brought the light of the sun into their lives. I have saved them. I serve them. Not some Lord. Not some...holier than I Witcher. I serve them. I serve the sun."

"You serve yourself." I snarled. "I saw what just happened there. That boy was not the first was he. You relish your power over them. They're neglecting their tasks. Neglecting the harvest. Even now, some people are in danger of starvation because you had them out looking for me. You are a priest. You are supposed to protect us. Guide us away from evil and into the light. Whether that's the holy sun of the south or the Sacred fire of the north. But you did the deal with the evil. You had that girl in your power. You legitimised that crime and your excuse is that you did an evil thing so that you could do better for more people?"

"I said you wouldn't understand...freak."

"You know what? I'm glad I don't understand."

"She was not a girl Witcher. That was the thing. She wasn't a girl she was just a thing. An object. A culmination of all human desire. Physical and spiritual. She is a toy, a plaything. You could not rape her in the same way that you could not rape a tree or a stone. People talk about the magical curse that exists on that place and around that place but it's all nonsense. Magic, yes but who would be so...arrogant who would hate so much that they would curse an entire Kingdom because of the existence of one beautiful girl. That entire place was an example of the evils of magic. I bet that if you look into it you would find that she... that it was the result of some Mage's experimentation. That a mage decided that he wanted a perfect girl, a perfect thing to slake their unnatural lusts on before it went wrong. The evil was already there.

"Yes, I took payment. I took payment from a stupid Prince who had fallen under the spell of a magical device. He will pay for that sin in hell. But I took his money and created a place where the holy sun is properly revered."

I nodded. "You are just as mad as Erick was. She was no mere thing, priest. She was breathing. She had a pulse. Also, I notice that her status as a magical deviant didn't stop you from raping her or marrying that self same prince to her."

"Alas, that I am a weak man sometimes."

"Sometimes?" I could hear people approaching. "Even if I accepted what you say as truth. Even if I accepted that moral argument that you did nothing wrong in forcing a marriage on an unconscious girl because it wasn't a girl at all. You had a young boy in your power in this very barn. A young man. You drew him in. You... you seduced him and then took your pleasure from him. He wasn't a thing, a toy for you to slake your thirsts on."

"I was his spiritual guide..."

"If you were doing nothing wrong then why did you meet him in secret?"

"He asked me to. He told me to keep it secret."

"That's all well and good on his end. But what about your guards. Why are they not protecting you. You came out here, in the evening when you were aware that I was around and you did your...whatever that was supposed to be without guards. What's your excuse?"

Alphonse had no answer.

There was shouting now and I stood up and went to meet the approaching men. I took up my sword and held it out by the blade in an effort to show that I meant no harm.

The farmer appeared to have brought a good number of the various farm hands that were staying in his stables and in various parts of the farm itself and were carrying an assortment of weapons that would have been laughable on a battlefield but when you're facing them by yourself in a circle of firelight, they look wicked, sharp and unpleasant. They were carrying torches, because of course they were carrying torches.

The farmer stepped forward. His son beside him and seeing me he sighed and scratched his head.

"A Witcher then." he called to me.

"Just so," I answered still holding my sword upside down.

"Not a demon?"

"Not as far as I know."

The man nodded.

"Don't listen to him father. He's a demon. He attacked Father Alphonse."

"Quiet boy." The father spoke without anger or inflection. I gathered that it was an often used phrase even though the boy was no longer really a child. "Is that true then Witcher? Did you attack Father Alphonse?"

"Oh yes." I carefully put my sword away doing my best to appear nonchalant. "I punched him good and hard in the gut. I enjoyed it too."

I saw a couple of people in the crowd hiding smirks behind their hands and decided that I was out of immediate danger. I have found that a mob is most likely to attack in the opening seconds of a confrontation. Anything after that and their blood starts to cool and they start to think along the lines of "someone's going to get hurt if we all rush that man and I don't want it to be me so I'm just going to hang back over _here,_ well out of the way.

"May I ask why?" the farmer asked carefully. I gathered that he had also begun to sense the changing mood of his companions.

"Why are you talking to him Dad? He's evil."

"Quiet boy."

"Dad?"

The farmer gave me a look that seemed to communicate Paternal exasperation. "Franklin?"

"Yes Dad?" Another, older lad stepped from the crowd. He was carrying a scythe over his shoulder and was hugely muscled.

"Hold onto your brother for me would you? Just while I talk to the Witcher here."

"Yes dad." Franklin stepped forward and grabbed the younger boy by the scruff of the neck and hauled him back into the crowd.

"Take him back to the farm house while I deal with this."

"Yes Dad."

"But Dad?"

The sound of brotherly love gradually faded into the night.

"His mother will be worrying." The farmer said to me.

"I understand."

"They call me Farmer Mott."

"Kerrass of Maecht."

"So, my own personal feelings about the man not withstanding but Father Alphonse is an important man in these parts. So why did you attack him?"

"Did your son tell you what was happening in the barn?"

"He did. He said that he had come out here to pray with the Father."

"That's what _he_ did. Father Alphonse had a different idea."

"I see." I could see the farmer fighting to keep his cool. "I take it you have proof of this. Not that I disbelieve you but he's a priest and you're...well..."

"A dirty mutant freak?"

"I couldn't have put it better myself."

"I dare say that if you look up the front of his cassock you will see what I mean."

"Are you trying to be funny Witcher?"

"Not in the least. I found it rather...He didn't touch your son. He wanted to but in the end it was too much. He..."

"I see. Watch him lads. I'm going to talk with the good Father."

He walked past me and I waited. There were some words exchanged and some ripping cloth sounds.

The farmer walked back out. He was pale.

"You uh..." he took out a piece of cloth and mopped his brow. "You couldn't have stopped it sooner?"

"I will admit that I could have. But I thought that I might hurt your son in some way."

"My son was lost to me a while ago. My own fault too, trying to get him some learning. Seeing if he could get a better life for himself. But where do you send a lad like that when he's clearly twice as clever as you are and bored with everything you show him."

"I can't pretend to understand what you're going through sir."

"Don't call me "sir" Witcher. I work for my living."

I let myself grin. This wasn't the time to be the stoic Witcher.

"You weren't to know." I told him. "You were trying to do right by your son. It's just that in this case, your local priest was a piece of scum who thinks of people as objects to use for his own pleasure.

The farmer nodded.

"Thank you for your kind words Witcher but I should have stepped in sooner. You had prior business with the priest?"

"I did."

"What was it?"

"He was party to a rape. A rape of someone I care about."

The farmer's eyes flashed. "Then I suspect you share my views."

"I might." I answered. "He must never be allowed to...prey on anyone again."

The farmer nodded. "My son will never forgive me."

"Then blame me."

"No. I think that my son would never forgive me, whatever happens." He took another breath. "I agree with you Witcher. Kill him quickly, then we'll burn the place down. Nothing will be said. Meet us at the farm house. The least I can do is feed you and send you on your way with a good breakfast."

I nodded and strode back into the barn.

Alphosne sat there, back to the beam. His cassock had been torn up to his naval and the inner parts of his robe were indeed wet and glistening. He looked pitiful.

"I never touched the boy Witcher. I never touched him." He blubbered at me. He had obviously been crying for some time. Tears and snot streaking his face.

"I know Al. I know." My hate had been leached away from me and all I felt now was a kind of pity. Pity and shame. "I will kill you quickly Al, a better woman than us both insisted on it. If it exists, your God can judge you."

I drove my dagger through his eye socket and into his brain. As far as I could tell, he died instantly.

The farm hands were already stacking straw and fire wood around the barn and dousing it with oil as I walked out. I was on the way to collect my horse when there was a kind of Woomph noise and the night's sky glowed orange with flame.

I spent the night with the Farmer drinking scrumpy. A liquid which made my eyes water despite his seeming ability to drink the stuff by the pint. His wife was upstairs in tears with a couple of his daughters. The place was in an uproar. The young boy who was the cause of the entire problem had been locked inside a store-room for fear that he might do something to hurt himself as he had tried to grab a Kitchen knife and attack his elder brother. The elder brother seeming, and I say this without meaning insult, to lack the imagination and intelligence necessary to worry about such matters had taken the knife away without comment and thrown the boy into the store-room. In the morning I was fed and was getting ready to go while also listening to the family try to talk some sense into the boy.

They were unsuccessful.

He was calling them all demons and the spawn of the devil. The fact that I had eaten in their kitchen that morning didn't seem to be helping anyone at all and I was in the process of making myself scarce when the farmer came out to say goodbye.

He was obviously upset.

"I just don't know what to do with him Witcher. That Alphonse has got his claws into him good and proper and, well his mother's beside himself. He's calling us all demons and such like and...well, I tug me forelock towards the sun in the morning as much as the next man but he's taken it to an extreme."

I remember looking away for a moment. I wanted to be back on the road so badly that I could taste it. I had just murdered a priest and although the locals seemed relatively OK with that I was a bit disconcerted by the fact that I seemed to be treated like an honoured guest.

"Here's a thought." I suggested. "I'm on my way to a monastery now. Small place about two days ride away. The Father Abbot is supposed to be a good man and a man of the world. How about I take the lad with me. He won't enjoy himself and there's a real possibility that he won't come back and end up staying. He also won't enjoy the journey as I'm pretty sure that he will try to escape me or kill me and will have to take precautions that he will not enjoy, but..."

"Would you do that Witcher?"

I remember distinctly wondering who had suggested such a blatantly stupid idea.

"Least I could do."

I was delayed another few hours while a mule was found and the boys mother insisted on packing the lads clothes.

Of course it went wrong. How could it not?

In the end the farmer had to physically hold his wife back while I tied the boy to his mule. He was lucky that I kept him in a sitting position. I also had to gag him to keep from being bitten. I waved farewell and we trotted off down the road.

Longest three days of my life. There have been some close ones but those three days were something else entirely.

A two day ride turned into three days of hell. The boy, whose name turned out to be Jack, screamed and shouted. Pleaded and scolded. He tried to escape four times. Each time I promised myself that I wouldn't go after him but I had made a promise after all and I brought him back. One time I did so while holding him by the ankle.

When he wasn't gagged he would sing hymns loudly or pray, equally as loudly until eventually he passed out from exhaustion. That happened sooner than I might like as he refused to take water or food from my hand or that I had cooked.

I took to just travelling through the night as I could see and Jack was tied to his mule.

We arrived on the morning of the fourth day. I was tired, dirty and grumpy.

Jack for his part finally shut up when he saw where we were going.

"You're taking me to a church?"

"A monastery actually?"

"Why? Are they some kind of cultist monks who are summoning dark forces?"

"You know what Jack? The way you keep talking about that kind of thing, I'm beginning to think that you actually _want_ me to hand you over to sinister cultists. Good morning."

I said this last to a monk who came out of the buildings to take my horses bridle.

He waved cheerily, pointed to himself before placing his finger across his lips.

"Vow of silence?" I guessed.

The monk nodded happily and made a gesture which I took to mean waiting.

I hauled Jack out of his saddle and held onto him with one hand to prevent him from running off. I had learned from previous mistakes but I was probably safe. He was gawking.

An older man came out of the main building. He was stooped with a hunched back and walked with astonishing speed and the aid of a stout walking stick.

"Witcher," he greeted me with a large and hearty shout. "It's been a while since we've had so obvious a heathen come to visit us."

As I say, he was old, his face was misshapen and hideously ugly. He was bald but a curtain of long white hair ran around the back and sides of his head. He also wore a beard which was equally long and as snowy white. His eyes were crinkled as though he looked at the world with much amusement and he smiled often. In many ways he reminded me of your (Frederick: my) Father Jerome.

"You'll have to forgive our lack of hospitality. Most of the others are out in the fields at the moment."

"Any hospitality at all is a welcome change." I managed feeling a little buffeted by the sheer charisma emanating from the small wizened man.

"I am Father Abbot Radulfas." he sketched the outline of a courtly vow.

"Kerrass of Maecht Father Abbot."

The Abbot cackled loudly.

"You're no more from Maecht than I am a comely young maiden." he said. "Northern Kingdoms I would say but who am I to question it. And who is this?"

I was still holding him by the scruff of the neck.

"Devil Worshipper. Demon. Filth and unholy thing." the lad spat at the Abbot.

"I see. Your latest apprentice then Witcher? He seems well suited to the task." The Abbott grinned. "You'd better come inside. Take your boots off though. They've got this horrible thing about bathing each others feet when you enter into the place here. Old tradition apparently, always seemed dreadfully unhygienic to me. Come on this way."

As I say, he walked with astonishing speed and I had to scramble to keep up.

The same monk that took our horses had a basin of water, some soap and a towel. We sat and he scrubbed at our toes. The monk expertly wrangled Jack into a seated position and I fancy he could have cleaned that boys feet even if I hadn't been restraining him.

"We go barefoot here Witcher and Young master Devil." The Abbot chatted gaily as the younger monk worked. The stone is cold at first but you soon get used to it.

"I am not the devil here." Jack insisted. "Why do you call me Devil?"

"That's how you introduced yourself. I asked your name and you said "Devil Worshipper. Demon. Filth and unholy thing." I think I've got that right anyway. Was that what he said?"

"I think that's what he said." I found I was enjoying myself.

"'Unusual names,' I thought to myself but there you go. If those are your names then that is what I shall call you young master Devil. Come along." He lead us down a corridor and into an office. There were several large and comfortable arm-chairs with rugs underfoot in front of a roaring fire. The stone walls did indeed give the place a kind of chilly atmosphere and the fire was needed. There was also a desk with a strange stool shaped thing behind it. The desk was covered with papers which looked to be correspondence of various types gathered haphazardly.

"Now then Witcher. What brings you to my neck of this ungodly country?"

"Two things actually."

"If you are a man of God why are you talking with this demon?" Jack demanded.

"A demon?" The abbot exclaimed horrified. "A demon. You say this man is a demon?"

"I do." Jack seemed to think he'd won a point.

The Abbot rushed up to me and peered up at me before spinning and fixing Jack with a stare. "However can you tell that by just looking at him?"

"I..."

"No, no. I must take you at your word. BEGONE FOUL CREATURE."

The Abbot brandished the holy symbol of the sun that was hanging round his neck in my direction. Then he appeared disappointed before peering at his holy symbol again.

"Stupid thing can't be working."

He walked over to his desk and slammed the symbol on the side of the desk a couple of times.

"Right then. Let's try that again." He struck a pose. "BEGONE FOUL CREATURE."

Then he glared at me. "How are you feeling Witcher?"

"A little tired. Bit hungry."

"No sudden desire to vanish, flee or otherwise go some-place else?"

"Not that I can tell."

"Ah, Now I have it."

The old man went over to the desk and opened a drawer pulling out an old prayerbook that was dog-eared, stained and worn with much use.

"Half a moment. I should have the correct incantation here somewhere." He flicked through some pages.

"Ah here we go." he started chanting various words in an old sounding archaic language. Jack's eyes went round. The Abbot peered at me again.

"Anything?"

"No."

"Well there you have it young man. Not a demon. Just a Witcher which makes him a mutant and general worrier of decent people but... not a demon."

"But..." his words petered out.

"But...what?"

"Father Alphonse said..."

The Abbot's face darkened for just a second before turning to kindness. "Father Alphonse was mistaken lad. It happens. For we are but mortals and only the divine light of the sun sees everything. We will talk more soon, you and I but for now, why don't we get you something to eat mmm?"

It looked as though Jack's world was falling apart. He nodded. "Brother Leroy?" The silent monk poked his head in the room. "Take this young man and get him cleaned up and something to eat would you?"

Leroy nodded his head, beckoned to Jack who followed along nicely.

The old man became fierce again after that.

"Father Alphonse. Dreadful little man that."

"I agree."

"I take it that the boy is one of the two things you came here about?"

"He is. He was being...seduced by Alphonse."

The Abbot sighed. "Poor lad."

"I was heading this way anyway and I offered to bring Jack with me to see someone of whom I had heard nothing but good things."

The Abbot nodded.

"I remember Alphonse when he was a young priest. So full of himself. He had a vision you see. A vision of the church of the eternal sun as well as his place in that church. The rest of us had absolutely no bearing on that at all. Silly fool. You must be the yellow-eyed Demon he wrote us about."

"Yes."

"How did you know Alphonse?"

"I worked with him on something once."

"That was awfully cryptic of you Witcher."

"I apologise for that but it is necessary."

"People who say that, often only say that things are _necessary_ because they know that the people hearing them are going to object."

"Possibly so. Still. The boys father found out what was happening and asked me to bring the boy here in the hopes that you would be able to untangle whatever had been done tot he boys mind. I am told he is highly intelligent."

"Mmm." The Abbot grunted. "Also imaginative which can be a problem. Still, we shall see what can be done of course. If we can correct a harm that one of our so-called brothers has inflicted then we shall do our utmost. When is he expected back at the farm."

"The farmer is well aware that he might have already lost his son. He would rather the boy be lost to holy orders than be the prey of a predator however."

"That's as maybe. Now lets turn to the other thing."

"I am looking for a man named Gottfried."

"Gottfried?"

"Yes. Guard Gottfried, formerly of Duke Bertrand's guards. I'm told that he came this way in an effort to seek both holy orders and to avoid the erstwhile Father Alphonse."

"Another fan of Father Alphonse was he?"

"Similar to myself Father, similar to myself."

"I see. So many people who thought so highly of the good father." The Abbot seemed sad for a moment.

"Still, I can't say that the name rings a bell."

"Tall fellow, blonde hair, slim, lithe in his movements. I'm told by his wife that he left her towards the end of last winter so that will be about five or six months ago."

That was making a long story short.

Gottfried had returned back to normal guard life along with the other three men that the Prince had brought with him. But like Erick he had changed upon his return. Like Erick he found his duties to be... un-fulfilling but unlike Erick it wasn't a lack of morals that made the problems. It was his gaining of them. He began to take a holier than thou attitude towards everything. He would get angry at even the slightest perceived sin and fly off into a rage. When he did get home he was withdrawn and desperately unhappy.

I found his wife was still living in the home that they had built together. He had taken to sitting and staring moodily off into space. The blackness of his depression had become like a cloud that pressed down on the family as a whole. At first his wife hadn't thought anything of it. Her husband was, by all accounts a good man, a good father and fine husband. It had been remarked that although a skilled soldier, many people had thought that he housed a far too gentle soul to be a proper guard where sometimes the line between right and wrong is decided for you rather than something that you can choose for yourself.

At first, his wife had been able to break through his fog and bring him out of it in one way or another. His children too, seemed to have that skill but gradually, his depressions got worse and worse. Then one day he had lost his temper at work. Shouting at the Duke for some reason that no-one, including Gottfried, could later remember. The Duke had been as understanding as a feudal lord could be given the circumstances. Gottfried was whipped with a relatively gentle nine lashes and stripped down to private in the Duke's guard. Then he had been given leave to "sort himself out."

He'd lived for the winter, with his wife, taking care of household chores but now that he spent his time indoors and not able to keep himself active, the depression became severe. He would often apologise for the smallest thing. The tiniest thing that didn't deserve an apology. He became very tactile with his wife, constantly wanting reassurance and comfort. She was not a stupid lady and quickly realised that something must have happened on the mission when he had been travelling with the Prince and asked him about it several times. To no avail. He kept tight-lipped and told her that he had sworn that he wouldn't talk about such things. She respected his privacy but became increasingly concerned as he started handling his knife more and more.

In the end she suggested that he seek help for it. He felt that he couldn't go the castle chaplain as the chaplain was new following the departure of Father Alphonse and as such, had not earned the trust of the other inhabitants of the castle and town. She then suggested Alphonse himself to which she was surprised at the almost violent response in the negative. Alphonse had been seen as a rather weasel like man. Weak and easily manipulated by others but at least he had been fairly even-handed in the penance's that he handed out when people went to him for confessional so she was surprised at her husband's dislike.

Then this Father Abbot's name came up. He was a good five days ride away from Duke Bertrand's guards but had a good reputation for being fair, honest and spiritual. He had a tendency to send his monks to help those in need rather than in keeping with the general fashion of the time which was to hide away in spiritual contemplation rather than for tending to the public.

Gottfried sought permission to go from the Duke who gave his permission and of he went. Gottfried's wife was skilled at taking care of the children of others and was generally well thought of in the castle community, helping out where she could so she was allowed to keep her family in the same place while Gottfried got the comfort that he needed. Gottfried had a year to sort himself out or not come back. If he didn't come back inside that year then it would be assumed that he was dead or had taken holy orders and would not be coming back but he was reassured that the Duke would take care of his family if that would be the case.

The Duke seemed to take the attitude that Gottfried had been wounded on duty and was trying to take care of his man as if the injury was more physical in nature.

Gottfried packed a few things and left, seeming more free than his wife remembered having seen him in some time.

This was the monastery that I found myself in now. I had chosen him for the first guard that I would tackle as his location was further away from Duke Bertrand's castle and as such, news of his death would not cause as much fuss.

The Abbot suddenly looked very old.

"You must be talking about Brother sword."

"Brother Sword?"

"Yes. As you say he came to us shortly after winter was over. He had a haunted look in his eyes that I found...upsetting. He was like a mirror in many ways and he had this way of looking at you that made you think that he was judging you in some way. Judging you and finding you wanting, reflecting all our own sins back on ourselves. Something that you and he have in common I think."

"Really?"

"Oh yes Witcher. You are not the first Witcher that I have come across in my years. Your kind have a... trait that I don't think your creators had thought about when you were first thought of all that time ago. You are a sign of our own cowardice. We did not have the courage to face the beasts, monsters and... things that live in the darkness so in our arrogance we created you. We created servants that would do those things for us. Slaves that we could abuse. Then we invent such stories as "The child of surprise" to justify the fact that we send our unwanted young children off to what we laughably call "Witcher schools" where they can be tortured and mutated into becoming killing machines. And then, when you come back and perform those tasks that we created you for, we hate you for it and resent having to pay you for the privilege of having to fulfil your unhappy purpose."

"You say that without meaning to give offence of course."

The Abbot grinned although he was obviously upset by the words spoken.

"Of course, my son. You were a victim just as much as the first Witchers were. Otherwise the mages who first came up with your... mutations would have been the ones to clear out the darkness themselves. Oh the arrogance that magic gives."

"No different from the arrogance that a sword or a crown gives someone. Or a priests robes for that matter."

"Quite right Witcher. I deserved that. Still, brother Sword came to us seeking guidance. He had the clothes on his back, his weapons and was close to starvation. Apparently he had given his food to the first beggar that he had seen and made the rest of his journey without food and drinking stream water. We fed him and asked how we could help. He asked me what he should do. I said "about what?" and he wouldn't tell me. I won't deny being frustrated with him on that subject. He was obviously distressed by something in his past and I resolved to wait until he was ready to talk to me. We called him "sword" as it seemed appropriate being one of the only things that he had on him.

"We worked him hard. He spent his time up on the roof or out with the peasants in the field but he was a morose presence. A deeply unhappy man. I suspect he was suicidal and took care that he was never left alone so that he couldn't find a way to end himself."

"Where is he now?"

"Out in the graveyard I'm afraid. Six feet down."

"What happened?"

"We failed." The abbot shrugged sadly. "He saw a group of bandits one day attacking one of our villages for some food. He sent his companion back here to call for help and attacked the bandits single-handed and unarmed with inevitable results. Poor man."

"I thought that churchmen were supposed to be against suicide." I was surprised to find myself quite angry. My vengeance had been taken from me and I...realised how selfish I was being in that anger. Caught between anger and shame I wanted to hit things.

"Supposed. Such a big word Witcher with so many different meanings. I take it you weren't fond of Brother Sword... Brother Gottfried I should say."

"No," I took a deep breath to calm myself. "I will admit to not knowing him very well."

"Interesting that despite not knowing him he was still able to generate so much hate and anger in you."

"Interesting to you maybe." I rose to my feet. "I should get going Father."

"More monsters to slay?" The Abbot had a sly smile.

"As you say,"

"Can you answer the mystery of Brother Gottfried for me?"

"Probably."

"But you are not going to."

"No,"

"Why ever not?"

I sat back down as the question seemed to reverberate around in my skull.

"Because..." I began. "Because I am ashamed."

"I thought I recognised it. There's a scent to it you know. Do you want to talk about it?"

"What a stupid question?" My anger flashed suddenly. "Do I want to talk about it? If I wanted to talk about it I would be talking about it wouldn't I?"

My anger washed around the old man like water round a rock in a stream.

"You would be surprised at how often that isn't the case." He sniffed hugely. "But you are not being a Witcher at the moment are you?"

I deliberately misinterpreted what he said. "How could I not be a Witcher? I am a Witcher."

"You are trying to lead me astray my son. You are a Witcher but "being" a Witcher is an occupation. I will not pry as you are so obviously set against discussing it with me."

"I am. I apologise father."

The old man waved his hand negligently. "No need to apologise my son. I am an abbot, people get cross at me all the time. I just thought you might want to talk about it."

"I do,"

"Then why don't you... you know... talk about it."

"Because I think you would tell me to stop."

"Do you want me to?"

"I don't know."

"That's a yes then. It is an interesting thing this world. We live here and we are told, so often, what is right and what is wrong. We are given codes to live by. Knightly codes, chivalric codes, feudal laws, Witcher codes, church commandments," he looked at me with a sly grin as he said this last. "But what to do when we feel we must go against any of these things or when circumstances make following any of these rules...wrong or even worse... force us to commit evil?"

"I do not know the answer to that?"

"Neither do I my son. Neither do I. It is the hardest question that is posed to us all. Right up there next to "Why?" We don't know the answer. If anyone came close to me and said that they did know the answer I would hit them with my stick."

"An unusual position to take in a churchman."

"Not really. It is an unusual position to take for a churchman who wants to climb the hierarchies though as if I was more ambitious I would be saying things like "Church law is above all other law" but then that causes all kinds of problems."

He laughed at his own joke.

"Anyway." He went on. "All any of us can do is to do the best we can with the information as it is given to us at the time. I won't keep you from doing the best _you_ can. I would ask a favour though."

"Which is?"

"Two of them actually. I should write to the Duke and to Gottfried's widow to let them know the circumstances of his death and I would ask you to deliver the letters. That is one favour. The other is...would you come back when you are done with...whatever it is that you're doing. Would you tell me what was going on here, with Gottfried Alphonse and yourself and whatever sin it was that caught you all up in it?"

"So you can pass judgement on me?"

"Would you like judgement?"

"I might."

"Then I shall judge you and offer penance. But no, I just hate mysteries. They give me this terrible pain, here, in my forehead and the matter of Brother Sword was praying on my mind."

"Then I shall. If only to cure your headache."

"You are a good man Witcher."

"I doubt it."

"Any man that takes a headache away is a good man. Anyway, I shall write these letters which, coincidentally, should give you enough time to eat something and bathe. I don't mean to be rude but you stink.


	39. Chapter 39

Frederick's note: Straight into Kerrass' narrative here.

Two guards still worked with Duke Bertrand and I set my sights at them next. I had discovered that the Prince had gone off to stay with the King to plead his case for inheritance before the King himself. He had a number of guards with him and one of those was the fourth man that I was hunting by the name of Matthes.

The remaining two, Mark (Frederick's note: Not to be confused with my brother) and Gunther still worked with the Duke himself. They were the kind of dependable men that a garrison is built on. Relatively quiet and calm men. Unimaginative enough to follow orders and do their duties without comment or thought for anything else.

Two men. I knew where they lived and what their habits were so what I hoped for was that I would be able to just dart into the Duke's lands and then come back out again to travel towards the King's castle as fast as I could. Hopefully just ahead of whatever men would inevitably be sent after me.

For no real reason I decided that Mark would be the first man that I went after. I snuck into his home while he was out and at his duties and left him his note. He was a young man and had been "walking out" with the miller's daughter. She was a young lady who was considered a local beauty and was emerging as one of the frontrunners for her hand in marriage. When he wasn't on duty he would invariably be looking for a bunch of flowers or some small gift that he could use to gain some kind of favour with the girl. In all things he seemed a diligent kind of man. He trained and worked hard. You can find men like him in every garrison on the continent

I left him his note and watched as he returned home from wherever he was. I saw him go inside and sit up for a few moments more before extinguishing his candles and, presumably, sleeping.

I left then for my camp-site and slept the night away and woke early. I went to the clearing that I had set aside for our meeting and settled into wait. I didn't expect for him to arrive at all but I was pleasantly surprised when I saw Mark coming down the pathway and into the clearing. He carried his scabbarded sword in one hand and a bottle in the other. He was dressed in his shirtsleeves, plain trousers and boots. His hair was tied back with a piece of leather and he was smiling when he saw me.

I will not deny that I was astonished.

"Witcher?" he said in greeting with a smile and a wave. "I had wondered if you would come to me eventually."

"Mark," I was careful in my wording. I had no idea what was happening but if his intention was to unsettle me before the fighting of a duel then he was entirely successful.

"May I sit?"

"Please." I gestured. And he sat on the floor and crossed his legs.

"Before you start," he said, grinning at my expression. "Yes, I understand that I'm here to fight a duel."

"I had wondered." I commented. "Your lack of mail, seconds of any kind and coming while carrying a bottle of what looks to be some rather fine looking Rye."

"Yes well." He took the bottle and opened it. "I am under no illusions Witcher. I am a competent swordsman at best. People say that I have skill but I know the truth. I am far better with a crossbow and everything that I have with a sword is due to hard work rather than any kind of talent."

"So why no mail?"

"Would it help? Or would it just serve to prolong things when matters are all but a foregone conclusion." He offered me the bottle. "Don't take this the wrong way though. I intend to fight and fight hard. I know that some things in a fight can be influenced by even the smallest detail and I absolutely intend to take advantage of any gap that you might offer."

I took the bottle, sniffed it and took a swig.

"Good then," I commented.

He laughed at me. "Admit it Witcher, you are astonished."

"I will admit it and freely."

"Then at least I have achieved that much."

"You are not angry?"

"No. In many ways I find that it's something of a relief." A shadow fell across the young man's face and then he sighed before taking the bottle back. "I cannot deny that those events have weighed on my mind. Not as much as with poor Gottfried I will admit. I tried to talk to him about it a couple of times but he didn't want to. If anything it seemed to make it worse. But I cannot deny that we deserve what we've got coming to us."

"Yes. Yes I suppose we do."

"Including yourself Witcher?"

"Oh yes. My sin was one of cowardice. I should have done something there and then. I should have tried to stop it and then...I should have seen it coming and taken steps."

"What, murder us all in our sleep?"

"I don't know."

"Or would you not have taken the contract in the first place? Be honest now Witcher." He accused me with a smile and the offer of the bottle.

"You are probably right. I'm a Witcher. My code is clear, we don't take part in this kind of thing. As soon as I realised that the contract had become political I should have just left the entire thing altogether."

"The Prince would have found someone else."

"I know. That doesn't help me at all."

"So here we are. A soldier and a Witcher. About to do our very best to kill each other."

"As you say."

We sat in silence for a little while.

"Can I tell you something Witcher?"

"By all means."

"My father was a soldier you know. Made it to Sergeant of the guard. Not quite personal guard but at the same time he was a good soldier and when he died, the Duke was good enough to send flowers. I remember the day that I told him that I wanted to be a soldier like him. He never beat me harder than he beat me that day."

He laughed at the memory. "I sometimes got into trouble because the marks that his belt left made other men think that I had been flogged and they were a lot slower to trust me. I think he was sorry for it because after that, from the age of eight he arranged for me to spend time with every craftsman or working man in the castle. I worked with the horses, the blacksmith, the grooms and some of the servants. I never found out why but I suspect that he was attempting to see if I had interest in other trades. But all I ever did was to play with swords and march up and down.

"In the end, on the day before my fourteenth name-day he summoned me to his office. "Tomorrow my son you will be a man," he says to me. "If you truly wish to be a soldier then you will be taken into the garrison with my blessing. You will have to work hard to get past my name and others will hate you for it and think that any advancement you make will be due to my influence." "I understand father" I said but in truth I was bouncing with joy.

"''But," he went on. "I have brought you here in the hopes that you will listen to me one last time as your father before I am your Sergeant." I remember distinctly that he rose and walked round his desk. He was a well-respected man my father and he needed a small desk of his own to work out duty rosters and the like. He got up and walked round before falling to his knees before me. I remember being astonished to see my father abase himself before me like that. "I am begging you my son. I am on my knees. Do not become a soldier."

"I asked him why. "Because in becoming a soldier you lose your own will. Your own sense of right and wrong. You are a good lad and I'm proud to call you my son. If you become a soldier you will lose that. I have known bad soldiers with a history of drunkenness and violence weep at the sight of corpses. But I've also known good men and good soldiers. Fine family men with spouses and children who went mad after a battle and became rapists, thieves and murderers. In performing those acts they pressure other good men into degrading themselves. I would not have that happen to my son. So please, my son. Choose another profession."

Mark smiled at the memory.

"Poor old man. I chose the soldiery, because I was young and full of visions of glory and honour and chivalry. I suspect it broke his heart as he died a year later."

"That's no excuse."

"I know, I know. I was just thinking that... He was right. Poor old man. I don't know why I did what I did. I really don't. I will admit that it was fun at the time but later..."

He shook his head, took a swig and handed the bottle back.

"I've been living with those few days that we spent with the Princess ever since. I've tried to better myself since, I'm studying and learning to read as well as poetry and stuff so that I might become a knight in one of the chivalric orders in an effort to try and...atone for my crime. But even despite all of that, as I say it was almost a relief when I got your note. Now I shall be judged by your blade and before the sight of the holy sun."

"Are you ready then?"

"Not quite."

We sat and drank for a little while longer. I will admit that I was starting to have second thoughts.

"You know Witcher. I was brought up on stories of chivalry. We are both guilty men," He held his hands up to forestall my protest, "No, I'm not meaning to say that my guilt is less than yours. I committed the deed and I expect to answer for it. But here we are... I remember tales of knights who fought to the death despite firm friendship. They would share a drink before hand and swear eternal friendship and forgive each other their injuries despite the coming battle."

I nodded.

"I did wrong Witcher. I know it and should you win the day then please know that I forgive you that death and please accept my apologies for any harm or hurt that I might have done you."

"Accepted and with my thanks." I managed. I found that I was moved.

"Grateful to you Witcher. Grateful to you."

We finished the bottle in silence.

In the end Mark rose, stretched.

"One last favour Witcher if I may. I know that it won't make much difference in the long run. I also know that it doesn't excuse what I did. But will you tell her that I am sorry? When she wakes up I mean."

"I will."

He nodded and stretched again.

"What a beautiful day. I am glad Witcher, that you chose to share a drink with me."

"In friendship Mark. In friendship."

"Then, if I may." He drew his sword and threw the scabbard away. "May I wish you luck of the day."

"And to you."

He saluted me and I bowed in answer.

He did himself credit. He underplayed his skills when describing them earlier. He fought with tenacity and determination. He fought like a man who wanted to live but I suspect, deep down, that he was waiting for the final stroke when it came. I think he wanted it.

I killed him as quickly as I could given the circumstances.

I arranged his body, sword on his chest with his hands around the hilt and covered his face with my spare blanket.

I would have wept if I had been able.

Then I made a mistake. It's easy to call it a stupid mistake with the benefits of hindsight but time was pushing me on at that point. It was the middle of summer and I was very conscious of the passage of time. I was done with the south. I wanted to be done with it, with Sleeping Beauty and this whole mess. I wanted it to be done. To either live or die, whatever the outcome might be, catch a boat back north and drink myself into oblivion before returning to feline keep for a winter away from the world where I would be surrounded by my brothers on the path and absolutely no ambiguities. There was the monster. I kill the monster. I get paid. End of story.

So what I did was to go straight after Gunther.

I had also been moved by Mark's actions. It had taken some courage to face me like that and to do so in a way that he left no hard feelings afterwards. At the time I felt that he was an even better man than Gottfried for he had faced his problems head on. He had taken the past, what he had seen and done and tried to make himself a better man for it. Then when it became obvious that the past was coming for him regardless of what he had done, he had faced that without flinching. I admired Mark whereas it struck me that Gottfried had run away from his problems rather than face them.

Now I find that I am not as sure.

But still.

The night immediately following Mark's death I left a note for Gunther. He was another career soldier, well into his twenties. A skilled workhorse but not to flashy. He would never advance beyond the rank of Sergeant if he was lucky but at the same time he was dependable. I found out that he had married a camp follower while out on campaign in the early part of his career, although there were several children the two saw very little of each other and both seemed to prefer it that way.

I waited for a while, not knowing what would happen, in the vain and rather naïve hope that he would follow Mark's example and come to find me.

In the end I had to go looking for him.

In my defence I was anxious to leave. At this point I had killed two men in the local area. A washed up huntsman who no-one really liked anymore but I was under no illusions. Mark was found dead, Erick was dead, Alphonse had "disappeared" under mysterious circumstances and Gottfried had also been killed. It wouldn't take long for someone to realise what the connecting tissue was. But I wanted to get on. I wanted Gunther, Matthes and the prince dead beneath my sword.

But I should have been more careful.

When he didn't appear I went into town to check. He had been on duty in the early hours of the morning and then, leaving the castle he had marched into a tavern and proceeded to do some damage to his weekly pay by drinking it away.

I went in and found him at a table in the middle of the place.

I bet you can see what's coming.

I did not.

I sat at the table. Gunther eyed me from the rim of his cup.

"Witcher," he greeted me.

"Gunther."

"I got your note. Both the one in my house as well as the one you left outside Erick's cottage and on Mark's corpse."

I said nothing and did my best not to react.

"I've been thinking about what to do next. I guessed it was you of course."

"Really?"

"Oh yes. Not many people were good enough to beat Mark in a straight fight. I'm better of course but at the same time. He was good enough with the sword. Foolish and naïve of course. I saw the body you know?"

I said nothing.

"The sword that performed those cuts would have to be razor sharp. So, I thought to myself. A razor edged sword and a swordsman good enough to cut Mark down when Mark had a blade in his hand? That duel must have been a sight to see. Stupid fool. He was a good shot mind you. You're lucky that he didn't shoot you from a distance. That's what I would have done but that's why I'm the better soldier. That's why I'm going to survive."

I said nothing. He took another long drink not taking his eyes off me.

"So then with Alphonse, Erick and Gottfried having gone off. It just had to be you. Heh. I didn't like them much. Mark though, Mark was a good lad all things considered. Just needed to grow up a bit and stop thinking of the world in black and white."

"He was at that. A good man."

"I'm better though."

"Care to prove that?"

Gunther smiled.

"I'll give you this one chance Witcher. You were a companion on the road and for that I owe you. Here is that chance. Walk away now. Never come back or you will be torn apart in the castle courtyard by horses."

"You know I'm not going to do that."

"I know but I felt that I had to give you a chance to walk away."

"Some chance."

He grinned at me. "I don't get it Witcher. These things happen all the time. We're soldiers, we live in fear for our lives all the time and then suddenly, when that fear goes away. When the battle is won or when the castle is taken or the town falls. That fear explodes outwards. That feeling is indescribable and that's when you know. You really _know_ that you're alive. We're not in control of our actions then. Rape is the right of the conqueror. The Skelligans are known for it. They go a-raiding for a bit of rape and pillaging. Why aren't you killing all of them. Armies have sacked towns and cities since towns, cities and armies were invented. Rape, murder and looting has been happening as part of those things for as long. Why aren't you railing against those people?

"Because I wasn't part of that. You are right about the need to feel alive though. I am a Witcher and some people claim that I am not human and that I don't feel or recognise human emotions. They may be right because after a good hunt when I have been in danger of having lost my life several times but at the same time I made it out and I was triumphant. I too have gone out of my way to get laid and drunk off my tits as an affirmation of my own continued existence. But I always make sure that the girl is willing. Always. Even if I've paid for it. That's the difference here. If that makes me less human? Then I can live with that."

"Ah but there's another thing Witcher. I am a guard. I was given permission by my liege lord. That's how feudalism works. He told me I could therefore I did."

"But the decision was still yours Gunther. You could have said no."

"I could have. But I didn't."

"And now you must pay for it. Join me outside?"

"I've thought about that."

"And?"

"Nah." He took a mouthful of what he had been drinking and spat it in my face. It was water. He pushed the table into my guts and sprang to his feet drawing his sword. He was echoed by another half dozen or so swords being drawn.

I tumbled backwards and rolled to my feet, drawing my sword as I did so giving it a spin in an effort to drive off my immediate assailants.

Then I took a moment to swear hard for a few moments. I couldn't do it for long though. I kicked up the table onto it's side and used a sign to send it into a group of men that were coming from the left. I grabbed another bottle which I thought from the shape of the thing that it might contain some kind of strong alcohol. An assailant was coming from my right. I parried with my sword, smashed the bottle over his head splashing the liquid all over him. On some level I must have realised that it was a strong alcohol of some kind as I kicked him in the gut sending him backwards and following it up with a shower of sparks from my hand with a quick sign of Igni. I was gratified as flames lit up.

There was a man between me and the door. I was already tired from two signs in as many seconds and I decided that I needed room to move and think. I charged the man and shoulder checked him through the door and into the street, splinters of wood falling around us. I used the body of the man as a cushion and rolled off him and back to my feet.

To stay and fight or to take to my heels and live to fight another day. But that decision was taken out of my hands as I faced another four blades outside. I guessed that there would be another four blades at the back of the tavern. So Seven in the tavern (Frederick's note: Gunther plus six men) four in front of me and another four men at the back. Fifteen men in total.

I had one piece of luck though. The men in front of me had halberds and the space was far too small for the proper use of them.

Facing them after a roll I took another roll to be under the blades and amongst the poles and the men. One hand on the hilt and another half way up the blade I spun in place and cut into the man on each side of me before I pushed past them. I felt one of those blows go deep. I ran for a second or two.

I wanted space. Room to move and room to think.

I was in a market place. It looked as though I was free to hit anything moving though. The guards had cleared the area of people. I grabbed a basket of something as I passed it out on a stall and hurled it behind me.

My pursuers were shouting to each other, trying to coordinate things to cut me off. One man leapt out of a side ally. He tried to cut horizontally. The mistake often comes in these situations to try and spin away from the attacker to avoid the blow. But I went close to the man. Slammed the man's head into a wall. I don't think I did more than make his head ring and did more damage to the wall than to his head but I grabbed him and sent him behind me as well.

More space. More room. Probably a vain hope at the moment. There was a table off to one side. I jumped onto the table top and then jumped up to lever myself up and through the window of a nearby building. A startled young couple shrank away from me as I ran through the room vaulting over the bed and through the window on the other side of the building. I landed hard, bounced off the opposite building and ran back in the direction of the tavern in the hope that some of the guards would assume that I would keep running in the general direction of "away. One guard came through though. I levelled my sword and ran him through. He was in uniform though so I knew that it wasn't Gunther.

I sped on.

I came round the corner and could then see the front of the tavern again. Two men. Neither was Gunther. But it might cut down the number of men pursuing me.

No time for indecision. Make a move.

I ran out. The first man saw me but I was fast on him. It only takes the tip of a blade to kill a man. Just an inch of razor sharp metal. I used that tip to rip out the poor man's throat. The other man had his sword out. I ducked under the swing and spun aside. I wanted to avoid the clash of metal on metal to try and prevent others being called. I used the spin to cut into the back of the man's leg. My sword cut through and to the bone. He screamed but I was confident that at least he was out of the fight. Three men. Three men dead or out of the fight. But the guard was still screaming and more men were coming.

I ran again.

If I was more optimistic I might hope that another man might be removed from the fight to care for the wounded but I decided that now was not the time for optimism.

More shouts.

I took a deep breath. I was tired. Too tired by some margin. But the men were getting closer. Like all Witchers I keep a couple of potions designed for quick use on my belt. I found the one that I wanted, swallowed and threw the bottle away so that it smashed. I felt the effects rush from my throat, into my belly, into my lungs. It tracked along my spine and into my brain. Down my arms and legs and into my fingertips. I would pay for it later. But for now I smiled.

I sketched a quick sign onto the floor. The men were nearly on me. I grinned and hoped my face looked terrible.

Then I charged.

The first man tried for a lunch. I parried, pushing his blade aside and moved past him. I ducked under the next stroke and went for a swung a horizontal strike that cut at the man's kidney area. I felt my blade go deep.

Another man dead or dying. The third man was not charging. He was on his back foot and swung at my neck. I parried but then he struck again towards my groin. Another parry but this was taking too long. More men were coming and another man was behind me.

I threw another wave of sparks in front of me. The man staggered backwards and I stabbed him in the groin. A fountain of blood was my reward.

I spun to face the man behind me depending on the falling corpse to protect my back.

Man number one had recovered from his missed stroke and he struck at my head. On sudden impulse I decided not to punish his bravery for being the first man to attack at me and I punched him hard in the jaw. It might have broken his jaw but he would live.

More men were behind me. I retreated fast, past my trap and the first three men were caught. They slowed and I saw one man fall vomiting. The other two got the glassy eyed look that I was hoping for. Two quick strikes and I was another two attackers down. But there were more coming. By the sounds of it the full garrison was on it's way.

But. I was convinced that this was it. That I would never get a better chance than this to get at Gunther. Six men dead. I ran around the cottages. Time for a bit of stealth. I put my sword away and drew my dagger. People moved around. They were looking for me. Shouting out instructions, sightings both true and false.

High ground. That was what I needed.

Another man died at my hands. Throat cut from behind. I left the man in the open. Another uniformed man killed. Another man murdered.

But he served his purpose. People were drawn towards him like men towards a flame. One of the strange things about people is...It has been remarked upon many times by others more learned than I... People simply don't look up. I lay flat on that roof top for several minutes. I took another potion to keep myself moving and with enough energy to fight. There was a gap and I took it, moving over to another, higher building. Then another, more and more I saw the same patterns. People simply not looking up and I grew bolder. I made it over to one of the town watchtowers where I climbed up to the top.

There was a guard there of course.

A blow of my dagger's pommel knocked him down and I followed up with a boot to finish his journey into unconsciousness. I stole his tabbard and his helmet which made for a quick disguise. I looked out.

I found Gunther in about ten minutes. He was in amongst the other soldiers. Helping to direct matters. They knew that I was coming for him and they wanted him protected in case I tried something. I took my sword off and tucked it into my belt in what I hoped approximated to a soldiers style.

If I hesitated. If I had second thoughts. I swallowed them. There would never be a better time.

I walked up. Nice and slowly. No rushing. Just taking it one step at a time.

I walked up behind Gunther. And tapped him on the shoulder.

"Excuse me sir."

"You don't have to call me sir. I'm a Corporal Guardsman. I work for a living."

He looked at me. It took him a solid ten heartbeats to realise who I was. I stabbed him in his gut.

"I hope it hurts you bastard." I said to him quietly.

I ripped the blade upwards

"Mark was twice the man you were you son of a bitch."

He groaned. People were starting to shout and holler.

I pushed him backwards and he fell. The dagger was still in my hand. He seemed to curl up around the wound as if by surrounding it and holding it close like a frightened animal he could keep it safe so that it wouldn't kill him.

He screamed.

Horribly.

I walked away.

Someone shouted and I ran.

I had to kill one more man. They were beginning to stretch out in a line behind me so I spun and killed the man closest to me. It made them start to consider their own mortality and suddenly they weren't as keen to chase me into the fields that were growing their crops long and tall.

I was glad. There was enough blood on my hands for one day.

I regretted their deaths. I thought then what I still think today. Gunther put them in harms way. I would have been happy with just his death and that man needed to die. He was neither good nor evil but he had the potential for both and he had chosen evil once. I prevented him from being able to do so again.

I fled from that place and hoped to never set foot in that area ever again.

Now I had new targets to hunt for.

I turned my horses ears towards the capital of that small southern country. I wondered at the time why that city was the capital rather than any of the others. I looked into it once and discovered that it was by simple virtue of the King's Grandfather being a slightly better general than his competitors, or a slightly more ruthless politician. Nowadays they're a relatively minor client Kingdom of Southern Nilfgaard but at the time they thought quite highly of themselves.

(Frederick's note: I looked them up when I got home. The Kingdom in question is now part of that chain of kingdoms that the Nilfgaardians call their "southern wall". Those Kingdoms against whom the men from even further south have to throw themselves against in order to rebel properly and is also one of the reasons why those rebellions are always doomed to fail. They were conquered by Nilfgaard in what was described as "The victory of one stroke". Tales tell of a duel between champions on the battlefield and to the victor goes ruler-ship of the country. I looked a little further though and discovered that the King of that country was assassinated, without heirs, maybe thirty years after when Kerrass' story takes place, around fifty years ago from today.)

The castle was maybe a little grander, but the town around it was a little smaller. It was certainly a much more defensible castle than Duke Bertrand's was. I went into town and started to make enquiries as to the Prince's location within the castle and the whereabouts of Matthes, the head of his personal guard.

I was displeased at the answer. I had missed them by a day or two as they had fled the capital with the assassins on their heels.

I need to go into a little bit of politics here as context might be important. The Prince and Duke's story about the elderly King dying without a clear heir was true. There were several Grandchildren that were vying for the crown with various nobles and knights supporting this faction or another and the country was indeed on the brink of civil war. The King, knowing that he had relatively few days ahead of him was having the difficulty that, if he chose one man over the others then that man would almost certainly make a bloodbath of his rivals. Then his rivals would rise up against the crown and civil war would happen. Some people had claimed that the old man was enjoying the turmoil and on some level or another he might have been but he was also aware that his continued survival was also one of the things that was keeping things at bay. Or that if one "Prince" decided that they had the bigger, stronger army or claim then his life might be seen as an obstacle.

What had happened, while I was still fleeing through the crops and fields of Duke Bertrand was that the scale had finally tipped. The King was still alive and was still ruling but one of the rival princes had decided to send out the assassins. He had been building his forces steadily, hiring mercenaries and buying weapons and armour from Kovir and Poviss and felt that he was now in a position to claim the throne for himself regardless of real or perceived legitimacy. He had hired a number of assassins to send against the King and the other claimants to the throne.

Those assassins had succeeded in killing a number of Prince Bertrand's guards but Prince Bertrand had a number of decent spies on his payroll and as a result had seen the stroke coming for some time. What he had miscalculated was the strength of the stroke and had deemed it prudent to retreat to "safer" ground.

For myself I spent a little too long swearing loudly before I managed to start thinking again.

The Prince was fleeing. He had half a dozen guards with him and had fled by the eastern exit from the city on horseback and with a carriage in tow. No-one could tell me who was in the carriage but some told me that it was probably the Prince's mistress or some similar kind of arrangement. The Prince wasn't known to be using body doubles and besides. The night that the assassins had come was a night of horror and terror in the capital, tales of masked men going from house to house looking for the Prince and their various other targets suggested that if he was still in the capital then he would have been found.

So I took some money and bought a good map. That he was travelling with a carriage was an important piece of information because it meant that he was confined to certain roads as many of the tracks that _I_ might use as a lone horseman would be inaccessible to him.

Tracking the exit meant that I could track his road to a point. Then I had to reason out where he might have gone when the road forked.

It did occur to me that the carriage might have been there so that people hunting the prince, like me, would think to confine themselves to a specific number of routes when the carriage would soon be abandoned and the Prince could go wherever he liked but that struck me as a pointless double bluff. If he hadn't taken the carriage then the search parties would be spread so thin that they might as well have been pointless any way.

So there was a reason he had the carriage and therefore he would keep it.

The rest of my thinking was taken up by trying to figure out which routes that he would take, when and why. It was a gamble. A huge gamble. Looking at the way things were turning out it was almost certain that my vengeance and the Princesses justice would happen regardless of what my actions would turn out to be but that was... unsatisfying in my eyes. I wanted to kill him. I wanted to be the man delivering the fatal stroke. I wanted them to _know_ why it was happening.

I set out and rode hard for my proposed intercept point.

It was a wooded road that wound round and between some craggy hills. Calling them mountains was a bit of a stretch but the locals called them "Beaver Mountains." I never found out why. The road in question doesn't really exist any more having been overtaken by a growing forest and trade routes going elsewhere. I checked and I couldn't find any sign of the party having passed before me so all that was left was to choose my ambush site and wait. I was either going to spend a few pointless days waiting as the party would have either gone another route, already been killed or have passed me.

Or I would be fighting.

I spent a day or so enjoying being out of doors. Far too much time in towns and cities over the last few weeks so I enjoyed being out in the trees. The ambush was set by simple method of a large tree, dragged across the road and a liberal scattering of caltrops on the patch of road leading up to the tree.

Then I waited.

I was lucky.

I was either lucky or there was something else going on which I didn't really want to think about.

I prefer to think that I was lucky.

They weren't going to fast. Riding calmly, if quickly. Seven horsemen. Three in the front, four in the back.

The prince was in the front. He saw my tree and help up his hand. Another guard called the halt.

A guard I recognised as Matthes rode up from the back.

I was behind a tree nearby, up the hill from where the Prince was.

"Problem your Highness?"

"Probably not. Probably just my paranoia."

"It's not paranoia if they're really after you My Prince."

The Prince laughed.

"Let's get it cleared then."

"Yes Your Highness." Matthes gestured and two men moved forward from the main group to do their jobs.

I waited until those two men would be well out of the way.

I stood up, stretched a little bit to get the stiffness out of my knees and elbows. In truth I was astonished that no-one noticed me. I checked my gear and then stepped out.

"I'm afraid it wasn't just paranoia, Prince Bertrand."

Swords sang as they were drawn by the other men on their horses.

"Witcher?" The Prince said. "I thought you didn't hire as an assassin."

"I don't," I called down drawing my sword with a flourish. "But I am here to kill you."

"Really? That's a shame. I will admit to rather liking you once upon a time. Matthes?"

"My Prince?"

"Kill him."

"Yes My Prince. Another gesture and the remaining four men dismounted. I was standing up the hill from them and they couldn't have charged me on horse back as easily. When they dismounted they moved forward to surround me.

"Nothing personal Witcher. I liked you too." Matthes said easily.

"Feels pretty personal to me." I said easily enough. Then I lifted my arm and shot him between the eyes with the crossbow that I had kept hidden by my side.

I try not to use my crossbow wherever possible. I am always concerned that it would become a crutch of some kind. I keep to the traditional tools of sword and sign as they will always be to hand whereas once a bolt is fired then it is done and if it misses then it is a problem. But sometimes, it serves it's purpose.

I had wanted to kill Matthes with a blade. I had been looking forward to it but a death is a death and at least he knew it was me before he died.

He spluttered a bit. He seemed surprised even though he must have died instantly. He staggered for a moment but then I had no time to worry about it.

The bolt was shot but the crossbow was still a weapon. I threw it hard into the face of the man on my left.

Threw a good hard Aard sign into the first man to charge me which punched him off his feet. Matthes was still sputtering and staggering.

The thrown crossbow had hit home and the man was yelling with a broken nose.

The fourth man rushed in... too fast for his own good. If he had kept me at bay until "broken nose" had had time to gather his wits or until the fallen man had climbed to his feet. Or if he had waited until the two men clearing the tree had been able to reinforce him.

But he didn't wait. He charged and I could simply sidestep and rip his throat out with a quick blow of my sword.

The fallen man was climbing to his feet. Broken nose was trying to clear the tears that had come to his eyes and was snarling with rage. Don't judge him too harshly. Broken noses hurt and tears are involuntary if you can still weep them it's an involuntary reaction.

I kicked the man who was climbing to his feet onto his back and stabbed down into his throat. He tried to scream but the blood choked him and it came out as a splutter as the blood fountained up the blade.

Matthes finally crashed to the floor.

The Prince had yelled something and the remaining two men charged towards me. Broken nose swung at me, he was still half blind. I wanted to spare him. He was in no position to fight for a moment or two yet and although I found that I wanted to spare him. I couldn't afford the pity.

I killed him as quickly and painlessly as I could in the circumstances, with a cut to the groin cutting the femoral artery. He fell to the ground and I finished him with a quick stab to the throat.

The two men who were moving the tree came to charge me but one tripped up.

They were rushing. That was the problem. If they had come together they might have had more luck. The remaining man charged me with a thrust that I could read a mile off. I knocked the blow aside with a cross-body parry and drove my sword pommel into his chin. He staggered back and my reverse stroke nearly decapitated him.

The last man was whimpering as he closed with me. He fought fairly well for a moment or two but he was a cavalryman first and foremost. His stance was too wide. Too solid for groundwork.

Three parries and it was all done. He was off balance and I struck across his body. Twice. Hard and sharp. He had time to fall and realise that his innards had fallen into his lap. He looked up at me and there was such terror in his eyes. I cut at the back of his neck. It was all I could do for him.

I turned to face the Prince. He was smiling although I couldn't read it.

He had his hands up, keeping them well away from his sword.

"I once read stories about Witcher's skills with swords. I had wanted to see it first hand when we travelled together but... There was something missing in the way you fought those monsters Kerrass. But seeing that. Six men."

He took a deep breath and blew it out.

"Six men, no slouches either. All of them have killed others in my service."

I had recovered my breath by then. "I only wanted to kill Matthes."

"I know. I had heard that someone was coming for us."

"Draw your sword Lord Prince."

"Not yet." he held his hands up in an effort to be placating. "Soon though. I promise." He was backing towards the carriage.

I raised my sword towards him.

"If there's someone in there to help you. A few more to kill won't make much difference."

"I know that, I know." He took another breath. "I have no right to ask anything of you Witcher. Indeed I am only hoping that you won't just kill me when I haven't got my sword drawn. I am also hoping that you won't just decide that you need to take steps to prevent any witnesses from escaping."

"What do you want highness?"

"Two of the horses and to let them go."

"Let who go."

"My treasures."

"Oh fuck off highness. You once said that your treasures were in the Thorn forest."

"And they were, in a manner of speaking."

He had backed up to the door of the carriage.

"Just don't kill them Witcher. I will fight you if that is your wish. Just don't kill them."

He opened the door.

I watched as two women came out. I didn't know them. They were large, healthy, hearty women. I suspected they were from peasant stock or at least they were dressed like that.

But I wasn't really looking at the women in question. It was the small bundles that they were carrying.

"Oh fuck off." I breathed.

"Well done," the prince said to them both. "Well done in keeping them quiet. That can't have been easy."

"They're good little treasures." said one. The Prince had the good grace to wince at the words. "They just want to eat and sleep. We haven't had a peep out of them 'ave we?"

The other one shook her head.

"See Witcher. My children. Four months old now and as beautiful a pair of children you will never find on this earth."

I stared at him in horror.

"So this was your plan." I said. I was aghast, horrified and furious beyond my capacity to deal with. "This was your plan. To have children with her."

The prince nodded.

"That was our plan. The one thing that the King was unable to do was to provide the Kingdom with an heir. An heir beyond any possibility of illegitimacy. A son, with a proven value of fertility. Preferably with a wife and children of his own. I needed a wife and that wife needed to have children."

"But all the eligible women were taken."

"Not really. I am still a powerful and wealthy man." He still had his eyes on me. Keeping his distance and his hands away from his sword hilt. He was moving though to separate himself from his children. I assumed that this was so that I would have to make a choice between targets. If I went for the children then he could attack me or flee and if I attacked him then the women themselves could flee. "But to marry me, any woman and their father would have chosen a side. Everyone wants to be on the winning side you see. No-one wants to make a mistake."

"So you found a bride."

"I found a bride. She was still alive and still capable of giving me an heir. And even better than that... She was royalty."

"You bastard."

"You have to admit. It was a good plan. So how about it Witcher, you gonna let my children live?"

I sighed. "No. Not your children. But hers?" I shook my head. I felt as though I was under some kind of spell. Not unlike what happens when we used to practice Axii on each other. "She wouldn't want me to kill her children."

"Thank you Witcher. Thank you."

"Fuck your thanks." I was struggling to stay angry. I had to remind myself of what I had seen the prince do. Trying to reconcile the man that had raped a sleeping princess with the man in front of me who, to all intents and purposes, was a loving father. "What are their names?"

"The boy is called Stefan. For my father and according to the legend, her father as well. She is called Rose.

"For her."

I nodded. "I will tell her when she wakes up."

He nodded to me and then gestured. The two women took to their heels and fled.

I still had my sword out and pointing at him.

"I would not have stopped them from taking a horse or two."

The Prince grinned. "The horses terrify them. War horses after all and wet-nurses are chosen for the quantity and quality of their milk. Not their bravery."

"Oh I don't know. They could have fled when the blood started to flow."

"You are not wrong. Ah well."

He drew his sword.

"You ready?"

We closed slowly. Carefully. He was using a one handed long sword, broad bladed and I guessed that it would be heavy for use on horseback. There was room on it for an extra hand around the pommel but he seemed to wield it confidently so I guessed that he would be conditioned for it. I also guessed that he would try and take us amongst the trees where his slightly shorter sword would have an advantage.

We were hesitant at first as we weighed each other up. He had seen my skills but I had not seen his.

He was good. Very good. Far better than I gave him credit for.

The first few exchanges came to nothing before we pulled back from each other for a moment.

He grinned a little and flexed his shoulders. I was concentrating and worryingly tired although I didn't think that that would be much of an advantage for him. He had been riding and riding hard for some time.

"I don't suppose that now would be a good time to try and offer you a bribe would it?" The prince asked.

"You don't have enough money on you." I retorted.

"True. Money's heavy." He charged then but I was expecting it.

He really was good. The fight started to range about a bit. He did indeed try to take us off the road and in amongst the trees. Most sword fights are over quickly. It is only in the case of similar levels of skill, training and conditioning that duels go on for longer. But this was taking a while.

I had made several mistakes. Firstly I had assumed that he would want the fight to be over quickly due to the fact that he was undoubtedly being pursued. The second was that I had assumed that he wouldn't be that good. I had taken him for a politician rather than as a fighter.

But he was good. Really good.

Much to my horror I realised that I was enjoying myself.

Then I realised something else. He was delaying me. He was trying to tie me up. We broke apart, both of us breathing hard.

"I win Witcher." he grinned at me.

"You know. I really am not going to kill your children."

"Huh. Who would have thought it." He struck at me then. I parried and he kicked out at me in an effort to knock me flat. I spun out of the way using the spin to cut towards him. He jerked back and my blade swung towards him. He tried to lift his own sword into a cut but I was too close for that to work and was able to kick out at his hands where he was holding the sword. He dove and rolled away.

When he came to his feet he was some way down the hill. He sucked at his knuckles.

"Fucking hell Witcher that hurt."

"It was supposed to."

He leant against a nearby tree. I had no intention of going down to him as I had the high ground for now and he was reluctant to come up for the same reason.

"I'm knackered." he said. "Mark, remember Mark?"

"I remember Mark."

"He once told me that when two knights are fighting to the death they are generally allowed to ask for one break apiece. A rest to get their breath back and neither would look down on the other for doing so. Apparently it's a rule of chivalry or some such nonsense. He started to get into that kind of thing when we got back. So how about it Witcher? There's clean water and some food on the carriage. I promise I won't run."

"Why not? In Mark's memory if nothing else."

The prince nodded, sheathed his sword and we started climbing up the hill back towards the carriage.

"I hadn't realised how far we'd come." he commented.

I smiled. I hated the prince. I really really hated him. But he was impossible to dislike. I was careful to walk with him in front of me but I don't think it even occurred to him to try and stab me in the back. He disappeared inside the coach and came back triumphantly holding a water-skin. He lifted it up and swallowed a good amount of it into his open mouth.

"Gods and Goddesses above and below but that's good."

He threw it to me.

"Careful." He went on. "It's fucking cold."

I grunted something non-committal. But it was indeed cold.

"Ah Witcher. I have to thank you you know."

"Thank me?"

"Yes. I haven't felt this good in ages. There you are, trying to kill me and here I am trying to prevent that by method of killing you. It's simple direct and easy. No moral quandaries no thoughts or politics lie at the back of it. Just two men trying to kill each other. Face to face like."

"I suspect that politics might have had something to do with it."

"But that's just it. Politics caused the entire situation. But here and now. Just in the moment. It's simple. I'm trying to think of the last time that was true and I honestly can't remember a time."

"Maybe when you were raping the princess." I was trying to be harsh.

"Honestly? No, not even then. Even when making love..."

"Hey,"

"Alright then, to soothe your troubled...whatever. When taking my pleasure...Does that suit your sensitive nature Witcher?"

"Fuck you." I said it without power and he ignored it.

"Even when taking my pleasure I am always worrying. Why is the girl doing this. Does she have a knife under her pillow, are their assassins waiting for the moment of climax when I'm helpless, to burst in the room. I have never been drunk. You know that? Never been drunk. I've never been relaxed enough to get to the point where I would be comfortable enough to get drunk."

He laughed.

"You know what? If you weren't so obviously intent on my death I would suggest that we go down into a town, get pissed off our faces. That's what I want to do right now. Honest to the Moon and the Sun. I want to march into a Tavern and then drink it. Preferably in the company of a friend. Would it surprise you to know that right now, while having this conversation you are as close a friend as I can immediately think of?"

"And I hate you."

"Precisely so but at least you are honest about it. You have a reason. A simple reason that is based on your own moral code. Not a thing that is dictated by a King or a Duke or a relative. You made that decision. Just you. Anyway, where was I."

"Drinking the tavern."

"Yes. All of it. Then I would march into an alchemists shop and say. "I want drugs. All the drugs that are going to make me feel like a glowing god of men. Then I would march into a brothel and make use of several of their richest and most amazing women. And men too. Fuck it, try anything once."

He sighed happily.

"I don't suppose you'd go for that would you Witcher?"

"Afraid not."

"Damn. Can't blame a guy for trying though eh?"

"What happened highness?"

"It turns out that I love my children."

"No I meant..."

"I know what you meant." He passed the wineskin over and his eyes stared into the middle distance. "I wasn't the only one with the plan. We made the plan and we went into the thorns where I impregnated the Princess. We kept it quiet in the hope that no-one would know and realise our scheme. We went back eight and a half months later as we had been advised by a Wizard who read the signs for us. We were there two days before she gave birth. We had a doctor with us and he says that he had never seen anything like it. They just plopped out in minutes. It was like she knew how to give birth. As we watched, the stretch marks, injuries and tearing vanished and she was asleep. She never made a sound. I looked down at my children and then... I just loved them. They were tools that I was supposed to use in my rise to power but I loved them."

He sighed.

"Goddess but she was beautiful though. We left quickly after that. They had to force me to let go of those children so that they could feed." he laughed at his own memory. "Then we made a mistake. I rushed off to the King with the marriage testimony from that dirty slime-ball Alphonse. Did you kill him by the way? I heard that he disappeared."

"I did."

"Good. That man was a cunt."

"Nah." I said, finding a smile on my face. "A cunt has warmth, depth and feeling. It is the avenue through which life passes and can give pleasure to both it's owner and another. Alphonse was less than that."

The Prince stared at me in horrified astonishment before tears of laughter started to run down his face.

"Oh Witcher," he managed. "Oh that's brilliant. I'm going to have to remember that. Warmth, depth and purpose."

He convulsed in laughter again and I could no longer help myself. His laughter was infectious. I hated him and I hate him still but I liked him. I chuckled along with him. Several minutes later he was still giggling.

"It's true though. The great sun could have made some perfectly good earth worms out of that skin." He said after a while. "But I took that to the King and said look. Here is your heir. Your line would be assured. Just name me for the crown. But the wily old man would not be bought. He waited. Now that I think about it. He was always just playing for time. Oh fuck..."

he suddenly raged and turned and started kicking the carriage wheel.

"Sun scorch him. Sun scorch the lot of them the pasty faced, no pulse, withered old, twig sticked penis bastards."

His rage left him abruptly when the wheel rim splintered and broke.

"I wasn't the only one with the idea of having heirs. I had one rival. A main rival who was also at court and we spent our entire time raging at each other. Slinging barbs at each other and manoeuvring around each other to make the other fall. But neither of us had thought of cousin Henrik. "Henrik the stupid" we used to call him but as it turned out, he was playing a longer game than the rest of us put together. The thing about it is he looks stupid. He's an ugly...troll of a man. Slope browed, big broken nose. Large hairy hands. He has a large, thick beard to hide the scars of a childhood disease and he _looks_ stupid. But it turns out he had us.

"Even as children he was playing us. Pretending to be the big dumb one. He married, quietly and in secret. She pumps out children like there's going to be a shortage and all the while he's building an army. The biggest that this part of the world has seen. Other nobles start to realise that he could just roll over them. He goes to them and then carefully _doesn't_ threaten them. But they here those threats. They _hear_ him tell them that they can either be on his side or dead because his forces would just eat them. Then they join up. Promise sons and daughters to his own children and suddenly there's a vast alliance directed against the two of us.

"By now my main rival will be dead. You see my Father. My own fucking father has joined up with Henrik. He wrote me. He tells me to flee. To bring the children back. I'm promised a bride who will give me more children."

I realised that he was crying. I measured the distance between us and decided that he couldn't just kill me abruptly and so I felt safe enough to turn away. I didn't want to watch his grief and I didn't want to feel sympathy.

"But I know the truth. I'll get through the castle door and my children. My babies will become conveniently sick and die and I will be married to Henrik's sister. Poor lass. Ten years younger than me. Last time I saw her she was still playing with dolls in the nursery."

"So what were you going to do."

"Exile. I have friends to the north. They would keep me. Father is a canny bastard though. I fear his assassins more than I do Henrik's. Henrik doesn't need assassins. He can just ask for a death and people will fall over themselves to give it to him. I would do anything for my children Witcher."

I nodded.

"I don't understand that." I said "But I can sympathise with it. Would you hate me if I told you that you deserve what happened to you?"

A spasm of anger crossed his face but then he calmed. "No, no I don't think so. I want to though. We're trained to believe that we are better than the common folk. That we are high powered men and women in our castles but right now I envy them, and you, your simple lives."

I nodded.

"Did your father know?"

He wiped his eyes.

"Know what?"

"Did your father know what you were going to do to the Princess?"

The prince smiled nastily.

"Are you going to kill him too?"

"I might."

"Promise."

"I make no promises."

He nodded. "Well. You'll forgive me Witcher if I try and take your vengeance from you." He pushed off from the carriage and walked a little way off. He drew his sword and his dagger in his left hand holding it below his fist so that he could rake with it, or parry. He was trying a new tactic. One that I had never seen work.

There is not enough strength in that grip to parry a good strike.

"Did your father know?" I insisted. I redrew my sword being ready to defend myself in case he just rushed me.

He grinned again.

"You have killed me Witcher. I can't fight much more. It's not just the fight so far, or the ride although those things are factors. I'm just too tired. Tired of everything."

I started to move forward but his sword moved to block my path.

"So I thought I would deprive you of your vengeance."

He dropped his sword, grabbed the dagger in both hands and shoved it into his own guts. He staggered, groaned and collapsed to his knees before falling to his side.

I dropped my sword and rushed over to him.

He was still alive. "If I hadn't raped her Witcher? If I'd met you in another way. Would we have been friends?"

"Damn you Prince."

He smiled again.

"We would wouldn't we." He laughed. Before coughing up some blood.

"Yes, we would have been friends. I think. And I hate you for that. You're just too likeable. Too charming."

"I know. I'm sorry Witcher."

He was weeping again. "At least they got away. The babies I mean."

I nodded. "Did your father know Prince? Did your father know what you were going to do?"

Another laugh. There was blood in his mouth and he choked.

"Know? It was his plan. He ordered it."

He spat again.

"Kill him for me Witcher."

"I will. But not for you."

"For her?"

"Yes, for her."

"I'm not sure she would approve of you killing her father in law."

I felt my mouth twitch. "I'm not sure she would have approved of being raped in her sleep either but there we go."

He laughed again.

"It's taking a bloody long time for me to die."

"You botched it." I told him. "Should have gone for the throat and then you'd have bled to death in a minute or so. You would certainly have been unconscious quicker.

"Heh. Couldn't even kill myself right."

His eyes widened at the pain as the shock left him. He groaned horribly and tried to pull the knife out. He didn't make it though and he died, choking on his own blood.

I stared down at him for a long time. Then I found his sword and put it in his hands, arranging things so that it looked as though it might have fallen. I took the dagger out and stabbed him with my own dagger in the same wound in an effort to hide the fact that he had killed himself. I cleaned his dagger and put it back in his sheath.

I took some valuables from the bodies in an effort to make it look like a bandit attack. I found that I wanted people to think that it was assassins or a bandit attack. I wanted people to think he had died fighting.

But that left me with another name.

Someone else who needed to die.


	40. Chapter 40

(Frederick's note: Straight into Kerrass' narrative here)

It was absurdly easy to get into Duke Bertrand's castle. Ridiculously easy, so much so that his entire guard should have been thrown out.

There was a castle. A moat, high ramparts and a keep. The ramparts were guarded and well patrolled while the countryside was covered in well-manned and maintained watch towers. The castle was further reinforced by the fact that there were numerous siege engines for the protection of the keep, as well as all of the then-modern methods of repelling attackers that the more devious military minds could come up with in an effort to murder their fellow man. The men were well-trained, well equipped and fiercely loyal to their Duke and his officers.

So how did I get in?

I walked.

The entirety of the castle and the surrounding area was designed to identify and protect against armies attacking but one man, being careful, could easily sneak past the patrols, avoid the lights and the torches.

That's not to say that they hadn't considered the possibility of the lone attacker. The walls of the castle were made with dressed stone but were then covered in a wet kind of sludge that dried hard on the outside. Into that sludge was embedded loose and sharp rocks as well as broken pottery and bits of glass. The castle paid a premium for broken crockery, bottles, bits of metal and cast off bits of this and that. This needed to be maintained of course and once every so often, or so I was told, people could be seen hanging off the walls by ropes, reapplying this coating. It was designed so that if anyone tried to scale the wall then the very wall itself would come away in their hands while also cutting into said hands or ropes that might be used to climb, making the prospect a chancy one indeed.

As well as this there were a set of wooden archer nests that overhung the wall so that arrows, rocks and oil could be poured down onto attackers from the top. The wooden frames were designed to be rickety and flammable so that if anyone made it to the ramparts then the defenders would be able to fight off the men by simple virtue of setting the place on fire. If you were to hang a rope off it or try to grapple to get a good grip, or if you used a pair of daggers in the same way that a Skelligan or Kaedweni mountain man might use a pair of climbing axes then the boards might just come away while you trusted your body weight to them.

They had fires set at the base of the walls that were lit in the evening so that anyone who did try to make a covert entry would be seen well in advance.

Also, the archers on the tops of those walls could shoot. I mean _really_ shoot.

But it was absurdly simple to get in.

This is not me exaggerating either, nor am I trying to show off how clever I was.

So how did I do it?

I walked.

There is a simple truth in life, Frederick has remarked upon this truth before and indeed has gone out of his way in an effort to try and address his own societal conditioning, that the Nobility look down on other people. The guards are there for their defence. The common folk are there for the production of things including but not limited to taxes, food and luxury items. The prospect of a peasant simply walking up to them and sticking a knife in their neck is something that they simply don't think about. Duke Bertrand's castle was a testament to that fact. It would have been a formidable obstacle to an invading army. It would have been extremely difficult to get a man up and over the walls to get to any member of the ruling family.

There were check-points and various other things, visitors were checked thoroughly, wagons and produce inspected for random people hiding underneath or in amongst the contents of the wagons.

But.

One man, carrying something that looks like a heavy sack of...Stuff?

Peasants, and I know that Frederick doesn't like that term but here it is rather applicable, peasants are even taught not to look up into the eyes of their social betters. They're told to just do the work and keep their heads down. It's ingrained, habitual...almost embedded in their culture. This is beginning to be reduced now that, especially given the recent wars, your average farmer is beginning to realise that if they have a long spear and poke it into a horses rib-cage then the over-dressed idiot sitting on it is going to fall off and then struggle to get up. But then it wasn't thought of that a peasant, be that peasant a villager or farmer, would seek to kill a nobleman. Let alone a Duke.

In the defence of the Duke's guards, the reason they didn't think of it was because their enemies didn't think of it either. Politics was a game played by the nobility and assassins were tools of that self-same nobility.

But peasants are simple folk really. They want to live from day to day. They want to eat, pay as little tax as possible and live long enough to be able to order their children around. If you leave them to it they will work reasonably hard because they have generally figured out that if they don't work then they don't eat. That equation is not lost on them.

At some point in the future some villager or farmer is going to start to wonder what why he or she should do all the work so that the nobility can live well enough to be able to wage war, live in comfort and play at politics. If enough of them start to wonder this together in the same, rough, geographical location then the world could become a very interesting place very quickly.

But I digress.

The other truth is that people don't want to work too hard because it is all to common that the reward for a job well done is another, harder job.

So.

When I got there I tied my horse up well out of the way, stole some villagers clothing, a hood, shirt and trousers. Bundled up my gear, including my sword with as hefty a bundle of firewood as I could manage and just walked up to the castle gates.

I wasn't stopped. Not once.

Once inside the castle grounds I made my way up to the second courtyard which was where the keep was situated and hid my gear near the stables.

Then I took my bundle of fire-wood inside to the kitchen where I left the wood in the pile of fuel that was

used to keep the ovens burning.

Then I set to work.

Peeling vegetables.

Another little titbit. If you are doing an unpleasant job, and no-one else wants to do it. Generally, people leave you alone.

I kept my head down and purposefully kept moving complete vegetables into their smaller, more chopped variety. In doing so I learnt more about the inner workings of the castle than I could have ever wanted to know. I learnt the names of the more prominent soldiers, who they were sleeping with and what they liked to eat. I learned a good amount about the layout of the castle and a significant portion of the business of things.

The castle had received word of the Prince's departure from the capital and were worried that he hadn't arrived back yet. The gossip was that he might have angered his father by making his way north to where he had a number of friends in the Imperial court rather than return home to where his father was.

I ate with the rest of the kitchen staff and slept in one of the cubby-holes that was provided for their use. The cook even told off one servant for trying to take my place saying "When you've worked as hard as he has you can sleep on straw, until then it's the floor for you my lad."

Heh.

I slipped out and had a bit of a look around. Just to acquaint myself with the place, to check that my gear hadn't been moved or interfered with. Mostly I was just confirming a lot of the things that I already knew.

In the morning I went back to work. Fetching and carrying and generally doing what I was told, keeping my eyes down and tugging my forelock any time someone came near me that might have any kind of authority.

I learned something important. That the Duke spent his evenings in his room, generally alone. It was rare that he called for a girl to keep him company nowadays and spent his evenings reading or writing letters by candlelight.

I used the same trick that I had used before, a large bundle of firewood, to conceal my weapons and my gear and marched them into the Duke's chambers where I concealed them under the bed for my planned discussion with the Duke.

Again, I wasn't stopped. I wasn't searched. Nothing.

One of the guards even held the door open for me.

I should say here that the Duke did employ a food taster to see to his food on the grounds that he wasn't _that_ stupid, but I always thought that poisoning someone's was a risky business at the best of times. Unless of course, you didn't mind some collateral damage.

I returned to the Kitchen then and carried on working. Fetching and carrying and doing things that needed doing.

That night I even had the offer of a Kitchen maid to keep me warm. I pretended shyness. If someone got a good look at my eyes then I was done for.

The following day I worked just as hard but towards the end of the day I began to feign a bit of weakness and complained of a sore throat and sneezed a couple of times. This quickly got me banished from the kitchen as the cook didn't want me slobbering all over the food.

By this point I had found out where the guards kept their uniforms and I changed so that I looked like a guard and made my way to the Duke's chamber. I used the oldest gambit in the history of armed forces everywhere when the guard who stood outside the Duke's room questioned my presence I told him that it was a surprise inspection. The poor lad almost wet himself in fear as I screamed at him about regulations and found hundreds of minor infractions about his kit and his appearance. I made a show of inspecting the rooms but by _staggering_ coincidence I happened to be in the Duke's chamber when he was relieved of duty.

Once inside I made a quick show of inspecting the place until I was sure that the guard hadn't told his mate that I was around and to make sure that I wouldn't be disturbed. Then I changed into my own clothes, feeling immeasurably better once I had my own sword on my back and comfortable boots on. I threw the guards uniform onto the fire that was already lit to warm the place before the Duke entered and quickly searched the room for weapons or any secret doors.

You never know with these old style castles. It wasn't the highest room in the castle and although it did have a window it was also not the grandest room either so it was feasible that this room had an escape route out of it but I couldn't find anything. I attached my own grappling hook to the window frame, made sure it was nice and secure so that if it all went wrong then I could go out the window. So, escape route planned. Concealed weapons were in my belt. Everything ready?

Then I settled down to wait.

It was a few hours in truth. But I was ready to wait. In some ways I was feeling rather foolish. After all what was I going to talk about when the Duke finally did arrive in his chamber. Why didn't I just straight up murder him like I had so many of the other people. But no, I had to wait. I had to talk to him. I had to _know_. I had to be told what the entire thing was about.

So I waited.

The door opened after a while and I waited there in the darkness as the Duke walked in, bolting the door behind him. He was wearing an over cloak and a hat which suggested that he had been outside recently. He hung the cloak and hat on a peg on the back of the door. He had a piece of paper in his hand. He fell into a chair that was near the desk in the corner and read the words on the paper again. Before tossing the paper aside and onto the desk at his elbow before covering his eyes with a shaking hand.

He gave all the impression of a marionette that had had his strings cut.

Much to my astonishment he started to sob.

Once again I was finding that my shield of hatred was being rocked by the prospect of feeling pity towards one of my victims.

I cleared my throat noisily.

"I trust that I find your Grace in good health." I said, carefully avoiding looking at him to give him time to recover his composure.

"I've been in better humour I will admit." The Duke said after an extended moment.

"I found your wine collection Your Grace. May I offer to pour you a cup."

The man sighed. "Grateful to you Witcher."

He rose from his seat and moved to sit opposite to me with a table between us that looked as though it was most commonly employed as a surface for the playing of chess. I pushed a goblet across and poured from one of the stoppered bottles.

He downed the cup and gestured so that I could pour another.

He took a sip from the cup before leaning back in his chair and watched me through narrowed eyes. I copied his gesture, taking a sip from my own cup.

"I notice that you've taken the knife from under the table." He said after a long while.

"And the long knife from behind the headboard your Grace."

He nodded and steepled his fingers underneath his chin.

"I could call the guards," he began.

"True, or the servants." I said. But, first of all you would need to go to the door and unbolt it. Then you need to call. All of this without my reaction which. Then, I would have to kill more than just you. I would need to kill whoever you called before making my escape."

The Duke nodded.

"Do you know what's in that letter on the desk?"

"No. But I can guess."

"Guess for me Witcher."

"You have received word about your sons death."

For a moment I thought that the man would begin to weep again. He stared at the ceiling for a while before lowering his gaze to meet mine.

"It says that he died on the road. They say that it was assassins. They guess at a couple of assailants."

I could not help but smile a little as the Duke continued.

"According to the trackers and hunters that found him, they claim that my son fought and fought hard to make sure that the wet-nurses could could escape with his children."

"If that's what they say."

"But you knew that that was what the messages would say."

"Yes."

"You knew that he was dead?"

"Yes I did."

"Did you kill him?"

I sighed and took another sip from my cup. There was a rage in the Duke's voice.

"No. No I didn't"

"You lie."

"No. Although I will admit that that was what I went there intending to do."

"What happened? If not you then who killed him."

"He did. He ended himself."

"Ah," He paused and took another drink, looking thoughtful. "Of course he did. To spite me of course."

"As you say. Also in an effort to save his children although I had no intention of killing them. Even when I didn't know of their existence."

"Will you tell me what happened?"

"He was running. Running hard. He had decided not to return to you as he feared that his children would not survive that returning."

The Duke nodded and lowered his gaze.

"He was right wasn't he your grace? His children would have sickened and died a few weeks or months after their arrival here?"

The Duke said nothing.

"Your silence speaks volumes your grace."

He slammed his fist onto the table suddenly causing the cups and bottle to jangle.

"If it helps at all Your Grace, he also killed himself to spite me."

"Why on earth?"

"Because I went there to kill him. Because I wanted to kill him. In many ways I needed to kill him."

"What happened?"

"I figured your sons route from the direction in which he chose to leave the capital."

"You knew that before I did."

"I did. But it wasn't easy. I suspect that I was lucky in catching them."

"Lucky? For whom?"

I smiled, rather nastily I'm afraid. "For me. Your son ordered his guardsmen to attack me and I killed them."

"All of them? Those guards were good men."

"Good men? At least one of them was a rapist."

"That's not the point..."

"It's exactly the point, _your Grace_ ," I snarled the title like an insult. "That was the entire reason I was there. At least one of those men had every reason, _every_ reason to deserve everything I did to him. And more. He died quickly at least, which was far kinder than the death I wanted to give him."

"Which one was it?"

"Which one was it? Which one was it? How dare you, _Your GRACE?_ These men fought and died for you and your son and on your orders. The least you could do is to remember their names."

I stared at him. I am well aware of the figure that I cut when I'm angry and I must have looked terrible.

He looked away.

"I killed them. Your son prevailed upon my good graces to allow his children and their wet-nurses to escape which, not being a gentleman and being _unaware_ of the political situation. I agreed. I must say that being a _foolish_ Witcher with a _foolish_ sense of honour I had no intention of killing a pair of children. Let alone _her_ children."

The Duke stared at his hands that he kept in his lap.

"We fought. Your son and I?"

"Did he?...Did he fight well?..."

I took a long breath and took a moment to adjust my thinking. I was dealing with a grieving father.

"Being brutally honest..."

"Because you've been less than brutal up until now?" The Duke raised an eyebrow.

I stared at him. Then suddenly, before either of us could help it, we started laughing. I rarely laugh any more. You, (Frederick: me) have been very kind in describing my brief outbursts of emotions. I smile, at most I chuckle. But mostly I am well aware of what state my feelings leave me in. Wherever possible I don't like to display my emotions as displaying emotions have often left me feeling as though I am giving people an advantage over me. Some people claim that the Witcher mutations keep us from emotions. Some people have also argued that our upbringing, training and experiences as well as the longer lives that we lead mean that we have had the emotions burned out of us. I cannot speak for any of this. I cannot say whether or not I lack in emotions as I cannot remember feeling any different and in any way at any other point in my life. I have rage. I have anger that keeps me warm at night. Anger that lights the fire in my belly and gets me out of bed in the morning. I have a bitter sadness and grief that knows no equal and that no anger, love or happiness has ever been able to dismiss. But for the rest of it?

I do not know.

I have never known. That is my tragedy and I must live with that.

But that sudden burst of hilarity. In that moment. In that place, we laughed and laughed like two old friends.

"Is now a time for plain speech your Grace?"

He nodded.

I took a moment or two to gather my thoughts. Vengeance, justice or whatever it was that I was pursuing at that point in time were forgotten by the wayside. Now I was just a man comforting a grieving father.

"I was trained and brought up a fighter and a killer Your Grace. Without wanting to boast...I have killed many monsters in my time and I have killed many men. I do not say this to boast, but rather as a simple statement of fact. In the time since I have sought...whatever it is I am looking for... I have fought and killed your huntsman..."

"Not much of a huntsman at the end..." A shadow and a smile crossed his face then.

"Never the less. I fought him. I fought Mark, who for me was the best of your guardsmen that I faced. Then I fought many in my pursuit of Gunther. Then I slew those five men with Matthes. Nine men at the very least, probably more. But your son fought and died harder than the rest of them put together. Even when he died, he did so to spite us both and because he felt that he could not fight any further. He said that he was tired. So very tired of living his life as well as so many other things. He claimed that he felt free at the end, free from worry and care."

A tear rand down the old man's face and old man he was in that moment.

"So I used up my son in all of this as well. Poor child."

He found a kerchief in a pouch somewhere and wiped his eyes.

"I don't suppose, I don't suppose we know what happened to his children Witcher...to my Grandchildren?"

I took a long moment to weigh up the situation.

"I was able to figure out where your son was heading. When I had arranged matters to my satisfaction..."

"Yes," The old man rubbed at his face with his cloth again before suddenly, before my eyes he became the Duke once more. "Why did you do that? I thank you for it of course, arranging matters so that those who came after you would not think that my son had killed himself. The Cult of the eternal sun does not look kindly on people that end themselves."

"For what he did, Your Grace, I hated him. I will not lie, I hated him and I looked forward to his death. But as well as hating him. I found that I liked him as well. He did fight well and I am enough of a northerner that that still means something to me. He also... When he did...end himself. He wasn't doing it to kill _him_ self. He was striking at me."

"And me I suspect."

"I more than suspect it." I said. "But as such, I saw it as fighting. Others might see it as ending himself but I think he was still fighting. I found that I didn't want people to think otherwise. He died on the field of battle, despite my not understanding his battle. He deserved to be treated with honour for that."

"Grateful to you Witcher, Grateful to you."

There was a moment's awkward silence.

"But anyway," I went on, "After arranging things to my satisfaction, I followed after the two ladies."

"Ladies?"

"Regardless, I went after them and they..."

"They dumped the children didn't they?"

"Oh quite the contrary. They were taking very good care of them..."

"I see. They meant to sell those children to the highest bidder."

"They had moved off and were already talking to some agents of a man called Count Var Attre."

"I know of Var Attre. A professional middleman. He probably stood to make a tidy profit."

"I can't answer for that Your Grace. All I knew was that those men attacked me and I had to defend myself."

"I can well imagine that Count Var Attre is down a couple of...agents?"

"He is. I took charge of the babies. As I say, I reasoned out where your son was going?"

"Can I ask where that was?"

"I think that they are quite beyond your power now so I have no problem telling you. I gave them into the arms of a man called Torres."

"Torres? Ha, Well played Witcher. Well played."

"I thought you'd like it."

"Any sign of when he's coming south?"

"No. The future Emperor of all of these lands is a clever man. Much cleverer than you, your son, this Henrik person and whatever or whoever else is in the running for your Kingdoms throne."

"He might well be at that. Thank you Witcher."

"I still hate you Your Grace."

"I thought you might. Some more wine?"

"Thank you."

The Duke poured and we drank.

"So," said the Duke. "Henrik will take the country. He will have the throne for a year, maybe two or three but Torres is a less than patient man. Careful yes, but not patient. Then he will bring the entirety of our Northern neighbours down on our heads. Now all I have to do is preserve these lands and the people on it."

I sighed.

"I am afraid that I will not permit that."

"You hate me that much?"

"Oh yes. I mean to see you dead Your Grace. Before we leave this room, I will see you dead." I hissed that last with all the venom that I could summon.

"You hate these people enough to make them do without my protection, without the protection of their feudal lord."

I looked at him over the top of my cup. Then I carefully put the cup back down on the table between us.

"Look me in the eyes Your Grace. Look me in the eyes and make the same appeal, word for word, while looking me plumb in the eye and making me believe, really believe, that you care for all of those people. Make me believe that you care only for them, rather than thinking of preserving your own skin. If you can do all of that, then I will walk out of here to whatever fate awaits me, leaving you in peace."

He took a deep breath after a long moment.

"I feel the need for more wine Witcher. Would you care for some?"

"Yes please."

The Duke got up, unbolted the door and called down. I listened carefully and heard no code or cipher. Another couple of bottles were brought and I opened one of them with a small knife and poured for us both.

"So we have disposed of the future." The Duke said, "Henrik takes the country. He wins this battle but Lord Torres will win the war and avenge us. All of us on that sad old boor of a King who started this whole problem by having the bad grace to not name a proper heir."

"Seems so." I commented. It really was a fine wine. "Shall we turn to the present, and the immediate past?"

"I'm not getting any younger."

"What happened Your Grace? With the Princess and everything?"

"Do you know Witcher? I've never heard you call me "Milord" or "My Lord" or any of the other common terms of address for someone in my position."

"I don't think it would be appropriate Your Grace. Such terms would suggest that you have some kind of hold over me. You are not "my" Lord, nor am I your servant nor man and I don't want to give you, or anyone for that matter, the impression that you can order me about."

"But I was your employer."

"Yes, but then I was a mercenary. At most, in that situation, I might call you "Sir" to acknowledge a chain of command of some kind. But even then, I am not a military man and even _that_ is an assumption and presumption. I prefer to keep a distance in that matter."

The Duke took another sip.

"You're a much cleverer man than I took you for Witcher."

"If you don't mind Your Grace I think that you are incorrect there. I think rather that I am much better _educated_ than you were expecting."

"Really?"

"Oh yes. Noble etiquette, history and heraldry are two required subjects of learning at the Witcher schools and there has been more than one occasion where I have been grateful that that is the case." I smirked a little for effect.

"This being one of them I suppose?"

"Indeed."

"May I ask what else your education had in it's curriculum?"

"Alchemy, although that term is a little incorrect. Those of us in the know prefer the term "Practical chemistry."

"Why is that?"

"Alchemy is a magical art of turning the one thing into another by application of magical energy. What we do is mix two or more ingredients together with some strong alcohol and make use of the results."

"I see, what else?"

"Tracking and hunting. I suspect that if I wanted to I could make a decent enough living as your new hunts-master."

"I don't suppose you would consider taking the job?"

"I like the job I have Your Grace, being able to go where I wish and do what I wish and work for whom I wish. Besides which, I don't think I would be entirely happy calling you "Milord"."

"You are possibly correct in that."

"What happened your Grace? With respect you seem to be a relatively good man as Lords go. What could have possibly convinced you to send your son out to rape an innocent young girl? The Princess has only been under her enchantment for around forty years. That puts it within living memory for some folks. I wouldn't like it but I imagine I could understand it if she was gone for over a hundred years. But even you must remember her and her family. Your father might even have visited them."

The Duke sighed and scrubbed his hands across his eyes taking a long drink.

"Will you excuse me if I stand?"

"Not at all."

He rose and paced around a little.

"Do you know what the title "Duke" means?"

"From memory, it comes from the Toussaint term Duc which in turn comes from the old term Dux which was a military term for leader. It was used as a title to give to someone who was a military person without an official rank. Later it came to mean the leading military commander of a province. They stayed in place and the title stuck. From there it varies. In some places in the north the title even has...precedence over royalty in certain circumstances although most Dukes and Princes tend to take certain... steps to avoid such conflicts."

"There's that "extensive" education of yours at work again."

"I will take that as a compliment Your Grace."

"Yes well..." He sat back down and stared into his hearth for a long time. "In this part of the world I am a pre-eminent man. I don't have many means but out of what little I have, I have built my Duchy to a place that is one of the most important pieces of land in our Kingdom. Strategically and economically. I have _fought_ to make it so. I have been fighting and at war for my entire life and yet I have never fought a battle. I have never even drawn my sword in anger."

He sighed and kicked at the floor.

"Thinking about what you said earlier. About how my son felt free in the moment of his death. Free from worry and free from care. I can well imagine how he felt, or rather I can't and that's part of the point. But so long on the battlefield... I feel it and I know what weight was taken away from his shoulders. I looked upon him as a weapon and a tool. I did so with both my, and his, eyes open. He knew that he was a tool for my hand and he did so, while learning to craft his own tools."

"None of these things are excuses Your Grace."

"No they are not. But they are explanations."

"I will grant you that point Your Grace."

"Thank you. But I'm not sure you understand. I am not a man Witcher, I am every man that has come before me and will come after me. I am every man who makes his home in this castle or makes their living out of it. I am every man, woman and child who has worked within our lands and has worked in an effort to make this place better for their children and their children down to the last degree. I am not a Lord, although my position makes me one."

"Your position rather than your rank?"

"And what is my rank? An accident of birth and little more. I am under no illusions Witcher. I had the immense fortune to be the first born and also to be born male. But I am not a Lord of men. I am... a steward, a custodian of everything that I have worked so hard to maintain."

I waited. He was coming to the point. The skill of listening is an interesting one and another kindness of Frederick's little stories is his observation of such a skill.

Yes, I've realised that you've made a note whenever you refer to yourself.

"It was a wizard who told us of it...of her.

"We were losing you see. Losing badly. Without wanting to look for problems we suddenly found ourselves with my son being considered as a potential as heir to the throne."

He chuckled.

"It seems absurd to me now but I remember the two of us being excited as we spent time planning out our strategies and tactics in the coming campaign. Because that is what it was. A campaign where victory mean that we would survive for another day and defeat meant that we would all be dead. My father told me that. He said that every day was a victory, so that when all else is said and done, play for time."

"Witchers have a similar saying although it's a little more brutal. We say, "If you are to be hanged, ask for water. Anything could happen while they are fetching it."

He laughed at that.

"I know so little about Witchers. It strikes me that there may even be wisdom to be found there."

"Little wisdom Your Grace. A lot of knowledge I would admit. Knowledge about many varied things but I think that there is little wisdom to be found in a group of men who make their living by walking into monsters dens and then killing them."

"I suppose you are right."

"Is that what you are doing now? Playing for time?"

"No. You want an explanation so I am giving it to you."

"Then don't let me stop you."

"We spent a long time working on our strategies. It was going fairly well and we were making our advances..."

"Did you ever consider remaining neutral? Of doing nothing?"

The Duke smiled.

"Ah, a Witcher's neutrality. A rather naïve concept if you don't mind my saying so. My son was a potential heir whether we wanted him to be or not. To not fight meant that we would be swallowed up in someone else's cause. In our world even not choosing is, itself, a choice. We could have thrown our weight behind Henrik or one of the other contenders to be sure but even then there was risk. From your man Torres for instance."

"He is not my man, or my Lord for that matter."

"If you say so. So anyway, we were entertaining a Wizard. He was gathering herbs in the nearby area or at least that was what he claimed that he was doing. I suspect he was examining The Curse and it's effects on the rest of the local environment, same as anyone. I always believe in keeping people friendly when it costs us nothing so I extended an invitation that he should stay with us. Our campaign was proceeding apace but the simple fact of the matter is that I have very little liquid capital. No money. I keep my castle and lands and maintain a personal army for the King's call should he ever decide to need one and as such, My sons nearest competitor had a considerable advantage over us. He was rich you see, much newer money than ours and much more of it to throw around. My son spent most of his time at court in an effort to counter this but even so, we were losing and our enemies were circling.

"So we had a Wizard over for dinner.

"We were aware of the Princess Dorn, of course we were. I remembered her father's exploits as a young boy, he had come to our lands in search of some kind of cure for his wife's or his infertility, had made eyes at my mother before riding off into the sunset but the tragedy of that family had long ago been overtaken by our own particular set of tragedies."

"There being only so much tragedy to go around after all."

"You jest Witcher but you are quite correct in this matter. The Wizard spun a fascinating story about the entire thing and brought it very much to our minds. There she was, lying in state, in a funeral casket. He came to visit us on his returning to...wherever it was that he was heading off to. He even had an artist with him who sketched the poor girl for us."

I must have shifted my weight uncomfortably as the Duke paused in his telling.

"Oh yes Witcher. I felt pity for her. Even though what _actually_ happened to her is something of a mystery, there is no doubt as to who the girl is, or was. I had seen her father and the family resemblance was visible to my eyes despite her rather striking beauty. He described her as a thing, as an object that had all signs of life but none of the...he called it "mind activity". He said that in all external and medical ways, she was alive but that she had none of the things that make us...us. That make us thinking, reasoning individuals. That _if_ she had a mind at all then it had long since fled, leaving the body in it's continued existence. He even went so far as to say that it might even be a mercy to put her out of her misery."

The Duke stared into his wine.

"I remember asking him whether the girl was, in all other ways, alive. Whether her body was functional. He said yes. We still hadn't come up with the plan by that point, I don't think it had even occurred to us, but he specifically said that she could digest food although she didn't need it, that she breathed the air and that her reproductive systems were fully operational.

"I didn't ask how he was able to discern that fact.

"As it turned out though the man was an incredible physical coward, although I suppose that one must forgive a lack of bravery in the face of an angry dragon. He was only part of the way through his tests when the dragon became agitated and started attacking the castle. He and his entourage were chased fair back to the village at the mouth of the valley.

"We entertained the Wizard for a couple of days as he did his best to consume the majority of our winter stores in a one man crusade against our pantry and then he left.

"I called my son to me. I know you won't believe me when I say this but I honestly can't remember whose idea it was originally. I can't say for certain whether it was my son or myself that decided that the thing that we needed to produce, in evidence of my sons suitability for the crown, was a male heir. I do remember that he was insistent that the entire thing would have to be legitimate though and so Father Alphonse, my castle chaplain was brought into our circle..."

"I have a question," I said. "If the production of an heir was the tipping point, then why couldn't your son produce an heir with any passing woman of any particular station in life. Your son was handsome, intelligent and charming. Surely he wasn't wanting for admirers."

"Politics. There wasn't a lady, pre-eminent enough to be a suitable wife who would then become Queen, who was willing to tie herself and her family to our cause. Most of the noble families in these parts were still trying to be as neutral as possible in an effort to...keep themselves out of the coming conflict."

"So?" I said. "Passing woman, forged identity, heaps of money, instant heir. The Princess was already going to be an absent mother and wife. You honestly expect me to believe that there wasn't some willing servant girl who's family wouldn't be prepared to put up with her being pregnant as some kind of surrogate in return for sacks of money."

"Could we depend on them remaining quiet though? I doubt it although if I'm honest, it didn't really occur to us. Here was the opportunity, the fact that she was of royal blood was also...attractive. A _royal_ heir with _royal_ history and _royal_ blood."

"Taken by force, Your Grace. Taken by Force."

The Duke shrugged at that.

There was no way that he could have known it then as I was still carefully controlling my outward appearance, but that was the moment where I _truly_ started to plan his death. I had decided to kill him a long time ago but up until that point I was almost willing to let him get away with it. But that shrug, that _indifference_ just made my blood boil.

"But it didn't go to plan?" I prompted.

"No, Did my son tell you what happened?"

"That you had underestimated one opponent while being obsessed with another."

"Heh, that just about covers it. Simplifying it down but at the same time, that's just about it in a nut shell. We were so fixated on Baron Hoffman that we forgot poor old cousin Henrik. Who could have guessed that he kept such a sharp mind behind such a stupid looking face?"

I sighed a little. "Oh but Your Grace. It's the oldest trick in the book. Literally, it's one of the first rules of war, even of life. If you are weak, pretend strength which is what you were doing was it not? But if you are strong, pretend weakness? He played you like the fiddle that you are and may I say that you deserve every moment of it."

"Yes, I suppose that I do."

"What were you going to do?"

"Do?"

"If I hadn't caught your son?"

He sighed.

"It was already in motion. Henrik didn't like Hoffman, the worst that could be said of my son was that he was less... unpleasant to Henrik than Hoffman had been while they were off being pages to each other's houses."

(Frederick's note: Looking it up, there was a fashion in the south that the sons of various Lords would spend time travelling from one castle to the other and acting as pages, squires and heralds. The idea was a nice one. They would get to know each other and the courts in which each would eventually come to preside over. History is uncertain as to the results however. For my own analysis, I would say that situations like what was presented above were a lot more common than people might think. Childhood prejudices become adult prejudices all too often and grudges tend to get carried over far more than childhood friendships do.)

"We were going to lose. Militarily Henrik could overwhelm us and defeat us on the field. He has the advantage of both the numbers, the equipment and the strategic lay of the land. He would barely trip over us on his way to the capital for his own coronation. My forces are so much in tune with the King's at the moment, due to our trying to gain his favour, that we were in no position to defend ourselves. We were going to be eaten alive..."

"You don't need to defend yourself to me."

"I know." A sly smile crossed his face. "But I do need her to defend myself... to me."

I smiled nastily.

"So I am your confessional."

He returned an equally nasty smile.

"No. No you are not. But I remind you, sir, that you asked me what happened and now I am telling you. Be grateful that I do, for I am tempted to call the guards and be damned to the results."

"Then do so. I was going to offer you a chance but call for them if you must. A sudden and violent solution to be fair."

"A chance? What do you mean by that?"

"A chance, no more or less. Do you wish to continue?"

The man took a deep breath.

"I wrote to Henrik and we came to terms. It is not any more complicated than that. My son would return here and not move from this place until he went to the capital to swear his allegiance to King Henrik. Henrik's younger sister would then marry my son and he would follow me into the Dukedom."

"What about his children?"

"Ah well. The turns of this game that we play come round and round. We would have lost this battle but we would win eventually. I would guess that no more than a decade would pass before people would be displeased with Henrik's decisions and then suddenly people would remember my son. Things weren't certain but I intended his children to be used, and trained to be _his_ tools in his own game. His son, could be an heir still and his daughter would bind someone to him. I hadn't thought too far ahead but a distant fostering and training sounds likely to my mind."

"Not to kill them?"

"No. Not to kill them. Killing is so final. It should be the last step, the final choice for it can never be taken back. The person is dead then."

I nodded and the two of us sat uncomfortably for a moment.

"So Alphonse didn't come up with the plan?"

The Duke snorted. "No. Alphonse had all the wit and good sense of a plank. To be honest I was grateful that he left as he didn't suit me as chaplain. He had a sense of his own superiority and thought that serving as my chaplain was beneath him. I am glad to be rid of him. I was even looking forward to his eventual destruction at the hands of whichever up and coming churchman would decide to that he was..."

"Un-churchman-like."

"Close enough."

I nodded to myself.

"I have a question to which I already know the answer." I said to him, "Do you, or any of your peers ever think that the reason that people hate you so much is because you think of all of these manoeuvres as a game? Referring to this person or that person as pieces on a gaming board or tools for your hand?"

"It is not a new question and my answer is the same as the standard answer. I did not elect to play the game, I was born into it. I was my fathers playing piece just as he was for my Grandfather. Though my house might fall from grace to the lowest in the land and my descendants tell the other beggars and prostitutes stories about how their ancestors ate from silver plates and drank the finest wines while they argue over the correct portions of the rat that they caught. They will still be part of the game. I hate the game. I do and until recently I thought that I was a halfway decent player of it until I met the better player. I hate the game but I do not hate my opponent. Henrik played well and defeated my son and I handily.

"I see you are not satisfied with that answer. So here it is. Yes, the thought has occurred to me. Yes, I accept that hatred as my just desserts. Yes, if I had my time again I would do things differently but looking back, I don't think I would have done something different given what I knew at the time. Hindsight is a wonderful thing. Yes I hate the game and I hate myself for playing it. But do not condemn us for it for the game is rigged by hands other than ours.

"For my part Witcher. I think of those ancient players. Those men and women who first started the game all that time ago and wonder if they would change _their_ actions if they knew what that game would become. Or would they rub their hands in glee?"

"Valid questions to be sure." I answered. "But for you and I, here and now. With your eyes open and with plenty of other options. You ordered your son to rape a helpless girl and steal the fruit of that rape. Those were your sons own words. He referred to his children as treasures even though he did so with love in his eyes. You could have tried to lift the enchantment and rescue the Princess which would have strengthened your position as an example but you did not. You ordered your son to rape a young girl. That prevents you from being some innocent party to some scheme beyond your own control. That's not a move in a game. That is evil. That makes you a monster. I am a Witcher and I kill monsters."

"Should you not be drawing your silver sword then Witcher. I thought that was the one you use on monsters."

"They are both for monsters your Grace."

He nodded.

"Then why did you offer me a chance?"

"Because in this...we are both monsters. Two monsters, sitting here by a fire putting off the one trying to murder the other. It would be funny if it weren't so..."

"Tragic?"

"I was going to say, "Fucked up." My evil was inaction. For not asking enough questions and I must live with that. So then there is the matter of the chance."

"So we are here at last. The final game."

"Now you're just teasing me."

"A little, I might be about to die here Witcher. You might let me have a little fun out of it."

"But only a little fun."

We sat in silence for a short while.

"So what happens now?"

"Now? I will be honest Your Grace. I didn't expect things to get this far."

"What did you expect?"

"A short, sharp and angry conversation followed by violence which I expected to be fatal to at least you and probably me in the long run. I had an escape in mind of course but I would have had to be extremely lucky to reach my plan."

"You are possibly correct in that. What happened in all of the other cases of your seeking your justice?"

"I made the others aware of my presence. I made my identity and my grievance plain and told them that I would be waiting for them outside their homes or at another place where I was confident that we wouldn't be disturbed. I would be armed. They could choose their weapons and then we would have at it."

"Interesting. Why that way? My understanding of Witchers is not comprehensive but I am aware that you are renowned as excellent swordsmen so the odds would favour you but at the same time, there is always the chance that you could slip, fall or some other calamity might occur."

"That was always the chance but that was deliberate. I am well aware that I am not entirely blameless here. I could have... I should have done something when I realised what was happening but I did not. I failed both as a Witcher and as a man. As a man I should have fought to defend the girl. As a Witcher I should have rode away the very instant that I realised that things were going to be political. But I did neither. Instead I waited, hiding behind my... Witcher's neutrality. So there should be some risk on my part. I had no control over what my...targets would then choose to do. They could fight, flee, alert the authorities, shoot from a distance. One thought that occurred was that a man could gather three friends, arm all with bows or crossbows and shoot me from a distance and from different directions. There would still be risk on their part to be sure but..."

"So luck had something to do with it?"

"Luck always has something to do with it. If you believe in luck that is."

"Do you? Believe in luck?"

"Yes and no. I believe that we dictate our own fates and that we can make our own luck. That doesn't mean that I don't avoid black cats or walk between mirrors or anything if I can avoid it."

The Duke laughed. "I like that. You don't believe in luck but you still take precautions just in case luck believes in you."

"As you say."

"So you have made yourself plain to me. You have declared your intent to see me dead and you have told me why. I have explained the situation to the best of my abilities and you are dissatisfied so you still seek my death?"

"I do."

"So what, I choose my weapons and we fight?"

"That would be the way of things yes."

"I see. Are you open to alternative methods of combat?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I was a much better swordsman when I was younger but I think that the wise man would still be betting on yourself to come out of this conflict ahead. Hardly a fair fight."

"I had thought about that. I thought of offering you a handicap."

"You would hobble yourself?"

"So to speak. I would give you a knife and remain unarmed and sat. I judge that would give you a better chance."

The Duke winced at the thought.

"I can't say that I like that though. I would flatter you and say that you are deadlier with your hands than most folk, including me, are with a dagger."

"Maybe, but that's the risk."

"I am unsatisfied with that risk."

"Do you have an alternative suggestion?"

"I don't know, chess?"

"I think, therefore that the majority of the favour is reversed there. I do not know the game and you would not offer it if you were anything less than a master."

"True. Dice then?"

I chuckled. "Certainly, your dice or mine?"

The Duke smirked. "Fair enough."

"Have you heard of a dwarven game called Gwent?" I asked.

"No. I've heard of it but never had the opportunity to play it. So I would imagine that the opportunity would be the same as chess only reversed."

"Shame." I felt a smile cross my lips. "I will admit though that the thought of playing a game where our lives were on the line was attractive though."

The Duke's smirk answered my own.

"I'll draw the line at a coin toss though." He said.

"Likewise."

"How about a duel of wits?" he asked.

"What do you mean?"

"I heard that it started maybe twenty years or so ago. There was a big fashion at the time that the men of the various kingdoms were having to move into alternative means of making their living other than being knights or soldiers and carving names for themselves out of surrounding bandits and enemies so they started to turn to making names and money through trade and other means. However, because they spent their time at this, their martial skills were somewhat neglected."

The Duke poured some more wine for us both.

"Those men who still used their swords to solve all their problems had formed the duelling traditions and saw this as an opportunity for some fun. The wealthier but less athletic men would attract the prettier wives but women being women would still go after the handsome, athletic men and affairs of the heart would occur."

"A little unfair on the women I think"

"Possibly but that was the way they thought. They would seduce the women, successfully or not, and their husbands would be forced to fight a duel against the much more able man and inevitably lose. Then the knight could either marry the woman and inherit the fortune, or move on to his next conquest."

"Ah yes."

"I'm told that one duel happened like this and the athletic knight went to the intended site of the duel where the fat and ugly opponent was waiting for him in his plain clothes with a plate of sausage. The athletic man asked what the meaning of this was and the fat man said..."

"I have heard of this." I said as the memory came to me. "The idea was that one of the pieces of sausage was poisoned and the other was not. The athletic man would eat one piece of his own choosing and the less athletic man would eat the other. One would die and the other would live. Duel fought. The argument was that duelling is supposed to be a test of courage rather than a test of martial prowess, but that there's no courage in a man fighting a duel against an opponent that he knows he can beat."

"You have heard of it then."

"Yes I have. The story is very romantic. The truth as to what happened was that the martial man was obviously terrified and ran his opponent through on the spot claiming further insult against the now dead man at the use of poison. He then went on to be hanged for cowardice."

The Duke laughed.

"But the principle is sound, do you not agree Witcher. I call for a strong drink and two cups. There is a poison. I provide the poison, you pour it, secretly and away from my sight. I then choose a cup and drink it, you drink the other and we wait until we see which one of us dies."

"An interesting proposal." I said carefully. "There are of course many facets to this though. This would come down to how I place the cups on the table for I know which cup is poisoned."

"Indeed, and if you refuse to drink after I have chosen I can condemn you as an honour-less dog and have you torn to pieces by my guards."

I nodded as I thought.

"What is to stop the guards killing me anyway if I win and you die?"

"I will write a letter of pardon and safe passage for you."

"Will your guards obey that letter?"

"They will or they would be dishonouring me. I would like to take a moment to write a letter or two to make some plays in my political arena, should it be my death that occurs."

"May I read the letters to make sure that you are not leaving instructions for my death?"

"Certainly. In the event of my death I want to set my enemies against each other. I shall write to Henrik and tell him that I have received word that there are assassins after my life and that I suspect his rivals. I shall also write to his rivals saying that I believe that Henrik is after my blood. I shall also write to Torres to tell him that my grandchildren are charged to his care and that I leave all my holdings to the male. That I ordered my son to send them away for fear of their lives."

"I see. So, just to be clear. You will write these letters. Then call for strong drink. You will give me a poison, I remind you that I am an Alchemist and will, in all likelihood be able to identify the poison."

"I understand."

"I take the cups off and apply the poison. I return to you and place the two cups between us in any manner that I choose."

"Correct."

"You choose one cup and drink the contents and I drink the remaining cup."

"Correct."

"Then one of us dies."

"Yes."

"You are happy with this arrangement."

"I am."

I took a moment to think it all through.

"Then so am I. Write your letters."

The Duke set to.

I hated the fact that he saw it all as a game. But as the philosopher said, "Hate the game, not the player," I could admire the fact that he was preparing to use even his own death as a move in his game. I read the letters and could identify no codes or ciphers. They seemed above board or as above board as something like this could be.

The Duke laid the letters out on the desk, signed and sealed with the addressee's clearly written, before going to the door and calling for his page who slept just outside the door. The castellen was called and after a half an hour wait he arrived, bleary eyed but nevertheless dressed and with a sword strapped to his hip. He managed to keep his surprise hidden when he saw me sat quietly in the room sharing wine with the Duke.

"My Lord?"

"The Witcher and I are about to have a Duel of Wits with some brandy and a vial of poison."

The castellen looked from one to the other of us and I could almost see his efforts to get his brain working again.

"My Lord, I think you should..."

"No, None of that. I know it's a risk but the Witcher is quite right. I have done wrong and need to be judged. Call it fate, luck or whatever but this ends tonight, with my death or with his. The Witcher issued the challenge and I chose the method so now we will see what comes of it..."

"My lord that's not what I..."

"Be silent Castellan." The Duke hissed. "I have made my decision and I will not go aside from it. Order the best bottle of Toussaint brandy brought up."

The Castellan grimaced unhappily but nodded. He was a heavy set man who was well bearded. I judged him to be a man of commoner stock who had risen as high as he could. Probably a knight of some kind and he would rise no further but hoped that his sons might make the next step on the ladder. He glared at me and I shrugged. I saw him sag visibly before he went to the door and called for the spirit.

"The best brandy that you own Your Grace?" I asked.

"I was saving it for a special occasion. But if I'm going to die then I want to die drinking the good stuff."

I shrugged again. "Brandy is the best choice for a poisonous brew. It is the best way to hide a poison, traditionally speaking."

The castellan came back, looking very unhappy and the Duke gave him his instructions regarding the letters.

"Then you can stay and ensure that we both finish our cups rather than trying just a sip to see if we can discern poison."

"Yes my Lord," The man hissed.

"Should I die, I order that the Witcher be allowed to leave my lands un-molested and that no man in my employ or currently under my orders be allowed to seek vengeance. This is a duel and that should be the end of matters. Do you agree Witcher?"

"I do, Your Grace."

"Good."

The brandy was brought.

"Now, there's a practicality that I hadn't thought of," The Duke said. "If you're going to add the poison then the drink level will rise will it not?"

"It may," I said "But that could easily be evened out at the same time."

"Fair point." The Duke went to his desk and opened the bottom drawer and took out a green bottle that made me think of a woman's perfume bottle which he handed over to me. "Well then Witcher, do you know what this is?"

I examined it in the light, peering at the liquid through the glass.

"Is it safe to sniff?" I asked.

The Duke laughed. "I should have thought of that. Offering you a poison that kills you when you breathe it in."

"That would run the risk of poisoning everyone in the castle as well though my lord." The Castellan intoned. He looked pale.

"Probably." The Duke looked as though he was enjoying himself. "It's safe Witcher, also safe to the touch. It is only fatal if you ingest it when mixed with alcohol."

I nodded and took out the lid and gave it a good sniff.

"That narrows it down then. I don't know it's southern name but in the north we call it "Drunkard's respite, in that it kills you before the hangover reaches you. There are more scientific names of course. A cunning poison in that it's perfectly safe unless combined in the digestive tract with alcohol. But even the smallest amount of alcohol makes the stuff fatal. There is a suspicion that the poison is magical in nature but it can be mixed by someone without magical powers given the right equipment and ingredients. I can give you a list of it's victims if you like?"

"Soon to be a Witcher added to that list." He said with a smile.

"Don't be too sure." I said. "The process of the poison's effects is that it combines with the alcohol to eat into the interior organs like an acid, unlike the acid found in the stomach, this stuff will eat through the stomach lining. Death is certain and there is, currently, no known antidote. Several alchemists have tried various alkali's but the cure is worse than the disease and the subject dies anyway. The death is said to be excruciating,"

"There is that." he said looking, for the first time, a little afraid. "But it's the deadliest poison in my collection and if we're going to poison one another then we need to make sure of it." He had gone pale and started to sweat.

"Then may I propose an addition to our pact." I said drawing, slowly, my dagger and placing it on the table.

"I live or die by my tools and that dagger is sharp enough that neither of us would feel it should it be used with enough speed and power. When one of us is more obviously dying than the other then the dagger can be used."

The Duke nodded. "The castellan is not allowed to kill me so you will have to do it if I am the one who drinks the poison. But in your case he will kill you quickly. Won't you?"

"Yes m'lord." He was staring into the distance.

"Well, then. Off you go Witcher, pour the poison and the brandy if you will."

I took the cups, the brandy and the poison over to a corner of the room and poured, carefully, before bringing them back. After a moments thought I placed them next to each other and sat back down opposite the Duke.

"I notice that one has more liquid in it than the other." The Duke commented. He was frowning in concentration. "A ploy?"

"Perhaps." I answered, "or maybe a mistake."

"Also with the cups next to each other."

"Yes,"

"Another ploy?"

I smiled in answer.

The Duke frowned before looking up at me.

"This is an interesting game." He said. "If I'd thought about it I wonder if you could do this for fun. Only with a less harmful poison." He stared at me intently.

"Maybe a laxative? Or a lust potion?" I suggested.

The Duke chuckled. "May I make a move?" He asked.

"Certainly."

The Duke looked up at the Castellan who was frowning at the two cups in concentration. Then he looked back at me. Slowly he reached out and pushed the cup on my left towards me.

I did my best not to blink and to just meet his gaze steadily.

He swallowed and cleared his throat.

"Interesting," he whispered.

"Did you get your answer?" I asked.

"I am unsure. That is the cup with the most in it."

I looked down at it. "You are quite right." I looked back up at him. Just concentrating on keeping my face straight. "It is."

He kept his gaze locked to mine and then swapped the two cups, the one with the other.

"Would you like me to turn away while you re-arrange the cups to your satisfaction?" I asked.

"No no." he said. "Just as a thought though Witcher. What's to stop me from calling for the guards now and backing away from this duel?"

"Absolutely nothing."

"Interesting," he mused.

"But your Castellan will know that you chickened out."

"That is true."

"Have you made your decision then Your Grace?"

The Duke took a long moment, staring at the two cups before shaking his head.

Then he lunged, knocking the table aside, he snatched up the dagger that I had left on the table and screamed as he he went for my face and tried to plunge the knife in my chest.

I knocked the lunge aside with my left forearm and punched him in the chin with an uppercut. He fell to his knee's, but he was still reaching towards me with a horrible grin of hate on his face. I grabbed hold of the arm with the dagger and used it to twist the man to the ground and knelt on his chest. I quickly drew my boot knife and plunged it under his chin and into his neck.

The entire fight must have lasted no more than two seconds.

The Duke died in five.

I stood, the effects of the wine, the long conversation and the fight suddenly took their toll and I began to shake.

"I don't believe it." I had forgotten about the Castellan until he spoke. He had stepped back a little and was staring down at the Duke's body in horror and shame.

"What don't you believe?" I asked gently. I was astonished that he hadn't tried to kill me yet.

"That he was a coward."

"You knew the answer though didn't you?" I asked him gently.

He looked up at me. "Yes I did. Both cups were poisoned. He didn't know, or had forgotten that Witcher's are immune to poison."

I nodded.

"I'm sorry," I managed

"Don't be. I tried to warn him and he didn't listen. He was a good lord but he was always lacking something as a man. But I didn't think he was a coward."

"People do strange things in the face of death." I said "We can never ask him now but the sudden thought of calmly waiting for death may have been the point of terror. The only thing he had left to do was to choose his cup. Hardly a proactive choice."

The Castellan grunted, "I've known good soldiers who would sneer and laugh at the thought of walking into a breach in a fortress's wall but would weep and beg at the thought of going under a surgeon's knife. It's the thought of having to be passive, to be unable to get angry at something."

I sighed and collected my two knives.

"If you want," I began slowly. Adrenaline was flushing out of my system now. "If you want, the crash and bang was the poison causing his body to spasm and I put him out of his misery. He died as part of the Duel. If you want?"

"Would you do that?"

"I hated him Castellan. For the crimes that he committed I hated him. But I didn't hate you, or any of the others that served him whose names would now be tarnished if it became known that he tried to back out of a duel. Or his grandchildren for that matter. Do you think he knew at the end? That I had poisoned both cups?"

The castellan smiled sadly. "No Witcher. No I don't think so. I think he thought of Witchers as beneath him and so simply didn't know that you were immune to poison. Or if he'd been told he dismissed that information as unimportant. I think you can be easy on that score Witcher. You killed him fair and square. He lost his duel the moment that method was agreed on. You used your wits. Not him. "

"Thank you Castellan."

"I will give orders that you will be allowed to leave the castle and the realm."

I nodded and collected my things.

There isn't really that much to tell after that. I collected my things and my stash and rode out almost immediately. I was done with this place and wanted to put it behind me as fast as possible. I rode south back to the valley and collected my things from Rose. She had waited patiently, just as she had promised and she seemed genuinely sad to see me go. But the village hated me. I can't say I blame them and the feeling was mutual.

I loved her you see, I still do really. So I hated them for their inability to keep her safe all the time realising that it was impossible to do so. They hated me for being party to that most ultimate of sins that is and was conceivable to them. The rape and desecration of their Princess, their Goddess. That I had avenged that wrong didn't matter to them and did not got nearly far enough to purge that wrong.

It is quite correct to say that the villagers here think of sleeping beauty as their Goddess. They worship her and in turn, she governs just about the entirety of their lives with a power that they are utterly helpless before. They could no more protect her than they might protect the wind or the sun. On the one level I knew that and I still know that. They see her physical body in the same way that the north views relics of the various saints. A thing to make pilgrimages to and so they have no right to prevent people from visiting her.

It's an endless cycle of self-hatred that is quite seductive if you let it. She must be protected and preserved and yet that can't be done. I must protect her and shelter her but it can't be done.

The other possibility is...As you know when you are in this area, your perceptions and thoughts are not necessarily your own. For all we know, the Princess wants to be visited on some kind of subconscious level.

We know that the reaction to the rape was violent but she could absolutely influence her followers, her subjects in a way that would prevent that. But they don't. They can't.

All I do know for certain is that to see her is to love her and with that comes all of the little madnesses that go with being in love with someone. I think that this is made worse by the fact that she is so utterly unattainable but at the same time being able to touch her.

It's a unique situation.

I left a significant amount of money with them from the small fortune that I had taken from the body of the Prince suggesting that they might use it to arm themselves. I suggested that they might not want to or be able to prevent people from visiting her. But they know when something bad has happened and that maybe they could find their own kind of justice.

I also left ways that I could be contacted in case anything or anyone needed to be dealt with in a specific kind of way.

They hated me and I hated them. But they took careful note of the information that I left them.

I rode away but I had to force myself to do so. I so wanted to stay but I knew that if I didn't break away then, I wouldn't be able to. I once spoke to a Fiss-tech addict who told me what it was like. He described his addiction as being like a weight on his back that pushed down on him until he took a hit of Fiss-tech. It was like that.

So I left.

I fled.

It felt good to have both swords on my back again and I took the first contract that I could find. It was glorious to have a simple task with a simple solution and I almost laughed during the entire thing. It was like being out from under a cloud and I could see the sun for the first time and taste food and live life again.

Then one day I realised that I was riding towards the Abbey of Abbot Radulphas.

I rode down into the yard and tied my horse up. It was a different monk that came out to take my horse. It was early Autumn by that stage and the harvest was fully underway. I found the abbot outside in the Abbey orchard inspecting the trees to see if the fruit was ripe enough yet.

"Witcher," He greeted me loudly. "Have you done sinning?"

"I suspect that I'm not done by a long way Father Abbot."

"Oh that's a shame, still I live in hope of your eventual redemption."

"Then I hope that you'll be living for a long time yet as I have no intention of retiring."

"Retiring from sin? Or retiring from your work. They are not generally mutually exclusive you know?"

"I sometimes suspect that they are."

"You may be right there. A man who makes his living by the sword is bound to do some sinning in one way or another. May I hold out hope that you have come to cure my headache then?"

He threw an apple at me which I caught.

"Your headache?"

"My mystery headache? You remember that I get headache's from mysteries?"

"I had forgotten."

"How's the apple?"

"What?"

"How's the apple? They want to make cider out of them. I told them that alcohol leads to sinning but they seem rather insistent on the matter."

"I'm not sure what you're..."

"How's the apple Witcher? It's only more complicated than that because you are making it more complicated than that."

I bit into the apple.

"Well?" He asked peering at me anxiously.

"It's a little bitter."

"Damn shame, ah well."

"Is there a lesson there?" I asked.

"Yes. It means that they won't produce cider that's to my taste. You seem to want things to be more complicated than they are Witcher."

"I will admit to have been around people who think like tangled balls of yarn. All twisty and turny."

"What a horrible thought. You'd better come in. You remember the feet washing business?"

"I do."

"Have you eaten?"

"No."

"Meet me in the study then."

My horse was stabled, my feet were washed and I walked into the study. The abbot was eating from a bowl.

"Sorry Witcher, I had meant to wait for you but it was so delicious." He mopped up some gravy with a hunk of bread.

"Quite alright." It was pork with a stewed apple and onion gravy. It was delicious.

"So do you want to talk about it?" he asked.

I took a deep breath.

"No. No I really don't."

The Abbot nodded. "Do you _need_ to talk about it?"

It took me a long time to answer.

"I don't know. I don't know any more."

The Abbot nodded. He leant back in his chair and waited.

After a while I started to talk. The story was a long time coming and it needed to be brought out of me with pliers. I told him everything. Not just about Sleeping Beauty but about myself as well.

It was getting dark by the time that I was done and we had been sat in silence for some time. I remember looking up at the Abbot and was astonished to see the tear tracts that had run down his face.

"Father Abbot?"

"I am so sorry my son. So very sorry."

"For what?"

"For everything."

He wiped his face.

"I think it's a very sad story. A tragedy in fact. I cannot condone your path of vengeance you understand."

"I understand."

"Even though I myself must wonder at my own sense of satisfaction that Father Alphonse is no longer with us. That man was a snake."

"He was at that."

The Abbot nodded.

"Now what would you like me to do for you my son. Normally at this point in a confession I would offer some kind of penance. A way for a person to atone for their sins but I don't think that that is fitting here. You set your own penance I think. I also think that it has hurt you much more than you realise in the long run. I hope it taught you something."

"I hope so," I said.

"Good then." He blew out his breath in a long, low sigh. "You know I met her once?"

"Who?"

"The Princess Dorn. Do you want me to tell you about her?"

I thought about that for a long while.

"I would. It would please me to think of her as a person rather than a thing, object or abstract concept of pure beauty."

The Abbot smiled.

"She was a spoilt brat and I hated her on sight."

I looked up at him aghast. I will never forget it. He leaned forward slowly, maintaining perfect eye contact.

"I'm joking Witcher."

I laughed so long and hard that I hurt.

"No but seriously." He went on, "I was just a lay monk then. I already knew what I wanted to do with my life but they wouldn't let me take my vows for fear that I would hit puberty and run off with some pretty young girl. The truth is that there was never that much of a conflict. I'm not an attractive man and an ugly face from low born parents are not qualities looked for in a potential husband or lover. Now that I am older I understand the need for such a delay, so many young people don't know what they want to do with their lives until they are quite a little bit older.

"But anyway.

"We were visiting their castle, King Stefan and Queen Leah. The Queen was a remarkably devout woman. According to the bishop that we were travelling with she had wanted to take holy orders before she fell in love with King Stefan and she clearly loved him dearly.

"I had been given to this wandering Bishop. He used to travel around a lot, essentially begging for money so that he could help make a name for himself in the church. He was devout, I will give him that, but he was also worldly enough to comment that if we stopped by Queen Leah would insist on throwing us a feast at which we could eat to our hearts content as well as stock up on supplies and hassle visiting nobles for money.

"I never found out why but their Kingdom was hideously rich. The bishop suspected that they had a hidden gold mine somewhere in their Kingdom and were taking it for everything that they could. I was born on a sheep farm so I was rather over awed and all of about fourteen. Having said that, one nice serving lady took pity on me that night and I lost my virginity at least..."

"Too much information father Abbot."

"Yes well. What can I say. It has a tendency to weigh on a young man's mind. But I remember being led into this Grand hall. There was the Bishop and two older monks and then a few of us who were you enough to be allowed into the hall and could be trusted not to embarrass the Bishop too much.

"We met the King and the Queen who were gracious in their reception despite a kind of knowing glint in the King's face that I guessed was something to do with his cynicism at his visitors. Then we were introduced to his daughter.

"Working it out, she must have been about nine or ten at the time but even then, she held the prospect of infinite promise. She was luminous to look at and although she was, undeniably spoilt, she hadn't let it affect her. I noticed, even then, that she knew everyone's name and could remember some small fact about them that she must have been told at some stage. And then, and this is important, she could converse on the topic as if she was interested in it.

"She insisted on spending time with the Bishop, asking rather deep questions of him, especially for someone her age. Then she danced with us. She laughed at me, gently enough to lessen my embarrassment when I confessed that I didn't know how to dance before promising me that she would help me through it."

He wiped more tears from his face.

"Forgive me Witcher. An old man's memories.

"I loved her. I sometimes wonder if meeting her had an effect on me. I knew my first woman that night and I knew a few more before I was finally ordained a full priest. But I remember that girl."

The Abbot skewered me with a stare.

"She would be horrified at what has happened since then Witcher. She would hate herself and blame herself for what has been done in her name."

"I know that Father. I really do."

The old man nodded.

"I remember the time of the curse of course. How could I forget? I remember thinking that she was too beautiful for this world. Too beautiful of face, mind and character. I hope that she wakes up to a better world than the one that she left."

"I doubt that Father. I doubt that very much unless the world is completely cleansed of human, elf, dwarf and half ling. I've thought about it a lot. I don't know if I believe in true evil, a black face or mask that we can work against. But she brought it out of those men and I would protect her from that."

"You love her too then?"

"Of course I do."

The Abbot nodded.

"Do you wish for judgement?"

I took a long drink from the cup in front of me.

"I do Father. I want an honest judgement from a person from outside the whole situation. My morals are skewed, I cannot pretend to know what is right or wrong any more other than in general terms. I want someone else to tell me what happened, what I should have done and what they think about what I did do."

"Would you have done differently?"

"I don't know really. I didn't do anything for a long time and I spent a long time thinking about what I was going to do so no, I don't think I would have done anything differently and I don't think I _could_ have done differently given what I knew at the time. I might have changed my methods but..."

I shrugged.

"Any regrets?"

"Plenty. I regret the deaths of those innocent guards who I killed for doing their duty. Yes I can argue that they were guards and they were following the orders of bad men and that the potential for death or injury comes with the job but I can't say that I like it."

The Abbot grunted.

"Well I find that I can't condemn you My son. I will admit that I really really want to though but I am old enough and experienced enough with my own feelings to know that that feeling is a visceral and unfair feeling. It is the feeling of Radulphas the man rather than Radulphas the Priest. I want to condemn you for your inaction in allowing harm to befall the Princess and I want to condemn you for the deaths of those men that fell under your sword.

"As a priest I would say that the only real monster in the number of men that you killed was father Alphonse. That man was sick and his sickness had no cure. But for the others... Even the Duke had his redeeming qualities even if he thought so little of other people that he thought of them as playing pieces.

"But he was a product of his world and his upbringing.

"As are you Witcher.

"I pity you young man. I really do. You are a product of intensive and abusive training. Even though you probably look back on your training as being necessary and are now beginning to think of your tutors as friends. You probably even feel gratitude towards them. But the fact is that if you described your apprenticeship to anyone else then they would be horrified and rightly so.

"But I don't think you could have done other than you did. I don't think that you have the...tools..."

he was pointing at his head as he said this,

"...to do other than what you did. Witchers are neutral. We all know this, even those of us who only have passing knowledge about them. That training kept you in place while the Princess was being raped. Then, over time, the men who performed those crimes transformed from being normal men to being monsters in your mind.

"You know what Witcher's do with Monsters?

"You kill them. So that was what you did.

"You are right to feel regret over the other men's deaths. Personally speaking you should have spared the soldier Mark and it's easy to look back on those events with the benefit of hindsight and say you should have done this or that but that is impossible. For anyone to live up to.

"So no, I'm not going to condemn you."

"That's something of a relief."

"You're not getting off that easily Witcher." The Abbot smiled at me, he looked sad. "You hear so much about this person or that person, often knights who are willing to lay down their lives for the good of this or that. They say that they will willingly give up their lives if it will clean them of sin. Then they depart on long crusades which inevitably end up in their deaths."

"I have heard of such things."

"Yes, well. I will admit to always finding such things rather cowardly. Dying for one's beliefs or to purge one of one's sins is relatively easy. But living... That is hard. So that is your penance Witcher.

"You must live.

"I see in your eyes a great cloud, dark and heavy. It spreads out from you in all directions and presses down upon you like a blanket made out of razorblades. Never give in to that blanket Witcher. It will be tempting to allow that blanket to crush you and to let some monster end your life. To let it take away that burden from you. You must never let it. You must live and continue to slay the monsters of this world in the hope that one day in the future, _she_ may wake up into a better world than the one she left."

(Frederick's note: I take over from here.)

Kerrass stayed silent for a long time. He had been talking for most of a day in fits and starts. We had stopped for something to eat at one point but other than that he had just been talking. I checked to make sure he was still awake and was on the verge of reaching over to wake him when he stirred.

"That's it," he said brightly. "Any questions?"

I smiled and stretched.

"What happened to her children? Might they be used to lift the curse?"

"It's actually been tried," he said. "Unfortunately Duke Bertrand was not the only person to have the idea of using Sleeping Beauty as a brood mare for the production of clean and un-sullied children. There have also been several cases where her beauty has overwhelmed otherwise ordinary visitors to her resting place. I understand that the village took on a child once and told them about their mother but the attempt to lift the curse was unsuccessful."

"What about Prince Bertrand's children?"

The Witcher smiled sadly. "He died of a childhood disease at the age of four. She went on to marry into some Imperial line of succession, had a couple of children before dying in one of the outbreaks of Catriona but she was noted down as a ward of Emperor Torres and as a result her links to thins Kingdom are...vague. The Princess' other children are scattered now. Most of them left but it is not surprising that people in these parts are markedly more attractive than their neighbours."

"Did you ever go back?"

"To visit the Princess? Many times."

"No, to the Bertrand castle."

"Yes, some sixty years later. It's unrecognisable compared to what it was. King Henrik destroyed it as the Bertrand's fled north to join up with Emperor Torres. The castle was all but pulled down and then rebuilt twenty years later but... trade routes change and the castle is not as strategically important as it once was. It's now a residence of some noble house I believe.

"I did go back and visit Abbot Radulphas though. He was a grumpy old man and served in that place for a good decade after I first visited. I was in the north when he died but I came south as soon as I could. They call him Saint Radulphas now and keep his body in a stone coffin in the crypt. Personally I think he would be horrified at that turn of events. Poor old man."

I smiled at the image.

"He sounds like an interesting man."

"He was. You would have liked him, I'm sure. So what now?"

"I was going to ask you that same question." I answered.

"Do you have any ideas?"

"About waking the Princess? No, not really. I do have a couple of thoughts though. A few things I want to check up on with the village records keeper."

"Oh?"

"I'm interested in the dragon. Is it the same dragon? If so how long do Dragon's normally live for. It obviously has a link with the Princess in that, according to your narrative, it reacted both to the attack, and the presence of the Wizard. That is interesting to me. They aren't solutions but I think there's something there."

The Witcher nodded then shrugged.

"All that matters is that you try Freddie, that's all I'm asking. Shall we say that we'll go visit her in a few days, giving you time to check up on things?"

"Sounds good," I answered.


	41. Chapter 41

In the end, it was five days before we started our expedition down into the valley. This is because, on the second day after Kerrass had finished explaining his history with the place the Princess must have had one of _those_ dreams. One of _those_ dreams that are the entire reason for the assigning of a companion to people in the village.

It was eye opening to say the least.

I'm not going to talk about it too much. All I can say is that when it began to happen, Marion looked at me as though I was a piece of meat. As though she was hungry.

Kerrass was right. I'm glad I experienced it. I'm glad I felt that...that _level_ of emotion but next time, if there is a next time. I would like to rest up for a week before hand just to make sure that I'm not going to expire from the circumstances.

As it was I needed a day to get my breath back.

Not unpleasant but, whooo boy.

Anyhow.

I spent the couple of days I had free exploring a couple of things, reading from the several diaries that Marion was good enough to make available to me and making some notes of my own. I managed to get a sample of the thorn vines and tried to identify the particular species and type of plant family that it belonged to. And then another day saying goodbye to Marion.

I'm not going to talk about that day.

In the end it was a cool morning as we set off down into the valley. The villagers had promised to keep our horses for us, along with the rest of our belongings that Kerrass had declared that we wouldn't need. We had a pony for the carrying of our gear, food for a week, several water skins, camping equipment and what Kerrass referred to as his "professional equipment". There was also another smaller leather bag that Kerrass attached to the harness without referring to. He didn't offer any information about it and I didn't ask. He had a strange, sad, wistful expression as he tied it on.

Some thoughts are so private that you just don't try to impose on them.

The two of us went without any packs or anything as Kerrass informed me that we would need to keep our hands free. As well as having both his steel and silver swords on his back which he had prepared carefully with oils for beasts and spirits respectively, he had a long, broad bladed knife at his waist. I had my spear, although I hadn't attached the pole end as Kerrass had warned me that I wouldn't have room to use it properly, and my long dagger in my belt. Kerrass would be taking the lead while I led the pony behind us.

Pony instead of horses because apparently there wouldn't be enough room for us to ride without having to duck our heads all the time.

Only a few people watched us go.

When I looked back, just before we entered the forest of thorns by shifting sideways through one of the openings, there were only two figures watching. I could recognise Marion by her red hair and green dress so I thought that the other woman must be Sarah the innkeeper who had her hand round Marion's shoulders.

Neither woman waved.

We had been warned. If we weren't back in two weeks then they would assume that we were lost and erect a head stone for me in their sad graveyard.

They said nothing about a stone for Kerrass.

Ten minutes later we could no longer hear the sound of the village men singing out the cutting rhythm as their axes bit into the thorn vines. Twenty minutes after that, we could no longer hear the sounds of the axes themselves. I had stopped counting when I realised that I could no longer see sunlight and that I was surrounded by darkness.

But it wasn't completely dark though, that was the thing. You could only call it dark when Kerrass had lit the torches, passing one to me and holding one high aloft. That made the darkness seem more pressing as though the entirety of the forest seemed to want to push down on the flames. To snuff them out and prevent our scurrying progress in the same way that I might stand on an insect that was encroaching into my bedroll.

What there was instead was a kind of luminescent glow about the place. I had examined some of the vine chunks that had been chopped and cut away from where it continued to try and take over the land that Marino's people had claimed for their own. It was largely made out of a sticky, water like substance, I imagine that you could drink it if you were desperate although my own experiments in that area revealed the stuff to be rather bitter. But what I guessed was happening was that the sun was filtering through the trunks of the vines and through that water and down through the hollows and onto us.

It was enough to see by.

But it wasn't enough to move safely by.

The thorns on the vines were huge, much easier to measure in feet rather than in any other way. They were also tough and amazingly sharp. It was this extra hazard that meant that we had to light the torches. It would have been all too easy to just trip over something and plunge head-first onto one of those spikes. They were so sharp that it was doubtful that you would even realise that you were dying.

It was slow going and I managed to see, first hand, the incredible regenerative effects that the vines possessed. At one point we had to cut our way through one of the thicker vines to make room for us to pass between them. Both Kerrass and I could have made it but we still needed the donkey for the carrying of supplies. We got through but when we had Kerrass tapped me on the shoulder and held his torch close so that I could see what happened. With a kind of liquid groan the old vine that we had chopped clear fell to the ground and then a new vine grew out to replace it, two minutes later and it was back in place. Five minutes after that and you wouldn't have been able to tell that there had ever been a gap there in the first place.

At one point I had a theory that if we could harness that regenerative quality then it would mean that medical science could be revolutionised as it seemed that the rapid self-repairing of the vines was biological in nature. But Kerrass had been holding his medallion next to the vine as it grew. The small Cat-head danced in place all the time.

Magic then. Not the kind of thing that a medic could carry around in their satchel.

We moved on.

There was sound. It wasn't like in the woods near ambers crossing. Or any of those situations where the entirety of the trees seem to go quiet in the presence of anything supernatural. There was noise. You could hear birds singing in the trees and flapping about. There was rustling in the undergrowth, later in the journey we could hear the sounds of cattle braying and at one point Kerrass managed to produce a wile boar for us to eat. What it was, was muffled. Like that feeling you get when you have water in your ear and everything seems subdued and withdrawn. Echoey was the best word that I could think of to describe it.

Kerrass took it all in his stride, because of course he did. In many ways, it seemed as though he was coming home to this place. He didn't talk much other than to give the odd piece of advice or to suggest this or that. He was thoughtful, lost in a world all of his own and it felt wrong somehow to try and interfere with that.

There was one other thing that was odd about journeying through that place. The surface that we were walking on was a road. There was cobbling in some areas as well despite the fact that it was now showing signs of wear and neglect. We would occasionally have to detour away from the road but otherwise we could travel in a rough line. There were even signposts, written in old-elven but they were still there. They had been annotated and added to by other travellers and guides from the village telling us where the various places were and how we could get from this building to another.

According to one of the signs we passed what the old inhabitants of the Kingdom thought of as an outlying sheep-farm. The couple who ran the place had been looking for a shepherd to take care of the new and larger spring flock. Room and board supplied as well as potential apprenticeship opportunities for the future. Some joker had written underneath saying "I'll take that offer," in modern script.

It was slow going. Painfully slow. It wasn't like marching up and down a highway with toll-booths and regular patrols where you can expect potholes to be filled in. This was slow and careful picking our way around dangers. Careful manoeuvring of bodies and donkey around the trunks and over tendrils. Kerrass had told me that the plants moved when you weren't looking. I could well believe it. The other thing that happened was that Kerrass insisted upon our resting to eat something in the middle of the day. In the times of a normal journey we would barely stop. Often eating in the saddle while making sure that we had a large breakfast and main evening meal to keep us going. But he insisted and to be fair to him, I could see the reasons for it. We needed that food to keep us fresh and keep us...alert. It was all too easy to trip.

I don't know how far we got on that first day but I would guess that it was somewhere around seven miles. Not a good amount, even if we were injured.

So imagine my surprise when Kerrass seemed absolutely fine with the utter lack of any progress.

"Five days out," he said. "A couple of days to do whatever it is that you think you might be able to do. If we fail, which is what I expect to happen, then I pay my respects and then we leave. Five days back."

"I hate to say this," I pointed out. "But we only have enough food for a week."

Kerrass nodded. "We won't struggle," he said while drawing a strange symbol on the floor with a stick of chalk. "There are supply dumps on the route to and from the castle and the forest is teeming with game."

"That's good." I commented. "Because these trail rations that they gave us taste like feet."

I threw a hunk of what had once been described as "salted pork" into the undergrowth.

Kerrass grinned at me. "I thought that they would go easy on us given the fact that they don't know you as well as they know me."

"They must really hate you."

"Not really. I think they just like to tell me that they're in charge."

I nodded and carefully tended the fire. We had stopped in one of the roadside cottages. It had once been some kind of inn. Near the border, a nice big place where people could stop when they had just got into the Kingdom. It was easy to imagine merchants, nobles and ambassadors stopping here to meet and arrange things before putting them before the royal court. A large trunk of the vines had pushed one of the walls down and opened it up to the elements.

I so desperately wanted to go and explore but Kerrass forbade it.

"Why?" I asked.

"Wait until nightfall. Then you'll see."

And see I did.

At first it was just their outlines but gradually, as the night went on and things got darker and darker, their features began to fill themselves in. At first, just the outline of clothes and features until I could pick out a nose, or a mouth. But then, piece by piece, the rest of them came into view, glowing with a strange blue light which was ethereal in the dark green jungle. You could watch them as they went about their business absolutely, deathly silent. Like watching a mime show as the inn went about it's business, pouring ale into invisible tankards, eating invisible food from invisible plates. Talking and laughing together with absolutely no sound at all.

Eerie is not the word for it.

It turned out that Kerrass had chosen a small storage cubbyhole for our resting place. As I watched, an inn-worker came to the door of the cupboard and tried the patch of air that seemed to be of roughly the same height that a latch might have once been. He struggled with the air, tugging at it and shoving, seeming to get annoyed before eventually calling a friend over so that they could try and force the door. They bounced off air for a few moments before giving up and moving on.

I looked over at Kerrass who was sat in front of the fire, legs crossed and looking at me. The blue glow of the spirits reflecting in his eyes.

He looked frightening and demonic.

"Don't disturb them." He said. "They don't know they're dead. They wander around the ruins of the Kingdom, living their daily lives, only visible in the depths of the night where the moon shows us their forms and they reflect and refract the moons light so that we can see them. Hidden from us during the day they go about their business. Working, always working and laughing. Living their lives oblivious to the passage of time."

He tossed a small piece of firewood onto the blaze sending a shower of sparks twisting up into the pitch blackness above us.

"Never get in their way. During the day it doesn't matter. The most that we might feel is a shiver or a sudden sense of danger where none exists. Maybe they feel the same sort of thing but who can tell. You can't communicate with them and it seems impolite to me to try. The only time that we can interfere with each other is during the night. When, in the darkness it seems that their world and ours seem closer together. It is another effect of this place and no-one knows why. But never get in their way. If you see one walking towards you, move. If you see one reaching for you, duck. If you see one looking at you and you think you can see it focusing on you, or recognising you? Run. Run for your life because the next thing you hear will be the shriek of the spirits on the wind. The night terrors that have no name and they will come for you.

"They will chase you down until you slump exhausted by the wayside and then you join them. I've seen it happen. Because what you will have done is confront them with the fact of their death and they hate you for it.

"If you hear them scream, or if you see the green glow of the awakened dead. Coat your blade in the oil, stand inside the circles that I draw and avoid them. Parry their strikes for they have speed but not strength and hope...Hope and pray that they will be solid enough to accept your strikes. If they are not. If they... are as insubstantial as air, then make your peace with whatever powers you hold dear and hope that your end comes quickly."

"You make it sound so hopeless." I managed. I hadn't heard him speak like this before. His voice was almost chanting as though reciting words and rimes from half remembered books and tales long past. He had warned me of the dangers of ghosts and wights and wraiths before now and told me about the oils and the circles but here... He seemed distant.

"It is hopeless. This place is like... You have a respect for the holy places. I have seen your reverence for shrines and churches. Whether it be a shrine to Melitele, the holy fire, the sacred sun, St Lebioda, the Prophet or any of the others, you always leave an offering. I can understand that. But this place has a similar effect on me. It's like, coming home in a horrible kind of way. I know every building that stands in ruin. I recognise many of the ghosts and know their habits and how they will behave. In this place I feel...It's as though every part of my being. Every skill or piece of knowledge that I have been given, leads me towards this place. Was given to me so that I would know how to work in this environment. It pulls at me time and time again. More than any other place on the continent, this place is home to me. More than the Wolves keep of Kaer Morhen, more than the Feline keep in Northern Redania, more than any other place. This place is home. A place so inimical to human or sentient life and I like it here."

He smiled a little ironically.

"That probably says something about me that I won't like very much."

"What will you do?" I asked. I moved to sit to one side of him, poking at the food that was cooking over the fire. "What will you do if we lift the enchantment?"

"Honestly? I don't know. It's an odd feeling bringing you here. I will admit that you're not the first person that I've brought here in an effort to cure the Princess and lift the curse. I've failed every time and I'm self aware enough to know that we probably won't succeed this time either. It's the strangest thing though.

"I know the Princess better than anyone else alive. I've been coming here on and off for a little under eighty years. I've watched her, and waited for her for years, waiting for her to open her eyes. I've lived inside this forest of thorns for months at a time, living off the land until I couldn't bear it any longer. I return north and spend a year, two or more walking the path and earning my money. I try and set down roots or make my way in another craft but sooner or later I will think of _her_ face and my mind will shy away.

"I do not have the luxury of being a romantic. I've seen it fall apart far too often for belief in that. I've loved many women but sooner or later, I compare them to _her_.

"If I'm lucky I manage to leave before the girl in question sees that in me. That...disappointment as I realise that I'm substituting one person for another. I owe each and every woman in my life more than that."

"But what if she does wake up Kerrass? What then?"

"I can't think about that. I daren't hope."

"I know. But..."

"I know what you're getting at. I've idealised her now. She's the ideal person to my eyes and how will she, how could she live up to that."

"It's not just that Kerrass but she's sixteen. My little sister was sixteen when you and I met and I can well remember how she could be sometimes. Even despite being gifted with "Wit and Goodness" she's still sixteen. I can remember being sixteen myself. I was an absolute ass-hole when I was sixteen."

"Some might say..."

"Yeah I know. Some might say that I'm an ass-hole now. Yeah, thanks for that. They say that the old ones are the best but I should have seen that one coming. What I'm saying is...What if she wakes up and simply doesn't like you?"

"Then that would be her right."

"And what will you do then? Follow her around like a faithful dog, sleeping outside her door with naked sword across your knees and protecting her from all comers."

"Oh it could be a lot worse than that?" said Kerrass smiling. He seemed a little more like his old self with that smile and I found that I was no longer as worried. "What if she wakes up and likes me? What if she wakes up, takes one look at me and throws her arms around me in a huge embrace and kisses me soundly. What if she wakes up, takes one look at me and it's the rumoured, often sung about but oh so rarely happening love at first sight? She's sixteen and the Queen of a fallen Kingdom. A lost Kingdom. The same problems await her as awaited Ariadne when she first woke up. She's going to be living a life that's a long way from the life she used to have. She's going to be lucky if she isn't married and whisked off to some far-flung corner of the Empire within days of waking up. What do I do then?"

He laughed and I laughed with him.

"Oh I've had plenty of time to think about these things Freddie. Plenty of time. There's also the whole thing of what do I do with myself after she wakes up. Will I be satisfied with just being a Witcher then? Just a Witcher with no long term goal to aim for, travelling the roads and wintering with whoever will take me in?"

"I think we both know that you are not _just_ a Witcher Kerrass. You are a man and you will find something to live for. Apart from anything else, I imagine that Emma will always be happy to give you somewhere to live over the winter. You can always stay with me in Oxenfurt, or..." I blew out a breath. "Or in Angral when Ariadne and I get married."

"You're going to do that then? Blatantly changing the subject. Marry the vampire Queen?"

"I don't know." I said. "Honestly? She terrifies me and I can't tell what my own feelings are, underneath the terror I mean. I like her, she's beautiful, makes me laugh at the strangest times and we can talk about all kinds of things. But I sometimes feel as though she's playing me. Like I'm a puppet on a string that dances according to her whim. I feel so swept up in things when I'm around her that I'm always trying to breathe or struggle against the current as it were. And she always seems so calm and collected so I can never tell what she's thinking or feeling. I feel like... I feel as though she treats me like some kind of pet or lab experiment to her. "Ooh, look what I can make the human do if I just look pretty and smile at him,""

I subsided.

Kerrass was just looking at me.

"In the end." I said after a moment. "I want to make sure that it's my decisions. That what I'm feeling about her are _my_ feelings and not the work of a beautiful vampire woman playing with my emotions for her own amusement."

Silence fell for a moment.

"You don't know what she's feeling about you?" Kerrass asked. His face seemed stony and unreadable.

"No. That's the point. I suppose the way round that is for us to spend more time...courting I suppose is the right word for it but..."

Kerrass nodded and started laying down to get some sleep.

"For my money, you should marry her. It might be terrifying but she will show you things you can't even imagine."

"I find that _so_ reassuring."

"You should. Wake me when it's midnight."

I don't remember sleeping that night. I must have done because I certainly don't remember the entirety of the night. I remember getting up to relieve myself a couple of times in a pot that Kerrass set aside for that purpose and each time Kerrass was sat, cross-legged with his silver sword across his lap. He appeared to have slept like a baby when it was my turn to watch. As it was I was sleeping on a strangely cold chunk of the floor. There wasn't any surprise there, most of the time the ground is warmed by the contact with the sun but in this case the sun was behind the canopy of trees and thorns that covered the sky. Instead, the heat was provided by the fire and I woke up shivering with my breath steaming the air in front of me.

We ate a breakfast of porridge and bacon which warmed me up nicely before marching into the dense undergrowth.

It was not easy going but Kerrass ensured regular rest stops along the way. He told me that on one of his first visits back after the business with Duke Bertrand had long been done away with, had been to help map the place. The villagers had set up little supply dumps and depots where firewood and fresh stores were stacked neatly in piles next to areas that were clearly signposted as being safe from spectral interference. There were also notes that Kerrass showed me about the various hunting parties that had gone this way and that way hunting for the treasure that everyone seemed certain to be hidden here and there about the place. Kerrass seemed to find the whole thing amusing.

We did come across one man who was dressed in full plate armour. The armour itself was rusting and it was plainly obvious that animals had been trying to get at the meat inside it. They must have found it difficult as the man looked as though he had been impaled on a couple of vine spikes. He was a tall man, but even despite his bulk and his armour, he was suspended off the ground on a couple of the thorns. I guessed that he had fallen off his horse and onto the spikes before hanging there to either bleed to death or die of pain and exhaustion. He carried a kite shield with a lion emblazoned on the front and a jewelled sword rested at his feet. Kerrass recovered the sword and left it with some supplies.

"We'll pick it up on our way back." He said without comment.

"Who was he?"

"A knight errant of some kind. A fool with too many romantic notions about True Love. Ran into the forest without listening to the warnings." He sighed and shook his head. "I'm being unfair. He got quite far in considering."

We rode on. Slowly, my eyes seemed to adjust to the gloom and I needed the torches less and less. On the third day's journey, Kerrass didn't bother to light them and I didn't realise for several hours that we were walking easily, leading the donkey carefully. The odd and very brief shaft's of light were blades down from the heavens that stabbed into the eyes. We avoided them.

"So, do you have a plan?" Kerrass asked on the second night that we spent in that place.

"Plan, no but I do have a couple of questions now that my mind has had time to settle in around the problem."

"Oh?"

"You're so sure that "True Love's kiss" doesn't work?"

"I am sure."

"Why?"

"Because I've tried it."

Kerrass was staring into the fire as he said this. He appeared carved from stone and I found that I didn't want to disturb his thoughts further that night but I tried again the following night.

"So true love's kiss doesn't work." I said as I turned the spit that had two rabbits roasting over the fire. We were camping in what looked like an outer farm building. It was clearly labelled as being a safe place to camp and the spirits left us alone that night although we could still see them in the distance.

"It's not that it doesn't work. It always works, no matter what the curse is, "True Love's kiss" is the guaranteed cure of it. It always works although no-one knows why. I once knew a wizard who claimed that it was something to do with the inherently magical nature of love that, because that magic could always break through anything then the curse would fall apart under it's light. The problems with it being that it has to be _true_ love. Not for one's own gains or surface desire, simple affection or lust. My working theory has always been that in my case, as well as in the case of any of the other pilgrims that come to try and wake her, they fall for the Princess as a symbol or as an object rather than as a person. As a woman or as a girl."

"Possible." I pulled one of the books that I had brought with me from the village library. "According to Strengen the Wizard: True Love's kiss is the ultimate charm. Anyone can cast a curse if they have a sufficient depth of feeling towards their intended target but that raw, un-tempered hatred can have considerably damaging effects on the caster as well as the target of the curse. Hatred is power, especially as it so regularly goes hand in hand with unchecked rage which is so often the case when it is used in the manner of cursing. The poets tell us that the line between love and hate is thin indeed so perhaps that is the reason why "True Love" works to counter the curse. That Hate and Love cancel each other out."

"I have read that book several times. Unfortunately it seemed that Strengen then went on to try and and distil Love and Hate into their purest liquid forms and his failure to do so drove him mad."

"That would strike as true as both things are so abstract in their nature. There are also many different forms of Love and Hate that they defy codification. What was it the poet said about Love?"

"That it is like a pear. Sweet to the taste but defies any kind of description other than the fact that it is pear-shaped. Thank you by the way."

"What for?"

"For not saying that the reason my kiss didn't wake her is because I am a Witcher and as such cannot feel any emotion."

"I will take your thanks although I feel sure that that old slander can be dismissed as the falsehood that it is."

Kerrass smiled and turned the rabbits again so that their fat spilled free and sizzled in the fire. I had been surprised as to how fat and well fed the rabbits looked given that there was little sunlight here. One of the things that is known about what causes plants and creatures to grow and thrive is sunlight so the rabbits and other animals that I had seen should have been dying, if not dead. But these things seemed healthy. Indeed we were flavouring the rabbits with wild garlic that we had found at the side of the road.

"Reading further," I went on, "Strengen claims that proper curses as cast by magic users..."

"Doesn't he define magic users as hedge wizards, witches, witchers and other uncouth things?" Kerrass asked with a slight smile.

"He does but I decided not to bother with such blatantly ridiculous things."

"Fair enough,"

"But he says that proper curses that are worked out in advance, targeted against a specific individual and codified into a spell, are relatively easy to perform. The real craft comes when the caster tries to work out a way to get round the old loophole of "True Love's kiss". He claims that if only people knew how useful "True Love's kiss" was, then there would be no such thing as curses given all of the different forms of love that there are."

"Parental, familial."

"Friendship."

"If you're going to kiss me Freddie then I have a rule of no tongue."

"Thank you for that. I'll bear that in mind."

I checked to see how the meat was coming on and stirred the vegetable mix that was going to accompany the rabbit for our evening meal. Beans carrot and onion.

"But anyway, what we have to do here is figure out the loophole."

"People have been working on that problem for years Freddie. Do you have anything new?"

"I might. I need you to tell me about Dragons."

"Dragons? Why dragons?"

"Because it's the dragon that's out of place here. It doesn't fit anywhere. According to the accounts of the villagers. The Dragon was first sighted by those people who returned to the Kingdom after the curse had been enacted. They saw it in the sky, swooping and dancing in the air. At the time they couldn't get any closer because the curse itself prevented them from doing so. Have I got that right?"

"You have."

"So the next thing of note is that the dragon doesn't really attack visitors to the Princess. I've looked and there's no real statistical basis for the theory that it hunts the people that visit the castle specifically over random people that are searching the rest of the Kingdom. It just, occasionally, likes the taste of human over cow or sheep."

"I sense a "but" coming."

"But," I grinned at him. "The only time the Dragon gets agitated or angry is whenever _you_ get close to the Princess. Or whenever another magic user gets close to the Princess. It also gets angry whenever the Princess is...assaulted."

"You mean raped."

"I do."I cleared my throat in discomfort. "Think about it. From your account, Duke Bertrand told you that the dragon got upset when the wizard that he had been speaking to went to the castle. It gets angry when your party was...assaulting the Princess. There are also records that say that the Princess has been raped multiple times. Every time the Dragon goes nuts and sets fire to vast swathes of the countryside. It also doesn't enjoy the presence of magic users. Which includes Witchers. Did you know that another Witcher had visited the Princess?"

"I didn't."

"About twenty years ago a Witcher called Merten of Haakland came here in an effort to lift the curse. Apparently a border lord had wanted the curse lifted so that he could expand into the Kingdom and get at all the juicy lumber to be found. Merten came, the Dragon got cross and he left. He told the villagers that he assumed that he had really been hired to hunt the dragon for the Lord and given that Witchers don't hunt dragons..."

"Interesting. The Rabbit's done."

We ate, mopping up the juice with half a loaf of bread each.

"That's another thing." I said taking a drink from the bottle that Kerrass offered. One of the things that was regularly in the supply caches were bottles of local vintage. "Oof that's good."

"One of the benefits of the south." Kerrass agreed. "The beer might be piss but the wine is excellent. You were saying?"

"Yes. What the fuck is it still doing here?" I wiped the neck of the bottle and passed it back. "Dragons are... valuable. Their blood costs a fortune in alchemical circles. Their scales make better than average leather armour. I don't know for certain but I'm pretty sure that whenever a dragon is found, people are paying a fortune for their toenails and entrails. So why is this one still here? Hell, I've heard that famous Dragon hunting mercenary companies like the Crinfrid Reavers are having to branch out into hunting Griffins and joining regular armies because there aren't enough dragons to keep the money in their pockets."

Kerrass passed the bottle back to me.

"But here we are." I took a swig. "In a valley where the dragon visibly flies overhead in the distance. Why haven't half a dozen Sorcerers and Sorceresses turned up with a ballistae crew to blast it out of the sky. I know why you haven't done it but, why haven't they? A mage could retire on the claw of one of those things, or so I'm told."

"And you'd be right." Kerrass said.

"So tell me about Dragons."

"In the morning."

We marched on and Kerrass talked about Dragons. His lecture was relatively short and to the point.

Condensing it and my, many, questions into a readable format though it goes like this.

Dragons, along with cats which possibly goes a long way towards explaining why cats are the way they are, are the only creatures that actively absorb magical energy which is why they are so useful in the alchemical arts. Those people that argue that Dragons are the last manifestation of chaos on the surface of the continent are mostly incorrect. They are simply large beasts that have an incredible capacity for violence and destruction but the truth is that they very rarely go out of their way to hunt humans. Humans tend to make life so much more difficult to be hunted and, being relatively intelligent creatures, preferring an easy life, Dragons would prefer to sneak off with the odd sheep or goat than attack humans that might shoot at it or otherwise harm it.

In the vast majority of cases, what is actually going on is that the humans in question are hunting the beasts for access to the beasts horde of treasure. This is also largely a myth as such hordes are rare and occur according to the character of the dragon themselves. Many dragons are nomadic and as such are unable to carry their wealth around with them, so they don't bother gathering it in the first place.

Unfortunately for the species, the exception proved the rule and that is why people hunt Dragons. Witchers don't hunt Dragons for two reasons. The first being that Dragons don't really kill humans unless the human attacks it first. In which case, the person who decides to attack the several tons of teeth, scales, claws and wings gets everything that they deserve. The other reason is that Dragons are relatively intelligent. In some cases highly intelligent and can be reasoned with.

Personally I suspect that this is the Witcher's small act of rebellion. One of the reasons that the Witchers were created was so that they could help the mages drive the dragons away and tame the countryside. In refusing to hunt dragons, the Witchers are telling their creators to go and fuck themselves. I also suspect that they feel a certain amount of kinship with the beasts. Lonely creatures, hunting and living according to their own rules before "civilisation" drives them off into the wilds where they are more acceptable.

If you wish to learn more about the species then may I recommend "About Dragons" by Jan Borren of Zerrikania. An interesting text although I guess that the name is probably a pseudonym of sorts.

"So are Dragons intelligent?" I asked after he'd finished his lecture.

"It varies. Some are known to be highly intelligent, magical creatures. But on the other hand, some are as dumb as posts."

"A lot like humans then,"

"I'm glad you see the resemblance."

"So There are five types?"

"Yes. White, Black, Green, Red and Rock Dragons."

"Not Golden Dragons."

"If they exist at all, which I doubt despite the tales from the bard about one such, then I have never seen one. Nor have I heard of any academic sources that have discussed one. To my mind and memory, Golden dragons only turn up in stories. That includes the one that turned up in The White Wolf's adventure with the Dragon."

"Well anyway, that's beside the point. We know that this one is Black."

"We do."

"Is the thing about them sleeping on mounds of treasure true?"

"It is. But it's more of a preference thing than anything else. They primarily prefer to sleep in places of intense magical power."

"And then absorb that same power?"

"Yes."

"What do they do with it?"

"No-one knows."

"Lovely. So here's the big question Kerrass are you ready?"

"Was that the question, asking whether or not I'm ready?"

"You're a sarcastic bastard at this time of day. Here's the question. What's different about this Dragon compared to other dragons of your experience."

Kerrass took a while to think about this.

"Ok, I haven't got really close to it but one of the main things is that it's black. Really black. Not the dark brown with caked mud that normally goes along with a black dragon."

"Why do they call them "Black" dragons then if they're not really black?"

"I suspect it's to give them classifications. People prefer to put their fears in boxes and that way they feel as though they're in control."

"That was awfully profound Kerrass, are you feeling alright?"

Kerrass glared at me.

"But as I was saying." He went on, "Black dragons prefer to live in Marshes and bog areas. Volcanic springs and hot mud springs that kind of thing."

"Hardly the local climate. It's quite cold up here. There's snow on the peaks and the place is full of fur trees, pasture land and scenic valleys and dells. Not exactly volcanic mud pools and things."

"No."

"Anything else?"

"It breathes fire. Black dragons breathe a kind of corrosive liquid, that gives off noxious fumes that are deadly to most living beings. That's why hunting black dragons is dangerous..."

"It strikes me that hunting dragons in general is dangerous."

"Yes but in different ways. For Black Dragons you have to be careful of marsh lands. Sinking pools, sucking mud and quicksand. Also, Black Dragons mark their territory by spraying that corrosive stuff around the area. That way, anyone who gets close to it is too busy worrying about the fact that their eyes are bleeding rather than hunting the dragon itself."

"So it looks like a black dragon but it behaves like a green dragon and has the breath of a red dragon."

"That's pretty much the size and shape of it."

"Anything else about it."

Kerrass mused for a moment.

"It's ruff is smaller than most dragons..."

"You mean the spikes coming out of it's neck?"

"Yes, but it's horns are much larger. Much more pronounced."

I nodded.

"So what we're looking at here is the very real possibility that it's either, not really a dragon. Or that it's an unknown type of dragon."

"Yes."

"So it's not a dragon then." I decided.

"Why do you say that?"

"Because it's just not natural. It arrived, near enough to the day that the curse was enacted. It is obviously linked to the Princess in some way as it reacts to what happens to her in the same way that the villagers do. Also, it's been around in one place for over a hundred and twenty years. Are Dragons naturally that long lived?"

"There's no real records or recordings of them. You don't study dragons. You run from them. When a dragon turns up, people go out of their way to hunt them down at which point they either fly off after killing a large number of their attackers, or they die. There isn't often a chance to sit down with one and discuss it's age or the doings of it's ancestors over tea and cake."

"That's valid."

"They are magical creatures though. If left to their own devices, magical creatures do generally live a lot longer than non-magical creatures."

"Fair enough. But that's a question that I'm going to try and explore."

Kerrass nodded in response. We rode for a bit in silence

"Is there anything else that you have in mind?" Kerrass asked.

"I do have one other question that I would like an answer to."

"Which is?"

"Why were King Stefan and his wife so utterly, mind meltingly stupid?"

"What?"

"Seriously, think about it. Here's your daughter. Your little bundle of joy which you have managed to bring to life after many failed attempts. You've managed to keep it alive for a whole year which, even allowing for the fact that it was a royal baby, given the time period is no easy task. You have a celebration because why the fuck wouldn't you. Of course you celebrate. It's a thing worth celebrating.

"So you gather all your friends, your nobles and a significant number of your citizens into one place. I understand that they even declared a national holiday. They do all of this, including inviting seven "good" Sorceresses to provide blessings and whatever else. Then they _forget_ to invite the last Sorceress. The big bad one. According to the story itself, she's the most powerful of the lot and they just _forget_ to invite her."

"It does seem rather foolish."

"I would have sent a carriage with a cavalry escort to make sure that her invitation was delivered. Then I would have offered to have her escorted to the party. But no, they _forget_. They "didn't expect" her because she had been in a tower for many years and was "presumed to have died". Please. Don't give me that shite.

"Again, cavalry escort. Hammering on the tower _just to make sure_. At the time there hadn't been any of the more recent anti magical sentiment and so the entire countryside was dotted with magical people living and studying in their magical towers. We wouldn't have tamed the wilderness without them, so the average person probably knew a lot more about mages, wizards, Sorceresses and the like than we do now. They would _know_ that Wizards occasionally look down to work on a project and then don't look up again for a while. So why were the King and Queen so stupid?"

"It's a valid question. Any theories?"

"Several unfortunately. I hope to learn more when we get there."

"So what's the plan then. Get in and look for the library?"

"Pretty much, or any diaries or records of the place."

"Those books are going to be old and weathered. Difficult to read."

"I know, but it's the only thing I can think of."

We set camp relatively early that night. We expected to get to the castle at some point the following day and wanted to get an early start.

But despite this, neither of us could sleep.

Kerrass was excited I think and my brain was turning things over and over.

"So what are your theories?" Kerrass asked after we'd both spent far too long staring into the fire.

"Mmm?"

"About why they didn't invite this Sorceress?"

I poked at the fire with a stick.

"The first thought was that I've never heard of an ugly Sorceress but by all accounts, Queen Leah was relatively plain for King Stefan's tastes. So my first thought was that the Queen simply decided that she wouldn't be invited because this evil Sorceress was closest to King Stefan's type and didn't want her there out of jealousy."

"You don't sound as though you like that theory."

"No. There were seven other Sorceresses invited. None of them would be ugly either and from what I've heard and read. King Stefan was not exactly that choosy. He liked women in all of their wonderous variety. Also, if Queen Leah decided to object to people that the King had been attracted to then no-one would have turned up tot he party. The same if she had objected to this Sorceress on the basis that she and King Stefan had had a thing in the past."

Kerrass grunted in agreement. "Any thoughts about the fact that she was supposed to be the "evil" Sorceress?"

"It's possible but again You don't get to be King, or Queen for that matter, by being stupid. Or naïve. Those times were a lot more brutal both here and in the north. This Kingdom was wealthy to be sure and so might have had more opportunity to allow themselves the luxury of believing in things like good and evil but I don't buy it. Again, putting myself in their positions... I would _want_ the evil Sorceress there. I would make her the guest of honour. There's also the other fact that she had a tower, supposedly, on the Kings lands. Just refuse that permission or hire a bunch of other magic users to get rid of her.

"I just...I can't believe that a King or Queen would be that stupid. Claiming to have "forgotten her" sounds like a revisionist history after an excuse given at a feast. I can well believe that the King and Queen told this "evil Sorceress" that they had forgotten her in the same way that I used to "forget" to bring my homework to my tutors every time I couldn't be bothered to do it."

Kerrass was nodding as I spoke.

"No Kerrass. They decided not to invite her. There was a reason behind it. They did it deliberately. The question is..."

"Why did the do that?"

"Precisely."

We sat in silence for a while. Then I giggled suddenly.

"Maybe they didn't forget." I said, Kerrass' surprised face feeding my sudden burst of hilarity. "Maybe the Dragon used to guard her tower and every time they sent a messenger, it couldn't get through because the Dragon kept eating them."

Kerrass chuckled along with me. "It would explain it wouldn't it."

"It would." My giggling fit left me as fast as it had arrived.

"But then there's the level of hate in the curse." I wondered aloud.

"What do you mean?"

"Well. The curse wasn't a death curse at the baby. It was a death curse in sixteen years. "On her sixteenth birthday she will prick her finger on a spinning wheel and then die". That's not a curse of the moment. That needed thought. That needed premeditation and preparation. You don't do that kind of thing on a whim. Then there's an aftermath."

Kerrass said nothing. He just stared at me.

"After the curse was cast by an angry Sorceress that your child would die. Wouldn't you send around the world for help? Also, if the Sorceress was still there, wouldn't you beg, plead and grovel for her to lift the curse? When all was said and done, would you try and kill the Sorceress in the hope that that would dismiss the curse in turn?

"I would.

"I would try anything and everything. I would bankrupt myself and the Kingdom in an effort to save my baby. So what happened after the curse. In the sixteen years after the curse was first cast. What did the King and Queen do? Could they not convince the Sorceress to lift the curse? Why not? How is a person capable of so much hate directed at a baby?

"Also, swapping perspectives for a moment and putting ourselves in the shoes of the "evil" Sorceress. After we've cast our curse so that the child will die in sixteen years. We then allow the Good Sorceress who, according to the story, is substantially weaker than us to lessen the effects of the curse? Would we allow our curse to be manipulated like that? Or would we bitch-slap the weaker Sorceress for _daring_ to interfere and then reinforcing our original curse?"

"You might have something there."

I subsided, a little surprised at how worked up I had gotten

"It's all guesswork though. All of it. We need more facts. More data to work with. You yourself would be cross if we were trying to decide what kind of monster was attacking a village based on the guesswork of the villagers."

"I would."

"So lets see what we think when we've got some more facts."

"That's assuming that there are any more facts to be had."

"Optimism Kerrass. Optimism."

"Optimism is all well and good but she's been asleep for over a hundred and twenty years now. Well over the original hundred that she was going to be asleep and yet here we are. Don't you think that if there is something to find then it would already have been found?"

"The thought had crossed my mind but at the same time there is another possibility. That they haven't looked at it from the right perspective before."

"What do you mean?"

"We see it in scholarly fields over and over again. People look at the same problem for days, sometimes weeks, or yes, even years. But then someone new comes along and just happens to be standing in the right patch of floor at the right time with the right past history that makes them think in a certain way. Then that day when that person is standing there..."

"In the right place at the right time."

"Precisely. That day, they are standing there and then they look at the diagram or formula and the light falls across it in a slightly different way so that they look at it for a moment, tilt their heads and then say something along the lines of "Have you considered _this_?" and then the whole room goes silent?"

Kerrass sighed and leant back trying, again, to get a bit of sleep.

"Do you think that might be the case here?" He asked.

"I don't know Kerrass. I hope so. But all that time ago when you asked me to come here with you to investigate this place, you must have thought so... Otherwise you wouldn't have brought us here."

Kerrass grunted.

"I know Freddie, I know. I'm just too used to being disappointed. I don't want to get my hopes up before we go in there and whatever you want to look at doesn't work and we end up chasing our tails."

"You sound like me the day before the Yule presents are handed out."

"That's exactly what it sounds like."

"Good night Kerrass."

We didn't talk any more that night although I doubt either of us slept much.

We got to the castle about mid-morning the following day.

It was not a defensible castle. Calling it a castle is possibly a bit of a mis-labeling of the thing. Palace might have been closer to the word.

It was also badly overgrown with ivory and the now, ever present thorn vines. Looking at the wall, you could probably even climb it with relative ease, hand over hand and without the need for rope. The danger there would be the lack of light meaning that there could be blade thorns at any point waiting to trip you up and impale the careless person. Indeed there were several corpses that could be found around the base of the wall.

I waited while Kerrass had a look around. Eventually with a bit of prodding he cleared a patch of wall and stared at some markings that had been scratched into the stone before beckoning to me. The markings were regarding the degree of sun in the sky off the compass points and Kerrass pulled out a map to show me.

"We're here." He pointed at the part of the castle walls. "That means that we've come a little further north than was entirely ideal. We'll pick our way around the castle to the south which is where the back entrance is."

I nodded.

"The path is not ideal as this bit is _meant_ to be difficult to traverse but we can't afford to lose sight of the wall as we'll be forcing a path."

I nodded my understanding again. Kerrass was excited, just a touch of colour in his face, pupils just slightly dilated. He was almost visibly holding himself back from just rushing ahead.

We worked, chopping our way through the undergrowth. Step by cautious step. We both had cuts by the end of it, as thin and as straight as paper cuts. They were almost painless at the time but only started to hurt afterwards when Kerrass insisted that we take the time to clean and bind them.

As we came round the tower Kerrass became more confident about where he was.

"This place always changes in ways that you least expect." He commented when I asked him about having been hear before. "The thorns regrow and are still growing although at a much slower rate than they do at the border. But it's so easy, so very easy to get turned around. Then you trip, tumble and then...well, look at that."

He gestured to a relatively recent body. I could tell because it still had relatively fleshy limbs although some scavenger had been worrying at it. It looked as though he had fallen onto a thorn that had passed through his thigh.

Kerrass checked his boots for fit before declaring that someone else had already clearly been at the corpse.

We came round the tower, as I said and Kerrass led us down into a dip that I suspected had once been a part of a moat or drainage tunnel. The ground became squishy underfoot and there was the smell of rotting vegetable matter. I can't say for certain what it was for but I know that the donkey was particularly reluctant to head into that tunnel.

Almost without noticing the air became very dark and Kerrass bent to light a torch. Then he swore.

"Some idiot has left the door open so the vines have pushed through. The wall will collapse in a couple of years and then we'll need to find a new way in. As it is this..." He was prodding something in the floor before trying his weight on it. "Is less than ideal. Try and remember where I put my feet and follow me up when I call. Be careful."

"What about the donkey?"

"Pay out the rope, and we'll pull it up together. They have much better instincts about this kind of thing than we do. If worst comes to it we lift up the goods and let it go. It'll make it's own way back on it's own accord. The journey back will be easier as there'll be much less to carry."

"Fair enough."

As it happened though the donkey followed me up almost of it's own accord.

We were standing in a square room, there were sacks and crates stood up against the walls.

"Those fresh?" I said pointing at them. They don't look as though they've been here for a hundred years."

"They haven't. Supply boxes. Mostly hay and things, some blankets. Non-perishable things that people bring here and then can't be bothered to take back with them."

He went to a door, opened it and led the way through into a large cavernous room. There were torches on the wall that he lit as we went.

We were in the Kitchens.

Large stone slabs ran up and down the length of the room, huge ovens at one end with equally huge pits for the fuel and the fire to be built up into. Bowls, knives and various pieces of cooking equipment were there as well. All old and dusty.

Kerrass was leading us over to one of the ovens. There was a circle of small stones there with a good stock of stacked logs nearby.

"This is base camp." He told me. "Whenever people come to the castle, which is not as many nowadays. They are told of this place. It's safe, well ventilated and you aren't going to fall into any vines if you just roll over in your sleep. You leave firewood there for when you leave so that the next person can come by and doesn't have to struggle to get themselves started."

He showed me where to tie up the donkey and where I could find hay and oats for him to eat. He set about unpacking our belongings, the firewood that we had brought in as well as laying out blankets and setting out the snares and things for protecting us from wandering spirits. He might have said that the place was safe but he wasn't taking any chances.

"Why do people not come here any more?"

"Because it's mostly tapped out. There isn't anything of value to be found in the castle. No gold, jewels or any other treasures here other than _her_ and books, furniture and things. Nothing that any real fence would look twice at and so people don't bother. If people want treasure of _that_ sort then they head to the outskirts, to the border forts or to the guest houses. Or the often fruitless search for the gold mines that were said to feed the nations coffers and keep them wealthy.

"There was a bit of a rush into these parts during the few years when they commonly thought that the hundred years was up as people competed to be the one to wake her up but that was twenty years ago now. Now people come here for one reason really."

" _Her_ ,"

Kerrass nodded. I got the sense he was procrastinating.

"Still the last people who were supposed to come here to see _her_ came out a few weeks ago so we should have the place to ourselves."

"Good,"

He was staring into a point of air, maybe a foot off the ground.

"You ready?" I asked him.

He grinned suddenly. "You're asking me that? I'm the one that knows what's coming."

"That's as maybe. But you look like I'm about to take you off to be hanged."

"In which case can I have some water?"

I fetched it for him and he took some long swallows from the bag.

"Right then." He sort of squared himself up, "You can go wandering if you want. I'll try and come to get you before night falls but just in case..."

"Just in case what," his words had petered out.

"Just in case I get... side-tracked. If the spirits start appearing and I'm not there to help you get back. Then you get back here as quick as you can. I would much rather you gather the books, or papers you want and bring them back here to study all night than to have to come looking for you. Understand?"

"Yes Kerrass. You've told me about this several times now." I tried to be gentle. Honest to Flame he looked nervous.

"Right, ok. Could you pass me that satchel?" He gestured to the strange extra bag that he had tied onto the donkey at the beginning of the journey. It was surprisingly light given it's bulk. Light and soft. Kerrass hefted it and slung it over his left shoulder. "You got your spectre oil?" he asked me. I waved the relevant bottle in front of his eyes. It was a bit lost on him that I had already got it ready before he asked.

He nodded and then strode off without a word.

We had transferred to lanterns at my insistence to avoid the danger of setting some things on fire. We walked carefully through the doors to the kitchen and up a flight of stairs which groaned under our feet. Kerrass looked unconcerned though so I took that as a good sign. At the top of the stairs we came to a plain landing.

There were a series of labels on the wall that suggested that this was some kind of servant's hall. The labels were written in old elven and spoke about various bedrooms and other rooms around the vast building.

Kerrass chose one of the doors and opened it with a bit of a tug.

The room that he led us into had the look of a guard room. Old, battered looking bits of armour stood in carious parts of the room against rotting armour stands and sword racks. I examined a sword on one of the racks as we walked past. It looked as though it was being held together by rust and cobwebs. I didn't try to pick it up.

Kerrass led us through that room into a long hall, much wider and grander looking. There was a large staircase off to one side, bannister rails lay scattered off to various sides, looking as though they had been deliberately torn off.

"I'm told that they once had gold leaf on them." Kerrass said when I asked. "So a set of industrious scavengers proceeded to peel the gold off in an effort to make some money."

"Did they?"

Kerrass shrugged and moved on.

He walked up to a large pair of doors and rested his hands on them. But then he stopped and closed his eyes.

"You alright?" I asked him after he hadn't moved for several seconds.

"Goddess no. No I'm not."

It's not often that I hear Kerrass pray.

He seemed to find his courage from somewhere and he thrust the doors open with a shove. They were in relatively good working order if a little stiff at first and they opened out onto the great hall.

It must have been an incredible place in it's heyday. Long tables had been thrown aside but you could still see the delicate scroll work as part of the architecture. It was as though someone with far too much money had told an architect, carver and set of stonemasons. "Build me something beautiful."

It was beautiful. It still was, even in it's shabby state.

Ivy had crept in from somewhere and had started to carpet the floor. I pushed some aside with my boot so that I could see the floor which was covered with tiny little bits of tile. I guessed that the mosaic would be huge, fitted to the room.

It was a breathtaking display of wealth. Even despite it's disrepair.

At the head of the hall was the centrepiece and reason for our being there.

A large, wooden coffin at the top of a dais. It lay at the foot of two chairs that could only be thrones. Kerrass led me up to the top and I climbed up the stairs to where the coffin lay.

Kerrass got there first and groaned.

"Bastards," he muttered but he seemed resigned. Disappointed maybe. I looked in.

She was naked. Bits of tattered cloth lay about her and she lay, hair dishevelled, limbs askew with one hand and a foot hanging over the edge of the coffin. She was positioned like a drunk having collapsed somewhere. Or a corpse, still laying where they had fallen.

"Bastards," Kerrass said again. "Every time I come here the villagers try to hide it from me. But every time I come here and see how she's been disturbed. Bastards."

He knelt next to the coffin.

My mouth was hanging open.

She looked so peaceful. It was like looking at a statue.

I realise that I haven't described her. But how does a person describe physical beauty.

Beauty is subjective. It is true that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I am lucky in that I have been surrounded by beautiful women but this was something else entirely. The closest in comparison would be...I think I would describe her as being a lot like those portraits of the soon to be Empress Cirilla. Only imagine her without the scar and with Blonde, golden hair. Another comparison might be those portraits that I have seen of the Sorceress Keira Metz only younger and more innocent in appearance.

I'm really struggling with this. I genuinely don't know how to describe this woman. She was beautiful. But even that was wide of the mark. She was beauty. Personified into a solid form. She was... breathtaking but unlike some of the haughty beauties that you might see at court, there was a softness to her that...

For someone who makes their living by writing I'm doing this really badly.

Looking at her for the first time, asleep as she was. I felt like I had been struck about the face and body with a weapon. But as it struck, the weapon turned into a warm fuzzy blanket that wrapped me up, body and brain so that I was all but incapable of thinking.

She was like, a warm bed, next to a lit log fire when the frost is creeping round the window and you don't have to get out of bed. She was like a sunrise on a cool crisp spring morning at home.

She was like church bells on a still morning. Birds singing next to a stream.

She was so beautiful that it was difficult to think. To breathe.

When I had thought of her as "Sleeping Beauty" I had also thought of her as being like, a still statue, or corpse but she wasn't. She was asleep. She looked as though she could wake up at any moment.

She looked cold and was covered in goose-flesh.

At some point I had fallen to my knees. Kerrass was sat next to her. His face was painful to look at.

"Oh Kerrass." I heard myself say. "I am so, so sorry."

Kerrass looked up at me and held my gaze for a moment. I think he was looking for something in my face then, just for a moment. I realised that he had his left hand on his sword strap in the old signal to say that he was ready to draw steel. But instead he relaxed and nodded.

"Give me a hand." He pulled around the leather bag.

From it he took a long blue cotton dress, a pair of socks and slippers, the kind that you might wear to bed. He also took out a hairbrush, a blanket and a pillow.

"What do you need me to do?"

I swallowed and sniffed, realising that I was on the edge of tears.

"I'll tell you. Don't worry." He spoke gently, quietly. The way that you might speak in church.

Working together and under Kerrass' direction, we dressed her in the clothes that Kerrass brought. With astonishing care and gentleness he brushed her hair and tied it back for her and arranged her properly in the coffin. Then he gently placed the pillow under her head and gently tucked the blanket round her.

Then Kerrass rooted around in his bag again and produced a stuffed animal toy. Which he tucked into the blanket next to her.

"Her bedroom was full of the things," He said. "I don't know if she likes them or not any more given that she was sixteen. But I normally try to pick one up when I know I'm on my way back. She would have a nice collection from me by now. Toys from all over the continent."

"Where's that one from?"

"Novigrad. There's a dwarf there that makes them." I nodded.

We stood together at the foot of the coffin looking down at her.

"She looks so... peaceful. So small and delicate." I breathed the words. Again, I don't know why I spoke in those hushed tones.

Kerrass nodded in response. "Thank you Freddie."

"What for?"

"For so many things. For reacting the way you did when you saw her. For helping me."

I nodded.

"Damn me but she is beautiful." Kerrass said.

I couldn't help but agree.


	42. Chapter 42

The girl was alive. You could see her chest going up and down as she was breathing. But at the same time there was an atmosphere around it all that reminded me of being at a funeral, or at a wake.

I'm thinking of that moment when you're standing over the coffin, or the sarcophagus or next to the funeral pyre. Everyone is standing around in reverence to the very sincere and very real solemnity of the situation. It was like that. She was alive, definitely alive, she was warm to the touch and now that she was warming up in her newly provided clothes and under a blanket, her breath was steaming in the air. But it was as though she was dead.

It was still close enough to my fathers death and funeral that I was starkly reminded of that. But it wasn't me that was grieving. There and at that time, Kerrass had been there to support me. Now it was my turn to support him.

His face was unreadable as he stood there. Some sunlight came through some of the windows, those that weren't completely overgrown, and it caught his face at odd angles. I have recently had the opportunity to go back and read some of my earlier chronicles of my travels with Kerrass and one of the things that I remember saying at the time was about how mythic he looked in certain circumstances. About how you could imagine painters studying his likeness and putting it on canvas, about how stonemasons and carvers would spend hours looking at him and trying to capture the air of danger, of heroism and professionalism. All of those things were still true but now, as he looked down at the face of the woman that he loved, he seemed the most human to me. He looked old, very old and immensely tired.

"Can I..." My breath stuck in my throat. "Can I get you anything?"

Kerrass shook himself.

"No," He said clapping me on the shoulder. "No you can't." A slow and sly smile crept across his face. "Not unless you can somehow make it so that it's my kiss that will suddenly wake her up. Or you can wave a magical wand and make it all better again."

"I think that's a little bit beyond my talents there."

Kerrass shrunk a little.

"I thought so, I'm sorry."

"What for?"

"I always forget how hard it is to stand here, looking down on her like this. Every time, I forget and every time it's like, I've had my heart ripped out again."

I nodded. Several things came to mind in the way that they do when you're trying to console a friend or even a stranger through a loss or through a hard time. I wanted to tell him that I was there for him. I wanted to tell him that I cared and that she would wake up some day. I wanted to help share the load in some way.

I wanted to tell him that I knew how he felt.

But I didn't. How could I possibly have known how he felt.

I decided to go with truth.

"I want to say something that would help you Kerrass. I'm stood here trying to figure it out. But everything I think of sounds like a cliché at best and bullshit at worst."

"I know Freddie. I know." Kerrass sighed and rubbed at his forehead. "And I appreciate the effort. I really do."

"Do you want me to leave you alone?"

"Would you mind?" Kerrass looked at me sadly. "I've got some things to say, little rituals you know. I need to tell her some things."

I thought of the way people sometimes visit crypts and graveyards to visit and talk to dead friends and family.

"Of course. Kerrass. I'm going to be exploring and looking for some things."

Kerrass nodded. "Remember what I said."

"I know I know, be back in the kitchen by the time night is falling. Bring the stuff I need...and so on."

"Fair enough. Probably rations tonight but I'll try and go hunting tomorrow. There's normally some boar living near the castle, the Kings old hunting ground."

"How long do we have?"

"Before we have to leave. The dragon is the thing. The dragon will come by in a couple of days. If it's not already on it's way."

"A couple of days. Not a lot of time."

"It will have to be enough. We can always take things back to the village and work on them there."

His voice sounded absurdly hopeful but I could feel our positions reversing themselves with regards to our optimism. Kerrass had been the one who had said that he wasn't as confident that we were going to get anywhere. That we weren't going to achieve anything, where as I had been the one with the new theories that I thought might mean that I could get things going again. That I could make headway in a puzzle that had been driving much greater minds than mine crazy for over a hundred years.

But now?

Now I was standing in a derelict castle that was being claimed by the elements and by nature. And suddenly it seemed an impossible task. Where was I even to begin?

But right then and there, none of that was important. Kerrass was in front of me and I had promised him that I was going to try.

So try I would.

I agreed that we could always take some stuff back to the village and I set out.

I had the map of the castle and I had some ideas as to where to start looking.

I also needed to be looking in places that no-one else is going to think of, or particularly go for.

I was reassured by the fact that there was one large room that was labelled as a library which suggested that the castle as a whole valued the written word which was important. That also suggested that there would be quite a few cases where the keeping of records would either be mandated or encouraged.

The other thing to think about was where the most information could be gathered in as short a space of time as possible.

Two or three days was not really a long time to be trying to figure out one of the greatest mysteries that this particular corner of the world had ever seen.

Context is King. I wasn't going to figure out anything without knowing what else was going on in the castle.

I also thought that the dairies of important people were not that reliable as sources as Kings and Queens are always very aware of their own status and as such have a tendency to not write anything down for fear that it will fall into the hands of their enemies.

Inconsiderate bastards.

Don't they know that some day a historian is going to come along and wonder why they were declaring war on this person or that person?

The same would be true of higher level courtiers. I had come across various studies and courtly documents in my time as a student, where pages had been torn out and entire sections destroyed to prevent them from being used as a weapons on the political battlefield.

But there is also one other truth that I hoped would be usable in this situation which was that wherever you are in a castle. Especially as royal and wealthy castle as this one. You are never further away than 10ft away from a servant or a guard.

Just try it. Have a look around the next time you find yourself in a working castle. Not so much a manor house but a working castle. There will be a servant or guard in your eyeline. Or a guarded door. Or a servants entrance.

Being in power means that you get used to them being around. Even if you are polite enough to thank them for serving your food or taking away rubbish. There is also, often, a page or squire standing or kneeling nearby so that they can catch any problems that might come up and anticipate anything that might go wrong.

These people have ears to hear and eyes to see. They are also trained to be silent and not heard. You don't see

them, but they can see you, hear you and are trained to remember things that you have said over time in an effort to provide things that you might want.

The other thing is that the entirety of our civilisation is built on the fact that, you don't see them. Out of sight and out of mind is a common saying. For you, but also for your enemies. They think of who they can get to and influence amongst your nearest and dearest. But a gold coin in the hands of the girl who comes to sweep away the ashes in your fireplace? That kind of thing could topple nations.

It has too.

Over and over again I would come across it in the libraries of the university. Small diaries of small servants that historians read and then use that to become aware of what was going on behind closed doors. We look at each other and shake our heads saying things like "imagine if King What's-his-name had known that?"

Servants are the lifeblood of a castle. Servants and guards.

So I strode off to the servants quarters and the barracks. The guard rooms and the back stair cases where men and women waited in case their masters called for them.

I also went to the library for a look around with my lantern in case I was being too clever for my own good.

There was always the possibility that I would spend my day crawling around long deserted footman quarters while in the castle library there would turn out to be a specific shelf labelled "Castle records as kept by the guards captains and chief servants since the founding of the Kingdom."

Stranger things have happened.

The truth was somewhere between the two.

I got all excited when I walked into the servants quarters, found that bit which was an office that looked astonishingly like my fathers office back at home and there was a book lying there in the open. The page that was open was unreadable but I was expecting that. Imagine my excitement when I turned a couple of pages over to show a thin hand with a lot of ink splatter and tracery which suggested cheap quills and cheaper ink. It also had the rounded lettering which always, and I do mean always, suggests that the writer learned their letters later in life.

The book, although huge, went back a couple of months. That meant that there would be other books.

Here's where it got a little disheartening.

I spent some time exploring and I found the servants records room. That room displayed the butlers records, the cooks records, the guards records and log books. So many books. That there were so many records spoke well of the castle.

But that there were so many was a little bit...

Daunting. I'm gonna say it was daunting.

I took the most recent books down and spent the rest of the afternoon stacking up those volumes that I wanted to examine as well as searching for those volumes that would be relevant to those times that I was interested in. Namely the times when the princess was conceived, born, named and her sixteenth birthday.

Then the early evening was spent carting the volumes down to where our camp was situated. More than one volume fell apart in my hands but I was having to work a lot faster than I was, at first, happy with.

Ideally I wanted a team of people, students working and carrying and cataloguing, carefully carrying the books from one place to another with someone else taking notes of those facts that I thought of as important.

Fortunately I was invested in the project otherwise it would have been a lot harder.

I sat there, cross legged with the books in front of me along with my note-paper, peering from one book to the other, and then back again. Having to force myself to be gentle with the paper and not frantically scrabble from one page to the next in my efforts to get at the correct piece of information. As it often does in these kinds of situations, time seemed to get away from me. I have dim memories of Kerrass passing a plate of food across my face at some point. I don't know what it was but I must have eaten it as the following morning revealed several dirty plates and things near my work area.

I slept a little bit and went off to look at the royal bed-chambers in the morning. Kerrass was off somewhere, I have no idea where but that was probably for the best.

The royal bed-chambers only gave me a little bit of information but that, in and of itself, was significant.

There was only one royal bed-chamber which suggested that the King and Queen slept in the same bed on most evenings. For those people who don't come from noble backgrounds, that is unusual. Markedly so.

I remember once asking my mother why this was the case. Regular readers might be aware of the rather complex nature of the relationship between my Mother and Father but she raised an interesting point. She told me that many people see it as a sign of wealth and status to have separate bedrooms. That villagers and townsfolk often don't have the space or the money to have separate beds and as a result they sleep together, for warmth as much as anything. Nobles have the luxury of space and as a result they sleep separately.

There have since been other social things that mean that people have separate bedrooms. Sometimes it's because the marriage is one of convenience and separate bedrooms are necessary to preserve the image of peace. Sometimes it's necessary as the two people have significantly different habits to the other.

But to see a shared bed chamber was rare.

The bed was ruined, the wood had been hacked apart, presumably by looters, and the bedclothes had obviously been torn to pieces before the dust and the rot had set in. There was also the splintered remains of a woman's dressing table and a man's desk as well as a couple of chairs. I pushed my foot through them to see if there was anything that might have been interesting to me but not to a looter.

No luck.

In the corner was the corpse of a woman. I crouched next to her. Many of the corpses that there still were in the palace looked as though they were still in the position that they had initially fallen asleep in. They were lying in place, often slumped or with their heads pillowed on their hands or whatever nearby flat surface was available. This woman looked as though she had been tossed aside. Her clothing might once have been rich although there were many parts of it that were torn. Again, I am aware that assuming things is a dangerous habit to get into when you are a historian but I was lacking in time so I assumed that people had searched her clothing for jewels or the metallic golden or silver threads that can be taken from a rich persons cloths. Also any jewellery had been taken as well as there were signs that her fingers had been broken to get at rings. I thought of who could have been in this place. I tried to picture a maidservant or a lady in waiting. But there were no other bodies so it seemed that these were probably the remains of Queen Leah.

No way for a Queen to end. No way for anyone to end.

She looked brittle and I didn't want to disturb her in case I did more damage than was necessary.

All cupboards and shelves had been swept clean. Empty potion bottles, broken brushes and other pots and things littered the floor and crunched underfoot as I moved towards the woman's dressing table. There was still that sickly sweet smell that always put me in mind of my sisters dressing area and alchemical shops.

I did find one book in the corner of the room. It had fallen, the spine cracked and so once again I assumed, (My tutor at Oxenfurt is going to be so cross with me when he reads this) That it had been thrown aside by someone. Carefully I checked it to find that it had the symbol of the prophet on the cover. So some kind of holy book then. Again, not to presume anything but I assumed that it was the Queen's. I took out a small knife and poked at it to see if there had been anything in the spine. But I was disappointed.

I moved on.

I found the King's private study. Behind his own private dressing room, which was not small, there was another room that you entered through another door that looked as though it could be locked by key. This was a hundred years ago so now, locks are becoming increasingly affordable thanks to the increased availability of dwarven and Gnomish mechanisms. But back then, a lock would have been a sign of wealth.

The door opened easily enough and I guessed that others had been there before me. It was an odd kind of a lock in that it seemed to automatically fall into place whenever the door was closed. So it needed forcing from outside the room unless you had the key.

The key was easy to find however as it was around the neck of the lone remaining occupant.

The King was at home.

But his office was a mess.

I nearly despaired then.

It was a smallish room. There was a large window that faced out onto what must have once been a garden and what little light there was, shining through the dirty windows, gave the room a feeling of hopelessness. The room was lined with shelves that once must have contained books, scrolls and all kinds of written paraphernalia. There was a large desk, a fireplace and a single chair.

The corpse that was easily recognisable as the King due to the richness of the cloth, dyed purple with fur linings had, I assumed, (there's that word again) been sat in the chair when he had been found. Looters had promptly tipped him out of his chair and onto the floor to make searching his body and desk that much easier.

There was not a single drawer, nor a single shelf that had not been ransacked with the papers and contents having been tipped out and crushed under foot by the many people who had since come here in an effort to try and find hidden valuables. The common curse of the historian. True value, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. I guessed that the luxurious clothing that the King wore would have been worth plenty to the right merchant but it had been left, ignored and trampled into dust while the maps and the papers had been similarly destroyed. Local collectors, indeed the university itself would have paid a fortune for any of these things.

So there's a tip for those people who go into buildings looking for treasure. If you find a room full of scrolls and books that looks as though they haven't been disturbed in ages. Take those instead. I guarantee that you'll find a buyer. I understand that they're heavier and bulkier than jewels or gold but when you're the second or seventieth looter, you take what you can get.

But at the time, I despaired. I was suddenly certain. Absolutely certain that the answer to all of my questions was in the detritus that had gathered on the carpeted floor. But now it was faded and ruined beyond hope of recall.

But I had promised Kerrass that I would try so I went to work.

My predecessors had known their job well though. I carefully went through, lifting and moving things aside carefully. Most of the books were ruined into crumbling messes. Scrolls were torn or unreadable. I did find several bundles of what looked like correspondence that had been tied together tightly with string. Some of them looked as though they had been damaged by flames as well, as though they had been thrown into the fire but at the last second they had been rescued before the damage was irreparable. They were so tightly packed that I hesitated to pry them apart with my fingers. That would be a job for a careful hand and a knife in a properly lit room. There was plenty of stuff here. But it would take me months to sort out this room alone.

I had a couple of days.

I sadly departed the room and went up into the upper parts of the castle, the private servants quarters.

It was plainly obvious from a lot of them that these were just interchangeable beds where people would go to sleep. There were no signs of personalisation and I was forced to assume (and again. I know, I know. But I remind you of the time pressure that I was under) that most servants lived nearby and that these beds were for the servants of visiting dignitaries. There were very few places where there were any signs that someone had a permanent place to stay and those that did, I couldn't find any signs of kept diaries.

The other problem was that the higher rooms were also less stable than the downstairs areas.

I resigned myself and took what prizes I had and returned to our camp-site.

Kerrass was back in the throne room. He looked as though he was tidying the place up a bit. He'd lit a whole bunch of candles that he had dotted around the rooms and was doing things like putting flowers in pots. As I peered in I could hear his voice as he was talking to her.

I decided not to disturb him and got to work back down in the Kitchen.

Kerrass came back some time later.

No I don't know how much later that was.

"How's it going?" He asked.

"Fascinating stuff." I said without looking up. "Do you know how much it takes to feed the household cavalry?"

"Not a clue."

"I do. I also know how much that all costs. How much silver polish and boot polish they use. And all of that doesn't count towards the rest of the garrison which are fed out of a different system."

"Ok?" Kerrass prompted.

"If I had showed Father these ledgers while he was still alive, flame rest his soul, he would have shat himself to death over the amount that they were paying for a particular type of flour. Not general flour because that was being dealt with under a separate account. But special flower to make special bread for the Kind and Queen's private breakfast. That and the fact that they paid money. They actively paid money to bring in manure for the Queen's rose garden."

"But they had household cavalry."

"Yes."

"So wouldn't they have just used horse manure."

"You might have done. I would have and so would my father. But here it would seem that the Queen had decided that the best kind of manure for her roses came from a sheep farm in the southern part of the kingdom."

"I didn't know that sheep manure had that much of an effect on the production of roses."

"Neither did I. Apparently it's not sheep dung though. The farmer has a pair of horses to cart his stuff to market. Those horses produce the best kind of dung."

"The things you learn."

"These people had so much money that they were literally throwing it away. I don't know how much Redania's total war chest was during the course of the last war but it can't have been small. But these people spent more money on the preparations for the Princesses sixteenth birthday celebrations than I ever saw while I was working for the Quartermaster general during the war. This is insane."

"Royalty." Kerrass said it with a shrug.

"That might be true, but if they'd harnessed that amount of money and turned it into a plan to conquer the continent then we wouldn't be living in a Nilfgaardian empire at the moment and instead it would be in their Empire."

Kerrass grunted. "Have you found anything else?"

"Not particularly, I'm still building a general picture of the events leading up to the curse being cast and enacted and the events leading up to the birth of the Princess."

"That sounds like a lot of work."

"It is, but at the same time I do have one advantage."

"Which is?"

"That we know when her birthday is. Not her naming day which is when the curse was first cast by the Sorceress but her actual birthday. We _know_ that she, and everyone else, fell asleep on the day of her sixteenth birthday. It's worked into the words of the curse. So then we work backwards from that and we get her birthday."

Kerrass nodded.

"That means I know, or can figure out where all the major players were on the day of her birth."

"Is that important?"

"It might be. I think it is though."

"Why?"

"Because she's the catalyst. You see, I'm struggling to believe that this curse has anything to do with the Princess. I think that the Princess was the spark that lit the fire but I don't think that she's the root cause of the problem."

"This is because of the "hate" question again isn't it."

"It is. Yes. Try as I might I just struggle to believe that a person, any person regardless of magical power or race or anything else could summon enough feeling to _hate_ a baby enough to cast a curse powerful enough to all but destroy a Kingdom."

Kerrass' mouth quirked towards a smile. "I think that might say things about you more than what it says about other people."

"Good things I hope."

Kerrass smiled in response.

"But anyway." I went on. "I can appreciate general prejudice, hating other races or class structures or employment classes or the children of someone else. But that level of hate must have been powerful."

"You are right. Anything else?"

"Yes. Two questions. In the morning could you take me to see the notary?"

"The what?"

I took out one of the maps I'd found. And unfurled it for him.

"This is a map of all the various "royal" businesses. I found it in library. These are all the places that can call themselves "The royal..."whatever it is they were."

"The Royal blacksmiths, the royal farrier."

"Precisely. This place is a residence rather than a working castle like my fathers. All of the trade things were kept outside the walls. More proof that they had no intention of ever being besieged here. But the building I'm curious about is this one."

I pointed and Kerrass frowned as he saw the labelling.

"The royal Notary?"

"Yes. They would keep all the stuff about royal decrees and things like that. Who owns what land, and which tenancies and so on."

"I know what a notary is Freddie."

"Just checking."

"Why do you want to go there?"

"Because they might have papers there that might tell me more. Most of the books and such things have been destroyed in the castle as looters have gone through the place, tossing books and things aside which means that they're all damaged beyond easy recovery. Maybe they have more."

"Alright. I'll scout it out and come find you once I'm sure I've got it down right."

"Done. But I do have another question."

"Which is?"

"Bear with me. The curse says that on the day of her sixteenth birthday, the Princess would touch the spindle of a spinning wheel and then die right?"

"Correct."

"So where's the spindle? Or the spinning wheel? I've been looking for one and I can't even find the wreckage of one. According to this ledger..." I pulled a huge tome out from one of the piles that was next to my feet.

"The Kingdom paid another huge amount to import textiles. They did have sheep and exported the raw wool by the bale. But it was UN-spun wool. I expect that I'll find notes at some point that will declare that the King ordered all spinning wheels in the Kingdom destroyed."

"Nothing wrong with that. It's what I would have done."

"Me too. So where's the spindle that she pricked her fingers on?"

I rooted around in my pack and found one of the diaries of the knight Mannfred. "It says here that the first expeditions into the country after the curse had been cast found the Princess in the coffin in her bedroom right?"

"Yes."

"Wouldn't she have lain where she fell?"

"I don't know. But that has been asked before."

"I thought it might. So somewhere in the Kingdom. Someone was moving around and doing things while the curse was enacted."

"I always thought it might be the casting Sorceress. Or one of the other seven that tried to mitigate the disaster."

"That thought did occur to me and one of the things that I've been trying to figure out is where those other seven women went."

"No luck with that then."

"No. Not yet at least."

"Right. Well I'd better let you get back to it."

"Make sure I sleep tonight though."

I spent that night with the bricks of tied together letters. I took my eating knife and sharpened it to excessiveness on one of Kerrass' whet stones and gently slit the string until it came apart. It was slow work, gently peeling them aside one by one and carefully putting them to one side. I lit more candles to see by despite my fear that that might dry the letters out and cause them to crumble. Already some of them were destroyed in my haste.

They were love letters.

They were secret, I could tell that much. They weren't addressed by name to anyone. For all I knew they could have been written by the King for someone else and he had never had the time or the courage to post them off. Or they could have been for the King.

They all seemed to be by the same person, a long flowing hand which suggested someone who did have a lot of practice at forming the words. I couldn't see many spatters of ink and few signs of blotting. The creases were also well worn in which suggested that, although they had been kept in a bundle for a long time, they had been often folded and unfolded.

So using some ball park assumptions. We would assume that the King would only rarely write something down because, as he was the King, he would have people to do that kind of thing for him. Therefore if he was writing private letters then there would be more signs of ink spatter or inexpert blotting. So I guessed that this person was writing to him.

So many letters. They weren't dated either but it seemed that they were old. Even older than the initial enactment of the curse.

I carefully set the letters aside, putting those letters that had more legible parts in between the pages of my notebook in an effort to properly preserve them and I turned to the two main logbooks.

If you allow yourself a certain amount of leeway to assume things where you shouldn't then you can actually learn quite a lot from these things. One logbook from the servants ledger and one from the captain of the guard. I had them both propped up in front of me as I would look at one and then immediately cross reference it with another. There were also many notes in the margin about some of the castle gossip that either the Guard Captain or the Master of the stores would consider important enough to put a reminder in

the castle logs about.

The King liked to think of himself as a man of the people so he would often go out for rides through the countryside which supposedly gave him an idea as to how the common folk were doing. This despite the enormous hassle it seemed to cause the rest of the palace staff as these expeditions needed to be sorted out so that there could be proper escorts that were provisioned and equipped. They also seemed to happen at a moments notice as well as the servants ledger had several comments along the lines of... "Had to equip a full patrol today as the King went off to tour the sheep farmers again. Came down for breakfast with his riding gear on. Wish he'd let us know in advance."

Cross referencing this with the Garrisons ledger showed me that these trips happened regularly. Mess supplies down, perishable use up.

Equipment checked out...

Equipment checked back in after two days.

I could assume that the King would often be staying with someone, a gentleman farmer of some kind while he was out and about on one of these jaunts. The soldiers would end up sleeping rough.

Poor soldiers.

But then there was something else that caught my eye.

It was one trip that he had gone on, relatively close to the Princesses sixteenth birthday. He had gone out with fewer escorts. Less horse fodder taken out. Fewer soldiers in escort. There was even a complaint by the guard captain that he hadn't been consulted on this regarding the number of soldiers that had been taken. He was new to the job. You could tell because the handwriting had changed.

Ok. So if you allowed that when he went out on similar trips and he took similar numbers of men on these, smaller trips. Did he do it often?

I read back.

There is a trick here. The trick is not to get too excited in case what you are looking at turns out to be nothing.

The King had been gone for four days and had taken two knights with him as well as one squire who would take care of the three of them.

That was painfully small as a royal escort. Ridiculously small. Carelessly small.

I sketched back and I found three other trips in the couple of weeks that were legible in the lead up to the Princesses birthday. Before that it seemed that he had merely gone on his normal way with a full escort.

A bit further back I found the place where the new Guard Captain took over from his predecessor. The "old man" had retired it seemed, to a small place outside of the capital. Just before that I found a couple more instances where the King had gone out for a similar period of time only with much larger escorts. Still not the full royal escort that would be expected for that time and place but it was still larger.

I went back. The King did this regularly. Once every few months he would take a small group of men, was away for four days and then he would come back.

The largest gap between these visits was a year.

The gaps increased in number the closer I got to the Princesses naming day, the day that the curse had been cast. The day after the naming day, the King had departed on one of his four day excursions. When he came back, he waited for a couple of days before going off again.

He did that several times in short succession. He would go off, come back for a couple of days before setting out again.

There were no trips between when the Princess was brought home with her mother and the naming day.

Interesting.

I only had a few volumes the other side of The Princesses birth. Far enough back to assume that I had the details of the days leading up to the conception.

The King was often away before the Princesses birth, travelling the lands. We knew already that he was searching for a way to help the Queen give birth.

The practical side of me suggested that being away all the time was not a good way to ensure that you would conceive with your wife.

A thought occurred.

The pair of them had problems conceiving. We had the certainty from multiple sources. So was the problem on the male side or the female side?

I tried to find any details regarding bastards on the fathers side. Had he accidentally knocked up a peasant girl or anything?

But no. I couldn't see anything.

There were comments on the question of the Queen's fertility. But there was no evidence of her taking a lover or coming to some other kind of arrangement to conceive with a strapping stable lad.

(This arrangement is actually a lot more common than you might think,)

But there was no sign of any constant male visitors to the Queen.

Nor had there been...

Nor had there been and physicians sent for, before the Queen abruptly declared that she was pregnant.

The date that this declaration had been made was quite prominent in both ledgers. The Queen declared that she was pregnant and wanted to go into seclusion almost straight away.

This was backed up by several notes from the various diaries that I had brought with me.

She declared her pregnancy and left with her closest ladies in waiting and had gone to one of the border forts where she could give birth in peace.

I found a map of the Kingdom and looked up the location of the border castle in question. It looked like a dreadful place, high up in the mountains with no soul around. I could imagine someone deciding that they wanted peace and Quiet but that seemed a little extreme to me.

Sure enough. The King had been on one of his private jaunts before the Queen declared that she was pregnant.

I sat back. I was tired and I had that feeling that I sometimes get. That feeling that there is an answer to hand. That I had a lot of the information now but I needed my brain to arrive there on it's own. I settled down to try and sleep. But it was a long time coming.

I did sleep. I know this because I woke up with Kerrass shaking me awake with his foot.

He beckoned me and led me up some stairs to a window on the second floor where he had cleared a part of the window and he pointed.

"See it?"

I peered through the gap. You could see the overgrown canopy of the forest and the thorns below me.

"What am I looking for?"

"You'll see it."

"You're being mysterious again Kerrass."

But then I saw it. Smoke. It was a long way off. Just visible on the edge of the horizon.

"I take it that that's..."

"That's the dragon. It's on it's way."

"Lovely. As if we didn't have enough to worry about."

Kerrass said nothing. Just staring off in the direction from which the smoke was coming. He looked haggard and as though his teeth were clenched. He looked like a man deciding that he had to do what he had to do.

"Kerrass, you're not thinking of doing something stupid are you?"

Kerrass shook himself as though he'd just been shaken awake. He looked very tired.

"I'm tired Freddie, I just need..."

"You need a nap is what you need."

"There'll be time for napping later."

"Well, you could at least have some breakfast. Come on. I've got some things I want to talk out anyway."

"Have you found something?"

"To say I've found something is a bit of a strong. I just need a second brain, come on it won't hurt."

We went back to the camp site where I started some sausages frying.

While they were cooking I showed him what I'd found in the two ledgers.

He looked up at me, something bright glittered in his eyes.

"So the King had a Mistress?" He asked.

"I think so, yes he did."

Kerrass sat back. "I'm not sure how this helps us Freddie."

"Because this changes the picture of events. It shows that what everyone has thought about what was happening in this Kingdom at the time is wrong. It didn't happen like that. Look..."

I pulled out my notebook.

"Things that we know to be true, versus things that we've only heard are true. Right?"

I made two little headings on facing pages.

"We _know_ that King Stefan was a womaniser. We know he was the kind of man that fell in love with just about anything that crossed his path right?"

"Yes."

"We _know_ that he met his Queen, Queen Leah and married her. Then, to all intents and purposes his philandering ways were done. We know this because we have diaries that talk about it at the time right?"

Kerrass nodded.

"We _know_ that it was several years before Queen Leah got pregnant. We also know that King Stefan travelled extensively in an effort to find medicine or method to help the two of them conceive. We also know that Queen Leah was not his type in that she was relatively plain."

"All true."

"What we don't know is what attracted the two people to each other in the first place. He was handsome, she was not. So how else do you become attracted to someone?"

"Money," answer Kerrass.

"Cynical of you Kerrass but not unfair. Charm?"

"Humour, intelligence, at their level of social status then the rank, allegiances and whatever also have attraction."

"Legitimacy," I said after a moment. "He's always looking for a Queen but keeps finding some small fault in them. People and courtiers, maybe even his parents are always telling him that he should marry and settle down but he can't bring himself to marry anyone. This one is too stupid, that one isn't funny enough, that one is as boring as milk. So instead he changes tactic. Instead he finds a woman that he likes but is not necessarily someone he's attracted to. But we've got side-tracked. What do we know? what don't we know?"

"We don't know that they loved each other." Kerrass said after a moment.

"We don't but I can't find another case of someone with whom he's had an affair."

"All that that means is that he was faithful. You don't have to love someone to be faithful to them."

"True, although your cynicism is showing again."

Kerrass speared a sausage with his eating knife and started to eat it.

"This still doesn't explain to me why the knowledge that the King had a mistress is useful to us."

"It's useful because one of the many things that we don't know is why the royal couple didn't invite the "evil" Sorceress."

"I don't follow."

"The King had a Mistress. Who was that Mistress?"

"Why is this important Freddie?"

"Because..." I stared at the ceiling hoping for inspiration. "Because I don't think this curse is about the Princess. I think this curse is to do with what was happening here in the lead up to her birth and naming. All the stories, all the... the theories are about the Princess. Don't get me wrong, as the original damsel in Distress she makes for a compelling thing to hang the story off. It's also obvious that she's still here. She's still alive when everyone else is dead. But I don't think that she had anything to do with it. This issue was decided before she was born."

"I'm not saying that you're wrong. It's a new way of thinking which I haven't heard about before. You might even be right. But how does that help us? And how does knowing that the King had a mistress help us."

"Curses are driven by hate right?"

"Yes."

"So why is there so much hate here? It's the one question that I keep coming back to over and over again. I don't know much about magic but that's a lot of hate to power this stuff. We know that Magic feeds off emotion. Glevissig's dying curse of King Henselt, Merigold's Maelstrom at the Rivian pogroms are both examples of this but both of those spells are dwarfed by what was achieved here. So what would cause _this_ much hate. Especially as given that Glevissig's curse was cast with her last breath. Answer?"

"A jilted lover." Kerrass leant forward.

"A jilted lover. That's why it's potentially important. If, as I suspect the reason that your, and other's true Love's kiss doesn't work on the Princess is because she's as much a victim of the curse as the others in the valley. It's because she's not the one that's cursed."

"So we need to undo the curse on the King."

"Or the Queen, the curse could just as easily have been cast at the Queen."

"Goddess Freddie." The Witcher passed me a sausage as though he was giving me something precious.

"So, we need to work from that angle. I've got a pile of love letters here that I'm picking apart slowly but I don't think that that's going to give us everything we need as they aren't named."

Kerrass nodded. "Why the notary then?"

"We need to know more. I'm a hundred and twenty years behind the times here."

"So what are we looking for?"

"Specifically or generally?"

"Both."

"Specifically first then." I pulled over one of my tracings of the map of the Kingdom that I had been making notes on so as not to ruin priceless antiques. I had marked buildings, roads and settlements on them. "You know more about this kind of thing than I do. The King would depart on a day before lunch and then be gone for four days arriving back in time for his evening meal on the fourth day. Assuming that, at most, he camped in the field for a night and arrived at his mistresses home in the early part of the evening on the second day. He spends the evening and night with her and departs for home on the morning of the third day. Camping out again and arriving back on the fourth day. How far could he have gotten?"

Kerrass took my map as well as the original and compared them side by side.

"How many men?"

I swallowed a piece of sausage.

"The King, two knights and a squire. Fully equipped and provisioned."

Kerrass nodded, frowned and drew a shape on the map.

"Further by road. Not as far off road and over field."

I took the two maps off him and put my tracing over the original. The shape that Kerrass had drawn was a lot like a starfish. The longer points of the shape were along the roads with the centre over the capital."

"What I want from the notary is the land use agreements. Who lived where and what were they doing. As well as anything else that might crop up."

"What do you think we're going to find?"

"I think we're going to find out that the King's Mistress was the "evil" Sorceress. I don't think she was evil. I think she was angry. They didn't _forget_ to invite her to their daughters naming. They deliberately missed her off the invite list. I bet, that if we look far enough, we will find who owns which buildings. We'll even find out that the Royal couple tried to buy her off in some way."

Kerrass nodded and climbed to his feet. "Better finish your sausages then Freddie. We've got work to do and a curse to unravel."

"That's a bit more your department than it is mine."

"True. The easiest thing to do would be to find the Sorceress and get her to counter the curse."

"We still need to find out who it was. What if we can't find out who the Sorceress is? How are we going to fix the curse then?"

"I don't know. I have a few ideas. We could summon the ghost of the King and get him to own up I suppose. Or the Queen, Either way, we need more information. You were right Freddie, it is important. I should have seen that."

"You were too close to it Kerrass. You said it yourself, a fresh pair of eyes."

Kerrass grunted.

It was much harder going to get through the trees to where the notary was. It was not an established pathway and as such we had to go well out of our way to go round when in a straight line it would have been a lot quicker.

But on the other hand I wasn't dragging a reluctant donkey behind me at every step of the way.

So it was both easier and much harder.

We made it though and we had to climb up to the roof to get in as it was impossible otherwise. We levered aside some tiles and broke through easily enough before dropping through to what I guessed to be someone's bedroom.

Kerrass went first, jumping down, left hand on his sword strap, right hand cocked to aim a sign or draw his sword. He subsided and beckoned me.

"What are we expecting?" I joked. "You looked as though you were expecting monsters."

"I always expect monsters Freddie. You know that."

"I suppose so." He went to the door and put his ear against it before trying it. "For the first time in a long time I'm feeling hope that we might be getting somewhere with all of this. You remember that thing about how one of the most dangerous parts of a hunt is afterwards when you start to relax and begin to think that you might be safe after all? That's how I feel today."

The door opened out onto a landing. He signalled me to be close behind him as he tried the next door on the landing.

"I hope you don't end up being disappointed again Kerrass."

"Oh, that's just it though." Again he put his ear to the next door. "It's a new avenue. I can get a Sorcerer to look at it now. Even if we don't succeed here, I'll head north after this. Help your brother with his new holdings and use that fee to hire someone..."

He tried the door again.

"Locked." he muttered, "Goddess Freddie but I feel better than I have in years."

He pulled his lock-picks from his belt.

Yes, the Witcher carries lock-picks. Precisely for this reason. In learning about or investigating a curse, sometimes you need to go and look at what's behind closed doors.

"You're welcome. Just promise me that you don't intend to suicide when you get your results."

Kerrass looked up at me from where he was kneeling next to the lock. "Why do you say that?"

"I don't know. Just the way you were looking out at the dragon fire this morning. It made me think that you were going to try and kill it, or let it kill you. You looked so tired Kerrass."

Kerrass grunted before bending back to peer at the lock.

"This place has that effect on me. I hate myself for what happened here and thinking I could have done something to stop it. Before you start, I know all of the logical reasons about the decision and why what happened, happened and why I let it happen. But that doesn't help. Because it assumes I'm thinking logically."

The door popped open with a snap.

He straightened and turned to look me in the eye. "I know all the reasons Freddie," He pointed at his temple, "I know that those men could have cut me down between them and the Princess would still have ended up raped. But..."

He touched his chest over his heart.

"But I don't _know_ that. I don't feel that. I could have done something. I _should_ have done something. To do nothing is cowardly."

"But to do anything is futile, I know the old argument. But you did do something. You lived to fight another day."

"Ah that old lie."

"It's a good one though."

Kerrass shrugged. "I'm not convinced but still. I'll let you off for now. Shall we?" He gestured at the door.

"We shall." I nodded.

Kerrass went first. We didn't expect trouble but he wasn't given to bouts of carelessness.

It was a records room that would have made my father proud. Indeed it reminded me of his office in many ways. Small cupboards and small chests of drawers filled what space there was. In more than one place I could see that the shelves were stacked, the one on top of the other. All labelled with fading bits of paper that you could still see words on if you squinted hard enough and held it so that what little light we had could shine off the ink on the surface. A huge map covered one of the walls, It showed the Kingdom as was, considerably larger than I had previously thought that it might be. Each of the different holdings was marked in different colours so it reminded me more of a patchwork quilt rather than a map.

I rubbed my hands with glee.

"What you were looking for?" Kerrass asked.

"That and more Kerrass that and more."

I had a small bag with me and lay out the maps that I had and started to examine some of the cupboards. Many of them were locked with extremely old locks that must have been incredibly expensive at the time. Nowadays the locksmiths art is all about making the locks smaller and smaller but back then I supposed the very act of having a lock at all was a sign of not inconsiderable wealth. Kerrass indulged me by unlocking some of the larger locks before going off to explore the rest of the house.

The entire room was so well ordered that it almost brought a tear to my eye. I absolutely intended to find out who had lived and worked here and tell Marion all about them so that some kind of memorial could be made towards this person. Everything was labelled and even better. It was indexed as well.

To make matters even more exciting, the index made sense.

Those of you that don't have an academic background or have never spent much time in a library will not understand how momentous this was but believe me. Somewhere there is a very small group of people that are shaking their heads in amazement.

As a result. I found the land registry almost immediately.

A large leather bound book. It was old, dusty and well worn. I had to open it carefully as may of the pages seemed as though they wanted to crack and crumble in my hands.

In the meantime Kerrass was working on the safe.

"Would it not be easier to have a look round and see if you can find the key?" I asked him without looking up from the book.

"Easier, probably. But not as much fun."

"You have a strange sense of fun Kerrass."

"It has been said before." He grunted as the safe popped open. "Huh. More papers."

"You were expecting something else?"

"I always heard that Lawyers were ridiculously wealthy?"

"They are not poor. Or at least the good ones aren't."

"So where would they keep their money?"

"Kerrass. They're lawyers. What wealth they have will be invested."

"True."

He started rifling through the papers while I was still switching my gaze from the book to the map and back again.

"You were right," he said. "Trade things, wood, stone and other things for construction work." He turned some more paperwork and started chuckling.

"What is it?"

"Well I know what the answer is. People have always commented how rich this Kingdom was and thought that they must have had a gold mine or something. Turns out that they don't. What they have is a marble quarry."

"That would work." Again for those not in the know. Marble is well sought after for the construction of statues and things for artwork.

"And lots of other trade agreements." Kerrass went on.

"You could probably take those papers and sell them for a fortune now." I commented.

There was a brief pause.

"Do you know something Freddie? I'm not in the least bit tempted."

I smiled a little into the book. "I'm not surprised."

"The Princess will need these things if she's ever going to rebuild when she wakes up."

"Getting hopeful Kerrass?"

"A little. I'm trying not to be but I can't help but think that we're on the right track."

"I know the feeling."

Kerrass went through the other locked cabinets one by one but, although there was plenty that would have been interesting if we had any other purpose. None of the things would have been suitable for us. He did find a couple of interesting things though.

"Look at this," He pulled out a folder. Two thick pieces of wood sandwiched together pencil sketches of seven beautiful women.

"The "Good" Sorceresses?"

"Possibly, even probably. They're not labelled though so we've got no way of telling who the artist was. Or who the women were. "

"Keep it. The villagers will want them."

"They probably will at that."

"Do you recognise any of them?"

"Why would I know Sorceresses from the south?"

"Because you're a Witcher?"

"Cousin Geralt not withstanding. Witchers don't tend to hang out with mages, Wizards or Sorceresses except on a professional basis. Speaking personally, Sorceresses make me nervous."

"Why?"

"They're always watching you. I always get the impression that they're thinking about what they could do with me to turn me to their own purposes. Always watching and thinking."

He shuddered theatrically.

"How are you getting on?"

I showed him my map. "I've identified a lot of farms and noble manor houses within the King's potential amount of travel."

"Any of them likely to be pseudonyms or held in someone else's names."

"Not so far. All of the farms and manor houses seem to have been kept in those families for generations. What I'm looking at at the moment is this area here." I pointed at the map on the wall. "The bit right up against the mountains. There's a few towers up there that I can't seem to track down. They were border forts or watch towers originally but a couple of them were sold off when that border was secured by..." I picked up a piece of paper. "By marriage of the King's Great Aunt. Part of the terms of that marriage treaty was that those border forts and towers would be...demilitarized and given to nobles on both sides. The Kingdom had expanded by the time of the period that we're interested in so the forts fell into disuse. There's precious little up there apart from mountains, trees and a couple of tin mines so it would be a good site for a person who needed hiding away."

"Or required solitude."

I nodded my agreement.

Kerrass stood back.

"What can I do? I feel a bit useless. Research is your thing. If there were monsters to track down or people to talk to then I could do that but instead there are papers to look at and books to flick through."

"Here's a thought."

"What?"

"If I were a Lawyer, or a notary or a solicitor. Or I was a particularly wealthy person."

"You are quite wealthy Freddie."

"Yes, well. The point is that I would have a safe for everyone to look at and say "ooh, that's a big and impressive looking safe. That must have loads of valuables in." Then they would waste their time looking at that and breaking into that safe. In the mean time I would have another safe place. A hidden place where I would keep the really _really_ secret stuff. The stuff that I don't want anyone to know about."

"You want me to look for hidden compartments don't you."

"I do, or bring me something to eat."

I went back to work.

An hour or two later I had a pile of little scraps of paper all over that office, with labels and notes and thoughts when Kerrass came back in. He handed me a bread roll full of something tasty. Probably meat and some of the wild onions.

"You found anything? I couldn't see anything so I found dinner instead."

"I have actually. I've found the name of someone who lived in one of those towers. Given to _her_ by royal decree as a gift by the state."

I handed him the royal parchment which he took rather gingerly.

"By the grace of the crown, the sun and the moon we, King Stefan, Fourth of that name and Queen Leah do hereby grant and gift the fourth border fortress, commonly referred to as the High Crag to The lady "Draig ddyn Hardd" whoever that is." he read aloud. "We gift her this place for services rendered to the crown."

"I wonder what those services were."

"I think that might be telling. "She may use that place for her own purposes. All that is required is that the

"High Crag" be maintained for military readiness should the crown require that place again."

"Outside the villagers on the outskirts," I began. "You probably know more about this place and it's history than any person alive?"

"Probably."

"You ever heard of this woman?"

"No. Odd name as well. It sounds almost elven. At that time though, a woman like that would need to be married to be given something of that much worth. Do we know anything about High Crag, or "the fourth border fort?"

"According to this." I pulled over a list of the garrisons and how they were provisioned. It was large enough to house and maintain a hundred soldiers, plus peasantry. Judging by the map it's the kind of remote outpost that would be really difficult to take. Not too large but no invading army would want to leave it behind them in case the garrison decided to sally out and wreak havoc on the supplies. I once heard a knight call that kind of place a "leech fortification." In that it leeches an enemies strength away from the main force."

Kerrass grunted. He was peering at the map on the wall. "Just the kind of place that a reclusive Sorceress would want to stay in to carry out their experiments."

"Also the kind of place that was remote enough that the King could visit it quietly without comment by others."

Kerrass was still peering at the map.

"This map is fixed to the wall right?" He began.

"Yes, so?"

"Help me take it down."

I stood and did as I was told. It wasn't small.

Kerrass took out his small skinning knife.

"What are you looking for?"

"There's something here, underneath the canvas of the map."

He began to pry the frame open and I bent to help.

"This bit's loose." One of the bits on the side was not stuck down. The frame was old and gave way with a crack. A few envelopes piled out."

"Looks like you found the secret safe after all Kerrass."

He made a face.

"Which one do we open first?"

"Well," I said sitting down and sorting through the six or seven envelopes. "These three have the royal seal on them so I think we start there."

The parchment was rich and thick. Heavy in the hands. I insisted that we cut the seals properly rather than tearing the envelopes open.

The first one was the royal wedding Certificate. Signed by the bride and groom and a dozen signatures on both sides. I set it carefully aside. Culturally and historically priceless but I couldn't think of any immediate use for it.

"This one's the King's will by the look of it." Kerrass had opened a second one. "Looks like he's left everything to his daughter."

"Progressive of him,"

"Maybe. Or romantic. What's that last one?"

I opened it.

"We, the undersigned King Stefan, fourth of his name and Queen Leah do hereby declare with absolute surety that the King's daughter by blood is hereby... Fuck me."

"What? A bit odd that language for a royal decree."

"Shut up Kerrass."

I scanned through the rest of the document.

"Kerrass I don't know what to tell you. These are adoption papers."

"What?" I handed the paper over carefully.

"It's a royal decree. There's the Kings will. But that is a royal decree. It basically sets forth, in legal language that the Princess is definitely their daughter. You would only decree something like that if the issue was in doubt but the important thing is..."

I gestured and Kerrass put the document on the table.

"This bit here. "The King's daughter by blood and the Queen's daughter of spirit." That's not flowery language. The Queen love's the daughter but she didn't give birth to her."

Kerrass looked at me in confusion.

"The Princess..." I spluttered a bit. "The princess is the King's daughter but not the Queen's. She's the child of someone else. A bastard originally that the King and the Queen adopted formally as their heir."

Kerrass stepped back.

"Fuck me." He whispered.


	43. Chapter 43

"This is a really bad idea." Kerrass said as he crouched on the floor, drawing intricate designs with a piece of chalk.

"Well if you've got a better one, I'm ready and waiting to hear it." I commented as I set out the candles, lighting them and trickling a small amount of wax onto the stone floor to stick the candle down. "I also want to point out that it might be a terrible idea, but it's also your idea. Not mine."

"That doesn't stop it from being a terrible idea which almost certainly won't work." He closed his eyes for a moment, his lips moving as he tried to recall something, before bending back to his work.

"Have you come up with a better idea then?" I asked.

"Several actually. But all of them involve being in a tavern, or at your castle,"

"Or a brothel?" I suggested.

"Yes. Or, for preference, a next of arachnomorphs."

"You can keep that last one." I said with a smile. I was determined to keep the tone of conversation light and amusing. "I fucking hate Arachnomorphs."

"This from the man who's marrying a Spider Queen."

"That's not settled yet." I retorted quickly. "But yes, that aspect of her is one that I'm not entirely comfortable with."

"Just one of the aspects?" Kerrass teased.

"One of many. How are we looking?"

"I think we're nearly there." Kerrass stood back and admired our handiwork. A summoning circle, drawn on the stone floor of the castle's great hall. The King's body had been carefully taken from his place of rest and carried down to the hall before being placed on a stone table that Kerrass had brought up from the store rooms. It had probably been a stone table that had once been used for the slaughtering of the livestock that a castle would need to live off as the surface of the stone was pitted with much wear and many dark brown blood stains that spoke of much horror. It leant the entire thing a macabre kind of atmosphere which was completed with the chalk circle and the candles that had been worked out to be the four points of the compass.

Kerrass added a couple of chalk strokes to a couple of places and stood back again.

"So you're absolutely certain that this isn't necromancy?" I asked.

"Nah, that kind of thing takes a lot more effort and more magical skill than I have. Why? Concerned?"

"A little."

"You know that the council of mages that banned Necromancy in the first place has long since been dissolved right?"

"I do know that but that doesn't make me feel any better about the entire situation."

"No. It's not necromancy. I don't know what it is, other than it's a charm that allows us to see, hear and speak to any spirits that might be in the local area. The presence of the body means that we can speak to _his_ spirit."

"Is it going to work?"

"Probably. The question is not whether or not we can speak to him. It's how he's going to react to being talked to that's the concern."

"Filling me with confidence Kerrass."

Kerrass shrugged before his face went serious. "You oiled your spear?"

"I have."

"Good. Then be ready. If this goes wrong, don't try to fight them. Just stay out of their way. Parry, don't strike even if you think you have a perfect opportunity. And try to stay in the protective signs that I'm going to be throwing around if this turns nasty."

"I know Kerrass. I've faced spirits before remember?"

"I know. But this is the spirit of a cursed man. That's why I'm more worried than I would be otherwise."

"I know that too." I sighed. "Look, are you sure you want to do this?"

"I can't think of anything else to do. The next thing to try would be to go to what we think might be the Sorceresses tower. But that's a long way off and the Dragon will be on us by that point. We need more information to try and break the curse and I think that this might be the best way to try and do it."

"Ok then. Good luck."

"Thanks."

As an interesting side note on Kerrass and my working relationship. I am no longer allowed to be in his line of sight whenever he has to do one of these incantations. One of these rituals. Apparently I make faces, or comment or otherwise do weird things to put him off. I don't understand it because as I'm sure my regular readers will know, I am the very soul of discretion and understanding and would absolutely not make funny faces in an effort to mock my friend when he's doing silly things in overly pretentious voices. That just isn't my style.

I don't care what Kerrass tells you about that.

I got well out of the way as Kerrass sets his steel sword aside and straps the silver one over his shoulder. He takes a couple of deep breaths before swallowing a couple of long draughts from one of the potion bottles at his side. Then he starts to speak and I feel the hairs of the back of my neck stand on end.

It's an odd defence for a body to develop. Why would a body want to warn you of something by having the hairs on the back of your neck stand up? What does that achieve other than to make me feel uncomfortable.

Kerrass had begun chanting. His arms away from his sides with the palms of his hands facing upwards.

It looked like he was praying which, for all I know, is what was actually happening.

There were no lights, no blowing winds or flashes of lightening as accompanies these kinds of things in the more lurid stage presentations when this kind of thing happens. Instead, the image of a man, outlined in a kind of blue-white light gradually began to form in the air above what once might have been his body. He was pacing backwards and forwards in what I guessed to be some kind of agitation although the fact that he was doing so while a clear three feet above the ground didn't seem to matter at all.

Kerrass finished his incantation and let his hands fall to his sides. Just as the candles seemed to snuff themselves out. Long tendrils of smoke reached up from the smouldering candle wicks to flutter in what little breeze there was.

Kerrass took another deep breath. The incantation must have lasted maybe twenty heartbeats and he looked as though he'd been fighting solidly for twenty hours.

"Your Majesty," he breathes and bowed deeply. Somewhere, someone must have taught him how to do it properly because that bow would have done him credit in the imperial court.

"I know you Witcher." The voice seemed to come from a long distance, as though spoken through a tube. "I know you and do not like your face." The accent was pronounced as well and I had to concentrate to understand it. He spoke in a form of elven although it was much changed from the High, scholarly tongue that I had learned at the teachings of my tutors. I have since looked at this and discovered that many of the southern courts adopted Elven as their primary tongue when there hadn't really been a unifying nation to decide as a whole what the language should be. Those varying languages have since been completely absorbed by the Nilfgaardian tongue, as codified by the Nilfgaardian senate in 1102.

"I apologise for that your Majesty but it is the only face that I have."

"Wit does not become you, wretch."

"I have been told that as well Your Highness. May I present someone who can speak a bit closer to your station. The right honourable Lord Frederick von Coulthard of the northern realms."

I stepped forward and made an equally low bow the spirit of the King.

"Majesty." I began. "Allow me to present myself, I am a scholar from the north and I have come south to seek news of your Kingdom."

"What business of yours is it what happens in my Kingdom?"

Out of the corner of my eye I could see Kerrass back off a bit. He drank deeply from a water flask before drinking another potion. The colour began to return to his face rapidly after that.

"No business." I answered. "But that your Kingdom suffers under a curse of the blackest sort." The old language leant itself to the more flowery turn of phrase. "And my companion and I have ventured here in an effort that we might free your Kingdom from said curse."

"Mmm. You speak well for a man from that northern realm. A realm of barbarians and savages I have been told."

"They might have been to your perspective Your Majesty. But, if I might make an observation. Your perspective is over a hundred years out of date. Also, I recall similar things being said of you and your neighbours around my Father's breakfast table." I added a little smile.

Flattery. Kerrass once told me, is vital when talking to a ghost or spirit. Coddle them, because they are sensitive souls at heart and you do not want to make them angry for fear of your life.

I was pleased though. Even in death, the King had a sense of humour. He laughed at my little joke.

"Your humour does you credit young man."

I bowed at the compliment.

"But why would a northern Lordling concern himself with the affairs of so southern a Kingdom. Your, and my, prejudices not withstanding?"

"No reason Your Majesty, but that my friend and companion asked it of me."

"This Witcher that accompanies you."

I could see no sneer on the King's features but I could hear it.

"As you say your Majesty. I would also suggest that I accompany him, rather than he accompany me."

"Mmm. You could do better you know. A well spoken young man such as yourself."

"Maybe your majesty. But this man has saved my life more times than I can count. He introduced me to the woman that I will probably marry and saved my family from scandal and disgrace that was not their fault. I owe him a significant part of what I am today and what he has helped me to become."

I was very good. I managed to completely ignore the expression on Kerrass' face.

"That you speak so well of him elevates him in our eyes. Stand forward Witcher."

Kerrass did so with another bow.

"You are also a northerner I see." The King intoned. "Two northern men. One noble of blood and the other of character. What brings you to our court?"

I took a deep breath. This was the part where it started to get really dangerous. "Your majesty cannot have failed to notice that your court seems to have fallen on some hard times of late."

"My house is not what it was to be sure."

"We would lift the curse Your Majesty. Your Kingdom has been gone from the world for too long."

"You speak well young man but I think that you are missing something out. You are not from my part of the world. Why concern yourself with us."

I took another breath.

"Your daughter Majesty."

The King seemed to smile a little.

"My daughter? I would not see her married to some northern lord of whom I have not heard before this day."

"As I say Your Majesty. My word is all but given to another. I speak not of myself..."

"She will not marry a Witcher." A certain green tinge began to creep into the light.

"Again Your majesty, that is not the manner of things. My companion is here in service to her. Yes he may love her but may not a man love a woman above his station and show his devotion in other ways. I cannot speak for the southern Kingdoms but the North is replete with poems and sagas of such courtly loves, driving and inspiring men to acts that would have been beyond them otherwise."

I was relieved to see the greenish tinge withdraw from the light. Back to it's pale blue colour.

"You astonish me young man. I was not aware that the concept of courtly love had travelled so far north. Nor had I considered that a Witcher would be one such Knight errant."

"I assure you Your Majesty that my companion is full of surprises."

"So why do you summon me?"

"Forgive me Your Majesty. But are you aware of your current predicament?"

"You ask whether I am aware of my death? Yes. Although some hereabouts are unaware?"

"As I say Your Majesty. We would lift the curse."

The King visibly shook his head. "It is impossible. It cannot be done. Do you not think I have tried everything that could be done?"

"I have no doubt that you did everything that could be done at the time Your Majesty, but now it is more than a hundred years later. Long after the projected initial hundred years of the original curse. Magical theory and knowledge on curses and how to remove them safely has moved on in that period of time. I would even go so far as to say that my companion here would rightly be considered an expert in such matters."

"Then I charge you to do what you can." he moved to turn away.

"Your Majesty," I called. "It is not as simple as that. After all he," I gestured at Kerrass, "has been doing what he can for many of those intervening years."

The King returned to view.

"Why do you need my help?"

"I will defer here to the expert." I bowed and offered the floor to Kerrass who stepped forward with another bow.

"Knowledge your Majesty." he said.

"Knowledge?"

"Yes, Your Majesty. This curse that affects your country is, by far, the most powerful curse on record. It's not that current Magic users _couldn't_ cast something similar. They certainly have the power but it's more that they haven't. As a result, to combat the curse we need to know as much about the curse as possible. I have never fought a war but I suspect it would be very similar to the way you would prepare yourself to fight a battle. Learning about the opposite general and the make up of his army."

The King nodded.

"I can recommend any number of people who would know more about the curse. You may ask them anything that you require."

"If I may your Majesty. They might tell me many things but that is not the reason we are talking to you."

"Explain. I may be dead but I still have a Kingdom to run. Most, if not all but the most intelligent of my subjects do not believe that they are dead and as such, they look to their King in these trying times."

"As well they should Your Majesty. But in this case we have come to you directly for a reason."

"What is that reason?"

"So far, efforts to combat the curse have centred around your daughter. Because the curse was cast on her naming day it has generally been believed that the curse was meant for her."

"That was what my advisers also believed."

"We do not think that is the case."

"Why?"

"Your Majesty, with all due respect to your advisers past and present." Kerrass made a little bow here. "This curse has been worked on for over a century. We know it's not to do with your daughter because we've been trying to lift the curse on your daughter for all that time. If the curse was cast at your daughter it would have been broken by now."

"I do not follow your reasoning. Just because it has not been broken does not mean that it will never be broken. It is powerful, complex and all consuming. It must be cancelled with equal power."

"There are other factors your Majesty."

"Such as? I warn you that although the curse is important to me, my patience is not limitless."

I saw a flash of anger cross Kerrass' face and stepped forward before he could say something that would ruin us.

"There is too much hate here Your Majesty." I said. "For a curse this powerful it would need to have been cast with a hate that would poison the sun itself. Despite all possible prejudice, despite racial barriers, religious barriers or cultural ones. If you show a young baby to any human being then it is an impossible amount of hatred that has been levelled at your daughter. That kind of hatred needs time to fester."

The King seemed to gaze at me for a long time.

"I remember being as naïve as you once, northerner. It is a nice world in which you live where such things are impossible but I assure you. The hatred is real and palpable."

"Indulge us anyway Your Majesty." Kerrass had swallowed his earlier burst of anger it seemed. "You have nothing to lose and much to gain by the answering of our questions. For your daughters sake if not for your own."

The dead have no body language to speak of, no eyes to read or faces to examine. But I thought I saw the Witcher's barb strike home.

"Very well. Ask away."

"Tell us about the Sorceress who cast the curse." Kerrass spoke, "We have examined the history books and the books of the time and we can find little mention of her. We do not even know her name for certain."

"She did not have a name or at least she never gave us one. She came to our Kingdom, unlooked for and unannounced to take up residence in one of our former border towers. The place had fallen into disuse and had been abandoned to nature as our border had expanded beyond that point in my father's time. We received word that there was an unusual glow coming from the tower during the night, some villagers had seen it and sent word to us. We sent heralds that went unanswered and eventually asked a Sorceress friend of the realm to investigate the matter.

"Our friend told us that a Sorceress of unusual power had taken up residence in the tower as she required solitude and privacy for her experiments."

"This tower would be the fourth border fort. The High Crag?" I asked.

"Yes. If you already knew the answer then why did you ask it?" An edge of irritation had crept into the King's voice.

"It is the nature of scholars to seek surety Majesty. Forgive me this foible of mine."

The King grunted.

"If she had no name, what did you call her?" It seemed that it was Kerrass' turn to jump into the gap in an effort to forestall disaster while talking to the spectral King.

"She called herself "Draig ddyn Hardd" when we could speak to her and pressure her on the subject as she needed to be announced to the court b the herald. She seemed to like the idea and that was the name she chose."

"The name sounds elvish." I commented.

"We thought so to at first but she seemed scornful of the idea that she had anything to do with the elves. Eventually we were able to strike up something of a relationship with her."

"What was she like?"

"She was an astonishing woman. Completely unlike anyone else that had ever been met. She was...Sharp. She was the kind of person who says what she thought without pause for consideration of politics or the persons feelings. She was the kind of person who you would invite to a party when you didn't like the other guests. She was always stellar company, full of humour and wit but that wit was wicked and barbed in nature. I once saw her in the company of a puffed up idiot of a visiting Count from somewhere to the north. He was a stuck up man who looked down on us from the south.

"Like all Sorceresses, she was a striking woman. Intensely beautiful and the Count was trying to make moves on her. She absolutely demolished him until he was the laughing stock of the entire party and _he did not realise what was happening_.

"She was a difficult woman to like but a lot of fun to be around and watch from a distance."

"What service was it that she provided to you that you gifted her this fort? This...High Crag?" I asked.

"That business is a matter of state and not relevant to the curse that she later cast." The King was getting angry and defensive again.

I had to bite my tongue hard there. I so desperately wanted to tell this man that it might have been very important.

"Why was she not invited to the Princesses naming day?" Kerrass asked.

"She had been locked in her tower for so long and without contact that we simply thought she had left as quietly and abruptly as she had come."

I exchanged glances with Kerrass. If the King had been alive he would have been squirming in discomfort.

"Why did she hate the Princess so much?" Kerrass asked.

"We don't know. We asked. We begged her to reverse the spell. I offered her my crown in return for lifting the curse but she refused. The Queen tried to speak to her. Her fellow Sorceresses tried to speak to her. But she refused. She was... Malevolence personified. Venom and hatred dripped from her speech."

Kerrass and I looked at each other. I shrugged. This was the impasse. Again. He was giving us the official line.

"May I speak frankly our Majesty?"

"Of course."

"If this were any other curse Your Majesty, my course would be clear."

"What would that course would be?"

"I would tell you that you are the one that is cursed. I am not cursed and I can, and will, just walk away from this place without a backward glance. I would do all of these things here but I owe your daughter too much. But I owe you nothing. You are cursed. Your Kingdom is cursed. Your daughter lies in her coffin. The same coffin in which she has slept for over a hundred years. The original cure of True Love's kiss does not work. We know this because many people have tried.

"We know that this is because she is not the one that is cursed. The curse was cast at you Your Majesty, not your daughter."

"I have heard enough of this." The King's voice tried to override Kerrass'.

"With respect Your Majesty, you haven't." Kerrass' own voice rose to meet the King's. "This curse destroyed your nation. That amount of hatred is impossible to reconcile with "not being invited to a party". So what happened between the two of you?"

"I've had enough..."

"WHO IS THE PRINCESSES MOTHER?" Kerrass thundered.

"How dare you?"

"We found the adoption papers Your Majesty," I put in, "hidden in the notaries office."

"You are the father Your Majesty," Kerrass put in. "Who is the mother?"

"I've heard enough. GUARDS!"

"Crap," Kerrass muttered drawing his sword.

The King's spirit vanished before our eyes and a green glow crept up around the walls as six Wights appeared out of the darkness.

"That could have gone better," I commented.

But then the Wights were on us and we were fighting for our lives.

Movement was the essential thing. Just keep moving, stay away from them, try and draw one away from the rest of the pack so that you can fight or banish that one and cut down their number.

Wights would be fascinating creatures if I had a bit more time to be able to look at them and spend some time looking at the thing. But when you destroy them then they have a tendency to dissolve into a small pile of magical dust. This is not too surprising really as they essentially appear out of nowhere. I have seen many of these things before, in ones and twos. I've even been responsible for fighting one or two of them myself. Never in this number.

Apparently they come from the spirits of dead people getting angry enough to be able to manifest in the real world. Often they look a lot like walking corpses that have been animated by green light rather than anything else. These six moved a little heavier and wore something that looked a lot like armour. Beyond that, they all had the long, thin, blade like weapons that many wights manifest. One or two of them also seemed to be carrying their gravestones on their backs, which is also not uncommon.

But I didn't have time to worry about that now. I registered the appearances at the time and tried to make some notes. But at the time I was just trying to stay alive rather than make scientific and accurate reports about what they looked like.

My tutors will be so disappointed.

You see another problem about wights is that they can disappear and re-appear at will. There is a small moment where they seem disorientated after they reappear. But still. As they often reappear behind you or too far away, you can only really take advantage of this if they just happen to reappear right next to them.

Which is rare.

I didn't have time to think. I didn't really have time to plan anything either. I just had to move.

Kerrass had cast one of his signs at the floor which provided some protection. We stood back to back in that circle for maybe ten seconds before the sheer pressure of numbers meant that we were forced to move. I do know that in that initial flurry, Kerrass had managed to mark one of them which had collapsed to dust at his feet.

Then, as we had rehearsed and practised so many times, we split up and ran, still in the room, but we were trying to split them up, to isolate them.

I didn't expect to take down any of those wights. But if I could just distract one, maybe two of them then that was one or two wights that Kerrass wouldn't have to worry about.

They give off a kind of scream when you destroy them. Destroy is probably the wrong word. Disrupt is possibly closer to the truth. It's not a cry of pain, rather it's a call of...disappointment. A cry of stymied rage.

I heard one on the other side of the room and knew that this meant that Kerrass had reduced their number even further.

I risked a quick glance over to his end of the room and it looked like three of the four remaining wights were at the point of surrounding him. I turned and ran, sprinting across the room, hurdling the King's corpse and swept a blow through the back of one of the wights that were hemming him in.

I was rewards when, two seconds after my blow I heard another sound of a wight being destroyed.

I didn't see it because I was still running but Kerrass later told me that two of the wights had turned to face me and he was able to skewer one of them.

Three left. I risked a glance behind me and ducked quickly as a blade would nearly have decapitated me. I swung my spear quickly in a flat strike and the wight fell back. Kerrass was at the other side of the hall fending off two wights. He didn't look tired and he was pressing one of the two hard while having used a blast of air to send one backwards.

I thrust at my wight a couple of times, two, short strikes to drive it back.

It pulled back and vanished.

At the same moment I dived and rolled. An ingrained response that Kerrass had spent a not small amount of time drilling in to me.

Not for the first time, it saved my life as the wight had reappeared behind me. As I rolled to my feet I was astonished to find one of Kerrass' Wights directly in front of me. Without thinking I stabbed forward, the thing screamed and dissolved into the dust at the floor.

Such random strokes of luck are common when you fight wights and you have to capitalise on them whenever you can.

Two left and it was all but over.

Kerrass was able to push the one wight to making a mistake and destroyed it. He gestured me behind him and made short work of the remaining one.

"Ok." I said, leaning on my spear and breathing heavily. "That could have gone a lot better."

"You hurt?" Kerrass was carefully cleaning his own sword. I imagined that he was doing it a little pointedly and suggesting that I should see to my own weapons. I took out a rag and wiped the oil residue from the blade.

"Maybe a bruise or a cut from throwing myself across the floor a couple of times."

Kerrass nodded and gazed out over the main hall. The casket containing the sleeping Princess was still off at one end. The fight hadn't got close to her.

"You did well. But we didn't really find anything we didn't know."

"That's not quite true." I said, wanting to reassure him. "We got confirmation which is sometimes just as important as getting the original information."

"I suppose so, but what do we do now?"

"Well I've been thinking about that."

"And?"

"You know how you said trying to talk to the King was a bad idea?"

"Yes."

"I have a worse idea." I grinned at him.

Later that day, we were stood at the top of the castle. It was not the most stable of surfaces and we had tied ourselves on for what little stability we could find. The rather optimistic view that if we fell, or jumped off, or the tower collapsed underneath us then we would be safe.

That was of course if the tower being unstable was the only problem we had.

Kerrass was hammering in a large spike into the side of the tower wall.

"You're right you know."

"What's that?" I passed him the largest single white piece of cloth that we could find in the castle and he started to hang it from the spike that I think had been made out of some kind of dagger.

"This idea is worse," he straightened up and passed me another corner of the cloth so that I could attach it nearby.

"But it's such a good idea." I attempted to put some good cheer into my voice but it didn't sound as though Kerrass was convinced.

"Don't get me wrong. I suspect it's one of the few things that hasn't been tried before in the large amount of time that the curse has been going on. In that it's certainly a new idea."

"I was going for novel." I suggested.

"But at the same time. I can't help but think that the only thing the Dragon is going to think when seeing a large white cloth. Even if the dragon is intelligent enough to know what the flag means, which is a big 'if' by the way. I just think that the most that the Dragon is going to think is. "Ooh, kindling," followed by, "and here's dinner.""

"I will admit that I'm hoping that curiosity will win out at the end of the day."

"Curiosity? Cat's are curious. Dragons have the luxury of being able to flatten the area and then search through the rubble to find what they were looking for."

"Ah well."

I took a flask from my belt and drank some of the vodka that it contained. I felt the need for a small amount of courage.

"Here it comes," Kerrass commented.

It was true, flying low over the treetops, a little bit below the level that we were standing at. It was huge, immeasurably big. At the moment all I could see, or rather, all I could really take in was the vast wingspan and the small arrow-head shaped head that was setting fire to the tree tops.

"Well Kerrass," I said as the thing came closer and closer. "I just wanted to say..."

"Likewise Freddie, Likewise. Thanks for trying. It means a lot."

I laughed, "No Kerrass. I was going to say that if it kills me. Could you tell everyone that I died heroically. That I was saving people from the dragons jaws or something rather than standing up here and inviting it to eat me alive."

Kerrass stared at me for a long moment, then he grinned.

"This is pretty stupid isn't it."

"Hardly the heroic ending for the saga poets to sing about."

The Dragon was much closer now. Jet black it was and I could make out it's eyes, They were glowing green and I could see a kind of steam growing up from them as though the eyes themselves were hot.

"For what I am about to receive." I breathed.

I shut my eyes and started waving my arms around.

"WE WANT TO TALK," I bellowed up into the air. Kerrass' voice rose up to join mine. I think we managed to get the words out twice coherently as well as shouting them out in incoherent babbles.

I had my eyes closed but I didn't need to see the dragon.

I could feel it.

Huge. it rent the air as it past through. It was followed by an almost thunderclap noise. Vast wings buffeted at us and we staggered. My eyes flew open out of reflex as I felt myself beginning to stagger. The huge vastness, the overwhelming size of it.

It was beautiful and terrible at the same time.

It was awful in that inspired awe.

It was Amazing in that inspire amazement.

It was terrific in that it inspired terror

For me, in that moment I passed out. My brain just kind of...shut down in the face of something so huge and amazing. I gaped at it. The thing was hovering in the air as it stared at the pair of us. It reared back and as it's mouth opened I swear I saw the onrush of flames. I passed out.

It must have only been a fraction of a second but I was certainly unconscious for a moment. I remember falling. I remember the moment before the fall but I do not remember the moment of leaving the ground, unstable as it might have been.

I understand that Kerrass took a running jump and attempted to land on the dragon itself. I know that he wasn't successful as the dragon essentially swatted him out of the air and into the castle wall. The rope that was tying him on went taut and caught him. Then the Dragons flame caught both his rope and my rope, instantly dissolving them both in the heat. Kerrass was at the wall though and had the opportunity to angle his fall so that he could catch a handhold.

I had no such luck and was sailing through the air.

I opened my eyes mid fall and saw the dragon coming after me.

When I had first imagined dragons I had imagined large ungainly beasts that would move relatively slowly through the air which would track with it's massive bulk.

This dragon spun on it's wing tip and dove at me faster than I was falling.

It caught me. I have no other way of describing what happened. It's head snapped forward in a snake-like motion and I had time to wonder if being eaten by a dragon would be worse than falling to my death.

There was an impact and I shook around inside the things mouth. I had been folded into a smaller ball and was in danger of falling down the dragons throat when the jaws opened and a claw reached in and pulled me out by a leg.

I had a distinct moment where I was hanging in the air from the claw of a dragon. As the blood rushed to my head, I was able to realise that I was being examined by it. Inches away from it's Bright Green eyes.

It roared at me.

The sonic assault was more than just an audible wave, it was a sonic shock that buffeted at me. It wasn't something that I heard with my ears it was something that I felt in my chest somewhere. That I felt it assail my entire body.

In the past I have kind of... avoided talking about my involuntary body reactions when my body decides that I should just get out of the way and does things all by itself because more often than not. These things are embarrassing.

I shit myself. Apparently, this is not uncommon but at the same time it bears mentioning.

I was flung. I don't think it was very hard but it was certainly painful. My brain was still reeling from the Dragon's roar that I must have been limp enough that I didn't take much more damage from the fall, other than the bruises and the scrapes that were to be expected.

I slumped, dazed.

It was overwhelming. I was in some form of shock but I couldn't make my mind think. I couldn't make it...react in any way that I was comfortable with. I was staring into space trying to shake the ringing sound from my ears. Hoping, just hoping that at some point the world would start making sense in some small way. That I could hold on to something and make sense of it all.

Something huge was approaching me then. A huge vast expanse of claws and teeth and scales and it roared at me again.

I was too far gone by that point. Slumped as I was against a wall, a spreading pool of wetness underneath me.

There was a strange kind of inrush of air, a kind of popping noise and I felt someone grab me by the throat. I was hauled upright and was left dangling off the ground, suspended by my throat. Out of nowhere, whether by pain or by the reflexive need to try and survive, my arms came up and I clawed at the implacable grip that held me by the throat. Without apparent effort.

I fought for breath, lashed out with my legs trying to find some purchase, or anything that I could use to ensure my survival.

But I was already weak from the earlier assault. I had been tossed around like a cat toy.

I was staring at the sky, the hand holding my throat was forcing my sight upwards so that I couldn't see my assailant. I could hear words. I thought it was a woman's voice but my entire being was ringing. It wasn't just my head that was ringing but it was my entire body, my entire brain that had been shaken.

I registered movement out of the corner of my eye. I thought I recognised Kerrass but my eyes were tearing up with pain, shock and terror.

I felt, rather than heard a whoosh, Kerrass grunted and the dim sounds of a body flying off, bouncing along the floor in the same way that I had a matter of seconds ago.

Abruptly and without warning, I was dropped. My legs wouldn't support me and they folded underneath me so that I just collapsed into a small ball of pain. Wheezing, angry, terrified pain.

I coughed, choked and vomited for what felt like hours but can only have been a few seconds.

I heard more words. I thought they were Kerrass' voice. I concentrated in an effort to try and find the right... bits so that I could understand them and put them into the right order to form sentences in my brain.

"You've deafened him," I thought he was saying. I tipped over and collapsed onto my side so that I could see Kerrass. The prospect of turning my neck so that I could do the same thing was dismissed as lunacy by the rest of my body.

He was on his feet at least. Weaving a little bit, his sword was out and it was tracing patterns in the air that didn't look as though they were entirely intended. He had a large cut across his temple that was oozing blood down the side of his face which was covered in dust from where he had fallen. He was also limping and favouring his left leg.

I tried to get to my limbs under control so that I could stand up. I was unsuccessful, staggered and fell in a manner that felt almost comical. The effect was a lot like being drunk.

A wave of nausea struck me then and I vomited hard for a couple of seconds.

I made it up to my feet on the fourth attempt but then had to bend over, concentrating on breathing in and out for a minute or so.

Entirely by accident I found that I was facing Kerrass.

A mad kind of laughter was bubbling at the bottom of my throat.

"Heh, told you it was a bad idea to try and talk to a dragon."

"Freddie, that Dragon is behind you."

I span, a little bit too quickly for my balance and nearly fell again. Later it would turn out that both my ears were bleeding. For those people that don't know. A persons ears are linked, very firmly to their sense of balance.

I gave up and let myself sit down so that I could blink up at the figure in front of me. It took me a while to reconcile the details.

"Milady Draig ddyn Hardd I presume." I managed.

She reminded me a lot of Ariadne, the first time that I saw her. I don't know why, the two women looked nothing alike. But something in that terrible, awful beauty was still reminiscent of the first time I saw Ariadne.

This woman was much taller than Ariadne. Made slightly taller by the fact that she had huge horns that sprouted from the top of her head that seemed to wrap around in an odd spiral pattern. Her skin was a light purple in hue with her eyes being plain Green. No iris or pupil was visible just a hot green that seemed to steam in the daylight. Overly pronounced cheekbones with a pointed chin. Her teeth were bared in a grimace of utter fury.

In theory she was naked. But you couldn't see anything. Scales like those that might covered a dragon hid much of her shape and it seemed as though she had a cape that was attached to her arms. A cape of leather that was black and purple.

Other than that colouring and the horns, she was a woman, two arms, two legs and very, very female. Female enough that I wanted to avert my eyes.

I should have seen what was happening but I defend myself by saying that I was in shock from what had happened over the last few hours.

I will try to explain it.

Have you ever been to a pub or a tavern where they have an area off to one side for a band or for live music to be played? Then picture the scene. A person walks in with a harp. It's an old harp, obviously much loved at one time but now it seems as though both the harp and the man holding it have fallen on hard times.

One of the regulars in the pub tell you that this is the first time that the old man has played his harp since his wife died in childbirth. They tell you that he used to be the finest musician in all of the land, who's music used to bring grown men to tears.

The old man sits at a stool and spends a long time tuning his instrument.

It takes him a couple of attempts to start playing.

At first, all you hear is noise, nothing that would qualify as music but the entirety of the rest of the audience is looking on. Rapt.

Then, you begin to hear it. Just on the edge of your perception. On the edge of your hearing. The man is making music as you listen to it.

He's rusty. Old. Incredibly out of practice but he remembers how the music is supposed to _feel_ under his fingers.

That was what this woman looked like.

She remembered what a human body was supposed to look like. But she hadn't been human for many years and couldn't quite bring it under control. She was leaning on a long staff. Black, very thin while holding a glowing green orb at the top. The green was the same colour as her eyes.

"How do you know that name?" She demanded. Her accent was very similar to what the King's had been. "How do you know that?"

"I don't know." I said. "It was a guess. I thought it was a good one though."

She was plainly furious. I've never seen an angrier woman.

"Give me one good reason." She hissed. "Just one good reason why I shouldn't rip your throat out with my teeth."

I looked over at Kerrass. He was still looking at the woman. Clearly ready to leap into combat at a moments notice.

Something inside me snapped.

"Can I just ask you a question though before you do that. Where does the staff go when you're in your dragon form?"

She stared at me dumbstruck for a moment.

"I mean, it has to go somewhere. It's not as though it just vanishes." I went on.

She closed the distance between the two of us with astonishing speed and suddenly I was dangling off the floor by my neck again.

But another sound intruded then. Just on the edge of my hearing.

Kerrass was laughing.

I had a sense that both the woman and I shifted to look at him.

Kerrass seemed more sure of himself. A little steadier on his feet, his sword was steady and pointed directly at the woman. He was very pale and I wondered if he had taken the opportunity to take a potion while the two of us were so preoccupied.

"Freddie does that I'm afraid. When he's absolutely terrified beyond the capabilities for the rest of his mind to process, he takes on a strange sense of humour and tends to blurt out the first thing that comes to mind. I rather think that if he was born into one of those societies that use that kind of thing, he would have been trained as a berserker. But anyway. Let him go."

His voice hardened at the end, sinking into his stone-killers voice.

It was as though his voice at sucked all the anger and rage out of the woman. She just let me go and I collapsed at her feet.

"What do you want?" She sounded very tired. If she had looked more human I would have guessed that she was on the edge of tears.

"We are hear to try and help your daughter." I said.

She looked at me sharply. "Another guess?"

"Yes," I admitted, rubbing at my throat. "But it's the only thing that makes sense in all of this."

She stared at me for a long moment.

"Do I know you?" she asked suddenly. "I feel sure that I should. Something about you is awfully familiar."

"I feel sure I would have remembered lady."

She grunted.

"Anyway," she went on. "I'm afraid you're dead wrong, I don't have a daughter. I'm a Sorceress you see. We can't have children. The magic makes us barren."

I felt the bottom fall out of my world.

That had been my theory. That the King had made the Sorceress pregnant and had taken that baby as an heir. That they had spurned the biological mother and that was what had fed the hatred for the curse.

But she was right. Sorceresses can generally not conceive children in the normal way.

My face must have fallen. As the woman crowed in her triumph. A little nastily in my view.

"So now I can eat you as I first wished." There was a sense of growth coming from her then. My mind wasn't working properly but fortunately Kerrass' mind was.

"But you're not a Sorceress are you." he said.

The woman shrank back down to normal scale again.

"Freddie once told me something that scholar's use. A motto. "When you have eliminated the possible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." You're a dragon. You're one of those than can transform into a human. He's right." Kerrass gestured at me.

"It's the only thing left that makes sense. For whatever reason, you allowed the King to make you pregnant. He declared that your child was going to be his heir but then he took her from you and you cursed him for it."

She shrank in on herself. Kerrass' words were like physical blows to her and she shrank away from us both.

Kerrass and I exchanged looks and our strategy was decided. In some places it's called Good Watchman, Bad Watchman.

"You cursed him and it went on to curse the entire Kingdom." Kerrass went on, "Including your daughter. There she lies, in a coffin, helpless and defenceless for anyone to come across and abuse as they see fit."

She span on Kerrass then, spitting and furious, The cape that seemed to flow from her arms was beginning to look more like a robe and it swirled as it went.

"For you to use Witcher. Oh yes I know who you are, _Witcher_ ," she spat the word as an insult. Not the first time I had heard the word used in that way. "You're the man who guided them to her. You watched as they raped and abused her and you did nothing."

"Yes." Kerrass said coldly. "Yes I did. That was before I knew what was happening. But where were you. Where were you, her mother, at the time. Why did you not protect her? When those men were raping her and beating her and using her for their own ends. Where were you?"

For all her face looked alien to us. For all she looked scaled and horned and...other. Kerrass' words struck home.

"Where were you all of the other times? When other men decided that they would come and make use of her. Where were you?"

"I am a dragon and I..."

"I know all about the nomadic nature of Dragons, madam." It was Kerrass' turn to spit in scorn. "But it is also in the nature of dragons to teach their children everything they need to learn to survive before moving on. You just left her. Worse. You _made_ her helpless."

The woman had turned away so that we couldn't see her face. I was still trying to get my head to stop ringing.

"Is it not true, madam," Kerrass went on. "Is it not true that you left her here. You left her to be abused and raped and beaten. I might have been party to one of those instances but none of it, none of it would have happened if you hadn't decided to be petty. To curse your own daughter because your lover couldn't be faithful."

"You don't know what it was like." She tried. I knew my cue when I heard it.

"Why don't you tell us, Lady? It might not seem like it but all that the two of us care about is curing the Princess. Of giving her a proper chance at life. Doesn't she deserve to live. Doesn't she deserve a life, to live, and love and take part in a world that is passing her by?"

She turned back to me. Her moods seemed as though they could change on a coin.

"Are you sure I don't know you?" she asked. "I swear that there's something..."

"I am twenty years of age lady. In all that time, this is the furthest south that I have ever been."

"So familiar,"

She shook her head suddenly, seemingly in an effort to dislodge a thought.

"So what do you need from me?"

Kerrass and I exchanged looks. What we needed was for her to dismiss the curse or to disrupt it with a kiss of true love. But if we just pulled that out on her she would probably just dismiss it.

"Come inside with us." I suggested. "I know very little about curses but what I do know is that we need to talk about it. We need to understand it if we're going to disrupt it."

We led her into the great hall. There was already a chair next to the casket that I knew Kerrass used to sit and talk to the Princess when I was nose deep in books and studies. I found another chair for the Dragon/Sorceress woman and sat on the floor.

Kerrass re-lit a set of candles and busied himself by building a fire. Now was the time for the "Good Watchman,"

The woman seemed to marvel at what had happened in the place.

"Did you dress her?" she asked me quietly.

"Me? No. That was Kerrass' doing." I said in a similarly quiet voice. I have no doubt that Kerrass could hear us if he put his mind to it. "She was naked and in some uncomfortable looking positions when we found her. Kerrass was prepared for that though. He had a dress that he brought from the villagers on the edge of the thorn fields. Apparently he does that every time he comes to visit."

She took that news stolidly and without comment.

"Who's that?" she asked, gesturing at the corpse of the King.

"That," I said looking over at the King, doing my best to inject a tint of dislike into my voice. "That is the mortal remains of King Stefan."

She nodded again. She was almost visibly becoming more human before my eyes. The horns now looked as though they were some kind of head-dress. Her cheekbones were still pronounced to an extreme degree and her eyes were just as green. but the rest of her was increasingly human. She looked as though she was dressed in a rich, dark purple robe. It looked black unless she moved or it was caught by the light which was when the purple highlights came through.

She spent a long time looking at the body.

"He was so handsome once. So...charming and kind."

I didn't say anything. Kerrass had a fire going now. The woman leant back over and looked down at the Princess.

"I tried you know," she said after a long while. "I tried "True Love's kiss" or whatever you call it. Many many times but she still refuses to wake up."

"I don't doubt you." I said. My brain was screaming at me that I was sat talking to a dragon but I ignored it. "Why don't you start at the beginning?"

She looked at me a little slyly.

"Where do any of these things really begin though?"

I laughed at her. Her eyebrows rose in surprise but then she laughed as well.

"Well why don't we start with your name madam. I translated what they all called you, Draig ddyn Hardd. Literally translates as beautiful black dragon but surely that isn't your name."

"It's closer than you might think." she sighed and looked down at the Princess again. "We're quite literal creatures are Dragons. But it would be a lot more scrunched together in our language. Closer to Draigthinharth in the original pronunciation or Beautifulblackdragon in your more modern tongue."

"Well I can't call you that?"

She seemed to smile at that a little but she didn't take her gaze off the Princess.

"I always forget how small she looks, lying there." She said suddenly. "By my egg I'd forgotten how much it can hurt being in a human shape." She laughed suddenly. "These stupid feelings, hormones and emotions running through your systems. I honestly don't know how any of you get anything done."

"I won't lie. It's sometimes an effort."

She nodded. I saw a tear run down her face. "Oh my little Briar Rose."

"I hadn't heard her called that." I said quietly.

She wiped her cheek with the back of a gloved hand. "I used to call her that when I saw her which was not often. She was beautiful but she had grown out of so much pain for me and I found the name very apt. A beautiful flower growing from a bush that was full of thorns, tangles and pain. She never understood though." She laughed again. Humour replacing sadness so quick that it seemed to take enormous effort to keep track of. "She hated it when I called her that. She used to get so cross and scowl at me."

We sat in silence for a long time. I was dimly aware that Kerrass had put some water on to boil and was doing another number of chores around the place. Keeping busy, being present.

Just as suddenly as her other mood changes, she started speaking.

"What do you want to know?"

"I've been thinking about that." I began.

"And?"

"I really really want to know about the staff thing."

"This?" She twirled it in her hands. "I used to find it a useful affectation. Changing shape is hard and going from having four legs to having two and no tail to help you with balance is sometimes tricky. Therefore a staff. I also used to find that it lends a kind of mystique that can sometimes be quite useful."

"I can see that but..."

"Where does it come from?"

I nodded.

"The tail mostly. Are you a Sorcerer or Wizard?"

I shook my head.

"No. I was tested once as apparently my mind leans roughly in the direction of someone who _could_ use magic but it turns out that I have about the same magical talent as a brick."

"But you are a scholar?"

"I am."

She nodded. "It's to do with mass displacement. It might be vanity but I insist on being a beautiful creature, whatever I turn into. But a lot of extra draconic mass needs to go somewhere after all. My staff is one of those places that I put it."

"I see. So my name's Frederick von Coulthard but my friends call me Freddie or Fred."

"What should I call you?"

"There's an old saying amongst us mortals that says that the giant, fire-breathing black dragon can call me whatever she damn well pleases."

I'm pretty sure I heard Kerrass snort from where he was fussing over cups and a kettle.

"Fair enough. Then I shall call you Fuck face von clownstick."

"That's a big mouthful." I commented without missing a beat. "Also, how will I tell that you're talking about me and not my Witcher companion?" Her eyes narrowed a little before she shook her head in wonderment.

"Then I shall call you Freddie. People once called me Malevolence so that will do for now."

"What did your friends call you?"

"I didn't really have friends. Dragons are solitary creatures. All I tended to have were long term... acquaintances."

"Can I call you Mal?"

"That will do."

"Then I will start with this. Why didn't you reverse the spell?"

"I've tried. Many many times. It might surprise you to learn that this wasn't supposed to happen. It wasn't supposed to be like this."

Kerrass finally approached and handed us both cups of strong tea. He offered a honey pot and I noticed that she added a large spoonful to her own cup.

"What was it supposed to be like?" He asked gently.

"It was supposed to..." She cut herself off and spent some more time looking at the Princess. She took another sip of the tea and added more honey. "Then here is my story. Such as it is.

"I used to prefer travelling at night. One of the benefits of being a black dragon. Just to be clear, the ability to poly-morph into other shapes is not as rare as some works would have you believe. There are plenty of other Dragons in the world it's just that most of us prefer to be in human shape so that we can avoid witchers and other such hunters. A human shape does have certain advantages. Food tastes a lot better, the act of mating for pleasure as well as for the production of offspring is a huge bonus but also it is much easier to control the flows of magic when you have fingers and thumbs instead of claws and talons.

"I'd had an idea for a new spell. An experiment, the root of which I have long since forgotten and I was looking for somewhere that would be a suitable enough place to build a laboratory to test my theories. I came across a tower in the local area that was abandoned. One of the benefits of draconic society is that we are less precious about possessions than humans are. The place was deserted, it wasn't being used for storage or anything that I could see and so I just set up there and got to work. The odd night time raid on the local flocks saw to my physical needs and I was making good progress on my theories.

"Then one day a man turns up at the tower door. Big prancing horse, armour, lance and a scroll. I pretended not to see him and stayed hidden but he came with greetings from the King and Queen of the realm. He was there to bid me welcome and invited me to a soiree that they were having here at the castle.

"I ignored the invitation of course but then another came and another and another until I decided that the only way to get them to leave me alone was to go and get this social function over with.

"Much to my annoyance I found that I liked them both intensely.

"They say that you always hurt the ones you love and I did love them. They were both getting on a bit. He was in his mid to late thirties by that point. Still handsome and fit whereas she was in her early thirties. At first I took it to be a marriage of convenience as in every way that he was beautiful to look at, she was plain and boring. He was quick with his intelligence whereas she seemed to be slow witted and dull. But I couldn't be further from the truth. That was how she had been trained to be by her parents in an effort to catch herself a husband.

"She was actually frighteningly intelligent and what she was doing was scanning the entire conversation in an effort to see which was the right set of words to say in any given situation. She was looking at the big picture, what to do, what to say, as well as working through the possibilities. Before finally delivering her responses.

"To this day I don't know what..." She swallowed. "I don't know what made Stefan look beneath the surface of what she looked like to see the remarkable mind that operated under there. He must have had to work really hard to find it. But they found that they suited each other. I once guessed that she had an insight into a particular problem that he had been thinking about for some time and as such he had been able to dig that little bit deeper.

"Theirs was an intellectual love. They loved each others minds and they supported each others emotions. For his part, although Stefan kept several lovers that were aesthetically pleasing to the eye, he would always return to her bed afterwards where, probably, she asked him how it went before they snuggled down to sleep for the night.

"But there was a problem."

"The Queen couldn't get pregnant?" I prompted.

"It was rather more serious than that but yes that was the essential root of the problem yes."

Kerrass poured her some more tea.

"What happened?"

"She still wasn't pregnant. They had had this arrangement for some time but the Kingdom still didn't have an heir." She took a drink, grimaced and I handed over the honey pot. "Do humans still have the superstition that a Kingdom without an heir is a cursed Kingdom?"

"We do." I answered. "It's less of a problem now as the entire continent is ruled by a man who is currently handing over ruler-ship to his daughter."

"Really?" She crowed in delight. Once again I was struck by how fast her mood could change. "How wonderful. I'm going to have to meet her. A woman in charge of a continent. Fancy that. I might even offer my services as royal dragon. I could roast anyone who looks at her funny."

"From what I'm told she might take you up on that." I commented, "She is well liked by the upper crust of society and the common man. But all of the people in the middle seem to look down on her and I'm told that she's got a list of people that she refers to as her "die screaming in a fire," list."

Malevolence's eyes glittered. "How interesting." This time it was my turn to think I recognised the woman sat next to me. I saw Kerrass glance up at the same time. But then she turned back to gaze down at her daughter.

"But yes. The King had done what he was told and married but the nobility and the common-folk had been waiting for another handful of years for a royal heir to turn up. Things were starting to be said about "curses" and that the King should set the Queen aside and try with another one. This proving the common prejudice that the Queen was solely responsible for the lack of fertility."

"Was she?"

"Yes and no. She was just... uninterested in the act of physical lovemaking which was part of the problem if there had been anyone with the wit to see it. There was no doubt that she and... and Stefan were physically intimate but for them it was an occasional thing. A rare thing. It certainly didn't happen with regularity enough to ensure pregnancy.

"But the countryside was getting restless. People were getting worried and neighbouring Kingdoms, jealous of the wealth that was being thrown around here, were fanning those flames of dissatisfaction. There were concerns of a revolt or disruption to the trade that the Kingdom relied on so the King and Queen started to take steps.

"Leah came to me first. We had struck up something of a friendship in as much as we could given that I was a dragon and she was not. It should also be said that I was still not a social creature and actively went out of my way to discourage company. There were another...heh... seven Sorceresses in the local area anyway and I'm told that they had proven ineffectual in their efforts to help the royal couple produce an heir."

I opened my mouth to form a question. I was going to ask about the other Sorceresses but Kerrass gestured that I should keep my peace.

"So Leah came to see me. She rode up with a small escort of knights and a few handmaidens. I told the lot of them to fuck off which I'm sure endeared me to them no end. The advised Leah not to come into the tower and that they should turn around and seek out someone who was actually willing to help. I would have been ok with this but some people are just determined to talk to me."

"I notice that you don't call her "Queen" Leah." I mentioned.

"No. I found that I had to separate the two so that I didn't go completely insane with rage and hatred. Leah was a nice person who I miss dearly. She had a startling intelligence, the driest sense of humour that I've ever found in a human being and the deepest understanding of just wanting to be left alone that I have ever met.

She was a good friend to me.

"The Queen, however, was a bitch Queen from hell and I'm glad that she's dead. If you know which one is her corpse I will take great delight in squatting down and pissing in her mouth."

The image was startling.

"But Leah came in," The woman's voice was mild and sad again after the brief burst of fury. "Honestly seeming glad that all of her hangers on had left her alone. We talked for a long time and I performed a quick examination.

"It should have been obvious to anyone what the problem was. It wouldn't surprise me at all to learn that all seven of the other bitches had filled her head with nonsense about hope and "that life and love will always find a way." Insipid milk-sops the lost of them.

"Leah had an imbalance, I hadn't studied much human anatomy but it went like this. The thing that makes a woman a woman, more so than the mammary glands, uterus and vaginal tract is a particular kind of hormone that starts to tell the female body how to work. This is the stuff that makes women horny at the wrong moments, grow breasts and go "Oooh, he's pretty. I think I'll have that one now." and then we go all gooey. It's also the stuff that means that our ovaries release the eggs and push them into those areas where the sperm can make with the fertilisation. Which is just about the only useful thing a male human seems to do in the production of offspring."

I Frederick would like to remind readers that the above opinions on how these things work was put forward by an angry Dragon. Not by me.

"What Leah had," she went on, "Was none of this. If her father had thought about it and contacted a magic user when she was born then this could have been corrected fairly easily by magical means. But the long years without it meant that her sex-drive was all but non-existent and her..." she gestured at her own lower belly "was not properly developed. There was no way that she was ever going to conceive. Ever. It was unlikely that we could even produce a viable egg from her ovaries for the use of an artificial insemination.

"If anything she seemed rather relieved by this and rode off.

"Unfortunately for us all King Stefan came to see me shortly afterwards.

"I had made a mistake you see. It was a simple mistake. A stupid mistake. As part of my prescribed treatment, one of the things was that Leah should find a surrogate of some kind.

Stefan came to see me. He was all but in tears the insufferable walking set of male genitalia. Much to everyone's astonishment, including mine, he was madly in love with his wife. He wasn't faithful in the most traditional sense of the word when it comes to marriage but he was loyal. He couldn't bear the thought of setting his wife aside but likewise he was well aware that the countryside was getting...restless and he didn't know what to do. He sat in a chair after I had told him that there was nothing that I could do for Leah for the forty second time and he wept he honestly wept."

I should mention here. The Dragon's words were angry. She was clearly furious. With us, with the King and Queen but also with herself. She was also in tears. Hot tears which steamed as they ran freely down her cheeks. Something that the written word cannot clearly convey.

"I'm a Dragon. I like being a Dragon. One of the good things about being a Dragon is that when it's my time to mate it's a biological imperative. Male's can smell it for miles around and they come and try to tame me." Her teeth flashed in a hungry smile as she said this. "They always fail. Always but then I choose the one I like best of all for my mate and we consummate our union in fire and claws and it is glorious.

"I've sometimes thought that humans would benefit from this kind of thing as well. A biological imperative where the woman is in desire of a mate periodically, goes out and chooses one from all the men that are arrayed for her choice. I think it would get round so many of those problems as men wouldn't be sniffing around women who didn't want them. There wouldn't be any of those, frankly stupid, mating rituals that humans seem to have and both men and women can get on with the rest of their lives knowing that when she gets the urge then she will choose someone to scratch that itch,"

"I've known some women like that anyway." Kerrass murmured.

"Yes well, you're plainly an idiot." said the Dragon scornfully. "But as it was, there was Stefan, in my chair and I put my arms round him in an effort to comfort him. Next thing I know we're tearing at each other's clothing and fucking each others brains out.

"I can't claim it wasn't enjoyable.

"We saw each other occasionally. I was astonished when Leah came to see me to tell me that she was quite alright with the arrangement and she was glad I was helping Stefan with the crisis.

"Six months later I was pregnant.

"Stupid human body with it's stupid involuntary reproduction cycle. And stupid me as well for forgetting to monitor it all and make sure that this kind of thing wasn't going to happen. I don't think it even occurred to Stefan to check if I'm honest. He certainly never mentioned it.

"I'll give him one thing. Never once did he suggest that I should get rid of it. Not that I would have done. I am a dragon after all and we look after our young but then we had to decide what to do with it."

She sighed then. Just a little sigh and a lot of her anger seemed to leave her. She looked like a woman deflated.

"What to do with _her_ I should say."

She stared down at the still sleeping figure of her daughter lying there in the casket.

"I couldn't understand how she could be so beautiful. Even as a baby she was so... I never understood the way humans gather round the young of your species. Going "Coo" and "Aww" and other such nonsensical words but then I understood it for the first time. That little girl represented hope for the future.

"I couldn't understand the way I felt. I didn't understand it, I didn't _want_ to understand it. I was angry as well. With myself for allowing Stefan to do _this_ to me but also angry with him for taking advantage of me when I was in a vulnerable state."

"What state was that?" Kerrass asked.

"Being human." She answered without pause. ""I was a dragon" I thought to myself. "I don't allow things like this to happen to me" so then I let him talk me into letting the pair of them take my daughter. To raise her as their own. They both loved her, it was plain to see how much Leah in particular doted on the little girl and she was the very apple of Stefan's eye. I agreed that they would raise her in their castle as their daughter and I was given the High Crag as my own domain in perpetuity.

"What I didn't know. What I didn't understand was the effect that this would have on me. I tried to turn back into a dragon several times in an effort to try and shake these feelings off. I hadn't been able to poly-morph while I was pregnant for fear of hurting the baby. But now I found that I still couldn't do it.

"It was the right thing to do. Logically there was no other choice. I couldn't raise a _human_. What was I thinking in getting pregnant. My entire experience with parenting is the way I was brought up. I was conscious and aware almost immediately and as a result my mother told me everything I needed to know to survive and that was that.

"But humans don't work like that. I knew it. I could see it. What was I going to do. Raise the Kings bastard in my little tower while being manifestly unsuitable for the task.

"So I let them take her. Stefan came and took her away from me.

"He was so grateful then. So very grateful.

"But then there was something else that I didn't understand which was that I was no longer welcome and I came to see that I had been used. Used and cast aside like so much roadside waste.

"I tried to visit you see. Tried to see my daughter but time and time again I was turned away by guards or by one of the many "good" Sorceresses that the pair of them surrounded themselves with. Flora, Forna and the rest of them. Oh how I curse those women now.

"The final insult was when I wasn't invited to the baby's name day. Then the anger that had kept me warm during the long nights turned cold in my heart. I could turn into a Dragon again. They had forgotten that as well as a love sick first time mother I was also a powerful Sorceress. Twice as powerful as the other seven of them combined. It was liberating as suddenly I was able to think again. To plot and scheme and I was still so very angry.

"I wanted them to know you see? I wanted them to feel my rage and the sense of their betrayal. They had taken advantage of me. They had taken a woman, with little or no experience at being a woman, impregnated her as a surrogate and then taken the baby from her with whispered half truths and cold logic and wisdom.

"I don't claim that I was thinking rationally. I wasn't. I really wasn't I was just so angry and so hurt.

"I wanted to make them hurt.

"So I created a curse. There is a reason that I had chosen that particular deserted fort over the few others that there were lying around. It was the centre of several lines of force crossing and I was full of that power. I created that curse, stored it, bound it and then I went to their little ceremony. The other seven of them had formed a web of protection around the place. They thought I might "crash the party" but I laughed at their feeble attempts to keep me out. I strode in, evading their laughable attempts to keep me out and I stood there, defiant in my power, rendering the other women's power useless.

"I was nearly undone then. There he stood. No longer the King but he was my Stefan and he was holding our daughter. That small nub of beauty and wonder that should not have existed but who defied nature by continuing to suck down air.

"But then he put on his best King's voice and told me to "Begone, foul wretch."

"I wanted him to know what it felt like to have true happiness taken from him so I cursed him. For all the wrongs that they had done to me I told them that on the day of their daughter's sixteenth birthday she would prick her finger on a spindle and then die. I told them that but that wasn't what I had done.

"What I had done was to spoil their happiness. They would be able to watch their perfect little girl grow to the flower of womanhood and just when she was about to turn into that wonderful flower of femininity that we all knew that she was going to turn into. That would be the moment that I would take her away from them. Then she would know the truth. She would know what they had done to me and what they had kept from her. I would lay out everything before them. My point of view as to what had happened. My pain. Because didn't I deserve that? Didn't _she_ deserve to know the truth? To have access to the knowledge that they would keep from her.

"One of the other points was that the curse was easy to counteract. All they had to do was to tell her the truth. Bring the girl to me and say "Look, this is your mother,"

"I didn't think it was too much to ask.

"But then "Mistress Merryweather got involved didn't she. Stupid bitch. If there is anyone that was guilty of this whole messy fucking affair then it's her. I'm angry with Stefan and Leah. But I hated her, the no good interfering old busybody."

"What did she do?"

"She had to meddle didn't she. She had to stride in with her huge, high-heeled boots and stupid red dress and try to interfere in things that she didn't understand and actively didn't bother with even trying to understand. If she'd taken the Princess..."

Another thing happened then. A thing that you never think you would hear. I heard a Dragon sobbing.

"If she'd taken my daughter off and run some experiments on her to figure out what was actually going on with the curse rather than what she _thought_ was going on with the curse then she would have found out what was actually going on and how to break the curse. I thought I'd made it powerful but, if anything, a little too simple.

"So instead she decrees that she can't change the curse because she, correctly, thought that I was too powerful for her. So instead she adds to it. She says that it won't be death but that it will just be sleep. Then she grows a pair of wings out of her back and floats off leaving everyone going... "Aww bless her. She did her best" Stupid little toad.

"So now the curse is changed. Instead of getting all the knowledge when she pricks her finger on her sixteenth birthday. She falls asleep. Then all the people of the Kingdom, instead of knowing the King and Queen and seeing what they were and what they had done to me and to others. They fell asleep."

The woman was openly sobbing now.

"All I wanted to do was to let them know how much they hurt me. How hard I felt it and how angry I was. That's all I wanted. I wanted the Princess to know, to _know_ what kind of people her "parents" were and I wanted her to know her heritage. That way, if she wanted to she could seek me out and learn about that side of her history.

"But she fell asleep. And nothing I could do could change that."

"I know you must have tried." Kerrass leaned forward. "I'm not criticising here I'm just trying to help. But what did you do? And why did it fail?"

The dragon wiped her eyes with a cloth that I passed over. I noticed that the cloth where her tears fell was smouldering.

"The magic had changed. In a stand up fight, those seven women would have just been destroyed by me. They had nothing that even remotely compared to my power. I'm a dragon, I absorb magical energy, that's what I do. But in changing that curse. In... in mutating that curse it became something new. Something different. Curses are almost like living things. They are fed by our emotions and behave accordingly. But now the curse was changed by Merryweather's desire to protect the baby from me. She had no idea that I was her mother and that I had no intention of harming the princess. But that was what she feared and so the curse changed. It was no longer the magic that I had cast, nor was it really the magic that Merryweather had cast. When I worked on it, it would actively protect itself from me.

"Stefan and Leah both came to me in the immediate aftermath of the curse and begged me. Begged me to reverse it but I was too angry to explain it properly. I still blamed them. I was still angry with them and could barely manage to look at them before growing claws and ripping out their spines. But I was also working on the curse.

"I went to see Merryweather you know. She refused to see me and fled before me. I ransacked her tower in an effort to try and find something. Anything that would help me counteract her part of the curse but she had one of those contingency spells up that was all the rage. When she sensed me coming all of her notes and equipment went into a pocket dimension.

"Stupid Bitch.

"I went to the other, heh, good Sorceresses and they were even less help. I was forced to destroy two of them in self defence and the others fled my anger. None of this was helping my reputation as the "evil" Sorceress.

"I worked on the curse. I tried to change it in the same way that Merryweather had done but it still didn't work. It fought me and I still have the scars.

"In the end The curse happened. I worked on it right up until the day. I threw my entire weight against it when it happened and I tried to shut it down, to kill it, but I failed. I just failed.

"Afterwards I tried True Love's kiss. I loved her after all. She was my daughter. I had seen her often, using a simple scrying spell and she had ridden to my tower a few times as part of her fathers efforts to try and appeal to my pity.

"But it didn't work. It never worked.

I tidied up, I resolved to wait for the hundred years and see which prince would turn up and cure the curse. But none ever did. Or rather they did and sullied her."

She suddenly hissed at Kerrass.

"You would know something about that wouldn't you."

Kerrass nodded sadly.

"But that was a hundred and twenty years ago." Malevolence went on, "I've done my best to protect her. I've done my best to make sure that people don't come and plunder her Kingdom with the thorns and things but... Here we are and she still sleeps. Still sleeps, always sleeping.

"Oh my little Briar Rose."

She wept then. I felt a little bit ashamed. I could follow her feelings. I even understood some of them. She had reacted harshly to be sure but at the same time she had caused everything.

She wept for some time but then just as it had started she wiped those tears away and looked back up at the two of us.

"So there you have it. That's my story. Does it help?"

"It might," I said carefully setting the cup aside.

"Might?" she said mockingly. "Do you have a cure? Have either of you tried True Love's kiss."

"I have not." I said. "I've seen the lady, she is undeniably beautiful but I don't know her. For me that makes all the difference. I find I do want to help her though. I want to protect her. She strikes me as being so helpless and defenceless."

"Have you?" She spat in derision at Kerrass.

He shifted uneasily. "I have. But I swear to you, her mother that I have done no more than chaste kisses on her forehead. I kissed her lips once when I was operating on the theory that that might make a difference. I love your daughter madam and I cannot say fairer than that."

"Hah. You hope to wake her and capitalise on her gratitude."

"No. No I do not. I dream that, but I am a man of the world enough to know that that's not how it works."

She grunted.

"So," she demanded. "Does my story give you any ideas? Have you got a plan?"

I exchanged a look with Kerrass and I saw him shift his weight slightly in an effort to be ready for a fight.

"I do as a matter of fact." I said. "But you will not like it."

"Sounds promising," The woman said. "What's your theory?"

"I think that you, like everyone that has ever heard this story or come here to see the Princess. Like the Sorceresses that tried to help her. Like the King begged you to do. All of us have thought that the curse is centred around her."

"It is. While she sleeps it spreads to the rest of her Kingdom."

"Yes. But she was not the person that was cursed was she. It wasn't her that you hated enough to curse. Therefore it's not her that you have to kiss."

The woman stared at me. She was much more human than she had first appeared. She was obviously wearing a dress now. Heavily muscled but slim for it, in the same way that female athletes or warriors are also slim. Her cheekbones were pronounced, over and above what a humans would be and her skin was still oddly shaded pink. As I said previously, her horns resembled a head dress but it was only her eyes that were so inhuman. Blank and Green. Again I was reminded of someone although that reminder was on the edge of my mind.

She stared at me for a long moment. Then she laughed. Long, loud and bitter.

"A human," she said. "A little, non-magical human." She spun on Kerrass. "I take it that this wasn't you that came up with this?"

"No," he said. He looked as though he had relaxed again. "This is all Freddie. If I'd seen this all that time ago then the Princess would have been awake years ago. That is if you hadn't eaten me in advance."

She laughed again.

"No-one else saw it. Even I didn't see it. Oh humanity, I may have misjudged you." She said again looking at me.

"Not really." I said.

"Freddie is a rare human." Kerrass added.

"Yes I can see that." The woman's face became calculating for a moment. Then she sighed.

"Is that him?" She asked, pointing at the King's corpse. "Is that Stefan?"

"It is." Kerrass said.

The woman nodded. "This might take some time." She murmured. "I hate him still."

"A better writer than me once said that the line between love and hate is a thin one." I said. "We'll wait here. We'll make some food later."

The woman nodded. Gathered up her staff and strode down the room.

"Well done Freddie." Kerrass said to me.

"I don't feel like I did very much."

"Make no mistake. We're still alive because of you." He muttered.

"Your friend is right." Called the dragon from the far end of the room. "If I could have some quiet though."

She pulled over a chair and sat next to the Kings body.

She was right, it took some time. Kerrass and I carried on with some chores. I did some writing and note-taking. Kerrass made some more tea but mostly we watched and waited.

The woman spoke. There were words that she said but they weren't meant for our ears so I intentionally didn't listen. Sometimes she shouted and raved, sometimes she laughed and sometimes she wept. Most often though she was just sat quietly talking to him.

I didn't see any of the signs of whether or not the King's ghost had been summoned. Indeed I don't think it had. I _think_ that this was a dragon working through her thoughts and feelings.

At some point I dozed. I was woken up by Kerrass shaking me. He was excited. More excited than I had seen in a long time.

"Wake up Freddie, it's happening."

I pulled myself up, shook myself awake, not unlike a dog. We were watching. The Dragon was on her knees, cradling the corpse of the King. She was obviously weeping gently. As we watched she slowly leant forward and kissed him on the brow.

There were no rainbows. No fireworks or sudden flashes of light. Nor was there a peal of thunder. Instead it was like a sigh. As if the air and land could breathe a sigh of relief.

Kerrass spun and stared down at the still sleeping form of the Princess.

"How long do you think it will take?" I asked.

"There's no way of knowing." He answered. "That's if she wakes at all. All of her long years might just catch up with her."

"That won't happen." Said the Dragon. She was striding up next to us, cleaning herself up a bit. "I'm afraid I've rather ruined your handkerchief." She said to me.

"I'll live." I said.

"She won't waste away. She will just wake up, sooner or later. That's not the concern."

"What's the concern?" Kerrass asked.

"That she..."

The Princesses eyes snapped open as she shot upwards into a sitting position. Her eyes boggled as she stared at us, one after the other. A slow look of dawning horror crossed her face as she scrunched up her eyes, covered her ears with her hands and just started to scream.


	44. Chapter 44

So yes. We managed to wake up Sleeping Beauty. A Witcher, a Dragon and a Scholar managed to get the job done. In any other ballad or story then the tale would have stopped there. The Princess would have woken up, blinked her eyes, stretched sleepily before gazing at her rescuers and being unspeakably grateful. The only problem was that none of us were Princes. Nor was it a Prince who's kiss had woken her up.

That is where the tale should end. With a nice and formulaic "and they all lived happily ever after." But that's not how things works in the really real world do they.

But I am not a tale teller. I am a historian and I record what I see.

The Princess screamed. She screamed and screamed and didn't stop. Hands tightly clamped to the side of her head, palms covering her ears, knees drawn up until they were under her chin, eyes scrunched shut and she just screamed.

Kerrass, Malevolence and I just looked at each other.

"That's what I'm afraid of," said the Dragon. "That she has lost her mind being asleep that long. Dreaming for that long." That she said it so matter of factly that got to me.

I stared at her in horror for a moment before I fell to my knees next to the screaming Princess.

"Blanket," I said to Kerrass who was dithering. "Get me a blanket Kerrass. Then some more tea. Lots more tea, we're going to need it strong, milky and sweet."

"What are you doing?" Malevolence asked.

"I don't fucking know," I muttered as I unfolded the blanket. "I'm assuming that she's going into shock given that this is the first time she's felt real air in over a hundred years. It's a guess and an assumption but I've been doing a lot of both recently."

The woman backed away. She was watching me carefully as though concerned that I might do anything to hurt her daughter but at the same time she had an air of "You seem to know what you're doing so I'm going to leave you to it."

I ignored her. The Princess had shaken off my blanket.

Damn, not a good sign.

"Princess. Princess I need you to listen to me." I spun back to Malevolence. "Dammit what's her name?"

"Dorn," she said. "Like "dawn" only with the added "r" sound."

"Princess?" I tried again. "Princess Dorn. I need you to listen to me Princess. You're awake now. I know it hurts and I know it's awful but I need you to listen to me."

The Princess screamed a short phrase.

"What the hell was that?" I asked aloud.

"I don't know." Kerrass had stacked more blankets and was building up the fire. "Try talking to her in elven."

"Is this what you do the two of you? Divide the labour in this way?" Malevolence asked Kerrass.

"He's better at this than me. If she was awake enough I could ask her questions about the monsters she'd faced but to his credit, Freddie is better at calming hysteria and has some medical training which is more than I have. I just pour potions on the problem until it goes away."

I ignored them. Instead I tried talking to her in Elven as suggested.

"Princess Dorn?" I tried. "Can you hear me? Princess It's alright. You don't need to be afraid.

"Then why are you shouting?" She screamed at me. It was in elven and I felt myself nod. She was capable of reasoning which was a good sign.

"Because you have your hands over your ears and are screaming at me." I said. "I'll make you a deal. I'll stop shouting if you can take stop screaming."

She did so abruptly. She was shivering. Hard.

"That's good Princess, That's really good. Can you hear me now, you don't have to say anything, just nod if you can hear me."

She nodded. A short sharp nod that might have been a shiver.

"Good Princess, you're doing so well."

Kerrass and Malevolence were arguing. He was explaining to her why I didn't just slap her across the face. I glared at them and hissed that they should be quiet.

Draconic methods of parenting leave something to be desired.

"Right then Princess. You're shivering, are you cold?"

Another one of those short, staccato nods.

"Right then, the next thing you're going to feel is me wrapping a blanket round you. I just want to get you warm, is that alright?"

I was speaking calmly and clearly. She wasn't quite in shock. She was reacting to her environment. I managed to get the blanket round her.

"The next thing we need to do Princess is to get your breathing under control alright? Otherwise you might hurt yourself."

"Throat hurts," She managed to croak out.

"You've been screaming Princess. I get that you're in pain right now." I made eye contact with Kerrass who nodded and added some extra herbs to the kettle. "We can give you something to soothe your throat when you're a bit calmer do you understand?"

She nodded again.

"That's good. That's really good."

It took a long time to get her calmed down. When her breathing was under control she started to relax her body. I told her not to worry about opening her eyes yet but to just focus on relaxing her muscles. Her hands came down from her ears almost reflexively and she hissed in pain.

"Cold?" I asked her.

She nodded again. "Everything seems so loud and jarring."

Kerrass was already tearing up a spare blanket as we made some noise mufflers. We wrapped her hands as well to keep them warm. We were then able to reason that the lights would be bright as well so we fashioned her a gauzy blindfold to rest over her eyes as well as a hood to provide some shade.

"Her hands," Kerrass muttered to himself over and over again. "I never thought to cover her hands but they've been exposed for so long."

"You covered everything else though. I'll give you that at least." Commented the Dragon who was watching everything with interested curiosity. She had decided that we were taking proper care of her daughter and was staying out of the way.

"We got the Princess calmed down enough to the point where she could sit up without aid.

"Stiff," she said. Abruptly. It obviously hurt her to talk."

"We can massage your muscles in a bit. You ready for a drink?"

She nodded and Kerrass passed me a cup.

"Now gently, try and open your eyes a little. If it hurts then close them again, we're in no rush."

She nodded and cracked one eye, then the other.

"Why...?" She coughed.

"Don't try to talk. Here's your drink, it will help."

She took a few sips. She seemed shrunken, like an old woman wrapped in blankets and cloths.

"Why does everything hurt?" She asked me.

"I don't know." I answered. "I'm not really a doctor, but I would guess it's because you haven't used them for some time."

She nodded and took a few more sips.

"The curse?"

I looked over at Kerrass and Malevolence. Kerrass shrugged.

"Yes." I said.

"How long have I been asleep?"

It was not lost on me that she had taken a deep breath to calm herself before asking the question.

"It's not a nice answer. Are you ready for it?" I asked.

She considered for a moment.

"That's a long time then."

"It's not short."

"The full hundred years?"

"More. A hundred and twenty, give or take."

She took it rather well considering everything that she had been through.

She sat and drank her drink.

"Can I have some more please?"

Kerrass came over and refilled her cup.

"Is one of you my Prince?" She asked hopefully with what I thought might have been some amusement.

"None of us are Princes Your Highness."

She nodded again. "I always thought that that part was invented in an effort to make me feel better."

I could see that she grimaced at the pain in her throat. She gave me the impression of someone who has woken up with a hangover and is waiting for their brain to start working properly.

She still wouldn't meet my gaze though. Her eyes shifting backwards and forwards as new thoughts and questions occurred but were then dismissed just as quickly. I watched her carefully, ready to catch her or to take the cup away if she started to shake. She clutched the cup in both hands, holding on to it as if for dear life. All the while taking slow careful sips. I was dimly aware that I needed to be careful in case she had some kind of fit or sudden pain. I was also aware that she had been assaulted so many times that there was the possibility of other injuries, Physical ones that I couldn't see as well as the obvious mental strain.

I saw her reach over and pinch the back of her hand. Hard.

"I'm sorry Highness." I said quietly, "But this is not a dream. You are awake."

"I know," she said quietly. "Dreams, even nightmares are never this painful. And I have had a lot of nightmares." Just an edge to her voice suggested that she was on the edge of tears. I didn't blame her, but at the same time, how does someone console a grieving Princess?

She took a deep shuddering breath.

"Your name is Frederick?"

"Yes Your Highness." I manfully resisted the urge to ask her how she knew my name.

I saw her mouth quirk a little in what I hoped was the beginnings of a sense of humour. "Lord Frederick, I think, given the fact that my home is in ruins and my status is in question, that we can dispense with formalities for now."

I nodded a response.

"You are a Lord are you not? Forgive my assumption but to know our noble's tongue you would need to be educated and I cannot believe that the world has moved on enough for such things to be the province of farmers and villagers."

"It has not and yes I am a Lord although I am a Younger son at best."

"Then I charge you, Lord Frederick to answer me truthfully. I have a number of questions that I suspect I know the answer to but I must ask them anyway."

I nodded. She looked strained. Drawn. As though she was ageing before my eyes. I guessed that she was hiding some deep feelings behind the more formal turn of phrase.

"My parents?"

I shook my head.

"Dead?"

"Yes."

I heard Malevolence hiss from behind me. Something hard flashed through the Princesses eyes then but I might have imagined it.

"My Kingdom?"

"The lands are choked with a magical plant that has been named "Blade-vine" so called because of the thorns that grow across those lengths."

"They will have stopped growing now that the curse has been broken." Malevolence put in behind me.

The Princesses rage was sudden and terrifying in it's power.

"Be silent. I will come to you soon, worm." She spoke quietly but the words were no less powerful for all of that. Just as quickly, the rage left her as she turned back to me.

"My people?" she asked.

"There are around seventy people living on the edge of the kingdom. Making a living from selling the vine wood and off the side-effects of the curse."

The Princess bowed her head. I thought I saw a tear fall and I looked away from it.

Kerrass was cooking, some kind of broth I guessed from the smell. Malevolence had stalked off somewhere in the face of the Princesses rage.

"Will you help me stand Lord Frederick?" The Princesses voice shuddered, as if she bought that calm question with great pain. "I have lain too long in this coffin."

I crouched next to her and using one hand she pulled herself to her feet. She leant on me to step out of the coffin that had been her bed for many years and stood unsteadily. Gradually she let go of me to stand on her own two feet. She raised one leg and shook it, presumably to restore feeling and then the other. Slowly though she tottered towards a chair that Kerrass hurriedly lay a thick blanket over the top of before she sat again. He brought her a bowl of broth, a wooden spoon and a hung of bread which she devoured like a starving person.

I caught Kerrass' eye and he nodded further down the hall to where Malevolence was pacing up and down in what looked like a fury.

"Thank you." Said the Princess quietly. "My mother would be furious with me, not using proper table manners or proper speech to thank my rescuers."

"I think that on balance she might have let this one slide," Kerrass said with a slight smile. I was pleased that I saw the beginnings of an answering smile on the lips of the Princess.

"So," she said after smoothing her skirts down. "Lord Frederick. May I have your full name please?"

There was no ordering in her voice. No command, she was simply asking the question as simply and as carefully as she could.

"Lord Frederick von Coulthard of Redania Your highness." I said bowing deeply before her in her impromptu throne, "and may I say that it is an honour to finally make your acquaintance. "I tried to make the tone light. There was an atmosphere gathering in the room. The Princess was speaking slowly and carefully. Malevolence was pacing relentlessly and Kerrass said nothing. I felt that there was a storm brewing.

"The honour is mine, Lord Frederick. Although I believe that you are rather more acquainted with me than I am with you?"

"Highness?"

"I was not wearing this dress when I went to sleep Lord Frederick."

I coughed. "I think that is a matter for later discussion your Highness, when you are feeling stronger perhaps?"

"Perhaps," she said with a slightly knowing smile. I reminded myself that this 16 year old girl was a young woman, not a young girl and that she had been gifted with Wit as well as Goodness. "Will you introduce me to your companion?"

"Your royal Highness," I began, "It is my honour and pleasure to present Witcher Kerrass."

Kerrass bowed deeply, his expression grave and stony.

"A Witcher no less? I have heard of your people Master Kerrass but I have not had the fortune to meet one."

There was a snort from the other end of the room. I saw Kerrass' eyes slide sideways to where Malevolence was still stalking.

The Princess did not react.

"I must thank you both." The Princess said. "Rewards are outside of my capability at present but rest assured that my gratitude is boundless."

Careful words and careful phrasing. Again I sensed that she was using those words to cover herself.

"It was our honour Your Highness." I said bowing low.

"Our honour, certainly." Kerrass said. "But I owed you, and still owe you a great debt."

I had forgotten the oath that Kerrass had made to himself. About what he would do when he stood before the newly wakened Princess. It was like that moment when you see something, pottery or glass slide towards the edge of a table and begin to fall off. You know that there's nothing you can do to stop it but you have just enough time to see it going and wince, or shut your eyes in anticipation of the coming calamity.

"I did you great wrong Highness." Kerrass went on,

"Kerrass," I tried but Kerrass' words overran mine, drowning me out.

"A great wrong and I promised myself I would put it right if I could."

I turned my eyes to the Princess and I pleaded with the universe and to whatever Gods were listening that she not ask the next question.

But no-one was listening.

"What wrong Master Witcher?"

"He raped you." Malevolence had had enough it would seem. "He took a contract from a foreign Prince, brought them here and then they took turns raping you."

"I..." Kerrass began.

"That's what you did isn't it Witcher?" The Dragon spat her own rage at him. "Then when they were done with you, they came back nine months later and took your children away with them."

"Stop it," I snarled but I was ignored.

"Then he came back." Malevolence went on, "Time and time again. He watched you while you slept. Feasting his eyes on you over and over again when he wasn't taking his pleasure on you. Do not tolerate his presence, there is not a punishment large enough in the world for one such as him."

The Princess' eyes were round and shining as they darted between Witcher and Woman. One hand had risen to cover her mouth.

"I never touched her." Kerrass began.

"Lies."

"I dressed her when I found her naked. I avenged her wrongs when I found out about them." Kerrass snapped, his rage lashing out. He had been in control for a long time now and I had forgotten his rage but it lashed at the Dragon now with the full force of his fury. "Where were you? You who called yourself her mother. Where were you when plunderers and rapists and abusers came for her. A great and mighty Dragon Sorceress who couldn't even be bothered to care for her own child. Which child, by the way, was only in danger because of her petty vengeance."

"Have a care Witcher?"

"Or what. Hmm?" You'll turn into a Dragon and eat me. What kind of example does that set before your child."

"An example to not stand for self-righteous idiots who think there's an excuse for actions taken while satisfying their own lusts and thirsts...What more could you do...Do you think that you could be forgiven. That you can be forgiven for what you did, what you allowed to happen? I should kill you wear you stand for what you did to her."

"And I you. What I did I did in ignorance but I tried to set it right."

"And I did not?"

"You set out to curse them?"

"I set out to curse her father, the wretched excuse for a man."

"And look what it did. I came here to offer her my life if she wants it in restitution what did you come here to offer? Your scorn? What did you think she would do, run into your arms and tell you that all was forgiven?"

"ENOUGH," I bellowed. I had once been taught how to properly support your lungs for a proper shout. I put everything into that bellow. Both of them turned at me, anger and pain warred in both sets of eyes. They might have killed me then in their shapeless anger but the Princess saved me.

She fled.

Tottering and bouncing off furniture as she commanded her legs to move through willpower rather than reflex. She fled through the door, sounds of her sobbing coming back to us.

I sighed and moved down to the steaming pot that still hung over the small fire that Kerrass had been tending. I poured myself a small cup of the herbal drink that had soothed the Princesses throat and drank it off before looking at the other two of them.

They were staring at me.

"You fucking idiots." I said simply.

"How dare y..." Malevolence began."

"Just shut up." I said. "You've been a dragon for too long and you've forgotten how people work, if you ever knew that. And as for you," I turned on Kerrass whose face was dark with emotion. "You're just as bad. The poor girls just woken up from a nightmare fuelled slumber of over a century and you were about to try and get her to sit in judgement over you in an effort to find absolution for all of your sins."

I shook my head in wonderment.

"Malevolence is right. It's a wonder that she isn't, howling at the moon, mad. Apart from whatever she experienced while she slept, which I think is more than any of us know, she's lost her parents and yes," I said to the dragon who was gathering herself up for another yell. "I do mean her parents. You might have been a mother of body but you were against everything that she knew. She only knew you as the woman that hated her and given how you behaved towards her today, can you blame her?"

Malevolence's mouth hung open as if she wanted to say something.

"So she's lost her parents." I went on, "her home is in ruins, all of her friends are dead and the two of you tell her, between you that her mother isn't her mother, that she's given birth on several occasions and that she has been being raped for all the time she was asleep. But there's one thing that you both forget."

"Enlighten us," Malevolence spat. Kerrass had turned away, his hand over his eyes.

"She's sixteen. Neither of you remember what it was like being sixteen. I'm twenty and I remember only being angry at everything and when I wasn't angry I wanted to shag everything in sight and drink myself into insensibility. And I'm just a boy."

Kerrass turned back to us.

"Freddie's right." He had mastered himself again but his eyes were hollow with a lot of pain. "What should we do now?"

"Well, if she's like Frannie was when she was sixteen..."

"Frannie?" asked the dragon.

"Freddie's younger sister." Kerrass answered.

"Then she'll have gone off somewhere to cool off. Pass me that bottle of Rye and I'll go and talk to her."

"Vodka?" Kerrass' eyebrow rose as he passed the bottle over.

"Just a little bit. It used to make Frannie feel grown up so... Unless I miss my guess she won't have the stomach for much anyway."

"What do we do then?"

"I think that depends on her now, don't you?"

Neither of them answered me.

I went in search of a Princess.

I found her in her Parent's bedroom. She was knelt next to the body of the woman that I had assumed was once her mother. Her shoulders were shaking gently and I guessed that there were more tears. I found a floor board that creaked and stepped on it a few times before being discreet and waiting out of sight just outside the door.

"You can come in," she called after some time.

I approached slowly as she was still kneeling down. She had taken her impromptu veil off and knelt their now with her head uncovered. She had pulled her hair into a rough knot to keep it out of the way. She was beautiful to look at. To the point that I had to make a point of shutting that part of my brain down. More so than when she was just lying there. The life in her. The thoughts and the intelligence that I could see in her eyes and the animation in her face ran the danger of being intoxicating.

I wanted to protect her. I wanted to wrap a blanket round her and hold her close until all of her worries had gone away. It wasn't a physical desire but there was something there.

I also knew all the reasons that I couldn't do any of those things. It would be an intrusion, an assault and an unwanted one at that.

Instead I sat on the floor next to her and crossed my legs.

"You found me quickly." She said after a while.

"In truth I found you on my second attempt. I tried your bedroom first."

"Where would you have gone if I wasn't here?"

"Library next, followed by the chapel. Then I would have started on the servants quarters. I don't know which one was _your_ maid's but it would have been my next guess."

"You seem to know a lot about me."

"I know a bit. But if I'm honest it's less about knowing you than it is about knowing my little sister."

"Is that what I am to you? A little sister to be protected?"

I looked into her eyes. There was a deep hurt in there somewhere although I couldn't identify it.

"No." I said. "No you're not. You are the Princess Dorn and My friend and I came to wake you up. Now that you are awake I feel a certain measurement of responsibility to you."

She nodded unhappily.

"I would like," I went on carefully. "To offer my services as a friend. Your position is a little lofty for such as myself but..."

"I don't have many choices." She finished for me.

"I was going to say that even a poor man such as myself can dream."

"Your answer is more charming." She found a smile from somewhere.

I uncorked the bottle and offered it over. "This is Temerian Rye." I said. "Strong stuff."

She took a sniff and jerked her head back. "I'm not sure that my throat could handle that." She commented before taking a small swig and choking. "I see what you mean about "Strong stuff"." She passed the bottle back and I wiped it before taking a swig for myself.

"What do I do Frederick?"

I held up my hand.

"Much to my horror, my friends call me Freddie. You can use that if it makes you feel better."

She nodded.

"What should I do Freddie?"

"Are you asking for advice?"

"Not yet although that will come I suspect."

"What do you want to do?"

"I want to go back to bed. I want to return to sleep. I wish that I had never woken up to this awful place. I know that that is petty and ungrateful and petulant and childish but it's true nevertheless. I hate this world that I find myself in."

"It's not so bad." I heard myself say as I passed the bottle back, taking care to wipe it again. "But would you really go back."

She took a swig. The coughing was much less this time. "No. No I wouldn't. But I want to. I'm afraid." But I wouldn't go back. It was horrible there."

"DO you want to talk about it?"

She took another swig and passed the bottle back.

"Yes and no. The dreams and the nightmares are all too real."

"There were a centuries worth after all."

"A century. Yes. Sometimes I dreamt of a great sea with an island in the middle. I was the island. Sometimes I would dream about flying."

"A friend of mine at the university once told me that dreams of flying are actually dreams about having sex."

"Really?" She took the bottle off me again. "What was I dreaming about when I was dreaming about having sex then?"

My face must have reddened then and she laughed.

"I'm sixteen, I'm not a nun." She said but then she saddened. "Nor am I virgin anymore I suppose."

We sat in silence for a while as she let that thought sink in.

"Did you know what was happening?"

"Oh yes. On some level at the very least. I knew your full name and who you were. Your Witcher companion is familiar to me and I am aware that I have him to thank for the fact that I woke up in a dress to hide my modesty rather than just covered by a blanket or out on display for anyone to come and look at which is what some of my other visitors would have done. One some level or another I can remember the many attacks, molestations and the terrible rage that I felt. I can even remember, I think, giving birth. I had a look earlier and I can't find any stretch marks or scarring though."

I didn't have anything to say to that and hid my embarrassment behind taking another drink.

"So yes I knew. Or rather I think I knew. It was awful but at the same time it was...I knew that I was asleep. I was warm, safe and unhurt in my little bubble of sleepy warmth. I was...aware that... Oh I don't know what I'm talking about. But it hurt waking up. The sheer physical sensation of it."

"It's ok." I said quietly. "You don't need to talk it all through now."

She nodded gratefully.

"So I have children?" she asked after another pause.

"You do, or rather I should say you did. Would you like to know?"

"Yes please." A simple comment. Others might have nodded but she seemed to want to articulate things. I was prepared and got out my notebook.

"The factor that brought Kerrass into your life produced a pair of twins. A boy and a girl. They were briefly used as pawns in an internal power struggle in a neighbouring Kingdom. Kerrass can tell you more about that when you feel up to it. I have notes and will write them up eventually but in the meantime...The side that had ...used your children, failed and the children were taken north and given into the protection of the Northern Emperor of Nilfgaard. A man named Torres. Torres was an ambitious man and was bringing his empire south. The boy died of an illness when he was six. I intend to look into that when I get out of here and have more access to some other sources but in the meantime..."

I shrugged. I couldn't tell if she was listening or not. She just knelt there.

"Your daughter was married off to one of the Emperors nephews. Which was used as a claim over the Neighbouring Kingdom and the nobles there that had ordered your assault. She was named Queen of that territory when she was twelve. Four years later she gave birth to a son but was badly weakened by the experience. She had two more children before the local doctors told her that any more would kill her. She eventually died of a chill in her forty second year after several long years of weakness in the winter months."

"So I have Grandchildren."

"Oh yes. They keep extensive records in the village amongst your people..."

I said the line deliberately as I thought it was time to remind her that she was a Princess. She stiffened.

"But those Grand children have now also died. You have, by my count, about half a dozen Great Grandchildren and four Great Great Grandchildren. From that line."

I saw her rub at her temples, "From that line? There are more."

"I'm afraid so. Once someone has had an idea, all it does is prove that someone else will have a similar idea again. On two more occasions have people come to you and sired children by you. You produced another son who is now an ageing, four or five times your age, Duke to the Southwest with children and Grandchildren of his own. I understand he was a warlord when he was younger and fought many battles for Nilfgaard and now rules a part of it in the local client Kings name. He is generally regarded as a good man although I doubt he even knows your name or that he is even your son.

"You also had two daughters. Both were prized for their beauty and their intelligence but the feeling I get from these notes is that the people who...sired them on you were hoping for sons. They were used in political marriages and notes on them are few. Both are known to be dead however."

She nodded. "I don't know how to feel about that."

I nodded and offered her the bottle back which she declined.

"If I were a more qualified advisor, Highness, I would advise you to put these men and women from your mind. I very much doubt that any of them think of you and now that you are awake, they might even become enemies of yours."

"I had thoughts on that matter myself." She sighed. "I wish I could believe that the world was kinder than that but if it was then I very probably wouldn't be alive."

"I cannot answer to that." I saw her purse her lips in thought.

I waited for a bit longer. If she was anyone else, I would have expected an explosion of tears and hysterics by now. I was honestly surprised that that hadn't happened and if anyone deserved to feel like that then it was this person here.

"Is this my mother?" she asked me. "Yes I am aware of _that woman_ downstairs but was this person my mother?"

"I think so." she was looking at the body that was lying in a corner.

"It's all so overwhelming. I should scream and shout. I want to but I can't seem to... Talk to me a little more. I take it that it was you that figured out how to break the curse?"

"It was."

"From what I've been told, Witchers are experts in that kind of thing. Why did he not manage it before?"

"I think that he was too close to the problem. Like everyone else who has ever tried to lift the curse they think that it was you that was cursed. They thought that all the hatred was aimed at you. So when they tried to lift the curse _on you_ , they failed. For what it's worth, Your Biological mother was trying to undo the curse in the same way."

"So it was my Father that she cursed?"

"Yes."

"I remember. There's so much that I remember that I wasn't part of. I remember your conversation and so I know that she's my mother and I know what happened and why but..." I thought I saw the beginnings of tears then but then they were swallowed with what looked like a gulp made completely out of willpower. "I won't say that she wasn't hard done to. She was."

She laughed suddenly, a bright and brittle laugh. "It is strange to realise that my father was an idiot."

I chuckled as well. "One day, I will tell you about my family and what a colossal fuck up that was."

She smiled at me again before her eyes went back into the middle distance.

"I am angry at her," she seemed to decide. "My biological mother I mean. She could have told them what the original answer was, she could have let go of her hate. There were so many other things that she could have done but she chose to curse us all for it. The blame is not solely hers. A good chunk of it, but not all of it."

"What are you going to do?"

"With her? I'm going to need to figure out what I'm going to call her for a start. Queen Leah was my mother. She bandaged my hurts and taught me how to _be._ I cannot take that away from her and I also cannot deny that she was my mother. I loved her dearly. But I also need to know more about my heritage though. I will talk to her. I am too angry at the moment but I will talk to her."

"May I speak honestly?"

"Please."

"If I were in your position I would be screaming, shouting and throwing things."

She smiled slightly, that small little sad smile that threatened to bring _me_ to tears, let alone her. This woman was spellbinding. If she is allowed to mature and gain a bit of confidence then poets will be writing about her for centuries to come.

"Would it help?" She asked. "I know that the world has moved on. The political and royal landscape has changed so much. I have people that will rely on me. More people will seek to use me when they realise that I am awake. It is all so overwhelming and at the same time... Everything hurts. My skin feels like it's on fire, my throat is sore, my head is throbbing and little sounds come to me like huge crashes of metal. Everything in my body and mind is screaming at me to just shut down but I know that I can't. I worry that if I did that, I might go mad."

She had started to head towards the hysterics that I had expected towards the end but again, with another supreme act of self-control she brought herself back from the brink.

"We should also talk about Kerrass." She said after a while. "Is he really going to offer me his head?"

"Yes," I said. "I think there is even a significant part of him that wants you to take it."

She shook her head in disbelief.

"What a world to wake up to." I don't know if she meant me to hear that or not as it was said quietly.

"Should I take it?" She asked.

"It's not for me to say. I would say that I don't want you to take it but I am too close to the matter. Kerrass is my friend. One of the best I've had in my memory.

"Is he a good man?"

"Again that's not for me to say. I think that if you asked him that question he would say that he is not a good man. He would say that he has done too much, seen too much to be a good man. Not least of which is those events that brought him into your sphere of influence."

"Did he... Did he rape me?"

"No. He hates himself because he did nothing to stop those men that did. He is aware of the other factors. He knows that if he _had_ drawn his sword in an effort to do something then he would have died and you would still have been raped but that is no real consolation to him. He blames himself."

She sighed and nodded.

"I don't know what to do Freddie," She looked at me then. I saw tears standing in her eyes ready to fall and again, the look of the woman. I wanted to hold her and tell her that everything was going to be alright but sitting there and then, nothing would have helped and I had no right to do any of that. "I've been trained to be the heir to my Father's throne since before I could walk. I know about politics and war, economics, trade and bargaining. I know heraldry etiquette and how to properly gather a persons loyalty to myself but now that I'm here, I don't know what to do. I don't even know if I'm really a Princess any more, let alone a Queen. I know enough, I've heard enough that I know that there is another Empire, a nation that rules over my lands. I know that my people, such as they are, owe their fealty to that crown as well as to me. What do I do with that? What can I do with that?"

She did weep then, but only a little and she soon managed to swallow that feeling back down her throat.

"Goddess but I hate this. I feel so weak. What do I do Frederick?"

"This is going back into the direction of me advising you again Highness."

"The advise me."

I nodded and did my best to martial my thoughts, the same as I would have done when standing before my tutors.

"Sooner or later you are going to have to leave this place." I said after a while. The curse is lifted, so by now the people on the outskirts will know that the curse is broken and that you are awake. That change is going to be profound to them."

"You know of those effects?"

"I do. So then it is the branching set of decisions. Do you stay with them and do your best to help them and help yourself to rebuild your Kingdom. You are not poor although it might seem that way. We have recovered trade agreements in your name and you are not poor. That's disregarding the mines and quarries that are presumably still workable on your lands. So you do have money. That is the first choice."

She nodded.

"Or you could vanish. Disappear. Either your birth mother or Kerrass would happily help you with that option. Life might be hard and I dare-say that life would be much different from the one you are used to, a hundred years of sleep not withstanding. But it could be done. Find a nice cottage somewhere and live out the rest of your life away from anything and away from history. That is the second choice."

She nodded and gestured for the bottle.

"Would you help me Frederick?"

"I will do my best to help you no matter what you choose to do. As I said, I helped wake you up. It would be... disgraceful and disrespectful of me to do all of that and then just wash my hands of the entire affair."

She nodded and took a small sip from the bottle. No longer swigging I noticed.

"The second choice is attractive, it really is. Running out on everything is something that I would like. I am not ready to take control of my country, even though the number of people that live here are less than a hundred people. I'm not ready for that."

"Is anyone. Is anyone ever ready for that?"

"You are not wrong and your point is well made. The second choice is attractive to me but at the same time, I fear that there would be a lot of guilt tied up in that choice. I would hunt for the news of my people and my country. I would look at whatever and whoever chose or was chosen to govern these lands and think "Could I have done better?" I think that I'm going to take Option one."

I felt myself relax a little.

"I can help you in more directions in this way. Your problems are that you need wealth and friends at court. Yes, in theory you and your realm are very rich but that is going to make you a tempting target to many noblemen and the like. They will want to swoop in, seduce and charm you into marriage and then take you and your Kingdom for everything it's worth."

"How do I get round that?"

She looked so fragile. I don't know what it cost her to keep herself rigidly still and calm like that but found that I didn't want to be there when the dam did eventually burst.

"Well, in many ways you are lucky. If you had woken up five years ago then the Empire whose borders you fall within were at war with the north. You would have woken up and the Emperor would have you married off to someone, possibly even himself. Then your country would have been stripped of wealth and those funds would have gone over to the war effort. As it is though, the war is over. The Emperor is stepping down from the throne for, and I quote, "Reasons of state" in favour of his daughter.

"The very fact that there is going to be an Empress on the throne rather than an Emperor is going to count in your favour."

"Unless she chooses to be harsh towards me in order to demonstrate her even handedness."

"That is a risk but one way or another, to be recognised as the head of this state, on any kind of level, you are going to need to go to court and speak to the Empress. Your country has been a small fraction of a small percentage of imperial revenue for so long that the prospects of having a country to tax again, might upset the apple-cart but it might upset things in your favour."

The Princess nodded. "It does seem that I rather have no choice.

"So we need to do two things. We need to get things moving on calling up all of your old mercantile efforts. Some of which will have gone under, some of which might refuse to recognise your claim, some you might need to take to court but some might end up paying out. The other thing that we need to do is to have you introduced to the Empress."

"How do we do those things?"

"Well. As it turns out, you see I have this sister." I grinned at her. "You'll like her."

I explained about Emma's mercantile prowess and about how much influence she had on the flow of trade.

"My sister can stretch a copper further than anyone else I know." I finished up.

"And how will this help me with getting introduced at court."

"Well, I also have this friend."

A small light went off behind my eyes and I caught my mouth smiling. "In fact, all things being considered I should have asked for her help some time ago."

"Who's that?"

"Madame Ariadne, Comtesse de Angral."

"Should I know the name?"

"I doubt it. Although you and she have a lot in common. She was also woken up to a world that she didn't recognise. But she is a Countess now. Her rank has been ratified by the Imperial throne and I have no doubt that she can get you some time with the Empress and impress upon her the benefits of helping you out. She is also a Sorceress, is known to be a Sorceress and can therefore teleport you around so that we can get a head start on any potential enemies that might want to get the drop on you."

"What is this woman to you?"

"She's my..." How to explain this. "In all likelihood, the two of us are going to be married."

The Princess looked at me with far too searching an expression. "I see." She said. "Not that I'm complaining or anything but this does put me in a position of depending on you and yours a little more than I probably should."

"It does Your Highness. Indeed it does. But at the same time, the offer of help is there. Ariadne can also do that thing which I cannot."

"Which is?"

"She can be your friend."

The Princess nodded.

"You also need to think about what you're going to do about the two people downstairs."

The Princess nodded.

"How long is it going to take you to set this up?"

"I think Ariadne will take great delight in showing up sooner than either of us expect."

I took out my pendant, the one that I had kept round my neck for so long that Ariadne had given me when we had last seen each other. The one that I was so used to now that I barely noticed it. I held it in both hands and called out her name. The Amulet that I should have remembered about a long time ago.

I felt her presence in the back of my mind almost immediately. I don't know why but I feel sure that she was smiling.

"Can I help?" She asked.

"I think you can."

"Then I shall be there directly."

Five minutes later and there was a flash. There she was, dressed in the same, off white travelling dress, trousers and boots underneath a skirt. She also had a travelling satchel over her shoulder. Her hair was tied back in a long plait. I will not deny that I felt my heart give a little flutter when I saw her. As always, she looked beautiful.

I stood to greet her while the Princess didn't move and gave Ariadne an opportunity to examine me from head to toe with an unblinking, slightly off-putting gaze.

"You haven't been taking proper care of yourself again," she accused with just the slightest hint of a smile.

"It's what happens when you get attacked by a dragon."

"I should have known that the pair of you would get into trouble. Also, why didn't you call me sooner?"

"Would you believe me if I said that it honestly never occurred to me?"

She gazed at me for a long time. "I would I think, although I am a little saddened by it."

A thought occurred to me. "Did you know what this place was when Kerrass told you where we were going?"

"I knew a little. I must admit to a little worry when I found out that there was a Dragon here though. You have done well between you, for better or worse."

"That wasn't what I was talking about."

"I know. Don't worry about it Freddie. We can talk about it later if you like but there is nothing to worry about from your end, or anyone else's end for that matter. You have done well here and I can see, just by looking at you that the problem, plus the excursion and the other aspects of things has done you an incredible amount of good. Now, what can I do?

"I need your help."

"You as the singular?" Her eyes went over my shoulder to look at the still kneeling Princess. "Or you as the plural?"

"Probably the plural but it is me that is asking."

"I see. Then I shall certainly endeavour to give what aid I can."

"I owe you one."

She cocked her head onto one side. "No, I still think that this would leave me in your debt. Maybe a little less but in this, I take no charges. That's how the world improves is it not? We help each other out of tricky situations?"

"That is a nice thought."

"Then why don't you tell me how I can help."

I briefly explained the situation and laid out my concerns.

She listened, unmoving.

"I see. Yes, we need to get her in to see the Empress as soon as possible. We also need to help and support her through the coming weeks and months. Believe me when I say, waking up to a world that is not your own is a... heart rending experience."

"You seem to be Ok."

"I had some very good friends who supported me through those early days. And then I made some more good friends. She will need friends and people who she can be close to. It is made more difficult by the fact that she is now a Queen and her circle of friendship will need to be... select."

"Can you help?"

"I think so."

I stared at her for a long moment.

"It is good to see you Ariadne."

Her eyes searched my face for a moment. Although I still couldn't tell what she was thinking.

"It is good to see you too Freddie. Now why don't you introduce us."

I nodded and led her towards where the Princess was still kneeling. I heard Ariadne deposit her bag on the floor.

"Princess Dorn?" I enquired.

The Princess levered herself to her feet and turned around. She moved stiffly, the way I imagined that I moved after a hard bout of practice with Kerrass.

"Princess Dorn it is my honour and privilege to present Madame Ariadne, Comtesse de Angral. Madame Comtesse, this is the Princess Dorn."

I bowed and took a step back to clear the room between the two women.

Ariadne curtsied as formally as you could imagine and sank much lower than I had previously thought possible to do in skirts and with, you know, legs.

The Princess mirrored the curtsey, but only to a slight degree.

"Madame Comtesse," she said.

I should mention that we were still speaking in Elven.

Ariadne gazed at the Princess for a long time.

"Oh my dear," she said. "Oh sweetheart." There was such feeling in those words, such depth of sympathy and caring that it all but took my breath away. Ariadne held her arms wide and the Princess flew into that embrace.

It would seem that that was what would cause the Princesses barriers to come down and for the torrent of pain and anguish to begin to come tumbling out. She buried her head into Ariadne's chest and just bawled for everything she was worth.

I dare say that she deserved every tear that she shed and more.

I caught Ariadne's eye, and she gestured towards the door.

"Main hall," I mouthed at her and she nodded.

I left the two women alone and fled.

I returned to the main hall. Kerrass had brought our belongings up from the Kitchens and was setting up a more permanent camp. I don't know if he expected us to be spending any more time here but it was more done as though he just needed something to do.

Malevolence was pacing off in the corner of the room.

The feeling in the air was almost exactly the same as those feelings you get when you have caught someone doing something that they shouldn't.

They saw me almost at the same time.

"Where is she?" demanded Malevolence, "and who was that that just gated into the palace hmm?"

I held my hands up placatingly. "Why don't we all just calm down?" I attempted.

"Fuck that," she yelled in my face. "You go off, in an effort to calm down my daughter in a ruined and rickety castle and then you leave her in the presence of some strange Sorceress. Give me one good reason why I shouldn't go up there and roast whoever it was that turned up."

"I might like to see that," Kerrass commented from his vantage point by the fire.

"You can fuck off and all." Malevolence hissed at him. "Stupid Witcher with your stupid codes and things. Letting people come in and rape my daughter."

I took the opportunity to dodge round the angry Dragon-woman and make my way to the fire.

"I might have let them do those things," Kerrass commented mildly. "But then I hunted them down and killed them. Both them and the people responsible. I cut them down or they died accordingly. I also did the same for those men who came afterwards that assaulted your daughter. Any time I heard about them or the villagers got word to me that something had happened to your daughter again, I went and I killed them."

I now know what people mean when they say, "that took the wind out of their sails.

"I didn't know that," she said after a while.

"I am a Witcher madam." Kerrass said, "I kill monsters."

"Interesting." She stood in the corner frowning in thought for a moment.

"Who is it?" Kerrass asked me in the short gap when the Dragon wasn't yelling. "Ariadne?"

I nodded.

"Good choice."

"Yes, we really should have thought of her sooner. Like when we were thinking of jumping up and down while trying to attract the attention of a giant fire breathing dragon."

Kerrass smirked a little. "I made some food."

"Thank the flame for that. I'm starving." I served myself up a platter of some roasted meat, bread and cheese as well as a cup of broth and a dried apple.

"Oi," I yelled over to the woman in the corner. "Come and eat." I held the platter out as an offer.

"I don't want to eat with the likes of you."

"Suit yourself." I took a large bite of cheese before folding the bread and making a sandwich with the meat before making appreciative noises towards Kerrass, who was forced to turn away to hide a smile.

Eventually, and to no-one's surprise, malevolence came over and took a chair. I passed over the bread, cut her a chunk of cheese and some meat and gave her a cup of broth.

"How's she doing?" Kerrass asked.

"Much better than I would be doing if our situations were reversed." I said after swallowing my mouth full.

"She's going to need someone with her for a while and I would be willing to bet that the nightmare's that she's going to have are going to be something else altogether."

Kerrass stared into space for a moment. "Yes, I supposed they will."

"Who is this person that you summoned to help her?" Malevolence asked me through a mouthful of cheese and meat.

I exchanged glances with Kerrass.

"A friend," he said slowly. "She's had something similar happen to her recently and so will be able to give a different insight into what's going through the Princesses mind."

"Oh?"

"She was imprisoned." I said. "Against her will."

"Have you left my daughter with a criminal?"

"Criminality is sometimes in the eye of the beholder. For instance, aren't you the woman who cast a spell that caused an entire country to fall asleep and die of malnutrition while under the influence of your spell?"

"They call that genocide in some parts of the world." Kerrass commented, supporting my point.

Malevolence opened her mouth as if to argue before snapping it shut and taking a bite out of an apple. She was eating everything in the wrong order I noticed and her table manners were...lacking.

We sat in silence for a long time after that. I did my best to jot down some quick notes, but the truth was that time was dragging and none of us were really able to concentrate on what we were doing.

Darkness fell and I began to feel the pull of my bedroll. It had been a long day, talking to a dead King, fighting his guards and then trying to talk to a Dragon.

But then Kerrass' head jerked up. Just a fraction of a second before Ariadne and the Princess walked through the doorway at the entrance to the hall.

I stood up and bowed. There was nothing else to do.

Seeing the way I behaved, Kerrass followed suit.

The Princess was still wearing the woollen dress that Kerrass had brought with him in his packs, but now, her hair fell long and lustrously down the Princesses back. There was a simple golden pendant around her neck and her hair was held back with a small, thin Golden band that, if you looked at it in a certain light, might look like a crown. There was a red jewel at the front of the crown and in the necklace itself. Her eyes were bright and her carriage was suddenly that of a Queen. I have yet to meet the Empress Cirilla but I have met King Radovid as he "inspected" the Quartermasters offices. We followed Radovid because he was our King, but in truth, I thought he looked rather small. I might be remembering him badly because of everything that he did, or had done, but he looked small and kind of weaselly. He was undoubtedly a clever man, more than gifted in the field of tactics and political science but if you put him next to this girl, this... Queen, then I don't think anyone would have even looked at him.

Ariadne wore no expression. But I swear, I swear by the holy flame and the prophet that she was radiating smugness at the reaction that she had managed to illicit.

The two of them approached and it was going so well until Malevolence looked at Ariadne. There was a long moment where they stared at each other. I was reminded of two cats meeting each other for the first time.

The Princess gestured that the two of us rise up and when we did as we were bid, I noticed that the Princess had a small amount of make-up on. It suited her.

"Your friend ran me a bath," she whispered to me with just the hint of a girlish giggle.

"Was it good?"

"It was glorious." The Princess shut her eyes at the remembered luxury. "We had to change the water several times as I was filthy."

I smiled.

I think it was that moment that I decided that she might have difficulty, but that the Princess was going to be alright in the end.

Further conversation was impossible though because that was when Malevolence started to speak.

"Do I know you?" The Dragon asked.

Ariadne frowned before a light went on behind her eyes.

"Draig?" she whispered. "By the force of magic that governs the world Draig it is you." she spoke louder with delight and pointed at herself. "It's Królowa pająk,"

Malevolence's eyes widened.

"No," she breathed. "It can't be. You died."

Ariadne was nodding, plainly delighted. "No, I was imprisoned. A bunch of people managed to find a magic user and caught me by surprise."

Malevolence's mouth hung open. "We all thought, you were...How did you?"

She spun on me and her eyes narrowed, "I knew you looked familiar," before she spun back to Ariadne "It is you. I thought you were dead."

The two women embraced, laughing, shouting and giggling.

"Close your mouth Freddie," Kerrass muttered although he was clearly just as stunned as I was.

The Princess was helping herself to some of the leftovers.

Still laughing and wiping a suspicious tear from her cheek Malevolence pulled away. "I'm so sorry, I heard you'd died. I even tried to avenge you but I couldn't find out what had happened."

Ariadne was still giggling. "You remember that thing with that Necromancer where Enid lost her temper?"

"Yes?"

"I got back home after that and the locals had hired a mage to lock me up in my tower."

"How did you get out?"

"Freddie and Kerrass of course."

Another mood quickly flashed across the Dragon's face. "If I'd known Królowa, I swear I would have rescued you."

"I know, and it's Ariadne now."

"How did you get that name?"

"Freddie gave it to me. It seemed to fit."

"Oh it's so good to see you. I thought all of the old guard had died. I haven't felt anyone's presence for well over seventy years."

"The world changed when we weren't looking at it Draig."

"Didn't it just. When did you get out?"

"A little over a year ago now. I've been getting to know the world that we live in now and all the changes that have come with it."

"Is it much different to how you left it?"

"Very."

I sat back down and put some more water onto boil.

Kerrass sat bemused as we watched a dragon and a vampire catch up like two old friends.

"For a start, magic is completely different." Ariadne went on. "Not in the flows of force but the way that people think about it. I seem to have missed the best years of magical discovery and invention. I hear about the council of mages and more recently, the Lodge of Sorceresses and think to myself. I could have been part of that."

"I missed a lot of it too," Malevolence answered. "I've been guarding this little corner of the world for a long time now. How are things going? Are any of the old guard still around?"

"Enid is still around. She and Ida are members of the newly reformed lodge of Sorceresses. They haven't changed at all. So much so that they must have worked at it to change as little as they have. When you meet them it's like they've gone backwards in some ways."

"Well, that's elves for you."

"I don't think you'll know any of the others. The oldest is, I think, around the hundred and fifty year mark and she is utterly lacking in any kind of ambition. I'll introduce you. You'll hate them, it'll be fantastic."

"And just like old times," Malevolence cackled. "Are any of them worthwhile?"

"Oh, all of them have their own qualities. They strike me that, individually they are relatively good and clever people. But as a whole they've made some costly errors. They had a naked ambition which set them against some powerful people before they were really ready for it. As a result, they lost many of their number in the earlier years of the Lodge's existence to assassins and royal whims."

"Careless of them."

"I thought so. They will either learn or not."

"Are you a member."

"No. I've had conversations with a couple of them that rather suggest that they are sounding me out about joining but I've been determinedly non-committal. There is an interesting power-play at the moment in the Lodge."

"Oh?"

I should mention that Kerrass and I were rapt. Listening to this conversation was fascinating. While this all went on we made a more substantial evening meal between us and handed it out to the other three women.

The Princess was plainly exhausted so we made her a bed of cushions up in a corner. We agreed with unspoken words, that we would set a watch over her during the night in case she woke up and needed reminding that she was back in the real world. She ate and crawled into the blankets that we had set aside for her and just passed out.

"Yes," Ariadne went on. "The Lodge seems to have been the brainchild of a women called Phillipa Eilhart who was advising a Northern King during the war with the recent war with the south. Long story short, her side lost but not before she was put considerably out of favour by the King in question. So she was left adrift and a fugitive. The King persecuted a lot of the mages and Sorceresses so they fled, under the guidance of a member called Triss Merigold. I've met the woman twice and she has that look of someone who has had to grow up awfully quickly. She certainly seems very different from what I had been led to believe from reading about her in the various histories."

"Go on."

"Well, The King was persecuting the magic users and so the erstwhile Miss Merigold led them all North to Kovir. So without really trying, she has gathered quite a lot of influence amongst the magical community. She is not interested in leading the lodge though as she is too busy getting the magical folks settled and making sure that they don't abuse the hospitality of the people that give them shelter.

"Then there is the matter of the soon to be crowned Empress, who is also a member of the lodge by the way. She regards another woman, one Yennefer of Vengerberg, as a mother figure. Yennefer did many things to annoy and anger Miss Eilhart during the war. But to hear it, those things were done in the best interests of her daughter, the Empress."

"I think I might need to take notes." Malevolence said with no small amount of glee.

"The Empress and her activities are worth an entire books worth of conversations as it is. But, Yennefer has done her best to retire from politics and lives with her all-but-husband in a quiet way in Toussaint, a duchey to the North of here. However the Empress still relies on Madame Yennefer for advice on an almost constant basis. Much to the annoyance of Madame Eilhart."

"I see."

"I'm told, by reliable sources that when she is summoned by her daughter to council meetings. Madame Yennefer simply sits in the back of the room, with a book on something that she's studying at that moment and a notepad, while smiling sweetly at whoever the Empress is meeting with at the time."

The dragon cackled.

"Yes, I thought you'd like that." Ariadne went on. "This gives Madame Yennefer, more than a little bit of power within the Lodge, even though, as far as I can tell, she uses none of it. She is also close friends with Miss Merigold."

"The woman from the north."

"The very one."

"So Madame Eilhart keeps trying to advise the Empress, who listens carefully before turning to Madame Yennefer for confirmation. All the while, the vast majority of the magic users defer to Miss Merigold who has no interest at all in running the Lodge. Have I got that right?"

"Pretty much."

"Oh that sounds like so much fun."

"I thought you'd like it."

"What's this Empress like? Apparently she's a sorceress in her own right as well as being ruler over the majority of the continent?"

Ariadne took a deep breath.

"The Empress is... The Empress is the Empress." Ariadne frowned for a moment in thought, "We were adversaries once yes?"

"Yes."

"Would it be fair to say that I had the technique whereas you had the raw power?"

The dragon mused for a while.

"I would say that's a fair assessment. I would have had to catch you unawares but you were always suspicious. That was what made our rivalry so much fun."

Ariadne's smile was predatory.

"I remember." Her face straightened. "The other women in the Lodge run the gamut of power and technique. In many ways their understanding is greater than ours ever was and the raw power in someone like Madam Yennefer is terrifying and she tells stories of mages that dwarf her power. I'm not saying that I couldn't take them but I would be pressed. You see what I'm saying?"

Malevolence nodded. "I'm going to have to reassess my thinking about them."

"That is a good thought. I certainly had to. Now put that image in your mind. You done that?"

"Yes."

"The Empress, terrifies me."

"What? You're joking right?"

"Look at me Draig. This is not a joke. The Empress is a terrifying woman. She looks like a woman barely out of her teens. She's athletic, beautiful, charming and fiercely intelligent. But she understands the universe in a way that no-one else does."

Ariadne scratched her head.

"I've seen Enid once since being released. She calls the Empress "The Lady of time and space.""

"That's a hell of a title."

"It is. I've seen the Empress teleport, without a gate, to a place of her choosing at will and at the speed of thought. She talks about other worlds as though she's visited them and says that she can go back there at will. I believe her. She talks about things like "Quantum theory," "Molecular structure" and "the non-linear nature of time" in the same way that you or I would talk about the elements of force needed to create a fireball."

The dragons mouth hung open.

"There was a courtier there, the last time I was at court. He was talking down to the Empress, largely because she was female and had the temerity to talk back to him."

Malevolence snorted.

"The Empress frowned at him and he started to age, visibly before our eyes. Madame Yennefer was there at the time as the Empress had requested her presence on some matter and Yennefer cleared her throat noisily. The Empress blinked a couple of times and the man returned to normal. He apologised for the insult and fled."

"My word."

"Exactly."

Kerrass had bunked down for the night by this point and I was writing in my note-book. Or rather I was pretending to write in my note-book. This modern discourse on the politics of the day was far too fascinating for my ears. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that Malevolence had turned her head towards me.

"I like your human by the way." She said to Ariadne.

I very carefully, and very deliberately, said nothing.

"He's not _my_ human. Which is part of the point." Ariadne responded.

"Oh please." Malevolence commented. "He's clearly besotted with you. I would take him for myself if he wasn't so clearly in love with a certain vampire sat not so very far away from where I sit at the moment."

"Such matters are still being worked out. At the moment I am turning all my energies towards living with the other humans around the place and I am grateful to both of them, the Witcher as well, for the opportunity to do so."

Malevolence snorted but their conversation got quieter after that. From what little bits I could make out, they were reminiscing about old times using names and terms that I didn't recognise. Presumably from before the pontar delta had been settled.

The Princess hadn't during the night although I had checked a few times to make sure that she was ok. A horrible thought had struck me at about midnight when it suddenly occurred to me that the Princess might have decided that the entire thing might have been too much and have taken a blade to herself in an effort to end it all. Fortunately though, she seemed fast asleep. Malevolence had vanished somewhere on business of her own although Ariadne reassured me that the Dragon would be back in the morning. I talked to her about my concern but she reassure me, telling me that the thought had occurred but that the Princess was too locked into her sense of duty to do anything serious towards an effort of self harming.

I commented that the Princess was doing well.

Ariadne agreed.

"She knows everything Frederick." She said, looking at me with huge, dilated pupils in the very centre of her eyes. The irises a very pale blue. I didn't remember noticing her eye colour before. I've since found out that it changes according to her mood from a very pale blue down to a deep and dark, almost purple colour when she is angry. Green when she is sad although it seems to vary. I once told her that I intend to keep notes on the status of her eyes and what they might mean. She laughed and said that she would have to remember that so that she could purposefully mess with the scale.

"She knows and remembers everything that happened in the hundred and twenty years that she's been asleep. When her eyes were open she could see through them. But even when they were closed, she could still hear. She still knew what was happening to her. She said it was like she was a prisoner inside her own skull, watching what happened to her body."

"Holy Flame."

"She recognised your voice as being a recent thing. She knows and can recall with perfect clarity every conversation that Kerrass has ever had with her. Apparently he is the only one who actually talked to her rather than talking around her. I think she loves him a little even though she is perfectly aware that she can't _love_ him."

"So she knew everything that happened."

"Yes. If I had been here sooner I would have looked at the curse. Oh don't worry, I'm not angry. Certainly not with you. I'm furious at this Merryweather woman and Draig deserves more than a small amount of the blame to be sure. Because it was a curse of knowledge, the idea being that everyone would know what had happened between Stefan and Draig. And because it was centred on and _through_ her. It meant that she was linked to everyone in the Kingdom. Everyone that has ever come through this Kingdom, she has been aware of them. That knowledge has become a two way street.

"I'm not sure I understand."

"Neither do I. I suspect I could write a book on the subject and I still wouldn't understand. When you were in the outskirts of the Kingdom, you were affected by her mood. By her outlook on life and by her dreams. This was because the entirety of the Kingdom was supposed to understand what had happened beginning with her. Their knowledge was the knowledge that they received from the Princess. Because that was changed towards sleep, it also meant that they dreamt what the princess dreamt, they felt what the Princess felt."

"So when the Princess was angry, they were angry. When the Princess was having a nightmare, or being hormonal. Everyone was having a nightmare or being hormonal."

"Precisely. Everyone concerned should fall on their knees, from morning till dusk and worship whichever Gods or Goddesses that they pray to that it was this girl that was cursed. Not some tyrant, or the kind of girl that delights in cruelty. The other problem is that those thoughts and feelings went both ways. She knew to trust _you_ because the villagers like and trust you. You were kind to your "companion" which is unusual enough to be noted by them and therefore it was unusual enough to be noticed by her."

I spent a long time looking over at the Princess where she slept.

"Is she going to be alright?"

"No. No she's not. Or at least, not in the ways that we think of as being "alright" We'll know more in the morning of course. A night of proper sleep will either give her strength or strip it away from her. But whatever happens, she is going to need help of one kind or another for the rest of her days. I expect there will be many days when she thrives on the challenges that life gives her. But likewise there will be some days when she looks around herself and sees nothing and no-one that she recognises and there lies the potential for the blackest kinds of depression."

"I'm sorry to have laid this on you."

"Don't be. You were right in thinking that the two of us have a lot in common. But vampires are supposed to go without company for years, or even centuries at a time. It's almost as though we were designed to that end. Humans though? Humans are social creatures. It's a rare human that can live without contact for years at a time. Let alone a hundred and twenty, while also watching your body being beaten and abused."

"I should have got here sooner."

"No Freddie, she should never have been cursed in the first place. The damage was done, long before your Grandfather was even born. The hope is that she takes the help where it's offered and learns to be able to choose the honest well wishers from those who want to take advantage of her. I might be wrong of course. She is at least, part dragon. That might fortify her mind more than I have guessed. But she will not be alone. I have some thoughts in that direction already. I'm pretty confident that the Empress will look after her. The Empress is not so jaded yet that she won't recognise a need for kindness, pity and support. With a gentle prod, I expect that the Princess will be looked after and supported with what needs to be done to rebuild her Kingdom."

"Good, I'm glad of that. I was rather worried that I had been cruel to her, to wake her up."

"No, the cruelty would have been to leave her there. In the grip of whatever curse has bound her for so long. At the mercy of whatever and whoever came by. Now she has agency of her own and can act. However she sees fit."

I nodded. "I'm glad you came."

She smiled. "Of course I came. For you, I will always come."

She laid a hand on my arm.

I shivered.

I tried not to. I didn't meant to. I was aware that there was the potential for physical contact and I thought I had been prepared. I don't even know what kind of shiver it was.

But I shivered and as I looked at her, her mask was back in place. Plain, beautiful features showing polite interest, a little concern, just a hint of amusement at the world but otherwise there was no sign of change. Her eye colour had deepened a little, maybe a shade or two but I might have been imagining things in the candlelight.

"I'm sorry." I said.

"No, I'm sorry. You've had a rough few days. You should get some sleep."

I stood up and moved away a little to take the good advice, but I turned and looked at her. She had picked up her book and was in the process of removing a bookmark.

"I really am sorry."

"I know Freddie," She smiled. I couldn't tell if it was a genuine smile or whether it was there for my benefit. "Get some rest."

I did as I was told.

The morning found me feeling stiff and uncomfortable. Not really surprising given everything that had happened the previous day. Kerrass kicked me awake with his boot, a gentler act than is probably envisioned, and we set about packing up the camp. We seemed to be packing up. I looked over at where the Princess had been sleeping and she wasn't there. I raised my eyebrows at Kerrass who shrugged. Ariadne was also missing. Malevolence was pacing, looking as though she was working herself up into a proper fit of temper. I ate some leftover boar meat and washed it down with some well watered wine while at the same time noticing that we were just about at the end of our supplies.

We had the bags tied up and stacked. I went down to the Kitchen where I wasted a small chunk of my life getting the donkey up the stairs to the main hall where we tied a lot of the empty sacks to him. He bore this with only a little bit of a protest, baring his teeth at me a couple of times. Then we settled down to wait.

Malevolence's temper was not improving.

"Where the hell has she taken her?" was the first thing that she said to me when I coaxed the donkey through the arch-way into the main hall.

"By she, you mean Ariadne, and by "her" you mean the Princess?" I still struggled to refer to the Princess Dorn as anything other than "The Princess." I found that I struggled to think of her in any other way than "The Princess", even if she marries and eventually becomes Queen. Or runs off with Kerrass or one of the many, many men that will be drawn to her beauty, then she will still remain "The Princess" to my mind.

"Yes of course I do. Who else would I mean?"

"It's important to check these things." I said as Kerrass and I started to tie our belongings about the poor much put upon beast of burden.

"Have a care, you forget who you are speaking to."

"I think it would be impossible to forget who he is talking to." came a voice. It was cold, hard and utterly unbending. The Princess had come back. She looked better, still tired and haunted but she looked better. I knelt. It seemed like the right thing to do and I was dimly aware of Kerrass following my example behind me. " _I_ will never forget who you are." The Princess snapped at her mother. "The Dragon Sorceress that cursed a nation." There was anger in her voice. A terrible rage that hinted at a huge and buried well of feeling.

"I..." Began Malevolence."

"Be silent, I will come to you shortly."

I had forgotten, we all had I suppose. Sixteen she might be. The original damsel in distress, she might have been. But she had been trained to be a Queen and her aura of command was absolute.

"Rise Frederick." I climbed to my feet and gazed at the Princess as she walked past me to stand on the dais where the royal throne mus have stood. I had looked for it at one point but Kerrass suggested that it would have been torn apart by looters in an effort to get to the riches that were contained within it. I was dimly aware that Ariadne took up a position in the background, but not on the dais.

"Lord Frederick." The Princess began. "We owe you thanks. Our Queenship and rule over these lands might only be a temporary thing. But while it exists we would have you know that we are endlessly grateful for your service to our nation. It is our understanding that you have rank and title elsewhere, also that your loyalty lies to a foreign crown. Know that if that were not the case then we would offer what title and land it was within our power to grant. Also such things would not be small. Alas we currently have no other way to show our gratitude but know that it is boundless. If you ever have anything that we might be able to help with, then send word and if it is within our power to grant, then it will be so."

I bowed. She gestured and I stepped aside to where Ariadne was standing.

"You gave her lessons?" I whispered.

"No, it's all her. She asked some advice but otherwise. It's all her."

The Princess stands at around 5ft 4in tall. She was dwarfed by both Malevolence and Kerrass, but she dominated the room.

But someone wasn't dominated.

"Are you done playing royalty?" Malevolence hissed. "This is neither the time or the place for such..."

"BE SILENT." Thundered the Princess, her voice echoing round the room. "You will be silent. We are not _playing_ at anything. What state this hall is in. What state this country is in does not matter. It is ours. We understand that the nation is a shadow of what it was. That we stand in real danger of being eaten up by our neighbours and that is a problem that we intend to deal with one way or the other but... We have also not forgotten that the reason that this is the case is BECAUSE OF YOUR ACTIONS."

"That's a..."

"DO NOT SPEAK YOUR TIRED EXCUSES TO ME." The Princesses voice was a thing of perfect tone and intonation. It only cracked a little through lack of use. I was watching her carefully though and the crack at the end was not due to emotion. "Our Father could have handled things better. Our Mother could have done things differently. But that is regardless of the point that you went into the situation willingly and with the knowledge of the circumstances and knowing what might happen. You forced your way into a banquet and CURSED OUR NATION. Every single death, every single corpse, every lost life in those hundred and twenty years since that curse lies at your feet.

"There are two reasons why I am not asking the Witcher to slay you. The first is that the mistake was unintentional. Yours was merely the first step towards disaster. But you could have decided not to take that step in the first place.

"The second reason is that you are our mother." I saw the Princess swallow. It was the first sign of her emotion. I looked sidelong at Ariadne who was watching the Princesses display with rapt attention and maybe, just maybe, a little pride. The swallow was perfectly timed. With just that hint of vulnerability, the Princess tamed the dragon. One day, I hope to ask the Princess whether that swallow was deliberate.

Malevolence bowed her head and sank to her knees before her daughter and wept.

The diminutive Princess stepped down to where her mother was kneeling.

"I am so angry with you mother. So very angry, but I find that I cannot hate you. I wanted to. I really did and I tried, so very hard during the night and most of this morning. But I cannot. Father treated you badly. They say that Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Well let that count double for a dragon-woman. I would also learn more about that side of my heritage. But not now."

The Princess lifted her mother to her feet before walking back to the dais.

"However we cannot call you Draig or whatever you called your self. We have heard others call you Malevolence but we cannot think of you like that either. If you would indulge us. We recall expressing a thought as to what it would be to be a dragon and to fly to the heavens. We wondered what that would be like and our other Mother, the Queen, said it would be Magnificent. So We will call you both together, Malevolence and Magnificent. We name you Maleficent. Does that suit?"

The newly named Maleficent rose up. I am confident that I was not imagining the pride on her face. "It will suit very well. My Queen."

"Good. We are also aware of the role you had to play in our awakening. Know that we are not ungrateful."

Maleficent bowed again. The Princess gestured and Maleficent joined Ariadne and I. The two women put their heads together and had a short, whispered conversation that I didn't hear. I was too busy watching Kerrass.

"Witcher Kerrass, rise and face us." The Princesses voice was warm. Kerrass did as he was told.

"Witcher Kerrass. Kerrass. We are aware of what you intend to do. You intend to call out to me your crimes. You intend to confess to every assault on our royal person and everything that you did not do to protect us. You intend to admit your complicity in those same crimes as well as the executions, murders and other dark deeds that you undertook in our name in the pursuit of justice and then you demand judgement for those same crimes."

Kerras said nothing. He didn't even move as the Princess stepped down off the dais.

"What you did was awful." She said. "I do not mean, standing by and allowing your then companions to... to assault our royal person. You had no choice then or you would have died yourself. But the actions afterwards? I cannot condone those actions. But nor can I condemn them. Who is to know what those same men would have done if left unchecked. In the perfect world that we all wish that we lived in, those same men would be brought to trial and justice could be achieved. But this is not a perfect world and the feudal system would have seen them go free.

"What you did was awful." She said again. "However, I also remember you coming to see me. The very fact that I stand here, dressed is down to you. Without you I would still be asleep. Without you, I would have been alone as I remembered your words to me while I slept. All of those times where you kept me company over long nights. Not assaulting or touching me. But caring for me as a friend. For that I am grateful and I find that I cannot condemn you either."

The Princess climbed back onto the dais.

"There may come a time, Witcher Kerrass where this Kingdom is fully restored in all it's glory. When knights and warriors, courtiers and townsfolk, farmers and villagers come to our halls and lift up their voices to cheer whoever stands on this dais at that time. It might be that, come that day, we no longer have need of your services. But until that day, I would ask that you serve as champion. I am aware that that will take you from your path, until I am in such a position that I no longer need your services, but even then I would still ask for your friendship."

Kerrass bowed.

"And you would have it. But I do not doubt that you will soon have your champion."

The Princess smiled. "Maybe. But not today."

She gestured and we all joined Kerrass on the throne room floor.

"From here, Countess Ariadne has offered to teleport us to the outskirts of the forest where we intend to make ourselves known to what remains of our people. This is not something that can be avoided, nor would we wish it to be so. Thereupon we will leave, in the company of the Countess and our champion to the royal court where we will place our case at the feet of the Empress, where we hope that we will be able to better acclimatise ourself to the times that we now live in. This will be, an undoubtedly long process. Maleficent we believe that it would probably be wise if you would meet us later at the Countesses residence, either in the capital itself or in her home country of Angral."

Maleficent nodded, a slight smile suggesting that her wicked sense of humour was coming back. "Probably wise."

"Lord Frederick. We would ask that you join us in coming to the outskirts but from there we have no hold over you."

I nodded.

"Then I shall summon the gate." Ariadne signalled.

I'd never travelled by gate before. I've done it once since and it's an odd feeling. I tried to detect the very moment of transport. That moment when I wasn't in one place but I was in both. I shivered and looked back as I walked but there was nothing there. An archway leading into blackness but that was it.

Kerrass followed me through the gate, leading the donkey. He was scowling a little. He had spoken before about not liking using transport gates although he wouldn't say why. They just seemed to make him uncomfortable.

Ariadne had moved us to a small clearing, a little distance away from the village and we took a moment to get our bearings. Also to calm the donkey down who was wild-eyed with terror. I saw the Princess walk over to one of the vines and touch it. She also examined one of the thorns. The air was missing something that had been there when we had been walking through the vines before. An atmosphere, or a pressure that I couldn't put my finger on. It felt, lighter, less oppressive maybe.

Kerrass led the way back to the village. The Princess came next with Ariadne walking beside her. I came last with the donkey. Maleficent was presumably off somewhere, maybe even back in her tower by that point. Both Ariadne and I were watching the young Princess and so we both saw the moment where she had to take a breath to steady herself before stepping out to meet her people.

It is odd to say that one of the people that I look up to is one of the people that I have only just met. I admire Kerrass, Mark as well, Father Jerome as well as a number of the other people in my field. But this Princess had some stuff in her. I could not and can not imagine what she was going through but it must have been awful. But she squared her shoulders and strode forth. Again it was that small moment, the difference between being the beautiful young sixteen year old girl and then being a Queen. Nothing had changed, not her clothing, hair or make-up but suddenly again I was looking at a Queen.

We walked through a gap in the trees and there was the village. Just as we had left it. The air seemed unnaturally quiet but then I realised that the axes had stopped their constant music. The song to keep the rhythm was no longer being sung. I didn't see the people gather, I was too busy pulling a still reluctant donkey along by it's halter so instead I only saw the finished... product if you will. People were still coming. Streaming from where they were, leaving axes, tools and chores half done, doors were banging and names were being called as more and more people came, running to see what had happened.

I stopped short, Ariadne was watching the Princess carefully. Kerrass had stepped aside, also watching the Princess. His face was a mask but I am glad that I didn't see triumph there. It would have been all to easy for a man returning to a place that hated him with the object of his quest, to have worn triumph in his eyes. But I didn't see it in him. I am glad. I'm not sure I would have been able to manage the same thing in his place.

The Princess stood, still as a statue as she watched. The village was on a little rise up from where the edge of the thorn forest was and the people were running down the hill. But then they just knelt, taking a knee before their Princess. Before their Queen.

I heard more than one person weeping openly.

"Oh my people." The Princess began. "Oh my people." I saw confusion on their faces. The Princess saw it as well. "My people?" She tried again but in a different tongue. It must have been a dialect or a heavily accented version of what was now the common Nilfgaardian language. I didn't understand it and I could see that more than one person was straining to understand.

"Frederick," she called. "Could you translate for me. I don't have time for language issues."

Ariadne took the donkey's halter off me and I jogged up to where she was standing and translated from the elven.

"Another heartbreak." She said. "Another tragedy that I should be kept from my people. Another barrier that stands between us, like the wall of time between the day I was cursed and the day that I was freed.

"Oh my people. Do not kneel. Stand. Please stand."

She walked forward and physically lifted one of the first people there to their feet.

"Please stand. You should not kneel to me. You who have kept faith for all of these years. You who have lived on the edges of that land that is your home, that should have been your home, eking out a living when you should have had all of this at your disposal. You, who stayed and fought that no-one should forget who I am, who you are and who we are together. I should bow to you.

"No in fact..."

She held her skirts and dropped in the lowest curtsy that I had ever seen. As low as I ever expect to see.

There were still more people crying now. In the dim part of the back of my mind I was aware that I wanted to join that flood of emotion but I had a task now. I was a translator.

A woman rushed out of the crowd. I recognised her as Sarah, the Innkeeper. Kerrass' companion from before we had departed.

"Highness," she said. She looked up at me, tears standing in her eyes. "Highness, don't bow, don't kneel. You ..." She stammered to a halt. Others in the crowd were calling their denial.

"Try speaking a bit slower." I told the woman. "Slowly and clearly, avoid slang and remember the oldest documents that you might have read as to how people spoke back then.

Sarah nodded. "Please don't kneel Highness. We are, and have always been, your devoted subjects."

The Princess straightened, looked the woman in her eyes and embraced her.

There was cheering then and I allowed myself a small tear. I felt a hand on my shoulder and I turned. Ariadne smiled at me. I very nearly lost my control then but I managed to return the smile.

More people came, fortunately they were fairly orderly and they didn't crush the Princess to death.

I witnessed a couple more moments that were unexpected. I saw Sarah, the innkeeper who had previously expressed hatred walk over to Kerrass. They stood facing each other for a moment, clearly a little unsure as to what to do next before she threw her arms around him. I saw her whisper something in his ear although I don't know what it was and I shall let the two of them keep that secret. The villagers led the Princess around and slowly I found that my services as a translator were needed less and less. The Princess had to concentrate to understand and occasionally I had to shout for quiet so that she could hear what was happening and what was being said to her. She was showing off that "wit" that she she had been gifted with all of those years ago and was picking things up at a remarkable rate.

She was shown everything. The inn, the cottages, the storage place for the weapons. They brought her to the orchards and to the bee-hives. I looked for Marion but I couldn't see her although I was often diverted from looking properly as I still had to provide the meaning behind odd words here and there.

The Princess stood and looked out over the cemetery for a long time. She wept then and I didn't blame her. Even Ariadne seemed a little taken aback by that, the scale of the thing is shocking when you don't know what to expect. She saw the cabins were long term visitors stayed and the warehouses and granaries that stored the supplies over the winter. She also took on an incredible amount of information. I never once had to remind her of a name or a persons occupation. She kept that knowledge somewhere and produced it easily.

From the various bits of conversation we learned that the thorns had stopped growing the previous day, roughly when the curse had been broken. Apparently there was a comical few moments when people kept chopping at the vines, only for there to be nothing to chop. We also knew that the influence of the dreams had also left. People were calm and collected whereas before they were passionate and driven. One person said that it was like a noise in the back of your mind that you had known about for years. You had always known that it was there but for some reason, you didn't miss it until it was gone.

They had guessed that the curse had been lifted and were in the process of putting an expedition together to go and see what was what when we came out of the trees.

I don't remember much of it. There were a lot of emotions that day. A lot of tears and a general sense of something ending. An era had passed and we were watching the death of it while also witnessing the birth of a new one. I felt a certain sense of anti-climax myself. The Princess was needing me less and less and I found that I wanted nothing more than to go off somewhere quiet and be by myself. I saw Kerrass several times in what I guessed was a similar mindset. He was watching everything going on around him. There was such stillness about him and an air of quiet melancholy. Periodically people would approach him to shake his hand or to give him a hug. Suddenly he would appear animated, smiling and laughing but then, as soon as the person had left he would be back to being quiet and pensive.

There was a feast organised.

We were now into autumn.

That was it, that's the thing I'm thinking about. When we had departed for the Princesses castle, it had been though we had left the fairytale village in the fairy tale version of autumn. But now that was done. Now it was autumn itself. The leaves were visibly changing shade and I felt the desire to go and find a warm cloak to wear.

But the feast.

The villagers did themselves proud and cooked up a veritable feast. If the Princess noticed anything lacking from it and the feasts that she used to attend when royalty, we saw nothing to express that. There was no seating arrangement and it was conducted outside under the stars. A huge bonfire was built and the flames leapt up to the sky.

I was staying near the Princess, on hand for translations should I be needed. I hadn't eaten much and had drunk even less. I noticed how little the Princess was drinking and was enjoying watching a couple of the villagers comments on how much their princess could drink. That they said it with such pride made me smile. But I was standing close by when Ariadne found me.

"Are you alright?" she asked me.

I looked down at her face, her eyes were a very pale blue I noticed. I also saw, not for the first time that she was a little smaller than I was. Not by much, a couple of inches or so. Her face showed concern so I decided to treat it as what it appeared to be.

"No." I said. "I feel an immense sadness. I feel as though I'm missing something here and I don't know what it is. So much has been brought to this moment and now..."

She smiled in gentle sympathy.

"You did a great thing Frederick. A very great thing. A thing that no-one else has been able to do in over a hundred years."

"I know. I should be happy. I should. And I don't know why I'm not, which makes it worse."

"The human condition?" She put an edge to it, just a hint of teasing.

I smiled a little to show that I had seen the joke.

"Maybe." I said.

She patted my shoulder. "I'll take over for a bit." she said.

"It's ok." I tried.

Ariadne just pointed. Marion was standing on the edge of the firelight. She looked a little different. A little taller, a little thinner perhaps, her features were a little more pronounced than I remembered. Harder lines where I had remembered softness. She was looking at Ariadne and I. An unreadable expression on her face.

"Ariadne I..."

"Go to her. It's ok. I'm not angry. Go on. You deserve some celebration too. But I want to talk to her as well when you are done so bring her back here when you've said what you needed to say."

I looked back at Ariadne.

"Don't worry," Ariadne smiled. "I'm not going to eat her. But I've got some things to say to her and some questions to ask. That is all. I'm a grown woman and I'm not jealous. But I do need to talk to her and it's important. Go on, take your time."

She gave me a little push.

Marion saw me coming and was smiling a little sadly as I approached.

"You were right." She said. "She is very beautiful."

I looked at her for a long time. "What in the world am I supposed to say to that?" I asked, trying for a smile but I heard my voice crack at the end as my own melancholy threatened to overcome me.

"Oh Freddie," she said. "Come here." She held her arms out and like the petulant child that I felt I was being, I stepped into her embrace. She held me for a number of minutes.

"I'm so sorry." I said when I eventually pulled away.

"What for?"

"For being down on what's supposed to be a day of celebration."

"It's no bad thing to mourn the passing of something." She said.

"I guess not."

"I also know something else. Something that I've been watching for."

"What's that?"

"No-one has thanked you yet." She hugged me again. "Thank you Freddie. Thank you for your kindness and your spirit. Thank you for saving her and saving us while you were doing it. Thank you." She kissed my cheek before pulling away.

"Are you saying goodbye?" I heard myself ask.

"I don't know. Maybe. I feel... Oh Freddie, I feel free." She danced a little twirling step. There's nothing keeping me here now. Oh, I'm going to stay and help out but knowing that there is a decision there. That I could choose something else. Oh, it's intoxicating."

"Well don't get too intoxicated. Ariadne wants to meet you."

"Oh? What for? Should I be worried?"

"I don't know. I don't think so."

Marion nodded.

When we got back to Ariadne, she was eating a chicken leg with a cloth under her chin, she set the two of them aside and wiped her hands.

"That didn't take long," Ariadne commented. "I was expecting the two of you to go off for a good couple of hours at the least. Should I be concerned about your stamina Frederick?"

I must have looked suitably horrified because Ariadne laughed. The sound was musical and ripe with amusement.

Marion curtsied, more out of reflex than anything else.

"You don't need to do that." Ariadne said. "Please. I want us to be friends."

"Your grace, I don't see how."

"Then we shall show them. Come, I have words that are only for you," Ariadne smiled sweetly at me, "and away from Freddie's prying ears."

She took Marion's hands and the two of them went a little way off. I saw them talk for a little while and felt ashamed that I felt the need to check up on them. Then Marion laughed long and loud. She looked delighted. She stood up and waved to me before vanishing off somewhere.

Ariadne returned with a look of satisfaction.

"What did you do?" I asked.

"Oh. The Princess is going to have to come to the capital to meet the Empress. There is a very good possibility that she will be there for sometime. I will be there certainly but I thought that Marion would do well as a companion for the Princess. A friend, to remind her of home. She's charming, intelligent, educated and so on so she will emphasise that these people are not back country hicks. The fact that you were attracted to her speaks well of her. I think the two of them will do well together."

I looked at the vampire Queen.

"I must ask. Are you really not jealous?"

Ariadne looked at me levelly for a while.

"We are not promised to each other Freddie," she said after a while. "I have no right to be jealous. Yet."

She grinned at me.

"I also know what effect this place has, or rather had on the human mind. Marion was good for you. I think."

I nodded although I still don't understand what happened there.

There was some dancing. I danced with Sarah, Marion and a few of the other village women. I even danced with the Princess once who, although she didn't know the dances, gave as good as she had. I managed to screw up my courage to invite Ariadne for a dance once which she declined graciously.

I was disturbed by my relief at that.

Then, as night was really falling the Princess stood out before the fire, the flames lit up the sky and illuminated her face. She gestured me forwards.

"Friends," she began in everyone's common tongue. "I have things to say and I will ask Frederick to say them as I still struggle."

She nodded to me and I translated as she spoke.

"My friends. You call yourselves my subjects but I would call you my friends, for calling you "subjects" seems too low a term to describe such excellent and noble people. Know that I love you all and am grateful for your faith that one day, our nation would be restored to the glory that it once was. I am overwhelmed by your welcome but know that on the morrow I must depart to the capital of Nilfgaard to present myself before the Empress. I will not be called a rebel. Nor will I hide. I am sorry that this means that we must be parted so soon after we are reunited but this is vital if we are going to govern ourselves under Nilfgaardian rule."

"What should we do while you are gone?" a few voices called. The Princess had been warning people that she would have to go all day so it wasn't a complete shock.

She thought for a while. Or rather, she appeared to think for a while. I couldn't tell because she had to have known that this question was going to come up.

"We are a Kingdom. We have to start thinking like we are a Kingdom and we need to start building things for our future. We shall assume that the Empress will give us our autonomy and act accordingly as I have heard nothing but good about that soon to be crowned personage."

Clever touch that. In saying that she expected the Empress to be kind. Bureaucracy is bureaucracy the world over and if the Princess was delayed in seeing the Empress for any reason then the people at home could become restless and resentful. Rebellions have formed over less and the Empress would have to stamp out even the smallest uprising with a speedy ruthlessness.

"Our first priority is that we must stop depending on others for our food. At the moment we trade wood for food but now that must change. We have a Kingdom of thorns now but that will not last forever. So to start with we must clear the land for farms. For crops and for our herds. That must be our priority.

"There is also the matter of the vines themselves. We have used that wood as building materials and other such matters. Bend your minds my people, what else could we use that wood for. I have seen these thorns that grew out of them and remarked on their sharp edges. Could we turn those things into weapons, could they be made, or linked in some way. Could we turn _that_ into our industry? No-one else has these thorns or these vines as they are magical in nature. Can we grow them? Can we cultivate them? In short, can we use them? These things that have kept our Kingdom choked off for so long."

She thought for a bit longer.

"Next. I tell you this. I wept to see the graves of our fallen. For every person who died when the curse struck and every person who died in the efforts to lift that curse, regardless of where they came from. They are _our_ fallen and they deserve to be remembered. But that part of our lives is over now. Now we must work to forge our Kingdom into something for the living. To that end, the cemetery will cease to grow from this day forward. No new graves will be made in that area. What is there shall be maintained as a monument so that we can remember those who died so that we might live. But if we keep giving land to the dead, then soon there will be no land for the living. If we find bodies as we clear our Kingdom, then they shall be buried or burned according to current religious practices but they will be remembered."

There was some unease in the crowd although I agreed with the Princess. Building a necropolis is a seductive prospect but she was right, in devoting resources to looking after the dead, then those resources could be used to look after the living. The next few years would be... dangerous for this community. They would live on a knife-edge with progress on one side and utter destruction on the other. They would need everything that they could get.

"But anything for _you_ your Majesty?" Someone asked, I didn't notice who it was.

The Princess looked taken aback. As well she might.

She looked round the place and then looked up at the stars and I saw, or thought I saw, tears in her eyes.

"Build me a home." She said. "Something for me to come back to. Somewhere I can receive guests. A place that is mine a place where, where I do not need to defend myself and can feel safe. I do not want a palace or a castle, no manor house or stately mansion. I want a home. Something that is mine where I can receive friends, read books and write letters."

She lowered her gaze and the tears fell then.

"Do you understand?"

She was greeted by silence.

"Do not take away from your other efforts to see to my comfort." She said. "But we have been given a gift. A gift that we must never take for granted. We are no longer ourselves, or the people that have come before us. We are the future as well, our children and our grandchildren as well as those settlers that will undoubtedly come here in an effort to make a name and a life for themselves. We must build for them, as well as for ourselves."

People were nodding.

The Princess let her head fall.

"Three cheers for the Princess." Someone shouted and the people screamed themselves ragged. I could no longer stand it and I stepped forward into the circle of light and held my hands up for silence.

When it came I turned to her.

"Three cheers for the Queen." I said and fell to my knees.

Ariadne opened a gate for me to go home the following morning, papers in hand for Emma to start proceedings on the young Queen's behalf. Ariadne wrote a short note to Emma saying what her plans were with regards to get the Princess legitimised into being a Queen in actuality rather than just in my declaration.

Kerrass and I parted ways there as he intended to stay with the Princess as her champion until a new one is chosen which he doesn't think will be long. He cited her youth and physical appearance as evidence for this, suggesting that knights will be falling over themselves to swear their swords to the Young Princesses service. He is probably right. He gave me a huge hug before we parted and he was the second person to thank me for my efforts.

The ramifications of what happened that day are still being felt in the southern part of the Continent. A lot of people have been really concerned that a northern Lord, no matter how minor my lord-ship may be, and a Northern Witcher have seen fit to travel south and interfere with problems that were none of our business.

My response to that is a nice and firm "Go Fuck yourself".

I've also heard a lot about the questions of her...legitimacy as an heir for so large a portion of the southern Empire given the questions regarding her parentage.

Let me be clear. I sought and was given permission to publish those details by the persons involved so that there would be no lasting questions on the matter. If you have a problem with this I would refer you to the aforementioned Angry Dragon. If you are lucky enough to survive the matter then I suspect that you might wish that you had stuck with my perfectly polite "Go fuck yourself."

As to the matter of the Princesses Legitimacy, I have no doubts that she was legitimately decreed heiress to that particular crown. The concern is not whether she is legitimate but rather, what status does she have now? You only have to look at her to know that she is royal but what does that mean in a modern Nilfgaardian empire?

That is beyond my wisdom.

All of the paperwork has been sent off for verification. Luckily there are magical people that can verify the validity of the documents in question so the question of them being forgeries will not be a question for much longer. The rest of it lies in the hands of the courts and indeed the hands of the soon to be Empress.

My hope is that she be allowed to rule over her small patch of land as a titled Lord of some kind or, at best, one of those many client Kingdoms that swear their allegiance to the Imperial throne.

What will probably happen is that the poor girl will be married off to the highest bidder who will then assume Lordship over the area.

If it was still the Emperor that was in charge then I would be surprised if that hadn't already happened. I rather suspect that the Princesses only hope lies in the fact that the soon to be ruler of the Empire is going to

be a woman herself.

I like to think of them, a few powerful women getting together in a kind of tea circle. Where they decide things of vast and international import over tea and cake and small polite words. For all I know, that's how the Kings used to do it as well but I can't help but think that the very fact that the King's all being men, would mean that such meetings would soon turn into dick measuring contests.

The realm itself is rich enough to be able to survive. One of the first things to be seen as valid were the old merchant contracts that Kerrass and I had found. Those papers are being challenged in the courts but the long and short of it is that the wealth that had been invested in various merchant ventures. Some have failed, some have multiplied out a thousandfold. If even one of those many (many) cases are found in favour of the Princesses people then the Kingdom will survive. It's more a problem of lack of people to work such a large landmass.

There will certainly be settlers needed and support as well from their neighbours. But I can't help but think that there are lots of people who are sharpening knives in the hope of taking advantage of the situation.

It all comes down to the whims of the woman on the throne.

Yes, Emhyr is still the Emperor and will be until Cirilla is crowned in the Spring. But I am told that he all but defers to his daughter now and openly comments on what he's going to do with his retirement and I strongly suspect that this is the kind of decision that you leave to the new people. It's probably not the biggest decision the new Empress will have to make in her first few days on the throne but it won't be small. I've tried reaching out to the few friends I have at court but apparently the one thing that can be said, with any certainty about the future Empress is that "On any given day, there is no telling what she will choose to care about."

I've heard that described as both a virtue and as a weakness but I suppose time will tell on that regard.

As for the Princess herself? I understand she is doing as well as can be expected. Kerrass is with her and I expect to meet up with him around the time of the Empress' coronation in the Spring. She also has her mother with her (for better or worse) and spends her time between her Kingdom and the Imperial capital.

I have received many letters since this story began including many people demanding to know what was happening with regards to the Princess so there is a brief and potted overview.

No she is not romantically interested in anyone.

No, not Kerrass either.

If you want to try your luck you can go for it if you like. Just remember who her mother is and be aware that as far as she's concerned, she's trying to provide security for her people at the moment and her own prospects are way down on her list of priorities.

Also, try not to forget the Angry Dragon that watches over her.


	45. Chapter 45

(Crap, forgot to put a spoiler warning in.

For those people that have been reading so far, it's pretty clear what ending I got to Witcher 3. However there are some spoilers in here that I haven't discussed before. Specifically regarding the quest "The Battle of Kaer Morhen." This little story, shouldn't be too much longer than three chapters or so and it mostly deals with some of Kerrass' Witcher philosophy as well as a favourite character of mine. Will add another note when this story is finished if you want to avoid these spoilers.)

I have been delayed.

As I write this I am trapped inside our families castle. Trapped I say because the thing that I want, that thing that I need in order for me to be able to properly show my face in proper circles has been delayed. The work people responsible have been suitably chastised but at the end of the day, the dwarf in question took the stance of craftspeople everywhere, sucked his teeth a little and said "We did warn you that the thing you want might be hard to get," and "if you want a job doing properly. It's better to wait and get the job done right rather than waste it."

They're right of course. Of course they're right. But that doesn't change the fact that I am still here, a days ride east of Oxenfurt when I want to be South. Where history is being made.

In Toussaint.

She hasn't been crowned yet. That is still a little ways off yet so I have time. But that doesn't help me. I want to be there now.

Not for the entertainments. I'm told that there's going to be a tournament but then, when do the people of Toussaint ever need an excuse to hold a Tournament. There will be contests of poetry, song, dancing, acrobatics and others. The Imperial portraits are being painted. The final painting of Emhyr var Emreis and the first portrait of the soon to be crowned Empress. I'm told that for a suitably huge sum of money you can watch the paintings being worked on.

Nor is it for the people that I want to be there although that is partly true.

Yes, I want to see Kerrass again.

Yes I want to see Princess Dorn again.

My entire family is going to be there. Emma and Sam are down there already. Sam to take part in the various tournaments and contests at arms as well as to swear fealty as Lord Kalayn. Emma is there in her official capacity as the head of the Coulthard trading company. Mark is going to be there although I'm not entirely sure how I feel about him yet, but he is there, both as part of the delegation from the church of the holy flame as well as being the Baron von Coulthard.

Francesca is going to be there. I can't wait to see her. I'm told that she's grown up a lot in the five years since I saw her last. We've written to each other many times but at the same time it's going to be no comparison to actually hear her voice and see her shining smile.

I am also looking forward to seeing Ariadne as well. I'm looking forward to being able to spend a lot of time talking with her. I feel that this is something that has been lacking in our communications of late. She has been so busy sorting out her own lands as well as helping Princess Dorn with her problems.

All the famous people are going to be there. It's rumoured that the entire Lodge of Sorceresses is going to be in attendance. That many Witcher's have been invited. That the nobility and hierarchy from both sides of the war are going to be together in the same room.

That's why I want to go. I'm a scholar of history. Even though the thing that I have been doing most recently is studying those events that are taking place at the moment and how they affect the world around us, this thing. People are going to be talking about this event for years to come. People are going to be asking each other, "Where were you when Empress Cirilla was crowned."

But I'm not there.

As I say, I'm not going to miss the actual history. I have been "requested and required" to be present. Which is Imperial flowery speak for "You'd better be here or else." My sister attached a helpful translation to the very rich and weighty paper that the decree came on.

It would seem that there are a number of traditions that need to be observed. The idea being that the outgoing Emperor has one day of un-interrupted governing before the new Emperor takes over.

The fact that this has previously been done on the point of a sword or on a death bed of some kind seems to have been forgotten by everyone involved.

The way I understand it is this.

Emperor Emhyr is stepping down as Emperor because there is too much bullshit attached to him being Emperor, too many angry people, too many assumed favours and tied up nonsense that would all just disappear if he _wasn't_ Emperor. So he's stepping down. In the meantime he has spent a large amount of time and money making sure that all the people that might be there to plot against him, the realm or his daughter, are silenced. This means that Empress Ciriclla can come to the throne having thrown off all of the history of what's come before including her fathers past dynastic troubles, and can appear clean with a fresh canvas to paint our future on.

The Emperor reigns until literally, the moment that the crown is placed on her head. So right now, loads of people are orbiting the Imperial throne trying to make deals with Emhyr that they think they might not be able to get away with when they talk with Cirilla. The Emperor could do anything with that time. He could free or execute all the prisoners in all the prisons in the Empire. He could declare that it is punishable by death for anyone to wear yellow. But more importantly he could ratify the state of nations, declare that this person will be client King/Queen of this or that client country. He could make trade agreements or break them. All of which the new Empress would need to consider. If she simply disagrees with her father then yes, she could countermand those orders but that would be no consolation to all those prisoners who have just been ordered to be executed, for example.

In reality it is generally believed that now the Emperor has already dealt with his enemies and potential enemies that he and his daughter have conferred over most decisions and how those same decisions will be implemented.

But that doesn't stop the back room politicking or the deals or the handshakes and bets and contracts. Even if she hadn't been invited, Emma would have been there. It's that rarest of opportunities where she can talk directly with those people that she needs to see to discuss anything.

Our family has been invited. But also, I have been invited as a separate entity. I'm a younger son which means that I could have gone to be part of the general clamour and things but I wouldn't have been allowed to watch the coronation itself. Nor would I have gone to the Empresses party.

There is, apparently another tradition that happens beforehand. Which is that the person who is going to be Emperor throws a massive party. Less formal than the coronation but it's a time to get drunk and celebrate.

Kind of like a stag party before a wedding.

I have been invited. If it was just the family invite then it would have been Mark with Emma. Sam is going because of his title of Lord Kalayn. But I wouldn't get in. But I have specifically been invited.

I'm only moderately terrified.

It's also at these things that the Empresses first decrees are made. By tradition these are the things that she wants to happen. Not for any kind of political gain or for the good of the nation but that she, the person, wants to happen. I don't know why this is the case. I believe it's something to do with the fact that when she has the crown placed on her head, she stops being Cirilla the person and becomes Cirilla the nation.

I don't know but regardless, these decrees are also kept fairly closely under wraps and are only really announced at that party.

We shall see.

Of course I'm going to tell you about it. I'm practically vibrating with the need to get down there and start chronicling it now.

But I can't because the thing that I want isn't ready yet.

Fucking Dwarves with their fucking "It'll be done when it's done," speech.

To make matters worse, I know. I _know_ that as soon as he shows me the finished article I'm going to be rendered speechless by it and instantly forget how angry I am and how frustrating the wait is. He'll look at me with the beard hiding his grin as he holds out his hand for payment, that he absolutely deserves by the way, and I will pay him without bothering to dicker on the price.

He knows who he is. I can hear him laughing even now.

So what am I going to do for the intervening time.

Answer some letters I think.

I know, I know. I really know how to party.

All alone in a deserted castle, most of the servants have gone off to see family while the ruling family are away so I wander about the place, footfalls echoing in the empty halls. I might have even gone into Oxenfurt while I was waiting but there I get the same questions from all of my old friends and Professors. "Oh Frederick," they'll say. "Why aren't you in the south?"

I couldn't face that.

So anyway. The mail.

Again, thank you, all of you for your kind words and well wishes that come in in extraordinarily large quantities. My sister tells me that they letters wishing her and Laurelen well have been overwhelming in their support other than a few idiots who would rather speak with their hate rather than with understanding. All of the letters are read. Some are kept, some are given to those for whom they are really meant and some few are thrown on the fire. But there are a number of recurring questions that I thought I would take the time to address here and now.

Question: Why don't you just marry the unspeakably beautiful Vampire Queen. She's going to remain young and gorgeous for eternity so why don't you man up, marry the woman and stop moaning about having access to an eternally young and beautiful woman?

Answer: To be fair. This is condensing many different versions of this question into one form. Not all of which are quite as rude as this one but the sentiment is always the same. Why don't you just marry her? The answer is...complicated. But the long and short of it is that as soon as I have an answer, as soon as I know the reason, then I will be communicating that reason with the lady in question. Not you. Thank you for your concern.

Question: If you don't want her. Can I have a go?

Answer: My feelings on this question vary from "Fuck you," to "By all means try." I understand from her last letter that she has had to make her feelings on this matter known on several occasions. I don't know what this means but I will leave it to your imagination.

Question: Can you provide an introduction to the Princess Dorn?

Answer: You remember what I said about the Angry Dragon right? If not, let me put it like this. That young lady is more intelligent and faster on her feet mentally than you give her credit for. If you want to introduce yourself, feel free. But I warn you. She counts among her friends, in no particular order: A Witcher, a Vampiric Sorceress, a Dragon, the Empress, the richest woman in the northern realms and the best legal firm in the Empire. If you upset this woman, any one of those people will end you so fast you won't know what hit you.

Look, I don't mean to offend but, she woke up five months ago. She's still sixteen. Let her breathe for a while before sending her piles of gifts in an effort to woo her. I have it on good authority that she's not interested in such things and is having justifiable problems with personal intimacy other than from a very few people. Right now, she needs friends, not suitors.

Question: Can you come and have a look at this monster that I've found on my lands?

Answer: No.

Question: Oh please.

Answer: What do you want me to do? Travel all that way, look at it and say "Yep, that's definitely a monster,"

Question: But you know about these things now, you could deal with the problem.

Answer: Have you even been reading what I've written. No I can't. Kerrass deals with the problem. I struggled and would still struggle with a single Nekker or drowned dead. Let alone a nest of the things or a griffin or what have you. Hire a professional.

Question: But professionals are so expensive.

Answer: Believe me they're worth it.

Question: Have you met Geralt, Dandelion, Zoltan Chivay, Yennefer of Vengerberg, Triss Merigold, Keira Metz etc?

Answer: No.

I tell a lie. I have met the poet Dandelion and his business partner Zoltan Chivay many times as when we've been in Novigrad, Kerrass insists on staying at their inn. I understand that this is because it's one of the few places that are friendly towards Witchers. Mr Chivay seems like a decent sort although he refuses to play me at Gwent any more. Master Dandelion criticised my writing, saying that it needed more "dramatic flair," whatever that means. I told him that I was a scholar, not a poet. He told me that I wrote to entertain and educate which is what a poet does. I've met him often enough to know that there's no arguing with him when he's in that mood and left it there.

I understand that he will not be at the coronation due to some past history with the Duchess although I do not claim to understand what that history is.

Question: Have you met any other Witchers?

Answer: I have. Fortunately this question tails together nicely with another question I received recently which is this:

Question: You once wrote that Kerrass wanted to take you to the North Eastern Parts of Kaedwen. This was before the incident with your family but after when you met the Countess of Angral. You promised that you would tell us what happened there but you never have. Where did he take you?

Answer: He took me to Kaer Morhen.

No I can't tell you where it is. I was blindfolded for a couple of days either side of our trip into that valley. I met another Witcher there although it isn't who you think it was.

It wasn't the White Wolf if that's what you're thinking. But I'm jumping ahead in the story. It's also that period where Kerrass and I spent a lot of time talking about the Witcher trials.

Just so we're clear on where this particular set of circumstances falls in the overall narrative of my stories. We had just left Angraal and were heading North, so if you're wondering about why I suddenly seem so preoccupied with "The Great Ariadne Question," as Kerrass so mockingly puts it, that is why. This is also before we had learned of my Father's accident.

We were maybe a fortnight north of our departure from Angraal when Kerrass stopped the horses and blindfolded me. By blindfold, what he actually did was to put a sack over my head. He had warned me in advance that he was going to have to blindfold me as we were heading towards a secret place but even if I had been looking for some kind of sign that we were about to leave the road, I couldn't have seen one. It was a fairly boring looking stretch of road. Forested on one side, mountains off in the distance and where the scenery didn't consist of mountains and streams then it was farmland. Mostly consisting of sheep farms and cattle grazing. This is not unusual in Kaedwen as anyone who has been there will tell you. Kaedwen is a large Kingdom but I understand that part of the reason that it is so large is due to the fact that vast swathes of it are covered with mountains. The blue mountains, the fiery mountains and the Kestrel mountains all run through it. The other reason that it's so large is because of the fighting prowess of their former King. King Henselt.

For all of those arm-chair historians who would say something like "Well he can't have been that good if Radovid managed to conquer Kaedwen," I would point out that King Henselt and his "rule of three" have proven to be most effective in the other wars against Nilfgaard, his constant aggression against the Elves and other non-humans as well as the to-and-fro of the aggression with Aedirn over the Pontar valley. All of which were hard fought with King Henselt only being turned back by canny negotiation or the efforts of his ruling council. He was backed up by the magic users however with a prominent school of magic being housed in the city of Ban Ard.

Indeed, there is even an argument to be said that the beginning of Kaedwen's downfall was when King Henselt finally lost his temper with the Sorceress Sabrina Glevessig and had her executed. If he had been able to harness that, especially in the face of Redania's anti-magic stance and Nilfgaard's anti-magic sentiments. He would have reaped the rewards in much the way that Kovir is doing now.

But I'm not here to analyse history. Instead I am here to talk about the Wiitcher trials and the great keep of Kaer Morhen.

So Kerrass ordered me to put the bag over my head. I was quite willing to put up with this small indignity in return for the enormous privilege that I was going to be paid. I was actually going to be taken to see the famed fortress of the Wolves. It has since occurred to me that it wasn't that much of a risk on Kerrass' part on the grounds that if they didn't like me, they could always murder me and dump me in a ditch somewhere where I would never be found.

But at the time I was still rather preoccupied with the look that I had received from a certain lady vampire and trying to figure out what that look, and her question meant to be thinking about such things.

The bag went over my head, my hands were tied together and then I was tied to the saddle so that I wouldn't fall off. We were already quite a long way away from any reasonable forms of civilisation and it had been a couple of days since we had seen anyone on the road. Signs of habitation in the farms and the odd shepherd, yes, but travellers? No. After the bag, Kerrass led my horse along easily enough. She was already well used to the Witcher and took his commands with relative calm. She was turned around in a few circles and then we went on. Beyond that, I can't tell you which direction we went, and even if I could, I wouldn't tell you.

I spent three days with that sack over my head. I know that the vast majority of the time we were travelling through thick undergrowth. Sounds of Kerrass chopping at bushes and things would come to me through the thick padding and he often had to tell me to lie down so that I was low across the horses back. Even then I could feel branches and twigs pulling at my clothes and hair.

We stopped when it got dark and Kerrass had already built up the fire so that I couldn't see anything out in the darkness. As I say, he was being a little overly cautious. I had no intention of bringing anyone else back here, even if I could tell the distance. I suppose it could be said that what I don't know can't hurt me and from that angle he was protecting me. I was under no particular inclination to argue though. We trained a little, ate and talked about small things.

Yes, Ariadne came up in conversation quite a bit but those conversations always went along the same lines.

"What do you think she meant by that question?"

"I don't know Frederick."

"But why would you ask that kind of question?"

"I don't know Frederick."

"Can vampires marry humans?"

"I don't see why not."

"Can vampires and humans have sex?"

"I don't know. I suspect you will find out before I do." He always used to say this line with what I considered to be an unpleasant and mean looking smile.

"Can they produce offspring?"

"I doubt it."

"Are you humouring me?"

"Definitely."

"Why would she be interested in me?"

"You're asking the wrong person, but believe me I've been asking myself that question for quite a while

now."

"But What do you think she meant by asking that question?"

"Oh for the love of...I still don't know Frederick."

And so on.

I can't have been a pleasant travelling companion during that time. I was fascinated. Ariadne had fascinated me and I couldn't tell you why.

I shall try to say what it was like.

I was terrified of Ariadne. In many ways I still am but I know her better now. But at that time I was absolutely beside myself with terror. But at the same time, she was a beautiful woman who had asked me how she would go about setting up a marriage with me. So on the one hand there was the terror of the fact that this woman was an incredibly powerful vampiric Sorceress, but on the other hand was the much more pleasant terror of the fact that she was an extremely beautiful woman.

But she was a vampire.

And so it went on and on and on. Round and round in my head. And it just wouldn't stop. Terror, mixed with arousal and other such basic impulses.

Kerrass led us on.

On the morning of the fourth day, Kerrass decided that I no longer needed to wear the sack and I took to leading my horse alongside him. We were still walking through a thick forested area but I began to see signs that Kerrass was following a track of sorts. He saw me looking and nodded in what I hoped and guessed was some form of approval.

In the end though we came out through the trees and into sunlight. There was no doubt anymore. We were definitely following a track. At first, just a line that you might guess the deer or rabbits followed to the distant sound of water that I could hear. But then it seemed to widen into that kind of a track that was more suitably labelled something like "road meaning that we could climb back on our horses and gently move along beside each other." I now knew where we were even though the keep of Kaer Morhen was kept from my view and so obviously I was brimming over with questions.

"So why is there even a castle here?" I asked. Picking one of the many questions that was overwhelming my brain.

"I don't know Frederick. And before you carry on with things. I agree. It makes absolutely no sense for there to be a castle here and that's not the only thing that goes with the riddle of this place. As well as the keep itself which, when you see it, I think you will agree was an impressive feat of engineering. Three courtyards, a keep, a moat, None towers in the outer wall, a further three towers in the inner wall I think and the keep itself is no small thing to attack.

"But as well as all that, across from the keep itself across a narrow gorge is another lone tower. I understand the Witchers converted it to a Wizards tower for whichever Wizard monitored the mutations back in the day when the castle was being used. But either way, you would need to take that tower before you tried to take on the main defences.

"As well as that, this valley contains an old, ruined fortress. Much more ruined than Kaer Morhen itself. Three towers and a wall which contains many other building works. That would also need to be taken. Further into the valley there are other signs of habitation that are now mostly overgrown. But it certainly wasn't big enough to be a city. So what was the castle built to defend? I don't know and neither do the wolves who live there."

There is a special joy to a mystery. Especially one which no-one knows the answers to it. It means that you can spend ages looking at it and dissecting it and making up theories. I could see my own fascination reflected in Kerrass' eyes.

"The Cat fortress is a much more recent thing isn't it?"

"Oh yes. And much less fascinating a thing. The Feline fortress is really a series of caves with little bits of fortifications to protect the more obvious entrances and exits. The stealth of the Wolven Fortress is that no-one knows that it's here. Other than mages who can send their sight around the world. Normally, I would think that that wouldn't bother anyone. So grand a fortress in the possession of a group of "magical malcontents and genetic freaks," would send the royal arm out. But there's nothing here that would be worth the investment that would cause a castle like this to be built. Especially not so far out into the Kaedweni wilderness. I mean, yes. There is a small, I emphasise small, silver mine that the wolves used to forge their silver blades but most Witchers get the dwarves to make theirs anyway. Mine is certainly dwarven."

"So this river must be..." I sucked my teeth as I tried to remember my Kaedweni geography. "This must be the Gwenllech river."

"Yep. It travels through the valley and it's fed by a lake that's a little bit further up the valley."

I nodded.

"Kaer Morhen." I rolled the name round my tongue, trying it with different accents. "Kaer Morhen. Sounds Elven to me."

"And you would probably be right. Near as the Wolves think it... It's a corruption of the elder speech where it _should_ be called Caer a'Muirehen." His eyes shone with amusement as he watched me role that phrase round my tongue for a moment or two.

"Caer a'Muirehen. Hang on. That would mean "Old Sea Keep."

"I know." Kerrass nodded. Not bothering to hide his enjoyment at my confusion.

"But we're nowhere near the sea."

"I know that too. Wait till you see the little fossils of sea shells in the castle walls."

"Ok, now I know you're pulling my leg."

Kerrass just grinned in answer.

We were now trotting easily along the track next to the river. I won't lie. It was beautiful up there. We were now at the beginning of summer proper and the sun was bright, reflecting off the water which was clear and crisp. I felt good.

"So why would anyone build a castle up here?" I wondered aloud. "Other than the view I mean."

"No-one knows. If anyone did know it was the ancient Wolven Witchers. Those ones that were wiped out when the keep was attacked and ruined."

A small shadow crossed Kerrass' face as he said that.

"Sorry Kerrass."

"Not your fault. Not mine either as it was done before I was born. But I still feel the guilt."

I nodded. For those people who are relatively new to these stories, it is commonly accepted that the Wolven school was destroyed by a mob who were whipped up into a frenzy of anti-non-human fervour by a series of inflammetory pamphlets that were handed out and read to the populace at the time. There are any number of theories as to why this was the case and I won't go over them here.

What I will say is that now that I have seen the place, I would say that there is absolutely no way that an armed force could have taken the Witcher's fortress without the aid of magic users of one form or another. The thing that causes Kerrass' guilt is that it is generally known amongst Witchers that the reason that the mob was able to find the Witcher fortress in the first place was due to the fact that they had a guide from the cat school who took them there. Kerrass has spoken before about how he sometimes feels the awful weight of those young Witcher deaths on his soul.

A little way down the valley there was a short flat piece of land that seemed to stick out into the river that we were riding alongside. A large flat stone was there with a carved sword in the top. There several candles there that had obviously been there for sometime. I waited while Kerrass dismounted and cleared some of the natural detritus that had gathered around the place, moving the leaves and bits of twig aside and re-lighting the candles as well as adding one that he fished out of his saddle bags.

"What was that?" I asked him as we rode on.

"Grave of a young lad called Leo. I never learnt his second name."

"Did you know him?"

"No. But it could have been any of us really."

The conversation was shut down brutally after that. In truth though I didn't really want to pursue it. I was a little surprised at the depth of emotion that I was feeling coming from the Witcher at my side. In many ways it felt like he was coming home, that conflicting feeling of being glad that you're there along with all the remembered pain that the place evokes in your memory.

"So," I said, forcing the conversation over onto a new topic. "Three trials to become a Witcher."

"Yes." Kerrass shook himself back into a better mood. A cross between being a host and a museum guide.

"Three trials."

"The first trial. In general terms?"

Kerrass threw me a warning glance but I felt as though it was more done out of habit rather than any actual concern that I might be wanting to steal the fabled Witcher secrets at this stage.

"Without going into detail, the first trial is the trial of choice, or "The Choice" to give it it's grander term."

I nodded, half listening and half looking at the castle that was just beginning to come into view.

I wasn't disappointed.

To be clear. This comes with a certain amount of...qualification. I have seen bigger castles. Both in terms of verticality and in area covered. Kaer Morhen is, or at least probably was, a lot taller than my fathers castle. But at the same time, my father's castle covers a wider surface area. If you held a blade to my throat I would say that Kaer Morhen is more of a defensive fortification than my father's castle is as, according to my armchair general skills, I reckon you could just about assault Kaer Morhen on two sides whereas there are only a couple of directions that you _can't_ attack my father's castle from.

The thing that Kaer Morhen has that no other castle has in my memory or observation is drama. It's a lot more of a dramatic sight. You come round the corner and, well there it is in all it's massive grandeur and scale. It's huge and it hits you in the face like a mallet. That and the entire storied history of the place, the way people might gather in darkened taverns and whisper to each other "That's the _Witcher_ fortress you know," and all the things that " _they_ say," as in "They say that they consort with demons up there in that Kaer Morhen."

If psychology is part of warfare, which it undeniably is. Then that is a significant factor about Kaer Morhen.

To get to the gate you have to go round one of the larger towers, all while being shot at, we came at it from the south, but I can't see as to how it would be any easier coming from the north as you would need to come round the gate tower itself from the north. All the while you would be in the shadow of the watch tower on the other side of that gully.

It's a terrifying place. A frightening place.

Another factor in this kind of thing is the fact that there are bodies piled everywhere. Skulls and bones poke out of the dirt and the grass from where they had been left to rot after the mob had killed them. They had been left, for whatever reason, and they looked or acted like gargoyles do. The static kind that you find on the sides of churches rather than the moving kind that they use to guard dungeons. "Keep out," they seem to say to you. "Go away and leave us in peace."

Some of those bones are very small.

The good mood that I had been in as we had ridden up the valley evaporated before the unblinking stare of those bones.

All the while Kerrass kept talking.

"The first trial is "The choice," and of all of them, I found this choice the hardest."

"Why?" I asked absently.

"Because it was something I was doing to myself. That's why it's called "The choice." My tutors weren't particularly nasty, or evil. They saw it as their job to do these things and so do them we did. But they never hid from us the fact that we could leave at any time. When Witchers came and went to town to get supplies or on a recruitment trip or any other reason why a Witcher might leave the keep. We could walk up to those men at any time and say, "Take us with you," and we would be taken to town or to a nearby village and left there.

"I met one of those lads once. He had become a professional soldier, a mercenary because he had been able to use a sword and was absolutely unsuited to do anything else. We always left them a bit of money so that they could get on their feet but this guy had spent it on booze and women and suddenly he was a tough for a local gangster. He became a hit-man, fled before the hang-man's noose and became a mercenary.

"I remember him as being absolutely without bitterness. He knew who and what he was but also knew how he had gotten to the position that he was.

"But yes, where was I?"

"The trial of choice."

"Ah yes. So what it basically boils down to is training us and teaching us until we fall over and/or hurt ourselves. All the while we're eating these herbs and mushrooms and drinking this strange juice that actually tastes quite nice. Even when you throw it up all over your dormitory floor."

"That's a lovely image."

"Well, you know. Anyway. That's the long and short of it. What they're doing, as well as teaching you about the monsters that you would be fighting and how to fight them, they're conditioning your body to the point where you are fit enough, and healthy enough to be able to survive the later mutations. That's really what the herbs and mushrooms are doing. As well as the breath control exercises and the, you know, exercise. It builds up the muscle strength, it keeps the heart pumping as after all, that's a muscle too. There's even some people that think that, in education the young Witchers to the extent that they do, that renders the brain more able to accept the vast changes that the body is going through."

"Interesting theory. Is this where people start dying?"

"Sometimes."

"What do they die of?"

"Generally, heart or liver failure of the most extreme kind. They'll just be training, as they would be normally, and then they would clutch at their chests and just fall down. Sometimes they would turn yellow, start puking their guts up and expire that way. That was different from those kids who just can't take it and run off screaming. Or flip out and try to murder an instructor. Or just, plain, go mad.

"To be fair to them, the teachers and trainers would try to catch those kids who weren't up to it and say that maybe they just weren't cut out to be a Witcher but that was rare. Because it was a voluntary process. So if you thought for one moment that you couldn't do it. Or if you thought that this wasn't for you. Then you could quit."

A thought visibly crossed his face then, it was just a flicker, a flinch like you would give if you stubbed your toe on something.

"Mental fortitude was part of it as well. It was something that they had to train into us. One of the kids that came to the school with me from our home village. Three years into it he just lost his nerve. We found him huddled in a corner, crying his eyes out. Nothing wrong with that, I had some nights were I howled the place down to the point where there weren't any tears in my body and no-one thought any the less of me. But he looked at me and said "I'm not sure I can do this Kerrass." We told him to quit. There was a Witcher leaving the following morning for Novigrad for a herb shipment that had been ordered. But he refused. The following day, his heart gave out and he fell dead at old Nayhans feet. We stacked him with the others and got on with it."

"What happened to all of those kids that died?"

Kerrass looked at me for a long moment. "Each school had a mage to oversee the mutations. It's one of those things that you can't really get round. You need to have someone there to maintain the flow of mutagens. I can't pretend to understand why. But they were always trying to perfect the process. Get it to the point where they could minimise the potential losses. What I'm saying is that the bodies of the dead were given to the mage to dissect in an effort to find out what went wrong and correct the procedure."

"Yeesh."

"I know. It sounds ghoulish, and it is. But I genuinely believe that those people truly cared about what happened to their charges and wanted to get to the stage where the entire process could happen without losing a trainee."

"So what kind of things did you do during the choice?"

"Chores mostly. Sword training, Lore training as well. Sign practice came later when we were more physiologically capable of channelling the force to be able to perform the simplest tasks. Otherwise nosebleeds and things if we started that too early."

"I know that but what kind of training did you do."

"Everyone does it differently. One of the significant things is the assault course. The Wolves have this track which the apprentices called "The Killer," probably because it was and it did. You run up trees, leap from hand hold to hand hold, run along mountain tracks and things. I've done it when I was here recuperating and it certainly did it's job. We had "The cat-walk," which was not as physically strenuous if I'm honest, but you had to do it pitch blackness."

I was appalled but Kerrass seemed to speak of those things and past places fondly.

"Good times," he said. Apparently without irony.

We came to the draw-bridge and dismounted.

"So all of this is done, to actually drive people away?"

"Pretty much," we led the horses through a large gate house. The path that we travelled turned right at right angles. I later had to check why this was the case. And it turns out that this is so that any mobile siege equipment, like battering rams will struggle to get up to the next gate. All the while, people on the walls are still shooting at them and dropping unpleasant things down into the melee.

The things you learn when you follow a Witcher around.

"What kind of training equipment do they use?"

"Various things. There's a thing called a pendulum which swings backwards and forwards that when it's being operated properly can simulate a monsters attacks. There's also a thing that, they used to have here actually called the comb. Which is a set of end on end poles of various sizes stacked up on end. Then you have a frame that also swings weights and heavier logs across the path of the poles. It teaches balance, awareness of footing."

"What do you do up there?" As I said, I was horrified and trying to hide it because I was concerned that I might offend Kerrass.

Remember that we hadn't called each other "friend" yet.

"Fence, work the sword forms. Often while we were blindfolded."

"Holy flame."

"Oh it wasn't too bad."

The gate house was large, lofty and very very dark. There was a lot of litter there, old, empty and broken boxes and bags. Again, there were old bones piled in the corners. I guessed that the detritus had been left there deliberately in an effort to drive home the entire fact that this place was not occupied.

The effect was rather ruined by the fact that the portcullis' at both ends of the gate house were obviously maintained and well looked after.

We walked out into the bottom courtyard. That was where the efforts to make the castle look derelict began to fall apart a little bit. I could see a row of training dummies off to my left as I entered and a further pile of of unused ones in the back of the wooden structure that leant against the inner walls. There were also a few archery targets and further back there was what looked like a well stocked and diverse herb-garden. Off to the right were another small set of wooden buildings that were obviously in use as a stable. A single horse was there, feed-bag over his nose.

We started to lead our horses over in that direction when it happened.

Kerrass' head jerked up, in the same movement his sword was out and already flashing as a shape leapt off the wall above us and crashed into Kerrass.

Kerrass and the other shape rolled to their feet and separated. Kerrass was already attacking.

The entire thing happened in less than a second.

You know that thing that happens in plays when two "enemies" get together and decide that they want to have a fight. They draw their swords, face each other and tell each other (and therefore the audience) why they're fighting and so we can all see what's going on and who is fighting whom.

You know that thing?

It spectacularly failed to happen.

The only reason that I could tell one combatant from the other was because Kerrass had hair and the other man did not. They both wore brown tunics which, as it was summer, had had the sleeves removed. Both wore wrist guards and hide trousers.

In the end I got one good look at the other man from the back to see that his sword scabbard lay across his back in a similar but not identical way that Kerrass wore his and decided that the other man was another Witcher. I caught up Kerrass' horse by the reins and led both animals into the stable and into stalls to keep them out of the way before turning back to watch the contest.

Well.

I've seen Kerrass fight many times. A lot of times over the two years that we have spent in each others company. But this was the first time that I had seen him taken on by a human scale opponent that was on an equal skill level. I had seen him fight monsters many times. I'd even seen him fight humans many times but most depend on their armour as a substitute for skill and as such do not fight on Kerrass' level.

This was something else.

The two men's swords moved so fast that I would hear the swords clash, after I had seen them meet. They also didn't clash nearly as often as I was expecting them to. More often than not, they didn't bother parrying the blows that they were trading with each other on the grounds that that time could have been used to make a strike and an attack of their own.

It also wasn't like a dance. Anyone who says that a fight is like a dance was watching an exhibition match or a fight on stage. This wasn't a dance. There is a rhythm to a dance and there was not one here.

As I watched I began to get just a hint of the differences though. They fought fast. Bewilderingly, so to the point that it hurt my eyes and gave me a headache in trying to follow it.

What I did get the feeling of was the way the fight was working and the tactics of the two men. I didn't get to discuss it later with Kerrass but what it looked like to me was that Kerrass was doing most of the attacking whereas what the other man was trying to do was to channel his actions to set Kerrass up in a particular position at a particular time. Then the stranger would unleash a blistering, powerful series of attacks that Kerrass would struggle to both avoid or parry and would scramble out of the way. At which point Kerrass would be off balance and vulnerable to follow up attacks which were similar in feel. Brutal, hard, powerful attacks from the other man. Until Kerrass managed to catch them correctly and then move back from the defence to the attack.

But on the other end of the scale, the other man was struggling to manage Kerrass' free wheeling, chaotic strike patterns.

I honestly couldn't have told you who would have won the contest in a real fight. I say, "real" fight, because the other thing that began to become obvious is that both men were enjoying themselves. Smiling, grinning even. All the time giving and receiving blows that would have easily killed the other man if they had struck home.

Witchers. Crazy, the lot of them.

In the end they broke apart. I don't know how long they had been going at it. A minute, maybe two minutes at most. But they came apart and looked at each other. Breathing hard from the look of them.

"Going soft, snake?" Kerrass said panting.

"Giving up, kitty cat?" answered the other man in a drawl which I now know was from Southern Nilfgaard originally.

"Some of us have been riding all day." I noticed that despite the friendly tone of the words, neither man's sword wavered from pointing directly at the other.

"Pussy," sneered the bald man.

Kerrass shrugged, feinted one way before rolling the other way and renewing the attack.

My body decided that I had gone off to spend time with crazy people. While they were off being crazy people I could be doing something useful and went back to take care of the horses. The two Witchers were still going by the time I had done piling our saddle bags nearby and sat down on the fence at the side of the stable. I was fast enough to shield my eyes against one of the bombs that the bald man had thrown at Kerrass. Using a strange body twist Kerrass caught the bomb against the fuller of his blade and deflected away. As a result, I didn't go completely blind. But it was close.

As it was there were still spots in my eyes.

Again, one of those trained parts of my body realised that my brain wasn't working properly and I took out my boot knife and was holding it in my hand when I felt rough hands grab me by the shoulders and spin me around. Something cold and sharp was pressed against my neck.

"Who's this?" The Southern accent was thick in my ear. Along with a strong scent of garlic and mint.

I sighed and blinked a few times. The bald man was behind where I was sat having vaulted the fence, knife at my throat and breathing hard. I think I saw his sword lying on the ground a little way away.

"His name's Frederick." Kerrass said. Re-sheathing his sword. "Try not to break him. He's my meal ticket."

"You mean you cart him around and he pays for your food,"

"Pretty much."

"A scholar too from the smell of him."

"I like to think he has grown since I first met him."

"So now he's a cat's chew toy as well as a scholar." The man spat. "Important to you?"

"Not that important."

"Damn,"

"You were hoping I'd forget about that twenty crowns you owe me from Vizima that time."

"Also to see what kind of camp follower you carry around with you. Does he wriggle properly?" I sensed rather than saw the leer.

"If you try anything he might cut it off. Wouldn't you Freddie."

I let the man feel my dagger point pressed against his side from where I had reversed it. "This is getting to be a habit." I commented.

"Yes, well." Kerrass shrugged again. "You will keep letting people use you as a human shield against me. How did he do, snake?"

"Not bad," drawled the other man. "Better than some I've known."

He let me go suddenly. Vaulted back over the fence, scooped up his sword with his foot before sheathing it quickly and then he and Kerrass embraced fiercely.

"Good to see you Kitten." said the southerner.

"You too, Snake. Although I didn't expect to find you here."

"It seems that the puppy dogs are expanding their definition of who they consider "pack-mate" especially if they told _you_ where this place was."

"Actually I woke up here once after they set a Queen on me."

"You're talking..."

"Yep."

"Nice."

I cleared my throat.

Kerrass looked over at me. "Freddie, this is..." He raised his eyebrows at the other man.

"Letho of Gulet," he drawled and I got my first good look at the man.

His face was the kind of face that people are afraid of. Bald with a jagged, v-shaped scar that had cut into his forehead, if you saw him walking down the street at night you would cross over, or go down a side alley to avoid him. Huge sloping brows which shadowed his eyes, further lending to his thuggish and intimidating exterior. His nose had obviously been broken many times before and his mouth was thin lipped and seemed to be made to sneer at people. I found his eyes, although similar to Kerrass' in that they were obviously vertical pupiled and yellow. They seemed to glow a lot more than Kerrass' did which, coupled with the shadowing from his brows made him seem even more unearthly. He was also hugely muscled. Massively so. It was another thing that contributed to his fighting technique. When he moved, despite walking lightly and on the balls of his feet, he moved like he expected the world to get out of his way.

I well imagine that it would at that.

There was also a remarkable intelligence behind his eyes. In every way he looked like a thug. The kind of man that stands behind money collectors and villains in plays. The ones designed to scare the audience and their children in the local plays by pulling faces and making themselves look unpleasant. But I could also tell that he had played up to his thuggish exterior. Something about the way his eyes moved, very similar to the way Kerrass does it, or those people that I've seen at court, the real powerful people, or the way my sister does when negotiating something. Eyes always moving, looking at details, anything that might lend an advantage.

But I also didn't want to underestimate him. His sword was considerably larger than the one that Kerrass carried and he scooped it up like it was nothing. He also had two, long, fighting knives that were strapped to his waist in front of him like a diagonal cross.

"Do I know you?" I asked. The name was singing in my ear, convincing me that I had heard it somewhere before.

"You might have." He drawled, gazing at me steadily. "I have another name that northerners sometimes call me."

"Really?" I asked as the answer occurred to me and a shiver ran up my spine. Letho's eyes were bothering me. Flat, emotionless and judging. I got the impression that he had already decided how to kill me. "I do not recall." I said it very clearly, making sure that my words were easy to hear.

Kerrass was looking from one of us to the other.

"That's good to hear." Letho turned to Kerrass who suddenly relaxed although I hadn't noticed him tensing up. "Much better than that overdressed peacock that hangs around with White Puppy."

For those people who don't know who Letho of Gulet is. I shall leave you in ignorance. For those people who _do_ know who Letho of Gulet is and are now wondering why I didn't do anything to try and bring the man to justice. You try and face down a Witcher who you know for sure can kill you as easily as breathing. Along with another Witcher who you are unsure of his loyalties. I remind you that this was before we started calling each other friend.

"Speaking of Geralt and the rest of the Wolves. Who else is here?"

"It's just me at the moment. White puppy helped me out a little while ago and he offered to put me up."

"That's a shame. I was hoping to catch Eskel at the very least."

"He left a couple of weeks back. He's not away much for long though. Lambert's off chasing a skirt."

"May all the Gods help her."

"Yeah. She seemed to be into it though."

"Who's the lucky girl."

"I don't know. Blonde woman. Sorceress."

"Keria Metz?" I suggested as a way of trying to re-enter the conversation.

"That's the bitch, yes."

"Tell me," I said feeling my hackles rise despite my best efforts to stay calm. "Do you do lessons on how to offend people? Or is it just something you do naturally."

Letho mused to himself. "I don't know. People generally tend to hate me on sight. That or be afraid of me so I find that hating them back is the easiest way forward. I know what I look like, Scribbler."

"What a nice new nick-name you've given me," I commented.

A hairless eyebrow rose, I realised that then that he was absolutely hairless, not even eye-lashes. "It was either that or, "Woman", or "girl". "Scribbler" suits you better." He sneered which I began to realise was his version of a smile. "Only just though."

"Wonderful. What should I call you? Egghead? Billiard ball? Ooh ooh, I know, Dick-head. It's funny because it's true, in every sense of the word." Somewhere in the back of my mind, a small terrified part of me was listening to what I was saying to this trained killer and whimpering.

Letho astonished me then by laughing aloud.

I fall into a trap occasionally of over-emphasising Kerrass' displays of emotion. When I write that Kerrass smiled, what actually happened is that he kind of smirked. When I say that he laughed, it's more of a short, quiet chuckle. His temper is legendary but beyond that his emotional displays are subdued. I had never heard him guffaw with laughter. Indeed I found that I struggled to imagine any Witcher laughing, not the quiet brooding temperament of Kerrass or the epic versions of the White Wolf from the ballads. Instead I imagine, in the same way that all people do, the grim faced, dour, silent man of mystery.

To hear Letho belly laugh was astonishing.

He turned again to Kerrass. "I like him. Listen Scribbler, I need to talk to the Kitty Cat for a bit. You'll find us up in the keep. Take your time, just don't go wandering through the valley on your own."

"Why? Will you kill me?" I retorted, still feeling the anger of who the man was as well as his general mocking tone.

"Nah, the bears might though. Also the trolls, or the Drowned dead that they have in these parts. There's also, generally some Forktails flying about. The Wights don't come out till later though."

"Lovely place you have here." I heard myself say.

"I didn't choose it." Letho retorted. "Good place for a Witcher school though." He clapped a massive hand on Kerrass' shoulder and led him off, their heads together and talking.

I took the invitation to explore to heart and wandered around a bit. It was hard not to be some kind of giddy child running around and delving into things. As I said earlier. There is a palpable weight about it all. A sense of history about it. Drama too, the feeling that much blood had been spilt. Blood sweat and tears, all mixed up with the mortar that the Witchers had used to bind the bricks together while making repairs to the stonework.

The other thing was that there was a palpable sense of sadness about the place. It was like... It was like the castle was a grand old soldier. A man who had fought many battles and gained many honours and victories. But time and compounded injuries had beaten him down. He was no longer the proud warrior of before, he could no longer straighten or hold his sword in a strong grip. His mind is feeble and you can imagine his pain in remembering what the past had been. But just, in the depth of eyes that are facing with cataracts, you get a sense of the man that used to stride the battlefields of his youth and men fought to get out of his way.

That is what Kaer Morhen is like.

There was a struggle here. A fight of some kind, where someone fought a war, a desperate struggle for their very survival. Then the war had moved on and the old antiques of that struggle had been left to rot.

It was a similar feeling that I sometimes used to get when I walked into the great cathedral in Novigrad for the first time. It was all so heavy and so...strong.

I don't just mean the Witchers or their fights here. I don't know if the Witchers built those ancient fortifications. I find that I doubt it somehow. Kaer Morhen seems more ancient. It feels older somehow. I hope that someone renovates and rebuilds it some day. I don't know why someone would do that, how or why. But I have a dream of that place. Beautiful and terrible as it is.

Listen to me. I'm a scholar. I'm happy being a scholar but sometimes I wish I was a poet, or artist so that I could properly pay tribute to that valley and that place.

I wandered into the gatehouse where I could easily imagine guardsmen standing the watch into the night. There were crates there. I opened one and I found a training dummy that had been dressed up in plate armour. There were scars in the metal near the joints where, I presume, people had been striking at the dummy and aiming for the gaps in the armour and missing. I gave a couple of the other boxes a kick and it felt like they held similar items.

I moved on.

To my layman's eyes, the herb-garden was substantial and well maintained. Recently as well, looking at the wet mud that was sticking to a trowel and gardening fork. Beautiful to look at, I knew too much to go stomping through that undergrowth. It was odd, Letho was a brute, rude, huge and thuggish but I know from my own attempts at trying to make plants grow that they need just as careful a handling as any other craft. I struggled to imagine those huge hands being turned to the careful arts of herbalism and alchemy and felt my mind sliding off the idea.

The path further into the castle sloped up and round to the next gate and I followed slowly. Something in one of the slabs of rock in the stonework caught my eye and I bent to peer closely. Small spirals, fossilized sea creatures, shell fish and other crustaceans. I shook my head in disbelief but there was the evidence. We were miles from the sea and to transport such huge blocks of stone overland would have had to be prohibitively expensive.

My mind provided theories to go with it.

From the river side perhaps?

No, some creatures live in salt water far easier than they do in fresh.

There was a lake in the valley, maybe from there? Same answer.

Perhaps magic. Possible certainly. Magic users have performed incredible feats. But I couldn't imagine why a mage, or group of mages would magic stone all the distance from the sea to build a castle here, in the remote parts of the wilderness, when the mountains were much closer which would provide stone just as easily.

It was baffling, another mystery that I would probably never solve.

The next arch-way did not inspire confidence. This was given that it was obviously in the process of being rebuilt. Wooden support struts were in place and I had to turn sideways to get through them but many of the larger stones had broken into pieces. There were signs that they were being repaired and glued back together where they were being held together, presumably to set, by rope. As I came through I was face to face with a large ballista that was aimed at my head.

The shock was diffused a little as it actually seemed as though it was aimed a little bit above my head. I

climbed up to it and followed the aiming line and guessed that it was aimed at the door frame.

The gate had been collapsed on purpose.

Curious.

I explored this second courtyard.

More training equipment greeted my sight.

There were several things that looked like children's toys only on a much larger scale. Large, multi-segmented see-saws and roundabouts. Going over and giving them a push I found that they were all very finely balanced. There were stains nearby that I took for blood.

All around the place there were cracks in the floor as if something had been confined below and had exploded upwards. I bent down to peer into one of the cracks before a wave of noxious fumes swept up and I reeled backwards, eyes watering. There was some stairs up from there that led to the wall which was obviously in need of some repair. I got up there though and looked out over the vista which was stunning.

Looking down from the wall though, anyone wanting to assault from this angle would need very long ladders or climbing rope. In the distance, down on the floor of the valley I thought I could see the charred remains of some old siege weapons and I resolved to go down to inspect them later. I climbed up, through the third gate which was in much better repair than the second. Well oiled and greased, with the machinery for winching it open off to one side. On the other was a heavily build and locked shed, no windows and a heavy door that was locked.

Beyond the she was a small alcove, over which a large piece of canvas had been stretched. A small campfire smouldered there along with a sleeping roll and some blankets. A pot hung over the ashes and there was a book propped against the wall. It looked like quite a cozy little shelter. I bent to examine the book, to see if there was a title on the spine but it looked as though the book had been rebound at some point. Old wooden covers wrapped in leather. Small pieces of thin leather marked various pages and it showed signs of much use.

I left it where it was.

I also got to see the infamous Comb. I cannot imagine putting a grown man on so obvious a piece of torture machinery, let alone a child. The posts that Kerrass had talked about were fixed to the side of the castle wall. If the person moving along the top fell one way then they fell onto the top of the wall. If they fell the other way then they would fall twenty, thirty feet down onto sharp rocks that covered a sharp slope where the faller would tumble down the loose stone and gravel to the bottom of the gulley. The faller would be lucky if they merely died as otherwise they would clearly be crippled.

A set of wooden practice swords were propped up next to it in a rack. The swords varied in size and I tried picking up one of the smaller ones. There must have been some kind of solid, metal core to it as I needed both hands to lift and hold it properly, let alone practice fighting with it. I know the theory behind giving the trainee heavier weapons before moving them on to lighter ones but this seemed to be ridiculous to me.

I moved on.

In one corner of the upper courtyard I found a huge skeleton of some beast that I did not recognise. It was huge, putting me in mind of some kind of giant insect. Chitinous exo-skeleton and things were still visible. The sun and other elements had long bleached it clean and white.

In the end I began to feel as though things were beginning to get a little overwhelming and I headed for the keep entrance. The door had been wedged open at a small angle so that I had to turn sideways to squeeze through. Inside it was much warmer but it turned out that I hadn't even begun to take in the sights, sounds and smells of this place.

I walked in to a huge hall, So high that it seemed unfeasible that anyone would order a hall to be built so large. As my eyes adjusted to it though I could see several cracks in the ceiling. One large crack in particular had been propped up by huge wooden beams. The very act of that repair in and of itself was a feat of engineering that was mind-boggling but there it stood. I wondered how long it had stood there and who had been the first people to set such a thing up. Even more importantly, given how long it had been there, how much longer would it stay in place.

Witchers. Setting up home, and maintaining that home in a place that was likely to collapse and kill them at

any moment.

The arrangement of the floor space, at first, seemed to be chaotic to me. But again, as I started to adjust to it I began to see the order that came out of the chaos. A corner for books. Another corner for the dissection and study of beasts and monsters. Another corner for beds. Two of which had been made up with what looked like fresh sheets and I recognised Kerrass' steel sword propped against one of them.

I followed a delicious smell to the hearth where I found Letho sprinkling some Rosemary over a large hunk of meat before ladling some kind of sauce over the top of the meat. He did it gently and slowly showing much more patience than I did whenever I was cooking, but it allowed the liquid to be absorbed into the meat with just the slightest bit of what was left spilling into the fire to rise into steam.

"You took your time scribbler," he drawled without looking up.

"You did say you wanted to talk to Kerrass in private."

"No, I said I needed to talk to him for a _bit_. Not an age."

"You also said that I should, and I quote, "Take your time,""

Letho grunted something that I didn't catch.

"Where is Kerrass anyway?" I asked.

"Off somewhere."

"Did he say where?"

Letho just looked at me. I could detect no thought or feeling in that stare. It was as though I was just a thing, an annoyance and a boring one at that. I was being measured in some way and I could not tell what he thought.

"No," he said simply.

"Is he ok?"

"No,"

"This is going to be a really boring conversation."

Another weighing stare.

"He had some bad news is all. Wanted to be by himself for a bit. He'll be back when he's ready."

"How long's that going to be."

"As long as it takes. Give it a fortnight and if he's not back by then I would suggest making your way home."

"Lovely. What was the bad news?"

"A friend of his died." It was as though he took great delight in saying very little but hinting at the maximum possible result. "Asked me to make sure you don't die in the meantime looking at anything you shouldn't."

"Is that a real danger?"

"I don't know. I don't know what you shouldn't be looking at. He did suggest that you could entertain yourself for a year or two by looking at the books over there. Just be careful, some of them are quite old."

"What are you going to do?"

"I don't know yet. Was going to start with dinner. Come here." He beckoned. "Keep spooning the jus over the meat, gently as you can. If you think you could do it slower then you are going to fast."

He lumbered off to a wooden cupboard and produced two plates along with, to my astonishment, a set of cutlery and a pair of wine-glasses. With that he set the nearby table.

"Stop watching me," he said. Against without looking up. "Concentrate on spooning that sauce over the meat." He went over to another part of the hearth where there was an oven, which he opened and produced two loaves of fresh bread which he set out on a rack on the table before coming back to examine my handiwork.

"Not bad," was his musing. With quick practised movements he cut the thinnest of slices of meat off the roast and put them on the plate. Fortunately for my tastes there was plenty of it and he kept going until the skewer was clean other than a carcase. Then from another pan he added some fried mushrooms and other vegetables and poured the sauce into a jug. He gestured for me to sit down opposite him and placed one of the plates in front of me. He poured half the jug over his food, handing it over to me and pulled one of the loaves over to himself and tore a huge chunk off it.

I was just staring at him.

"What?" He said before something occurred to him. "Butter," He got up and rumbled off, coming back with a small pot of butter. "It's goats butter but it does the job."

I felt my mouth drop open as the huge man wasted no time shovelling the food down his throat.

"It's better when it's hot," he commented after he noticed me watching him.

It was delicious.

It was so good that I don't really have the words to describe it.

It was a while before I even noticed that the huge man had carefully poured me a glass of wine. I don't know why I was surprised to discover that the wine complemented the meal perfectly.

"That was delicious," I said after finally mopping up the remains of the sauce with the last of my bread.

"Not bad," Letho grumbled. "Needed more garlic."

I stared at him in a clash of amusement and amazement. "That was amazing. There's a reason that Kerrass has me do most of the cooking on the road. He can cook a good steak but that's about it."

"Well, that doesn't surprise me." Letho lifted his glass to the light and examined the shine of candle-flame through the liquid. "The Kitty Cat always was too impatient to be a proper cook, or a proper alchemist really."

"Have you known Kerrass long?"

Letho looked at me over the top of his glass.

"He warned me about you," he said.

"Oh yes."

"Yes. He told me that you would interrogate me worse than the most zealous church interrogator."

I laughed. "You're my second Witcher." I said. "If our positions were reversed what would you do."

"If our positions were reversed I would probably have tried to kill me."

"Why would I do that."

"That, business with the Kings."

"Not my King." I said shrugging. "Plus I am well aware of my own capabilities. I could no more fight or kill you than I could a dragon."

Oh how I laugh at that comment now.

Letho grunted. "Take a tip, Scribbler. Never have anything to do with Kings, Emperors or Sorceresses. They'll lead you around by the nose and then try to kill you for it."

"I certainly intend to try, but I may find that difficult."

He raised a brow in question.

"I may have caught the eye of an elder vampiric Sorceress."

His eyes widened a little. I had been watching. His expression was much more guarded than Kerrass' was and it was harder to read but I thought I had detected surprise there, then amusement. With maybe just a touch of sympathy.

"In a sexual way, in a "bow to my will kind of way" or what?"

"In a, she suggested we might marry kind of way."

Letho took that in. For a moment before topping up my wine.

"She attractive?"

"Very, Or she will be when she recovers her strength, but she can also cast a glamour on herself so that she can look like whatever she wants."

"In which case," He drank his own wineglass off at a swallow. "I suggest you jump in with both feet."

Amazing how many people have echoed this sentiment.

"Shouldn't I be afraid?"

"Very. But if she's decided then I doubt you have much choice." He got up and fetched another bottle of wine. Then he rethought the matter and fetched a couple of bottles of wine which he put on the table next to us. "Saves time later," he said when he noticed me looking.

"So what do we do now?" I asked.

Letho shrugged. "Cards?"


	46. Chapter 46

(Warning: Scenes of torture. Also, ongoing Spoilers of the quest "The battle of Kaer Morhen" from Witcher 3.)

In the end I spent three days with Letho.

I'll say this for him. He is the truest person that you'll ever meet. He does not dilute himself on any kind of level, what you see is what you get and if he doesn't like you or wants you to go away he will say so. His size affects that aspect of his personality. I've heard that old phrase of a Bull in a glass-shop and that is Letho to a tee. Brute force is part of his character. It's built into him. When he moves, he expects you to get out of his way and if you don't then he will knock you down and then wonder why you're angry at him.

As I say, he doesn't try to be something else, he doesn't try to charm you or be nice to you. If he wants something he'll ask you for it and if you ask him for something, if it is in his power to give you that thing then he will give it to you.

You might regret asking, as his method of giving you the thing might not be the way you expected it to be given.

But that blunt force approach to his physical movements is carried over into his character. He is well aware that he looks like a brute and a thug. He describes himself as being ugly but he has crafted that aspect of himself into a weapon. He lets other people draw their own conclusions from his appearance and then gives them enough rope to hang themselves with. It has been claimed that he is one of the principal architects of the downfall of the original Lodge of Sorceresses as he simply let them talk and talk and pretend to be their pawn. But when the push came to it, he proved himself far far cleverer then they had ever even dreamed that he could be.

That is who Letho is.

He is a hard man to like. But if you can take him at his word. If you can take the entirety of him with all of his insults and his lack of manners and wrap your own head around his... around his very direct method of thinking. Then you will find a rare individual.

No I don't like him. But I respect him enormously. The way I feel about Letho is complex and I'm going to need to spend some time thinking about why he makes me so uncomfortable.

He thinks in straight lines which is something that I struggle with. But I need to quantify that.

You might think of yourself as a direct kind of a person. Honest, loyal, the kind of person who looks a man in the eye and shake his hand with a nice firm handshake. But even then, you think in corners and curves.

I'm a Nobleman and I was trained in courtly techniques. I am taught about etiquette, courtesy, sincerity and other such things. This means that my thinking is always along the lines of, "What is going on and how does it affect me? What could go wrong? How does that affect things? What could the consequences of that action be?" and so on.

Letho would just see the solution and move towards it, heedless of the consequences or of who he might be hurting and how that would affect other people. As an example.

When a child draws a picture of someone, in comparison to the paintings of skilled artists, where oils and things have been used. The child's drawing is obviously inferior because, you know, it's a child. But you don't tell the child that this is the case. You say that that drawing is amazing and tell them that they've done really well because that helps the child build confidence.

Letho would tell the child that the picture was rubbish and then, if he liked the child, he would produce a good painting of a person and show the child how their drawing could be improved.

Let's make the example a little more... obvious.

A Nobleman comes to you. For rendering services to someone they have been given a grant of a new estate in the country. A part of the countryside that is famous for...Oh I don't know...The production of it's cheese.

One of the farmers there has a method of smoking the cheese that makes it taste unique. And as such your friend is making a fortune. He wants to credit the farmer and his chosen method of demonstrating that gratitude is to add something to his heraldry to say, not only that he is now lord of this new manor but that manor is famous for it's cheese. He brings you the heraldry and he says "What do you think?"

You think it looks ridiculous. A proud shield displaying a cheese wheel along with the remarkable odour that the cheese produces in the form of wavy lines above the cheese wheel. It is making your friend a fortune however and the man is, after all, your friend. In no way is this new piece of heraldry going to affect you in any way.

What do you say?

In Letho's case he would say that it looks ridiculous. When his friend was upset, Letho would shrug and point out that his friend had asked his opinion.

In that way he is the most honest. The truest, person that I've met.

Kerrass changes according to the situation. I haven't seen Letho hunt but Kerrass can change his personality, his behaviour and his use of language according to the situation he finds himself in. I can't imagine Letho doing that. I can imagine Letho talking to children. I can imagine him asking simple, brutal questions that deeply upset the child in question and causing the parents of the child to become angry. Then Letho punches out the parent. Hunts the monster and uses a portion of the reward to buy the child a doll or some sweets.

I can also imagine Letho in a court situation. I find the mental image incredibly funny.

I will change my earlier statement. I do like Letho but he is a difficult man to be around. I do not know that he is my friend but I found his company...refreshing and liberating. Almost relaxing.

He is also startling in his intelligence and his strategic and tactical thinking. If he had joined an army he would have been a general that men would talk about in hushed whispers about how he sacked the most formidable towns and defeated numbers six times his own. His capacity for knowledge was immense and he was always trying to increase that knowledge because "You never know when that little titbit would come in handy."

We spent that first night playing cards until we were both drunk enough to struggle to see the cards. Then we played dice before passing out.

He woke me early the following day with a breakfast of more mushrooms and some of the salted pork that he had shamelessly stolen from our packs.

"I've got some Alchemy things going on today," he said as we ate. "Kerrass told me that you wanted to know about the Witchers trials?" The food was again, delicious.

I nodded as my head couldn't decide between shovelling the food into my mouth faster or slowing down to enjoy the flavours.

He responded with a nod of his own. "Then if you stay quiet today, I'll talk to you tomorrow."

That was all he said. He had set various Glassware jars simmering over various small pots of flame that he was muttering over and adjusting in very careful detail. I was again struck, in the same way that I was when I had watched him cooking, at how... careful he was. How delicate and precise he could be with his giant hands and fingers.

I spent the day exploring. I tell a lie, I spent the morning exploring and the rest of the time I spent poring over the Witcher library.

If I wanted to retire and risk the enmity of Letho and Kerrass both, I could have made a fortune by stealing one of those books back to the university. I took two of them down and started reading on the subject of Necrophages. It was dry reading but the level of information that was in there was absolutely beyond anything I had ever come across before.

In the entirety of the rest of the time, Letho and I didn't communicate. He was busy with his mixtures and I was content to leave him to it. At one point he started cooking. I asked him if I could help in any way and he looked at me as though I had offered to take a shit in the cooking pot. I held my hands up in surrender and went back to my book. He did ask me what my tolerance for spices was though and something that _may_ have been approval sparkled in his eyes when I said that I was quite fond of spice.

Then came a point in the early evening when Letho came over with his sword on his back.

"Come on. Kitty cat said you could fight and I don't believe him. A fighting scribbler, heh," he sneered and had turned for the door before I could get my spear out of my gear.

For whatever reason I had fitted the two pieces together when I walked out the door of the keep. It was lucky that I had because Letho levelled a blow at my head that would have decapitated me if I hadn't blocked it. He drew back and hammered at me again. This time I was better braced for the blow and his sword bounced of my spear shaft. The third time he changed the direction of his strike, mid-movement and swung up on the diagonal line towards my groin. I panicked, pushed the blow aside with the haft of the spear in an old Quarterstaff technique and used that same movement to try and slash the spear blade at Letho's face.

Anyone else would have flinched back. It's not a new move. I've used it before which is why it was ingrained in my muscle memory to the point that I fell back on it when startled. In every other case, men move back from the strike.

Letho stepped inside the curve of it, grabbed the spear just under the head of it and tugged. I could no sooner have fought that tug than I could have turned aside the charge of an angry bull. He pulled me into a head-butt that sent my ears ringing. He then tossed me aside in the same way that a man might toss aside a rotten piece of fruit.

In front of the entrance to the keep at Kaer Morhen there is a wall, about waist high. I assume it was a last line of defence where archers or crossbow men could stand and fire down towards the gate. The force of Letho throwing me, sent me colliding into that wall and tumbling over it. I had enough time to realise what was happening, tuck my head in and roll with the impact.

Letho descended the stairs, no expression on his face. There was absolutely nothing there. I could have been a piece of meat to him. A piece of meat or an animal that needs butchering.

I was winded, bruised and there were tears in my eyes from the stinging blow of the head-butt. I had a dim thought that my nose might be broken.

As has always happened in these situations when I have felt my back against the wall and the terror of...whatever threat is coming towards me, I felt a terrible anger in me then.

I screamed and charged him. Timing my point of attack so that my first blow would land just as he was lifting his back foot off the stair behind him. He had been expecting my attack and knocked my blow aside with a casual swipe of his sword.

But in the game of expectation I still had this one. The first thrust was followed by a rapid series of thrusts aimed at his groin, neck and eyes. Off rhythm and random in pattern. Kerrass would have been proud.

Still his expression didn't change. Again, when he should have stepped backwards. When everyone, including Kerrass who taught me the move, receive that sequence, they move backwards. That's what it's designed for. That's why we had worked it out. It was designed for when I was up against a superior foe. Kerrass claimed that the number of superior foes that I might meet on the byways of the continent was decreasing but I was under no illusion here.

The move was designed to make a person back up or to move sideways and off the thrust-line.

Letho didn't. He moved towards me.

Again he grabbed the spear just below the beginning of the blade and tugged. I was leading with my right hand and I tried letting go with that hand and threw a punch at Letho's face.

He just refused to react how any other man would have done. Another man might have flinched backwards. Letho dipped his head so that my blow glanced off his brow, causing more pain to me than it must have done to him. He gave me a huge blow in the chest pushing me stumbling backwards towards a wall. I tripped over something and fell backwards.

The violence of the man was incredible. So focused and uncompromising. It was also so simple but no less skilful than Kerrass' fighting techniques. The way Kerrass fights displays his mastery of the form and the technique. Now that I am so much better educated in violence than I was when I first started this venture, I can see the skills and the incredible amount of work that went in to his fighting.

Letho makes violence look easy. It's direct, bruising and uncompromising. But also, because he doesn't behave in a way that you expect him to. He's also utterly terrifying, implacable and utterly unstoppable. Like an avalanche that is filtered and focused against you specifically.

I had fallen and struggled to roll backwards to my feet. I botched the movement and covered my head with my arms to protect myself from the attack that I expected.

"Not bad," he drawled from where he was standing. Just out of range of any blows that I might aim at him.

He was leaning on my spear. "At least, not bad for a scribbler." He sneered again. "Kerrass told me that he had done his best to give you some general survival tricks but that was honestly better than I was expecting."

"You must have set your expectations incredibly low then." I commented as I examined the couple of scrapes and things that I had received.

"I had, to be truthful. The Kitty cat has set you in good stead. Let's head back up. He turned and walked away, still carrying the spear. I spent a bit of time making sure that I was still relatively uninjured before following him. I found him next to the door drinking from a water-skin which he threw at me when he was finished.

"Hydrate," He ordered and I did as I was told. The water was a little bitter. "I put some herbs in it to purify it. Better for you than adding alcohol to everything but it does compromise flavour a little. Drink it."

I did as I was told. Letho was playing with the spear.

"You've had a good teacher," he commented. "I would have given you a sword,"

"I knew some Quarterstaff before he started."

Letho took that without comment. Twirling the spear around a bit so that the sunlight glinted off the blade.

"A Quarterstaff wouldn't bother someone in armour though."

"Hence the blade."

"Hmm. But using a spear falls apart when you know how to beat a spear."

"Which is?"

Letho grinned at me. "Don't you know? I've already shown you. Would you like me to demonstrate?" He threw me the spear which I caught.

His sword was out and flashing towards my head. I leaned out of the way so that the blow passed me although I felt the wind of it. Returned to an upright stance and used the added momentum to swing a blow on the opposite side to where Letho's sword was, aiming for his neck.

He parried, because of course he parried, but then he turned the parry into a turn and he was inside my guard and his blade was next to my skin.

Again I had the opportunity to learn that Letho's breath smelled like mint.

Once he had given me enough time to realise that his blade was next to my neck he pulled back.

"Do you see it now?"

"I think so. Once an opponent is passed the blade there's not a great deal I can do."

"There is," Letho sneered. "You could bruise my ribs with a pommel strike or with the haft of the spear. But beyond that. You could fall back."

"But once you start falling back..."

"You never stop." Letho finished for me. "At least he taught you something." He grunted.

"So how do I protect myself against that. I'm never going to be that good with a sword, as Kerrass said, correctly in my opinion, my brain keeps getting in the way."

"He's not wrong. I can almost see your brain working. Get yourself a knife. A decent dagger, like these." He patted the two blades strapped across his belly.

"I was going to ask about those. Kerrass doesn't have them and I've never heard of another Witcher using them."

"You have," Letho commented. "You're just being polite."

"Maybe."

"Anyway, we're talking about you now. Look. I'll show you." He reached out and plucked the spear from my grip and gestured with it to some training swords that were propped against the keep door. They were lighter than the ones that I had found in the courtyard the previous day.

"People are designed and built for self-preservation." Letho said testing the spear for balance a little. "A lot of your fighting is designed, presumably by the Kitten, to keep your enemy away from you. But the real way to kill a man is to get close to him. So if you find someone who knows that. Who has trained himself to avoid that then, you're fucked. So you need a back-up. Now..."

He readied the spear.

"Attack me, and close with me. Don't jerk back, get closer."

I swung a movement at his head but diverted to his feet. He knocked my blow away easily and brought the spear down in a vertical strike towards my head.

Of course I jerked backwards. The spear stopped, dead, just above where my head at been.

"Pussy," Letho hissed.

"Sorry, sorry."

"Don't be sorry. Again, same movement, this time step inwards."

We ran through the movement. This time I managed to overcome my flinch and stepped into him. He grunted his acknowledgement of my doing what I had been told.

"See. I am now in range of your sword and what can I do? Stand still."

He struck at me a couple of times with the spear. As far as I could tell, he was only pulling the blows a little bit but they still hurt. But he was right, the spear was blocked by his hands or his arms and body got in the way.

"You see?"

I nodded, rubbing at a bruise on my ribs.

"Awww," he drawled, "Is the little Scribbler hurt?"

"A little."

"Heh, So here's what I would do. Again."

He took up the stance. I swung my attack, he blocked, I stepped in. He let go of the spear with one hand and drew one of the knives at his waist.

I swear I could feel the cold of the metal despite the fact that it wasn't touching me.

"You see how it works."

I looked into his eyes. Still flat, still dead. Again I was being weighed and measured.

"I think so," I said, dimly screaming at myself not to say the words that came out of my mouth next. "Could you show me again though?"

I saw something flicker in his eyes then. I don't know what it was and never got the chance to ask him. We squared off and the manoeuvre repeated itself.

"I see," I said. "Thank you for the tip. I shall certainly take the opportunity to pick up a dagger when I'm next near a blacksmiths stall."

I then turned my back to put my practice sword back on the rack.

"Can I ask a couple of questions now?" I said turning around and back to him. I thought I saw, I can't swear to it but I thought I saw amusement in his eyes.

"Sure," he said, picking up the water skin and drinking off another large amount of the water before passing it back to me.

"So, the knives?"

Letho grunted. "We call them "The Vipers fangs". All Witchers of my school had them and we considered them to be just as vital to a Witchers survival as our silver and steel swords. Here, put these on." He reached behind the practice sword rack and produced a pair of thick leather gloves, the kind that you might use to work at Alchemy.

I did as I was told and he passed one of the daggers over.

It was heavier than I had first though it was, much more weighted towards the handle than I had been expecting. As I held it in the light I could see that the steel looked it was wet and then when I tilted it towards the light there was a rainbow sheen to the blade.

"Is that in the oil?"

"That's not oil," he said, equally as carefully taking the dagger off me and slotting it back into it's sheath. "The Pussy cat will have told you about the stereotype of the Vipers that the other schools all hold which is that we've forgotten more about Alchemy than the rest of the schools put together?"

I nodded. "I had heard."

Letho grunted. "Well that's true, but a little simpler than the full truth. The real truth is that we've forgotten more chemistry and forging than the rest of them ever knew. Those daggers were designed by one of ours. The forging method is lost although the Silver haired puppy dog tells me he found some documents that might shed some light on things relatively recently. But the method of making them means that they never need to be oiled. Not for monsters humans or beasts."

He sniffed, hawked and spat. Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

"Yes we know alchemy. But I've never once had to use a blade oil on any of my weapons. The poisons were baked into the metal when they were forged."

"An impressive feat of engineering."

"That's one word for it. Others might say different."

"But why daggers as well. Other than the flowery name."

"Heh. I honestly wonder that no-one else uses them. The thing with spears is not peculiar to spears but also swords and shields and maces. If you close with an enemy then their weapons are vastly reduced in efficiency. So then you pull a dagger." He shrugged again. "It makes sense to us."

"I suppose it does at that."

"Anyway." He stood. "Got to check a couple of the potions. Dinner'll be a couple hours. We talk about the trials tomorrow."

"What about Kerrass?"

"He took some supplies. He'll be off moping somewhere. Witchers are good at moping." He lumbered through the door.

Once again, I offered to help with dinner. This time though, Letho simply ignored me and I felt that my duty was done and returned to my book. All too soon though Letho called me back to the table and put down a spiced Lamb dish that he described as being called Lamb Curry. It was delicious and I fell into bed for my second night spent in Kaer Morhen.

I woke up when a bucket of icy cold water was tipped over me and I leapt up to consciousness with a yell and a jump out of bed.

"Time to wake up Scribbler," Letho drawled in a flat tone.

"But it's still d..." I nearly bit my tongue as Letho cuffed me round the ear.

"You wanted to know about the trials. Well these are the trials. Welcome to your first day of the choice Scribbler."

"But..."

He cuffed me again.

"When I want to hear your voice, worm, I will ask for it. Until then dress. Breakfast is ready and if you're not there in one minute I shall assume you're not hungry and we will start the day as I mean us to go on."

He turned and left.

I stared at his retreating back for a moment until he called "fifty seconds" over his shoulder.

I leapt to my travel bags where I opened the top to find myself a clean and a dry shirt. Except the bags weren't there. There was just my boots and my spear.

"Where are my things?" I yelled to no answer.

I put my boots on and caught up my spear as I dashed over to the table where Letho was putting a kind of porridge mixture into a bowl.

"What did you do with my clothes?" I demanded.

Letho ignored me. "Your foods getting cold." His voice was flat and dead. "You've got two minutes to eat it."

"Where are my things?"

He looked me up and down. "You're wearing them aren't you? Eat. One minute forty five."

As sometimes happens in moments of high stress, my body decided that I had lost my mind somewhere and rushed me over to the table where I started shovelling food down my throat where it burnt my mouth. It was porridge, much like you might eat elsewhere. What I didn't recognise were the berries that were mixed into the porridge which left an odd burning sensation in the back of my throat.

When I had scraped the bowl clean Letho pointed at a large bucket of water.

"Clean your bowl, put it away and then come back." He fished a cloth bag out from somewhere, from which he took a long, straight razor which he started stropping against the leather.

"Quicker." He rumbled.

Once the bowl was cleaned and I stood in front of him Letho looked up at me.

"Here's the deal Scribbler, You want to know about the Witcher trials. Fair enough, I will tell you. This is the trial of choice. You must get through the trial of choice to find out about the trial of Grasses, the Trial of Dreams and the Trial of the Mountain. Failure to do what I tell you will mean that you learn nothing. If, at any point you have had enough or would rather we stop. All you have to do is say, "I give up," and we stop there. But. I will never tell you about the other trials. I will also tell the Kitten that he shouldn't tell you and I will spread the word amongst every other Witcher that I meet that they should also, not tell you about the trials. I will make it my business to prevent you from learning about them. Do you understand?"

I nodded.

"At any point. Just say, "I give up." f you say anything else, I shall ignore you. Just three little words. Understand?"

I nodded again.

"Good. Strip."

"What?"

"Your clothes Scribbler. Strip. Or I will strip you instead."

I did as I was told. Somewhere in the back of my mind a voice was screaming. It was still dark outside and the only light for me to see by was cast by the fire and from several of the many candles that were dotted around the place. I was cold, still a bit sore from where Letho had administered the previous days "Lessons."

But a small nub of stubbornness had been tapped into and I found that I was refusing to give up.

Letho walked round me, examining my naked body in minute detail. Commenting clinically on my muscle mass in different areas, body fat, scars and other signs of injuries. He brought a candle close to my face and spent a long time looking into my eyes before opening my mouth and peering inside at all of my teeth and tongue.

Then he examined my penis declaring "No obvious signs of drug use."

Holy flame knows what he meant. I was frozen in shock and terror. No-one should have a candle that close to their genitals uninvited.

I was shivering by that point. A potent combination of fear and cold. He pushed over a stool and ordered me to sit. When I did so he shaved my head and face until I was utterly bald like himself. Then I was again ordered to stand and he shaved all of my body hair. Including my pubic hair.

"Why...?" My stunned mouth was articulating.

"Lice," was the answer. "Just because we're immune to diseases doesn't mean we shouldn't protect ourselves from filth."

When he was done and I felt even colder and itchy, he threw a white powder at me which itched in my eyes and made me sneeze. Then he did the same to my back.

"Normally I would give you some Novice clothes but you're much to tall for standard novice clothes. Put your old ones on."

"But they're still wet." I complained.

Letho ignored this as being unimportant to his world view.

I dressed.

Letho gave me a cup of a strange kind of fruit juice. It was blue and tart and in a strange kind of way, it warmed me down to my toes.

"Right, bring your spear."

What followed was not the worst day of my life. That still belonged to the creature of Amber's crossing and the day immediately after Kerrass brought me out of the woods. But this was close.

What made it all the worse was how clearly Letho had taken the measure of me. It was galling how easy he found it to manipulate me. Every time I was faltering, every time I was on the point of giving up he would sneer with a whispered insult. Or he would just remind me about the information that would be kept from me if I was to give up. Yes I already knew about the choice and what was involved but this was it. This was the choice made manifest.

I don't think I've worked that hard, physically on any given day of my life. Even under the watchful eyes of Kerrass or my tutors when my father still held out hope of making a knight out of me. I've spent entire days in the saddle that didn't leave me as sore or as stiff as that day under Letho's watchful gaze.

We started off by running the castle's walls. A miniature assault course of climbing up and down ladders and steps, running across parapets and jumping across gaps. The view must have been magnificent as we ran, my breath steaming out in front of me in the cold morning air but I didn't have time to see it We ran three circuits all the while Letho who ran in front of me, showing me where to put my feet and where the safe ladders were was calling insults and goading me on. He was also yelling the pace and an almost constant instruction as to how to breathe. Every time I started to pant or gasp for breath he would bellow the order back "control your breathing."

When we were done with that we started off with weapon drills. I was allowed to use my spear and the vast majority of the drills that we used were similar to the ones that Kerrass had already taught me. The difference was how I did them. We would run over rocky ground before Letho would yell for me to do one or other drill. Then we would move on. Another set of movements while I stood on one leg but I was still expected to put my full weight and strength behind each blow.

We did another one on the see-saws where Letho enthusiastically worked the other ends in a deliberate attempt to tip me off the edge and onto my back. Another on the roundabout which, again, Letho span in bewildering and chaotic patterns.

Anyone else would have been laughing at my discomfort. Or giggling at the number of times that I fell backwards onto my arse. They would have even mocked me when I had to stop to throw up into a bucket that Letho pushed over for that purpose. But Letho's face never changed from that implacable mask that he used when fighting. I've seen more expression carved into the face of Golem's and earth elementals than that man showed me that day.

But still I didn't give up. I don't know why. Letho's manipulations of me, certainly played their part. His insults and commentary urging me on. There was also a part of me that wanted the information that he had offered. I had no doubt that I could wear Kerrass down enough to the point where he would give me any information that I pressured him into but that wasn't the point by then. Still another part of it was that I had no energy left for giving up or to give to the mental capacity to make up my mind to give out those three little words.

Letho worked me hard. I was astonished when he called a halt and realised that the sun was in the sky.

"Walk," he said. "Stay standing, if you lie or sit down you will stiffen up and then you'll hurt yourself. Walk it off."

He disappeared inside for a moment or two but when he came back he had a small square of... Well I don't know what it was. It was a kind of sugary, buttery cake that crumbled in my mouth. It tasted of sweetness and mint. It also gave me a strange kind of energy that I could feel spread out from my belly into the rest of my limbs. When I had finished that he gave me a cup of something that was almost milk but not quite. It settled my stomach like milk and had the same creamy taste and texture of milk as well as an after taste of what I thought was honey. There were other flavours in there but I couldn't recognise them.

I drank it all at a single swallow to realise that Letho was staring at me flatly.

"Time you met "The Killer" Scribbler."

And, Oh boy did I.

The trail for the Killer leaves Kaer Morhen and climbs up into the mountains to where the air is so thin that there were times when I was struggling to breathe. I felt light headed and dizzy as we ran, still with Letho calling out instructions to me, breathing easily while jogging backwards as he threw insults and directions back at me before turning and leaping across gaps or scampering up cliff-sides that goats would struggle with, without effort. Always ready with a quick insult or hissed encouragement. Then the path comes down off the mountain and down a large scree slope down the mountain where we enter the forests that border that deep valley. That isn't to say that the path was any safer, we still had to run along sheer drops or make long leaps over gaps that might have broken limbs had we fallen in. Even then we skipped entire sections of the track as parts of it had fallen into disrepair over the years and were no longer usable. We took the rest of the day over it and it was dark before our feet finally found the road and we started to head back towards the keep.

Letho was with me the entire way. Sometimes in front of me, sometimes next to me, sometimes behind me. He seemed to have an instinct for what I needed to hear and when I needed to hear it, whether that was an instruction, an insult or encouragement. He drove me to the edge of what I thought my endurance was capable of and then he pushed me a little bit further than that. I hated him that day. I hated him as he called out the pace, reminded me to breathe, or the effortless way that he would scamper up logs that I struggled to climb, or the grace with which he would leap through the air to catch onto hand holds that I would have missed. It was a brutal grace and I hated him for it.

That was another way of thinking about the difference between Letho and Kerrass. The way Kerrass moves and fights is, well, cat-like. He attacks furiously and randomly while at the same time maintaining a healthy respect for his own life and body but he does it with an absolute minimum of effort. His sword is razor sharp and he keeps it that way so that when it hits something, he only has to use the very minimum of force for that blade to shear through skin, flesh and bone. What Letho does is that he takes the most direct course of action.

Whether that's through the person or people or obstacles. Very early on in our adventures I witnessed Kerrass fighting a knight. Sir William the Ram, he was called and they fought each other on relatively flat ground. Kerrass dissected the man, aiming for his weak points until the man was helpless before him. I don't know for sure but I suspect that what Letho would have done in that situation would have been to kill the horse. He certainly wouldn't have allowed the knight to get to his feet. He would have walked up and stamped on the man's neck, or stabbed straight down into the visor. If the knight was on foot, I feel sure that Letho would have just struck the man in the head or used a simpler, stronger and more brutal tactic than Kerrass did. No less valid, and both things worked.

Kerrass is a masterfully crafted and wielded blade.

Letho is the sharpened lump of metal with a handle wielded with impossible strength and the knowledge that it would still get the job done.

There is skill in both men. Mastery in both.

Letho was so different from what I was used to. Even more different than what I had found with Kerrass and that day, as I ran, I hated Letho.

But I did what he told me. I ran until my entire body was screaming with agony and then I ran a little bit longer. It was a relief when I got down into the valley and we started to run along the tight packed ground of the road that Kerrass and I had ridden into the valley on and I could see Kaer Morhen in the distance, still dominating the sky-line.

It was getting dark by this point and the earlier feeling of oppression was beginning to build up again. I remembered what Letho had said earlier about the Wights coming out at dark and I found that I still had some more to give. Still had some more energy and I stepped up the pace.

I turned for the keep but Letho had different ideas.

"Where you going Scribbler?"

"It's dark,"

"So?"

"Are we not heading back?"

"Tired and hungry are we?" I could hear the sneer in his voice, even if I couldn't see it.

"Yes,"

"Day's not over yet. Follow," I heard him rooting around in a pile of wooden things that were at his feet and he straightened with a lit torch spluttering to life in his hand.

He led me off, at a slower pace but still, not slowly. The path that he was leading me to went uphill. I could feel grass underfoot but I could tell that I was still on a road of some kind. We went higher until the road came to a flatter area and the hardened earth of the road became a looser, gravel and stone covered ground. A huge dark shape loomed before us. Not a castle, the likes of Kaer Morhen. Smaller, flatter and uglier.

"This hill fortress was one of the defences in the valley. Fuck knows why Kaer Morhen and the Watchtower weren't enough by themselves but, there you go." Letho's voice drifted back at me through the air. "When I first came here, a man called Eskel told me that he used to be brought up here to train at the sword. He told me that the Elder Witchers used to bring them up here at night so that the young Witchers would have to get used to being around the ghosts of their predecessors. Heh, personally speaking I just think it was a joke played on the youngsters."

He led me through an opening in the wall and I found that I was standing in a large courtyard. Shadows cast by the torchlight on broken stone, danced against the walls.

"So here's the thing Scribbler." He planted the torch in the ground, wedging it so that it stood upright.

"Dinner's back at Kaer Morhen. You make it back there and I'll give you some. If not, I'll spend some time tomorrow looking for your corpse."

He grabbed me by the shoulders and spun me around several times rapidly. I had been expecting that cheap trick though and as soon as he let go I was looking for the torch flame, thinking that I could orientate myself using that.

But Letho was too quick. I heard him snap his fingers and a blast of air hit me in the chest and sent me tumbling. The same blast must have snuffed out the torch flame because when my head had stopped spinning enough for me to be able to stand, the light was gone.

The first thing that crossed my mind was not to panic.

The second thing that crossed my mind was the very distinct thought of "Why shouldn't I fucking panic?"

I found this second thought a little funny and let myself have a bit of a chuckle at my own brain. Then I sat down and tried to do some serious thinking.

First things first, I looked up at the stars to see if I could tell anything about direction or roughly where I was oriented. It was a good idea but foiled a little bit by the fact that astronomy was not my best topic but I could figure out which way was North. I remembered, from the approach to the castle that when Kerrass and I had approached Kaer Morhen we had come to it from the South. That was the same path that Letho and I had used to get us back to Kaer Morhen. From there the path had diverted off.

That was it. We had followed the path.

I tried not to think about the fact that I could begin to hear noises in the air. It might have been the moans of ghosts waking up or Wights deciding that their graves were a little bit too familiar.

I reminded myself not to panic.

Had Letho left me?

Possibly. If I shouted out for help, would he come back?

I doubted it.

Would he help me if I called out the "I quit," sentiment. That was more likely but then I would never find out about the next trials.

I climbed back to my feet. The sky was without a moon so what little light the star-scape gave me was small. Starting with where I stood up as a centre, I worked my way out in a spiral pattern until I came across some rocks at my feet. Crouching I had a bit of a feel around I felt my hopes perk up as I found the torch that Letho had discarded. The end of it was still warm.

Those voices on the wind were louder than they had been.

No time to worry about that. Focus.

I carry a belt knife. Casting around a bit I found some twigs and some dry feeling grass. Taking the knife, the grass and a lump of stone I spent some time trying to make fire.

For the first time in a long time I thanked Kerrass for making me do most of the cooking as I was much better at lighting a fire than I had been when we first started the journey. I lit the torch and held it up.

Just in time to see the first wight levelling a sword at my head.

I threw myself backwards and heard it scream. I rolled, still had hold of the torch and I ran for the exit. The old fort really was just a circle of stone. But it was on two levels. I jumped down to the lower and pelted towards the entrance as the very real threat was behind me.

Thankfully I made it out of the circle fairly quickly and turned to see the green glow of the wight disappearing behind me.

I gave myself the luxury of a bit more time to catch my breath and calm down a bit. I looked up at the sky to check where I was but the torchlight had robbed me of my night-vision and I couldn't see. If I could find the path though?

Again I made a quick search of the surrounding area until I find a path that I _thought_ was in the right perspective to the fort. Time to make sure though but preparations first.

Using the torch, I gathered a few more bits of dead grass and bits of twig and old leaves and tucked then inside my shirt so that, in theory I could relight the torch. Then I snuffed it out on the ground.

Again, I waited for my night vision to return.

Make use of all my senses.

The river. The river ran to the southern part of Kaer Morhen and I had been walking along a path that had branched off from the road into Kaer Morhen to get here.

Yes, I was heading in the right direction.

Taking my time and walking slowly so that I could feel the ground while checking the sky occasionally so as to check my direction of travel, I set off into the night.

I often wonder about that night. Obviously, everyone reading this knows that I made it back in one piece but where was Letho during all of my deliberations? I never found out. I do know that when I recounted this story to Kerrass when we were back on the road he first reacted with Anger followed by a kind of wry amusement along the lines of "Well, I guess it worked out alright," and told me that I got off easy. But I've always wondered. I had no doubt that if Letho wanted to he could have done it so that I would never have heard him. He might have been mere meters away from me and I never would have seen or heard him and as I say, it was anything but a quiet night.

I found the fork in the road where the main causeway headed back towards Kaer Morhen and the other fork headed away South. I found it just as I was beginning to be convinced that I had missed it somewhere. I relit my torch in the entrance way to make my way through the castle and up to the keep.

The warmth that washed over me as I made my way back through those doors and into the keep was wonderful.

Letho was crouched over a pot, stirring it with a long handled spoon.

"Well done Scribbler." He said without looking up.

It was a red meat stew that we ate that night. I can't remember much else about it. Letho ordered me to sleep after that and I now know that the old saying about being asleep before I hit the pillow is not an exaggeration.

I woke slowly the following day. I have no idea what time it was but I know that I became aware slowly. Painfully so but I had no desire to wake up any quicker. I allowed myself to slowly climb out of the state of unconsciousness. First, I was aware of light, then warmth and, relative, comfort. Then, when I was finally ready to make that last leap into consciousness, I allowed my eyes to open.

Then I made a mistake.

I shifted my weight.

My entire body yelled at me which was an interesting sensation. Not something that I had experienced before but at the same time I felt fully justified. Every bruise and ache that I had ignored in the face of Letho's scorn or encouragement came back to bite me.

I must have groaned because then Letho's voice drifted over to me from the kitchen area.

"Morning Scribbler." He seemed far too jovial. Much more than I felt should have been allowed after the amount of effort that we had both been putting in last yesterday. "Rub the stiffness out of yourself. Things to do today."

"Oh yes?" I managed to turn and through a truly astounding amount of effort I managed to sit up. At the time I felt as though climbing mountains would have been easier. Figuring that I was halfway there and after rubbing my calves for a few moments I pushed myself up to my feet and paced up and down until I could begin to feel the stiffness lessen. Not disappear. But at the time I was grateful for small mercies.

"Yes." He was shuffling around somewhere just out of sight. I could hear metal squeaking and jangling as things pushed and crashed together. One of the things that I had began to get used to was that there was no scent of food.

I pulled on a fresh shirt and staggered off to relieve myself before coming back.

Letho had been busy while I slept. Next to the Kitchen area a space had been cleared and the things that I could hear being pushed around were not entirely pleasant in appearance. There was a sturdy looking table that had a huge array of tools on it that looked like the tools that a torturer might use in his day to day activities, knives, screws, boxes and cages. Sharp needles, clamps, vices and small jars of various liquids of varying colours. There were also several carefully coiled rubber tubes of varying sizes.

Next to the table and at a right angle to it was a ghoulish looking contraption. A little above waist height it looked like a cage. Roughly humanoid in shape and it had many screws, straps and things that I gathered were restraints of various kinds. Next to that again was a complicated looking glass contraption. Large hollow globes that were filled, a little over half full with another multitude of liquids. The globes fed into long glass tubes that terminated in tapered ends that were held closed with tiny spigots.

"Is all of that to do with the next trials?" I asked.

Letho said nothing. He was pouring a liquid into a large flagon which he then offered to me. He then picked up his own cup and led me over to the various apparatus.

"What about breakfast?" I asked.

Letho shook his head. "This bit is nasty. You might be grateful for not having eaten by the time we're done."

"Lovely. The drink's ok though?"

"Yeah, it'll help with the stiffness."

I took a sip and grimaced. "Not pleasant."

"Medicine never is." Letho grunted. I had wandered over to the table and examined some of the tools there.

"This looks horrible."

"And it is. Sooner or later. Every one of us gets put in a cage like that one." He pointed at the restraints, "We get tied into it and then they start administering the potions and the mutagens."

"Lovely." I took another sip from the cup. It really did taste awful and I put the cup down in an effort to not drink any more of it. Hoping that Letho would let me off with not drinking it.

"So what's involved?" I asked.

"Well, by this point the student has been drinking the potions and eating the mushrooms that we've been giving them since they arrived. They've been training hard and obsessively, developing their bodies and their minds to the point that they can accept the mutations, you get me?"

"I do."

"So then, we lay the student down into the cage and we mix these potions into their blood-stream. This apparatus is a bit different from how they used to do it at the Viper school but it's similar enough to show you."

He moved the glass globes round the cage until they sat next to where the patients groin would be.

"The best and fastest way to do that would to be just attaching the tubes," he pointed to where the stack of them were on the table," to the arteries in the groin. But we often found that when the student started to go into spasm, that needle would tear the skin and the subject would bleed to death. So more often than not we went in through the arms and neck."

"Surely you would have the same problems going in through the neck as you would in the groin."

"Yes, but it's much easier to strap the head into place than it was the hips. There are ways and means of course but that's never quite as efficient and made for more work. We needed to secure the head anyway as there was some stuff that needed to go in through the eye."

"Yikes."

Letho just grunted

"So when the patient was properly immobilised we would send the chemicals through the tubes and into the body where it would begin to adjust the nervous system and the blood flow in the body. Strengthening the heart and things like that."

"And that's the trial of the grasses is it?"

"Yeah."

"And how many people survived that?"

"Generally we thought we had done well if we got four viable Witchers out of the process."

"What did they die of?"

"Liver failure, shock, sometimes it was that their body simply rejected what we were doing to it. Can you blame it?"

"Not really. Painful?"

"Very. Sometimes we couldn't find the arteries that we needed so that we had to dig around to find it. Sometimes that artery wasn't big enough to allow the free flowing of the mutagen so we had to...adjust matters. All the while, the subject had to remain conscious."

I winced in imagined sympathy as I picked up a huge syringe. The needle, although hollow was big enough that I could see the hole in that needle without looking closely.

"I'm sorry." I heard myself say. "That must have been awful."

"It was. Finished your drink?"

"Sorry Letho, I think I'll live with the stiffness." I tried to make it a joke.

I heard Letho take two quick steps towards me. I turned just as he punched me in the gut.

The breath whooshed out of me and I staggered, gasping for breath. I couldn't breath. Couldn't yell or scream. I still had something in my hands, a medical instrument of some kind. I swung it at him, more out of reflex than anything else as I was mostly doubled up. I felt him grab my arm and simply pull the instrument out of my hand. Then he grabbed me by the hair and pulled me up and backwards.

"You assume that you get a choice in the matter." he grated. He pulled me back over to the table and tilted my head back, putting it down on the table so that my back was arched backwards. Using the other hand he forced my mouth open and put some kind of wedge between my teeth leaving it so that my mouth was held open. Then a peg was added to my nose so that I could only breath through my mouth.

"Drink, or drown." Letho grated before pouring the contents of the mug down my throat.

It was a close run thing. I coughed and spluttered but the flow was unstoppable as the liquid was poured in at a fairly steady rate. In the end I gave up and swallowed out of self defence.

Letho's expression didn't change. He might has well have been a machine. Like one of those new fangled printing presses that I've seen at the university.

When the cup was empty, he threw it aside and let go of me so that I could crash to the floor. I pulled the clamp off my nose and pulled the wedge out of my mouth.

"What the hell are you..."

"Shut up." Letho had turned his back to me and was fitting a length of rubber hose to the glass machinery. "You wanted to know about the trials of a Witcher. So I'm telling you. But you don't understand it yet. You still don't get it. No-one ever does. So I'm going to show you."

"What was in that drink?"

"In the drink? It was a paralytic. Not to send you to sleep but so that you won't struggle as hard when I start moving you around. It'll make the injection go a lot easier."

"You bastard."

Letho ignored me as he attached another tube to the glass globes.

"Why?" I asked

"Because someone needs to know. Someone should know."

He came back, crouched next to me and looked into my eyes. Whatever he was looking for he didn't find it as he took another length of tubing and started to attach that one as well.

"Ok." I said. "I give up. Game's over."

Letho chuckled. He came back over to me, removed my boots, my trews and my shirt. He did so professionally. I still had strength to try and fight him a little but I might as well have been punching a mountain. Both from the perspective of the person that I was hitting as well as the strength that was in my limbs.

"There's not a choice any more Scribbler." He said after staring at my face for a moment. "You passed "The Choice" remember. Now we come and get you if you give up and run away."

He picked me up under the armpits and carried me over to the cage where opened it and then threw me inside, arranged my limbs properly and let the lid of the cage close with a crash.

It was not lost on me that he locked the clasp.

Then he went to work, strapping me down, clamping me down so that hat little movement I did have was completely restricted. I couldn't move. I could barely breath. I could just about turn my head to watch him as he went about his business. Spinning handles and wheels. Doing up straps and buckling me down painfully so that my skin was pinched between the leather.

Lastly he came to my head, pushing my head back into place he fitted leather strap over the top which he then tightened using anther wheel. Another set of pads was placed on either side of my head and then tightened so that I was kept immobile.

It was literally as though my head was trapped in a vice. I couldn't see anything any more. I could only see directly up at the ceiling. Letho's face came into view.

"You comfortable Scribbler?"

"Fuck you." I snarled although I suspect it came out as a whimper.

"Good. Hold onto that anger. Think clearly about how much damage you want to do to me and how much pain you want to cause me. The hate will give you something to focus on when the pain starts."

He put the wedge back between my teeth.

"So this is the trial of the Grasses." I heard squeaking metal sounds of something being scraped over stone floor. It would have turned my teeth on edge and caused me to wince if I had had the room to move. "This is by far the most famous of the trials and it's the one that Wizards and Sorceresses get all moist over when they hear about it. I don't know what goes into the chemicals but fortunately, the Wolves had some left over so, heh, we were lucky there."

I could see the top of Letho's head now. I guessed that he was stood somewhere around my waist. I could feel him tightening a strap around my upper arm before he started flicking his finger at the crook of my elbow.

"Nice thick veins you have here Scribbler," he commented, "That makes it so much easier." I saw him lift a tube and fit a needle on the end of it. "Make some fists with your hands." He instructed.

"Fuck you,"

"Suit yourself." He flicked the elbow again. "There we go, you're going to feel a pinch."

A pinch I felt. Then I felt something cold and slimy against my skin.

"Oh fuck it all, the mixture's spilling." Something came out of my arm, I felt hot liquid over my skin and dripping down past my elbow.

"Half a moment," Letho sucked on the end of the needle and then spat before bending over and looked like he carefully pushed the needle back into my arm. This time I really felt it.

It felt cold. But it burned at the same time.

Let me put it like this. Imagine being cold, you've been outside in the snow or something when you get handed a hot drink. Maybe some mulled wine or a strong liqueur. You drink it and you can feel the warmth go through your body, starting with your throat and then moving down to your belly before it radiates out like that.

The feeling of that chemical going into my body was like that only in a more concentrated way. I could feel that same fire move from the arteries to the veins and the capillaries and to the tips of my fingers. Calling it painful would be the world's worst understatement. It was like the insides of my body were on fire. But it hadn't yet reached my shoulder. It was crawling through me, slowly, so slowly. It was taking it's sweet fucking time as well.

"You think it hurts now?" Letho asked. He was over my face again. "Wait until it gets to your heart. Then we're really off to the races. But, we've got a different chemical to put into the veins on your other side. Also the ones in your ankles. Stay where you are now."

I whimpered when I felt him insert a needle into my other arm.

By the time he had worked a needle into the pulse point on the inside of my ankle I was already screaming. Some of the chemical was now getting to the point where I could feel it in my lungs.

I felt as though I was drowning.

I knew I wasn't. I _knew_ that I wasn't. In the same part of my brain that commented and remembered the things that had happened to me in the woods of Amber's crossing, that part of my brain told me that I wasn't drowning. But I felt as though I was.

I screamed and I screamed. But then I couldn't. I couldn't get enough air to scream.

All the while, Letho kept up his commentary.

"No shame in screaming Scribbler. No shame in it at all. In a fight I always thought that it was a bit of wasted breath to hurl insults or shout or whatever at your opponent but in this case, your voice is the only weapon that you have so get angry, scream, yell. Make me feel it."

My left leg started to shake. I tried to fight it as the burning ice started to crawl up my leg but it got worse and worse to the point where the cage was audibly rattling.

"There were times when I used to climb up to the highest point in Viper Keep and scream my rage and anger out into the wind. But no-one ever came to rescue me. Just as no-one's going to come for you now. Your Kitty cat friend is down at the south end of the valley right now."

I howled, time was starting to stretch out for me and the edges of my vision were starting to turn black. My stomach heaved as I so desperately wanted to vomit. The shaking had taken hold of the rest of my body now as muscles started to cramp and spasm in all kinds of different direction. Up, down, left and right. During one lull in the pain I tried to shake myself free, to pull out from the bindings but it was useless.

And I still couldn't breathe.

"You see, what the Trial of the grasses does is, it changes your physiology. This is the bit that makes our digestive system and our metabolism that much heightened. It's this that means we can drink the poisons that we laughingly call "Witcher potions," so that we can fight the nightmares that live on the edges of humans consciousness. The cowardice that is so obvious and so pervasive. They created us so that they didn't have to worry about these things. So that they wouldn't have to face up to their own problems."

That was the point where the potions started to reach my heart. The beating accelerated to the point where I could feel it beating at my chest, like a hammer on the inside of my chest. I wasn't screaming by this point. Instead I had scrunched my eyes closed and was just focused on breathing. It was a fight to get air into my lungs. The pain in my chest got brighter, harder and more fierce. I lost all feeling in my left arm and then an incredible pain in my chest.

I lost consciousness as the next thing I felt was general agony as I thrashed about into the cage, jerking around like a fish that had just been taken out of the water and thrown on the river bank. Letho was pulling a needle out of my chest as I woke up.

"Welcome back Scribbler. Your heart stopped for a moment there. Can't have that." He leant close to my face then and the smell of mint washed over me. "You need to feel it." He said.

"So as I was saying," he went on. "This is the bit that means that Witchers are better able to take on the potions and things that we consume in order to be able to fight. It also speeds up our metabolism and renders us better able to resist the poisons and diseases that we have to put up with on a daily basis. The intake of all of these chemicals is hard on the body though. Kidneys, livers and hearts are only rarely able to keep up with everything that we're doing to it. Ooh, hold on."

I heard something clatter against a tray before Letho's face reappeared. "This is also the bit that mutates the eyes. Hold steady now,"

He used his thumb to peel back my eyelids and I had enough time to see a giant needle descend towards my eyeball. I felt cold metal before some more of the silver fire crept across my vision.

I screamed. My vision had turned silver.

I don't know how long I was like this. Letho insisted on keeping me awake. I passed out, any number of times and he kept me awake by method of chucking buckets of cold water over me.

I hated him then. I wanted to go home so badly. I wanted to be told that I was stupid by my father and say that I would submit to marrying whoever he wanted me to marry. That I wouldn't complain any more. But Letho wouldn't let up. He refused to let anything continue.

"Now is not the time for giving up Scribbler," he said, over and over again. "You wanted to give up, you should have given up yesterday. I would have fed you some nice food while you waited for Kerrass to come back from his moping but you wanted to know about the other trials and now, here you are. Your tired muscles are on fire and you can feel it trying to kill you. You might even want it to succeed by now. You want me to take the pain away. You're imagining the cold knife pressed against your skin followed by a short wet feeling and then all the pain, all the ice and fire and fear can be taken away. That's what you want. It's certainly what I wanted when I was where you were. But try as we might, your body will try and survive."

The pain wasn't done with me. Periodically, fresh waves of agony, followed by nausea and a feeling of being submerged in deep water was followed with feeling absolutely dehydrated. I was sweating uncontrollably as well as shivering like I'd been left on top of a glacier at the height of winter.

"Why are you doing this to me?" I managed to ask at one point.

"Why? You asked me to Scribbler."

Fresh waves of agony ripped through me then and my vision swam. The Quicksilver waiting at the edges of my vision.

"Never be ashamed of tears Scribbler. You are mourning the loss of your innocence."

Gradually, so slowly, the pain seemed to lessen. I heard Letho get up from where he had, presumably been sitting on a stool.

"Is it over?"

"Nah. Next we move onto the next stage. The Trial of Dreams."

"The trial of what?"

I screamed. The cage spun me round lengthways and suddenly I was facing the floor, suspended by the cage. Cold metal pushing into by body even though my head was still clamped where it had been. I felt Letho pulling out the needles from my arms and ankles.

"This is the really interesting bit." Letho said. "This is the bit that's supposedly to do with the loss of emotion. It's the part where we change up your skeletal make-up so that your bones become tougher and more resilient to harm. We also adapt your nervous system so that you are better able to react faster as well as use all of the other mutations that we've given your body. It takes a special kind of something to make it so that the control of your pupils is voluntary rather than involuntary."

"How do you do that?"

I shouldn't have asked. Letho crouched next to me. So that I could see him.

"Well Scribbler. You see this needle?" He showed my the largest medical syringe that I've ever seen. It was full of a strange cloudy yellow liquid. "I'm going to jam this needle into the base of your spine and inject the mutagens directly into the sack of nerves that live down there. If you survive... well... we'll worry about that if you survive shall we?"

"Please don't," But he was gone.

"Letho," I called. "Please don't do it. I'm begging you. My father's rich. Letho?"

I couldn't hear him.

"Letho, I'm begging you. Please. I give up ok. You win. You win everything. Please don't. Letho I'm sorry. Whatever it is. I'm sorry. I'll make it up to you just don't. LETHO?"

I felt a sharp pain on the small of my back before an agony that is indescribable ripped through me and I passed out.

I dreamt.

I was locked in a room and I couldn't get out. There was a door with a window and the window had bars there. I hurled myself against the door hundreds of times until my entire body was broken but still I threw myself at it. When my arms broke I kicked at the door. When my legs broke I used my head as a hammer. I kept battering at that door, over and over and over again until my head became soft and I could see splinters of bone against the cold, hard and unfeeling door.

But I didn't stop because I wasn't alone in the room and it was coming for me.

I was falling. Not a long way but I was taking my sweet time to hit the floor. At first I couldn't tell what I had fallen from but that didn't seem to matter. I couldn't remember if I had jumped or if I had been pushed. All of that seemed unimportant to me now though as I was falling. I panicked. I screamed for help but that still didn't seem to achieve anything. The panic left me.

"Fuck it," I thought to myself and I flapped my arms like they were wings.

It didn't work. I fell to the ground but I didn't stop. My body failed to shatter into a thousand pieces, blood did not leak from my mouth, eyes and rectum. Instead I fell through the ground. The ground tore like I was falling through paper and I turned my head as I fell through the ground to see that the world that I had lived on for my entire life was nothing more than a paper sculpture made from the cheapest street corner reed paper. I reached out my hand to take hold of the sculpture but wherever I touched, the paper set alight and began to burn.

I saw a woman although I didn't recognise her. Her face was different somehow and I have no idea to this day who it was. She seemed familiar to me in some way as though I had known her all of my life. Known her and loved her although I had never worked up the courage to say anything or do anything to let her know how I felt. Then, in that moment that the fires of courage met the ice of rejection and I was about to turn away, she leant forward and kissed me on the lips. She stood up and took me by the hand to lead me off somewhere but then...

I fought on a battlefield. I was wearing a black helmet and a black chest-plate. My forearms were covered with bronze arm guards and I screamed my defiance at the enemy that was about to overwhelm me. I was stood on the walls of a city. I had not chosen this fight. I had been a cobbler, I had spent my days making shoes for all of those people that had come before me but then the enemy had come. The master of the city was an evil man and he had forced us onto the walls on fear of the deaths of our families. Even now, his Sorcerers were committing dark rites and I knew, in the deepest pits of my soul I knew that my wife was already dead, fed into the dark rituals that our enemies had come to stop. We were going to lose and I found that I was glad. The sections on either side of us had fallen but we had stood firm. We were going to lose and my soul was damned. I saw the spear that flashed at me...

I flew above the river, so close that my fingers could almost touch it. I saw my face in the water, but it wasn't my face that was swimming in the deep. It was another face. I couldn't tell if it was a man or a woman but they swam easily along side me and beneath me. Suddenly the being in the water put in a burst of speed and they sped up from the water. They came out of the water and caught hold of my bod easily as they bit for my neck. Their teeth were sharp and I felt blood.

I screamed.

I woke up.

"Welcome back Scribbler?"

I was lying in a bed. One of the guest ones in Kaer Morhen. The sheets were clean and fresh. I was clean and fresh, lacking in the odours of fear and pain that I might have guessed at.

"What the fuck did you do to me?"

"Absolutely nothing." Letho was sat on the bed next to me, resting easily, hands folded in his lap looking at me calmly. I saw that there was an egg timer on a table next to him and a book that had been closed and put on the floor. "Well, I poisoned you a bit but other that, absolutely nothing."

"But the..."

"You wanted to know about the trials."

I examined myself while he talked. I could find no puncture marks in my arms, could feel nothing wrong with my eyes. I lifted up the blankets and could find nothing on my feet. At one point he handed me a mirror and my own features stared back at me. Head still shaved from the previous day but my eyes were normal. I looked tired but that was about it.

"You wanted to know about the trials and there's only so much that we can do to tell people what it's like to go through the trials of being a Witcher. People talk about them as though they're hard, unpleasant, uncomfortable things but they miss the truth. They miss the terror. The pain. The piss, shit and vomit soaked honesty of someone that actually went through them. You wanted to know what it's like being a Witcher. I didn't even begin to show you."

His eyes became vacant.

"You thought that yesterdays exercises were brutal? Try imagine doing all of those exercises. Day after day after day until your hands and feet bleed and your muscles tear. When it started to look as though you were getting the hang of them then they would give you more to do. You ran the killer once and it took you most of the afternoon and into the evening in the early summer. The Wolven Witchers would send their apprentices to do it before breakfast and again before going to bed. If you took to long then you went hungry. The faster you did it in the evening, the more sleep you got. That was when you weren't woken up in the middle of the night because something needed doing or they decided you needed some training in darkness."

I sat still and listened to him. It struck me again, not for the first time, that he delivered this entire speech without obvious display of emotion. He hadn't changed his expression once during everything that he had done.

"They did that kind of thing from the moment that the young Witcher recruit came to Kaer Morhen to the point at which they moved on to the next trials. All the time they were going through puberty as well as taking the Witchers Mushrooms and berry juices. You have no way of knowing but the pain of that circumstance alone. The extra growth, the extra development all the while happening while they are on their own, miles from home as they had these things done to them.

"Then, if they haven't given up or died under the watchful gaze of their Witcher teachers they get given the trials of the grasses. But that doesn't stop the work. They still train and practise and learn. The potions that I gave you were being administered day and night. Try and imagine it Scribbler. You're in the cage and being drilled on Monster anatomy and the formula of potions. And it wasn't just for the couple of hours that you were in the cage. No. They were in there for days at a time. There is just one cage here at the moment. There would have been dozens of them when Kaer Morhen was working at it's height. Probably in a basement somewhere where rows of cages full of screaming helpless boys as poison, literally poison, was pumped into their veins.

"Imagine it Scribbler,

"People would run away. Of course they would. Wouldn't you? I did, several times. I hated my teachers for that. For lying to me about how horrible the trial of grasses was. But they hadn't finished. Even if we survived the trial of Grasses there was the Trial of Dreams.

"Days melt into days. Weeks into weeks. Bones stretch and skin changes. Try and imagine it scribbler. Your eye, literally changes shape. You can't imagine it. No-one can. Then as your brain and nervous system adjusts itself to the chemicals and mutagens you descend into madness. The dreams after which the trial is named. The "Lucky" ones climb out of that black pit of despair and horror. But many do not. Friends that you have spent years practising with. Training with and you watch them die. One by one. Until only you are left.

Why did you survive? No-one can tell you. The prissy arrogant fuck of a mage comes to you with a book and a quill. He asks you about your experience so that they can make the process easier for the next batch of people. Not knowing how lucky he is that I don't grab him by the throat and not smash his head into a wall over and over and over again until he stops bleeding."

I stared at him in horror.

"I put you through two days of "Witcher like" circumstances. Stretch that out over days. Stretch that... that torture out over years. That is what it's like. That is what the trials do to you. Write all of that Scribbler. Write all of that and when people wash their hands of it and say that it wasn't done by them, remind them that it was done so that they wouldn't have to. We did it to ourselves. The tortured became the torturer. Because they demanded it of us.

"People wonder why there aren't any Witchers any more. There are a number of reasons for that, dwindling numbers, persecution by people in power, death at the hands of the mob, our own drive to preserve our own secrets but there is another reason. That reason is that other Witchers decided that they would not be party to that any more. We had enough humanity to realise what we were doing and deciding not to do it anymore. It was our final act of rebellion. We could probably make new Witchers. If we all got together in one place then I'm sure we could put enough knowledge together to make it happen. Kidnap a mage or three to make them monitor the processes. But _we_ decided that we wouldn't do that any more. That's another reason why we don't see Witchers any more."

He reached down next to him and produced two bottles. One large and one small.

"The small one will knock you out for a couple of hours which will take us, roughly until dinners ready. The bigger bottle will send you to dreamless sleep. There's two nights worth here. Half tonight and then another half for tomorrow by which time the remaining potions will have left your body and you won't have any more side effects."

"How...?" I began.

"I'm a Viper. I've forgotten more about Alchemy than the rest of the Witcher's put together. Contact potions as well as ingested stuff and a little bit of hypnotic suggestion." He wandered off and brought over the huge syringe that he had used at the end. He jammed it into his hand and this time I could see that the needle fed back into the bottle. "What did you think I was working on the day before we started."

"Why then?"

"You." he said. "You and that fucking peacock that follows Wolf around everywhere. Between you you've managed to turn the Witchers into romantic heroes. We're not heroes. We can't be heroes, romantic or otherwise. I did horrible things to save my family and I failed. Most of them, if not all are dead now but I would do _anything_ to get them back. I _did_ anything to get them back including cause a great deal of death and destruction in order to save my brothers. I would do it again though but should that kind of thing be allowed in the first place."

He shrugged.

"To quote that philosopher, what's his name? Moore I think his name was. What was done to us was monstrous. And they created monsters. No matter how many lives we saved or continue to save. We did _this_ to children. To fucking children. As well as everything else that might have gone well as a result of our actions. That needs to be remembered as well."


	47. Chapter 47

(A/N: Freddie spends a good portion of this chapter talking quite frankly about sex. He doesn't get graphic, nor are there any graphic descriptions of sex but he does talk about it quite a bit. The bit that is riskiest (in my opinion) is marked out with (**) before and after that section. This particular section is not central to the plot and can be skipped if you don't want to peak further into his head.

This is another one of those cases where a long planned chapter happens to be being written during a time where the correct and incorrect way of treating women is being discussed internationally. However I would say that that is not what I am trying to do here. Here I just want to tell a story. Although I will admit that no-one is an island, this chapter is not intended as a comment on current gender politics and the fact that it is being written during a time where such subjects are being discussed in the news is purely coincidental.)

Kerrass has this game he likes to play.

It is not a good game. He mostly does it because it satisfies three of his basic needs. The first need is because it entertains him. The second need is because it gets him free things. The last need is because it annoys me.

Despite what he might say, Kerrass bears many similarities to the animal with which he shares the name of his school. He is a hunter and spends weeks living in relative squalor, camping by the side of the road or sleeping in barns, stables and lofts. He eats whatever people can afford to feed him and often finds that he gets short changed and over charged by the very people that he risks his life in an effort to save. He does all of these things happily and without complaint.

But sometimes he decides that enough is enough and he wants some proper pampering.

So what he does is to head off to the nearest city of note. That being described as a place that has several taverns and several different places of entertainment. This means that there is more than one Brothel, card playing house and similar such entertainments are a lot easier to find. We march through the gates with enough of a bribe to make sure that we're not going to get into any trouble, leave the horses with a reputable livery stable so that they can get well looked after themselves, then he marches to the most expensive restaurant that there is where he eats so much that he can barely contain it, he does this while ordering the best wine available of which he insists that we drink at least a bottle each. Then he insists that we go to the best brothel/whorehouse/bordello in the city where we spend the night, making best use of the ladies available.

The game starts when we get to the whorehouse and it will take a moment or two to set the scene as it is a little bit embarrassing to me personally.

So picture the scene. We walk through the door. The decent places have somewhere to put our cloaks, weapons and boots so that we don't trail mud and violence everywhere before we go into the entrance area. As we walk in, we are spotted quickly. Possibly as a result of a signal from the person taking the weapons off us, that a Witcher has just walked in. It's not that brothels refuse the patronage of Witchers you understand but they generally prefer to get them out of the way and into a more private area to avoid any of the potential unpleasantness that can sometimes come as the result of Kerrass' presence.

The Brothel Madame, or senior courtesan approaches us and looks us up and down.

Having spent a bit more time in this kind of establishment since my travels with Kerrass started I am now, much more aware of what's actually going on here. The Madame is "cold reading" her clients. What she's looking for varies but in short, the kind of thing she's looking for are:

Apparent wealth as this is often a signifier of how much money the client can spend.

Taste. How gaudy is the clients clothing and jewellery. The gaudier the dress means that the client is more likely to be a one timer. They have got rich suddenly and are blowing it all on one grand night.

General drunkenness. As exhibited by how bloodshot the eyes are and whether or not the client is swaying or not.

Temperament, how are the eyes moving, do their fists clench involuntarily, do they have scars on their knuckles and other such signs.

Mood, because a good Madame, especially of the kind that Kerrass likes to frequent when he's in this kind of mood, tailors the clients experience to suit them.

Cleanliness, for reasons that I'm not going to go into here.

Some people are thrown out on the basis of whatever a madame might see at this point. The _really_ good brothels have bouncers on the door so any of the particularly unpleasant punters have already been filtered out by the time that you get to the stage of meeting the madame in question.

So after the Madame has had a chance to look you up and down, the next thing that happens is that there is a greeting. If you think that you've already moved past the "appraisal stage" then you would be mistaken. Do NOT try to impress the madame as believe me, she has seen everything.

At this stage, I had actually stopped being surprised at the number of times that Kerrass has walked through the door to be greeted by name by the madame in question. As, again like the cat that he takes the name of his school from, he is a creature of habit.

So we walk in, Kerrass greets the lady in question,

Yes the madame is a lady. I've known more courtesy and good manners in many of the brothels that Kerrass has taken me to over the last year and a half than in some Noble's castles.

Kerrass and the lady exchange a few pleasant greetings before they turn to me.

"Who's this you've brought me?" says the madame, or words to that effect.

Here begins the game.

Another truth is that regardless of whether you call these women whores, courtesans, companions or prostitutes, your visit is not special to them. No matter how much they might claim that it is. This is their job. How many of you reading this, actually enjoy your job? You might be good at it. You might take satisfaction from that skill and doing a good job right. I've even met some prostitutes that enjoy the act that their job entails. But it's still their job and you should not pretend otherwise to yourself.

What this means is that they are absolute suckers for some free entertainment.

"This," Kerrass says, changing his manner from being quiet and charmingly conservative so as not to frighten the madame to a manner more befitting a carnival performer. "This is the noble Frederick von Coulthard. Noble, scholar and gentleman."

At this point in the proceedings I generally sigh as though I wish that the ground is settling over my shoulders. It's never nice being the subject of so much appraising attention. Especially when that appraising is being done by beautiful women.

"He doesn't look like very much," is the most common comment that I get as a result of this exhibition.

"Even so." Kerrass carries on, by now gathering something of an audience. "His rather plain features, lack of general musculature and posture that wouldn't be unsuitable to the local freak show hide a most noble character. This man is fearless. Fearless I say."

By now a couple of people are beginning to cotton on to the show and are cheering Kerrass on whilst openly mocking me.

"This brave man," Kerrass carries on, "leapt into a den of monsters to save a young girls stuffed toy."

"Oooh," go the crowd. .

"This man gave away his last piece of bread to feed starving children,"

Another groan comes from the crowd. By now I'm generally doing my best to snag a drink of some kind.

"But most importantly of all," Kerrass is now building up to the punchline and the climax of his little show. "Beneath the proud and troubled brow of this most noble of an individual is housed the most perfect lover that any lady in this house has ever known."

To which every woman there. _Every_ woman there lets out a chorus of protests.

"No no it's true," protests Kerrass. "No woman has ever, has _ever_ gone a full night with this man here without being utterly and completely satisfied... Lo they tell tales of this man's prowess in Temeria. He walked, alone, into the whorehouses of Vizima and proceeded to pleasure all of the whores of that famed institution "The house of the Queen of the night," over the course of a week.

"Why a week I hear you ask?"

I swear I'm not making this up. I've heard this speech given on multiple occasions now.

"Because as any _true_ lover knows." Kerrass turns to me and raises his eyebrows.

Generally at this point I sigh theatrically, knowing the part I'm expected to play and trot out the line "It takes time to do it right,"

"You tell us all these things Kerrass but I'm not sure that I believe it," the Madame generally opines. "He's scrawny, stoop shouldered and doesn't look as though he would know what to do with a woman if we all threw ourselves at him."

"Not only would he know what to do, but he is willing to prove it as well."

"Oh yes?"

As I say, Prostitutes lives are either boring or incredibly terrifying in which case they need to find themselves a better place to work but that's a discussion for another time. In these kinds of places. In the upmarket _expensive_ places that Kerrass chooses when he's in one of these moods. The women are generally bored to tears.

"Yes," Kerrass says with a sly smile. "I propose a wager."

Sometimes a chant breaks out at this point along the lines of "Wager, Wager, Wager," or similar. I'm now glaring at Kerrass who returns my gaze, radiating innocence.

"I propose." Kerrass shouts the words until he gets silence. "I propose that the lady of Madame's choice, takes my companion off to the room of _her_ choice for the night. The lady of choice can be as jaded or as virginal as the madame pleases. All that I ask is that she be honest of character,"

This condition often gets people jeering,

"In the meantime, I will avail myself of the pleasures of this delightful establishment. Then, in the morning. The Madame can ask the lady if she is _completely_ satisfied."

More jeering and cheering.

"If the lady says yes. Then the price of our evenings entertainment is cut in half. If not... then we pay in full. As well as say, a drink for everyone currently guesting in this fine establishment. On the house if we win. Paid for by us if we lose."

"If _he_ fails you mean."

"As you say." Kerrass generally bows again at this point.

Normally the madame comes over and makes a show of looking me up and down. The amount of money being wagered here is not small but she knows that she needs to make just as much of a play of it as we did.

"What do you think ladies?" The madame will turn to the girls.

What happens here is varied. There is often a chorus of disbelieving giggles and whispered conversation. I don't blame them. It bears reminding the reader of what I actually look like.

I'm not handsome. I'm not well muscled in any way. I've put on weight in certain areas but there's relatively little muscle definition that you would see in someone like Kerrass or any of the strong men that you might see by the side of the road and in carnivals. I'm gangly and although people have, very kindly, commented that I've grown in confidence, poise and grace over the months that I've spent on the road with Kerrass, I have no illusions.

I don't look like much is what I'm trying to say.

I'm not ugly. I no longer have the squint or the stoop that I used to have but nor am I going to turn many heads at court when I go down there in a couple of days time.

So I can generally forgive the ladies of these establishment for their assessment. If I haven't done so previously, I normally take this opportunity to snag a drink from a passing tray.

Then comes the sacrificial lamb.

It's not unknown for the madame herself to take up Kerrass' challenge but regardless, a woman steps forward. This has happened often enough that I can normally spot which lady it is that will take me up on Kerrass' offer.

She's generally an older lady from the pack. I try never to guess a woman's age but she's definitely a bit more jaded, a bit more experienced than the other giggling girls. She's also, generally, a little more aggressive with her sexuality without any kind of hint of shyness. I won't lie that I sometimes find such women frightening which possibly says something about me.

I'm not sure what but it does say something.

She steps forward. Looks me up and down and says something like.

"I will take him,"

At which point the game is on. Kerrass and the madame shake hands in the manner of two professionals coming to a formal agreement. I set my drink aside and bow formally over the ladies hand which I gently brush my lips against.

"Your servant milady." I say.

Never let it be said that I don't enjoy rising to the challenge.

I hadn't meant to write a pun there but now that I've written it, I'm going to leave it.

I don't know why Kerrass finds this so amusing. Although he may say that one of those reasons is that I have yet to disappoint him.

I remember when it started too. The first time he took me into town it was maybe a week after the incident with Sir William the Ram and old Annie the troll. We went into town and I was mortified and embarrassed as I realised that he was leading me towards a brothel. I stammered something about finding an inn or something to spend the night and that I'd meet him in the morning.

Kerrass was having none of it though and took me firmly by the arm and escorted me into the building. At the time I remember that the jests he made at my expense were a lot sharper in their tone. He played the part of a man of the world who had taken a young and foolish boy under his wing for which I should be suitably grateful. I was given a girl and told to go off and enjoy myself.

So I did.

The girl that had been selected for me was one of the more experienced ladies of that particular house. I'll never forget her as she was very kind to me as I was still a little wide-eyed and very wet behind the ears. I was still having my day to day prejudices and opinions about the world shaken on a daily basis and I was rather taken aback by the overt sexuality on display as well as the... well the wanton decadence that that particular house was known for. Her name was Rose. I doubt that this was her real name as some of the other names that I heard that night were Daffodil, Daisy, Tulip and Hyacinth.

As I say she was very kind to me. She asked if I was a virgin, which I wasn't, before enquiring about why I was so uncomfortable.

Yes, I had visited a brothel in Oxenfurt a couple of times with friends. It's a discreet kind of place that caters to... well I suppose that it caters to people like me. It's a place that you can go, have a drink with a beautiful woman and then, if she agrees which is an important part of any arrangement that I might enter into with a woman, we go to her room and...well...

I'm sure you get the idea.

But I remember that first night with Rose. She was doing her best to get something going but then something in me snapped and I took control of the situation.

The following morning an astonished Kerrass greeted me as Rose came out to wave me off with a kiss on my cheek and a dreamy smile.

"What the hell was that?" he demanded as we rode away.

"What the hell was what?" I wondered.

"That was Rose," he said. "She gets given all the inexperienced men but I heard her when I was walking past your room last night on my way to get more wine. She, NEVER does that. She came to see you off. She never does that either."

"Really?" I shrugged, trying and failing to play it cool but deep down I was being ridiculously and childishly pleased with myself.

The next time we visited a brothel he was morbidly fascinated. In that place we were guided to a private area where we were served wine. I saw Kerrass speak to the woman in charge and he watched with mounting horror as I made my courtesies to the selected woman. Again, the following morning I saw him talk to the madame and him staring at me with wide eyes. His opinion in me rose sharply after that.

(**)

The truth is that I've never found it that difficult to please women in the bed chamber. Those same prostitutes have admitted that I am far from massively endowed, the most I have been given was that I was "pleasingly average". But as I say, I've never found it difficult to please a woman.

Getting a woman into the bed chamber? That is something I find much more difficult. Hugely more difficult. So much so that I have sometimes wondered if I might be deficient in some way.

Once they're there though?

Nothing to it.

I've sat having excruciatingly funny/embarrassing conversations with some of my female friends as they have described their own sexual escapades and I've been left honestly astonished as to how my gender can honestly be so utterly useless at giving pleasure to women.

It's not even that difficult.

You wanna know the secrets?

Read a book.

Specifically, read a book on female anatomy. Pay close attention to those areas that will be clearly marked as being sensitive to the touch on a woman's body.

Once you have learned which areas are which, see how your chosen partner reacts to having those areas touched.

Be gentle at first as the scale of sensitivity runs from ticklish, through pleasure to pain and that scale shifts according to the ladies mood.

Always check for consent. I cannot stress this enough. It might shock you to learn this but people talk and you will be surprised how quickly reputations can be made or torn down.

But above all, there are two tricks...

I never thought I'd be writing these things down.

The first trick is this... Be patient. Take your time. It can sometimes take a long time for a lady to get... worked up and different women react differently. So be prepared to put the work in

The second thing is this... Learn how to give really good head.

Trust me.

If women are reading this then first of all...

You're welcome.

Secondly...

Tell your partner what you like. If they are not willing to do that then you might want to consider why. You might even surprise each other.

But enough of that.

I won't lie though. Part of why I'm telling you all this is so that I can see my sister's face when she reads it.

Either sister for that matter.

Or brother.

I don't need to worry about Ariadne. I already know that she will read the above with interest and curiosity.

Why do men normally not bother with this kind of thing?

Wiser people than me have been asking that question for centuries and I'm not going to bother get into it

here.

Why do I do it?

Because it's fun.

Enough of this kind of talk.

(**)

So why am I telling you about this game of Kerrass'?

Because a month or so after we had left Kaer Morhen, Kerrass took me to a brothel. We had come down from some of the wilder and rockier countryside that marks the northern borders of Redania after a couple of hunts. We were grimy, tired and we wanted some civilisation. Kerrass had been working hard for the last couple of weeks and we had plenty of money and an urge to spend it. We rode into a town and went straight to the bathhouse where we spent a long time soaking our cares away before eating a huge meal and then we went to the local brothel.

It looked like a nice enough place. Music was playing, the sun was out and there were flowers everywhere. The place was also expensive and powerful enough that they didn't have to send their women out into the streets to try and draw in the punters. Instead there were well dressed men who invited you in.

We thanked the footmen at the entrance who took our gear. The party seemed to be going full swing. A younger girl, clearly an apprentice of some kind, brought us some wine and we sipped for a while before a well to do woman of middle years, (remember I never guess a lady's age,) came forward and asked us how she could serve us.

I couldn't tell if she knew Kerrass or not but I did notice that she didn't flinch away from his gaze which is much more than some people manage.

Kerrass opened his mouth to begin his speech and I was steeling myself for the coming show.

But then Kerrass stopped, mouth open and he turned to me, he closed his mouth and I saw a strange thought cross his face.

"No, you know what?" he said quietly. "My friend here gets the best that you have. Whatever he wants for the night. On me. All of it. I wouldn't mind some time with Alanis if she's available but otherwise. Treat my friend here like a King."

The woman's eyes widened in surprise. A surprise that must have been mirrored in my own face.

"Is it your friends birthday?"

"Mm?" Kerrass turned back to her as if he hadn't heard. "No, no it's not his birthday. He saved my life recently."

He clapped me on the shoulder. "Enjoy yourself Freddie. Marilyn here will look after you." He turned back to the party and was downing his drink.

Marilyn looked at me.

"You saved his life?"

I shook my head. Not in a negative but more in surprise. "It's not been a great month. You know Kerrass?"

She showed me through to another room where there was a large bath and a massage table. She gestured for me to strip and started bundling up my clothes that I assumed would be taken off for cleaning. She gestured to a series of cubby holes where I found folded robes and some warm and soft slippers.

"Does anyone really know a man like that," she said as I dis-robed. "Better than some but worse than others. I first met him ten years ago when I still worked as one of the girls. I was going to take over the running of the place and was learning how to do it from my predecessor. We were the first place in this part of the world that _dared_ ," she said that with a smile and a wink, "to take a man to the watch for beating on his girl. The locals didn't like that and they chose to make their displeasure known by beating up whores all over the city. As a result, all of our girls made it known that girls could work here free of that kind of fear. We were packed to the rafters with girls in a couple of days and soon we were the only open brothel in the town. Men started to queue up to get in. Master Kerrass was here one night having paid a good amount for some time with a girl when someone decided to "test our mettle","

She smiled at the memory.

"Kerrass pulled him off the girl, wrestled him to the ground and knocked him out. Then he offered to allow the girl to kick him a few times before Kerrass threw him out. He was dead drunk and swaying as he did so but it struck all of us at the time that he was being surprisingly courteous to whores."

She put my clothes in a bag.

"We like Kerrass here milord you can rest assured about that."

I nodded. It sounded like Kerrass.

But as I say, it hadn't been a good month.

Not since we had left Kaer Morhen anyway.

In the end, I decided not to drink from the small bottle that Letho gave me the afternoon after I had woken up from Letho's approximation of the Witcher trials as I found that I didn't really want to sleep.

Letho had wandered off somewhere and I spent a long time looking at the ceiling. I felt... oddly calm. I realise that I should have been angry. I should have been absolutely furious at the fact that I had been drugged, hypnotised, beaten up and abused but somehow I found that I wasn't. Instead I needed to pee rather desperately.

My saddlebags had been returned along with the rest of my belongings so I got dressed and went outside to piss off the walls of the fortress and down to the valley below. The sun was setting and I saw something that objectively I had already known. Kaer Morhen valley was a beautiful place. I couldn't bring myself to believe that a person would come here to retire or just spend the time looking out over that valley, but I could understand old Witchers coming here to retire, to watch their remaining years stretch out in front of them in an endless stream of training new students.

Not that they ever did. Kerrass had told me time after time that Witcher's don't retire. They might take some time off the path to train or find themselves something else to do like run a tavern or become a killer for here, but sooner or later, the path calls them back until they are there in the darkness, a flash of silver, a roar of a beast and then...

An unmarked grave at best or, at worst, an unmarked pile of monster droppings.

I felt my thoughts turn towards the maudlin and went back inside to fetch a bottle of spirits that I had seen on the shelf of the Witcher's pantry. While I had been outside I had heard the sound of metal being worked. A hammer on an anvil and went off to investigate where I found Letho working at the forge.

I found a box to perch on and watched him work.

"Not tired Scribbler?" He asked after a while.

"It's not that," I said taking a long drink from the bottle. I strongly suspect that on any other day, the contents of that bottle would have scoured the insides of my throat clean. "It's just," I felt a smile start to grow on my face. "You'll forgive me if I don't really fancy taking any more of your potions just yet."

I swear, I _swear_ that I saw a flicker of a smile across Letho's face at that point before he turned away and plunged the metal that he was hammering into one of the barrels for quenching.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"Practising mostly." He grunted. "Alchemy and forging is like any kind of craft, skill or art. If you don't practice it you're never going to get good at it and if you're good at it you need to keep practising to stay good at it."

"True words." I said as I watched. I found that I liked it out there. It was cold despite the time of year. We were still high up and the sky was clear and getting darker. The wind was beginning to come off the mountain peaks and I was beginning to get cold. But I found that I relished that cold and enjoyed the shivers.

"I do have one question though," I said as I took another swig from the bottle.

"Only one?" Letho rumbled holding his hand out for the bottled while he pumped the bellows that worked the forge.

"For now." I tried for a smile. I knew that my eyes hadn't changed shape but I wondered if any of Letho's other concoctions would have a lasting effect on me. "I've read everything that has been written on the subject of Witchers."

"Including the lies?" Letho handed the bottle back.

"Especially the lies. My tutor once told me that you can learn a lot that is true from blatant falsehood."

"Heh," Letho wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. It seemed to be some kind of habit. A nervous gesture or...something.

"But I've read everything that I can find and although I've heard of the trial of Grasses many times, the choice occasionally and the Trial of Dreams rarely..."

"Sometimes they get called different things. I know that the Manticore used to mix the trial of Dreams and the Trial of Grasses together as they believed that that might mitigate some of the problems."

"Interesting... But that's not my question. My question is this. What's the trial of the mountain? I've never heard of it before. I stress that I'm not going to drink anything else that you give me voluntarily."

Letho grinned.

"It's not that exciting to be honest. You won't have heard of the Trial of the Mountain because it was actually a lot rarer than the rest."

"Why? What did it do?"

"I thought you said that you only had one question Scribbler?"

"I'm a scholar. It's part of the job. In the same way that being a dick head is part of yours."

Letho looked at me for a long time.

"I like you Scribbler."

The way he said it made it seem like high praise. Which I suppose it was.

"The trial of the Mountain was for the failures."

"You make it sound so warm and fuzzy."

Letho said something obscene.

"What it was was this. On those batches of students, when the mages and the Witcher elders could afford to be...benevolent...heh... when there was one student or a couple of students that had taken some or _most_ of the mutations but not quite all of them stuck. You know, maybe they had a non-fatal allergic reaction to one of the more important ingredients of the Witcher potions so he could never use... I don't know, he could use the potion that we called "Swallow," but couldn't use "White Rafferd's decoction," or something similar. Maybe his Iris control was still a little bit too involuntary for the comfort of the elder Witchers or he had a childhood injury or illness which meant that some bits of him never worked properly. In short, someone would come out of the trials and they weren't quite up to where they wanted him to be."

"Failures,"

"We never called them that. They were still Witchers but... Another example would be, maybe they had an attitude problem. Maybe they had passed the trial of choice but then would run away from the keep and had to be pulled back every single time. Maybe they had a habit of not paying attention in the class to do with Necrophages. The trial of the Mountain was then administered."

Letho spent some time working the bellows before taking the metal out and hammering at it again.

"The trial of the mountain varied but it was, in short, a test. Sometimes the student would go out with a more experienced Witcher, or they would spend time with an elder. They would be sent off to hunt a troll or something to see if they could live up to the requirements of the rest of the school."

"Sounds brutal."

"Have you not figure this out yet Scribbler? Witcher schools are fine places to be if you're a guest, or if you have passed your trials and you wear your medallion proudly. But for the students?"

He took a cloth and wiped some of the soot from the forge off his head.

"You're a religious man Scribbler."

"I am."

"What's your idea of hell?"

"I don't know. I don't really think about it. The world is supposed to end in cold and ice so I always thought about hell as being like endless snow and ice."

Letho grunted.

"My idea of hell is having to go back to Witcher school. That I have to go through more mutations and more tests." He took the piece of metal that he had been working on, poured an oil on it and started working it against a grinding wheel.

"I wake up some nights Scribbler, and if any other Witcher claims that they don't then they're either lying to you, or they're a cat Witcher who's already gone mad. I wake up nights and I can hear the scream in the back of my throat. I dreamt that I was back there in Viper keep, in the cages that they used to suspend above the forges so that we could breathe in the fumes and the mutagens. That was their method of helping us get used to it. They wanted us to breathe it in. I wake up and just for a moment I think that I'm about to be put back in the cages."

He shook his head.

"Go back inside Scribbler. It's going to get cold. I understand you're leaving tomorrow so if you're going to read any of the books then you need to do it now before the Kitten comes to take you away."

I did as I was told.

Roughly two hours later Letho came back into the keep dragging a huge sack behind him. It turned out that he had been slow roasting a mountain goat in an earthen ware oven that he had built in a pit out the back of Kaer Morhen. He'd done it in a mix of herbs and spices and it was so mouth wateringly tender that it seemed to melt in my mouth as I ate it. Along with some more of his fresh bread, root vegetables from his vegetable patch and some fruit to finish up. My mood was even more improved when it was obvious that we would be taking some of the left over meat with us when we departed in the morning.

We spent the evening playing cards. Letho's mood had shifted and much to my astonishment I found that he was also the possessor of a fine, bone dry wit. He told me the story about how he and Kerrass had met in a tavern in Vizima where a case of mistaken identity had meant that each of them had been hired to kill a monster that had turned out to be the other Witcher. One tavern brawl later and the two of them had become friendly enough that they both blamed the other for the initial misunderstanding.

I traded him that story for some other stories about Kerrass that I had come across as well as the story about how I had met Ariadne which caused Letho much amusement.

But the trials of the day began to tell and eventually I slumped into sleep. As I drifted off to my chemically enhanced slumber, my last sight was of Letho working the piece of metal that he had been forging earlier in the day.

I woke up the following day after a surprisingly blissful nights sleep to the sight of Kerrass and Letho catching up over a breakfast made up of last night's leftover goat, bread and a spirit so strong that I was surprised that the two men were getting into it so early in the day. They greeted me as I sat down and Letho pushed over a breakfast far larger than I would normally have in the morning before Kerrass started making noises that it was time to go.

It wasn't hard to figure out that they were having a bit of fun at my expense so I thought it was my duty to ignore the bastards.

Even so, Kerrass had packed our provisions and my belongings so that no sooner had I finished my breakfast than it was time to leave. I saw the two Witchers embrace fiercely before parting with the kind of bruising hug that people give each other when they're trying to make the other person seem weak.

Letho came to me next and took a dagger off his belt and handed it over. Not one of the crossed ones but it had been jammed in his belt next to them.

"There you go Scribbler."

"Is this the one that you were working on last night."

Letho shrugged.

"Take care of it. It's not a proper fang but it'll do the job."

I looked down at the tall, bald brute of a man from the back of my horse as I tucked the dagger into my belt.

"Take care of yourself Letho,"

"You too Scribbler."

He turned and walked back into the keep without another word.

I watched carefully as we rode out of the castle and back onto the road but Kerrass didn't look back. I kept my thoughts to myself after that.

But it wasn't that easy. Kerrass spent the next little while... I don't quite know how to describe what happened then. I suppose it could be argued that what happened was that he spent the next little while losing himself.

I didn't notice what was happening until the process had already begun. At first I just explained his silence away as the fact that he might have nothing to say. I had enough experience of him to be aware that when he's like this, you can't get him to talk just by wishing it, or from _hoping_ that he's going to snap out of it. You have to wait.

It's a lot like trying to tame an animal. You have to teach it that it can trust you and that takes time. You sit there, give it food and as time goes by it learns not to be afraid of you. It learns that you aren't going to hurt it or damage it in any way. Or at least that's the way I always thought about taming animals.

No, that's not right. It's nothing like taming animals. What it's like is trying to make friends with someone who has been betrayed by the closest of friends.

That's what it's like.

I don't know why Kerrass began to... began to feel the way he did. He's never really talked about it since and I never really asked him to explain it. It seemed, intrusive somehow. I always kind of assumed that if he wanted to talk about whatever it was that was bothering him, then he would talk about it without any kind of input from me although this might have been a mistake with hindsight.

I have a couple of guesses. I suspect that, whoever it was that had died was important to Kerrass. I don't know who it was and I never asked but for whatever reason, that person was important. Friend, teacher, lover or something else but for whatever reason, that loss was a tipping point for Kerrass and what it did was to tip him over the edge towards madness.

Kerrass had often spoken to me about the problems with being a Witcher from the Feline school. That there were problems with the mutations that had been applied to them that meant that they ran the risk of heading towards various forms of psychoses far too easily for comfort. I knew that Kerrass had a temper as I had seen his rage made manifest, aimed at me and at others. I had also seen his depressions. Where he would sink into a pit of despair that nothing could drag him out of.

But this was much slower and more insidious than any of those things. It took it's time and it took that time to build. Slowly. Very very slowly so that by the time I actually realised that something was wrong, there was nothing I could do to try and help him, other than just to be there, ready for him to talk when he needed to talk.

I was waiting a long time.

But as I say, it began slowly and it's only with the benefit of hindsight that I can pick up on clues that might have led me to believe that nothing was ok. But it was small stuff.

I had to remind him to blindfold me, to hide the whereabouts of Kaer Morhen.

That might not sound like much and it possibly isn't but at the same time it had been... it had been important to him when he was on his way in, but now it didn't seem to matter.

He even made a joke of it when we stopped for the night.

"It honestly never occurred to me." He said after we'd settled down to cook some of the supplies. For those people wondering, the Goat was just as tasty on the second attempt.

"Why not?" I wondered aloud. "You were so determined to remember on the way in."

"Yes, but I kind of figured that if Letho approved of you then it was kind of alright."

"Letho approves of me?"

"He certainly seems to."

"He tortured me Kerrass."

"Yes, but only in a kind of off-hand affectionate kind of way. If he'd really started torturing you you'd be missing fingers by now."

"That doesn't make me feel better about it though Kerrass."

I was drinking a measure of the larger potion bottle at this point.

"He certainly never apologised for it." I went on.

"He would never apologise. He once told me that he sees apologising as a sign of weakness. All I'll say is this though, he's never given me a knife."

"It is a good knife."

"It would be."

Nothing else was said on the subject.

I was blindfolded for the next couple of days until we were back on the road again. Another, very nondescript patch of road. Nothing different from that patch of road to any of the other patches of road with the miles of wild countryside on the several days either side of it.

What was the next potential clue?

I beat him in a sparring session. The only time I've ever beaten Kerrass enough to score a point on him was when he was demonstrating some kind of technique to me that he wanted me to learn.

But that day, I was using some of the techniques that Letho had taught me and I defeated Kerrass handily. I didn't think too much of it at the time on the grounds that I was trying some new things and I was also swept up in the euphoria of the moment. I enjoyed some jokes at Kerrass' expense for which I was suitably punished.

It was like... It was like he just lost focus somehow. As though the carefully polished and burnished lens of a microscope has developed a flaw in the glass. That someone's dropped it somewhere.

He became less talkative. That's not that much to talk about but at the same time it is a factor. Whereas we had spent a lot of time whiling away the miles over the course of one or other conversation. Now it just seemed as though he was responding with one or two syllables. But as I say, it was a slow thing. It didn't happen quickly. After an afternoon of silence we would spend the entire evening talking about vampires (a subject that was still rather on my mind) or on the mating habits of Wyverns.

But then I looked up one day and I realised that the person who was riding next to me was no longer my friend. I don't know what it was or when it had happened but I realised that I was worried for him and

concerned for his health.

I've already talked about the day Kerrass first called me friend and I didn't say the word aloud until he did because I didn't want to make him feel uncomfortable. But I do know that it was in that stretch of travelling away from kaer Morhen that I first realised that I had started to think of Kerrass as my friend. I knew this because that was when I realised that I was worried about him.

I remember looking over at him, there were some Endregas off in the woods further up the hills. Just one or two and in those kinds of cases they only seem to attack you if you get too close to them but I turned to Kerrass to wonder if there might be someone near by who might be willing to pay for the removal of the beasts.

Kerrass hadn't noticed them. They were too far away for his medallion to really have any kind of effect but he was riding behind me (which should have been another clue as generally he prefers to be in front,) his head was bowed, dark circles under his eyes and his eyes were bloodshot.

If he had been completely human I would have said that he had been weeping for some reason.

He noticed my looking and straightened in the saddle. Just like that, Kerrass the Witcher was back. Then he noticed the Endrega's although there weren't any villages around. Which is a shame because a good hunt was just what the doctor might have ordered in that case.

I can admit that I do have a number of excuses. I had my own series of thought processes to go over and the moral repercussions of what Letho had talked to me about as well as shown me were rather haunting. But I remember that moment. I remember that moment and thinking, "What has Kerrass got to be so unhappy about?" and then realising that the answer has been in front of my fucking face for the past couple of weeks.

A friend of his had died. Someone that he thought of as being important.

This had been told to him in an environment similar to the one where he himself had been tortured and abused within an inch of his life and probably beyond the limit of his own sanity. All of that and in the mean time the poncey scholar that insisted on being dragged around after him, had vanished up his own backside upon learning that Witchers had been forced into existing because the entirety of humanity had been too cowardly to learn how to deal with their own problems.

I was possibly being a little hard on myself but at the same time it wasn't entirely invalid.

That night as we set up the camp fire and after we had done some training where I had made sure that I had asked a suitably large number of questions to keep his mind on things, I decided to broach the subject in a typically ham-fisted and above all, male, fashion.

"You alright?" I asked him after trying several other conversation starters around in my head until I gave up and decided to just force some words out in the same way that an army sends out a group of soldiers into the breach in a castle first, just to see what might happen.

Kerrass shifted his weight and looked up at me.

"Of course I am, why wouldn't I be?"

I stared at him open mouthed for a few minutes.

"Kerrass, not wanting to be funny but I've just been shown the briefest hint of what it's like to go through the trials. I'm not naïve enough to think that that wouldn't have an effect on someone but at the same time... Letho told me that you'd lost someone."

If anyone reading this has a friend who has recently lost someone or of whom you might suspect that they're not alright. Take note. This is how you DON'T talk to them.

Or maybe you do. I don't know.

"People die Freddie. Witchers more often than that really."

"Yes but..."

"That's just the truth of life out on the path Freddie. Write that in your book. No Witcher gets off the path peacefully. We all die, I will, you will and the longer we all stay on the path, the more likely it's going to happen violently and sooner rather than later. Why do you think I've tried to leave it so often?"

I've said it before, Kerrass does rage pretty well but this was a lot quieter than I was used to.

The silence lengthened as I realised how badly I had handled the situation. After a while Kerrass got up and walked into the night.

The following morning I tried to talk to him about it. I tried to apologise for my insensitivity but he waved me off.

"Don't worry about it. I just get like this sometimes. You know how it is." and we rode on. He seemed fine that day but he was...distant is the word I want to use.

It got worse over the coming weeks. We were heading west as the plan was still, in theory, to head back into Redania before heading south to help with the clearing out of the Necrophages in Velen. But Whereas before Kerrass had been looking forward to what he called the "easy money" that would soon be gathered during that time and place. Now he was... Just not there.

I was the one making the decisions. I was picking up food and cooking at it. I had to remind him to train in the evenings. I had to encourage him to go on hunts.

I had plenty of money left over what with one thing and another but Kerrass' own funds were running short. So I had to encourage him to take contracts.

Which he did badly. I had to care for his injuries again, something I hadn't had to do since the night we first met. Normally Kerrass is happy to take a potion and get on with it but he had run out of potions without telling me so I had to use my own leftover medicine knowledge to stitch him up. I had to ask him what herbs he needed to brew some more of his potions and I spent my time trailing round the countryside looking for the flowers, berries and roots that he needed. A thing that he would have refused to let me do for fear that I might pick up on one too many potion secrets. A task, by the way, that Kerrass could have dealt with in a fraction of the time that it took me to perform the same task as, not being very good at it, I ruined more than one sample by inexpert harvesting.

So I did the next load of inexpert attempts to care for my friend.

It should be mentioned that even given the distance of time from those events, I still don't know what I could have said or done to make these circumstances better. Kerrass was suffering. I knew it although I don't recall any particular time that I realised he was suffering. It was a creeping, insidious realisation that the person that I was travelling with was not alright.

So as I said. In trying to help I messed things up even further.

Another camp later on and I came out with this wondrous line.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

We were sat, in amongst some trees, we'd eaten and were in that stage where we were slowly hunkering down to attempt to get some sleep. Kerrass was doing some repair work to his armour. I say that because he had got all of the stuff out to do the repair work but then he was just sat there, staring at the leather knife in a way that was making me nervous. He was just staring at it and had been doing so for some time.

So I asked the question. I don't know why or what possessed me to do so but there it was. The words were out of my mouth now and in the open air.

"Talk about what?" he asked.

"It. Whatever it is that's bothering you."

"Nothing's bothering me Freddie. Get some rest, long day tomorrow."

"You keep saying that Kerrass but it isn't going to be is it."

"What do you mean by that?"

"I mean that I'll wake up in the morning and you'll have gone off somewhere. I'll spend some time packing up camp, making breakfast and things but you still won't be back. I'll come find you, which I will because you won't really have been paying attention and call your name whereupon you will. Turn around, sword half out of it's scabbard with a face that looks as though you're in pain. In the end we're not going to set off until mid morning at best. Then, we're going to ride down the road, ignoring any kind of monster sign until you declare that it's time to stop in the early evening when we could have clearly gone on for another several hours."

"All right Freddie that'll do."

"But then, after I've made camp, which I admit is part of my job, but after you've stood there, watching me do all of that, you just sit down when we should be training."

"I said that'll do."

"Because the person that taught me that constant training and practise is the person that no longer seems to care about it."

"So?"

"So that's my point. Something's bothering you. I don't know what it is but I want to help so I'm seeing if you want to talk about it."

"Don't you think that if I wanted to talk about I would have done so by now."

"It certainly doesn't seem that way,"

"Did it ever occur to you, Freddie, that the reason I'm not talking about it is because I don't want to talk to _you_ about it only for you to publish it in one of your papers for random members of the public to comment and nitpick over."

"All you have to do Kerrass, all you've ever had to do is say, don't publish this bit Freddie, and I would do it. Have I not proven that enough by now?"

"That's not the point."

"You MADE that point Kerrass. Have I not proved that you can trust me by now. I reminded YOU to blindfold me on the way back from Kaer Morhen remember."

He stared at me open mouthed.

"What's wrong Kerrass? What happened there? Because you're not yourself."

"I'm fine."

"No you're not,"

"I said I'm fine."

"If you were fine, we wouldn't be arguing about this. I would already be asleep due to the exhaustion that you would have inflicted on me due to your overly zealous training regime."

Kerrass got up.

"Where are you going?"

"Going off where I can get a bit of peace."

He stalked off into the trees. At first I was concerned that he might not come back but he had left his other sword, horse and bags at the camp site. I tied a rope from his bags to my foot and got my head down.

I was worried and I didn't know what to do.

I had seen Kerrass sink into depressions before. Normally they lasted for a week or ten days at the absolute worst. He became close mouthed and frowny faced. He became even more exacting in his expectations and one would almost call him...petty in his thinking.

But this was something else.

This was like...It was as though he had forgotten how to _be_ Kerrass and had to keep being reminded as to how to do it. Whether that was by me or by some other force or event. But more and more those events were getting more and more serious. His losing to me during a sparring contest, completely missing a group of monsters on the road. These kinds of things were coming up more and more often. When I pointed them out to him he would get frustrated and snap at me.

But his frustration only grew.

I had decided on a slightly different strategy to deal with him. He was waspish and snapping with sudden outbursts of anger at me. Outbursts for which he was nearly always apologetic but they were happening more and more often. Several times a day I would decide that I should just leave him to it. That I should just turn my horse for home or for the university to get away from him. I privately thought that I had more than enough material for a masters thesis or three and no-one could fault me for calling it quits in the face of so hostile a subject, but at the same time I was worried. Kerrass had once looked after me when I had been seriously ill with a malady of the brain and heart and I felt that I was duty bound to do the same for him.

So I persevered. I toughened my skin a little bit and just left him to it.

I stopped reminding him that we needed to train and instead I would just go through my own set of exercises.

Doing my best to push myself to the limits that had already been established.

I sorted out food, negotiating with merchants for many of the things that I knew that we would need. I decided to pay for a herb-woman to collect a lot of the medicinal compounds that I knew that Kerrass needed or could use as part of his own potion and alchemy craft. But other than that, I just left him to it.

Days would pass when we wouldn't speak. We just headed across the mountains and then turned our horses towards the south. Our only engagement was when I would check the direction of travel with him.

Things finally came to a head when we met the Grave hag.

We came across a notice by the side of the road. A huge tree stood in the middle of several roads and attached to it were various notices, some were talking about the need that this person or that person needed to be captured or killed for the crown. There were also some notices of things for sale but one notice that finally caught my eye was a notice that help was wanted from a nearby village which was losing children. It was a wooden board into which the words had been carved with a chisel or a knife and it had been hung off another nail that had been used to hang a notice about a missing plough.

I wordlessly handed it over to Kerrass. I had given up trying to talk to him by that point as he was finding something to get irritable with in everything that I said. He took it off me and nodded.

We found out where the village was in question. It was utterly ordinary for that part of the world. It had a mill to go with the river that it had been founded next to, an inn and a blacksmith. The mayor was the mill owner and told us, or rather told me about the problems that the village had been plagued with over the last little while. I listened, passed the knowledge onto Kerrass who grunted in response.

We asked around to see if we could find anything out. Spoke to some of the parents who had lost children to see what kind of upset they were.

In these cases, especially in the more famine stricken, poorer corners of the world after the war, when winter's hard and there isn't going to be enough food to go around, sometimes parents make the impossible choice, how do they want their children to die. Long and slow from starvation or nice and quick, flash of a blade, bite of a bear or wild dog... I'm sure you get the idea.

This time, as it turned out the villagers were quite well off with respect to food. They had managed to get that sweet spot of being slightly too far from the war front to have been stripped of ALL of their supplies and had a bit put by. A lot of the men of the village had gone off to war so there was a little more child labour than was strictly ok with me but I am no longer quite so naïve as to believe that children are not just as capable of making the hard choices when it's a choice between ploughing the fields or starving.

But a few children had gone missing.

There are any number of reasons that children might go missing and as we investigated in an effort to try and figure out what it was that had taken these children, oh joy of joys, I began to see Kerrass return to his old self.

It was a slow thing at first. I first thought I saw a glimpse of that old Witcher when I saw his eyes glinting while talking to a woman who was openly weeping at the prospect of a lost son. Then again when he found a track on a patch of ground outside the window. Then again when he found another set of tracks leading from a house that had lost a girl child.

I remember the moment when I started to think that everything was going to be ok. He was looking at the ground and I saw his head look up at the tree line a few hundred yards away and I saw a kind of hunger cross his face, along with a righteous anger that I had missed.

Never let it be said that Kerrass is completely immune to the lure of being a hero. The prospect of children in peril is strong and the urge to rescue them came upon him then.

The following day we went into the woods. We had a couple of places to try to find signs of any of the beasts that might be praying on the children. There were some local caves, the old charcoal burners huts and an abandoned witches hut, abandoned because some of the more zealous members of the church of the holy fire had been through and dragged the woman out to die screaming on the fires of the priests fury.

We found nothing at the cave and the hut of the old witch had been burned down so that nothing useful could be left there, Kerrass' amulet failed to even twitch so we moved onto the charcoal burners huts.

That was where we found her.

But what I had thought was Kerrass finally coming back to himself was something else entirely. It nearly went oh so catastrophically wrong.

One of the things that you have to remember about Grave Hags is that they are not completely stupid. They do have some small vestiges of intelligence. Some of them have even been known to talk in small ways and can be communicated with. They set themselves up, often near Grave yards or other areas where large numbers of otherwise well decomposed bodies can be found before eating those same bodies. However they are occasionally known to capture people and kill them in stages so that they can decompose properly to be suitably palatable to the foul wretches.

They seem to mimic human behaviour in many ways. They live in abandoned huts and near grave sites or the sites of mass burials. They also may bear some kind of distant relation to vampiric species as some of the potions (according to Kerrass) that injure vampires also injure Grave Hags although there has never been a proper scientific study of this and so it might just be similarities or coincidence. The important part about this in the case of this tale is due to the fact that they are able to reason enough to be able to recognise the wisdom of "setting stores by" for harder times.

In this case the Grave hag had been systematically capturing young children and keeping them in cages so that they could be her "winter stores." We learned this through talking to the children afterwards. She fed them and looked after them but didn't understand why the children didn't want to eat decomposing rat as the Grave hag in question seemed to consider such things a delicacy.

The children told us that she would take a child from the dark or when they were gathering firewood in ones and twos, lock them in the cellar to the charcoal burners hut and then kill them, one at a time, one every two or three days. That wasn't including those children who had died of starvation or dehydration.

Now...

In these cases it is foolish to underestimate the monster. A grave hag is one of those opponents that if the monster hunter is properly prepared for such a beast, then the grave hag poses minimal threat.

If, however, the hunter goes in under-prepared or is taken by surprise then an angry Grave hag is not a creature that can be taken lightly.

So we approached the Charcoal burners huts cautiously as it was the last place that we were looking in as next we would have been forced to comb the woods systematically. But as we approached I felt, rather than heard, Kerrass begin to growl.

There is no other word that really does justice to the sound that emanated out from Kerrass' throat. It was a low growl of rage and hate and a pain that can no longer be silenced.

He drew his silver sword and charged in towards one of the huts.

He was unprepared. There were no oils on his blade, no potions in his system and it was only because I had reminded him to that he was wearing his silver sword as well as the steel one. A state that time after time after time was a thing that Kerrass warned me against.

"Always be prepared Freddie," he would say over and over again.

To make matters even worse. It was beginning to get dark which is when the Grave hag is at her most powerful.

I swore but I didn't have time to think too much. If I had stopped to think then things might have gone a lot worse.

I ran in after Kerrass. I saw him kick down the door into the hut and rush inside.

On some kind of level, I registered the thing that Kerrass had heard which was that we could hear children's voices. As I got to the hut the side of the hut exploded outwards as Kerras and the hag came tumbling out. I later learned that the hag had heard Kerrass coming, had flung some kind of goo into his face which had blinded him before making a powerful leap at him which carried them through the thin, wattle and daub, walls of the hut.

Now the screams of the children could plainly be heard. I ran in, saw the hole in amongst the filth and dirt and dashed over. I could hear Kerrass roaring something and the monster screaming. I fell to me knees. The hole was just deep enough that the children couldn't climb out themselves. I jumped down and lifted up one of the larger boys to the top to help the others out. Fortunately he was a solid lad and seemed to have taken some form of charge of the others so I was able to quickly hand the other children up and he helped them out.

I could still hear Kerrass although he was no longer shouting, now he was screaming. I couldn't hear the monster.

I picked up the couple of remaining children and almost bodily threw them out of the hole before I used my new dagger which I plunged into the side of the hole to lever myself out. Not the use that Letho had intended it for I have no doubt but at the time I wasn't thinking of that. It didn't break under my weight though and I still have it so that says something about his skill at forging. The children were frozen and milling around in terror and I had to herd them out of the door.

I smelled burning but I didn't have time to check. I grabbed the eldest lad, demanded to know if he knew the way home. He nodded and started leading the other crying children away with my chasing after them.

I didn't look back.

We broke through the tree line so that we could see the village down below. By now mothers and grandparents had begun to see us and were running up towards the children. Deciding that they were safe, I turned and ran back to see what had become of Kerrass.

He was standing over the remains of the Grave Hag. He had forced the creature back against a wall and was now intent on hacking it into pieces.

He was screaming. Spittle flying from his mouth in thin streamers of slime.

The thing was dead. As dead as a thing like that can be but Kerrass kept on chopping at it. The sounds that he was making were like the sounds of a wounded animal. Formless rage and pain.

As I approached he made a gesture and a stream of sparks sent flames to lick up against the creatures body. I thought that might be the end of things but Kerrass just kept chopping. Just hacking down, both hands on the hilt of the sword.

I approached slowly. I had dropped my spear which might have been foolish but I judged that Kerrass had lost his grip on his senses and if he saw a man with a spear then he might take that as a threat and react without thinking.

I approached slowly, gently calling his name.

He just kept screaming. Visibly tiring before my eyes. The blows were getting clumsier and cruder. I saw him gesture to cause more sparks but whatever was in him that he used to throw those sparks had left him and nothing happened.

Instead he just kept chopping and chopping.

I called his name again, inching closer but I couldn't tell if he had heard me or not.

He was getting really tired now. I was under no illusions, Kerrass could easily split me in half without really trying, even exhausted as he was. He couldn't lift the sword any more even with both hands.

He had one last burst of violent energy where he kicked the Hag's corpse a few times, such as it was by this point, but by that point I was close enough to catch his sword arm and take it off him before he did himself an injury with it.

He tried to get angry at me but he was too far gone.

Instead he kind of collapsed into me and howled into my cloak as I caught him.

I'll never forget the sounds that he made that day as we stood there in that little clearing that the charcoal burners had made. They were animal, primal sounds...

I...

Flame burn me...

It was fully dark by the time that he stopped keening.

I don't know how long after that but a tiny small voice came from him "Freddie?"

"I'm here Kerrass."

"Take me away from this place."

It wasn't easy. I lit a quick fire and fed it some fuel so that I could find the place again before I slung Kerrass over my shoulder and carried him to the abandoned cottage of the old herb woman on a bed made from my cloak and his. I quickly lit a fire in the old hearth and headed back out into the night.

I went to the village first. They had heard Kerrass' shouts and cries from as far as that. There was an adorable little blockade of men, women and children with rakes and scythes keeping a watch out.

I mock but those people did right by Kerrass and I.

The children had made it back safely. They gave me the payment that they'd promised as well as several bottles of apple brandy and some food. I tried to pay them for it but they insisted that I take the money instead. I also managed to get a small bottle of lamp oil from them and the rest of our belongings.

Next I went back to the place where Kerrass had fought the Hag. Using the oil I set a good sized fire both in the hut and over the body of the hag itself which I shoveled up and threw into the burning building. Just for surety I covered the body with salt as well. Not that that's going to do anything against a hag but it made me feel better.

I spent enough time there to make sure that the fire wasn't going to spread from the old hut to the surrounding trees before I turned our horses back towards the abandoned cottage.

Kerrass was asleep but woke when I entered. He looked like I had startled a wild animal. His eyes were wild and his ears were tilted backwards. He looked terrified.

With slow and careful movements I went over to the fireplace and started making some food. I wasn't foolish enough to try and give it directly to Kerrass but I put it down next to him and was pleased when I saw that he had started eating.

In all we spent three days in that abandoned cottage. On the morning of the third day I woke to find that he had left his bed roll. Worried, I went out to look for him and I found that he had built a huge fire in the clearing near the cottage. There, stripped down to his trousers he was working the sword forms. Slowly, his movements were stiffer than I guessed he would have preferred but he was getting through them. He would grimace at the mistakes before moving on. Later that day I took my spear outside and we ran through some basic exercises.

On the fourth day we rode out.

It wasn't until the night that we visited the brothel that Kerrass talked about those few days again.

I was having a rest from all the debauchery.

While entirely pleasant, debauchery is a lot of hard work. Endlessly amusing and rewarding work it might be but at the same time, it can be exhausting. I had gone in search of some liquid refreshment as I was in danger of falling asleep and I wasn't quite ready to give up on the evening just yet so I had decided to leave the room, relieve myself and get some more wine as well as some water. To all intents and purposes the brothel that we were at was having a relatively quiet night and so Kerrass' decree that I should be treated like a king meant that the best party was in my room.

I had already had a good time and was determined to have some more when I was walking past a small alcove which opened out onto a balcony when I saw Kerrass. There was another woman who was lying asleep on a nearby couch where someone, presumably Kerrass, had covered her with a blanket and placed a pillow beneath her head. Kerrass had a glass in one hand and was sipping from it as he watched the night sky. He was dressed in his shirt and trews but his feet were bare and propped up on the railing around the balcony.

"You alright?" I asked.

He smiled up at me. He looked better, the bags under his eyes were no longer as large or dark and he seemed relaxed, almost content. "You need to stop asking me that Freddie."

"Call it habit."

Kerrass waved me towards a chair next to him and offered me a glass.

"Taking a break?" He asked.

"Something like that. The royal treatment is very..." I rotated my hand in the air, lost for words.

"Royal?" suggested Kerrass.

"That's the very word I was looking for,"

Kerrass clinked his glass against mine.

"Well you deserve it." he said.

"If you say so,"

"No need for modesty now Freddie,"

"Ok." I shrugged and took a drink. The wine was excellent. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"This again?"

"This again."

"You know one day you're going to run out of questions to ask me."

"Maybe, but I doubt it. Still I won't pry if you don't want to go into it."

Kerrass heaved a huge sigh and settled in.

Truth be told I had just made up my mind to get up and return to my own chamber to wake up the other women were were waiting there when he started speaking again.

"You saved me from the final trial." He said quietly.

"What trial is that?"

He looked over at me as though he was surprised to have spoken.

" _The_ trial. The ultimate trial. The final trial."

"I didn't know there were any more trials. So far I've got the trial of Choice, The trial of the Grasses, the trial of Dreams and the Trial of the Mountain."

"Yes, well. There are two more trials that we generally don't like to talk about."

"Two more? Those trials sound harsh enough as it is. Hells but Letho showed me some of them and I'm still terrified of it."

Kerrass smiled again. It was a sad smile. "Yes, I was angry with him about that for a while but, I dunno. He was right. I do look back upon those times with fondness. I do look back and think about the other teachers and the other students. The wizard that stood over us maintaining the proper flow of chemicals into our blood streams. At the time it was a nightmare from which I could never wake up. But now, I look back and I find that I am grateful to those people. Heh,"

He poured himself some more wine and offered me the jug.

"When I say it aloud like that, it sounds psychotic. That I am grateful to them for abusing and changing me in the most unnatural ways. That I am happy with that history and can remember the good times with fondness and the bad times I find that I skip over in my brain. But those aren't the trials that I'm talking about."

"Oh?" I passed the jug back.

"These are the trials that we don't talk about. They're not coded in any book that I've ever read and other than the old man who talked to me about them once when I returned to the keep after a particularly long year, I've never heard anyone talk about them. Not even to each other."

I said nothing. I had the sense that Kerrass was working up to telling me something important and I just wanted to let him speak while at the same time trying to drag my own brain out of whatever alcohol soaked bath it was in at the time so I could pay attention.

"These are the trials that mark the change of someone from being a young Witcher. Just sent out on the path with the shine still on his medallion. Still carrying the swords on his back proudly and getting ready to fight anyone who looks at them badly. The first of the two trials is this one and believe it or not, you've passed this trial yourself."

I still said nothing although my eyebrows may have raised.

"I once heard a fencing instructor refer to is as "The trial of the sword," or "The trial of the hero,"." Kerrass went on. "What happens is that the young Witcher goes out. He's at the peak of his trained skill. He's passed all the tests, his mind is full of Monster Lore and Herb Lore. The lessons of his training are still fresh in his mind and in his body. He has a sword on his back and he know how to use it which is a considerable distance from the skills of all the people around him. He looks around him in his brand spanking new Witcher armour and thinks that he's better than the lot of them.

"Then something happens. It might be that someone bumps into them on the street or someone sneers at them when they are enquiring after contracts. The White Wolf tells a story about his first monster where he rescued a girl and her father from a rape gang before the girl and father fled after the attackers.

"So sometimes the trial comes in the opportunity to be a hero when you shouldn't. You see a situation and you think to yourself. "I have a sword and I know how to use it. I don't need to be afraid of these people, they should be afraid of me." Then that arrogance gets you killed. To pass this trial you simply have to survive it. Survive it, realise how utterly stupid you were, realise that you are not immortal and adjust your own thinking accordingly."

"So in my case. That time I ran into a clearing to rescue that girl and those bandits could have skewered me."

"Precisely. You survived. You're going to be much more cautious and considerate in the future aren't you?"

"Yes,"

"So you passed your "Trial of the sword." History is replete with examples of this if you know what you're looking for. The perfect warrior at the peak of his training and his conditioning. Dripping in plate and chain armour and then he gets run through by a farmer with a pitchfork. Another favourite story of mine is of the farmer and the swordsman have you heard this one?"

"Is this the story about Geralt and the..."

"No no. It's one of those stories that gets told to warn people of being arrogant. The story goes that the soldier takes a fancy to the farmers wife. Invents an excuse to challenge the farmer to a duel the following day. The farmer goes off to town and finds an ancient master of the sword and says "Master what do I do? I need to protect my wife from being killed by this soldier."

"The master laughs and shows him one move. Sword held nice and high then bring it crashing down on the enemies head. The master makes the farmer practice the move over and over again until he literally performs the move in his sleep.

"In the morning the farmer asks the master "When should I use the strike?" and the master tells him. "Start the fight with the sword held high. Then when the other man runs you through with his own sword, he will be exposed and you can kill him."

""But won't I die?" the farmer asks, plainly terrified.

""But your wife will be protected," says the master.

"The farmer is terrified but he goes to the site of the duel. Lifts his sword on high into the stance that he has been taught. The soldier arrives. Takes one look at the stance and surrenders to the farmer."

"It's an interesting story." I said. "I have heard it before and thought it was about having the will to succeed against all odds."

"But it's _also_ about, not rushing into a situation without getting all the facts and circumstances correct. But anyway. That's the trial of the sword. It's the moment when you stop being an "Apprentice Witcher," and start being a Witcher.

"The last trial though." Kerrass went on. "The final trial. That is the trial that separates the Witcher from the Master Witcher. I don't remember the circumstances that led to my passing that trial but I remember returning to Feline keep. I will have been on the path for maybe ten years or so, somewhere around there, anyway... I walked into the keep and got myself cleaned up. The other Witchers were talking, rolling dice, playing cards, bullying the students and the for some reason, I didn't want to join them. I wanted some peace and Quiet and I left them to it. I got some food and went to sit outside somewhere where I could smell the fresh breeze rather than the stale smell of unwashed Witcher.

"I was sat outside and a Witcher came to me. I had never spoken to him but he was old. Still hale and hearty. I had seen him around but never talked to him as he had nothing to do with apprentices. He gave me a bottle of apple brandy and told me about the last trial.

"He called it "The Trial of Death." I remember wanting to laugh at him for such a melodramatic name but he was absolutely serious and I found that I didn't want to laugh any more. Instead for the first time since I had been given my medallion. Indeed for the first time since I had passed the trials, I found that I wanted to weep. My tears came in a while and he watched me for a long time before telling me that there is no shame in those tears. That all Witchers feel that feeling at some point in their lifetimes. He told me that I would be able to recognise it in the others. That I would see it in them when they have their own experience with the trial of death. He told me that mastering that trial was the difference between being a Witcher and being a Master Witcher.

"He was right too. I found that I could see that feeling in the other men at the keep. I saw it in the Wolven keep as well when I went to visit and have seen it in the other Witchers on the path as well.

"As far as I know it's a thing that's unique to Witchers. I've never seen that look in the eye of any other man or woman from any species. It's a Witchers gaze and it might have something to do with why people think that we are emotionless.

"Our job _is_ death. It's all there is. It's our task, our calling and our profession. It's our reason to exist. Without death and the occasional need for that death to be visited on the monsters of this world then Witchers would not need to exist.

"This is complicated stuff so bear with me as I tell it.

"In all aspects of our lives, we walk beside death. The oils that we pour on our swords are caustic and corrosive. The potions that we drink are poison. We are all made using a process that brings death, far more often than it brings life. Our tools are weapons of death and we bring that death with an efficiency that would terrify most men.

"Then as well, when we are given our prey. We stalk our prey in the same way that someone might woo a partner. We look at them. We study them. Trying to guess how they think and what they feel. Trying to guess how they are going to react. But then we go further than that. A suitor can walk away if they decide that there is no compatibility whereas we _have_ to find that compatibility. Then, on the night of the hunt. We dance with our intended. We lock swords with claws in the same way that lovers might link hands and lips. But then, different to lovers again, one of us dies. Whether our betrothed in death, or ourselves. Then we move onto our next dance partner.

"And we know that that death is going to come for us. Sooner or later some monster is going to get lucky. Sooner or later we are going to jump left when we should have jumped right and the monster will have us. We become addicted to that feeling. That excitement. That... That challenge of making sure that we are the ones that survive. To make sure that _we_ are the superior hunter, the superior predator... the superior...

"Letho has a line that he likes to use. He once said to me that "What was done to us was monstrous and they turned us into monsters?"

"Yes, he did use that line."

"Well it's true. We have to be the superior monster. Every hunt is our dance with death and after a while, that sense of feeling that you get when you're locked in combat with a monster. That... That rush. It becomes addictive. So even when you might try to leave the path. The path draws you back into your dance with death.

"But then something changes. You begin to get tired. You've been on the path for years. Time after time after time it goes the same way. You approach the village. The village throws cow shit at you, you move on. You approach the village, the village throws horse shit at you, you move on.

"You approach the village, they have a contract. You negotiate a price. You perform the hunt. The village tries to swindle you at best, kill you at worst and then you ask yourself... What's the point. Killing these monsters for ungrateful people who work far too hard for ungrateful lords who refuse to lift a finger to help them leaving all the dirty work to you and yours. So why are we out here, in the dark, alone, terrified and waiting for the feel of the monsters jaws to close around your leg.

"It's a slow insidious feeling. You know all the reasons why people are the way they are. Why they are prejudiced the way they are and why they behave the way they do. But at the same time, you find that you hate them for it.

"But still you dance because there's no other option.

"But isn't there?

"What if... What if there was another option. What if... instead of bringing death to some monster who doesn't know any better what if... What if they brought death to you instead?

"You banish that thought. "We are Witchers," you think to yourself, "It is our duty to go into the dark and to fight the fear and the terror and to stare death in the eye and spit in his face.

"But you're so damn tired. Your friends are dying now. Maybe they weren't quite as good as you but suddenly there are only two out of the five of you that survived your class still standing. Good men all. Better than you even. What made you survive and them die? What's it like anyway, to die?

"Slowly, it becomes all you think about. You're tired. You want to stop. No-one will blame you. No-one will think twice about it. You just...you were unlucky this time.

"It will be so easy after all. Just go down there, step into the blow rather than away from it and no-one will ever know. With enough potions in yourself you probably wouldn't even feel it.

"Then. When you're at that point. That point when you want death. When you pray for it even. You turn away, kill that monster and force yourself on to the next village and the next and the next until the end of the year and do the same again the next year and the next.

"That's the trial of death. You will never face that Freddie, you can walk away from these things at any time, back to your life and your family. Soldiers know that the war will end eventually. Mercenaries can retire so they don't feel this. This feeling is reserved for Witchers.

"That is the final trial. If you can survive that trial then you are a master Witcher. Do you understand?"

"No," I said simply.

Kerrass nodded. "Precisely."

He shook his head. "Don't mind me Freddie, I'll be fine tomorrow. Go back to the women, they'll be wondering where you are."

I left him on the balcony that night and sure enough he was fine the following morning although I was tired and sore. Pleasantly so as it had been an incredible evening.

Three weeks later we received word of my fathers death.

It's a long time since that night in the brothel and I still don't understand what to make of it all and I suspect I never will. Perhaps that is for the best.


	48. Chapter 48

So here it is. The long awaited, by my publisher at least, account of the coronation of Her Majesty, Cirilla Elen Fiona Riannon, Empress of the Greater Nilfgaardian Empire, Queen of Cintra, Princess of Brugge and Duchess of Sodden. Heiress to Inis Ard Skellig and Inis An Skellig, and Suzeraine of Attre and Abb Yarra.

It was an incredible time an amazing time and so much happened there in that fairytale duchy of Toussaint, but even as I sit here now, in a road-side tavern a weeks hard riding to the north. I can't think where to begin.

It was the site of my greatest triumph and also the place of my greatest failure. People tell me now that both of those events will pale in comparison to those events that will come afterwards but right now?...

Right now I don't know where to begin.

As I have mentioned previously I was waiting on the production of a couple of items before I headed south and truth be told I was chafing at the delays. But I couldn't do without either item so I spent my time making notes on the trials of the Witcher schools as well as tidying up some of my more academic work and sending it all off to be compiled, edited and bound by the university.

The rest of my family had departed for the south some weeks earlier, Emma to go and represent the Mercantile interests of the Coulthard family. She had also been invited to come along to help represent the Redanian treasury in the coming negotiations as the chancellor of Redania had been summoned to give account of the Kingdom before the new Empress. I don't know who was at the root of this invite but it strikes me as unlikely that the Chancellor himself will have sent that word as he is an older man. Very old money and equally as set in his ways.

Mark was there as both the Baron von Coulthard and Arch-Bishop of Tretogor. It seems silly to me now but I still didn't know how I felt about Brother Mark back before I set off to come south.

Sam was there as being the Lord Kalayn. His title had not yet been set. He was hoping to be named as Count Kalayn but our families political enemies were kicking up a fuss that our family was beginning to become owners of quite a bit of land in Redania and they saw that as our being power hungry. Sam was playing it cool and continuously playing up to the fact that he was still actively serving as part of the military rather than just looking after his own power and wealth. He was doing quite well at it too but the fact that the Kalayn name was being said in the same breath as their being declared as heretics, as in "Those Heretic Kalayns," was counting against him.

The other problem that we were having was my role in the freeing of the Princess Dorn. Her suddenly coming back to life and the freeing of that country from under the yoke of...whatever it was formerly under the yoke of had resulted in quite a bit of resentment from the Southern Nilfgaardian lords. The country's status and the status of the Princess herself was still a little up in the air but a large contingent of the standing Nilfgaardian army had been sent to her nation. I wondered at the time if this was some kind of gesture. They were on their way but hadn't got there yet meaning that they could turn aside at any time but they were also still marching through the neighbouring states which, by obscene coincidence, were also the states that were complaining the loudest.

My absence was being seen as being cowardly, despite the often repeated line that my duties were keeping me in the north, but I was looking forward on heading south and seeing if any of those accusations would be said to my face.

Then there was the fact that Francesca was going to be there and I couldn't wait. We had already been told by letter which had been confirmed by other people that wherever the Empress goes, Francesca was sure to follow and I was desperate to see my little sister. It has been said by many that my parents had kept trying with their children until they finally got it right and when they did get it right, in producing Francesca, they got it _so_ right that they didn't bother having another go. I had last seen her when she was fourteen, she had gone south to court when she was sixteen in an effort to join the then heir to the throne's entourage. It had been considered a long shot by many, including me, but it seemed to have paid off as nothing could stop my sister when she was in a full on charm offensive and somehow, she and the Empress had managed to become friends. Another thing that made our enemies nervous.

So all in all I was resentful with the affairs that kept me in the north.

In the end though Emma had put her foot down and declared that I was going to come south the day before the Empresses coronation. That deadline was passed on to the contractors that were constructing those special items for me and the dwarf and gnome in charge of the construction of those items nodded, counted the truly ridiculous amount of money that I gave them and told me that the things would be ready in time.

I did have one thing in my favour. Where Emma goes, now too goes Laurelen. One of the benefits of having a Sorcerer as an all-but-sister-in-law, means that the use of a transport gate is much more feasible.

That and I had to go and deliver my Thesis to the faculty of Oxenfurt university.

It was awful. Possibly the most terrifying experience of my life.

Yes, including all the monsters that I've had to face. Because then I had some kind of outlet, I could hit them back, scream shout or otherwise carry on. I even had the potential of Kerrass along as back up.

But this time I was on my own before half a dozen old, grumpy men. At least one of who's work I had systematically destroyed in the writing of my thesis proving that not all monsters were natural and that indeed some monsters would go out of their way to hunt and sleep in areas that the old man in question had declared was quite impossible.

He hadn't taken it well but it seems that he had been brought to the panel in an effort to get under my skin on the grounds that, to properly exhibit some academic work then it needs to be challenged by other people and I needed challenging.

He called me a hack and a drunken wastrel who expected to get by on the money that my family had sent me during the many misspent hours on the road with a fraud.

I called him a dried up old stick who wouldn't know a genuine monster if it jumped up out of the primordial sludge that the Pontar had become and bit him in half. I argued that he would still be complaining that the monster in question couldn't possibly exist while he was still disappearing down the thing's gullet.

He didn't take it well.

But at the same time I passed. I had a briefly and excruciatingly nerve-racking period while I waited outside the office for my results. My tutor had made his own opinion on the matter and had come out to keep me company.

"How do you think you did?" he asked me, smiling.

"Flame but how can you ask me that?" For reference I was standing facing the wall and leaning on it using only my forehead.

"You must have some idea." He teased.

"I really really don't. I will say this though. If I don't pass because of that shrivelled turd of a Professor then I'm going to take this opportunity to kill him on the grounds that he shouldn't be allowed to pollute the minds of perfectly innocent students with his assumptions, prejudices and ignorance."

"Everyone is entitled to their own opinions Frederick,"

"Which is precisely what his are, opinions. If he had actually faced down a charging basilisk like my source has then I might hold those same "opinions" in higher regard but I'm fairly confident that he hasn't lifted his arse up from the arm chair in which he formed those opinions for two decades."

Fortunately for both of us the door opened then and we were invited back in where the six of them told me that I had passed unanimously.

"Hang on," I said glaring at my enemy who was grinning at me from behind the desk. "You hate me. I've spent most of my academic career telling everyone who'll listen how utterly wrong you are. But you voted for me to qualify?"

"Why yes," said the old man straightening and taking a glass from the tray of port that was being passed around. "I haven't had this much fun in years. Your theories on the mutation of the species are most enlightening of course."

"Bastard," I said into his twinkling eyes.

So that's my other piece of news. I am now a fully credited Proffessor of Anthropology of the university of Oxenfurt. They did ask me whether I wanted to be referred to as Professor or Doctor. I told them to call me Professor as I wasn't sure that I would be able to look Shani in the eye if they called me Doctor. We spent some time discussing my subjects, lecture availability and areas of expertise when a couple of things were made clear to me. The first was that the University was proud of my wanderings and the work that I had done to bring to light various things and to raise the public profile and opinion of what the university was capable of. They told me that they hoped that I would continue in that regard and looked forward to reading future chapters. I was told that it had been defined and codified that the thing that I would be known for would be the introduction of the tome "On Witchers," by me. The first volumes of which would be collected from the previous articles that I had written as well as some of the more academic texts that I had provided.

It should also be mentioned that I needed to add a couple of chapters on the history of the Witchers as to where they came from and such. I haven't really gone into them here as the explanation is rather dry and I haven't found anything concrete enough to set to paper.

Kerrass has no understanding of who the first Witchers were or the specifics of how they were created either so I wouldn't suggest that it would be a good idea to ask him.

They asked me about my immediate plans for the future and I told them that that was a little up in the air as I wasn't sure how free Kerrass was and even if he would want to carry on our journeys together. I told them all that I would be seeing him at the coronation and would be able to talk to him then. I promised that if we were going to set off on the road straight away then I would at least let them know, otherwise they had a series of lectures that they wanted me to give as well as a book that needed compiling and proof reading.

I was also told that the Arch chancellor of the university was heading south for the coronation himself and as such my graduation was going to happen there so that my family could see it happen. I accused them of the viva just being there to satisfy their own sick senses of humour as they already knew that I was going to pass.

I also commented that they hadn't bothered to deny it.

But I rode back in good spirits, stopping off at the Dwarven smiths who presented me with the items that I had ordered with a certain air of royalty deigning to allow me to touch the crown jewels.

He had done me proud and all of my frustration at the amount of time it had taken to make and the cost of the items vanished as I accepted a demonstration of the one piece and held the other up to the light.

I rode up to the castle and through the gates to find Captain Froggart of the family guard practically hopping from one foot to the other in frustration.

"You're required at the castle sir."

"So? Who by and what for?"

"Sir," The Captain glared at me, his head cocked slightly to one side.

"No seriously Captain who requires me?"

"I do," came a voice from the horse trough.

"What?" I stamped over to the water and looked in to see Emma and Laurelen looking out of the water at me.

"Why are the two of you in a horse trough?" In my defence it was the first thing that came to mind. Not my wittiest moment of repartee but there you go.

"Because it was the first chance we had of knowing where you were." Emma was being snippy. Never a good sign.

"Okay?"

Emma sighed. "Captain Froggart?"

"Yes ma'am." I had that much warning before I was liberally soaked in ice cold water.

"Wake up Freddie, it's time for you to come south. The Empress is asking for you."

"Why's the Empress asking for me?"

"She won't tell us. She keeps saying a single line over and over again which is "The interesting thing about being Empress is that you don't have to explain yourself to anyone,"."

"But she's not empress yet."

"Do you think that matters to the legion of Imperial Guard that follow her around, practically vibrating with the desire to do violence to anyone that might annoy her,"

"Fair point,"

"So get yourself changed and be in the castle entrance in twenty minutes when there'll be a gate waiting for you."

"But..."

"No time for that."

"But I..."

"No time for that either, off you go."

The image vanished from the water. I spent some time staring down into the trough debating whether or not it would be needlessly petty to piss into the water, or spit or something.

Probably needlessly cruel to the horses though.

"Sir," Captain Froggart prompted.

"I'm surprised at you Captain I thought we were friends."

"With respect sir, I am under orders to physically drag you up to the keep where there is a bath waiting that I am to throw you into whether you are dressed or not. If you are not ready for transport when the gate is established I have been told in certain terms that I will be turned into a cow, a female one, and made pregnant, before being milked every day for the rest of my life."

"Yikes."

"I think my response was a little more...forceful than that sir, so if I might suggest that we..." He gestured up the hill towards the keep and I allowed myself to be led.

There was indeed a bath. I managed to shave and get into some fresh clothes in time for the gate to be established. I already knew that my sister had arranged for more appropriate attire for the courtly proceedings of Toussaint and that those garments would be ready by the time that I arrived. So the only thing that I needed to take were my weapons and armour, my deliveries from the dwarf and myself.

Why did I take my weapons? Because Kerrass was going to be there. As well as doing a lot of writing I had been training hard while we had been separated and I absolutely expected for him to demand a match or three.

That and I also had some hopes that I might run into Sir Robart de Radford who I'm told was going to be there. As it turns out, he wasn't but I still packed my spear and knife. Joking aside I didn't really think about it. My weapons went everywhere with me now and rightly so. Kerrass had drilled these habits into me and he was correct to do so. Even during my trips to and from Oxenfurt I still wore my leathers and had the spear strapped to the saddle next to me. Maybe that makes me one of these "street toughs" that people preach against in pulpits up and down the country, I can't answer for that but I was enough of a believer in luck that the one time that I didn't strap my spear to my side when going for a walk would be the one time that I got attacked by someone.

But I was waiting there in the entrance hall, my hair might still have been wet and the skin on my face was still burning from how quick the shave had had to be but I was ready.

If you've never had to travel by gate it's the strangest thing to watch. I'm not going to recommend it or warn you against using gate travel but just be aware that it comes with it's own challenges. The first is that it makes a mess which is why a lot of magic users prefer to create the gates outside where there is less random debris to be caught up and thrown around by the gates in question.

It looks like water spiralling down a hole. Only the water is inky black and there is runic writing on the outside of the hole. I had travelled once before and I thought that I was prepared for this journey. That was a lie. It still looked so odd, so unearthly as you look at this hole that has just been ripped into existence that I stood staring at it for a solid thirty seconds trying to properly _see_ it and take it in. Until Laurelen's voice came from a mirror that was nearby.

"Step through the damn gate. We haven't got all day."

As though kicked, and feeling much younger than I actually am I picked up my boxes and bags and jumped through the gate.

Touissant greeted me with warmth, lots of noise and the perfume of many different kinds of flowers all at once. It was an assault on my senses, bright colours clashed in my eyes, scents arrived in my nostrils and the sounds of people cheering as well as the distant sounds of hoof beats and combat.

"Come on, step off the platform." A man in ludicrously coloured Red and Yellow tabard with a frilly ruffed collar and a beret yelled at me. "You're the Coulthard gate aren't you?"

"What?"

I would have laughed then if I hadn't been left disoriented by the gate and the arrival in Toussaint. He had a pair of lenses wedged on top of his nose and a wooden board in his hand that held a set of notes. There was a table nearby with an egg timer on it. He also had a ludicrously oversized moustache which he blew out in exasperation.

"Clear the portal, damn your eyes. Do you think you're the only transport coming in today?"

Startled and feeling a little silly, I sheepishly picked up my packages and moved off the platform.

The man harrumphed as I did so making himself an even greater figure of comedy.

It turns out I was standing on a smallish wooden platform with steps up to it and so I carried my bags off it and down to the bottom where I found Laurelen waiting for me. I hadn't seen her for a couple of months and we embraced warmly.

"It's good to see you," I said, "despite your ordering of Captain Froggart to tip a bucket of cold water over me."

"That was your sister," she said grinning, "although I will admit that it was funny to see. Here let me look at you," She frowned at my face and adjusted my clothing a little. "We need to get you off to get changed."

"But I'm wearing my best..."

"They might have stood you in good stead in the North but down here it's a whole other thing. Just give your things to..."

A servant appeared wearing Coulthard livery. I had never seen him before in my life but he whisked my bags and packages out of my hands and set off at a run to the palace.

The platform turned out to have been set up in the gardens of Toussaint palace. The palace itself really is like every fairy tale castle that you've ever seen. Soaring towers of white stone topped by red tiles and huge windows. Flowers under every window and flags rising high over every tower. From where we stood we could see down into the capital city, a sprawling mass of red roofs and painted walls, further down was the harbour and I could see many ships anchored off out in the wide river. The port pilots being ferried around at what looked like a frantic pace as more and more ships arrived and deposited their loads on the docks below.

Toussaint is a wonderful place and I would recommend that, if you can, you go to visit at least once. But I'm not sure that I would want to live there.

There was a stark contrast as well between Toussaint as a whole and the black armoured Nilfgaardians that lined the walk ways and paths in comparison to the gaudily dressed and armoured "Knights Errant," that strode up and down the walkways. If you do find yourself in Toussaint and you see one of these huge men walking towards you. I advise you to get out of the way. It's not that they're being rude or anything but, due to the armour as well as being too busy looking around for any wrong that they might be able to correct whether wanted to or not, they simply haven't seen you. Also, if you decide to take offence at this, I would just warn you that they are phenomenally good with their weapons and regularly attack hordes of bandits, single handedly and are expected to win.

Which they do.

Do not be taken in by their gaudy armour, over the top manners and ridiculous morals . These men are absolutely justified in their arrogance.

But as the Empress was currently in residence, there was a sharp contrast between these gaudily dressed men and the black armoured, faceless and anonymous soldiers of the Imperial guard who stood, motionless in armour that must have been baking hot. As you walked past them you could see their eyes flitting around. Making notes of everyone and seeing everything.

The contrast between the two was jarring.

I have spoken with a number of residents of Toussaint in the mean time and they tell me that I have not necessarily seen Toussaint at it's best. Toussaint is, apparently, best experienced when it is quieter and not at the centre of a vast international gathering. It was as though the entire place had gone over the top in insisting that we see Toussaint in all it's glory and as a result it lacked some of the subtlety that I'm told exists in the quieter times of year.

In short, Toussaint was everything that I had been led to believe, all of that and more.

"What's that all about?" I asked Laurelen, gesturing over my shoulder at the platform.

"The Lodge put their foot down," She took my arm possessively and pulled me close. A move that she had copied from Emma. "As there were so many people transporting in from various places there was a concern that the gates would interfere with each other and mishaps would occur."

"I wish someone had told me that before I walked into one."

"Oh the danger is long past. But the Lodge decided that there needed to be one person using a gate at a time and always from the same place in an effort to mitigate any problems. Of course the Lodge was ignored at first but After Philippa was done with the offending parties, people soon learned to do what they were told. The Duchess was expansive in her desire to be accommodating and had this platform constructed for the purpose, upsetting the head gardener as his prize rose bush was under there or so I'm told."

"It's all fun and games,"

"Until someone gets chopped in half by an errant gate it is anyway. I suggested that they could achieve the same effect by having the location be in a cellar but Phillipa wanted it to be somewhere public so that people could _see_ the magic users coming and going."

"Ahh, politics."

Laurelen was looking well. She had let her hair grow out since she had been "outed" with our family problems and to all intents and purposes had become my sister's wife. Instead of having a Lord and Lady of the castle we had a Lady and Lady of the castle. The vast majority of the servants didn't care enough to quit over the gender of the person that was giving them orders and the guards of our castle soon weeded out those men who didn't like it who then left to go and pursue other employment opportunities elsewhere. The only problems that had come up was that we had begun to get a bit of a reputation as being a "fighting" castle as anyone who mocked or insulted the "Ladies of Castle Coulthard" could expect to be punched by a listening man or harangued by a listening woman. My sister's stance on the matter was that the old guard hated us anyway for being wealthy and powerful despite being from new money so why not embrace our eccentric reputation and use it for progressiveness. I was all for it despite being a bit concerned that it might alienate some of the older guard.

But yes, Laurelen was looking well. She had put on a little weight since I had seen her last, which suited her as she had been far too thin when pretending to be a servant, and was wearing a beautiful golden dress with Emerald ear-rings and another Emerald stone set in a pendant. She was smiling easily and nodded and waved little greetings to people that she knew and recognised as well as acknowledging those knights who saluted her in passing. I got more than one envious look from those self same knights which I found endlessly amusing in both directions.

"How are they taking it down here?"

"Taking what?"

"You and Emma."

"Oh," she laughed, "They find it oddly heroic. Romantic love rather than courtly love was all but invented down here and as a result they seem quite relaxed about it, helped by the fact that the Duchess is a formidable woman in her own right. They do occasionally seem to get confused when someone offers us a slight of some kind as they are used to one of us turning to the man on our arm to "deal with the ruffian" but then we turn to each other and laugh in the idiot's face."

I laughed with her. "I would like to see that,"

"Oh you will get the chance."

"How are things going with the Lodge of Sorceresses as a whole?"

I was surprised as Laurelen snorted a kind of laughter.

"Sorry," she said, "It's kind of funny. Personally speaking I think it would be a good idea if they all just gave it up as a bad idea and tried again. It's almost comical with how badly it all works out."

"Ariadne did suggest that in her last letter,"

"Yes well. They're all here but for how long I'm not quite sure. Here's how it goes. Phillipa Eilhart thinks and acts like she's in charge but isn't really. She feels out her seniority a bit as she was the one who came up with the idea in the first place. But the truth is that she was kicked out of her position in Redania and humiliated which meant that she was out of "the game" when everyone else was rising to prominence.

"The Empress is a member and the rest of the lodge would do what they were told if the Empress ordered them to but at the end of the day, she is young and is far too busy making sure that the world doesn't tear itself apart so she's hardly ever in attendance. I'm getting most of this second hand you understand?"

"I understand."

"Madame Yennefer of Vengerberg is a member but declares frequently and often that she is retired from the world of politics. She likes to spend time with her Witcher on a vineyard, near here actually, and generally doesn't care enough to take part. She fell out with the Lodge and Phillipa in particular during the second Nilfgaardian war as Yennefer was "seen" to betray the lodge in an effort to find the young girl who is now the Empress. But, it turned out that the girl turned out to be Empress and listens to madame Yennefer's advice on many things."

"Is the lady Yennefer taking advantage of that situation?"

"It would seem not. But who can tell what's going on in private. She sits in council meetings and reads her book, much to the annoyance of the Empress' other courtiers. The Lodge wants her to exert her influence over the Empress but daren't press the matter as the Empress is another member and if they piss off Madame Yennefer..."

"Who is so well known for her gentle and tolerant disposition."

Laurelen giggled, "Quite. If they piss her off then they can kiss goodbye to any influence that they might have with the Empress.

"Triss Merigold is the really powerful one in terms of support from other mages as she's still in charge of the contingent that went north. She doesn't throw her weight around but all that does is give everyone else nightmares about what would happen if she _did_ throw her weight around.

"Keria Metz has picked up a Witcher of her own and has a lot of influence in scholarly circles,"

"Yes I've heard about that. Hasn't she discovered a cure to the plague?"

"Apparently so. It has yet to be proven in the real world but it's cured some reasonable lab specimens. Margarita doesn't care for politics and keeps insisting that the important thing is to build a new magical academy after Aretuza on Thanedd was burned to the ground by fanatics.

"Lady Fringilla Vigo is keeping herself to herself and hardly stirs herself. When I asked Triss about it yesterday it would seem that Lady Vigo is... troubled and doesn't quite know what to do with herself. Legitimacy after the last war has come... hard for her. Too long hiding and acting undercover maybe."

"What about the elves?"

"Francesca Findabair and Ida Emean aep Sivney. They are both staying quiet. I suspect that they are waiting to see what the new Empress is going to say about the Elves and other Elder races before they decide what to for themselves."

"So let me get this straight. Phillipa Eilhart wants to be in charge but if Ms Merigold, Madame Yennefer, The Empress, or Ms Metz actually put their foot down then Ms Eilhart would discover that she's standing on sand. Only Ms Metz and this Margarita person are looking to the future and the whole thing therefore renders the Lodge of Sorceresses a bit redundant."

"Pretty much."

"They've won. The world's most powerful monarch is both a woman and a Sorceress in her own right,"

"And from what I've been told, is more powerful than the rest of them put together."

"Heh,"

"Also, with your Ariadne..."

"She's not my anything,"

"And her friend, Maleficent the dragon Sorceress stepping into the fold as well..."

"How are they settling in?"

"Well, I understand overtures are being made towards both of them. Ariadne tells me that she's wary. She's very aware that people tolerate her at best and that if she suddenly seems to have more power than she should then that could turn the countryside and the male magic users against the lodge,"

We looked at each other, "Again," we said in Unison.

"So she's being very cautious," Laurelen went on. "Maleficent has also been approached but not actually invited yet. I understand that she laughed aloud and responded with "You understand that I'm a dragon right? How long is it going to be before I get bored and just fly off?""

I snorted in laughter. "I can see that,"

"Plus it turns out that the two of them know Francesca and Ida from times gone by. It would seem that the dragon and the vampire didn't get on with the Elves but in the intervening times, the dragon and the vampire have gotten over it. You know that old thing about, the enemy I've known for longest is a closer friend than some friends I have?"

"Yes, Ariadne and Maleficent said something similar about each other."

"So if the two of them join under the original terms of the lodge which is that each member has an equal vote then suddenly there's an "ancient creature" bloc of votes that people would need to take into account."

"What about you?"

"Do you know, since my relationship with your sister came out, my stock has inexplicably risen with the others?"

"Has it now,"

"Yes. It would seem that I am suddenly in vogue. Truth be told I'm trying to avoid it. They want me to use my influence with your sister to further the Lodge's agenda. Which I'm not willing to do or even think about."

I found that I was letting out a breath that I had been holding. "Would you take it badly if I told you that I was glad about that?"

She hugged my arm in response. I had become fond of Laurelen since finding out about her and Emma's relationship. The fact that she made Emma so happy was an undeniable part of that and when the two of them were together they were sickeningly cute.

"How's Brother Mark dealing with the two of you?"

A shadow passed over her face but I was too late to decipher what it actually was.

"Best he tells you himself."

"That bad?"

She shook her head. "There are some things that you should find out from the original source Freddie."

"Ok. Anything else I should know about before I leap into the monsters den?"

"No I don't think so. Congratulations by the way."

"Thank you very much. Is Kerrass here yet?"

"He's here. He said to say hello if I saw you before he did. He and the rest of the Witcher contingent are staying at a vineyard close to here. I'm told it's a few hours ride from the town, place called Corvo Bianco. The Empress wanted them housed at the palace but Madame Yennefer made one of her few comments towards governing and told the Empress not to be foolish. Personally I think it would have been rather entertaining to let the Witchers descend en masse into the courtly population of the continent but the Empress saw Lady Yennefer's point and they were put up out at the vineyard."

"How many of them are there?"

"I think there's around a dozen in attendance. Mostly Cats and Wolves but a couple of Viper's have arrived from wherever they were hiding and I understand that a Witcher from the bear school has come down from the far north."

"That should be interesting."

"Maybe. They're currently acting as guards to the Empress' person. A task for which they're ridiculously over qualified but also a little redundant."

We moved on over to the palace before walking down the hill and over the bridge into the town itself. All the while Laurelen brought me up to speed with all of the little pieces of gossip and courtier politics that wasn't really important but might come up in the near future.

The Coulthards turned out to have been put up in one of the smaller villa's overlooking the outdoor market. As we descended the hill that overlooked the town we could see a vast sea of tents off to where I knew that the tournament ground was. I knew that Sam was out there somewhere along with many of the other competitors in the Empress' coronation games. Apparently they had already been going for a week and would likely be going for several weeks of a month afterwards before a final champion would be crowned. Mark was housed with the Church of the Eternal fire contingent. Again, not because we wanted to throw him out but it meant that there was more room otherwise. As a result I ended up sharing a tiny little villa with my Sister and her Lover.

I assumed, correctly, that Francesca was staying up at the palace.

It was a quaint little square building with a veranda which was covered with plotted plants that were in full bloom. Those flowers chosen because of the strong scents that they generated in an effort to disguise the fact that the already large city had tripled in size due to all the extra visitors as well as all of the merchants and tradespeople that such gatherings attract. It was a nice little villa, the walls were painted to show the story of some knight or another chasing off some kind of monster before returning to the happy embrace of the lady that he rescued. I slept on a pallet in the main room with the single bedroom being used by the women. It seemed that privacy was a luxury that would belong to other people. The downstairs was taken up by three servants that had been provided for us by the Duchess. One to cook, small meals and breakfasts mostly, one to clean and one to "see to" any other needs that might arise. All three were women and I wondered what needs they had been ordered to take care of.

I was grateful for their cooking though. They had obviously been well briefed. Generally, Toussaint cooking mainly involves wine. This isn't really that much of a surprise given the fact that wine is their major source of income, but after you've eaten a few different meals made from the stuff it soon begins to become a bit rich all the time. Over the time that we stayed there though they provided many simple meals such as steak or sausages or varieties of other cooked meats and breads and cheeses without all of the over rich sauces that made me need to visit the outhouses at all hours of the day or night.

As I walked through the doors, just behind the servants who were dropping off my bags and packages I was met by a ballistic big sister to the face who threw her arms round me.

"Congratulations," she cried giving me a huge sloppy kiss on the cheek.

"Thanks," I said trying, vainly to lever myself off in an effort to do important things like breathing and keeping my ribs from being cracked again. In the end I decided that it was wiser to just accept my fate of being suffocated with affection and hugged her back.

"It's about fucking time," Emma eventually pulled back and tried to pretend she wasn't wiping tears from her eyes. "I'm so proud of you."

"Thanks mum,"

"Now now you two," Laurelen walked past us dragging my bags with her so that they were well out of the way and less likely to get trodden underfoot.

"How are you doing big sister of mine?"

"Better now that you're finally here. The Empress has been getting into a right state wanting to meet you."

"Oh holy fire, has she?"

"Yep." Emma was inspecting me critically. "Did you bother shaving before coming down?"

"Emma, I love you but you gave me twenty minutes warning and I was at the bottom of the castle. You're lucky I'm here at all."

Emma sighed theatrically. "Sweetie?"

"What is it?" Laurelen was leafing through some papers that were on a nearby table.

"Be a dear,"

The Sorceress sighed, came over and gripped me by the chin. "Don't move," she said.

"Ow," I managed after it felt as though my entire body was on fire for just a split second. All of me was sore. Including my hair. "What the fuck was that?"

"Hey," both women shouted. "Language in front of your sister," Laurelen smiled.

"She taught me what the word meant in the first place.

"She would,"

"Oh it's so good to see you." Emma hugged me again for a long time.

It really was good to see her.

"Are these the latest edicts?" Laurelen asked from the nearby table.

"Yes, Our new Empress is putting the cats amongst a whole flock of pigeons."

"What's that?" I asked as I inspected some nearby jugs for which ones were wine and which ones were water. It's much hotter in Toussaint and I was already feeling the need for a drink.

"The Empress is publishing her opening Imperial orders to be enacted from when the crown is placed on her head." Emma explained taking the cup out of my hands. " You can have a drink when you get changed."

"What's wrong with what I'm wearing?"

"You'll bake in that. You think it's hot now? Wait until you're in one of their giant ball rooms with their chandeliers and people milling around."

"And you've had a few more glasses of wine," Added Laurelen scanning the papers. "Oooh that's going to piss off the church."

"Which ones that?" Emma asked her pushing me towards the bit that would, presumably, end up serving as my bed. I could see that there was a new suit laid out there. Coulthard colours but brighter and more to stand out. My sister had that look that said that she wasn't going to be distracted from what she was doing so I started getting changed.

"This one about Imperial justice being the final line of defence."

"Yes, I thought you might like that one."

"She's going to find it hard to enforce."

"Yes, but still."

I cleared my throat noisily. "Could you translate what you're talking about for the guy that's just turned up."

"Well," Emma traded some amused glances with Laurelen. "You know that the Empress is getting crowned tomorrow right?"

I glared at her before she burst out laughing. "Oh put your male pride away Freddie."

I told her to do something obscene.

"Maybe later," she said firmly. "But she's trotting out what her first orders are going to be. The idea is that she gets crowned with all the pomp and ceremony that Toussaint can muster but when that's done she's not going to any of the many _many_ balls that are being thrown in her honour. Instead she's going to a private study with a few people that she trusts and she's going to spend a good few hours signing bits of paper. This is going to ratify various treaties, trade agreements and put new laws into place."

"Doesn't sound like the worst idea I've ever heard."

"No. The other thing that she's doing is to tell everyone in advance what those orders are so that people can start getting into the swing of things in advance. So they're being published. That's what's causing the vast majority of the gate traffic by the way," This last bit was said as an aside to Laurelen.

"I was wondering. I had thought that most people who were going to come here were already here."

"They are."

In unison and as if rehearsed, both women turned to glower comically at me.

"You two are getting too good at that," I said as I pulled on a pair of shoes.

Yes shoes. I wanted to wear my boots but the shoes were actually much cooler. Which was becoming an increasingly important consideration.

"So what's the Empress up to." I added ignoring their critical stares.

"She's decreed that it's impossible for any _religious_ administration to try, prosecute and judge crime of any kind."

"Including Heresy?"

"Especially heresy. Religious crimes must now be tried before a civilian court."

I thought about this for a moment.

"That's a lot of courts, how are they going to prevent the church influencing the civil magistrates?"

I was already picturing images of panels of judges who either were, or were under threat by religious authorities.

"It would seem that things are going to move back to a more feudal state." Laurelen said, scanning the piece of paper. "What she's essentially trying to do, looking at all of this, is make sure that people are governed by people, not religious zealots."

I sniffed as I was doing up straps and buckled in my new "courtly costume". "Still seems a bit arbitrary to me. Just because someone's a feudal lord doesn't stop them from being a religious zealot, or under the influence of one."

"I agree," said Emma.

"The paper does seem to go into more detail. It seems that this is a first step, there's lots of other waffle here about working with local governments to try and bring set these systems up properly."

"I take it that one of the other things that she's already done is decide who the new heads of state are going to be." I asked as I finally managed to get hold of something to drink.

"Yes," Emma said pouring herself a cup as well. "Primarily she's managed to find cousins and nephews and things for Aedirn, Redania and Kaedwen. That bastard daughter of Foltest is here and has been formally declared legitimate although the poor girls mother and elder brother is going to be the all but ruler there. I think a couple of people are trying to take the girl under their wing in an effort to make her better able to stand up to the more formidable members of the rest of her family."

"So that'll be..."

"Constable Natalis amongst others."

I nodded.

"There has been something else come through while you were out though?" Emma told Laurelen.

"Oh yes."

"Yes." Emma fished out a particular piece of paper. "Long story short but I've told Princess Dorn to stockpile all the lumber coming out from her Kingdom as there's going to be a shortage in the north."

"What's she done?"

"She's declared an alliance with the dryads of the Brokilon Forest,"

I was unfortunately drinking as this was said and as a result I nearly choked on my own tongue.

"She's done what?"

"She's declared an alliance with the dryads of Brokilon and told everyone that an attack upon the Brokilon forest is an attack on Nilfgaard itself."

Emma looked calm as she said it.

Laurelen seemed to join me in looking aghast.

"But," I said, "What's she going to do, walk up and...No, this is..."

Laurelen had taken the paper off Emma and was reading it quickly.

"I think it's actually quite clever."

"It's going to be another war." I said. "Cidaris and Verden depend on that wood."

"Not any more," Emma said. "I actually think it's quite a good idea. From her point of view of course."

I took the time to remind myself that my sister, although she's my sister and I love her a lot, is ruthless enough to command respect from the most hardened of traders.

"Why?" Laurelen looked up at Emma.

"Nilfgaard is a war economy." Emma ticked the point off her fingers. Yes, putting down rebellions and policing are going to occupy a lot of that army but, as has been proven, soldiers tend to be unhappy at the prospect of going home to farm so she's got huge amounts of soldiers sitting around drawing pay for doing relatively little. Even if she doesn't replace the soldiers that Nilfgaard lost while invading the north that's still a lot of soldiers.

"Second, it gives the northern Kingdoms, as was, something to do to vent their spleen at. Those kingdoms are relatively small but at the same time they make a lot of money. They didn't come to the North's aid because they saw which way the wind was blowing and as a result, decided to keep their heads down. The North can be relied upon to be cranky as they just lost a war and as a result, there is a target which they resent anyway, can't possibly defend itself against both fronts and therefore will allow the North to save some face. As well as finding something for all the grumpy younger sons to do.

"Thirdly. It shows the elder races that Nilfgaard values them. It shows them that the new Empress will listen to what they have to say. That might be more valuable than any of us think. Especially when it comes to the elves of Dol Blathanna.

"Economically, it also benefits the other lumber mills. It means that more wood has to come from Kaedwen and from places like Dorn's kingdom. The Brokilon is no longer a supplier of cheap lumber and people will have to pay the higher prices. Temeria is in no shape to take that wood so why should Vergen and the rest do the same?"

"I suppose," I said, "But, I don't know, I think we need peace at the moment. There's been war, almost constantly since I was born,"

"And before that," piped up Laurelen. "I'm sorry Freddie but you're being naïve. There's already been wars going back centuries. That's not going to change. We're running out of space on the continent so those wars are going to grow unless Nilfgaard can conquer it all and remain strong enough to keep us in check. That's if Zerrikania and the other foreign powers don't start to have Imperialist ambitions."

"I suppose." I admitted before scowling "Also, when did I give _you_ permission to call me Freddie?"

She threw something at me. Although it wasn't properly aerodynamic so it didn't get close enough to me to cause me any trouble

I had finished dressing and Emma came over to me. "You ready to face the music?"

"You mean...?"

"To face Francesca. She's been hounding me about you since I got here."

"Oh Flame."

"That's one way of putting it, here." She handed me a slim, lightweight looking sword.

"What's that for?"

"They wear them round here."

I took it off her and looked at it dubiously. "I haven't got the first idea about how to use this thing?"

"Sure you do, hold it by the hilt."

"Very funny."

"Look, you can't take your spear but you are a Noble and a Gentleman so you can't go around unarmed."

I gave up on the grounds that it was probably easier for a quiet life on the whole. "I'm never going to hear the end of this from Kerrass you understand?"

"I did think about that," said Emma opening the door and leading the three of us out into the street.

"And?"

"I decided that I didn't really care that much."

"Some sister you are."

"Oh, I think it's exactly the kind of sister I am." She gave me another quick hug. "I'm so proud of you."

I looked at her for a long time. "Thanks Emma."

"That's enough." Said Laurelen taking my other arm. "Let's get him up there."

What followed was the funniest time I could remember in my immediate past. We were walking back up the hill towards the castle with Emma on one side of me and Laurelen on the other. The number of envious glances that I got from other men who were leading their own ladies around. That I had two beautiful women on my arms was... hilarious to say the least. If only they knew.

"You enjoying yourselves?" I asked them.

"Very much so," answered Emma.

"Did you plan this between you?"

"Of course," Laurelen commented as she waved to an acquaintance of hers.

"What are you doing?"

"Protecting you,"

"From them?"

"Oh Freddie," Emma said giving me a little kiss on the cheek. "That's not who we're protecting."

"I should ask before we go any further."

"What's that?"

"How is brother Mark?"

"He should tell you himself."

"Do I need to still be angry with him."

Laurelen snorted.

"No, no I don't think so. He's doing his best bless him but he's physically trying to change his way of thinking. You should talk to him, I know he wants to talk to you, so let him. Just, be patient with him. It's not been a good year for Brother Mark."

I grunted. I wanted to ask more but I got the impression that she wasn't going to give me anything other than that.

We walked up the slope to the castle. There was a genuine party atmosphere about the place. I kept finding myself looking for the cracks in it. The same way that you look closely at an oil painting in an effort to find the cracks to see how old it is. I looked closer and closer but I still couldn't... It all seemed so genuine. These people were genuinely celebrating.

As had been made clear, the new Empress was not going to usher in a new age over night. She is and was her own woman with her own feelings and thoughts. She had ideas about the way in which the world needed to be run and there were certain, inescapable economic facts that were unavoidable. As Laurelen had said, war wasn't just going to stop for my wishing it would.

But they were celebrating. I found myself wondering why. Was this just going to be another tick in the box. When historians looked back at this moment were they going to be saying things like "This was the start of a golden age on the continent," or would they be saying things like "This was the first sign. This was the beginning of the end for all things." Or even worse than that would this just be another day in the list of genealogies. "Then there was Cirilla, daughter of Emhyr and Pavetta who reigned for tumpty years and was revered for not killing too many people. Her greatest accomplishment was that she didn't declare war on anyone."

But these people seemed to be genuinely happy.

I found that I pitied them. I found myself looking down on them for being so naïve in thinking that this was going to be the beginning of new and grander things. But my anger and resentment was fuelled by the fact that I envied them that naivete. I so desperately wanted to believe that this _was_ the dawning of a new era, for the continent as a whole but Laurelen's earlier dismissal left me feeling young and stupid. If my time on the road had taught me one thing over and above everything else it was that human nature, sorry, not human nature, sentient nature will remain sentient nature no matter how hard we try. We will always want what our neighbour wants and we will always be willing to steal and cheat and murder to get that thing.

I had been looking forward to this day for quite a long time but I found that my mood was getting darker and darker with every passing moment. Suddenly I wanted to go home. I was afraid and I didn't want to go the few steps further up the hill.

Emma must have sensed my mood as she tugged on my sleeve. "Why the long face little baby brother?"

"I don't know," I lied. "I just, I just find that I'm suddenly afraid of the future."

She patted my arm. "Don't worry brother of mine. We'll take care of you."

"It's not that it's just...I suppose I'm having my idealism taken away from me."

"What are you afraid of?" She asked, she shooed Laurelen off in front of us so we could talk alone.

"Everything... Oh I don't know... No I do know. I'm afraid that this will be the best day of my life. I'm afraid that it won't get any better than this but more than that? I'm afraid that, in the long, greater scheme of things. Today is going to turn out to just be another day."

She hugged me.

"Well I don't know about that, but I think that that, at least, is going to turn out to not be true."

What happened next was an assault about my person. I want it recorded here for posterity that I was assaulted and that my body was made free with in a way that was completely inappropriate for the time and place. I was not consulted about what happened next but I would like to say here and now that it was unwelcome.

I heard a strange noise. It was a squeal the likes of which I refuse to believe can be reproduced by a human throat, regardless of the gender of the possessor of that throat. The noise was increasing in volume before I suffered an impact. An attack, nay a vicious assault. One from which I am still recovering. A figure had spotted me at some point and came running down and leapt at me full pelt wrapping both arms and legs around me which knocked me off my feet.

"Ow," I said after I tried to peel the laughing form of my little sister off me.

"Shut up." She said, refusing to let go of me after she had attached herself, limpet like, to my innocent and frail body.

"Frannie. You're making a scene."

"So?"

I was lying on my back. Other courtiers had gathered round us and were making comments and jokes. Already I could hear wagers being traded and shouts of encouragement were being given on both of our behalfs.

Joking aside, it was really good to see her.

"Are the two of you going to help?" I asked Laurelen and Emma who were stood over us in the manner of umpires and people keeping score. They looked at each other.

"Nah," Laurelen waved a passing page to bring something to drink.

Emma was a bit more solicitous and helped us to our feet. Francesca first I noticed.

No sooner had I gotten to my feet than I was once again enveloped by my little sisters hug.

"Hello Frannie."

"Brother," she yelled laughing. "It's so good to see you." She suddenly pulled away. "You've been avoiding me," she accused.

"As well I might," I insisted, "Especially because every time I _do_ see you you jump on me and do your very best to cause me grave bodily harm and injury."

"Hah," she said. "The mighty Scholar and Witcher's apprentice afraid of his little sister."

"Too right. I would remind the honoured lady Francesca that it would be inappropriate to hit her back."

"You wouldn't hit little old me would you?"

My sister has the largest eyes you can imagine.

"No, I might tickle you though."

She squealed and slipped out of reach but I couldn't be put off. Vengeance was sweet.

I had missed my sister.

But she had changed a lot since I last saw her.

I might be biased in saying this but my younger sister had always been pretty. Where my elder sister is blonde in her colouring, my younger sister is dark haired. The last time I had seen her was when I left home after a massive fight with my father, she was fourteen at the time and was already growing into being a great beauty. To me it is difficult to talk about her as being beautiful as I can never get away from her being young and fussy and perpetually sick all the time. She was always too thin and try as we might we just could not get her too put on any weight. She would pick at her food in the same way that a bird does, getting out the choicer bits of meat. When challenged on this she would insist that she was already full or not hungry. This gave her a pale, gaunt and consumptive look. The kind of look that classical romantic poets at the university had gone absolutely mad over. They had seen her riding through town on those occasions when father or mother had brought her into Oxenfurt and had told me that I was a lucky man for living near such beauty. I had been forced, on may different occasions to take offence at this pointing out that she was my sister, also she was only fourteen and that they should slake their unnatural lusts elsewhere.

I may have been drinking at the time.

She had also grown tall very quickly. Whereas I was a late bloomer in terms of growth and physical maturity, Francesca had hit that maturity early. Much to the envy of her friends which had turned vicious on more than one occasion. But now...

It seemed that her time at court had done her much good. In the same way that my time with Kerrass had done me good in helping me put on some muscle mass and weight in the right areas it had done the same thing for Francesca.

I realised that I wasn't worried about hurting her in these little games. She looked strong and healthy and it suited her.

She had already been beautiful. People had teased me wondering if we really were brother and sister as she was so gorgeous and I was so... not. But despite my occasional bouts of jealousy, I was made up for her. But now, as I got my first proper look at the woman in front of me, I was surprised that I recognised her at all. I could. She still carried herself the same way but there was a confidence in her now. A force of personality that was hard to get around.

She also dressed differently.

 _Very_ differently.

She had been a girl of dresses. Of jewellery and skirts and under shirt lifts. She liked flowers and gentle things. The most physical thing that she had learned to do was to learn to ride a horse but only that because it was required of her.

The woman that stood in front of me was muscled and hardened. Lean and fit like a racing Grey-hound or a fast racing horse. For a start, gone were the skirts and the petti-coats. Also gone were the bodices, she no longer needed them. Instead she wore dark leather trousers along with calf length leather boots which I could see metal plates sewn into the leather to armour her shins. Over the trousers she was wearing a white shirt, over which was a leather corset with battle skirt. to protect the upper thighs, chest and belly. Again I could see the shape of metal plates sewn into the leather. Even more hardened vambraces and shoulder guards as well that had obviously been made to fit this young woman. But that wasn't the surprising thing. She also had a sword strapped to her back with the same kind of harness that I had seen Kerrass wear so that it was not only feasible for her to draw it, but also easy.

Using the observational training that Kerrass had taught me, I could see that the hilt of the sword was well worn and the leather armour that she wore showed signs of use. It had been made so as to not limit her movement and so it was scuffed and scarred in places.

Her face was unadorned with make-up and her hair was held up and out of her face by simple hair clips. If she hadn't betrayed her identity in the opening moments of assailing me that day, I would not have recognised her.

"Well?" She demanded. "Do I pass inspection?"

"Sorry," I said pretending to shake myself from a thought process. "I was distracted. Forgive me madam but have you seen my sister? I could have sworn that she was here just a moment ago."

She hit me on the arm. Another woman in my life who thought that physical violence could take the place of a witty retort.

"Ow," I said. "What did I do to deserve that?"

Instead of answering she threw her arms round me again "Oh it's so good to see you. I'm so happy for you."

"Uh, thanks."

"Congratulations," she said again.

A nearby soldier, one of those men in head to foot plate mail was nearby. If his face hadn't been completely covered I would have sworn that he was trying not to laugh. "Excuse me Madam?" he said to Francesca, "I don't mean to intrude."

Francesca changed before my eyes, from the young woman that was my sister to a lady and a terrifying lady of battle at that,

"The Swallow?" She asked the soldier. The man nodded. "I'll be there directly." She told him before turning back to me. "Listen, I have to go but I want to hear all about everything alright? Private dinner, just family, tonight?"

"I uh," I looked at Emma who nodded. "Uh, sure."

"Right, see you then." She turned and jogged after the soldier.

"Not what I expected," I said watching her go before turning back to Emma with an accusing look. "You knew about that didn't you? You wanted to see my face didn't you?"

"I did," said Emma trying to look serious. Laurelen was openly laughing at me. "And you did not disappoint." She linked her arm through mine and started to lead me inside to the capital building. There was a delay at the door as there was a queue to make sure that we were who we said we were meaning that the three of us had to answer a series of questions to ensure our identity.

Emma and Laurelen got through with a very short and perfunctory set of questions whereas I got the third decree. Apparently, not many of my answers could be trusted as, according to the very serious looking man in the black tabbard with the golden sun emblazoned on it, anyone could have read my travel journals to ascertain the more common answers to the questions. In the end Emma had to vouch for my identity, much to the amusement of several people standing nearby. Laurelen made a jest to cover it up but I also saw Emma looking around and making note of the faces who were laughing. I was surprised at how fast the laughter died down.

The next stage was some more security. I was taken into a side room where I handed over my sword before I was patted down to find any other hidden weapons before I was shown out into the main hall where Emma and Laurelen were waiting for me.

The first thing that hit me between the eyes was the heat of it. So many people walking around, mingling and chatting.

"So why the change?" I asked Emma as I steered her towards where the food was laid out.

"In Frannie?"

Laurelen had vanished off to talk to another woman, terrifyingly beautiful with almost platinum blonde hair with a silver ankh round her neck.

"Yes. I never thought I'd see her as a warrior."

"Your fault apparently."

"My fault?"

"Yes. Mother and Father had sent her down here to try and strike up a relationship with the young Empress but, unfortunately it turned out that poor Frannie had no idea how to set about that. Then you started publishing your "Travels of a Witcher," and, having an interest in the subject, the Empress expressed an interest in them and therefore in you. Someone remembered that they had a Coulthard at court and Frannie was sent for.

"The Empress is charming in her own way and was able to draw Frannie out. They've both suggested that Frannie provided a "little sister" of sorts to the Empress and the two got on like that from then on. There are several of them, in the Empress' entourage. The Empress has certain requirements of her ladies and friends, in this case she requires that the women be able to keep up with her. As a result Frannie had to learn sword craft, tactics, fighting and hunting."

"She suits it."

"She does. They're even being trained to act as guards to the Empress. They're not quite there yet but the Empress has decided that she wants to trust her guards implicitly but how can she do that when they men that surround her served her father and have their own agenda's. So she's taking steps to surround herself with friends. Friends who can help her fight."

"Also, it strikes me that the Empress is more than capable of taking care of herself."

"That is part of it. But anyway, it turns out that you, _you,_ have been responsible for our rise in importance of the Imperial court."

"Fuck me," I swore softly.

A nearby noblewoman blanched and moved away. Emma giggled and I spent a bit of time scanning the table for something that looked edible. It was not easy.

"Lord Coulthard," came a heavily accented voice from behind me. "You have forgotten me."

I turned, a shrimp in one hand with my off hand poised to catch any tumbling bits of food. Not the most graceful moment to see one of the most beautiful women in the world. A woman who giggled as I quickly choked down the food.

"Your majesty," I bowed deeply.

"So you haven't forgotten me?" said the Princess Dorn. Sleeping Beauty as was.

"How could I forget?"

"I'll leave you two to catch up." Said Emma, "Freddie, the Empress is going to want to talk to us when she gets here so don't go wandering."

"No ma'am"

Emma glared at me before turning away to grab some passing Lord by the arm and began whispering to him in a quick and determined manner.

"So Your Majesty," I said snagging something that looked like a miniature quiche. "How are you finding things?"

"Tricky," she said. "Can we switch to speaking in the Elder speech?"

"Certainly." I answered in said speech. "You still struggling with the more modern dialects."

She pulled a face. "In all honesty, it's not so much that it's just that my accent makes me think that I'm stupid but the instant I start talking in the Elder speech I suddenly seem to get more respect."

I winced. "Humanity is still humanity I'm afraid."

"Quite."

"You're looking well."

I was lying. She looked drawn and tired but I thought that she was bearing up well. There were still shadows under her eyes and she looked frail, almost worryingly so but there was still a glint and a glitter in her eyes that betrayed the humour and intelligence that I had seen when I first met her. I also noticed that despite the heat in the building and in the Duchy where fashion dictated scooped necklines and a bit of cleavage, the Princess was covered head to toe, including wearing gloves. She wore a small circlet of Gold with a single red gem in the middle.

"Thank you Lord Frederick but I think you're being overly generous. I look tired and drawn. I feel a stranger in my own lands let alone here where they seem so progressive to me although to you it would seem almost backward. But, I am making friends slowly and surely. Marion would be cross with me if I didn't say hello."

"Say Hello back. Are you formally Queen now?"

"I will be when the Empress gets crowned." She nodded. "It's been what, six months since I saw you?"

"About that."

"Well the Imperial army has secured our borders against the more ambitious and aggressive of my neighbours. People are being encouraged to settle there and we look to make an industry out of the masses of timber and lumber that we expect to be able to grow but I wish we were more self-sufficient."

"Baby steps Majesty, Baby steps."

She smiled then. "As you say. The Empress has been very kind."

"As well she might."

"But anyway, enough about me. I understand that congratulations are in order."

"Yes, that got around fairly quickly."

"People care about you Lord Frederick."

"Thank you Your Majesty. Not to change the subject too quickly but how are you getting on with your Mother?"

She made a face. "Slow going. All through my life my parents taught me to take responsibility for my actions and to face up to your responsibilities but Maleficent is just so flighty. Very clever but her mind jumps about from one thing to the other with a bewildering speed. We'll have just sat down to talk over tea and then she gets a thought and just vanishes without stopping to tell me where she's going. Ariadne says it's just her though and that she'll settle down."

"And Kerrass?" I asked carefully.

She smiled. A little sadly I thought. "I still don't know about Kerrass. I owe him so much and I would like to talk to him more as, to all intents and purposes he is the person that I've known the longest but, he gets uncomfortable around me and makes his excuses before wandering off."

I winced. "Where is he anyway? I had expected to see him here."

"The Empress has commissioned the Witchers to act as her personal guards for the duration of the festivities. I think that she still gets uncomfortable around the Nilfgaardian's but the Witchers she understands. There was something else political going on about that as well that they kept me out of. I think she's making a statement. But..."

"She's not really keeping you in her thinking."

"Not me, not many people. If you want to be worried about someone, be worried about her. She's taking on so much and I sometimes get the feeling that she's trying to make people change, make the continent change. too fast and without thinking that people might rebel against some of her ideas."

"That's what Empresses do though. Make change happen."

"Yes but sometimes we all forget that change is painful and can cause a great deal of harm. Then people who don't like the change want to fight against it and then the response backwards is so strong the change might as well have not happened in the first place. Real change happens slowly and, I might say, happens when the rulers of nations are looking the other way."

"You might be right,"

"There she is," The Princess said,

"There who is..."

But then I saw her.

Ariadne was on the other side of the ballroom, talking with a couple of people that I didn't recognise and she was accompanied by a beaming Duchess of Angraal but I wasn't really looking at her.

Ariadne looked absolutely amazing.

I know, I know that I am hardly unbiased in these things but I would go so far as to say... I was in the presence of Sleeping Beauty herself although she won't thank me for saying so but as I looked over and saw Ariadne there in that room it was as though the Princess faded away.

I know that men always claim that there lady is the most beautiful woman there and I have been lucky in knowing many beautiful women but Ariadne took my breath away that afternoon.

A long, off the shoulder blue dress with a yellow sash. She was dressed in light colours, a long way from the dark and forbidding colours that people still expected from her. She had a drink in her hand and was in the process of making the person who she was talking to laugh aloud at some witticism. There was a mischievous glint about her face and I could tell that she was enjoying herself immensely despite only smiling with her lips. A habit that I knew she had picked up so that people didn't see her fangs and become afraid. She wore a single piece of jewellery, a red gem seated in gold that was twisted together around her neck. It look fascinatingly delicate as though the gold was woven together to form a strange tapestry. Beyond that her hair was loose and fell down her back.

She took my breath away.

As I watched I saw that she had been waiting for me to notice that she was there as she knew where I was immediately. She looked over, smiled at me and was just in the process of talking to her companions in a way that I thought meant... "Please excuse me but I see someone over there that I simply _must_ talk to." But then the fanfare started.

Princess Dorn elbowed me in the ribs with a sly smile and gestured over the throng towards where Emma and Laurelen were standing together. Emma was beckoning to me, I bowed to Princess Dorn and went over.

A glance at Ariadne showed that she was moving into place herself along with a few people that I recognised from Angraal including the Duke and Duchess. I saw her mouth the word "later" at me and I nodded.

The fanfare was long, and far too loud for so small a place. As I stood there I could see the trumpeters up on a balcony but then the door opened and in strode a woman.

It is an odd feeling to know that you have made a mistake. Especially when you are chronicling your own circumstances and things that you've been up to. There is an urge to paint yourself in the most flattering light possible, to try and tell everyone that you were and are amazing at everything, that you saw right through the person that was lying to you and that you fought off your enemies easily.

But there is no getting round the fact that I made a mistake.

The first woman that came through the large double doors of the room was not the Empress. But she looked like one.

I had never seen Her Enlightened Ladyship Anna Henrietta , Duchess of Toussaint before. I hadn't even seen her portrait but I hope that I can be forgiven my lapse of judgement as I started to fall to my knees. If anyone looked like Imperial royalty at that time and in that place it was her. Emma caught my mistake though and tugged me up to my feet and I was able to realise that the nobles around us were merely bowing or curtsying.

What can I say about the Duchess?

I cannot remember where it was written but there exists, somewhere, a poetic discourse on what a woman requires to be considered "truly classically beautiful". Many women have been known to make themselves dangerously ill in the pursuit of this "ideal" but even so, I have to admit that personally I find that my tastes are a lot more varied than what the poet describes. But, in meeting the Duchess it has to be said that the poet in question might very well have been writing about Duchess Anna Henrietta of Toussaint.

Toussaint is a land of tasteful excess. While I was there I kept catching myself looking for the edges of the painting. Looking for that place where the air of enchantment lessened, where the paint turned out to only be skin deep but I kept finding that what I was looking at was not actually an illusion. Nowhere was this more exemplified than in the personage of the Duchess herself. Her blonde hair was done up into a hairstyle that was almost ludicrously elaborate with a head dress that was, to my eye, worth more than the total worth of all of the historical crown jewels of Redania.

Her dress looked as though it was spun from actual gold itself in that it certainly shimmered as though it was while she worked. Vast skirts and hugely ornate beadwork was on display over the course of the rest of the dress which looked as though it was impossibly tight even though she seemed to move and breathe easily. She wore emeralds in her ears and around her neck and the way she moved was like a dancer. Each foot fall was deliberately placed and as she did so the sound of her foot hitting the ground echoed into the silence after the fanfare died away. She walked up to the throne on the dais and moved to stand behind it. I saw her register a few people's presence. Princess Dorn who, I noticed, was bowing just as low as anyone despite being royalty bowing to a "mere" Duchess.

It should be said, for those people who are not students of Nilfgaardian history and politics that Toussaint, although old and steeped in tradition and history is relatively small and strategically unimportant. Having said that though, the volcanic nature of the part of the world in which it resides means that the wines of Toussaint are separate to none. No-one wants to invade Toussaint because, at the end of the day, no-one can be bothered. It would cause far more problems than it would solve. That's not to say that you can't. The capital of Beauclair could easily be taken by a relatively small force, they do produce some food but mostly what they produce is wine so their wealth is in their trade income. Wine gets exported and everything else get imported.

I hope you understand that this is a gross simplification of the matter.

But to invade Toussaint, you first have to get through all of the surrounding territories. Which are allied to Toussaint and each other. So if you attack one then everyone else will prevent you from doing so. Also, the number of alliances that Toussaint holds through marriage is also larger than is conventionally thought of as being particularly realistic. So suddenly, people all over the continent are getting letters from "their noble cousins" saying that these dreadful little men are invading us, anything you can do to help would be appreciated. Then suddenly the invading army discovers that all the food they were expecting to receive from their friends seems to have mysteriously vanished at sea.

Plus, if you invade. Wine production stops. So then you have to drink the "northern piss," That Toussaint people think of beer as, or Southern Swill which is everything from further south. Also all, your friends are suddenly realising that wine stocks are running low and can't help but notice that the reason that this is all going so badly is because you've fucked things up.

So in short, invading Toussaint is more trouble than it's worth.

However, Nilfgaard had conquered the surrounding territories and annexed the place. Looking through the history books it seemed that there was some kind of marriage contract that joined the two houses so that the Dukes and Duchesses of Toussaint can refer to the Empress and the Emperor before her as being "our noble cousin."

In short. Inside Toussaint, the rule of the Duchess is absolute, to the equal of any ruling monarch in their own lands. If the Emperor gave an order to a courtier of Toussaint, then that courtier would check with the Duchess first.

So what I'm saying is, when the Duchess walked into the room, I was expecting to see the Empress. What I saw, looked so Imperial and so royal that I automatically assumed that she _was_ the Empress without thinking about the known differences.

So, as I say. The Duchess moved through and walked up to the dais where she stood beside and a little bit behind the throne which would traditionally be the position of an advisor.

Then the Empress came into the room and when I saw her, I wondered at my own mistake.

She moved in a way that I used to see my father move when we had just moved into the castle that we now call home. At the time I did not see it for what it was so I didn't recognise it at first. But this time I did. She moved with the speed of someone who knows that everyone will wait for her to arrive, but at the same time has no wish to fuck about and waste time.

Everyone always talks about Empress Cirilla by talking about her hair. So I will talk about that first. Her hair was long and she had it pinned up behind her head in a manner that suggested that she had just ordered someone to do so so that it wouldn't keep getting in her eyes. The fact that it was held in that place by a diamond encrusted silver comb was not lost on me.

As I watched her stride into the room I recognised the hairstyle as being one that I've seen Emma adopt and Francesca afterwards. I glanced at Emma from my place on my knees to find that Emma was watching me, her eyes twinkling. I would have bet any amount of money that it had been Frannie who had tied up the Empress' hair for her.

The Empress' hair was once described by the bard as being "Ashen blonde," but I'm here to tell you that to my eyes, it might as well be white. If anything it made me think of silver hair rather than anything else so I have wondered since whether the bard had taken some poetic licence with this. Who knows?

Is the Empress beautiful?

Of course she is. The very question itself almost trivialises what she looks like. She is... how can I put this. She is beautiful but it's a kind of remote beauty. It's a hard and an unapproachable beauty. She is remote and distant, standoffish almost. It's not that she's not charming. She's also extremely quick and ridiculously intelligent. Her mind is lightening fast and I know, from experience, that she can take up a detailed conversation from the point at which she left it up to several days later and I'm told that she can do the same thing for weeks or even months afterwards.

But I get the feeling that she keeps people away from getting too...intimate with her. I guess that she has one or two close confidants that she lets get close to her and be _friends_ with because she doesn't want to let anyone get close enough to depend on her for political favours.

Taken classically, the portrait painters are going to love her. Maybe because of her scar.

Suitors will flock to her, not just for her position, nor just for her charm or her intelligence but I struggle to believe that anyone will get close to her without intercedents getting involved as it seems as though it will be all but impossible for her to let her guard down enough to be close to anyone. She watches the room and you can see, or rather sense, the wheels turning behind her eyes. I say sense because those same wheels are turning impossibly fast as the woman is just thinking on a different level than the rest of us. She's easily more intelligent than me and I would put her at being considerably more intelligent than most people that I know and I know some really smart people.

But she's always thinking and like a chess player she's thinking ten, fifteen moves ahead on an international scale. I find that I begin to pity her a little, it would almost be easier for her if she wasn't also a reasonably good human being. But right then and there, she had just walked in through the double doors and she was dominating the room without doing anything. She didn't even look up to register the rest of the room, she just moved through with a long legged stride of someone who was used to other people getting out of her way as well as the stride of someone who is used to having other people keep up with _her_ rather than having to modify her pace to suit others.

She was also vastly different to the ornate and brightly coloured suits and dresses of the assembly. Where we were all brightly coloured and bedecked in ornamentation the Empress was...well... not.

She wore a high collared dark purple riding coat which was absolutely plain despite obviously being made from expensive material. It was the kind of purple where it looked as though it was dark blue until it caught the light or folded in some way which was where it revealed the red underneath. It was buttoned up across her chest and I wondered how armoured it was and if I was close, whether I would be able to hear the metal clinking together. She had a broad dark red sash across her middle and before the tails of the coat flowed backwards. Not for this Empress the vast trains and skirts. Underneath the coat she wore a set of White trousers, the kind of which you would see on anyone who rides a lot and she had on a pair of Black boots that looked as though they were made for comfort rather than ornamentation. They were lacking in spurs which had surprised me. As she walked she was tucking a pair of white gloves into her sash as though she was coming in from outside.

I looked in vain for any sign of jewellery, she wore no ear-rings and no rings on her hands. No necklace either and her hair was pinned up with a simple silvery clip although I suspected that someone might have been able to sneak a few precious stones into it without the Empress noticing. The only other thing that she wore that looked to be of any value was a golden Sunburst broach on her chest but again that was simple and understated.

I caught the statement and I could almost feel Emma watching me from the corner of my eye. The Empress was telling us all that she didn't need to ornament herself or advertise who she was. We should all know who she was and if we didn't, then we were in the wrong place.

Sir Rickard once told me that this happens in the military as well. You can always tell the real leader of men in the army. It's not the person with the most ornate armour or even the shiniest suit of arms and equipment. Nor is it the person who shouts the loudest or has the largest horse. Look for who speaks softly, look for the person with the signal flags and who _they're_ standing next to. When the orders are given, who do the men look towards. It might be the person with the most battered suit of armour, or the hairiest, smelliest Sergeant on the field. That's the man in charge. The man who everyone defers to.

The Empress dominated the room. It was as though the sun had come out and shone on us all but it was a focused shine which made it bright and almost uncomfortable.

She was accompanied by three Witchers. One of which was Kerrass who scanned the room, his sword in the scabbard on his back and his left hand on the sword strap. Another was a man who I knew to Eskel from the Wolf school from Kerrass' descriptions. A large man with the most hideous scar across his face which lends him an air of grim savagery which I have since learned could not be further from the man's true nature. The third was a man that I didn't know although I knew that it wasn't the White wolf of legend as this man's hair was dark and shaved close to his scalp.

Also with the Empress came Francesca, still in her warriors garb and with her own sword on her back. She walked at the Empress' left shoulder and in her arms she cradled a sword as though it was a baby. The hilt was permanently offered towards the Empress so that the Empress could draw that sword, easily and at any time.

This too was a statement of some kind although some of the complexities were lost on me.

A few other people came in with her. Another man who I would later learn to be Morvran Vorhees who I, rather unfairly, didn't like the look of. He was pale faced and pale eyed and he reminded me of a dead fish. My sincerest hope is that he laughs when he reads this. He makes me think that I shouldn't trust him and yet has done nothing and continued to do nothing to betray anyone who he has sworn an oath to. I am told that he was one of the first to bow to Empress Cirilla when she was named as Emhyr's heir, although there was rumour that he was disappointed in this as he hoped to be made heir himself having a good claim to the throne himself.

There also came the Sorceress Yennefer of Vengerberg who, although she was there and dressed in her signature colours of black and white, she scanned the room upon entering and walked off to a quiet alcove where she opened the book that she had tucked under her arm and sipped from a single goblet of wine that might even have been empty for all I know. Yes she is beautiful and yes, she is terrifying.

If there were any others I must have missed them as I was too busy watching the Empress command the attention of the entire room without really trying.

She walked in and strode quickly up to the dais before turning around and just for a moment she seemed surprised that we were all there and that we had all taken a knee.

She took a moment to survey the room before sitting down. I saw that she wore no crown but she sat and crossed her legs comfortably. At some signal that I didn't see we all started to straighten up. At another signal it seemed as though we all were given permission to get on with the party.

Not for long though.

I just had time to pick out Ariadne in the crowd again, like me she had sought refuge amongst the familiar faces for the Empress' entrance as I saw that she was with the Duke and Duchess of Angraal, formerly the King and Queen of that territory but I later found out that they were using their Nilfgaardian titles here. She had been scanning for me as well as when we saw each other we started towards each other at almost the same time.

It was not to be however as I was intercepted.

"Lord Frederick?"

I turned and a young man, can't have been more than twelve in a Squire's outfit stood at my elbow.

"Yes?"

"The Empress' compliments my lord. She invites you to converse with her at the dais." I nodded, "Lead on."

He did so. I tried to ask him whether or not the Empress had actually sent her compliments to me but he wasn't being drawn on the matter.

I was shown to the foot of the dais where Emma was also waiting and I followed proper protocol which was hurriedly whispered in my ear by the squire in question. You know the type of thing. Bow, advance three paces, bow again, stay bowed until the Empress invites you to straighten, don't look the Empress in the eye etc. I tried to keep a straight face during this description. Normally I'm much better at keeping myself under control with regards to the solemnity of the situation but Kerrass was pulling faces at me from behind the throne where he was on guard.

I went through the bowing and the scraping.

"You may straighten Lord Frederick." I was surprised at how...well...normal her voice was. She had none of the airs or graces of any noble person that I've ever spoken to. It was a voice, although trained to carry in a din such as this one, that wouldn't draw your attention in a tavern let alone in so august a company as this one. It was direct and to the point.

I did as I was told and got my first look at the Empress.

As I say, the Empress is a beautiful woman in her own right, even ignoring her elevated position.

"Imperial Majesty." I said simply.

"I've been looking forward to meeting you Lord Frederick, please come closer so that we can talk without having to shout at each other."

I looked at both sisters. Emma nodded almost imperceptibly and Frannie looked pleased. I saw that Lord Vorhees looked a little annoyed but also resigned. I felt myself shrug and step forward.

"I am unsure of the protocol here," I heard myself say, "Do I kneel or crouch or something?"

"Just stand, thank you."

I swear she was amused. As though she was as aware of the ludicrousness of the situation just as I was.

"As I say Lord Frederick," Notice that she wasn't using the royal "we" I'm told that she doesn't unless she's making an official declaration. "I've been looking forward to meeting you."

"Should I be worried?" I really hate my sense of humour sometimes.

"Maybe," said the Empress. "Although I suspect that if anyone is to be concerned here it should be your younger sister as she absolutely guaranteed that you would not be boring."

"Define boring for me your Imperial Majesty. If it pleases you that I should sing a song or do a little dance then I'm sure that I might qualify to be your fool if nothing else."

Her lip twitched upwards.

"I find that I have surrounded myself with many fools in recent time Lord Frederick." Her absolutely dead-pan delivery made me wonder whether or not she was joking. "I was told that you might speak a little more sense."

"My father taught me that if I had nothing sensible to say then I should say nothing at all." I said carefully. "As a result of this sentiment I endeavour to remain as silent as possible. I will redouble my efforts in your presence your Imperial Majesty."

I saw Eskel having to clap Kerrass on the back a couple of times as Kerrass suffered a seemingly uncontrollable fit of coughing.

"Quite right too." Put in Duchess Anna Henrietta of Toussaint.

"That's as maybe," said the Empress carefully. "But there are several matters upon which I would like to take some time to converse with you upon over the next few days."

"I am, of course, Your Majesties most Humble Servant."

"And not so humble I suspect?"

There is a moment, when sometimes you meet someone and you feel a certain amount of kinship with them. Whether it's the hint of a shared sense of humour or a shared thought. I found myself with that feeling towards the Empress. I found myself thinking that the poor woman would give a considerable portion of her Empire to be anywhere else but here at the moment. Including if that meant that she was in the middle of a battlefield.

"You might suspect that Your Majesty but I couldn't possibly comment."

"I also understand that Congratulations are in order."

I bowed deeply.

"I am grateful Your Majesty. It is a small thing and I suspect it will mean more work for me in the long run."

"Perhaps so but it takes a certain amount of bravery to agree to marry anyone, let alone an Elder Vampire. And a Sorcerous one at that."

Somewhere I could hear wind blowing.

My stomach dropped.

"Sorry Your Majesty, What did you say?"

"I said you must be a brave man to agree to marry a vampire."

"And that was what you were congratulating me for?"

"Yes," she said her eyebrows rising, "Was there something else?"

I looked over at Emma who's own eyes were wide with horror. "Is that... Is that what people keep congratulating me over?" I heard myself say.

"What else was it going to be?" Emma said faintly.

The sounds of the party and things drifted away.

I felt myself turn to stare into the face of Ariadne who was stood at the foot of the dais looking at me.

"Oh," The Empress started to laugh. "You didn't know."

Her laughing got louder and louder.

Without looking away from Ariadne's serene face I heard myself say, quite distinctly, "So is that position of "Court Fool" still available Your Imperial Majesty?"

The Empress needed to be handed a cup of water.


	49. Chapter 49

(A/N: This is another chapter that got out of hand quickly so I ended up splitting it in two.)

"I understand that you're angry," Ariadne told me calmly.

"Do you?" I snarled. "Do you understand? You stand there looking at me with your perfect, flawless face and your perfectly calm eyes and I wonder. Do you really know? Do you really understand? Because if you did, would we even be here yelling at each other?" I have no excuse for talking to her like this.

"To be fair, you are the one that's yelling."

"THAT'S NOT THE POINT." I yelled. The irony is not lost on me

Ariadne turned away from me.

"Excuse me madam but is everything alright?" A passing knight Errant politely asked Ariadne.

"Everything is fine Sir knight. Thank you for your concern." She told him calmly.

He looked at me dubiously but being unable to find any reason to pick an immediate fight about with me, he moved on, although I could tell that he had resolved to himself that he would check on us again in the near future.

"As I said," Ariadne went on calmly and precisely. "I understand your anger."

We were walking through the legendarily beautiful water gardens of Toussaint. Elven in manufacture, I went to see them later under less emotionally trying times and they really are quite lovely. Long troughs of constantly running water over stones with fountains and sudden hidden pools. All joined together with bushes and hedges of flowers that gave the place a heady aroma. Ariadne had brought me here, presumably in an effort that we might find a private area to "talk" away from prying eyes and ears. We were already the newest scandal to be discussed in the Imperial court and I suspect she wanted to have this all sorted out as quickly as possible. I don't think that either of us would have been able to stand it if we took the time to go any further.

She led us to a bench. We weren't hidden from view but it was as private as we were going to get considering that we were the best source of gossip that the court had ever come across.

"You promised me." I hissed and I was shocked and appalled to hear tears in the back of my throat. The small and scared child that lives in the back of the minds of most adults if we're honest with ourselves, was in tears. That small child was hurt and lost and was feeling betrayed and it is the only explanation for my behaviour.

"You promised me," I went on, "You said that you would wait until I was ready. We were going to talk about it before anything was going to be organised."

I tried to sit but I couldn't and sprang to my feet again almost immediately and started to pace back and forth.

"Your sister agreed." Ariadne said calmly. I know that I keep pointing out that she was speaking calmly but it was rather praying on my mind. "Your sister agreed to the betrothal."

"Oh believe me, Sister dearest and I are going to have words when we are through here."

I was angry. More angry than I could remember being but I was also being petulant. The fact that I knew this was making me feel more angry. I was also hurt, embarrassed on an international scale before the nobles and courtiers of nations and so I felt betrayed. I had begun to enjoy my feelings of independence from societies mores and the fact that both my sister and Ariadne had both agreed to consult my feelings before moving ahead with a betrothal had given me a feeling of security that had been torn away from me. Torn away on the most public stage imaginable.

"I understand that you are angry," Ariadne said for the third time. "But you owe me the chance to explain myself and my actions. You owe me that Frederick don't you?"

She was staring at me with a focus that was off-putting.

There are a number of lessons that my father taught me. Some of those lessons were lessons that I only realised long after the fact. Some lessons I don't even think he had intended to pass on. Some, certainly, I learned from how frustrated I used to get when he broke these rules and I decided that I would never do the same. One of those lessons was that it's always best to listen to the other person's point of view rather than running roughshod over them.

I looked away from her. The fact that her pale skin seemed to shine in the sunlight that was also reflected in her eyes was causing me some trouble. I wanted to be angry and I wanted to stay angry because that meant that I wouldn't have to confront the pain that I was feeling.

"Please sit down and don't speak until I'm finished. I have a lot to say and I need to get to the end of it." She said, carefully and clearly, presumably so that I wouldn't misunderstand. I did so on my second attempt. I needed to breathe in and out a few times first.

The day was not going well for me.

I had stood on the dais before the Empress who was having difficulty staying on the throne with the fit of the giggles that my revelation had given her. Lord Voorhis had moved in front of her in an effort to preserve the dignity of the Empress but I don't think he was entirely successful as he was also struggling to contain a fit of mirth.

Emma looked horrified. Mouth hanging open and deathly pale.

Francesca looked as though she couldn't decide between laughter, sympathy or horror. Laurelen was watching Emma with concern.

Only the Duchess of Toussaint was able to contain whatever emotion she was feeling. I didn't get the chance to meet the Duchess under less formal circumstances but I imagine she was thinking something like "What kind of fools are these northern Lords?"

I stared at Ariadne for a long moment, trying desperately to collect my thoughts. In the end I grasped at a lifeline that was just in my eyeline. The box containing my gift for the Empress. My conscious brain turned itself off and just let my training get on with it.

"You Imperial Majesty," I said bowing again. "I apologise for this intrusion of my private affairs into your day."

I don't know but I think I saw a flash of approval from both Lord Voorhis and the Duchess. The Empress clearly didn't trust herself to speak and waved off the apology with a smile.

"In an effort to preserve what remains of my fragile and tattered dignity, perhaps now would be an appropriate time to present you with this small token of my personal esteem towards your august majesty On this occasion of your coronation."

A squire lifted up the box to the dais.

"What is it?" The Empress took another sip from her cup and handed it to a waiting servant.

"I would invite you to open it to find out Your Majesty but I feel it only prudent to warn you that the box contains a weapon."

I saw a small flash of disappointment cross the Empresses face to be replaced by curiosity. Lord Voorhis was watching me carefully, as well he might anyone who brought a weapon in the presence of his Empress.

"The box is a little odd to be shaped for a sword." She said, her curiosity piqued despite herself.

"Yes," I said carefully. I could sense the gossip about what had happened about my betrothal crashing like a wave across the hall. "I fancied that your Majesty would have had her fill of swords by now, both of the personal kind and also of the ceremonial kind."

I should explain this joke. One of the symbols of the Imperial throne was a sword and that weapon would be presented to her when she was crowned. I had seen pictures of it and it's huge, easily twice as big as the Empress herself.

The Empress' lips twitched again. She looked at Lord Voorhis who moved past me and peeked inside the lid, presumably to ensure that it wasn't trapped or anything. I thought I saw just a flash of his approval before he turned and lifted the box for the Empress to open it.

"My understanding was that my sister and therefore my family had presented you with a breeding pair of our finest hunting birds." I said, "and I thought you might appreciate something to help you in your hunts."

She opened the lid and I am proud to say that she gasped in delight. The dwarven smith, as I had predicted, had done me proud.

What the box contained was a miniature hand crossbow. It was only small, designed for a one-handed draw, aim and fire.

"It's so light." The Empress commented, before another slyly amused expression crossed her face. "And I notice that it fits my hand perfectly."

"So I should hope Your Imperial Majesty."

"I wonder how you managed to get the dimensions of my hand Lord Frederick?"

"I guessed Your majesty."

"Did you indeed. I shall have to ferret out your source."

Francesca's face went carefully blank.

"Might I enquire what you intend to do to my source Your Majesty?" I asked innocently.

"Oh, something unpleasant involving laundry." Said the Empress. She was trying to pull back the strings on the bow.

"May I demonstrate Majesty?"

"Please?" She offered me the crossbow which was swiftly snatched out of her hand by Lord Voorhis. He smiled a gently apology to me before inspecting the crossbow to make sure it was unloaded before handing it over.

"Apologies Lord Frederick," he said calmly.

I nodded, "I understand Lord Voorhis. The bolts are also in the box along with the weapons holsters."

He nodded before having a look in the box.

"The bow is designed so that you can fire two bolts your majesty," I showed her the grooves where the bolts should lie. "You draw back both strings or one at a time using these levers, and the bolts can be fired individually or separately as the user wishes."

The Empress took it back and examined the workings of the bow before sighting down it. "Stopping power?" she asked.

"Alas the bow was only delivered to me earlier today and I haven't had the opportunity to test it thoroughly other than to make sure that it works and is accurate. The manufacturer promises me that it could punch through chain mail at twenty feet although it would struggle with plate steel."

She raised her eyebrows at that. "That's still pretty good."

"I'm glad that your Majesty thinks so. The bolts are also designed for piercing rather than for barbs and the box contains ten steel bolts and ten silver bolts."

"Really?" The Empresses eyes rose in what I hoped was pleasure as well as amusement. "Whatever made you think that that would be important to me."

"I couldn't say Majesty."

"Those Sources again?"

"Almost certainly."

Francesca's face was still carefully blank.

"But the bow has one other feature." I went on.

"Which is?"

"That it folds down for convenience and can be drawn, again, if I may demonstrate?"

She nodded, Even Lord Voorhis seemed interested.

From the box I took the holster.

"The holster can be attached anywhere to some kind of loop or belting, the bow can then have the arms folded down like so," I demonstrated, "This can also be done while loaded," The Empress nodded. "Then the bow sits in the holster like that. Then the Empress can draw it?" I offered the holster and the Empress did so,

"I draw the Empresses attention to the switch just down from the thumb. If you flick that switch the bow will pop open into a locked and ready to fire position."

She did so and the dwarven engineering shone.

"The bow would now be ready to fire." I said in triumph.

My opinion of Lord Voorhis had already begun to change. But it improved again as he clapped me on the shoulder.

"How was this accomplished?" he asked.

I shrugged at him. "Beats me." I said. "The dwarven smith knows a gnome who came up with the design. I'm told it's for emergency use. Long term use of the drawing device will wear that mechanism out and there is a delay between drawing and it being ready to fire. But I can provide the address of my manufacturer."

"Expensive to produce?" he asked.

"Very,"

He winced in disappointment. "Still, it suits as a last line of defence for the Empress" he muttered to me. "Grateful to you Lord Frederick." I nodded back at him.

The Empress set the bow back in it's box before turning back to me.

"I think we've kept you long enough Lord Frederick. I am truly grateful for the gift and I look forward to testing it out. Perhaps you and your family might do me the honour of joining me for a hunt if the circumstances permit, given the overall tone of your gifts?"

She smiled to show that she was pleased but I could tell that she was back to putting on the deliberate front again. It was also a dismissal

I deferred to Emma who muttered something along the lines of "Of course we would be honoured Your Majesty."

"In which case, I look forward to hearing about the resolution of the other matter Lord Frederick."

"Yes Your Majesty." I said

"Thank you your Majesty." Emma added already deepening into a curtsy.

We bowed and backed away. As I straightened I saw the Empress and Lord Voorhis had their heads together and were talking animatedly.

"Well done Freddie," Emma commented.

My situation rushed back in as I began to see people looking at me and tittering. Whether they were or not is beyond me but I could _feel_ myself becoming a laughing stock.

I looked around the room, I heard Emma saying my name but I wasn't really listening. I was aware of it, in the same way that you're aware that someone has just walked into the room.

There she was, standing next to the Princess Dorn who was looking worried.

Ariadne looked calm, placid and peaceful. She looked unashamed.

I stalked up to her.

I remember thinking that it was desperately unfair that I was about to have a fight with an ancient elder vampire while at the same time she could stand there and look so damn beautiful.

I remember wondering how smooth her skin would be if she would let me touch it.

"Shall we go somewhere a little more private to talk Lord Frederick?" She asked.

I took a deep breath.

"I think we better, Madame Comtesse."

She led me into the garden and I sat on the bench.

After her earlier instructions about not saying anything until she had finished, she walked a little distance away. I could see from the way her dress hung against her that she wasn't wearing any corsetry. That she didn't need to wear any corsetry.

My old friend, the one whose father worked in the Redanian Diplomatic corps, was right. It's really hard to stay angry at someone when you're sitting down. Let alone when they are as beautiful as Ariadne is.

"Here it is." She said, turning back to me and standing still, hands by her side and looking down at me. "Yes I promised that I would wait until you were ready for us to become properly betrothed and you should know that I absolutely meant it at the time. I am truly sorry that you are hurt, I am," she held up a finger to forestall me as I had opened my mouth to speak. "Let me finish."

I subsided and she clasped her hands together in front of her.

"I am sorry that I hurt you and I am sorry that I embarrassed you. That was not my intention. If everything had gone to plan I would have had the chance to talk to you before you would have found out from another source which would have saved you the embarrassment. But circumstances and time have shattered the plans of man and vampire before and I have no doubt that it will again.

"When we last spoke in person it was during the aftermath of the incident where you and Kerrass woke the Princess Dorn. I remember you standing in the firelight as her people celebrated her waking up and her return to the land of the living. I saw her being overwhelmed with that joy and I saw you, in the dark off to one side. You looked so sad and forlorn that I longed to comfort you in some way but I knew that you might not accept comfort from me. So I found Marion. I could smell her on you and you on her.

"She was terrified and absolutely beside herself but I suggested that her duties as "companion" were not yet complete and that you were in need of care.

"She agreed and then the two of you went off into the night.

"My heart ached as you did so and I hated Marion then, for how easy she found it to put you at your ease. I absolutely expected the two of you to go off somewhere and love each other.

"But then you didn't. You came back. I saw you caring for others and looking after _her_. I realised something then.

"I have read all of your works and your travel journals many many times. So much so that I can recite parts of them from memory. You talk of my beauty, you talk of my intelligence and how I make you laugh. These are good and wonderful things that lift my heart but then you always speak of how I terrify you. How...scared of me you are.

"Again, I am not judging you for this. I understand where that fear comes from. Soul deep instinct and learned prejudice are hard to overcome and the fact that you are even willing to try is one of the reasons that I... That I think so highly of you.

"But never once. Not once. Not you or anyone else connected to you have thought about how terrified _I_ might be of _you_ ,"

I felt my mouth open in shock and closed it again with a snap.

"I am an elder vampire." She said. "I experience things differently to humanity. We all do. We are long lived, even more so, in theory, than the elves are although no-one has really had the opportunity to test that in laboratory conditions. But that long life comes at a cost. That cost being a sort of... a plodding and slow kind of nature. We have the time to think. To consider things and to take our time. My mother once told me that her courtship with my father lasted for centuries and that that was not unusual for our people.

"Just a courtship. A courtship to last centuries. I'm told that humans do the same thing in a year. Eighteen months at the outside. That is barely a heartbeat to my people.

"I know why of course and that is due to the fact that you simply do not have the time to... heh... to mess around.

"You are people of passions, of speed and...and...a depth of feeling that is overwhelming to us. But to say that we are emotionless is inaccurate. It's just that in comparison to humanity we have the time to take our emotions away and examine them in detail and to try and figure out how we feel about that.

"But with you? I don't have that luxury.

"Every day that passes, every hour, every heart beat that we are not together terrifies me. It terrifies me because I know that we have so little time to share. So little...life to live.

"There is a depth and a...a _speed_ to that feeling that is terrifying to me. It's fascinating and exhilarating, but terrifying.

"One of the other things that you have said, many times, is that you can't tell what I'm thinking. That I appear cold or that you cannot tell whether I am wearing an illusion or some kind of a mask. Well I will answer that question for you although I cannot prove it.

"I am wearing a mask. I have to. Because otherwise the full scale of this feeling, this...emotion that I feel towards you and about you, whether I am with you or not, is such that if I do not hide it from myself let alone hiding it from anyone else, I am afraid that I would scare you away."

She said all of this quite precisely and directly. As she said it I looked, I searched her eyes, her posture, everything for any sign of emotion but I couldn't see it.

"This is a reflex. I cannot help it. I scare myself with the depth of my emotion. So I feel as though the easiest thing is that I should just tell you.

"What do I feel?

"I don't know. Is it love as humans understand it? I do not know. I am not human after all. All I can say is that you...

"You fascinate me. Your way of thinking. Your way of speaking and your ability to make intuitive leaps is like nothing that I've ever experienced.

"You make me laugh. A spontaneous display of emotion in a vampire is rare. Again, I have no way of proving this to you. You would find Vampire parties incredibly dull.

"You draw me to you, I... I miss you when you are not around. I look for you when you are nearby. The room seems brighter when you enter it and darker when you leave.

"I spend my days thinking of things that I must remember to say to you or finding things that I must show you. I want to hold you in my arms when you are afraid and promise you that you are safe and that nothing will ever harm you while I breathe the air. I want to come home to you after a hard day of dealing with hate filled parasites that leech away time that I would rather be spending with you.

"I also want to give you pleasure. So much so that it's rather... unnerving.

"Is that love?

"I don't know the answer to that but I propose that if you are amenable to it that we should find out together."

She held up her hand again to stop me from speaking.

"I'm not finished."

Her hand was shaking. Just slightly. Almost imperceptibly. Just the slightest tremor but it was there. When I subsided her hand returned to where it was and I saw that she clasped her hands together in front of her. That she had been doing so for as long as this little speech had been going on.

"So I thought about the problem. How can I reassure you that you should not be afraid. Your lifestyle doesn't permit you to stop and you would resent my following you and Kerrass around all the time. But how can I overcome the obstacles that stand between us. I discussed it with the Duchess, and the Princess and both your sisters. I even mentioned it to the Empress once but I couldn't come up with a solution of how I could overcome your terror of me."

Ariadne then proved herself the scientist that she is. She produced a well worn piece of paper that had been tucked into a pouch that was underneath her sash.

"I've thought about physical attraction. Humans perform the act of sexual congress for more than just the act of reproduction. These include, but are not limited to: kissing, penetration, cunnilingus and fellatio. I have examined the situation and I have discovered, much to my amusement and pleasure, that human pleasure centres, erogenous zones and reproductive organs are near enough to vampire ones to not cause comment. I am absolutely confident in my ability to give you physical pleasure and am fully capable should you desire to reciprocate."

I should say that I felt myself flush at this but she was right. It was something that I had thought of.

"On the matter of reproduction should you desire for children?" she went on, seemingly not noticing my embarrassment. "I have devoted some time to the study of the matter. No matter what the stories might say, I cannot turn you into a vampire. We certainly would not be able to reproduce naturally, without some kind of scientific or magical help. However I have discussed the matter with Laurelen who has been taking some steps to see if she could come up with some way to reproduce with your sister and she has some theories that hold some merit and that are definitely worth pursuing. If that does not bear fruit then I'm sure that adoption would be just as feasible.

"I considered your life span and your physical health. I am a magic user and I can easily care for you enough to keep you young and healthy for as long as you wish. I understand that similar things in that regard have gone on for up to three hundred years with the only evidence of aging being that the human brain is possibly not equipped to deal with that much memory. I did briefly consider the age gap but as the age gap is already over 900 years and I dismissed that factor quickly. As for our appearance together. I am perfectly capable of ageing along with you without it affecting me so if you _wish_ to grow old then we can do so together.

"Socially, I didn't think that your social status would suffer too much and if it did, I flatter you that you wouldn't care very much. I recently considered one of your potential fears that the reason that I was pursuing a marriage with you was to lend myself an air of respectibility. That marrying you would lend my presence in the nobility a certain weight of legitimacy and that this might be the only reason for my interest. This is not the case. If the Duke and Duchess had rejected me I would have come to you anyway. I was made interested in you in my room at the tower. I was then made more interested when you explained the political situation of the world to me. Then that meeting in the Duchess' gardens clinched the deal, at least from my perspective.

"Family wise, your sisters seem to approve of me without reservation. Your elder brother is dealing with his own crisis at the moment and no, before you ask me, you should speak to him yourself on that matter, and your younger brother doesn't seem to care that much. I'm told that your father blessed the union and that your mother went along with his wishes.

"On a feudal level, the Empress herself as well as the Duke have already agreed to the union. Bringing it up to them is part of my own feudal duties and I will not apologise for that. I might go so far as to say that the Duke and Duchess of Angraal think it's a wonderful idea.

"I already believe that we are intellectually well matched. Socially, our standing is much the same.

"So that leaves us with two potential problems.

"The first is my attraction to you or lack there of . And the second is your fear of me."

She took a deep breath and stared off into the middle distance. I watched her hands. Her skin was already pale so it was hard to see but her knuckles were white.

"I discussed the problem of your fear with just about everyone. Including Kerrass and it wasn't until I discussed it with Marion that this solution presented itself. I know that you are scared of me Frederick and I know why. I can promise you that I will never harm you. I will never hurt you and indeed I would die to protect you if it came to it..."

The fact that she said so without emotion spoke some volumes to me and I found that it move me deeply. I was finding it harder to remain angry.

"...But I know that you find it hard to accept. I fear your body's involuntary rejection of my touch but I also know that the only way to over come this is that if I prove to you and to your body and instincts that I will never hurt you and that you have nothing to fear from me. I don't know how I can show you this so instead, on Marion's suggestion I should just continue as though I have already done so. "Pretend that everything is normal," she said, "and soon it will be. Fear requires ignorance. As soon as we know about a thing we can define it and categorize it and is therefore no longer as terrifying." But she suggested that on the matter of my overcoming your fear, that asking for your forgiveness for moving ahead with our betrothal is easier than asking permission. So I have done so.

"Finally. Am I attracted to you? I hope I have answered that already. But in case there is any ambiguity. I have seen stars born and stars die. I have seen untold savagery and great kindness. I have seen the sun set and the sun rise and blooms of flowers that shouldn't exist and none of all of that combined holds half of the beauty that I see when I look into your eyes."

I felt like I had been struck with a hammer and it took me several minutes to realise that she had stopped talking. I must have looked away because I realised that I was looking at my feet.

I looked up at her and she was stood there, hands knotted together, staring at me.

I rose in something of a daze and moved aside, gesturing for her to sit.

She moved past me as she did so and I caught a scent of the perfume that was in her hair. I had to look away to order my thoughts.

The knight errant that had asked whether or not everything was alright earlier was still hovering about. I glared at him and he moved away.

"That's a lot to take in." I said faintly. "Would it surprise you to learn that I've been thinking about you a great deal as well."

I turned back to her. She was sat on the bench, hands clenched in her lap. Nothing else was betrayed in her face or in her posture.

I took a breath and plunged in.

"Here's the thing." I said. I couldn't look at her. She was too beautiful and I was afraid that I would collapse and not be able to say what I needed to say.

"You terrify me madam?" Did she gasp? I couldn't tell. I didn't dare look at her. "But one of the things that has made me angrier and angrier over the time since we met is that people have never asked me why I am afraid. You are right. Who you are and what you are does scare me. I've tried really hard to get past that and I haven't managed it yet. You are the Spider Queen of Angraal. The title itself feels designed to frighten me. But that's not all of it. Yes you are an elder vampire but again, that's not all of it.

"You frighten me madam because..." Suddenly it was too much. There was a lump in my throat, I could hear the blood thumping in my veins and spots dancing in front of my eyes, "because you are more than I had ever dreamed...you are...more...Flame curse me for a fool. I'm a scholar and a writer and I can't force the words out."

I turned away, I realised that I had almost shouted those last words. I knew that because that fucking knight Errant was on his way back towards us. "Is everything alright madame?" He asked us again.

"Everything is fine Sir knight." She said quietly.

He left unhappily.

I risked a glance at her. Her posture hadn't changed but she looked. She looked like a wild animal, terrified and shaking. I wanted to reassure her, to hold her and tell her that it was going to be ok.

But I couldn't.

I turned away again and tried to find another way in to describe the way I was feeling.

"You have read my writing madame which means that you must have read regarding the Beast of Amber's crossing." I stared at the water that was running through the rocks nearby. "That incident scarred me madame. I don't talk about it and I don't write about it because what is there to say? Kerrass and I strode into an ancient forest to face a being of primal terror. A thing of almost limitless power and although I've never talked about it with Kerrass I remain convinced that the only reason that we came out of that place alive is because we were amazingly lucky. I don't know if Kerrass was good and that he planned out the entire encounter, or if Kerrass was lucky and saw the solution to the situation in the heat of the moment. What I do know is that my life and soul was ripped from my body and put into a place of torment.

"That beast used me. In doing so he laid bear my most basic and innermost desires and fears. I wake up nights and I scream until I'm hoarse. There are days when I can still see it's face and feel the power that it had over me. It showed me things, horrible things. It showed me things about myself that I do not like and things that scare me. I always liked to think of myself as a good man and what it showed me is that that is not baked into me. It is not a matter of nature. This was confirmed for me with what happened to Edmund my brother. Even now his name is being deleted from my family history. He was a Patricide and more monstrous than many of the things that I have seen Kerrass hunt. But I looked at him and I looked at the sculpture of him that rests in my families crypt and I don't see the man as he was but I see what he might have been. I see what I might have been and fear that I might still be.

People tell me that I am nothing like Edmund. People tell me that I am a good person but I wonder... I wonder and I know, I _know_ that this doubt was put into my mind by the beast of Amber's crossing. It still has that power over me and I wonder if I will ever be free of it. I suspect not."

I risked another glance at her. She was still sat, only her dress moving in the breeze. She didn't look as afraid but she was listening. I looked away again.

"This is going to sound like it's unrelated but it's not. I wasn't as religious as I am now. I was religious but only so much as I kind of enjoyed being in my family chapel, knew all the words to the songs and understood how the scriptures worked. But the rest of it. I'm more religious now than I ever was before Amber's crossing.

"I look at the person I was then and I laugh at my own naivete. The beast showed me that there were powers in the universe more powerful than something that can be hit with Kerrass' sword or skewered with my spear. And I know that I need to protect myself from those things. The Holy Fire seemed like the best way to do it.

"Some day I honestly believe that I will have to account for myself and that I will be judged as to whether or not I am a good person. I recently qualified as a Proffessor of Oxenfurt and I could have done so much sooner but I followed Kerrass around in an effort to prove to myself, to him and to the world that I was a good person. There are the monsters that I have helped destroy, these are the people that I have helped to save so that when I die and I stand before the flame that I will be found worthy.

"The Church is clear on you madame. I know that it's wrong and I know that the scriptures were written and interpreted by men. I _know_ that you are just another creature and that you don't represent true darkness or true evil. I know that but I know that in my mind." I tapped myself on the side of my head. "But not in my heart. I am afraid. I am scared down into the depths of my soul. Not of you but of what you represent.

"I wrote about some of the things it showed me, that beast of Amber's crossing. But not all of them. It showed me things of a dark, twisted and perverted sexual nature and they excited me. I know that those things are not to my taste. I know them,"

I tapped myself on the side of my head again,

"But I don't know them." I thumped my chest.

"That is why you terrify me madam. Not because of who you are or what you are." I found myself laughing a little as I turned back to her. Now she looked truly afraid I thought. "although I admit that that is partly what's going on. But because of what you represent in my instinctual self."

I turned away again.

"You are too beautiful, too intelligent too...too...Flame curse me for a fool. Too EVERYTHING for me to accept that you might..." I gritted my teeth. I was shaking with emotion again as I tried to force the words out and I tried for a moment to identify it. I had to mop my brow of the sweat that had formed there. If Ariadne had put her arms round me then I would have burst into tears. "I do not deserve you Madame. Or if I deserve you then surely there must be some catch. Some...trick or some kind of hidden damnation... that you might be the path towards..."

I laughed again and I heard the hysteria in my own voice. I could see that that knight Errant was coming back.

"I once had a nanny who looked out over a beautiful sunny day from the castle window. She was watching me while I was learning my letters. I remember it distinctly, she looked out over the beautiful countryside and she said, "Oh, we're going to pay for this later." What she meant was that there would soon be rainy skies and storm clouds. I laughed when I realised what she was saying but that's exactly how I feel."

"May I speak?" Ariadne said quietly. "It is the height of arrogance." She said gently. "The very height of arrogance to decide for another person what is deserved and what is not."

"I know." I said. "And I'm sorry. But that's not what I'm saying. I'm not saying that you deserve better than me. I'm saying that I fear how good you are. How wonderful you are and how lucky I am that you tumbled into my life. I find myself looking for the catch, for the price tag."

I was astonished. I felt a tear roll down my cheek.

"You know what though." I said. I could see a way out now. There was light at the end of the tunnel and I decided to go for it. "You were right. I am angry." I tried to make my voice sound comedicly harsh and cross.

"But you were wrong. I'm not angry because you took the initiative and took the matter of our betrothal out of my hands."

I reached into my pocket and produced the other thing that the dwarf had been working on for me.

"But I'm angry because you kind of stole my thunder."

I opened the box.

Just a small box. Made from wood. It was even quite plain really.

But it had a huge impact on Ariadne and not the response that I had expected.

She gave a sound that was somewhere between a groan and some kind of animalistic grunt. Just for a moment, she showed the fact that she wasn't human. She leapt backwards out of the bench and over the back of it. I've used the term before but it was exactly like she was some kind of frightened wild animal. Wide eyed, shaking and terrified. I heard her dress tear as she leapt in directions that it wasn't supposed to go.

She hid behind a bush. Her eyes peeking out from behind it in exactly the way that cartoon animals do in this magazine.

I had fallen to my knees in what I understand is the traditional pose in these circumstances as I held out the engagement ring.

A circular diamond with two rubies on either side of it set in a twisted pattern of yellow gold in a design that made me think of elves even though, as far as I know, it was made by a gnome.

I waited patiently.

It was exactly like, _exactly_ like trying to coax a wild animal into taking a treat from your hands.

Slowly, Ariadne edged out from behind the bush and came closer to it. She seemed as though she wanted to hide her face from me.

She didn't look pleased. She looked horrified. Horrified and scared.

"Is everything alright mada..."

"GET FUCKED, SIR KNIGHT," I heard myself snarl.

"Now listen here ruffian. I am Sir..."

" _Be Gone,_ " Ariadne's words had a power that ran down my spine into the part that just told my legs to start walking. I resisted it but I wasn't the person that the words of command were aimed at. The clanking of the man's armour was audible for some time.

Ariadne was crouched behind the bench now. Closer but still out of reach.

"It's ok." I said shuffling forward a little. "It's ok."

She shuffled a little further out.

"Is that?" She couldn't seem to manage any more.

"Yes it's for you."

She reached out for the box as though terrified that it might bite her.

I had to go the rest of the way and gently placed the box between her fingers.

She looked up at me. Her eyes still wide with terror.

"I thought you were going to break my heart," she wailed.

My own heart broke then. I edged forwards and slowly and tentatively I put my own arms around her.

Holy fire but it felt good.

I don't know how long we sat there. I cradled her as she sat looking at the ring.

"Would you like to try it on?" I tried after a while.

"Can I?" She asked with a little laugh. "It honestly hadn't occurred to me."

I laughed with her and I helped her up onto the bench. Taking the box off her again I knelt before her and offered up the ring box.

"Madame La Comtesse Ariadne of Angraal. Would you do the honour of being my wife?"

She looked as though she couldn't speak but she held her trembling hand out. It was trembling so hard that I had to hold it steady to put the ring on it.

I had so worried if it would fit. In the end it turned out to be a little loose.

"Don't worry about it," she said as she saw my disappointment. "I love it." She held up her hand so that the gems sparkled in the sunlight.

"Ariadne listen." She took a while to subside. "Seriously now." I said. "All of the things that I said are still true. I am terrified and I can't see a cure for that other than time. I am pretty sure that I love you but it's still going to take time for my body and things to get that through to them."

"I understand Frederick. I understand. We can take it slow."

I nodded.

We were sat on the bench next to each other and I was suddenly aware that the insanely beautiful woman sat next to me had just agreed to marry me.

My head swam.

"Have you eaten yet today?" Ariadne chided gently.

"I can't remember." I said after a while. "What day is it?"

"Your sister is expecting us for dinner and I need to change." I nodded.

Ariadne changed into a deep green dress of similar cut with the same yellow sash and asked a servant to take the blue one down to a seamstress to get it repaired. We made it to a more private area of the castle. This was the bit that seemed to be working. Lots of people running around carrying bundles of paper. Guards clanking about and so on. Ariadne led me up some stairs and out onto a balcony where a large table had been set. A servant was handing out drinks and a party of people had gathered.

I didn't get everyone at once but I saw that Emma, Francesca and Laurelen were all there. As was Sammy who had a bandage around his head and was sweating in his armour. Brother Mark was there. Then I registered the fact that the Empress was there giggling quietly on a bench next to the edge of the balcony with Princess Dorn who was also there and I began to feel a little light headed again. Kerrass was there along with the other two Witchers. As Ariadne and I walked towards the gathering they all quietened down. The Empress clambered to her feet.

"I had to find out what the punchline was so I demanded that Francesca invite me to your little party. I trust that you don't mind Lord Frederick."

"Of course not Your Imperial Majesty."

"And?" She prompted.

Ariadne and I looked at each other in exactly the same way that young couples do everywhere and giggled.

"Oh For fuck's sake." Said Sam loudly into the silence.

Ariadne held out her hand to display the ring.

I was flattered and pleased at the cheer that the assembly gave us.

I looked over at Kerrass.

"Alright" he said as he put his drink down after meeting my eyes and produced a leather bag. "Pay up."

A chorus of groans went up as more than one person reached for their purses.

"Am I really that predictable?" I asked loudly as I walked towards him.

"It would seem not," commented Sam as he put some coins into the bag. "He was the only one who predicted that you would have already decided to marry her."

"Good," I leant over to Kerrass and stage whispered. "I'll expect my cut later."

"Yeah, that's not going to happen," he said.

I got my first hug from Sam, "You're a lucky man Freddie," he whispered in my ear, "and a brave one. Braver than me,"

I pulled back from him. The look on his face was...complex. I knew that he had been struggling to arrange a marriage given the new reputation of the Lords Kalayn and he looked... There was definitely a little bit of envy there but I couldn't tell what it was.

"Your time will come Sammy."

We hugged again and he broke off to go and talk to someone. I didn't get the chance to see who it was because Emma had forced her way to the front of the queue and threw her arms round me dramatically.

"Proud of you Freddie,"

"Really?" I asked.

She pulled back. "Are you very angry with me?"

I considered the matter. If things had turned out in any other way I might have been furious. For a moment there I was but as it turned out,

"Angry is the wrong word." I said after a moments thought. A moment that I deliberately drew out in an effort to make her feel worse. "Cross might be closer, peeved even, put out,"

She began to smile and I could tell that she had been crying. All truth though, I couldn't stay angry with this woman for long. "Talk to Mark." She whispered in my ear. "It needs to happen sooner or later and he needs to tell you things."

"Sounds ominous." I said.

"It is." she whispered back.

Kerrass was next, he stood up from his chair and gripped my hand for a moment looking me in the eye solemnly before a huge grin plastered itself over his face and he pulled me into a hug. "Bout fucking time," he whispered fiercely.

"Thank you Kerrass." I whispered back. "I wouldn't have known her without you."

"Don't lets be sentimental. We'll save that for the stag party."

"Something to look forward to."

We pulled apart and he introduced me to Eskel and the other Witcher who turned out to be a Feline Witcher called Gaetan. A scarred and taciturn man with a scar across his cheek. He shook my hand, told me I was a brave man and then went back to watching the Empress. He had a nervous habit of rubbing at his temples every so often.

Eskel proved himself to be a man of bone-dry humour which he employed regularly and often. He delivered more than one, straight faced insult towards Kerrass that completely went over Kerrass' head until he realised that everyone was laughing at him where he would throw things at Eskel. I had no idea if there was a difference in age but it seemed that Eskel was a kind of mentor figure towards Kerrass and, to a lesser extent, towards Gaetan. He spent as much time watching the two cat witchers as he did watching the lady he was supposed to be protecting.

I also got my first glimpse of Ariadne on the other end of the balcony where she was showing off the ring to the Empress, Emma and the rest of the ladies who were all cooing over it and trying it on. I had to keep myself from laughing as she was clearly enjoying the attention while at the same time watching all the activity with the amused eye of a scientist watching children at play while also being drawn in despite herself. She caught my eye and winked.

The Empress got taken away by a page and so she took Eskel and Gaetan with her leaving Kerrass with permission to "Go and play," She did come over to wish me well though and say that she was glad that things had turned out to my satisfaction. She also invited me to the training yard in the morning where she was going to try out her new crossbow as it had caused a bit of a stir in certain circles.

Although she didn't tell me which circles those might be. She just grinned and told me that I would meet those same circles tomorrow. I suggested that I should bring Emma with me in case we ended up having to negotiate anything. The Empress laughed and said something like "I'm sure we can come to an arrangement."

In the end though there was nothing I could do but face the music. I took a pair of cups and a jug of wine and went off to find Mark who was sat off to one side. On the edges of things.

"Well then Mark," I said offering him one of the cups and filling it up high. "Is it time we talked?"

He looked up at me and smiled. He looked very tired and there was something about the way that he was smiling that sent a chill down my spine. He just seemed so sad.

"We should," he said, gesturing me to the bench beside him and I sat.

I don't know how long we sat there but it was for several minutes as we both watched the sudden and informal party. I noticed that Emma and Francesca both checked on us multiple times and I suspect that Kerrass too knew exactly where we were. I was just pleased to see that everyone was making such a fuss over Ariadne who was practically glowing with the attention.

In the end the silence became unbearable and we both looked at each other and laughed.

"Happy for you Freddie. Happy for you." He held out his cup and I touched mine to his in a toast.

"Thanks. Means a lot."

We sat in silence for a bit longer but it was a much more comfortable silence.

"So Mark," I said suddenly without really thinking about it. "People keep telling me that you have something to tell me while also, carefully avoiding the subject of what it is that you want to tell me which suggests that it might be something quite ominous."

Mark sighed and held out his cup for more wine.

"Well, I'm dying." he said after I had finished pouring.

"What?"

He shrugged again. "I've never felt healthier than I do right now but I'm dying."

"Holy flame Mark what the fuck are you... What's wrong with you?"

"Do you know that no-one can seem to tell me? The closest thing that anyone's been able to come to it is that I have a problem with my blood."

"That's... that's umm. What does that mean?"

"I've been demanding answers to that question for some time now." he said. "Of all people it was your vampire lady who laid it out for me and I still don't understand it."

An interesting thing happened when he referred to Ariadne. It was like an automatic flinch response. His face twisted in disgust but then he realised what was happening, winced and then sighed in a kind of resigned and formlessly angry way. As though he was angry about something that he couldn't do anything about.

"Try me," I said after a while.

"Well apparently, the heart pumps blood around the body right?"

I nodded.

"The blood does this so that it can carry what the body needs around to the various places that it needs to go."

"That's right."

"Well, it turns out that there's some connection between this and the air which we breathe which needs to be taken around. That's the bit where they lose me."

"It's called oxygen Mark."

"Yes, there's the word that she used." He sighed and drank a little more. "The oxygen needs to get to my brain but, for some reason, my brain isn't getting enough oxygen. To fix this that means that my heart is beating harder and faster to get more blood to the brain. So my heart is working harder and harder, my...I want to say loongs..."

"Lungs?"

"Yes, that's the word, are also working harder and harder and my brain is working just as hard as it already was only on less fuel. So in the end, one of those three things is just going to give out completely. Either my heart will just stop or my loongs will stop working."

"Lungs," I said again stupidly.

"And my brain will start to break down."

I just stared at him. What do you say to someone who tells you that kind of thing.

"Ummm," I managed. "I... I'm so sorry."

Mark nodded and took another drink. "Thanks,"

"Should you really be drinking so much?" I asked.

Mark cackled. "What's it going to do, kill me quicker?"

"Fair point, although a little harsh towards me."

"True, sorry about that."

"How long do you have?"

"A year, two years at the outside. Apparently the best that I can hope for is that my heart gives out first as the alternatives don't fill me with much joy. Either I drown in my own fluids or I lose my grip on reality. Something to look forward to I suppose."

"Is there... Flame but you must have looked. So I'm sorry but I need to ask the question. Is there anything that can be done?"

"No. Well, kind of, but not really. According to your Lady, who knows more about blood than anyone else I've talked to, the blood system is irreparably damaged so what would need to be done would be some kind of magical process where all of my blood gets..." he frowned in concentration before giving up. "Filled with the stuff that we breathe so that it can get to my brain better. Unfortunately that would need to be done on a regular basis. She told me that it could be done but it would involve an uncomfortable procedure to be done around every other day that would take a couple of unpleasant hours of magical care. The best that I could hope for is that it doubles my current life expectancy though. Four years instead of two."

"Why not a permanent fix?"

"Because of the damage to my lungs and heart. My lungs are filling with fluid because the blood is trying to get to the air so hard that it seeps into my lungs. That is already done. But the other thing is that my heart is enlarged."

"Oh of course. The hearts a muscle."

"Precisely. I've been working it so hard that it's grown in size. If I stop it having to work so hard it might just decide to give up. But likewise it can only keep working at it's current level for so long."

"I see."

"So I'm dead if I do and dead if I don't. Heh, I spoke to a friend of mine that suggested that I've moved on to the acceptance side of grief. The procedure that... That Ariadne described is uncomfortable and would need to start to be done now. I can't face that on a daily basis Freddie, knowing that it only buys me a bit of extra time."

"But can't she, or can't Laurelen for that matter, just magic it better. That's how magic works right."

"Yes they could. But they don't know what caused it. They could fix my heart, clear my brain and clean out my lungs but if they don't know what the problem is? Laurelen and Ariadne both told me that if they had looked at me earlier, even a year earlier they might have been better able to identify the problem and sort it out but now, there are too many potential causes."

"So what's going to happen?"

"Over the next year or so, if I'm careful and don't over tax myself physically then I can expect to be healthy enough to carry on working. Which I intend to do Freddie so don't try and talk me out of it. The church hierarchy is aware of my condition and they want to get as much work out of me as they can. I am to receive a personal physician who is to be chosen by your friend, the red-haired medic."

"Shani,"

"Yes, who is going to monitor my health. That person will declare that it is time for me to retire. But it will be set at a maximum of a year. There upon I shall be promoted to the rank of Cardinal and shall retire to our estates which will be a relatively short carriage ride to Novigrad should the holy father have need of me. But it also means that I will be available to teach and pass on what I've learned and hopefully, in my own way, help shape the future of the church of the holy fire."

I nodded as I listened.

"I'm told that my brain will start to give out after that but I shall work and be useful as long as I can."

"How long have you known?"

"A year," He looked at me out of the corner of his eye.

"A year?"

"Yes, actually more than that. I noticed that I was wheezing last winter. The one before this one just gone."

"So you knew before father died."

Mark sighed.

"Yes."

"Why didn't you tell us then? We could have done something we could have..."

"Saved me?" Mark laughed harshly. "Yes. That's the irony. Yes you could. If I had waited or if I'd let Laurelen have a look at me then when I found out who she was, I might have averted this whole thing but at the time I had my head jammed so far up my arse that I could smell the incense. I was praying Freddie. Praying so hard."

He sobbed. It seemed so out of the blue. I've got no way of telling you or proving to you that it was out of character but I was stunned.

"Oh flame Mark I'm so sorry."

"You know I've told so many people about this now...You'd think it would get easier."

"I know Mark, I know."

Of course I didn't fucking know. How could I? But the things we say to each other in moments of grief. Dear reader, if you want to become famous or if you want to become "known" in Oxenfurt. Then the first thing you should do is write a bloody good book with loads of sex and violence in it. If that isn't your thing, then right a book on the things that we say in moments of high emotion. I present to you this chapter as an example of stupid crap that people say.

"Here is my confession Freddie. I've read your account of what happened at home when father died and I am sorry for the part that I played. So here is my confession to you, such that it is. I wanted to take our family fortune and I wanted to donate it to the church. I knew I was dying and I thought. I honestly thought that if I prayed that little bit harder. If I, If I did some more good works then I would be cured. The the holy flame would burn away my sickness. That was why I was so angry when Father made Emma the custodian of it all. I was so very angry because that was what I was going to do. Give it all up. All of it. Every last penny."

I said nothing.

"It was ridiculous of course and I even knew that it was ridiculous but at the same time... I was so angry. But Father had seen right through me. He had known that that was what I wanted. Nothing was ever good enough for him was it. You know that as much as I do. No matter how high I climbed in the ranks of the church I could never please him.

"So I gave up trying and tried to please the church instead. Because there's an institution that values good deeds over political clout. "

The bitterness in him was awful.

"Then I stormed back to Tretogor in a huff. I got home, to my palace and threw myself into my work. I worked so hard but then I collapsed at a prayer meeting. A doctor was sent for who wasn't my private physician, then the church knew and my secret was out. No longer a matter for just my private physician and Kerrass."

"Kerrass knew?"

"Oh yes. He came to me the day that you finally brute forced your way into my presence and told me that I was sick and that I needed to see a Doctor. I laughed at him and told him that I was just tired and full of grief and swore him to silence. He came to me again as I packed to leave after the will reading and told me, rather brutally to "Sort myself the fuck out" and get some help. He told me that one of the finest medical schools was in nearby Oxenfurt and that there was a Sorceress in the castle. He even said that there was soon going to be a vampire in the family and that she would know more than the lot of us combined. I laughed at him as I remember.

"But anyway. I collapsed A Cardinal came. I know now that I was never going to be a Cardinal as I was simply not ready for it. He came and sat in my office and he heard my confession. I'll never forget it. We sat there and I yelled and I shouted and I exorcised my anger at him. Poor man. I'll never forget his words to me.

"You remind me of the man in the flood." He said to me."

"The man in the flood?" I asked.

"Yes, It's an old story meant to tell people to stop waiting around for some kind of magical interference to sort out all your problems. The story goes that a man is a farmer on the plain near a river. A Huge storm hits the local area and people go to him and say "The river is going to flood, bring all your belongings, we're heading to high ground." But the man says "No, I believe in the eternal fire and the eternal fire will protect me." A little while later as the man's fields begin to flood his wife takes the children and flees, begging the man to go with her to higher ground and the man says "No, I believe in the eternal fire and the eternal fire will protect me." The flood waters rise even higher and the man climbs onto the roof. Some brave locals get out a boat and go to the man to try and rescue him. But again he says "No, I believe in the eternal fire and the eternal fire will protect me." In the end the water washes the man's house away and he dies.

"So the man goes to the afterlife where he is met by St Lebioda. The saint looks at the man and the man says. "Saint Lebioda. I am a good man, I looked after my family. I went to church, made the offerings and always did my best to be a good man. Why did the eternal fire let me drown?"

"The saint says, "The eternal fire sent the villagers to warn you, gave you a wife with the wisdom to lead her children away and sent a boat to carry you to safety. The eternal fire sent you all of these things so what the fuck are you doing here?""

My brother was silent for a while staring into the middle distance a bit.

"The Cardinal told me that the Holy Flame had sent me a Doctors warning, a Witcher and a Sorceress. Hell even a Vampiric Sorceress. So what was I complaining about?

"He was right of course.

"So publish that Freddie, write that up in your journal so that everyone can read it. I'm an Arch-bishop and a Cardinal elect of the Church of the Holy Fire. I will be one of the people who helps to elect the next Hierophant. But even someone like me, is still guilty of foolish, catastrophic and stupid pride. Oh, also that I say that I am still learning new things every day. Will you publish that?"

"I will Mark," I said. "I promise."

We sat there for a moment before Mark wiped his eyes and started to laugh. "You know I came here to congratulate you on your pending marriage."

I laughed with him. "Are you sure Mark. I don't want you to hate her."

"I don't hate her. I struggle sometimes with learned behaviours but I think that your sister is right. She will be good for you. But I do have a request."

"What's that?"

"Here's a harsh truth that I don't like. On your wedding day. I don't want to be the priest."

"What?"

"Don't misunderstand me. I'm happy for you I really am. And that's not the thing. If I am still alive when the ceremony happens then I will be there and I will cheer the loudest. Nor do I want to be your Best man. I've already talked to Sam and although he will be a bit disappointed, your best man is clearly going to be Kerrass. It needs to be Kerrass, it should be Kerrass. I would even go so far as to say that Emma would be a better best man than either of us."

I laughed at the thought.

"I don't want to be a priest on that day Freddie. I understand that it's your day above all things and if you really want me to then I shall be the priest and I shall marry the two of you but... I don't want to be there as a priest. I want to be there as your brother. I want to stand next to you and cheer you on and make rude jokes and get drunk and throw petals and things. I want to be the man on your wedding day. Not the priest."

I nodded.

"Well obviously, Ariadne would need to be involved in that conversation." I said. "But I think I could see that. I know a couple of priests who might."

"If you really want to put the cat amongst the pigeons, get Father Jerome to do it. That would really upset the church higher ups. A former torturer marrying the future Count and Countess of Angral. I can just see the steam coming out of their ears."

"You're a bad man Mark."

"I know. I'm enjoying myself."

He looked up. Emma had come over and Mark rose and bowed to her. "I'll leave you two alone to talk." He said. He winked at me as he walked off.

Emma sat down next to me.

"They're just about to get the food out and we wondered where you were. You alright?"

I laughed at her as I wiped away some tears.

"It's been a hell of a day,"

"It has at that. Come on, your betrothed was looking for you."

I managed to climb to my feet on the second attempt.


	50. Chapter 50

It was a pleasant evening but it wasn't that long before the stresses of the day started to catch up to me.

Francesca stepped up into the position of host admirably and I was proud of her. She set up a way that we could either sit and eat or stand and eat but at the same time we could wander between each other to talk and discuss things. If I had a wish about that evening, well two wishes really, I wish I had had more time to spend with Ariadne and more time to spend with Francesca.

It's a complicated situation with Ariadne but I've since discussed it with other married coupled which said that when they were lucky enough to know or even meet the person that they were going to marry and were betrothed then something else happened instead. They found that they were almost separated from their future spouses. At a time when they should be getting to know each other and learning what each other likes and dislikes, on a practical level even, the two are kept apart. There are two reasons for this. The first is societal. It is important, especially the further up the chain of nobility you are that the lady remain a virgin.

Yes I am well aware of the unfairness of this fact as especially in the male case they are even encouraged to get it on with as many people as possible. The other horror being that this often means that the lady's first sexual encounter is the wedding night after you've just, really, met your husband and I have not met any women, ever, at all, who enjoyed their first sexual experience.

Ever.

So picture the scene. You've just met this man opposite you after the wedding. You're both tired, both a little drunk if not very drunk. You're both sweaty and uncomfortable in the ridiculous clothes that they make you wear and in some cases there are even witnesses standing in the corner of the room who are there to witness the fact that the consummation took place at all.

The man knows what's coming next.

The woman does not.

Does that not strike you as a perfect recipe for horror?

But still, rant over.

I would have liked to spend more time with Ariadne. I wanted to talk about Mark's illness with her as I was still at that stage of grief where I was refusing to believe that it was hopeless. I wanted to talk about the future I wanted to _plan_ things as well as looking forward to exploring some of those "erogenous zones" that she had mentioned earlier. But she was being monopolised by Laurelen and my two sisters who were doing their best, and rightly so, to welcome the vampire into our family. From the looks that Ariadne sent me she felt the same way. We did talk about it later in a slightly more private moment and she explained that it was vital that she appear conservative and traditional in her actions to avoid any of the potential backlash at her position and rank.

My other wish was that I would have spent more time with Francesca. I had always been close with Emma but I had been incredibly fond of Frannie while she had been growing up. She was always so sweet and kind and gentle to everyone that she met. Now as I saw her playing host to so many people including at least two strangers to her, she had come into her own. Graceful, intelligent, witty and charming. As I watched I saw her deflect a barb from Sammy, retort a joke back at Emma herself and put a Witcher at ease when he started to become uncomfortable. She chatted with Princess Dorn as though they were old friends despite never having met before that day. All the while she was getting messages from elsewhere in the palace and directing servants with class and grace.

Emma caught me watching her at one point.

"Our little sister's all grown up." She whispered to me.

"And surpassed us all." I said.

Emma nodded. "She's already got the ear of the Empress and as the Empress' star rises then so to will Francesca. She's going to marry some important noble in the Imperial court and when he tries to move her out to some country estate with an excuse of... the estate needs managing the Empress will tell him to fuck off and that Frannie is needed at court more than he is."

"Good for her." I said.

"You helped her get there Freddie." I thought about this for a moment.

"Nah," I said. "If nothing had happened she still would have found a way in."

It was Emma's turn to consider. "You are probably right."

But as I say, the stresses of the day began to overwhelm me. Sam had retired earlier who is my normal drinking partner for family gatherings but he had pleaded the need to rest as he had a match at the tournament the following day and needed to get his head down. I had already noticed that he was drinking milk rather than wine.

I stayed up as long as I could but Emma took notice and decreed that it was time for us all to go to bed as we all had a busy day tomorrow.

I did wonder why as, what with the Empresses demands I was there earlier than I had first expected to be. The coronation wasn't for another day. I had been looking forward to seeing Sam joust and milling about in the court for a day. Not least of which was the possibility of spending a bit of time with Ariadne and Kerrass.

But it would seem that there were other plans afoot.

"The Empress required you." Was all that Emma would say, over and over again until she finally admitted that she didn't know why I had been summoned.

The following morning, the day after what was surely one of the longest and most event packed days of my life, I woke up to a stiff back and neck along with a killer headache.

Fortunately living with a Sorceress means that my headache was quickly dismissed. The stiffness though, that would need some work.

There was a messenger waiting for me saying that I was expected at the palace training yards with my weapons. Expected by the Empress no less.

"Fucking wonderful." I commented to my sister who has the temerity to be a morning person. "Is there any chance. Any chance at all that I might get a couple of hours in a dark and quiet room to process everything that happened yesterday?"

She tried and failed to look sympathetic, instead managing to achieve big sisterly amusement and pushed a bowl of porridge towards me.

"A quiet and dark place alone with Ariadne you mean?"

I shivered. "In that particular case I think I would rather work up to that. Gently and with a large lead in to it."

"Wuss."

"Maybe so. I love the woman but at the same time, the prospect of any kind of lust filled shenanigans in a darkened room is still quite, quite terrifying."

"I still think you're a wuss."

"Thank you for the support Sister dear."

"Oh suck it up. You're not the one who has to organise the entire thing."

"True, but even so, it's a little early to be discussing table settings."

I was unceremoniously pushed out of the door. I took my leathers, my knife and my spear and walked up to the palace. One of the guards pointed me off in the right direction to where I found Kerrass and a number of other Witchers going through their exercises. I was introduced and had the privilege of finally meeting the White Wolf of legend. He seemed a little quieter than I had imagined from the works of the bard. I didn't have much of a chance to sit and talk with him as I was otherwise occupied. In all truth, he's a good looking man with the handsome good looks of someone who is obviously rather weather beaten and who is blessed with a strongly developed musculature. He, like the other Witchers that I have met other than Letho and the Bear Witcher who I will get to, were a lot leaner than I expected. It makes sense but I always imagine broad shoulders along with heavy muscles. The muscles are there but they're built for speed. In the same way that a fencer stands side on to an opponent in order to present as small a target profile as possible, Witchers think in the same way. Movement and dodging are important and so, massive shoulders and huge pectorals don't really help there.

I got the opportunity to work out some stiffness with Kerrass as well as get some solid training in with some of the others.

Including the Empress who was also there. She was dressed almost identically to how Francesca had been the previous day.

She kicked my ass up and down the training field. She was awfully fast. Frightfully fast. I could just about hold my own if all I worried about was defending myself but every time I tried to formulate some kind of attacking strategy, she taught me the error of my ways.

I also saw Francesca train. She was good. My male pride was a little damaged but I shouldn't have been surprised. She was a gifted dancer already and as a result could pick up the movements with remarkable speed.

But as I say, I didn't really get that much of a chance to watch.

The purpose of the morning's exercise was so that the Empress could properly practice with her new Crossbow. Over and over again I had to re-emphasise the point that I had only had two quick test firings of the damn thing before I had taken it away from the dwarven craftsman's hands. I knew how it all worked but I didn't know the "why" of how it worked. The Empress tried the firing of it several times until she was approaching being satisfied with it's use and it's strength. I demonstrated how it could be taken apart for cleaning and oiling. It was rather off-putting the level of concentration that the Empress showed as she learned how to do that. But then Lord Voorhis arrived and started asking questions.

Because then it was time for the Empress to practice drawing and firing the bow. She started to figure out where she wanted the holster for it to sit and also the small quivers for the bolts. An Imperial seamstress was brought out and seemed most offended to be asked whether she could work the bow and the bolts into a dress, whether a bandoleer or a harness around the Empress' leg could be made. All the while, the Witchers were making their own notes and comments.

I got a general idea that Lord Voorhis, whose position at court seems to be as advisor as well as master of Intelligence to the Empress had a plan of having the Empress' ladies and companions all trained in the use of the bow. He wanted to know whether or not the dwarven craftsman would be willing to build, say, another thirty of the bows, or to instruct an Imperial weaponsmith in how to use the bows. Emma had me well trained though. I told him that I had never known a craftsperson yet who would turn down large sums of money and that he should enquire through my sister who would make the necessary arrangements.

I will admit that the prospect of people walking around with hidden weapons was a bit nerve-wracking. One of the benefits of a sword is that everyone can see it. It's there and it's a sword. But I told myself that people have been coming up with ways to hide knives about their person for centuries. And got on with it.

Eventually though, the need to run the Empire intruded. A man called Talbot arrived and was introduced to me as the Empress' private secretary came to the Empress and simply said.

"It's time," at which time the Empress abruptly left the crossbow in the hands of Lord Voorhis and told us all that we "have permission to play with her new toy." I would have left the comment there but Lord Voorhis and the other Witchers gathered round it with exactly that kind of enthusiasm.

I got a bit of training in with Kerrass before another courtier came in and came to me. "The Empress' compliments Lord Frederick. Would you follow me please?"

"Certainly. Should I bring my weapons?"

The courtier looked astonished at the question. "Umm, no?"

I handed them off to a bemused looking Kerrass and quickly threw off my leather jerkin before following the man.

"Can I ask you a question?"

"Sir?"

"When you say that. Whenever you bring a message to someone you say that the person who sent the message is sending their compliments. Did they actually send their compliments?"

"In most cases milord. Certainly in this one. But if I am to be completely honest. Wars have been averted by a messenger interpreting. "Get that stupid fucker here now or I'm going to rip off his testicles." or words to that effect to "The Emperor's compliments Milord. He wondered if you could join him at your _earliest possible convenience_ ,"

"I see."

"Yes sir,"

"Important job then, being an Imperial messenger."

"You could say that Milord."

I was shown into a private room and invited to freshen up. I did so to find that a clean shirt and doublet had been provided. Then I was led into a large room. White marble stone was on the floor and ion the many pillared walls. There were also plants dotted around the place and a large table on one side of the room that was laden down with food.

I was not alone either. There were two Witchers who were stood together at the food table. I recognised one as being Eskel with his heavily scarred face and red studded leather jacket. He was without swords this time but the man he was standing with was a giant. Easily over seven foot tall and as heavily muscled to go with it. A large beard that was plaited with iron rings and various things that I recognised as being charms of various kinds. He wasn't armoured, instead wearing a shirt and some plain woolen trousers that were marked with a crossed pattern of green and blue squares. He and Eskel seemed to know each other so I wandered over to begin to introduce myself.

As I did so Two Sorceresses were shown into the room. I recognised them both, the first from having seen her in person when she was entering with the Empress the previous day. The other I recognised from the numerous wanted posters that had liberally papered both Novigrad and Oxenfurt during Radovid's purging of magic users. Yennefer of Vengerberg and Philippa Eilhart. If only half of what I knew about these two was true, especially with how they felt about each other then neither one of them wanted to be in the same place for any kind of extended period of time.

I've already talked about what Yennefer of Vengerberg looks like. For those who didn't catch the last issue, lets just say that the descriptions of her beauty have not been understated. Hers is a beauty that promises darkness and passion, storms and flurries. I still can't pretend to know the woman and I'm told that she has mellowed considerably from when she was at her most active but even so...

What can I say about Philippa Eilhart that has not already been said by so many people. The pictures that are drawn of her generally included a lot of cleavage with a strap of cloth over her eyes from the time when, supposedly, Kind Radovid himself had those eyes taken out. I can't answer for that as she certainly had eyes when she came into the room. Whereas the Lady Yennefer's beauty puts you in mind of a storm of lightening, wind and rain, Lady Phillipa is about cold and ice. They reminded me of two stern teachers. The one who, if you made her angry would be furious with you and rage, scream and shout before realising that she had gone too far and then given you a boiled sweet. Lady Phillipa was the kind of person who was cool to everyone. If you angered her or, rather, dissappointed her. Then you would never regain her favour. Beautiful? Yes, but in the same way that a statue is beautiful, or a sword can be beautiful. Cold and hard.

I was famished and after introducing myself to the strange Witcher who introduced himself as Uhtred from the Ursine school of Witchers, I grabbed a plate and piled it high with pastries while at the same time trying to avoid the looks of the two women. The fact that the Witchers were also as uncomfortable as I was was not a reassuring factor.

I was right to load myself up with food though as then, in through the doors strode the Empress. I don't know how she had managed it but she had gone from the rough and ready outfit and manner, dirty and sweaty along with the best of us. To being the cold and assured Empress in the same amount of time as it had taken me to have a quick wash and a bite to eat. Not a hair was out of place and her outfit was a similar kind of coat to the one she had been wearing the previous night. I fancied it might be a bit plainer and darker in shade.

She was accompanied by a few other men. One of which I recognised as the Arch-Chancellor of the University of Oxenfurt. The old man is a seasoned campaigner of such things though. A large man, far too used to the oversized dinners that he's expected to attend but that same excess is adjusted by the same fact that he spends the rest of his time on his feet. He's also, the most intelligent man I've ever known. He'd stomped over to the table with the food and piled his own plate high.

"Coulthard," He said by way of greeting, jamming a pastry into his mouth.

"Sir," I said.

He waved his hand dismissively. "You're on the faculty now Coulthard. In fact, I should call you Proffessor really."

"I'm not sure that I could take that from you sir."

He laughed, spraying crumbs everywhere.

"Might we expect a follow up text Coulthard? To your "On Witchers,""

"On what subject Sir?"

"On Vampires? With a special mention regarding mating habits."

He laughed at his own jest.

I considered my response carefully.

"With all due respect Arch-Chancellor. Fuck off."

"Is the right answer Coulthard. Congratulations by the way. I trust there'll be an invite?"

"Of course sir."

"Excellent."

The Empress cleared her throat from where she had been speaking with the two Sorceresses.

"Thank you all for coming. Please take your seats."

The Arch-chancellor picked up a jug of watered wine and brought it over to the table while giving me a huge wink.

To this day, I still can't decide if I like the man. Sometimes he's genial and friendly but sometimes he just makes my fists itch.

I will also just take this opportunity to say 'Hello sir, thank you for reading.'

So we all sat down around the table, drinks were collected and settled before the servants departed.

"Right then." The Empress stood up. "I don't have a lot of time so I'll keep this brief. Sitting round the table we have, Lord knight, Franz Helrich, Knight Marshall of Redania, next to him we have Sir Terrence de Carnier of Temeria. Next to him, Arch-chancellor Phillip of oxenfurt university, Proffessor Frederick de Coulthard, Master Witcher Eskel of the Wolf school and Master Witcher Uhtred of the Bear school of Witchers.

"Continuing round the table, Madame Philippa Eilhart, Madame Yennefer of Vengerberg and Knight Marshalls Kristoff and Chabert of Nilfgaard."

We all nodded awkwardly. I can't speak for anyone else but I considered myself lucky that I knew two of the other people round the table. I noticed that all the military people seemed to know each other though but I didn't know if that was a good thing or not.

"As we sit here the last of my pre-coronation declarations is being made. There are two points to this. The first point is that the remaining Witchers have been working for the betterment of civilisation on the continent for many years. So it has been decided that, from the moment of my crowning. Witchers are to be given the same protections and rights as official Guildsmasters on the continent. This would put them on a par with the Stone-masons guild, the Wood-crafters guild and so on. This is so that what few remaining Witchers there are no longer have to live in fear that they will simply be used as a scapegoat in the matter of...whatever is going on locally. They must be tried properly and according to the law. Breaking of this will be treated just as harshly as if someone attacked or murdered any other guildsman."

She looked us each in the eye.

The force of her personality was telling. I discussed it later with the Arch-Chancellor and he agreed with me.

Whatever we might all feel personally about the Witchers, and certainly I thought that Madame Eilhart did NOT look happy, the Empress said and it thus it was so.

"The second point is this." The Empress went on.

"My father asked me to become his heir and to take up this position for him in an effort to quieten down his critics."

I noticed that the Nilfgaardian knights smiled and squirmed a little.

"I know this but that is not the reason that I accepted the position. That reason is this. Towards the end of the third war with the North, just before the armistice was signed, there was another Conjunction of the spheres."

The room shifted. The Witchers themselves barely reacted but I thought I could see a glimmer in the depths of their eyes. The two women shifted in their seats. I get the feeling that they knew, Lady Philippa was unhappy, even angry while Lady Yennefer was watching the rest of us. The Arch-Chancellor gasped in shock and surprise while the knights shifted uncomfortably in their seats.

"This proves the theory," The Empress went on, I don't think she raised her voice but it felt like her voice was overwhelming the rest of us. "That the conjunction is an astrological effect that happened before the Conjunction that brought magic through with it, and that it will happen again. The Lodge of Sorceresses is working to address this phenomenon in an effort to quantify and measure it in an effort to try to find out when it will happen again so that we can properly plan for it."

"But it will definitely happen again?" The Arch-Chancellor asked.

"Oh yes," Madame Yennefer said.

"Of course it will, don't be a fool," Lady Eilhart's voice was a whip-crack. "It is a magical phenomenon and as such this is beyond doubt. Although I would rather that we had discussed it a little more privately before..."

"That's enough," The Empress said quietly. But her eyes were venomous.

My glance darted from one woman to the other and back. I had the sense that this was an old argument and an old anger.

"This conjunction could not have come at a worse time," The Empress went on. Ignoring the glares that were being sent her way. "The war has weakened both the North and the South, depopulating vast swathes of the countryside and leaving behind far too many corpses to be properly cared for. Both the Witchers and my knights tell me that the number of monsters out there has increased on an exponential level. This coupled with the mutation of many different kinds of monsters..."

"Forgive me Your Majesty. I am just a simple knight... Mutation?" I think it was the Temerian knight.

"Monsters are appearing where they shouldn't be. They are adapting to their environments." The Arch-Chancellor put in.

"In any case." The Empress went on. She seemed calm but also impatient as though she was longingto get this done so that she could get on to something else. "This means that monster population is back on the rise. We need a counter to this problem. There are other solutions that are being considered but one of those solutions both to deal with the existing monster problems as well as any future monster problems from future Conjunctions, is whether or not the Continent needs more Witchers."

There was more shifting of weight and uncomfortable looks between us all.

"What is represented here, is the foremost magical expert on Witchers in Lady Yennefer as she has made an extensive study of them. Also the foremost mundane expert in Proffessor Coulthard. We also have two Witchers, military experts and a civilian expert. What I require from you all is a recommendation on several levels, although I don't need it today, I would like your preliminary thoughts and plans by sundown"

She let a small amount of humour creep into her voice.

"First of all, should it be Witchers?

"Secondly, can we make more Witchers?

"Thirdly, presuming we can, should we make more Witchers?

"Fourthly, How do we set about this task?"

"I want your early thoughts as soon as you can ladies and gentlemen. I'll leave you a scribe to record things. thank you very much."

She just got up and left.

We rose to watch her leave.

Then there was a long period of us standing around looking at each other.

"Well shit," said one of the knights. "What happens now?"

"I think that the Empress has just asked us to form a committee to discuss and formulate an idea of how to fight an unexpected upswing in monster activity." It was lady Yennefer that had spoken. She sat down and crossed her legs before folding her hands in her lap, exactly like a school mistress.

"A committee," Sir Kristtoff's eyebrow's rose sharply.

"Yes," Yennefer's own immaculate eyebrow rose to meet it. "In which case the first thing we should do is to choose a chair-person."

"Which will be whom?" Lady Philippa's voice was dripping with scorn. She was sat with her arms folded across her chest and wore a scowl that threatened to tear the testicles off, or ovaries out of anyone that disagreed with her.

"I nominate the Arch-Chancellor." I said leaning forward. In the corner of the room was a young man in white robe who was busy scratching at a piece of parchment. I recognised shorthand when I saw it. I wandered over and stole a piece of paper and a bit of charcoal for my own notes.

"Seconded," I thought it was Marshall Helrich of Redania that said it.

"Why him?" Lady Eilhart asked, seemingly outraged at the suggestion that it was anyone at all. But if it was going to be someone, then why not her?

"Because he has experience with this kind of thing." I said, passing over a piece of paper and another pencil to the Arch-Chancellor. "Forgive me Madam but, The Lodge of Sorceresses is a democratic system if I understand correctly, each member gets an equal vote on every issue that is debated am I right?"

I didn't get an answer although I saw that Lady Yennefers eyes were gleaming.

"The Witchers are lone huntsman and as such have no experience in running an advisory committee. The same with the military men amongst us as they are men who are used to giving their opinions but then the man at the top makes the decision and that person's word is law. The only person I can see who has any experience at all in running committees is the Arch-Chancellor, who, to my mind at least, seems to do nothing else with his time other than sit on committees."

"Thank you Proffessor," The Arch-chancellor rumbled in a doom laden voice. "Perhaps one day I should retire and name you to the post as a form of vengeance."

"Maybe you will sir, but admit it. You love it really."

The old man harumphed.

"Then there is the first motion." Said the Arch Chancellor. "I am the nominee for chair all those in favour to raise their hands."

It was unanimous. The first to raise their hand was me. The last was Madame Philippa who raised her hand in an effort not to be the lone hold out."

"Well that was easy," The Arch-Chancellor made a note and poured himself a drink. So, we've got four questions before us which boils down to, in my mind, Who? Can? Should? And How? First though I suggest that we all take a moment to get some food and something to drink from the table and take a moment to order our thoughts. These things can be thirsty work."

He was right. I've only ever been in committees that decided things like "What colour should the protest placards be," and things of that nature and those meetings could take all day."

"So where do we start?" The Chancellor began as we all sat down. "It strikes me that this is a chain of questioning. It's not just about Witchers as a whole, forgive me gentlemen,"

Eskel waved a hand, Uhtred seemed amused by the entire thing.

"But what it's about is the question of how to deal with the Monsters. The Empress has suggested that the creation of more Witchers is a solution to the problem. The idea certainly has merit in that it has been done before, that is the solution that everyone will understand and therefore people will listen if we simply say, there are more monsters out there, therefore we need more Witchers.

"On the other hand, the Empress' history with Witchers might be colouring her opinion on the matter. Since the publications of the bards work on the White Wolf of Rivia and, to a lesser extent, the published travel journals of Proffessor Frederick here, there is a certain... glamourisation of Witchers that has taken place. A factor that Proffessor Frederick has pointed out on a couple of occasions to his own credit. Are we just saying, "We have a Witcher shaped hole, therefore we need to fill it with a Witcher shaped peg?

"Coupling this with the fact that I, for one, do not want to go to the Empress after my first official job at her request and say, "We disagree with the solution you gave us Your Majesty and we don't have an alternative," So lets start there. Are Witchers the right solution to this problem or would we, and the Empires subjects, be better served by something else?

"So that is the first question? Opening up to thoughts. Let's keep our first meeting civil if possible and try to put off the hair pulling and name calling until future meetings. Gives us something to look forward to after all."

"Do you think this will take more than one meeting?" Asked Marshall Chabert of Nilfgaard. He was clearly from Toussaint as the golden paint on his armour gave him away as a knight errant. He also seemed faintly horrified at the prospect of further meetings.

"Undoubtedly." said the Arch-Chancellor. "Even, in the highly unlikely event of us coming up with a definitive plan and solution to the problems caused by this and future Conjunctions. That plan would still need to be implemented. Then it will go wrong, because it always does, and we will absolutely be called on to fix it afterwards."

"I see," Chabert slouched in his chair and poured himself some more Wine.

"So, any thoughts jumping out."

"Yes, I have a thought." Lady Eilhart leant forward. "This entire process is a pantomime and we should stop wasting each others time. The matter should be turned over to the Magic users of the continent completely and utterly."

I thought that the Arch-chancellor was very diplomatic really. He made a small note on his paper and said nothing.

"But how's that madam? The number of magic users in the world has been decimated." Knight Marshall Kristoff of Nilfgaard.

Sorry for keeping on writing the names and titles down. There were a lot of people talking, often at the same time so I don't want any confusion about who said what.

"Yes, Thrown on pyres of righteousness by knights and people like you."

"But not me Madam." Kristoff went on. "Nor by anyone under my command certainly. Also, Magic users were not the only victims of those flames. There were also many non-humans, innocent humans, political victims and even one or two Witchers themselves I understand. Prosecuted for the crime of defending themselves from angry mobs who were marching them to the lynching tree. The fact remains that if the monster population has gone up then there will need to be a solution that comes in many parts.

"I, for one am happy to accept that the Lodge and...Is there a new council of mages yet? No? Then I am happy to accept that the Lodge can, and will devote itself to the matter of the conjunction itself to either prevent or mitigate it's effects. But what about everything that has come through in the mean time. Those things need hunting and destroying. Are there enough Sorceresses and mages to deal with each and every colony of Nekkers on my fathers lands? There are quite a few of them."

Lady Eilhart bristled and had opened her mouth to speak but the Arch-Chancellor jumped in. "So there we have the first alternative suggested. That the magic users of the continent deal with the problem so Lady Eilhart is that possible?"

"Yes."

"It is?"

"Yes,"

"Really?"

"Yes."

"So the members of the Lodge, and I'm not going to ask how many of you there are, but the members of the Lodge are going to sort out the problem regarding the Conjunction of Spheres, as well as identifying all the monsters that came through after the most recent instance before destroying them all en masse? That's a lot of work especially as at least one of your number has her hands full advising King Tankred of Kovir and another member is busy running the rest of the world. That's a lot to take on. I imagine that you can do this because magic is unquantifiably powerful. So how long is this going to take?"

Lady Eilhart opened her mouth to speak but I thought I heard something and my eyes quickly darted to Lady Yennefer who was just lowering her hand from her mouth. The sound I had heard was the lady coughing.

Lady Eilhart subsided.

"It is my view that the vast majority of the surviving magic users will not come forth to help." Sir Kristoff said tentatively into the uncomfortable silence. "The Northerners are not alone in their... prejudices." He smiled apologetically to the two women. "The Empire is just as guilty of looking down on magic users and seeking to throw constraints on them, their power and their behaviour both by law and by other means. If I were a magic user I would want to stay in hiding for a bit longer at least to make sure that the persecutions are not going to take up again from where they left off under the Empress."

There was some more general mumbling of agreement about this, including from me. "I don't know about magic milady but I do know about strategy. The one thing that the rest of us can't do is to deal with the problem of the Conjunction itself. That uses forces that we don't understand. Solving or lessening that problem should be the best use of the magic users time and energy."

"I agree," said Lord Helrich of Redania. "There would then be the matter of, with the relatively small number of magic users, where would they go? To deal with what? When? How much is that going to cost? How long will that take? Who has priority? A Dragon that is attacking a tiny, mostly deserted town or the nekker underneath a larger urban area? We need a larger more numerous solution to the problem than a handful of magic users, no matter how talented and beautiful they might be."

The attempt of charm from the knight marshal was misplaced and only resulted in a look of scorn from madame Yennefer and a sneer from Madame Philippa.

"What I don't understand is this," the Knight marshal went on. "People keep telling me that there is an abundance of monsters and brigands and that this is brought on by the end of the three wars and the depopulation and demobilisation of the military. We also know that the large standing armies of Nilfgaard are costly and that the empire can't afford to have them standing around, drawing pay and not doing anything. Why not use that one problem to solve another? Use the army to end these threats. It wouldn't take more than a good squad of soldiers to deal with a set of Nekkers would it? With all due respect to the Witchers around the table it would strike me that the simple solution here is the best.

"With all due respect Marshall but that simply won't work?" Eskel said leaning forward.

"With all due respect Master Witcher, but why not?"

"In this case, lets admit that I have hunted more monsters than you. On a regular basis I came across cases where there is a known monster, a Griffin say, that is attacking nearby villagers. The local Lord sends a bunch of soldiers. The Griffin kills the soldiers but becomes injured. Nothing serious but now it's pissed off and sees humans as a threat and goes berzerk. Soldiers and knights simply lack the training to know what they're talking about and will get themselves killed at best, or get other people killed at worst. Believe me Marshall, even the smallest and most timid Nekker or similar Goblinoid has claws that will make mockery of all but the toughest plate."

"I'm glad to see that you value soldiers lives below local villagers lives Master Witcher," The Knight Marshall commented.

"That's not what I'm saying."

"Is it not?"

"Gentlemen," snapped the Arch-Chancellor quelling the raised voices instantly.

"There is another problem with using knights or men at arms that belong to armies or noble lords." Said Sir Terrence of Redania. "Best will in the world but what if the knights or soldiers answer to one lord. There is a monster problem just over the border on his neighbours land. Unfortunately the neighbour recently insulted the Lords wife. Would he send soldiers to help? Or would he purposefully with hold aid in an effort to make his point meaning, that more die or the monster has room to breed."

"Further than that," Gottfried of Nilfgaard added. "Lets say I hear about a monster threat in, say, the client state of Rivia. Lets say an outbreak of Ghouls. I decide to send a Regiment of men at arms along with twenty or so knights as command. I hear about this threat from the villagers and the traders that come to me from Rivia. I send my forces. In the meantime the Rivian authorities have also heard about this threat. They have set out to deal with it. But then they hear that I, a Nilfgaardian noble have sent out a force of men. I reacted quickly to sort the problem out as fast as possible and the messenger that I have sent is lost or is disbelieved. So suddenly, what the Rivians see is an invading or a raiding force of men. Wars have begun in such a manner."

"So what would need to happen would be that there would need to be a portion of monster hunting knights or soldiers assigned to territories and then the cases get assigned according to territory," mused Marshall Chabert.

"Yes in theory," Gottfried countered. "But what if the force is in one part of their province but there's a monster outbreak elsewhere. In the meantime there are other provinces where the monster hunting regiment is employed to sit around and polish their armour. I doubt very much that the monsters would behave according to our border controls."

Witcher Uhtred sniggered at the thought

"Monsters do migrate." Eskel pointed out. "They change and mutate and go where the feeding is easiest but that only covers the less intelligent species."

"So what we would be looking at would be small units of centrally governed knights who take their orders, only from their own hierarchy that nobles are expected to allow through their lands without challenge."

Knight Marshall Helrich shifted in his chair uncomfortably. "This isn't as easy as I thought."

"What about the church knights?" Sir Terrence asked. "We had a group of them in Temeria. The Flaming Rose? Admittedly they were lead by a religious fanatic who tried to usurp the throne but at the same time, they did their best to hunt out the monsters."

"Yes, but didn't they also decide that magic-users and non-humans were also monsters." Said Madame Yennefer. The first words she had said aloud were startling. "Also the royal family of Temeria as was as well as anyone who disagreed with them as I recall."

"Yes, I realised how ridiculous it sounded as I began to say it out loud. But in theory the principle is sound."

"In theory?" Marhsall Chabert piped up. He was pulling on his moustaches. "In theory yes. But there's a reason that the knight's errant of Toussaint are constrained by so many rules. If you follow them up accordingly it means that they can't really do anything without breaking one of them as they trap themselves in a web of chivalric nonsense."

"A chivalric nonsense that you follow Sir knight?"

"Well of course." Chabert explained. "Otherwise, what's the point. But just because I follow it doesn't mean I don't also know how stupid it all is."

"There's another problem with church knights or any kind of knightly order on that line." Gottfried again.

"The knights themselves have a tendency to decide what a monster is and what they aren't."

"And Witchers don't?" Asked Franz Helrich.

"Of course they do. But their codes are solely to do with monsters. Religious orders are founded on religions. What if a village is suffering under the boot of a hag of some kind whether it's a Grave, swamp or sewage Hag. Passing holy knight hears about this but discovers that there's a shrine to Veyopatis in the village. Obviously then this village is heretical and the hag is the village's just punishment. Knight moves on. Village continues to languish."

"But if the person answers to a higher authority... If the knight gets ordered to do the killing by their local priest say..."

"Ok. Let's suppose. Just suppose that the local priest is good and kind and just. What about the next local priest, or the next one. Running it from the top. Is the master of the knights true, just and incorruptible. If he, or she begging the ladies pardon, is? Is his Secretary? How about his second in command? How about the third? How about the local administrators? Suddenly it gets around that one administrator is taking bribes to send the knights over to one province over the next making it look as though one lord has more armed forces than the other and these knights are just one more political tool over another."

"Speaking as a Witcher," Uhtred spoke for the first time. "The number of times people try to use us as political tools is rather...annoying." His voice was curiously higher pitched than I had expected.

Silence reigned for a bit longer.

"We're nowhere," said the Arch-Chancellor. "Time for a break. I suggest we return to the table with a mind set of, "Why Witchers?" now rather than anything else."

"That's a short time between breaks." Lady Philippa commented acidly.

"This thinking and debating is thirsty and hungry work," The Arch-Chancellor commented slapping his belly. "You didn't think I got my heroic frame from spending days in the exercise yard did you?"

He ignored her quick retort and went back to the table for another plate of food.

"Ok." He said as we all sat back down. I noticed that only he had a full plate of food. The Sorceresses had a bunch of grapes to share between them but everyone else was pacing themselves with the jugs of watered wine. There was a better than evens chance that one or two of the knights marshal would be pissed before the meeting was over. Then the thought occurred that maybe this was the Arch-Chancellor's strategy.

"So, We've talked about knights and we've shot down each others points for a little while now. According to my notes here, knights or soldiers are under-trained and under equipped for the threats that they would be expected to face on a daily basis."

"Under trained? Not that I'm arguing the point but why do we think that?" Gottfried asked.

"What's the difference between a Royal Griffin and a normal one?" asked Eskel. "Of those which is the more dangerous, a female or a male? When? Why is it more dangerous? how do you counter that? Lets say that it's a male Royal Griffin. Does it hunt at night or during the day? What does it hunt? Where does it prefer to nest? Is it better to try and drug it like a cobbler would drug a dragon or is it better to set a trap? Or wait for it to be asleep? If it's asleep, what time of day or night is it more likely to be faster asleep?"

"Right then, I get the picture."

"That's just royal Griffin's you understand. What about Cockatrices?"

"Ok enough enough." The knight Marshall laughed a little and waved his hands in surrender.

"Not to belabour the point," Eskel went on, "But Witchers are trained to think creatively and as individuals, whereas soldiers, whether on foot or on horseback, are trained to think as part of units and to always, always follow the orders of your superiors. Imagination is death to a soldier as when you are given an order you must follow that order instantly and without question, and an imagination defeats that. Whereas a Witcher needs to examine the possibilities."

"A student of tactics master Witcher?"

"Everyone has to have a hobby."

"I for one am sold on the idea of Witchers." Said Marshall Gottfried. "I have had the opportunity to hire one myself and the man seemed eminently sensible to me. Rude and a little bit of an inflated sense of self worth but on the whole they made sense to me."

"I'm not as convinced," Franz-Hubert spoke up. "I don't like the idea of an elite fighting unit in the hands of anyone, without some kind of oversight."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, lets say we create a new bath of Witchers. Lets also say that they go out into the world with the best of intentions. Then lets say that they get caught up in one cause or another despite their own best intentions. These people are men after all. And men, no matter how hard they try, can be manipulated. The most famous Witcher in the world, the White Wolf, was easily manipulated many times by, begging the ladies pardon, Sorceresses, Kings and creatures all the time."

"I'm not saying that I disagree with you Lord Hubert," Said Chabert, "But the Witcher's code of neutrality is famous enough that even I have heard about it. The White Wolf in question tends to get quite poetic on the subject.

"Yes, but according to that same ballad, the White Wolf also forgot his own neutrality on many separate occasions. And he is just one amongst many."

"That is why the declaration that Witchers fall under the rules set aside by the craftsman guild charter is so important," Said Gottfried. "Not only would Witchers be trained to believe in Neutrality but they would be required, by law, to follow that rule. The code of the Witchers which, even to me, seems to shift and change according to which Witcher you talk to, would now be enforcible."

"That is a valid point."

"As Master Eskel points out. Witchers are individual fighters. One Witcher can deflect a bolt in flight. I've even seen this technique demonstrated but the manouver needs room to move. In a military situation, the Witcher would have difficulty against two, or three trained bowmen negating his advantage in military situations."

"True,"

"A guild of monster exterminators is an attractive one," said Chabert. "Even the Rat-catchers have their own guild. It's just that this would be a different guild. Like a craft guild even."

"Mmm," Grunted Franz-Hubert and I had the impression that he was beginning to allow himself to be persuaded. "So, an independent guild of monster-slayers. Independent of crown and church. But why Witchers. Why not normal man? I'm sure that there is a reason that this is the case but what is it?"

"Master Witchers?" The Arch-Chancellor raised his eyebrow in their direction. "I can understand your desire to stay quiet on many of these matters but surely this is a point at which your input could make a difference."

"Undoubtedly." Said Eskel. "Unfortunately I am not really in a position to properly define the answer here."

The two of them looked at each other before they sighed. In the end it was Uhtred that spoke.

"Do you know what a Kikkimore is gentlemen? I know that the honoured ladies will be aware."

There was some shifting of weight. Even the bravest soldiers still don't want to be the first to hold their hands up in class.

"It's an insectoid species." I said. "Ranging from the size of large hounds or ponies but can grow up to the size of a decent war-horse and in the case of the hive Queen then they can stand at ten to twelve feet high from foot to shoulder. Organisation of the hive can roughly be acquainted to that of ants or bees but that would be an oversimplification and it would be a mistake to assume that these creatures are stupid."

"In broad terms that is correct."

"In broad terms," I agreed. "I flatter the assembly that they can do without the full lecture and diagrams."

I saw a couple of smirks quickly subdued including from Eskel.

"I have here a sample of Kikkimore venom." said Uhtred pulling out a glass vial, half filled with some viscous, unpleasant looking liquid. "There are a couple of hives in Toussaint if you know where to look. They are tolerated here because they churn the soil and their secretions help the ground be of suitable acidic and alkali levels which helps in the growth of fruit bearing plants. It also means that the knights errant have something to train against."

Marshall Chabert grinned at some kind of private memory. Uhtred continued.

"I went there in an effort to harvest some things for some potions as they can be useful in their purest form as I'm sure the ladies will attest. Kikkimore warriors, the horse sized ones, spit this stuff. It is both a paralytic as well as being acidic." He removed the lid from the vial and an acrid,, eye-watering scent filled the room. He rose and went over to where the food rested and came back with a large hunk of ham and a small plate.

"Starting with the ham." He poured out a couple of drops of the liquid onto the ham. I had seen this kind of demonstration before as Kerrass had performed a similar stunt while delivering a lecture at the university. The point of the ham where the liquid touched started to smoke and hiss violently. Then it started to burn before our eyes. As the stain spread the process slowed but it was no less virulent.

"Anyone care for a slice?" The Arch-chancellor quipped. I had forgotten that he had been at the demonstration as well. The smell was putrid in the air. Uhtred tipped the ham into the fireplace.

"Imagine that stuff in contact with a human skin." he said, "Now the same demonstration but with this metal plate."

Again, a little drop. Again, similar discolouration, hissing and smoking. After a minute or so the hissing and the billowing stopped. Uhtred showed the plate around, a large circle of darkened metal showed itself. "Not much to look at," the Witcher said before poking his finger through the circle which crumbled.

"Any questions?"

"Why would you want to harvest such stuff?" asked someone, I think it was Sir Terrence of Temeria,

"Interesting question," said Uhtred with an unpleasant smile. "Bottoms up." He drank off the vial of liquid before pulling a face.

"Tastes like ass though. Now a further demonstration. Anyone care to volunteer? more dramatic for a military type than any of our erstwhile scholars though."

Franz-Hubert rose. "I will as I asked the question."

"Stand facing me sir Knight." They did so. "Now then Sir knight. The purpose of the exercise is this. Kikkimore venom is one of the ingredients that we use in our potions to increase our reflexes speed."

His words began to slur at the end.

"There are some side-effects though as you can see." He was blinking furiously for a second and his breathing deepened. "Very well Sir Knight. I am going to remove a single hair from your head. Your task is to stop me. If my hand comes away with more than one hair, I fail. Arms down by our sides to begin. Ready?"

"Yes."

"Then I shall begin."

There was a pause before Uhtred's hand snapped forward. Franz-Hubert had enough time to flinch away before his hand slapped the side of his head. Uhtred held his hand open for the knight's inspection who then paled.

Eskel passed a cup of milk to the bear Witcher who downed it quickly.

"We brew the stuff to minimise the side-effects and to increase the benefits," Eskel said. "However to a human it is lethal. Witchers are immune to poisons and diseases that monsters carry around with them. Or the poisons and diseases that come with the habitats that the monsters live in. Monster hunting could be deadly to humans, long before they even get to the monster. Why Witchers over normal men? Let me ask another question Sir Knights. Would you prefer a cheap sword that your castle blacksmith turns out at at a rate of three an hour. Or would you prefer one of the finest works of dwarven steel made with all the artistry and mechanical innovation that the dwarves and the gnomes before them have mustered."

"I once heard it described as the "boot theory" of economics." I said. "A poor man buys a shitty pair of boots that wears out in six months. A rick man buys a pair of boots that are three times as expensive but last him for three years. Over that three months the poor man spends twice the amount of money on boots as the rich man and his feet are still wet."

"Not that we Witchers like being compared to swords or boots," Uhtred had recovered a little from the diluted potion effects. "But that is what we're talking about. Any number of Monsters, werewolves, Striga's, shapechangers, the many different varieties of Necromorphs... All of them would think nothing of even the finest armour and the best made swords would bounce off their hides. A Witcher is a highly trained, highly crafted monster killing machine. Do the job properly or don't do it at all is one of the things that my school teaches us."

"So Witchers then," said the Arch-chancellor after several moments. Any further thoughts?"

There were none. The point had been made.

"So we move on to the question of, can we make more Witchers. This question, I think, goes over to the ladies and again back to the Witchers. Can it be done?"

"The creation of more Witchers?" Lady Eilhart perked up a little bit after, to all intents and purposes, been consumed with an inspection of what was under her fingernails. "Can it be done? I am unsure. The creation of things that are similar to Witchers? Almost certainly. I would recommend some changes in my case. I think that Witchers in general can be rather too wilfull in my opinion."

Eskel surprised me by laughing aloud. "Really? I am against this situation from the off. But really Philippa, do you hate us that much?"

"Witchers are an anachronism?" Lady Eilhart went on hotly. "They are out of date. There are other, more efficient ways."

"Which are? Do enlighten us? You say that we can be too wilfull? Is your intention to breed a slave race of super mutants that can..."

"Magic is..."

"Really madam, this has already been discussed and we have moved past the part where this was brought up. But if you wish," The Arch-Chancellor made his voice stern, "If the Magic users can rid the continent of monsters then why has it not done so? If the magic users cared enough to be pillars of the community then why were they feared so much? If the magic users were so _useful_ then why have they not been of use? Forgive me madam but your protests strike me as nothing more than the fear of a woman who is scared that she is about to become redundant. A fear, I suggest that might become very real indeed."

"How dare you sir?"

"I dare because I dare madam. You forget that the study of magic is in your purview but the study of history is mine. As is the study of people. The reason why people fear magic users is because of their otherness. They see mages and Sorcerers and Wizards and Witches hold themselves above the rest of us and expect to be bowed down to at every stage. But then when they are asked why that should be the case, the response is always the same. Why are you better than us? Because you control magic. Why can't you change the world? Because magic doesn't work like that. Why couldn't you stop all the people from dying of dysentery? Because magic has limits. So tell me this Madam. Give me some definitive answers right here and now, with time scales as to when these goals can be fulfilled, if you please, and I will march up to the Empress right now and say that the matter should be handed over to you. You ready? When will the Conjunction of spheres happen again?"

Lady Eilhart said nothing.

"How many monsters came through during the conjunction that the Empress just described to us?"

Lady Eilhart said nothing.

"Leaving aside what defines a monster for a moment, how many non human, elf, dwarf, gnome or halflings are there?" Lets make it easy for you shall we? How many Kikkimores in their many various and wondrous varieties are there on the continent?"

"Such things would take time?"

"How much time? When will you have a solution? When can we expect these monsters to be wiped out. A year? A month? A decade? What if you miss one, or two or a dozen?"

Lady Eilhart finally lowered her gaze.

The room was appalled. I had seen the Arch-chancellor lose his temper before but this seemed a little excessive.

"The fact remains that there are monsters. As Master Uhtred and Sir Chabert will tell us, the soil of Toussaint is uniquely capable of producing the best wines. That is due to the volcanic nature of the soil but it is also due to the Kikkimores and the other giant insects that raise the chemical content of the soil. I don't think that the Wine merchants themselves would thank us if we destroyed every monster indiscriminately. By now some "monsters" have become part of the local ecology or have even integrated into society. We need a thinking, self governing solution. Simply waving our hands and saying. "Magic will sort things out," will not be seen as satisfactory. For perfectly valid reasons too, because it is not satisfactory. None of the rest of us can do anything about the next conjunction of the spheres, that is a magical phenomenon and as such, the Lodge and any other council is welcome, if not required to take a hand in that. But as for the monsters? We need something else."

Lady Philippa rose to her feet and left the room.

The Arch-Chancellor rubbed his temples a little. "Was it something I said?" he wondered.

"Not invalid points Arch-Chancellor." Lady Yennefer pulled her chair closer to the table as she spoke. "They could just have been made a little better to someone with Phil's temperament. She lost a lot. _We_ , lost a lot,"

The Arch-Chancellor bridled a little. "We all did under Radovid madam. We all did."

Madame Yennefer held her hand up placatingly. "I know that sir, I really do. Oxenfurt and the university took some hard blows in those years. Let me answer for my colleague. Can it be done? Yes. Almost certainly but it would need some testing to make it precise. The help of the Witchers that survive would be invaluable but there is one Witcher whose help I would need the most. I notice that he isn't here however."

"And why is that?"

"Because Sir Terrence of Temeria here would kill him on sight."

"You refer to the Kingslayer?" Sir Terrence grimaced. "I would at that although I understand he aided in saving the Empress' life. But he killed my King. That is a hard thing to get past."

"Nevertheless." Yennefer went on. "He is, as far as I know, the only surviving Witcher from the Viper school and the Vipers knew more about Alchemy than the entirety of the Lodge of Sorceresses put together. If the formulae exist anywhere then they exist in Letho's head. And from what I've read recently," I was astonished as she nodded to me, "The Kingslayer would not agree to the production of more Witchers and with good reasons too."

"He is not the only one." Said Eskel. "I read the same account from our learned friend. Letho is right, what was done to us was monstrous and what we went on to do to each other was equally as monstrous. We have, all of us, independently of each other and together decided that we would never be party to performing any of those things to people again. Not to children. Not to anyone. I dare say that I would not be alone in ensuring my death in such a way that my body would be destroyed before I helped create more Witchers and I would fight to rescue any who were taken against there will to help make this happen."

It was the way he said it so...matter of factly that struck home with me.

Yennefer grimaced although I suspected that she had known what the response would be for a while.

"So there it is." said Gottfried of Nilfgaard. "Back to the beginning again."

"There is one person whose voice we haven't heard from yet," said Madame Yennefer. "Proffessor Frederick. You have been very quiet through this entire discussion."

"Yes I have," I answered.

"May we ask why?"

I smiled. "Partly it's because I was only made Proffessor of Anthropology yesterday and now I'm discussing things with some of the greatest minds on the continent. You might give me a bit of warning before I get to be so utterly overwhelmed."

The comment had the effect that I wanted in that several people started to chuckle and so the tension broke.

"I understand you also got engaged as well." said Marshal Chabert. "Forgive me Professor I should have offered proper congratulations, or is it commiserations?" He winked at me.

"I've met the lady." said Eskel. "It could go either way." There was a bit more laughter which I accepted.

"Here's my thinking, for what it's worth." I continued, "I am an outsider who's spent a good amount of the last two years following a Witcher around. I have seen most of what happens to Witchers, the prejudice and the adulation. I have also seen the enormous pressure that they are put under both physically and mentally and I have also seen the anguish of a man who doesn't know if he is less than human or more so. I admire Witchers but on more than one occasion I have been forced to pity them. Which I may say made my friend rather angry when he caught me doing it."

There was a bit more laughter as I felt the room beginning to relax.

"When the Empress said that she wanted there to be more Witchers I found that I was glad. As a historian and a friend of, I hope, more than one Witcher, I think it would be a colossal shame if the Witchers died out. I think that the continent owes the Witchers a colossal debt which we have repaid...poorly. However I have also been shown a little bit of what the Witchers had to go through and I can understand their reluctance to help produce new Witchers. Especially as most of the students died and more recently, they were killed as scape-goats and excuses. I notice, for instance that although much has been said of the deaths of the magic users and the non-humans, nothing has been said of those Witchers that were fed to the flames or were killed while defending themselves.

"Remember that only thirty to forty percent of students were expected to survive their change. In some cases even that was overly optimistic. And those deaths would not have been pleasant as they literally shat their brains out or spasmed so hard that their limbs shattered. Who do we consign to those odds? Orphans? Foundlings? disabled children? Volunteers? children who would not survive otherwise? those rural communities that sometimes kill one child to save the rest of their families? Even that is an awful prospect so I can absolutely understand the Witcher's reluctance. It is a reluctance that I share."

"I am not reluctant," said Eskel "I simply refuse outright."

"I'm sorry, I mis-spoke so let me be clear. I would destroy what few notes I have on the creation of Witchers before I let them be used in that manner. I don't have a lot though as I went out of my way to avoid the topic in the first place. However there is a mistake here that is not taken into account. That is that the processes themselves have not been refined or adjusted or even worked on at all since they were first implemented what, over two hundred and fifty years ago?"

"About that?" said Eskel. I saw Madame Yennefer nod.

"Then I suggest this." I went on. "We need Witchers. But we think of Witchers as the people who were produced using the old methods. Surely the science and magic and...knowledge about it all has improved since then. The conditions that the first Witchers worked under were barbaric. Can we not refine them? Let's say this. The Witchers sit down with the Alchemists and the Sorcerers and say. This is what I can do. This is the level that future Witchers need to be able to operate at or better. They need to be _so_ fast and _so_ strong. They need to be able to resist _these_ kinds of poisons and have a reaction speed of _this_ much as well as being able to see in darkness. The Alchemists and the Sorcerers get together and figure out a way to make that work. Then they work on it and figure out ways that they can make the process of becoming a Witcher more survivable.

"I know that the Feline Witchers had a test to see if a child had the necessary, presumably, racial gene to accept their mutagens. Can there be a test that could be administered that says whether or not a person could accept the mutagens before hand?

"I don't know how of course but could that be done?"

"I think it's worth exploring?" said Yennefer.

"Then that's a good place to start." I said. "Let's work it out. How can we make the process of becoming a Witcher less painful and more survivable. How much of the trials were tradition and how much can be boiled down to hard science?"

"There is always the fear though." Eskel said. "That the formula would be used by world leaders to make super soldiers which could lead to the bias of racial purety."

"That's easy," I said. "Witcher oversight. I understand that Madame Yennefer is linked to a Witcher on a romantic level. The labs and work stations will be kept in his estates. The instant that he is unhappy then he sets fire to all of them. It's not perfect but it starts with choosing the right people for the job."

"Mmm," Eskel grunted. He still wasn't happy but I could see that he was more open to the idea.

"Ok then, Madame Yennefer will you undertake to begin this process?" asked the Arch-Chancellor.

"I will. I can think of a couple of names to begin to work with."

"Including Letho?" I asked.

"Maybe," she grinned slyly. "He and I don't get on that well."

"Imagine that," I said pretending to be shocked. "When the two of you are so known for your gentleness and the charming friendliness in your characters."

"Just keep him away from the Temerians." said Sir Terrence rising and stretching. "I'm a relaxed kind of fellow but some of us are a bit more..."

"Direct," suggested Gottfried.

"I was going to say, "Opinionated,"" Sir Terrence saluted the room and left followed by Franz Hubert and I saw the two of them walking down the corridor outside the room with their heads together.

"Hmm," said the Arch-Chancellor commented. "If those two don't conspire to have you followed to get at the Kingslayer then I will be surprised."

"I had a similar thought Arch-Chancellor." Yennefer commented. "Best not to worry though." She nodded to the two Witchers. I was surprised to see Eskel look uncomfortable. But I was more surprised as she came round the table to me. "Well done," she said taking my hand and shaking it firmly. "Very well done," before turning on her heel and leaving.

"Be careful," was what Eskel said as he walked past me. Uhtred nodded companionably.

"What was all that about?" I asked the Arch-Chancellor.

"Who knows? Sorceresses and Witchers." he shrugged and gathered up the considerable amount of notes that he had made. "I'd have nothing to do with them if I were you." He sniffed hugely. "Bit late really considering your circumstances. Oh and Proffessor,"

"Sir?"

"Get used to calling me Phillip would you?"

"Yes sir. I'll try sir."

He cuffed me round the ear. A habit that he had used during his teaching days.

For the rest of the day, nothing happened. Believe me when I say that I've been over the events of that day over and over again in an effort to see if there was some kind of clue that I missed. Something that I could have done to prevent disaster or otherwise make events turn out differently but sooner or later, I had to come to the decision that there was nothing that I could have done. Nothing that I could have said that would have made life different or end up with a different outcome.

After the meeting it was mid afternoon. I had a bit more lunch with the Arch-Chancellor where we talked about my Thesis, which he had read, although he did have some pointers. I asked him what he thought of the Empress and what he thought of the process of the meeting as a whole. I remember one exchange that I found very telling.

"If we think," he said while chewing a piece of sausage. "If any of us think for one moment think that that meeting would have gone a different way, then we would have been sadly fucking mistaken. The Empress had already made her mind up. There _will_ be a new Witcher school sooner or later because the Empress has decided that we need one. She convened a committee to talk it through in an effort to let a certain number of experts and things come to the same conclusion.

"But if we had obstinately refused to support the creation of new Witchers then we would have been portrayed as being backward looking stick in the muds. You notice who were the members of the committee. You notice that there weren't any churchmen present, of any religion. How much are you willing to bet me that Lady Eilhart invited herself rather than being invited. I'd bet money that the Empress wanted Lady Yennefer and one other mage for balance. Yennefer brought Lady Eilhart. The Empress invites you, the newest professor whose best friend is a Witcher. If it wasn't you, I would suggest that Dandelion would have been here as the next most suitable academic expert on Witchers, Proffessor of poetry though he may be and despite Duchess Anna Henrietta's requests.

"Two Witchers," he went on. "One a Wolf who is wrapped so tightly round the Empress' finger that he doesn't even know it, and the other a bear. Did you know that he's the only bear that is visiting? Four bears and five Cats, but the Empress didn't want a feline Witcher who would only remind everyone of what happens when the process can go wrong.

"The Empress is an incredible mind and she's learned her tactics, strategy and politicking at the feet of the masters of those arts. The Witchers, Queen Calanthe, Emperor Emhyr and the school of having to live in the real world on her wits alone. She's going to leave everyone standing, if she can survive."

"If she can survive?"

"Oh Yes. She's already bringing change just by being a powerful woman. Off the top of my head I can think of several dozen stick in the mud old Lords who are already hating the fact that she even exists. If there hasn't already been an assassination attempt on her life already I would be astonished."

I grunted in agreement.

The Arch-Chancellor then went off to enjoy the sights and sounds of the city and to make his report. Emma was due to be in negotiations for the rest of the day. What I wanted was to find somewhere quiet and dark where I could set about processing all the incredible things that had happened over the last couple of days.

Failing that I wanted to find Ariadne and spend some time talking with her. I wanted to plan for the future and to throw around ideas like, where are we going to live and what are we going to do with ourselves but mostly I just wanted to sit and look at her, knowing that I had the right and the privilege to just sit and look at the woman that was going to be my wife. Also, I wanted to spend some time getting used to that fact. I was still very aware that I needed to reconcile the fact that I wasn't marrying a human woman but marrying an elder vampire. I was under no illusion. That was going to take work.

But time was a luxury that I didn't really have. I also knew that I would regret not going around and seeing the sights of Toussaint when, arguably, the relatively small Duchy was at it's best so instead I went down into the town and watched some street performers, attended a wine tasting and watched a brief piece of street theatre. A blatant piece of propaganda by a troupe who were clearly trying to get noticed enough to play somewhere bigger and more important. They weren't going to be successful.

My target was the tourney fields though. I've attended tournaments before but I had never been to one with this amount of pageantry, pomp and ceremony. As Sammy was taking part I managed to find that our family had been given some space in the stalls. Francesca was there along with Mark and Laurelen. Mark was cheering Sam on when it came round to his turn to tilt and, much to my pleasure, he and Laurelen had found some common ground in that they both had a fascination of the sport of jousting and spent the time commenting on the technique and virtues of the various contestants.

I spent the time catching up with my little sister. Chatting and joking. She interrogated me about Ariadne mostly asking me the same questions over and over and over again. In turn I asked her about the many men that were paying court to her. A thing that she was clearly enjoying immensely. It seemed that the Empress had declared that she wasn't going to be allowed to marry for some time yet and as a result she could just sit back and enjoy the poems and the gifts, the dancing and the sly looks and winks.

I was so happy for her. She deserved her happiness and she was clearly thriving with it. I told her that in no uncertain terms I absolutely needed to inspect whoever it was that she intended to allow to court her to ensure that the man wasn't a cad. She seemed dismayed at the prospect much to my amusement. She received a message as the evening fell which she showed me saying that the Empress wanted her so she kissed me on the cheek and left.

I spent the rest of the early evening with Mark and Laurelen, cheering on Sammy before returning back to the villa to change for the evening's excitement. There was a ball that night up at the palace and we were expected. We had been told that Emma would already be there so once again I found myself escorting a beautiful blonde haired Sorceress up the hill towards the palace to the misplaced envy of just about the entire world.

The ball was pleasant enough although the room was a little too stuffy for my taste and many times I had to escape into the evening air just so that I could breathe. I also struggle with the food at these kinds of things. It's always these little nibble bits that never quite fill me up while at the same time being massively rich and overwhelming so I always end up feeling far too full but not in the least bit satisfied. I managed to get in a few dances though. Many with my sister and at her urging I took Laurelen out onto the dance floor for several turns around the place. According to the Sorceress the two of them had tried dancing together and although the Toussaint courtiers approved of the two women being in love, the sight of them being so blatant was possibly a little bit too much for the more conservative lords that were attending from the far reaches of the Empire.

The highlight of the evening was when I got to dance with Ariadne. She had clearly been learning to dance for some time but despite being tall, beautiful, graceful and elegant she was also endearingly clumsy at the dance. She promised that she would be better before our wedding day, a promise that made me flush tot he amusement of many of the nearest dancers.

The evening came to an end much sooner than I had anticipated though as several people, especially Emma, suggested that we might be better off conserving our energy for the day ahead. The coronation was going to be long and arduous and it was possibly unwise to be partying the night away so we retired early. We were not alone in doing so.

I wish I could say that I was restless that night. That some kind of premonition kept me awake or that I tossed and turned. I wish I could say that I had nightmares. But I didn't. I slept like a log.

We woke early and had a sizeable breakfast before we all trooped down to the baths to ensure our cleanliness. I shaved, again, and had my hair arranged by the local barbers until I met my sisters exacting requirements before I was fitted with my proper, pomp and ceremony clothing. Shoes to a mirror shine, colours so bright as to hurt the eyes with not a thread or a stitch out of place. Emma was similarly attired in our formal colours while Laurelen wore a dress which complimented those same colours while not actually saying that she was part of the family. A political decision which clearly caused both of them a little pain. I remember resolving to doing something about that when we returned to Redania.

Heh. The things that we remember.

For those people that are not aware of how these things work, the Empress had spent the night outside the city somewhere where she could prepare in private. She would then ride up to the palace so that the subjects would be able to see her and be seen by her. We also knew that she would be surrounded by an honour guard made up of the Witchers and the Imperial guard led by Morvran Voorhis and would be accompanied by her ladies including Francesca as her sword bearer. There were also guardsmen all over the rooftops like black crows watching everyone moving around. We had already been warned that anyone who carried anything larger than an eating knife out of doors would be arrested on sight. Sam met us having come up from his pavillion looking a little bit the worse for wear as he had lost a couple of his bouts the previous day and was now out of the running for the championship. But even my amateur eye told me that he had done well to get as far as he had. He was unarmed and wearing a slightly more martial version of the clothing that I wore that Emma had sent down for him. Mark would be sitting with the Church delegation.

Before the Empress was due to be crowned, Heralds and pages were sent out in order to bring us to our correct seating. The more important you were the later you were fetched which meant that those Kings and Queens that were in attendance were the last to be gathered and escorted in to the front of the congregation so that they could look down on the rest of us and so that we could see our "betters" being brought into the room.

We were summoned just before lunch time and it was almost comedically like when we used to set out on family outings. Things like my sister asking us all, "Now, do you need to use the chamber pots?" for which she was teased by Sam and I. Sam, as the eldest, escorted Emma while I had Laurelen on my arm. Again I saw the kind of wince in her eyes that she would be so kept from her love that I took it upon myself to gently mock everything that was going on around us in an effort to make her smile. I was largely successful and I think I heard Sam doing the same for Emma but I still felt the injustice a little keenly. Apart from anything else I would much rather have been sat next to Ariadne sharing those little jokes and observations whilst giggling like school children.

But we marched into the palace ballroom that had magically been decorated overnight. The assembled plumage of all the nobles was already such that I felt a colossal headache coming on and it was only going to get worse as the day dragged on.

On and on it went. I have reason to believe that the Empress actually arrived at the palace a good hour before she came into the ballroom to be crowned but it was taking so long to get everyone seated that she was forced to wait and, I suspect, sneakily had something to eat to keep her strength up.

But then, finally, after the last rulers had been seated, exchanging glares with the attending Sorceresses, the fanfare sounded and the Empress was there.

The Witchers came first, scanning the room and prowling around and peering into corners suspiciously. Then in marched the Empress. In every way that her previous outfits had been subdued and austere, she made up for it with this outfit. Still martial in appearance she was not wearing the huge skirts with under hoops that the Duchess of Toussaint wore. She wore a silver dress that glittered in the lights. By what artifice it was managed I don't know but the entire dress seemed to shine and reflect all the colours that were already in attendance. It was though she was dressed in a summer storms rainbow. The shining silver of rainfall with those colours glowing through. Her silver hair piled on top of her head behind a circlet that would shortly be replaced by a crown.

The dress was cut so that she could still walk with a decent stride and we could see that she had trousers and boots on underneath. Like everything there was a message here. She was still ready for action at a moments notice and that we should know that she was no shrinking, gentle, meek woman that powerful men could order around. This was a warrior Queen. A Fighting Empress that would fight us on the same battlefields that we used without regard for her gender.

It was a powerful sight and a stirring sight as she walked down the aisle to sit on the throne on the dais.

But I wasn't looking at the Empress. I was craning my neck and looking around trying to see.

"Where's Francesca?" I asked Laurelen innocently as I saw Sam and Emma also looking around.

I looked around and saw Kerrass standing at the wall watching the assembly. He caught my eye and I saw him shake his head.

"Where's Francesca?" I asked again.


	51. Chapter 51

(A/N: Some people may have noticed that I haven't been updating quite as often as I would like recently. This is because, not only is it Christmas, but I am also in the process of emigrating to New Zealand. This along with an, at best, turbulent family situation and lack of regular internet means that I can't get as much done as I would like. Rest assure though that Kerrass and Freddie will carry on with their adventures and that I have not forgotten about them. Nor is the fic abandoned.

As always, thanks for reading.)

Take a deep breath in through the nose.

Hold it and count to three.

One

Two

Three

Blow the same air out through your mouth. Do it hard and explosively. Repeat this process.

It's an old exercise. Long term readers will know that I have used this exercise before in an effort to keep my head before completely losing my mind. It's one of the very first things that Kerrass taught me all that time ago. Apparently what this does is cause exactly the right amount of air to flood the body in order to fight off adrenaline when that adrenaline is not needed or wanted.

It works as well. Try it, next time that you're having a fit of temper or want to commit a scientific experiment wherein you test exactly how much force and from what angle to strike in which to force someone's head through a table.

I was employing it then.

We watched the Empress be crowned, the four of us craning our necks and looking around for Francesca. We must have been the only people there not looking at the Empress herself as Lady Yennefer placed the crown upon her head. Instead, as we all rose to witness the Empress being crowned, a number of small, pale but above all polite young men in black came to us and beckoned the four of us to follow them at a time that we wouldn't be noticed leaving.

We were lead through a side door where we were met by Lord Voorhis who smiled at the four of us apologetically. None of us spoke. I don't know what the other three, Sam, Emma and Laurelen were thinking but I could feel my brain running through lots of different thoughts. So fast that I couldn't concentrate on any single one of them. All that I kept remembering was that old breathing exercise that Kerrass had taught me.

Eventually Mark joined us. Equally as bewildered and looked at the four of us questioningly. He managed to catch my eyes and I shook my head. Was it only in my imagination that he paled or was it his illness making it's presence felt.

We were in the servants corridors. A place where normally we would have no business being and it was frantic with activity. Men and women running around, sometimes at full tilt in a variety of regalia, colours and uniforms all with that very special look that suggested that the entire world would collapse if they were kept from their particular mission. The noise was spectacular and I just had enough time to marvel at the Elven architecture that kept this constant noise from the other people in the castle.

Lord Voorhis beckoned for us to follow him.

It was not lost on me that we were also under guard. Three very large soldiers in the faceless black armour of the Imperial guard followed with us. Sam and I exchanged looks.

"Lord Voorhis," Sam began, "Could you..."

"No talking please," Voorhis snapped quickly but without anger. "Forgive me, things need to be done in order, follow please and remain silent."

"I don't see why..."

"Remain silent or you will be made to be silent." This time Lord Voorhis put a little more force into it.

Sam almost let his temper get the better of him but Mark put his hand on Sam's shoulder.

Voorhis saw the interaction and nodded. He beckoned again and we were led down some stairs. The air turned cool and I guessed that we were somehow underground. Within the rock that the palace sits on top of.

We came to a table which had five large wooden boxes on.

"No questions." Said Voorhis again. "All loose belongings into a box each please. Shoes, belts, laces and threads. Jewellary, blades, hidden weapons, vials, medicines, potions, money, pouches, all of it into the box. I managed to exchange looks with Emma. I'm not sure if she could even see me.

"What's going on?" She whispered, or tried to whisper anyway. Her voice came through clear to me and I could see Lord Voorhis open his mouth to speak. I held my hand up to him though.

"We're prisoners. He's asking for our things so that they can be searched but also so that we won't harm ourselves in captivity."

I raised an eyebrow at Voorhis. He nodded and it didn't seem as though I would be punished for speaking. I guessed that Emma needed someone to say it and if it was me rather than some faceless Nilfgaardian then so much the better.

I emptied my pockets and belts, putting my shoes and socks into the box. I was quick enough to see Voorhis give Laurelen a bracelet. She spent a long time looking at it before putting it on with a sigh. She paled visibly as she put it on.

"So cold," I saw her whisper. I don't know if she meant it to be heard or not.

"All being well your belongings will be returned to you forthwith." Lord Voorhis nodded. "Please follow me." He came to a series of rooms. He gestured for someone to walk inside. We all looked at each other, fear and confusion warring on each others faces. I sighed again and walked into the first room. The room had a table that was fixed to the floor, a bench and two stools on either side of the table. The door was shut behind me and locked.

I shivered again and paced around the room a little bit. Six feet square give or take a bit. There was a bucket in the corner but there was nothing in it. I paced a little bit before giving up and sitting back down. I sat down and tried to think but the nervous energy in my body made me get up and pace again. Six feet doesn't give you a lot of room though. Light was granted by a pair of torches high up on the walls. The Holy Flame knows what the rooms were meant for. I had difficulty imagining that this place was meant for the housing of prisoners as there is only limited room in so ornate a palace. I much rather believed that it was some kind of store room. I jumped up and tried to reach one of the torches. More for something to occupy myself with than any kind of desire to actually reach it and decided that it must have been lit with some kind of holder.

I tried sitting again and went through the exercises that Kerrass had taught me. I felt wretched.

I don't know how long I sat there. I know that after a while I began to rock backwards and forwards in an effort to keep time. It's almost impossible to keep a sense of the passage of time in such a place. In the end the door opened and Lord Voorhis came in with a jug and two cups. I leapt to my feet as he stood at the door. I wanted to throw questions at him. To demand to know what was going on. Failing that I wanted to wring his scrawny neck until his dead fish like eyes boggled out of his skull.

He stood in the entranceway looking at me calmly. "Do I need to have you locked into manacles?" he asked.

"Would it help matters?" I asked as I sank back to the stool.

"Not necessarily. You're taking this rather calmly if I might say so." He sat opposite. The door remained open but I could see that there were guards in the corridor outside. I would never make it and I guessed that the open door had been left so as a temptation to see if the guilty man would make a run for it. Lord Voorhis poured some watered wine into both cups.

"Have you put some truth drugs into it?" I asked.

"No. But would I have told you so if I had?"

I grinned and took a drink. Even watered down wine for prisoners in Toussaint is better than some of the best wine that I had been served elsewhere on the continent."

"Why so calm Lord Frederick?"

"It all seems a little familiar to me." I said. "Working with a Witcher means that I've seen more than one type of questioning and have been on the other side of the interrogation table several times."

"You're talking about that instance with your cousin?"

"That and there have been others."

"The possession in North Eastern Temeria?"

"And the Werewolf attacks in Eastern Maecht."

Lord Voorhis nodded.

"In which case. I suppose you know how this all works." He said. "All I need you to do is to tell me what happened."

"Tell you what happened?" I asked. "I don't know what happened."

"Come on Lord Frederick. Your sister Emma isn't stupid, she runs the business enterprises of your family and as a result she practically runs the economy of the North. Sooner or later, you dig into just about anything that has to do with mercantile affairs in the North and you find your family. Sitting there like the fat worm gnawing through the apple. So tell me what the plan was."

"What plan?"

"Look," Voorhis blew some breath out of his nose in exasperation before he leant forward. "Let's be honest with each other. Your older sister's the brains of the outfit isn't she? Mark is a clever man but at the same time, your sister leaves him standing. He's far too naïve for anything of this kind of magnitude. Far too innocent to fall in with the kind of plot that you and your sister are involved in.

"Samuel seems like a decent enough sort of fellow but, he just doesn't have the balls. So tell me what's going on and I'll let you get on with your life. I'll only lock your sister up for deviancy and stupidity to go with high treason. With a bit of luck I can get it converted so that she lives out the rest of her life in a convent somewhere and you can marry your vampire harlot or whatever and you and I never need to cross paths again."

"Have you gone quite insane?"

In my defence I was in shock.

"Insane Lord Frederick?" He leant forward and slammed his fists on the table. "Do you think I'm a fool. A plot to assassinate the Empress on the day of the coronation. I find people with your livery at the site along with anti Nilfgaardian propaganda. Even as we speak your younger sister is giving us everything she knows about your families dealings. Poor girl. You used her didn't you?"

"Used her for what?" I yelled. "I haven't seen Frannie for over four years."

"I know. But you've sent enough letters between the two of you." He snarled. "She's given us most things. If not all of it by now. If you listen carefully you can still hear her screaming..."

"What have you done with her you piece of filth?" I bellowed. I leapt to my feet, threw the table aside and went for Voorhis who rose and backed off. Two guards were through the door in seconds and threw me back onto the stool as Lord Voorhis searched my face for some kind of clue. I struggled but there was nothing that I could do. The men holding me were armoured and I only ran the risk of hurting myself. Abruptly Voorhis turned on his heel and strode out of the room.

I sagged against the two men and they let me go and I sank back down into a seated position. I was stunned and appalled at the implications of what the Lord had told me. I was shaking and at first it did not register with me that the door had reopened again. Lord Voorhis was standing there. A servant was with him, a bowl, another jug and a fresh shirt.

"Apologies Lord Frederick but I had to be sure," he said. His tone not really conveying any hint of apology. "Take a moment to freshen up and join me outside the cell. I had the liberty of having a fresh shirt brought from your quarters." He vanished again just as quickly before I had chance to ask him anything else.

Out in the corridor I found Sam straightening his tunic. It was definitely not the same one that he had been wearing earlier. He couldn't meet my eyes as I clapped him on the shoulder.

We were ushered up some large plain stairs and through several back corridors. There were still lots of servants running around and the odd hastily closed door let out sounds of merriment and music. It sounded like the festivities to celebrate the Empresses coronation were in full swing. I had been looking forward to them in the kind of absent way that you might look forward do a long anticipated holiday. The way that you look forward to the Yule festival when you're a child or any of the many Equinox's after you get old enough to properly enjoy their meaning.

I felt sick and a little dizzy.

We filed into what was being set up for a part office with a large writing desk and as well as some kind of changing room. It was oddly surreal. On one side of the room, several very serious men were positioning a large table, a chair, blotting sand shaker along with several quills, ink pots and a small sharp knife that I assumed was used for trimming quills. There was also, rather pessimistically, a waste paper bin. On the other side of the room, was a dressing boutique.

I had once had the privilidge to accompany my sister when she went shopping to her favourite boutique in Oxenfurt. I like to think that it's not often that my family flaunt our wealth other than in the state of our residence, our investment in our lands and the industry that is contained on those lands but oh boy did I have my eyes opened. It was on the run up before my sister departed for the south and she had commissioned several gowns for her use and for the use of Laurelen when they arrived for the coronation. I also needed to be fitted for some new clothes as apparently my normal shirts and doublets would _not_ be considered acceptable. It was an education.

First Laurelen and then my sister were ordered to climb up on a box that was surrounded on three ides by huge long mirrors. The dressmaker, who challenged my preconceptions again, by being a man rather than a woman, came out with a tape measure and several large rolls of fabric. There were also a couple of dressing mannequins that were set nearby. As I had watched, far more fascinated than I had thought possible, the dressmaker had tried four different fabrics on my sister, had folded two of them together in order to demonstrate how they would look before my sister was measured, thoroughly from head to foot, including in some areas that I would not have dreamed to stick a tape measure. My sister made her selections and then we had left.

It was like that only more so.

There was a dressing screen while a small army of women came and went, running to and fro and yelling at each other. All the while they were waiting for an important personage to arrive. They whispered of her presence in a way that might suggest that this person held the power of life and death over their souls. It reminded me of all the hubbub that used to happen whenever my Father declared that he was going to inspect the garrison.

I might be forgiven, given my state of mind that the person that they were waiting for with such nervousness was the Empress but I would have been wrong. Instead it was the _Imperial_ dressmaker. A woman who, up until recently, had only had the responsibility of dressing the Imperial consort was now in charge of dressing, not just the Empress but also the Empress' ladies in waiting. When she arrived the women that were rushing around snapped into place and no military unit was served with more discipline.

She was a tall woman, Sharp in her beauty, immaculately dressed and made up. I would guess that she was a woman in her early fifties but she was beautiful in a way that made it all look so easy with a regal air and poise that seemed innate and automatic. She inspected the preparations with a jaded air before taking her place between the mirrors and the dressing screen.

Lord Voorhis gestured the five of us over to this side of the room which put us more on the part with the desk. Kerrass had trained me, hard, to be aware of my own mental state. When dealing with enchantments or the many and varied tricks that can be played on your mind by the supernatural creatures that he sometimes had to deal with, you need to check sometimes so that you could know. Are my thought patterns the same as they would be normally? Has my moral code suddenly switched directions without warning. Am I considering taking an action that would normally be out of character for me? It was one of the reasons that Ariadne was and still is so frightening to me.

Ariadne is a long, pale, cool brunette with hair so dark that it might as well be black. Her sense of humour is sly, dry and sometimes rather subversive, an effect that she gets from being on the outside of society looking in. All the time her intelligence is a finely tuned and honed sharp as a razor. She is a creature of another race and another world. Previously, Kerrass' comments not withstanding, I would have chosen much more... I wanna say "normal" a love but Ariadne had wandered into my life. I don't know what kind of woman I had wanted but when imagining my ideal woman, someone like Ariadne was too far from what I had imagined. That change in my thinking and my desires was one of the things that frightened me.

What I'm saying is...I was aware that I was in a state of shock and allowed myself to be steered by Lord Voorhis.

The Empress entered the room like a whirlwind. The Witchers came first. Eskel and another man that I didn't recognise opened the doors and had a look round but Kerrass and Gaetan were hard on their heels and marched past them and into the room. The Empress came next.

Or rather her voice did. She was swearing in a way that I've heard some sailors say, "hang on that's a bit much," and she was doing it in at least four languages. I recognised Nordling, Elven, some dwarven and the strange rhythmic tongue of the Skelligan isles. The Empress came next, still in the dress that she had worn while being crowned, the long train of the dress being carried by two pages who had had to run to keep up with her.

"Fuck, fuck, fucking cunting, cheese licking, arse chewing bastards. Fucking cocksucking cowardly drunken fops with their stupid imbecillic incestuous drunken cunts."

I'm paraphrasing as she was speaking so quickly that I didn't catch all of it.

"I'm gonna rip out their testicles and beat them to the point of death with them. Which is going to take some work as their manhoods must be so fucking shriveled that I'm gonna struggle to find them."

She was also hissing and spitting like a cat.

"Ciri, what if it's a woman?" The White haired Witcher that walked behind the Empress asked. "We haven't truly..."

"If it's a woman then I'm going to rip out her ovaries with my own bare hands before stamping on them until there's nothing left."

The two page's who had been carrying the train of the dress were tittering nervously.

"Fuck off," she snarled at them and they fled out the door. Lord Voorhis judiciously shut the doors behind them.

The Empress snatched the silver circlet off her head and threw it in indiscriminately into the room like a discuss thrower.

As an aside to those experts that are wondering. The Imperial crown rests on the throne so that, if she wishes to make an announcement she reaches behind her to put the crown on her head. In day to day life she wears a simple circlet so that everyone is reminded of who she is.

Along with the White Wolf, another Witcher entered with her that I didn't recognise, as well as the Empress' personal secretary who was carrying a large packet that contained the Empress' seal and the golden wax that was used to seal imperial decrees. The secretary marched over to the desk to set out the wax and seal.

The Empress span on Lord Voorhis who managed not to quail in terror.

"Well?" she spat.

"She still hasn't been found Majesty."

"Fuck,"

Emma groaned, Mark staggered and leaned against the wall. I think I turned away.

"Right, What the hell is going on?" Sam demanded.

"Careful Lord Kalayn," Lord Voorhis boomed ominously.

"Fuck your careful and fuck you too." Sam snarled back.

"That's enough," the Empress proved that she knew how to quell a room. "Well Lord Voorhis?"

"Majesty," he bowed. "I don't believe that these people are involved directly. I think that we can almost completely discount Lord Mark and Lord Frederick from our enquiries. Lord Frederick only arrived the day before yesterday and his movements are well known to us. Lord Mark arrived some weeks ago but, likewise, his movements are a matter of record and I don't think he can have done anything about it. For Lady Emma and Lord Samuel, we are still running down some of their activities but if any of the family are involved then we're pretty sure that it would have to be done through intermediaries and agents. We're still working on that."

The Empress nodded before turning to the five of us.

"Here's what we know. Servants went to wake your sister, Lady Francesca at dawn as they had been instructed to do so by me so that she could help me get ready and make her own preparations as she was to serve as my sword bearer. She was not in her room and there was no sign that her bed had been slept in. The guard were not immediately concerned as, although this would be out of character for Francesca, it has not been unusual for my ladies to be hopping from bed to bed and it was assumed that she would turn up. She still had not turned up when I was due to walk down to be crowned which was when someone decided to let Lord Voorhis know that there was a problem."

"That's rather a long time isn't it?" I asked. Already investigating and looking for someone to blame. I hated myself a little then.

"Oh believe me, that is going to get talked about Lord Frederick," The Empress hissed. "Now, you know as much as I do."

"Majesty?" The secretary interjected.

The Empress turned to him and he gestured towards the waiting army of women.

"Fuck," she muttered.

She stalked off towards what I had labelled as the "Dressmaker's side of the room", where she just barely managed to make it behind the privacy screen before the waiting ladies pounced on her and started to pull all of her clothes off, the Empress herself was being handled, turned around and didn't seem as though she had much of a choice on the matter.

"Then what was all that nonsense about?" Sam demanded. "You don't think... You don't think we had anything to do with it? How dare you?"

"Of course he thought that Sam. It's his job to think like that." My family turned to me and I was a little astonished to realise that it was me that had spoken. "He's the head of "confidential agencies" or "Intelligence," or whatever and it's his job to, first of all, see an attack against the Empire and the Empress in any situation and then think about who is attacking regardless of whether he's being attacked or not. He had to suspect us. He _has_ to suspect us." I looked around for a seat, of which there wasn't one so instead I slid down the wall and sat on the floor. "In fact, we should be damn grateful that he hasn't just locked us up in a cell somewhere "for our own safety" if for no other reason until the crisis is over."

I put my head in my hands. I felt sick.

"Well done Lord Frederick." Lord Voorhis commented over the general din that was coming from the other end of the room which appeared to be the sound of the Empress arguing violently with the dressmaker.

"Would you like a job, presuming you're innocent of course?"

"No thanks," I said. "I don't want to have to teach myself to think like that. To suspect everyone like that."

"It's actually quite good for the soul," Lord Voorhis suggested. I looked up at him to discover that he had found a stool and was helping Mark to sit down on it. "If you always suspect the worst of everyone then all they can do is surprise you in a good way."

"Besides, you can't have him, he has employment." The Empress had emerged, she looked dishevelled wearing a loose fitting cotton shirt whose sleeves were two long for her and a pair of scuffed and stained leather trousers that were held up around her waist with a length of rope. She stamped over to the desk where she was handed a piece of paper by the secretary. The door on the other side of the room had opened and there was a stream of waiting messengers there with scrolls and pieces of paper under their arms or in their hands.

The Empress started reading the paper with astonishing speed.

"Do we know if she's definitely still in the city?" I asked. "A location spell or something similar?"

"It's been tried." Lord Voorhis told me. "The results were... inconclusive."

"What the fuck does that mean?" Sam snapped. His face was red and I was beginning to worry that someone would have to slap him down at some point and if it was the Empress then there was a better than even chance that he wouldn't survive the event. Emma must have sensed the same thing as she reached out and laid her hand on his arm.

"It means, Lord Kalayn, that we don't know." Lord Voorhis told him "But that could mean anything. I'm told that such things are not always dependable."

"Why not?"

"There can be any number of reasons?" Laurelen answered for Lord Voorhis. "Up to and including the target's mood and the skill of the caster. She could be shielded in some way, or protected or she might have been given some dimertium to protect her from scrying." She took a deep breath. "She could also be dead and if the spell was cast to find a living person then that might be significant."

"Also she might have been moved," Lord Voorhis went on "or be outside the area of effect, be actively hiding as well as being hidden as she is well aware of what magic users are capable of. Even more so if she has been taken by a magic user. The search is being refined as we speak. Lady Eilhart insists that no-one has used a gate to escape the city and the existing gate site is guarded. If those guards are lying then we have a larger problem than that."

"So what's next?" The Empress asked from her desk. She was frowning at the piece of paper that she was working on. "This is wrong, several small but significant spelling mistakes." She pointed at the manuscript for the benefit of her secretary who smiled and took the offending paper away to replace it with another one.

Lord Voorhis moved to stand in front of the desk "We have to assume that we are under attack."

"Why?"

"Because Lady Francesca is a route through to your person Majesty. The worst case scenario here is that there was some kind of plot against you, that Lady Francesca was involved in some way and that that plot is still going ahead, regardless of her disappearance."

"Oh come on," Sam exclaimed in protest. Emma was sobbing quietly and Mark had his head between his legs and was concentrating on breathing in and out.

The Empress' opinion was rather more brutal and profane.

"I'm not saying that that's what happened Majesty, what I'm saying is that we have to assume that. We have to protect ourselves in case that is the circumstance here."

"I don't see it."

"Neither do I." Voorhis admitted "But we have to work as though that is the case. We have to assume that by now, your itinerary and plans have been given to an enemy. That your routines and strategies for the coming weeks and months are now no longer kept a secret. We _have_ to assume that."

"Francesca would never do that."

"Even if she wouldn't do it willingly she would do it under torture. Everyone breaks Majesty and so we have to assume that every fact, every plan or conversation that you've ever had with her or that she has been party to is now a resource for your enemies."

The Empress signed her name again and took another piece of paper off her secretary.

"For _our_ enemies, you mean."

"Yes of course I do," Lord Voorhis' temper flared suddenly.

"So what do you suggest we do?" The Empress frowned at something that was written on the paper in front of her. "This is wrong," she told the Secretary. "That means that the border is two miles out of the way."

"Are you sure Majesty?"

"Pretty sure, check it would you, before I sign it into law."

The Secretary nodded, passed her another treaty to sign and left the room briefly.

"Why must we assume that we are under attack Lord Voorhis?" she asked him as she began to scan the new piece of paper.

"Because it has thrown you off centre. May I speak frankly Majesty?"

"Go on."

"You are no longer an Empress Your Majesty, you are a woman who is worried about her friend."

"Mmm, so you think this might have been done to put me off balance?"

"Maybe, I don't know. If that was the plan then it might have worked but that would only be the first part of the play. We don't know what the plan was so we must assume the worst."

The Secretary came back in with a new arm-load of paperwork. Lady Yennefer slipped in behind him and went to stand in the back of the room next to the White Wolf.

"What do you suggest we do then Lord Voorhis?"

"Close the port, declare martial law, impose a curfew and anyone who tries to leave the town should be searched and stopped."

"That would require usurping Toussaint's autonomy."

"Yes it would."

"The Duchess won't like that."

"You're assuming that the Duchess isn't involved."

I found that I was hyperventilating and forced myself to take a couple of deep breaths. "Your Majesty, if I may?"

"Yes, what is it Lord Frederick?"

"I agree with Lord Voorhis Majesty. You have to assume that you are under attack but full on martial law, curfews and closed borders has the potential to cause panic. Not least of which to whoever has taken our sister."

My voice broke on this last part. But I swallowed and tried again.

"Instead of being overt, why not a message to your customs inspectors that they need to search everything in question. Everyone who's anyone wants to be here. Merchants, nobles, common-folk of every stripe. They're all here and none of them are going to want to leave unless they have sinister motivations. So a quiet watch on the roads in and out of the city will reap some benefits."

Another thought occurred.

"Does the Duchess know what has happened?"

"She does," Lord Voorhis answered.

"Then would she be agreeable to the prospect of helping us?"

"What do you have in mind?"

"Well, propose a game. Suggest that Francesca has offered an entertainment. That she has been "kidnapped" and that the "kidnappers" need to be apprehended. The person who finds her first will be declared the winner and will win, I don't know..."

I waved my hand in the air, searching for some kind of fancy sounding title.

"Her majesties permission to court the lady Francesca." Said Lord Voorhis with a smile. "That might work. It would certainly give the errant knights something to do in the meantime. But it's not as certain."

He turned back to the Empress.

The Empress nodded, "Then we'll do that. In the meantime we need to investigate who would want to harm Francesca for her own sake and who would do it to harm me.

"What can we do?" Sam stomped over. "All due respect to everything else and I can well imagine that many people will find it fun to hunt our sister across the duchy but at the same time, I don't want to be stuck in the palace while my sister might be in danger."

"Your absence from the parties would be conspicuous Lord Kalayn." Voorhis put just the slightest emphasis on the word "Lord".

"So?"

"So we don't want to do anything that might give the game away to Francesca's captors."

Sam stared at Voorhis with his mouth hanging open. "This isn't a game, this is my sister's life."

"And we will find her Lord Kalayn, you have our word on that."

"Your word? Your word means fuck all to me right now. You lost her once when she was under your protection."

"That's enough, Lord Kalayn," The Empress snapped. That she did so without looking up from the piece of paper that she was in the process of signing was not lost on me. She set the piece of paper aside and looked up and skewered him with an icy stare. I've not actually taken the time to look up how old the Empress is but in that moment she was terrifyingly regal. Sat in her literal shirt sleeves, she faced him down. "Do not make the mistake of thinking that you are the only person that likes or loves your sister in this room Lord Kalayn. Your sister will be found but you must also remember that the fault is with the people who took her. Direct your anger at them if you will. Their lives are already forfeit and if you really want to go all in then you can even swing the blade if you wish. But for now you will sit down and you _will_ be silent."

The Empress doesn't speak with any particular volume but you can't help but hear every single word that she says. I caught myself wondering if it was some kind of special technique that she had been trained in at some point.

"What else needs to happen?" she turned back to Voorhis.

"Send gallopers to the Third and ninth Light divisions and tell them to start conducting maneouvers."

The Empress nodded at her secretary who was making notes. "So ordered."

"Minimise your attendence at the balls tonight, cursory visits only under the pretence that you have better things to do."

"Which is true," I distinctly heard the Empress mutter.

"Summon the Ambassador from Kovir and the Ambassador from Zerrikania and invite them to help you inspect the Imperial guard parade. Let them know that we're not fucking about if this is them playing everybody for fools."

The Empress nodded at her Secretary again. "So ordered."

"I will work my sources and see if anything else comes up. In the mean time, stick to the "hunt," story in all things."

The Empress nodded again. "I want a report in an hour,"

"Yes Imperial Majesty. Thank you Your Majesty."

He marched out. The Empress signed the next piece of paper and handed it to her secretary. "Just three spelling mistakes this time. Mostly in our favour though."

"Not all of our scribes had the benefit of your education Your Majesty," he commented. "There are many more treaties to be signed however."

The Empress sighed. "I know. Bear with me though." She took hold of his sleeve to keep him still and raised her voice to the other servants in the room. "Leave us," she said.

"But majesty the gowns..."

"Will wait." That note of command again.

"Yes, Imperial Majesty."

The servants filed out. The Empress sat back in the chair again for a moment and rubbed at her eyes.

"Empress for two hours and I'm already tired." She said, almost to herself before pushing herself to her feet. "Father?"

The White Wolf stepped forward from the wall. "What is it Ciri?"

"I have a contract for you."

Geralt, the White Wolf of Rivia raised a solitary eyebrow. "Oh?"

"Yes. I want you to find my friend please. People will make jokes that you want to marry her or something but I don't care. Find her for me would you? I'll pay you a decent rate."

"No," Geralt had opened his mouth to speak but it wasn't his voice.

Kerrass had stepped forward from his position next to the door.

"In all other matters, Majesty, I would bow before Cousin Geralt and his experience. He is the greater in swordplay, signs and just about every other aspect of the Witcher's craft but this one. I know this family and they know me and that might be significant here. Also, I owe them. More than they can know."

He moved until he stood in front of the Empress and locked his eyes to hers.

"This hunt is mine," he said.

The Empress looked past him to where Geralt still stood, Kerrass turned and stared at that most famous of Witchers. It was a long moment and I didn't really know what was happening. In the end though Geralt bowed and moved back to his place by the wall.

"Very well then," The Empress said. "It seems I don't even get to make _that_ decision." She said it with a smile though and even I, who can't really claim to know the Empress could see the marks of strain in the corners of her eyes.

"I want Freddie to come with me." Kerrass went on, clearly deciding to push his luck. Some people might think that this gives me an unfair advantage in the hunt but... I find him useful and he can report back to his family to keep them calm and keep them informed."

The Empress nodded. "Done then."

Mark shook himself and climbed to his feet. He lumbered over to Kerrass, seemed to want to say something but couldn't quite make it, so instead he clapped him on the shoulder before turning and bowing to the Empress and moving towards the door.

Kerrass beckoned to me and I followed him out to the corridor outside.

We just made it to the corridor outside before I couldn't hold it in any more. I staggered against the wall and had to take a little while to concentrate on breathing in and out. My breath kept catching in my throat around the huge lump that had formed there. I felt dizzy and there was grey at the edge of my vision. "Ok Kerrass what the fuck is going on?" I sobbed out.

"I wish I knew Freddie I really do." He stopped me and put his hand on my shoulder so that he could check my eyes. "Are you alright with this?"

"Yes."

"Are you sure? I don't want you flying off the handle at any given moment just because we _might_ have found something. The chances are pretty good, given what's going on at the moment, that this is something political and I know the Empress enough now to know that if it came to it then you and I would look awfully disposable."

"She wouldn't though would she?"

"I am not Geralt, who she calls "father" when she forgets herself. I'm just some Cat Witcher who, if push comes to shove..."

I shook my head again.

"If you're not going to order me to stay behind as in our old deal then I'm coming. I need to know Kerrass. I need to know that this isn't _my_ fault."

"Why would it be your fault?" Kerrass looked at me strangely.

"Because she wouldn't be here in this position if it wasn't for me. That and, we've made some friends in our travels Kerrass but we've also made a lot of enemies as well."

"We have, but that's just life on the path. This would take means and money and... effort. This is to risk the wrath of the Empress herself. I've seen her lose her temper Freddie. It ain't pretty."

"I'll take your word for it."

"You'd better. Come on then."

"Where are we going?"

"Her quarters to start with. See if we can pick up a trail before it goes completely cold."

Kerrass led me through the labyrinth of corridors so fast that I would quickly have gotten lost without his support. We went down, well beneath the human layer of buildings and into the old elven ruins that the city of Toussaint had been built on. The corridors were still in use, servants and guards were still walking around at a quick rate and several times I had to flatten myself up against a wall to make sure that I wasn't flattened by stampeding people. As best as I could tell we climbed down several flights of stairs before heading along on the same plane of movement before a single flight of stairs brought us up and out into a corridor that I found to be on the northern side of the palace.

"The royal wing," Kerrass told me, given over to the Empress and her immediate circle of people which in this case means, your sister, her other ladies and a few others. There are rooms here for Lady Yennefer and Lord Geralt as well as Lady Merigold and a few other people that you won't know or have heard of."

He led me further along the corridor.

"Which one's the Empress' room,"

"The smallest believe it or not. She once told me in passing that she gets nervous when there are large open spaces around her and much prefers smaller rooms where she can watch the windows and the doors equally."

"What happened to make her like that?"

Kerrass just looked at me for a while. "Many, many things."

It was clear that I wasn't going to get any further with it than that. He brought us to another room that had two guards outside along with another, younger man that was pacing backwards and forwards in the way that you do when you're waiting for something and have nothing else to do.

"Master Kerrass sir," he seemed ridiculously young. I would have put him at somewhere between fourteen and fifteen to look at him. Blonde hair and startlingly blue eyes. There was a glimmer of intelligence in those eyes as well as a bit of attitude that suggested that he watched the world with an ironic sense of humour. I decided that we could either be the very best of friends or that we would hate each immediately. He saluted us.

The other two men were as broad as they were tall, solid walls of men wearing enough metal that they might have been sculptures only the occasional rasp of metal on metal betrayed the fact that there were men in there somewhere.

"Sir Thomas. May I present Lord Frederick von Coulthard."

The young man bowed to me.

"Your servant Lord Coulthard." He said in a high voice that betrayed his voice not quite having broken yet. "May I take this opportunity to say that I am a fan and to pointedly _not_ get you to sign my copy of your travel journals." He said to me gravely.

"Thank you Sir Thomas. Maybe later."

"Being cousin to the Empress sometimes comes with some perks," the young man said. "I get to meet all kinds of famous people."

"Do I count as famous people?"

"More famous than some sir?"

"Sir Thomas is here because we were in need of competent officers," Kerrass said. "Sir Thomas is today's new officer of the watch. After the previous officer managed to lose your sister."

As a note for those who aren't familiar with military terminology. The officer of the watch is the person that's nominally "in charge" for that area for that period while the other officers or superior officers are sleeping. They are the people that take care of paperwork, order rations, organise shift rotations and check sentries. If a crisis happens then it's the office of the watch that takes charge until more senior men arrive.

"A bit young for the post?" I asked.

"As I say Sir. Being Cousin to the Empress comes with some perks." He sniffed. "I say perks. Today was my day off and I was looking forward to getting squiffy on Toussaint red."

"The former officer of the watch is under arrest in case of collusion." Kerrass told me.

"Is that realistic?" I asked.

"At this point anything is possible. Anything to add Sir Thomas?"

"No sir. Door locked from the outside and I took the liberty of having two of my burliest, angriest and least imaginative men positioned inside in case anyone tries to sneak in from outside sir."

Kerrass nodded. "Open up then please?"

"Yes sir," He nodded to the two guards and made a complex hand gesture. They stepped aside before Sir Thomas produced a key and unlocked the room.

"So no-ones been inside since these doors were sealed."

"No sir," Thomas answered. "Just me and my men but I had thoughts that if the young lady slipped out herself or if there's a secret passageway or something then others could come back and tamper with evidence?"

"Good thinking,"

"Thank you sir."

"Who was on duty last night."

"Four men sir. All cooling their heels in the cells waiting for your pleasure sir."

"Pleasure. That's an odd word for it. We'll need the duty log."

"Yes sir, it's under guard at the guard post sir."

Kerrass nodded.

"We moved into the room. It was bright, opulently furnished and looked as though it had barely been lived in. The bed was made, the furniture was plush and rather garish to my eyes and the only thing that seemed to be in constant use was the wardrobe. There was no fire set in the vast and mostly ornamental fireplace but it looked as though there had been one recently. Kerrass held out an arm to prevent me walking in though. He took a deep breath, sniffing the air.

"Wait here," he said before moving into the room. He took his medallion off and started moving around with it held in front of him as he sniffed at the air.

Then he closed his eyes and started moving around the room, slowly, nose out in front looking for all the world like one of my father's hunting dogs.

"Does it often look like this?"

Sir Thomas had returned with a couple of leather bound books under his arm.

"Does what, look like what?" I asked faintly, I was too busy concentrating on Kerrass to listen properly.

"His hunting. Does it always look like this?"

"It depends," I said faintly,

"On what, sir?" The "sir" appellation seemed to have been attached in an effort to placate me or pay me some kind of compliment.

"On what it is he's hunting." The lad was fair vibrating with energy. "Can I help you Sir Thomas?" I attempted in an effort to get him to sod off.

"Well sir, since you mention it. Those chronicles I mentioned."

He held one of those books out.

"I don't have a quill."

"Funny you should mention that sir," He held out a small ink pot and had produced a small quill from somewhere.

I sighed and signed the book.

"Grateful to you sir," he said putting it back under his arm.

I watched Kerrass work for a bit. He had made his way over to the dressing table and was looking through all of the potions and perfumes that make up the essential tools of being a woman in the modern world.

"What brought you into service?" I asked, the silence suddenly felt oppressive and I had the need to fill it.

"Into the guard sir? Family tradition. Squired to my uncle when I was twelve and worked my way up. Youngest knight in the guard sir."

"Is that a good thing?"

"Sometimes it is. I sometimes wonder if I was knighted so young because the guard needed a mascot of some kind."

"Did they?"

"Depends who you ask sir. In my more charitable moments I've begun to believe that there are new and younger people being brought into the guard so that the Empress can change the nature of the guard as she sees fit without having to fight all the dreadful old men telling her that it wasn't done like that in their day,"

He did an astonishingly accurate impression of a querulous and obstinate old man's voice. I glanced up at one of the even more gigantic armoured me who were stood just inside the door of the room. Unlike the shield and sword that the outer guards were armed with this man carried the largest battleaxe that I had ever seen. Large and with the looks of him I reckoned that he could handle it easily. The guard didn't even twitch.

"He's selling himself short," Kerrass' voice intruded. "Young master Thomas here is considered one of the finest military minds of his generation. One of the first graduates of the Imperial war college which he passed well enough that they had to rewrite the exams for him."

I looked down at the young man who had the grace to be blushing. I looked back up at Kerrass.

"There's an Imperial war college?" I asked.

"Oh yes. They study old battles and old campaigns to see what they could learn from them. Successful and failed campaigns. Apparently it's only open to the best of the best."

"Which in reality means those of us who come from the right bloodlines," Sir Thomas commented scornfully. "It has to be said that I learned more from a month on campaign with a decent Sergeant than I learnt at all in the college."

"Often the way," I commented. I felt trapped in this simple little conversation. Right then and there the fact that I was talking with a young man about his education and signing books seemed ridiculous when what I wanted to be doing was tearing the place apart and finding my sister. It felt a lot like a pressure on my skull, as though I was hemmed in, that the walls were closing in. I had to concentrate. "Did you find anything?" I asked Kerrass.

"Yes and unfortunately it's utterly useless."

I stepped forward into the room. "What do you mean?"

"Well, there's no doubt that this is your sisters room. Her scent is everywhere but it's masked and obscured by the perfume that she uses." He indicated the dressing table.

I spent a bit of time trying to shake the cotton wool out of my brain. It didn't work.

"Ok then," I walked over to the window and opened it to look out. There weren't any obvious hand-holds that I could see. There were some ivy strands above and to one side of the window but you would need to be a braver person than me to use them to climb in. Plus the window would have been smashed if someone jumped in. Or the window would have to be open.

"Was the window closed when you came in to find my sister?"

"I don't know for sure sir. It was certainly closed when I came on duty."

"Something else to check," Kerrass commented. He was unstopping the perfumes and having a sniff. I've never been able to distinguish between perfumes before but he claims he can. I had always wondered about that and found it odd. Surely if your nose was more sensitive then it was more likely to get overwhelmed.

After a while he shook his head and put the bottles down.

"Right," he said abruptly, we're getting ahead of ourselves. Let's try to think logically." He stomped up to me as he said this and took me by the shoulders before giving me a little shake. "There are two options here. Either she left on her own two feet or she was taken from this place by force. You either walk or are carried out of a room."

"Yes. Compelling still means that someone has to make a decision to be compelled."

"Right. The guards claim that she didn't leave by the door."

"They would though wouldn't they."

"Sir, if I may?" Sir Thomas stepped forward. "Regardless of whether or not Lady Francesca left the room on her feet or carried off her feet. She didn't leave the room by the door."

"Why so sure?"

"She would have been noticed."

"What makes you so sure..."

"Well uh..." The young man actually blushed. "The Lady Francesca was..."

Kerrass nodded. "Francesca was beloved?"

"Yes sir," the young man seemed relieved. "Very...beloved. Yes, that was the word."

"So even if one, or two of the guards on watch were corrupt. Someone in the corridor would have seen something." Kerrass asked him.

"yes sir. Especially at night. These rooms were filled with the personal attendants of Her majesty and Lady Francesca was a favourite of the Empress so..."

"Is a favourite," I heard myself comment.

"Yes sir. Sorry sir."

"Already with a past tense." I muttered. My stomach was churning and I wanted to be sick.

"Truly Sorry sir."

"Don't worry about it Sir Thomas. It was a good point. By the door though, if you please." Kerrass told him.

Sir Thomas marched back to his place.

"The lad has a crush on my sister." I commented. I felt a headache coming on.

"He is not alone." Kerrass commented. "A significant number of the guard have a crush on her. When the Empress decides to allow men to court your sister, there will be a queue of knights to request her hand in marriage."

"They'll have to fight me for it."

Kerrass clapped me on the shoulder. "So let's work the problem as we would work any other problem. The door is locked which means..."

I sighed and tried, again, to make my brain throw off the hair shirt that it had been wearing for such a long time. I scratched my ear.

"Magic?"

"The Sorceresses say no gate or teleportation has taken place in any other place than the platform where it was set up."

I nodded. "Windows,"

"Are mostly locked on orders of the guards precisely for reasons like this. Far too many eligible young ladies have been seduced into leaving their rooms for even the most innocent of reasons."

"Innocent?"

"Yes. Seductions and such like. There are a particular kind of Lord that make it a game to try and take the virginity of as many of the Lords or ladies of the court as they can. They keep score and exchange notes by the end of the parties."

"I never got invited to that kind of party." I commented faintly. I was trying to picture my young and innocent sister in such gatherings.

"She's not so innocent any more," Kerrass commented, reading my thoughts.

A thought surfaced from among the soup that was my thought processes at the time. "You don't mean she..."

"Nah. But she knows what kind of thing happens and is clever enough to play them off against each other."

I shook my head. "I feel like I barely knew her." I heard my own use of the past tense. I swore briefly and fiercely.

"You will Freddie. We just need to think through it. So Windows? Try them all."

I did so to discover that only the one that I had opened earlier and two others would open. The rest seemed as though they had been sealed by a strange metallic method that meant they couldn't be opened. Kerrass examined them all. In one case he leant right out and climbed up onto the sill so that he could look up and down the wall before climbing back in.

"I could climb it but your sister would struggle by herself and it would certainly be noticed. Unless... Thomas?"

"Sir?"

"There's a walkway above here and presumably a way onto the roof. Is there any way to check that anyone has tied a rope on or set up a harness and lifting system?"

"No-one's reported anything sir?"

"No. But those guards spend a lot of time looking outwards rather than some dust or something at their feet. Check would you? Don't let anyone test it or muck around with it if they find anything. They should guard it fiercely and then send word for me."

"Yes sir." He turned and muttered a few words to one of the guards who was still standing next to the wall.

He saluted and stomped off, armour jangling.

Kerrass returned to me. "So, if not windows then what?"

"She was never in it?"

"Possible, and we will explore that if we don't find anything here. But she was witnessed going into the room."

"By the same kind of witnesses that watched the door to make sure she didn't get out?" I snarled.

"Valid point, but there were many more them at the time and of much higher rank. The Empress was in that group who wished her a good night."

"Fucking wonderful."

"They were making plans as I remember, for the morning and for the future."

"Shit," I took a deep breath as Kerrass waited expectantly, he was walking round the room examining the walls, knocking at odd places. Of course I know _now_ what he was doing but at the time my brain just refused to wake up and work.

I stared at him for a long moment. "I'm sorry Kerrass, my brain isn't working."

"I know Freddie, take your time." He turned and started closing curtains and plunged the room into darkness.

"If it can't be the door." he prompted as he worked, "and it can't be the windows or magic then what..."

"Some form of other passageway?" I felt absurdly pleased as he nodded. "Off to the edge of the room please."

I did as I was told. Kerrass moved to the centre of the room and took a glass bottle from his belt and threw it at the floor. Extremely fine silver dust exploded into the room and began to spread throughout the room.

"Unfortunately Elven corridors and elven construction makes their secret doors much more difficult to find than the average human construction." He stopped and waited for the dust to spread out properly. "Now let's see."

Everyone has seen this in one form or another. Specks of dust dancing in beams of sunlight. That was exactly what Kerrass was doing. He prowled around the room, slowly, taking his time, just letting his eyes drift and see things, looking for eddys and currents of air flow.

"Here we go." He said standing before a particular patch of wall that I couldn't distinguish from any of the other equally plain patches of wall. He tested a few stones, leaning on them and pushing them in before shaking his head. "Normally there's a charm or something..."

"Kerrass," I said. "Kerrass, time's wasting."

"I know." He looked back at the wall and sighed before shrugging. "Ah well, The Empress told me to hunt the girl and failing all else, hopefully, she will protect me against the Duchess."

He stood back, braced his legs and gestured at the walls. Air exploded from his hand in a buffeting wave.

Dust emerged from masonry cracks in the walls. A brick fell backwards into open air, but it didn't let sunlight through. Instead there was only darkness.

"Once more with feeling," Kerrass muttered before gesturing again. This time the wall fell down with a crash and a crumbling of masonry. Dust billowed out.

"Fuck me," It was the young knight from the door.

Kerrass edged forward, hand raised to his sword strap. The other had waving the remains of the dust were waved away from his face as he edged forwards.

I was still feeling woolly and blinked stupidly at the debris for some time before the fact that Kerrass had managed to find something got through to my brain. I turned to Sir Thomas who was shouting through the open door for guardsmen and that the door into my sisters room to be blocked.

"Send someone to get my spear." I ordered. The lad had no reason to listen to me or to do anything that I might have ordered but he took it as such. I turned back to Kerrass.

I've often thought about my reaction to my sister's disappearance and how it all worked. I made jokes and commented instantly but when I tried to make any kind of conscious decision and this was one of the instances.

I was unarmed, unarmoured and absolutely unprepared for action. But I stepped forward to back him up. He sensed it on some level and waved me backwards as he stepped forward.

He was right to do so. I knew it was foolish to do so and there was even more than a little bit of a thought that I shouldn't follow him into the gap. But somehow, my brain was just not working.

Fortunately Kerrass was thinking for both of us and he waved me back.

He stuck his head through the hole before slowly and cautiously climbed through the hole. He stomped around a lot and there was some rattling that came from the opening. After a small amount of time a small section of the wall swung outwards and Kerrass emerged from the shadows back into the room. He played around for a little while until he found a lever behind one of the wooden panels on the wall.

"Right then," Kerrass drew his sword and looked at me. "Don't get too hopeful Freddie. This could just be a most unremarkable hidden corridor."

"Yes, but..."

"It's just one answer amongst many potential answers. We still don't know if this is useful information. Just don't get your hopes up."

A young page had come into the room and walked up to Sir Thomas with the scabbard that had been

fashioned for my spear. The Young knight waited a moment before approaching and holding the spear out. He was still giving orders. I didn't hear all of them but it seemed to be along the lines of "secure the room, don't let anyone in." That kind of thing.

I fitted the two parts of the spear together and moved forward to back up Kerrass. The corridor led to a spiral staircase which seemed to be hidden in one of the modern columns. We climbed up but we did so slowly and carefully, Kerrass bent down to examine the floor and the lower walls.

"Clean," he commented at one point. "With a small amount of background magic, presumably to keep it so clean."

"Seems a little frivolous to me." I commented, looking over his shoulder.

"Fucking elves," he said with feeling. "All it means is that we don't have any tracks to work with." He sighed. "Still, little windows to let light in so we're not completely blind. Take our time. Slowly now." We moved forward gently.

We came to a spiral staircase that went up and down. It seemed to be hidden in one of the decorative columns that festoon the castle. It went up and down.

Kerrass gestured, "Call for Sir Thomas,"

I did so and the lad came running.

"What's up?" Kerrass asked.

"The roof."

As it turns out those rumours about having rooms closer to the roof really are the easier ones to secure.

"And down?"

"The next floor down is a smaller one with lower ceilings that are set aside for personal servants and the like."

"I'm going to leave that there without commenting on it for now." I said. "What's further down?"

"More guest rooms, smaller, normally reserved for visiting merchants rather than any kind of serious diplomats but at the moment they are filled with nobles."

"What ranks?"

"Dukes, Duchesses and the odd client king."

"Where are the rest of the client Kings kept?"

"In another wing."

"How well are the lower floors secured?"

"Well secured. The guard aren't idiots."

"They managed to lose my sister." I snarled. I was surprised at the amount of fury in my voice.

"I know that ignorance isn't an excuse," Sir Thomas said, unperturbed by my anger. "We've mapped many of the secret and hidden passages when we arrived but in a palace as old as this. We simply didn't know that this was here."

"Dereliction?" Kerrass asked.

"I swear, not on our part sir."

"The knights Errant?"

"Possibly sir, although if I'm honest, I don't think it would be active. If someone knew about these corridors, at all which is not guaranteed with respect to the Knights Errant. It's possibly even likely that someone just forgot."

As an aside to those readers who don't know how Toussaint works. Toussaint has no real standing army as I have mentioned before. Instead they have the Knights Errant. These knights are responsible for the security and safety of the realm. As such there is no guard system. If Toussaint or the "royal" family of Toussaint needs guards then she just says that there is a need for half a dozen men and suddenly the court is ringing with the sounds of big, strong and muscled men in huge and shiny armour filling the air with ringing cries of "I swear to the heron that you will be safe," or words to that effect. Then she picks her favourites of those men that volunteer and they serve until the Duchess or, more often, they decree that the task is completed.

This is beneficial in that those men who fill the ranks of Knights Errant don't need to be paid and do it for the love of the job. They can get by on this on the grounds that Toussaint is never ever going to be invaded unless the political landscape changes beyond all recognition to where it is now.

The downside is that there is no continuation of command. No laws or rules or, really, any kind of oversight. If the task is failed then the failures answer to the Duchess. At worst they are sentenced to death but more often they are exiled which, to the knights, seems to be a fate worse than death as they often beg for death before exile.

The truth meant that there was a very real possibility that the existence of these tunnels and corridors was simply forgotten when the security was handed over from the knights errant to the Imperial guard. There was also the possibility that the knight errants responsible for the security of this part of the castle was angry at handing over command of the corridors to the Imperial guard and withheld information in an effort to undermine the efforts of the guardsmen.

Wars have begun over smaller slights in and around Toussaint.

Kerrass nodded his accepting of the point.

"Up then," he decided. "If they went down then anyone is more likely to be spotted. If they go up then ropes, ladders, anything could have got them to wherever they wanted to go.

We went slowly and cautiously. Kerrass was sniffing the air from moment to moment.

"Well, if she didn't leave this way then she certainly knew about this passage and used it. The smell of her perfume is here." He muttered, half to me, half to himself.

"Could that have been faked?" I asked, "Someone comes into her room, splashes the perfume around a bit and maybe on themselves before walking through the corridor in an effort to throw us off the scent."

"Not really. Perfume changes on contact with the skin, mixing in with all of the other little things that make a human's scent up. Sweat, oils, pheremones and the like which means that some people suit certain scents whereas others do not. This is definitely your sister's scent. The question is, was she carried out this way or did she walk. Lack of dust means that I can't tell."

We climbed up another stair and I guessed that we were up in the ceiling of the building now. We came to a trap door. Kerrass made a gesture that I know that he refers to as his "Quen" sign. A dancing golden light covered him before he took a deep breath, nodded to me and opened the hatch.

Daylight flooded down and into the stairwell. Kerrass went first hand cocked ready to draw his sword at a moments notice. I stayed in the stair well to give him room but he quickly nodded to me and I climbed out after him.

The roof sloped up above us, the trapdoor had opened into the side of the red tile that made up the roof and we were standing in a gutter that was lined with some kind of metal that clanked as I put my weight on it.

Kerrass looked at me. "Left or Right?"

"You're the expert."

"Then we shall go left. If it was right then the person would have been more exposed and for longer."

We followed along. Kerrass seemed uncaring about the height but I would be lying if I said that it didn't bother me. I leant on the roof tiles to my left to make sure that if I _was_ going to lose my balance in one direction or another then it would be to fall into the tiles.

We even found a small group of Imperial Guardsmen who were carefully examining a section of the wall. Kerrass exchanged a few words with them and I got the gist that we were directly above my sister's room.

They had found nothing.

There was a small amount of time as we shuffled past them and went on our way. We came to the trapdoor that the guards had used which was open and under guard. Kerrass gave a password and we were let down into the corridor.

Kerrass looked left and right and sighed.

"Sorry Freddie."

"Don't say that... Don't give up." I felt panic scrabbling at the back of my throat followed by disbelief and then anger. "What's happening Kerrass? I thought that we were going to find my sister."

"Freddie, Freddie calm down."

"I can't calm down I..."

"I know Freddie just take a breath. What I was saying was that now that we're here we lose the trail. If trail it was. Now we need to think a bit more."

"What is there to think about? My sister is gone." I knew it was a stupid thing to say even as I said it. Kerrass blew his breath out in entirely justified exasperation.

"Freddie, I'm not suggesting we give up. We just have to give up on _this_ method of tracking. Now we need to think it through. Carefully and slowly."

I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose.

"I don't want to be careful and slow Kerrass. I want to punch something."

"I know Freddie, and hopefully you know exactly why that would be a bad idea."

"I do as a matter of fact but that doesn't help things.

"Right. Well. We've made a good start anyway."

"Really? I thought we'd found Jack shit."

"What we found was a secret corridor, that no-one other than, possibly, your sister knew about." He began ticking the points off his fingers, "We know that she was in that corridor, relatively recently. We also know that the passageway would let her out, outside of her normal guard perimeter. All she would need to do is to dress in a relatively simple dress with a hooded cloak and anyone who saw her would simply assume that she was, like many in her position, out on a stroll to meet a paramour."

"But Frannie wouldn't do that." I protested.

"I know Freddie, that point in and of itself is the _most_ significant of everything that we have considered. That is the reason why I've got you with me on this one. What's my rule when it comes to tracking down lost people when it's supposed to involve a monster?"

"That the family or loved ones should stay as far away from you as possible."

"That's right. Because they run the danger of letting their emotion cloud their judgement. It is only useful in certain circumstances. Those being to inform me of what the missing person would do at any given circumstance."

We had moved to the side of the corridor where we sat on a bench.

"I agree by the way. Your sister is a lot more resourceful and intelligent than many of the women that turn up at court in an effort to try and attract the eye of some noble or another. Your sister came with the express intention to make friends with the Empress. A task for which she is eminently suited. She listens well, knows when to keep her mouth shut, knows when her input might have a bearing and when to step in and when to step out. I've seen her declare, in a loud voice, that the Empress needed to take a break and marched her out to the practice yards where the Empress proceeded to take her frustrations out on the nearest training dummy. Your sister is a good woman. The Empress dreads losing her to some charming nobleman but won't have the heart to deny your sister anything but... and this is important... your sister is aware of how much the Empress leans on her and would not desert her Empress' side for anything. She is a rare woman. So let's apply that here.

"Would Francesca leave the Empress on the day of the Empress' coronation?"

"No, never."

"I agree. Therefore we have assumed that she was taken against her will. But why else would she have left? We have established that she wouldn't allow herself to be drawn out for matters of the heart but family?"

"Maybe, but she would be much more likely to send messages in this case to...probably Emma followed by Mark."

"Probably. She would do the same if it was a matter of any of her friends. So who has so much of a command on your sisters mind that she would leave voluntarily. I'm not asking rhetorically I genuinely need your thoughts."

I mused. I suddenly realised that I was absolutely famished having not eaten anything since the morning. I signalled a passing servant and ordered some brain fuel to be brought.

"The Empress." I suggested. "But the Empress lives just down the hall. And surely no guard or anyone else would comment on the matter if she went that way."

"I agree. I don't think that's likely though. The Empress is not one to stand on ceremony. If she wanted to speak to your sister she would have stomped over to your sister's room and talked."

"But the Empress might be a root cause." I mused as a plate of Nilfgaardian Garlic sausage as well as bread and cheese was brought to our little table. "We're working on the assumption that Frannie left the room by a secret way on her own and of her own volition here aren't we."

"Yes. I don't think that some kind of vast conspiracy amongst the guards to allow your sister to leave the room through the door is possible. Either she, or she and her captors used the secret corridor. Your sister is no slouch at combat and is well trained enough to be able to defend herself. The Empress demanded it. There would have been signs of a struggle in her room if she was taken by force."

"The room could have been tidied."

"Give me some credit Freddie. But let's allow for that and say that I am so inept that I couldn't see if there were signs of struggle in the room. Your sister would have screamed or shouted and the guards outside would have been notified almost immediately."

"True,"

"So, she goes through the door. She gets in her room, changes her clothes from her normal clothing types and takes the corridor to the roof and then along until she comes out just over there before making her way...somewhere." Kerrass waved his hands expansively.

"She did so secretly and quietly," I said. "Why would she do that. Unless I misunderstand from everything you've told me she's quite important, respected and has no small amount of personal power. If she decided that there was a threat or needed to go somewhere she could have ordered the Imperial guard to take her there without much comment. If she was suitably above suspicion..."

"Which she was," Kerrass interrupted.

"Then no-one would have thought twice about it. Why so secret?"

We ate a few mouthfuls each and I stopped, mid chew and stared at Kerrass. "She was protecting someone."

"Blackmail?"

"Maybe. If she had received a message or some other such signal that someone had some damaging information about, let's say, the Empress. Something that would bring down the Empire. She's told to come alone to discuss the matter. If she saw no other alternative then she would go. Playing for time is a long held strategy of my families."

"And a good one."

"So what was she being blackmailed about?"

"Does it matter?"

"Well of course it matters. If she was being blackmailed then what she was being blackmailed about would give us the answer to the question of who has her."

"It might. But what would be more likely to give us the information that we need is if we had the method by which the blackmail was delivered."

"It would have to be a note."

"So lets check the fireplace in her room again."

We scurried back. Kerrass purposefully kept me from going to quick. "Walk slowly," he said, "appear unconcerned. It's possible we have enemies watching us and we want them to think that we are calm and collected. That we know what we're doing."

"That's an ominous thought." I commented. "That most of the times when people look as though they know what they're doing, they're actually pretending."

"More likely than we would possibly like to admit"

We got through the checkpoints. Kerrass was known to the guard and he couched for me so we soon found ourselves outside my sisters room.

Sir Thomas let us in. There were already plasterers and stonemasons at work on the wall.

"We're looking for papers," Kerrass told me. Something not in your sister's writing. She's unlikely to have kept a diary with the relevant security concerns. I will check the fireplace."

I nodded and made my way over to the writing desk. There were indeed many letters from various people asking for news or for a favour or for an introduction. Francesca seemed to have them sorted into a number of different piles according to priority or some other kind of sorting system that I couldn't guess at.

"Might have found something." Kerrass called. I hurried over and Sir Thomas was alongside me. There was a corner of very rigid paper or card. Most of it was charred and covered in ash so Kerrass was handling it with great care.

"I know this paper." Kerrass said, "See this colouring here." He took his gloves off and scratched at the least damaged part of the paper which revealed a pink tint. "This is Messenger paper."

He passed it over to Thomas who turned it into the light.

"It's a crime to burn this kind of paper," Thomas commented. "There has to be a reason for it and she will be expected to answer to the Empress for it."

"How does Imperial paper work," I asked.

"It's the most careful messenger service in existence," Kerrass explained. "That doesn't include magi or some other method of messenger. It's used to pass secrets around."

"Oh," I said sourly. "Another clue."


	52. Chapter 52

Kerrass likes to tease me about this.

I firmly believe myself to not really being a violent man. I just can't see it. Given the choice I would rather avoid violence wherever possible. That's not to say that there aren't some people in the world that could do with a fist to the face, but on the whole, I would rather avoid such people than to seek them out and do my best to knock their fucking teeth out.

But I'm not a violent man. I don't get a visceral thrill from violence. I don't enjoy it. I've had to force myself to get better at it because of the direction that life has taken me but I don't enjoy it. Nor do I have a talent for it and every step I have taken towards competence with weaponry has come at the cost of hours of patient instruction at the hands of a trained killer.

But Kerrass has a different view of me. He cites numerous examples of my near urgent need to commit violence. He giggles at various times when he can see that temptation cross my face. Namely the temptation to apply an idiot's face to any nearby hard surfaces. He ribs me about it all the time, asking me questions about my temper.

"Are you feeling violent Freddie?" He'll ask me suddenly out of the blue. "Do you want to crush skulls and jump up and down on people's faces again Freddie? Do you? Huh?"

His argument is this. Since our travels have begun he claims to have noticed a steady increasing what he calls my "violent side." This is not helped by my own travel journals which cannot entirely be used as evidence in my favour. He keeps a list of the people that I want to, or have wanted to kill in the past and whenever I try to claim that I am _not_ a violent man, he likes to produce this list and torment me with them.

The first is that knight. "William the Ram," the murderer of poor old Tom the Troll. This is an odd one as his cruelty and arrogance had been focused and amplified by the girl that he was trying to court with those selfsame acts of barbarity. But even then, I wanted _him_ to die, not her.

The next bloke that I wanted to give a good kick up the arse on the edge of a high cliff was that uppity merchant bastard that had come so close to provoking a violent scene at the end of my first season on the road with Kerrass. I can't remember his name now as I don't have my regular notes with me at the time of writing. But his arrogant sneering face occasionally jumps out at me when I am sat trying to get some work done or when I'm trying to put a face onto a training dummy.

There are various monsters of course but they tend to be of the kind of things that act according to their nature.

There was that utter bastard that had us wake up Ariadne for his own purposes. My thoughts regarding him have changed, in the year or so since he poisoned me to the point of death. On the one hand he made me so angry that I could barely speak but his actions have taken on a new slant in my mind and in my life since those times. Without him and his actions I would never have met Ariadne. Yes I spent a significant portion of time thinking up new and interesting ways to torture him to death but that was a more therapeutic exercise to keep my mind from the fact that my insides were turning to goo. Also there is the change that he, also, is dead and as such my hate of him, the former Duke/Count of Angral (It's complicated) is lessened.

Then there is Sir Robart de Radford. That prize bastard I would still cheerfully murder. When I was last at home I sent some more money out to the town criers of Novigrad and Oxenfurt to remind general passers by of how much of a cowardly idiot he is. Someday, when this is all over, I'm going to devote a certain amount of my time to hunting Sir Robart down and destroying him.

After that though, there isn't anybody. Kerrass claims that this is a much larger number than I should have if I was going to claim that I'm not a violent man and maybe he's right. But the point is...The point is that there is a now a new name to add to the list.

That person is the stupid little gob-shite of a jobs-worth that ran the Imperial messenger service in Toussaint. I never learned his name but as I stood in the messengers office while Kerrass tried to get him to tell us some "confidential information," I would cheerfully have strangled him. My hands were cramping with the effort of not wrapping themselves round his stupid, saggy chinned neck, working their way under his jowels and using my thumbs to get in and under his chins to close off his windpipe. I imagined his face going purple, then blue, his tongue protruding and flapping around while blood vessels in his eyes started to pop, as slowly but oh so sweetly, his life faded out beneath my grasp.

In my defence, this man had information. Crucial information that he steadfastly refused to give us.

Information that could lead us to whoever or whatever had taken my sister away from me and he was refusing to give it to us.

I had taken my post, a little distance away from where Kerrass was trying to reason with the walking pus stain of humanity. I was leaning against the wall with my forehead letting the cool stone calm me as I listlessly kicked at the wall over and over again in an effort to both listen to what was being said and at the same time, trying not to get increasingly frantic with panic, fear and a terrible rage that threatened to boil over and drown everybody in the southern part of the continent in bile.

I was not handling the delay well.

Fortunately for me, Neither was Kerrass.

"Look," he said, audibly trying to stay calm and patient, "Do you see this medallion? This one here? The one that looks like a hissing cat?"

"Yes sir I see that symbol." The man smiled apologetically and patiently, as if the entire world was pressing down on him in particular, that it wasn't his fault and he was doing everything that he could do to help. But that the person in front of him was just too stupid to understand the many varied and complex things that meant that he simply couldn't do what was being requested of him.

"Also, while we're on the subject. Do you see this sword on my back? The long one that I spend hours each day cleaning and maintaining so that it's razor sharp and easily able to cut people in half?"

The man behind the desk sighed his world weary sigh for what felt like the six hundred and forty ninth time.

"Right, do you know what these two things mean when they are carried around by a man with a vertical slitted iris in his eyes?"

Another sigh. I tried not to count how many times that meant that he had done that. "It means that you're a Witcher sir but..."

"Right. Now, do you know what the Witchers are to the Empress of Nilfgaard?"

Another sigh. "I am well aware that that makes you the personal bodyguards of her imperial majesty, but at the same time that doesn't give you the authority to read the private messages."

"Well, funny you should mention that but do you see this piece of paper here?"

Another sigh. "Yes sir. You've shown it to me three times now. It's an Imperial Warrant sir."

"Yes, it's an Imperial Warrant. A warrant that I had to run upstairs to get. I had to go to the Empress to get her to sign it. While she's busy signing all the other pieces of law which, by the way, includes the Imperial seal on the charter of the Imperial Messenger service."

"Now I don't appreciate threats sir."

"I don't care what you do and do not appreciate. After that I then had to get the warrant to be signed and counter sealed by the Imperial Secretary and Chief of Imperial Intelligence so that I have the ability to look at state secrets."

Another sigh. "That's as maybe sir but none of those things allow _you_ or the gentleman behind you to look through the private message records. Any of _those_ people are more than welcome to come down here and look through the messages themselves but until they do, the safe stays closed."

Kerrass took a deep breath. "You see that man behind me?"

Another fucking sigh. "Yes sir, I see him."

"That man has lost his sister. I would warn you that if you make a joke about looking under the bed or behind the wardrobe for her, that I'm not sure that I would be able to hold him back from kicking your testicles out through your nose. We found some Messenger paper in the fireplace."

"That would be a serious crime sir and the lady would have to be reported to..."

"The lady is missing. We just want to know what the message was so that we can help find the lady and rescue her, or bring her to justice, whichever is the right course."

Another sigh. The man tried to take on a conciliatory tone. "I wish I could help you sir, I really do and if it was up to me then I would do so without a second thought but the rules are the rules and I am not authorised to break them."

Kerrass groaned. "Who is authorised to break them?"

"The Empress, the Imperial Secretary and the Chief of Intelligence," Kerrass and the messenger said at the same time. "You remember my warrant?" Kerrass went on. "The one signed by the three people that I've just mentioned giving us permission to do precisely that?"

"I'm sorry sir. They are the rules. Only the three people named can open the seals."

"But they've said that I can look."

"I only have your word for that sir."

"And their signatures and their personal seals."

"All of them could be forgeries."

Kerrass put his head in his hands and tried again to appeal to reason. "You understand that the people you refer to have other things to do at the moment? Including the aforementioned signing of various things into law and hunt down possible conspirators against the Empire."

"Yes sir which, I might suggest, renders this point a little moot. It clearly isn't that important as one of the other people that I've mentioned would be down here."

It was that sentence that finally caused my patience to snap. I was up, hurdled the counter that this idiot was standing behind and landed almost on top of him to the point that I carried him off his feet and onto his back.

My knife was out of my boot almost as quick and I used it to tickle under his throat.

"Guards," He called but I pushed the tip of the dagger up a bit further until it drew blood. Please don't think that he was in danger. He had several false chins which I would have had to force my dagger through before I could do him any kind of serious damage.

It had not been a good day. After we had discovered the piece of card that showed that Frannie had received a message before disappearing, we stormed down to the messenger's office who was shut for the coronation.

We hammered and shouted and generally caused a fuss until a guard came to see what all the fuss was about. In the end we managed to convey the urgency of our errand before we found out that the chief messenger was away at lunch. Kerrass stomped off to find the messenger while I ran off to keep the Empress up to date with our progress having received a message of our own that the Empress needed to know what was happening. Having made my report I ran back down to discover that Kerrass had been waiting, not very patiently, for the messenger's office to open. We got in, whereupon this gigantic fool was telling us that he couldn't _possibly_ allow anyone to read the private messages of the service. After some argument, Kerrass found out that only the Empress, the Chief of Intelligence and the private Secretary could order the messages opened. Cue my running up the stairs again to get a warrant from the secretary to say I could read the messages. But the messenger still wouldn't let us in.

All the while, my sister was getting further and further away from us.

I ran downstairs to get Lord Voorhis to write and seal a warrant to say that we could read whatever the hell we damn well liked. Then, just to be sure, I ran back upstairs to ask the Empress to put something in writing. When I finally managed to return the chief messenger still refused to believe us and steadfastly refused to talk to us. Until, as I say, I lost my temper.

I heard some clanking behind me as some soldiers came into the room. But I also heard a rustle of paper and Kerrass saying "Imperial business," quite calmly. I would later find out that he had held up the warrant and the sight of the Imperial seal did it's job and caused them all to back down.

"Now I want you to listen to me very carefully." I thought that my voice sounded relatively calm considering everything that had happened. The man that was, by now, shivering and sweating with my knee on his chest didn't seem convinced by my relaxed tone however. "I want you to listen very carefully and understand something. I need you to take it in, process it and then understand what I'm telling you otherwise today is going to end very badly for you. Do you understand?"

His eyes widened and he jerked his head up and down. I moved my dagger so that he wasn't injuring himself as he nodded.

"Good. Do you know who I am?"

He nodded again.

"In which case you will understand my feelings on the matter. So here's what's going to happen next. Myself and my Witcher companion are going to ask you a few questions. Not very many at all, just a few short questions. When we're done you can feel free to register a complaint with the Office of the Chief of Intelligence, the Empress' secretary or indeed the Empress herself. You can call for my arrest or whatever you like. Do you understand?"

He whimpered.

"I asked you if you understand?" I raised my voice a little and gave him another little poke with my knife for emphasis.

"Yes, I understand," he wailed.

"Very good. Now, I'm going to pass on the rules to you. They are simple rules as a whole but I'm confident that they are easy to understand. Here they are. As I say, we are going to ask a series of questions. You will answer them immediately and without hesitation. I won't penalise you if you are reaching for the information or for tripping over your words. However, I will penalise you if either of us begin to feel that you are keeping something from us. If you fail to answer the question, or if we think you are lying to us then you will be penalised. Do you understand? Just nod."

He did so.

"There is only one penalty. That penalty is that I use this dagger to end your miserable, jumped up, self important little life. There will be no second chances. We are confident that the answers to our questions can be found in this place and that you can give them to us. Do you understand?"

He nodded. He looked as though he was about to burst into tears.

For a moment I felt like I was the bully, the stronger man preying on the weaker. For that moment I felt shame.

But then I remembered my sisters face, the fact that this mid-level bureaucrat stood in my way and that he has said that the disappearance of my sister wasn't important and my anger came flooding back. I remembered his smug face and his insistence at hiding behind clever words and rules and laws. But he wasn't going to answer any questions while I was kneeling on his chest.

I let him up whereupon he scooted over to the corner of his little office in the lower parts of the castle. I noticed that Kerrass had closed the door at the entranceway to the office and was leaning against it nonchalantly.

"Now," I said, pulling over a chair and sitting on it before crossing my legs. "Let's have a chat."

Kerrass had moved a table in front of the doors to barricade us in before walking round to perch on the counter.

"Why don't we start with your name?" he asked.

"Gregoire du Montagne" The terrified man answered.

"Very good. And you are the chief of the messenger service?"

"Yes."

"So you have all the keys and things to all of these secret boxes?"

"I do."

"Ok. So let's pretend that I know absolutely nothing about how the Imperial messenger system works. Explain it to us."

The erstwhile postman Gregoire du Montagne shuffled into a more seated position and started to sweat.

"Uh, what do you want to know?"

Kerrass blew out his breath. "Lets say I want to send a personal message to, I don't know, Lady Merigold. What would happen?"

"Uh, well," he licked his lips a little nervously. "That would depend on what kind of service you require?"

"What are the options?" Kerrass prompted. I thought he was being really patient considering.

"Well, there's the standard messaging service which is what most civilians use."

"I see, what else is there?"

"Military post. That is reserved for use of the military only. Military dispatches are sent with our couriers in an effort to keep them secure and because our couriers tend to be more dependable. We don't know what's in them as they turn up already sealed so all we do is take them to where they are needed to go."

"What else is there?"

"Well there's Imperial messages?"

"What are those?"

"Those are the messages that are used by heads of state and by their trusted...people."

"You mean their trusted servants?"

He licked his lips before answering. "Yes."

"How does that work?"

"Well there are two messages. The first is something that is written on paper. Often it;s a piece of nonsense rhyme or is a distraction for anyone who might discover the written message. But the real message is told to the messenger verbally. To be passed on directly as is."

"Why is it done that way?" I asked, "Doesn't that mean that the contents of royal messengers is known tot he messenger service?"

"Yes but we would never pass those details on."

"As I've recently been informed though. Everybody has a price. Everybody breaks sooner or later when you find their pressure points."

"Well, that's true. In all honesty it's a trick we took from the Northerners that actually worked really well."

"You mean the whole, Ass of Iron, Brain of Gold?" I asked.

The man winced. "We say it a little different from that but yes."

Kerrass raised his eyebrows to me in question.

"What it was, was that royal messengers used to carry three sets of messengers. Sometimes more. They had a satchel for regular dispatches and then another set of messages, often sowed into the lining of his clothes or inside his saddle or similar. The idea was that the Imperial forces paid a considerable bounty for the capture of Royal messengers. They were almost never killed except by accident. Subverted, tortured, blackmailed. These things they often were, but killed? almost never.

"So they would be captured, their satchels would be confiscated and then the messenger would be put to the question. They had been trained to have layers of information, so that during questioning they could give up the unimportant pieces of information to protect themselves. The torturer or questioner would be able to hold up those pieces of information in an effort to tell their employers that progress was being made, but all the while, the _real_ message was concealed in the messengers memory. Those brave men and women were trained to be able to pick up information instantly, keep it steady in their brain until the point of delivery and they could then forget it instantly upon delivery of the message. They tested it once, I saw a demonstration at the university where they hired a mage to come in and use their enchantments to compel the messenger to tell the truth and he couldn't remember a message that he had delivered that morning."

"That's about the long and short of it. Our couriers have developed the same technique."

"So if the Empress comes in here or sends her secretary or similar with a secret message?"

"There are two pieces of paper. The first we ask them to write on the famous blue card that we use. It's the same stuff that we use to convey our standard messages. Then the real message is written separately on any kind of paper. We once had a message written on the back of a sales receipt."

"Stick to the point if you please," The tone of the conversation was getting a little too friendly for my taste.

"But the scrap paper would go into a safe which we keep under guard for the period of two weeks before they get destroyed."

"Why two weeks. Surely you would want to destroy them immediately?"

"For verification sir. In the highly unlikely event of a message going astray or going wrong, we keep the original message in an effort of verification."

"An example please."

"Well sir, our standard example is that a general orders a captain to attack a hill. That's all that's in the message. We take the message dutifully and from the generals perspective there is only one hill because he's set his command post halfway up a hill himself. But the captain who has a different perspective on the battlefield says that he can see several hills of various sizes. But he knows that indecision is death on the battlefield. He doesn't have time to send a message back to ask for clarification. He attacks the hill that _he_ thinks is the one that needs attacking and as a result the battle goes poorly. The general insists that he ordered one thing. The Captain insists that he receives another and as a result the blame inevitably falls on the messenger. Then the messenger produces the original message and it turns out to be a lack of proper thought to the messages."

"I see. So, just to be clear. You keep records of all the messages sent."

"We do."

"Good, along with their intended recipient."

"Yes."

"Excellent. And the sender?"

"The sender often writes the message themselves and signs the card."

"What if they don't?"

The man started to sweat. "It was decided that it's none of our business sir."

"I see. Who has access to which tier of messages."

"Anyone can pay a fee to have a letter or a message delivered. The military service is reserved for the military itself. The final tier is reserved for royalty itself."

"But only for royalty."

"Yes sir." He was sweating.

"Really?" Kerrass had seen it too.

"Yes sir."

Kerrass shrugged. "Ah well Freddie. You warned him I suppose. Time to make with the throat slitting I think."

"I thought of jamming it through his eye to be honest."

The man started to blubber in protest.

"Ah well, there's always a danger that you'll get the dagger stuck in the man's eye-socket."

"Sometimes we let other people use it." The man all but shouted.

"For a suitable fee I suspect."

The man had the good grace to blush furiously.

"You have to understand that there are certain cases where discretion is also an important part of the security of the Empire."

"Really?" Kerrass seemed un-convinced.

"Oh yes. The Gentlemen of office have needs after all."

"Do they now?" I wondered. "I can't help but notice that you don't talk at all about the women of office."

"Yes...well."

"Anyhow," I snapped, attempting to steer the topic of conversation back towards what was going on with my sister. "So someone comes to you with a suitable monetary donation to the postal service. He informs you of the utmost need for discretion and then what."

"He writes down two messages. The first message will be carried on the blue card to it's intended target."

"And the other message?"

"The other message is also written down for our records."

"So then, when you have found a messenger. The messenger takes the blue carded message, whilst also learning the other."

"Yes. Then while delivering the blue card they also pass on the verbal message."

"I see. So, now we come to the heart of the matter. The messages that were delivered to my sister. Lady Francesca von Coulthard."

"Yes sir?"

"You still have the messages on record?"

He squirmed a bit before nodding.

"Excellent. Then you will be able to open the box that contains those same messages."

You could see him, almost _feel_ him screwing up his courage in an effort to refuse us. I drew my dagger again and started to examine the edge, testing it with my thumb. He took a key from a pouch that he kept at his belt and opened a rather ornate box, inlaid with a blue fabric.

"When was the message sent?" He asked.

"I suspect that you know which message I'm speaking of already."

He paused as I said that.

A horrible suspicion stole across my mind then. "You know, don't you you bastard. You know..." Kerrass took a moment to interpose himself between us."

"Two messages," The man said. "The blue card was taken and kept by the recipient which is not unusual in these cases."

"Cases like what."

"Like this." He passed a piece of paper over to Kerrass who read it before sighing and passed the paper over to me.

I had a shock even before I read the message.

The blue message was long and flowery so I won't try to recount it here. It was a romantic message in the form of a poem. It was in the style of a man wishing for permission to simply adore the recipient of the message. It was not badly written all things considered, the penmanship was superb, and I suspected that there were some things hidden in the message. If I had more time or more freedom to do as I wished I might be able to decipher some kind of hidden meaning in the depths of the poem. One or two clumsy phrases here and there that struck me as too artfully clumsy to be entirely believed. This poem had been carefully crafted, even despite it's pretence at a man writing quickly with a heart longing. But I wasn't really reading it.

The secret message was much shorter.

"I have learned something vital to the survival of your patron. Meet me on the bridge below the waterfall." I read aloud. I bounced to my feet, folded up the paper and placed it carefully in a pouch. "We must be off." I declared. "You," I said pointing with the dagger at the postmaster. "You will wait here. There are further questions need to be asked of you and I think that you will count yourself lucky if it is anyone other than me that comes to ask you these questions."

He spluttered a bit but I left no time for retort and had already turned to leave.

Kerrass must have stayed a little while but I soon heard his footsteps running to catch me up.

"Freddie?"

Not now Kerrass. I ignored him but my pace increased.

We sped out of the palace and jogged gently through the gardens.

"Lord Frederick?" A couple of voices cried out, "Any news of your sister?"

"A hint Lord Frederick and I will be forever in your debt."

"Smile Freddie. Look pleased. These people think it's a game."

I waved at the nobleman who had called, but jogged on.

"Freddie what the fuck?"

"I know who sent the message. But it's impossible."

"Freddie?"

I ran on.

"Goddess dammit Freddie but if you ever complain about me keeping my thinking from you on a hunt again I'm going to slap you silly."

We ran, down through the paths that descended towards the harbour. I don't know what I expected to find there. My sister was missing for well over half a day and this path was often travelled so there was no way that she would still be here. But the need to stand in the place that she must have gone burned in me. Even if she had done something else? I felt sure that there was a clue of some kind there.

We got there and looked around, disturbing a young couple, obviously crazily in love with each other. They were looking into the stream and I got the impression that they were looking for something. I shooed them on and started looking around.

Kerrass joined me, jumping down to the bed of the stream, rooting around amongst the rocks and plants. Contrary to my expectation though, we found something almost immediately. Kerrass stopped for a while and took a deep breath. I had seen this before and watched as he took a deep breath before turning his nose towards a bush. He carefully dropped down and gently parted the branches of one of the bushed. Fishing in the bush he produced a rock. It still glistened a little with drying blood.

"That is not a good sign." he commented. I heard a whooshing in my ears and then next thing I was having water splashed in my face.

"Kerrass. It was my brothers writing. It was Sam's handwriting... But that's..."

"Impossible. I know..."

"Flame Kerrass what the hell is happening?"

"I don't know Freddie. Come on."

He helped me to my feet and helped me up the path towards the palace.

He kept the rock in his hand.

It took us some time to gather everyone. We were shown straight into the Empress' office where she was still frantically signing various documents while, at the same time, going through the various stages of being dressed for the various balls that she was going to be attending over the course of the evening and the night.

She seemed to be throwing away one law in three as she found some fault in the writing or found that some scribe or another had inserted their own little clauses or sub-clauses into the laws that she was signing.

Apparently only throwing away one in three was considered a good success rate for a new Emperor in office.

By the time we got there she was back to wearing a dress but if anything her temper was getting worse.

"Find out who wrote this?" she demanded waving it under the nose of her poor, much put upon private secretary. "Find out who wrote this and enquire who is paying them more. Me, or the Duke of Cantre. If it's the Duke of Cantre then the scribe can fucking well find employment with him. If it's me then we are paying them far too much and they can be kicked out the door, onto their arse where they can wallow in their own shite for all I care."

"Yes, Imperial Majesty."

"I don't know, do they think that because I'm a girl and because I'm young that I won't notice that they're trying to squeeze these things past me in an effort to get one over on me?"

"I don't know, Imperial Majesty. May I suggest however that that question is better devoted to a time when you've already decided which pieces of the law you want to keep and which one's you don't."

The Empress grumbled a bit before signing another piece of paper.

Lord Voorhis was summoned and arrived with little ceremony, slipping in via the back door. The Empress was still attended by her dressmakers and a couple of Witchers. I recognised Gaetan although I hadn't been introduced to the other man.

The Empress finished her latest signature before waving off the next piece of paper. She looked up at Kerrass and raised an eyebrow. "Well?"

"It's not good Majesty."

The Empress sighed heavily. "You'd better tell me."

"Lady Francesca was lured out of the palace in the course of the night by a message carried by the Imperial messenger service. Here is a copy of the letter. As well as the private message that was written underneath. We didn't finish the questioning though as we were trying to stay with the trail."

The Empress nodded as she handed the paper on to Lord Voorhis.

"We went to the only place that we could think of that was covered by "The Bridge under the Waterfall" where we found this." Kerrass placed the rock on the desk.

The Empress' face went pale and rigid, as though she was suddenly wearing a mask of her own face.

"Is that Francesca's blood?" she asked.

"I'm as confident as I can be. It would be too much of a coincidence otherwise."

The Empress nodded.

"So the train of events is that a message was carried to Francesca in the night. She read it, trusted it enough to investigate alone. Why would she do that?"

"Because, according to Lord Frederick. The Handwriting is similar to that of Lord Samuel's writing."

Lord Vorhis looked at me. I had slumped into the nearest chair and was letting Kerrass do most of the talking. "Similar Lord Frederick?"

"No." I said. "It is so close to my brothers handwriting that I would swear that it _was_ his handwriting except that it can't be him."

"Why do you say that?" The Empress asked

I opened my mouth to speak but Lord Voorhis interrupted me. "Regardless, I'm going to put Lord Samuel Kalayn under arrest while we track down his movements over the last couple of days as well as the movements of his squire and the couple of men-at-arms that he has kept."

"That's as maybe but it can't be Sam because..."

"We'll get to that Lord Frederick," Lord Voorhis was scribbling a note that was taken off him by a page. "But what else needs to happen?"

"I would say that we need to properly interrogate the Postmaster of the Imperial messenger service." Kerrass said. "I would even go so far as to say that the entire system needs to be rethought."

"Why do you say that?" Lord Voorhis seemed to bridle a bit at that accusation. I would later find out that the Imperial messenger service was Lord Voorhis' personal brainchild.

"Because it would seem that the "Imperial" messenger service has become the messenger service of anyone who can pay for it." Kerrass said. He went on to describe what we had found about how anyone who paid enough for the "most discrete service" could get the same level of service as the Imperial service. "But," Kerrass went on, "he can probably be questioned in an effort to find out who it was that actually dropped off the message as well as things like, was the message written in his presence? and..."

"Yes Thank you Master Kerrass. I have some ideas as to what questions need to be asked." Lord Voorhis snapped.

Kerrass just smiled a little. The Empress ignored them both.

"I want to know why it can't possibly be your brother." She told me. It wasn't a question.

"Because Sam could no more kill Francesca than I could. What you've got to understand about it is that..." I took a breath in an effort to calm my own mind. I was stuttering around a lump in my throat as well as being torn between a desire to scream, to shout as well as to burst into tears. "What you have to remember is that... Francesca was the culmination of all of us. We all loved her beyond reasoning. She was smarter than me, better with numbers than Emma, more physically gifted than Sammy and kinder than Mark. She became the Princess to all of us. Everyone loved her. Even Edmund loved her despite his obvious faults and warped way of looking at it. She was the culmination of all of our thoughts and prayers. Goddess, we weren't jealous of her. We were proud of her. Everything that she has, she deserves the lot. It wasn't as a result of luck, it was the result of hard work. She was everything to us. Everything to all of us."

There was something else that was niggling at me. I had seen the note and I knew whose writing it was. But at the same time I also _knew_ that it wasn't Sam that had done this. It was a hunch I suppose.

I know, I know that the academic thoughts on the benefits of a hunch but I can't explain the extreme, almost visceral reaction at the possibility of Sam's guilt in the matter of Francesca's disappearance. I refused to believe that it could be him I just couldn't even begin to understand how it could be him.

Things started to move very quickly after that.

I've never understood the bodies desire to go into a state of shock. I can only speak from personal experience but it seems to happen whenever we have entered a moment or period of crisis. At the receipt of some really bad news or after you've been injured. It always strikes me that this is a very foolish time to go into a mental state where your brain goes all woolly, you can't think straight and you run into the very real possibility of passing out. Surely that's the worst possible thing that you can do in these circumstances. I can understand the need to suppress pain response and things like that, but surely that would be the point that you would need _more_ of an ability to think and control and plan.

But no. There I was, sat in the Empress' office as she signed a whole bunch of Imperial orders and I could do absolutely nothing. I began to shake and sweat until someone noticed what was happening and I was brought some strong, restorative drink to get my brain to work again.

There's another thing. Why is it always a strong alcoholic drink that they choose in these circumstances? But I digress.

I sat in the Empress' office as circumstances moved further and further away from my control.

On some level I was aware that my brain was still working. Worrying away at the problem, turning it this way and that way in an effort to find the solution as though a new perspective might shed some more light on the matter. I was also aware that I was exhausted. I had gotten engaged the day before yesterday. Yesterday I had been involved in a discussion at the highest level and today, I had been all set to watch history in the making and was looking forward to the parties that were bound to be happening, even now as the sun was beginning to set.

I wanted to dance and drink and talk and walk. I wanted to see Ariadne but most of all I wanted to sleep and let the world worry about itself for a while.

The evidence against my brother was damning. But how could I go against it? That was the shape of the problem. The larger problem of where my sister had vanished to seemed a little...big...for me to comprehend at that point. We had followed the trail as far as we could and now it needed to be homed in on a bit more.

The "legwork" part of the investigation that Kerrass had been ignoring while we had followed Francesca's trail more closely. I was dimly aware that he was involved in doing all of this now, specifically I was aware that he was part of the interrogation of the Postmaster where they were asking him things like "What did the man look like who dropped off the message? How were they dressed? What did they sound like? How did they move?

I was also dimly aware that people were asking my sister's guards some searching questions. Did they hear anything? Had they seen anything? Was Francesca acting suspicious in any way? The questions about why they hadn't reported the fact that there had been a message delivered to her on the night of her disappearance or questions regarding their competence were waiting until after the other questions had been answered to the satisfaction of the questioners.

I knew that my brother had been arrested and was sitting in a cell somewhere. I knew that his servants were being questioned and that his squires and so on were being examined in the most minute detail. I was even dimly aware, somewhere in the back of my mind, that Sorcerers were getting involved. I felt badly about that. It's easy to say to yourself that someone would eventually identify Sam's handwriting so that I wasn't entirely responsible... but I felt responsible. I felt as though I was to blame somehow.

But there was something wrong with the note and I couldn't say what it was.

Flame but I didn't want to be here.

I wanted to be at home. Or failing that I wanted to be camping by the side of the road with Kerrass. Hunk of meat roasting over a camp-fire passing a bottle of hooch backwards and forwards while we talked about the latest monster that we had faced.

I wanted to be planning my first series of lectures at the university. I wanted to be with Ariadne somewhere, spending some time planning our future or, alternatively, just spending some time looking at her. I could live with that.

If I couldn't get any of that, then some time training. The Empress had asked for a recommendation regarding the founding of a new Witcher school. I could be spending some time working on putting together a report. But now. Now. I had to figure out why I was so certain that Sam was innocent of the things that it was beginning to look like he might be guilty of.

I say again. The possibility that he might be guilty had not even begun to cross my mind. It simply could not be true. But I didn't know why that might be the case. It was like... It was like that moment where you have an intuition about something. I'm an academic so I can only really talk about this on that kind of level. You have been asked a question by someone in a position of authority and so they need to be answered. You then realise that you know what the answer is. You can see it in front of your eyes and you declare that answer in a proud and happy voice, then the lecturer or tutor looks you square in the eye with a wicked smile and says.

"You are correct Mr Coulthard. But why is that the case?"

It is a common and unfair point that you often don't get credit for work unless you can state with definition as to why a thing had happened.

But I couldn't see it. I knew that my brother was innocent and it was more than just the instinctual thought that "My brother couldn't possibly have done something so evil." I was well aware that there was the potential for evil in my family. Edmund had proven that. I had had that thought back then when Kerrass had found that Edmund had killed our Father that he couldn't possibly have been responsible. And again when it was found that Mother had, in turn, killed Edmund. On both of those occasions my brain had leapt to their defences saying that they couldn't possibly be responsible for the calamity that had befallen us and time and again I had been proven wrong. My family had the capacity for evil and I knew that, even though I privately thought that Francesca might be above that kind of thing.

Samuel was a soldier. He had fought in the war and was more than physically capable of killing someone. That I knew _that_ was indication enough that there might even be the capacity of something worse. Since the time of my father's death I have, again, changed my outlook on life. I now believe that everyone is capable of extreme violence given the right circumstances. It's a similar sentiment to the old one of everyone having their price. Everyone has a price, which means that if you offer something to someone, it might not be money or property or women then, sooner or later you will find that thing that they want Sooner or later if you torture someone enough then you get the information, (it might not be the information that you want but you will get the information). But the other thing is that, at the end of the day, with enough of a push, a person can be driven to extreme violence.

I knew that he was capable of violence. If I thought about it, which I did, I might have said that Sam's thinking was a little bit more direct. If he wanted to kidnap or kill Francesca, going through some convoluted plan to summon her out of a place where she was almost as heavily guarded as the Empress herself was just not his style. He had every opportunity to do these things with considerably less risk as well. It didn't _feel_ right that it might have been Sammy. It just wasn't his style.

But that wasn't why I was so convinced that it wasn't him. There was something else there as well and I couldn't see what it was. I reached out for it and it just fell away from me as though it was on the end of a piece of string and the kidnapper was tugging that string away from me.

I had seen something. I was sure of it. Some... _thing_ that meant that it was impossible for my brother to do the things that he was being accused of. Something that potentially only I had seen or only I could be sure of.

I rubbed my eyes.

"I always find it better to look away from the problem for a while." The Empress told me after a while.

While I had sat there in a daze she had gone through another change into a brighter and more colourful dress than the severe cut of the coronation dress. She was still sat at her table and was looking down at the paper that she was working on. She looked like a tutor who was marking a student's work. I was dimly aware that somewhere in the back of my brain, my inner schoolchild was glad that she wasn't _my_ teacher.

"Excuse me?" I spluttered out on my second attempt as my throat had gone dry.

"Take a step back from the problem that you are working on and try something else," she said. Passing the piece of paper off to her secretary who took it off her. The entire thing was covered in writing and she gestured for the secretary to take it away before turning back to me.

"It's tough sometimes." She said. "Sometimes you want to just barrel through a problem. To charge it, sword spinning and make it go away. But it doesn't work like that. It never works like that."

Another one of the doors into the room opened and a table was set out. Plates, dishes and cutlery were set out before a steaming chunk of meat and some vegetables along with some gravy and a bottle of wine.

"Join me for something to eat?" She said getting up. "You have the look that mother sometimes gets when she's working on something. The look of someone who has forgotten that they need to eat occasionally on the grounds that they had other things on their mind. You don't even have the excuse that you can sort yourself out with some liberal application of magic to keep your energy up. "The brain needs fuel", as mother Nenneke would say,"

I staggered over to the table and sat down opposite the most powerful person on the continent. We ate in silence and she was correct in her assessment of me. I was absolutely famished.

"I have a policy," she said. "It was something that was decided within a week of my introduction to public life. If I'm eating with someone, then no-one is to interrupt me during the course of that meal."

"Why is that?" I asked.

"Because it gives me a moment to myself. The Witchers taught me early on that Breakfast is the most important meal of the day but if I haven't been woken up before dawn due to some kind of catastrophe then believe me when I say that that is a good day."

She put some more vegetables on her plate with relish and drowned them in gravy.

"Lunch is often spent working with people or talking with people and I get a couple of mouthfuls of whatever high energy pastry that passes in front of my mouth between speeches but then, another of Mother Nenneke's sayings occur to me which is that sitting down and eating something is actually still hard work.

"She once told me that you should always take the time to sit and eat with people, even if you have nothing to say. That it is a time for strangers to get to know each other while it's also the time for old friends to get together and reminisce about old times.

"As well as that," She went on, "You can tell a lot about a person by the way they eat food."

I felt my interest being caught. "Really?"

"Oh yes. For instance. You have just eaten your green vegetable first before moving onto your meat and stuffing before mopping up the juices with your bread. Did you do that because you dislike the meat and was putting it off? Or did you get your least favourite parts of the meal out of the way before everything else?"

"The second one," I said feeling a bit bemused.

"Ah, so you're the kind of person that gets the unpleasant chores out of the way before you move onto the more pleasurable ones."

I nodded. "What does that say about me?"

She laughed. "I haven't got the faintest idea. It probably says something but I'm not wise enough to try and figure it out."

"Awww." I complained. "I was looking forward to finding out the answer to that."

"Yes well, I wish I had time to look into it. If I had the wish of my heart I would be out on the road dealing with the monsters that trouble my subjects. One of the things I have enjoyed about your writing is that you have commented about the simplicity of a Witcher's work. I recognised that and I miss that aspect of my life. Of course, back then, when I was fleeing and fighting for my life, I would have given anything to be somewhere warm, comfortable and secure."

"We always want the thing that we can't have."

"Isn't that the truth."

"So why did you give that up and come to be Empress?"

"It's an interesting question." She said, "and you are not the first person to ask it."

I waited a while to see if there was going to be any more but the Empress remained steadily silent.

"And?" I prompted.

She grinned at me. When looking at her during her carefully managed public appearances it is sometimes easy to forget that there's a young woman under all of that. A clever, charming and beautiful one at that. "I've thought about it quite a bit. I'll let you know when I have an answer."

I laughed with her.

Conversation stalled for a while in the manner of two people who don't know each other very well.

"Were you ever told the story about how your sister first came to my attention?"

"I was not, Majesty."

She laughed at the memory.

"She was sixteen." She said. "Time is a malleable state for someone in my position. In years for this world I stood at somewhere around nineteen to twenty one when I came to my Father's court."

She saw my confusion.

"Sorry, you will have been told of my elven title of "Lady of time and space?"

"I am aware of the title but beyond that..."

"What it means is that time passes differently for me. It goes on a linear course only because I allow it and because I want to interact with the people here. If I wanted to I could keep time still, move outside of time altogether which is actually a fun trick if you ever want to hear what people are really saying about you, or even make time run backwards. I've tried it a couple of times but as a result it would be safe to say that I am both younger while at the same time being older than I look."

"At the same time?"

"Yes."

I felt my mind sliding off the concept. The Empress laughed at my face.

"At least you register the possibility that it might be true rather than just denying the truth that time is, in fact, not absolute in it's passage and is, actually, rather maleable. But anyway, enough of the advanced concepts of space time and more reminiscences about your sister. I had arrived at my father's court," She looked sidelong at my confused face. "Sorry, sorry. Dandelion would be furious with me as I'm absolutely useless at telling stories. Do you know about my two fathers?"

"I was aware, in as much as I have read the saga's of the poet."

She winced.

"So you know that my biological parents didn't really have much to do with raising me. That largely fell to Geralt and Yennefer who I call Mother and Father. But when I came to court there was so much nonsense going on, I had to teach myself to refer to the Emperor as "Father,". To be fair to him, I think he struggled with it as much as I did."

She poured some wine for herself and offered me some. I made the universal gesture of "only a small one" with my thumb and index finger.

"I like my Step-mother though, even though she looks unsettlingly like me but she's entertainingly terrified but at the same time exceedingly brave. Whoever it was that taught her how to speak with an educated Cintran accent deserves all the money that they were paid. But anyway, I'm getting away from the story.

"I had been at court for a couple of months. When I first got to court I was, rather naively, determined not to change in any way. I told myself that the courtiers would have to learn to accept me the way that I am, warts and all. That didn't work out. Not entirely their fault.

"Part of the problem was that they simply didn't know how to treat me. My Father intended me to replace him as The EMPEROR with all the capital letters that that implies. He didn't want me to be some kind of figurehead while all the decisions were going to be made behind closed doors, by other men who had their own best interests at heart rather than the interests of the Empire. He wanted me to be Empress of Nilfgaard. He wanted me to _rule_.

"That just didn't cross the minds of the people here. Nilfgaardian nobility expect their women to be seen rather than heard. The women at court have an awful tendency to only speak when they're spoken to and to always, and I do mean always, defer to their husband's opinion. Some people said that I might be a pleasant breath of fresh air but the truth was that the old factions of the court just had a mental shut down whenever I went near then or tried to talk to them. They had this... kind of shutter behind their eyes that cut off their thoughts whenever they saw me. This... _girl_ can't possibly be the Empress therefore she does not exist and her opinion is precisely that."

"An opinion." I offered.

"Yes," She grimaced. "The first time it happened after I had been formally presented to the court as my Father's intended heir my father had the offending dignitary pulled apart by horses. After that, instead of them ignoring me you could almost see them sweating with the effort of trying to take me seriously.

"But I refused to allow them to pigeon hole me. I refused to be categorised and labelled but we soon realised that I would have to work within the system to force people round to my way of thinking.

"It started with my wardrobe. A woman's wardrobe in Nilfgaard...Ugh," She shuddered theatrically. "All dark, subdued colours, plain cuts designed to show off someone's profession as well as to minimise any sexuality that the lady in question might have. If you do spend any time in court, it's somewhat relaxed here in Toussaint because it has to be but when we get back to Nilfgaard, you can spend an entertaining afternoon watching all the old men's faces whenever Phillipa, Triss or even your Ariadne walk through the court. Confident women, comfortable with their sexuality are almost abhorrent to the courtiers, but at the same time being so...attractive.

"But I digress.

"At first what we did was to try and emphasise the fact that I am my father's daughter. If you look at the portraits of each of us we don't look alike and people comment that I must look like my mother. But when you see us together, really see us together then people can see the similarities. So at first, they tried to work off that. If I dressed like my Father did, then people would accept that that's who I come from and what I expect to do with my time.

"It didn't work out.

"Then they tried to dress me in these ornate, heavily jewelled and embellished confections that they called Dresses,"

The Empress shuddered again before chuckling at the memory.

"As I recall I politely enquired if the dressmaker in question had ever faced a stampeding herd of wild horses. That was the day I also learned about how people in Nilfgaard take whatever I say literally."

"Funny that," I commented.

"Yes, well. My father used to come up with increasingly inventive ways to have people executed in an effort to get people to think about things before they start to talk. He used to take a perverse pleasure in coming up with methods of execution to fit the crime and then not to bother turning up to watch them. He says that he thought it was the final nail in someone's self-esteem and confidence if the Emperor himself didn't think you were important enough to watch your execution.

"In the end though I chased them all out of the room and chose the one woman who asked me what I wanted to wear. Together she and I came up with what my current wardrobe mostly consists of. I kept my Father's simplicity in that I don't really like jewellery. I told the woman that I want clothes for day to day use that I could, at a moments notice and without having to disappear of to my chambers for several hours, go riding, hold court, receive dignitaries, accept gifts and pass sentence. I wanted to be able to move, walk around at my own pace rather than at the pace governed by overly narrow skirts and I wanted to be comfortable. I told her than everyone should already know who I am so I didn't feel as though I needed to announce it with frills, ornaments or jewellery. It still took work, many weeks and months worth of work before I was approaching satisfaction with what I had but we got there in the end. But there was a significant problem. A problem that no-one, including me, had even begun to think of.

"That problem was what to do with my hair.

"It's a truth of the South, as well as a truth of the North that a woman's hair tells you a lot about the woman in question. Women cover their hair when they're married. Either under a hat, a wimple or some kind of scarf. But even before that, many young women tie their hair back to keep it out of their eyes while they're working, in the fields or looking after the children but then we come to the problem.

"I used to tie my hair back as well. To keep it out of my way while fighting, running or riding. But it's unthinkable for the _Empress_ to have her hair tied back like some kind of Peasant woman." She smirked at a memory. "But likewise, a woman with long hair is also a statement about status. It tells anybody watching that the woman in question had time and the money to keep their hair long, clean and in a state to be managed. That way, I could even make my hair a statement in and of itself."

Her eyes went distant for a moment or two.

"My sister told me that."

"I didn't know you have a sister Majesty."

"I don't. Not really but Triss and I have a certain understanding."

There's nothing like speaking to someone who has a close relationship with important people to remind you that important people are still just people too. I had difficulty thinking about who the Empress was referring to when she said "Triss," although it seems obvious now that she must be talking about Triss Merigold, advisor to King Tancred of Kovir.

"So we wasted even more time trying to figure out what to do with my hair.

"I remember distinctly. It was maybe six months after I had come to court. Only a couple of months after your sister had arrived. She had been living in the capital since I had arrived waiting for an introduction. She had been presented to me but there were so many names and faces in the early days of my arrival, that I had lost track of her. But it was just before I had decided that if I wanted to wear trousers under a long coat then I could wear trousers. So I was still in skirts, a bit more severe than the dressmaker wanted them to be while at the same time being a bit too ornate for my tastes.

"Don't get me wrong, I like frilly things and pretty jewels as much as the next eligible lady but there is a time and a place and that was not it.

"But I was walking through the court. Meeting several people and catching up with a couple of friends when my hair fell out of the careful arrangement that had been piled on top of my head."

The Empress laughed.

"The looks of horror on the surrounding courtiers would have been almost comical if it wasn't for my own frustration and impatience. In the end though a small, girlish snigger came to my ears.

""Who was that?" I demanded in what was probably a rather peevish tone of voice.

"Your sixteen year old sister was firmly pushed into view. I always suspected that there were rather a few people who wanted me to eviscerate this northern wench for her impertinence. Literally as well as figuratively. But the two of us locked eyes as she rose from a very deep curtsy.

"Silence reigned. Then your sister opened her mouth. Something else that simply isn't done in this part of the world where young women are expected to be seen, not heard. "If I may, your majesty?""

"I must have given some indication as to the positive, she disappeared into the crowd and came back shortly with a chair. She positioned the chair just behind me, oblivious to the bodyguards that were watching her every movement with suspicion and distrust, climbed up onto the seat so that she towered over me. She had a long stick in her hand which I later found out was from one of the jugs of lemonade. They were used to stir the lemony mixture and she had wiped it clean on her dress. She did some kind of...well... movement with my hair as she wrapped it round this stick. It took her, maybe ten heartbeats, if that before she climbed down, curtsied again and retreated to the press of court.

"Her arrangement held for the rest of the day and into the night.

"My hair-dresser expressed mystification at the invention and your sister had to be sent for to demonstrate how to take it down. Which she did by simple method of pulling out the stick to let my hair tumble down around my shoulders.

"After that I made it my business to know everything there was to know about your sister and your remarkable family from the north."

The secretary knocked on the door and came in. "Majesty?" he prompted.

The Empress sighed. "Go on then, have they corrected the mistakes this time?"

"I think so Majesty, yes."

Nothing had been said between them but they both seemed to know what the other was talking about. A large piece of paper was set down in front of the Empress which she cast her eyes over quickly before nodding her satisfaction and holding her hand out. A pen was pressed into her grip and she signed.

She did so too quickly and on one of the curves of lettering around the "o" in the Riannon of her name, the quill spattered a small amount of ink onto the paper as I watched.

I stared at the tiny blob of ink as it slowly dried on the paper.

Then I knew what I had seen.

I was up and out of my chair with the same speed as an arrow leaving the bowstring.

I was halfway down the corridor before I realised that I had just been unforgivably rude to the most powerful woman on the continent. I ran back, skidding to a halt in front of a bemused Empress who had moved back to sitting at her desk.

"My apologies majesty." I stammered out. "Forgive me."

She rewarded me with an amused smile and waved her hand in the universal sign of dismissal and I was back to sprinting down the corridor. I saw the Empress' personal secretary with another arm-load of documents for the Empress to sign and I grabbed him, probably causing some small consternation to the guards.

"Where's Lord Voorhis?" I demanded.

"What?"

"Lord Voorhis. Where is he?" I yelled.

"Err. In the cells?"

"Good." I paused. "Errr, how do I get there?"

He gestured and a page detached from the wall. "This way sir."

I nodded and ran on so that the poor fellow had to run to keep up.

He led me down a series of stairs where I nearly twisted my ankle jumping too far and too fast. But nothing could keep me from going where I needed to go.

We came to a guard room. Kerrass was there along with a couple of guards. Through another open door I could see a small series of rooms that looked to have been temporarily changed into a small prison. It was odd. The doors weren't heavy, nor were there any of the iron bars that you expect in a jail. Nor was the dungeon of the form of the deep pits that normally categorise dungeons and the keeping of prisoners. I'm told that Toussaint normally keeps it's undesirables in a separate prison enclosure across the river and this area had been pressed into service given the current crisis. It had probably been used to house wine.

I came to a halt next to Kerrass who raised an eyebrow at me.

"Freddie, You alright?"

I was out of breath.

"It's not Sam." I got out between gasping for breath.

Kerrass winced. "I know we've said that and I'm on your side Freddie but it's not looking good. The messenger guy identified your brother as the man that wrote the message. He described him perfectly along with what he was wearing that day. There's a gap in your brother's schedule where he says that he was sleeping but there aren't any witnesses to that effect and he could easily have had the time to go and write the message."

I nodded. "Where's my brother now?"

Kerrass gestured to the small collection of cells.

"The messenger too?"

Kerrass nodded.

"And Lord Voorhis?"

"Is currently questioning your brother."

I stalked into the small group of rooms. The guards reacted badly, hands went to swords and people started shouting.

"Which one's the messenger in? What'sisname. George?"

"Freddie..." Kerrass waved off the guards.

"Which one," I demanded.

Kerrass pointed and I threw the door open.

The man still had a very punchable face. He had a look that I had seen before. It was the look of a man who was beginning to think that the worst was past. That he would be ok. I still wanted to hurt him but I recognised him now as just being a pointless little jobsworth who thought he was more important than he actually was. If nothing else came of the whole affair then at least the messenger service would be completely revamped and his life would be forever changed.

But he would probably survive.

He began to change his mind when he saw my face.

"Err?" He sputtered.

"The man you saw." I began, trying to keep my voice calm and level. This was the question that could prove my brothers guilt or innocence. "The man who gave you the message. Did you see him write it?"

"Err... yes."

"With your own two eyes." I was beginning to feel more secure in my certainty now.

"Yes." He was feeling more confident now.

"On this paper." I still had the blue piece of paper from earlier with the message on and I waved it him.

"Yes."

"Is this the same piece of paper that you gave him. The one with the message."

"Yes. That's the duplicate message. He wrote both of them and I had to check the one against the other to make sure that there wasn't any deviation."

"Lord Frederick, what's the meaning of this?" Lord Voorhis had emerged from somewhere but I ignored him.

"You didn't look away." I went on with my questions. "You watched the man write both messages with your own eyes. He couldn't have switched papers at all, sleight of hand? a distraction? Nothing like that?"

"No. I watched very carefully." The man seemed to take offence that I could question his competence.

"So just so we're clear." I went on. It was vital that I get all of this right. "The man came in, paid you the sum of money required for the usage of the messenger service. You gave him the blue card for the decoy message and a separate piece of paper where the decoy message and the real message were written down, by him, in front of your eyes."

"Yes. That's how it works." He had squirmed a bit at the reminder that he had been charging money for the Empire's most secret messenger system.

"How long did it take this person to write the messages?"

"What?"

"Lord Frederick I'm not sure what bearing this has..."

"HOW LONG?" I bellowed at the unfortunate messenger.

"I don't know, a minute, maybe two."

I looked again at the poem and the message on the piece of paper.

"Two minutes to do the poem twice and the message."

"Yes."

"Let's call it three minutes just to be on the safe side." I felt light headed. My brother was innocent. That horrible doubt that had crept into my mind. That horrible, momentary doubt that had begun to even hint that my brother might be guilty evaporated.

I turned to Lord Voorhis. "Is my brother down the hall?"

"Yes, but..."

"Do you have a scribe with you?"

"Well yes, we need to keep this whole thing recorded."

I swept past him. Kerrass pointed at the door I needed and I burst in the room. Sam was sat behind a table in his shirt sleeves. Obviously furious and bewildered his arms were manacled and chained to the table. Sure enough a scribe sat in the corner of the room.

"Freddie?" He tried to stand as I walked in but the chains kept him sat down.

For a moment my fury threatened to overpower me. "Hardly "house arrest" Lord Voorhis." I hissed. "Take those off." I pointed at the manacles.

"Lord Frederick. I have been tolerant of your abuses of power but those manacles are going to stay on until I am satisfied as to the innocence of your brother. Innocence which is becoming increasingly doubtful in the face of the evidence that is coming to light."

"Lord Voorhis." I managed, struggling to keep calm. "I understand that this is your job and I appreciate that. I am about to prove that my brother did not write these messages."

"How?"

I saw that Kerrass had come into the room as well.

"For that, I need those manacles removing." I said.

Lord Voorhis took a deep breath, presumably swallowing his own anger, before gesturing. A guard stepped forward and unlocked the bonds. While that was happening I went over to the scribe and stole an ink pot, a couple of quills and some parchment.

"Ok Sam." I said. "Here's what I want you to do." I passed him the ink, quills and parchment. "Lay those out the way you want first as though we were in school."

Sam looked at me oddly before arranging everything together. I lay down the original message next to him.

"I didn't write that." He said looking it over. "It's a forgery."

"I know Sam and I'm about to prove it. I need you to copy that out onto the blank parchment I've just given you. Then turn the parchment over and do it again. The two copies have to be identical. Do you understand?"

Sam snorted.

"I do, but that's impossible."

"Just the content of the message. No spelling mistakes. The penmanship doesn't matter but it needs to be legible with no ink splatter or anything that might make the message illegible or contribute to someone's confusion."

Sam stared at me for a moment as though I had gone mad, before shrugging and setting down to work.

After a while, Kerrass chuckled quietly.

A bit longer and people watching started to shift their weight in discomfort.

I nodded my satisfaction as Sam leant back after finishing the last line. He flexed his wrist a little bit as I looked over the work.

"How long did that take?" I asked the room?

"Twenty two minutes," Kerrass answered, "give or take a few seconds."

I nodded and took another piece of paper from the scribe.

"Ok Sam, your wrist ok?"

He nodded, still angry. "Freddie, what the fuck's going..."

"I'll hopefully be able to explain soon. But first more writing I'm afraid."

I put the new paper in front of Sam as well as some spare quills.

"Now do the same thing again. You have two minutes."

"Fuck off."

"I'm serious Sammy. Get to it."

Sam shrugged again and bent to work.

When he was done he pushed the paper over to me with an expression of disgust. The number of ink blots alone was impressive.

He had gone through three quills and I had had to refill his inkpot.

"I can read it." I said to the room. "But I know my brothers hand. I challenge any of the rest of you to say, with certainty, that you can read every word and... how long did that take Kerrass?"

"Six minutes, thirty two."

I nodded in satisfaction. "My brother is being framed Lord Voorhis. I don't know who by, or why but I know that he didn't do it."

Lord Voorhis took a deep breath.

"I think I can follow your reasoning Lord Frederick. But for the record please."

"I can't explain everything." I said. "I can't answer for why the messenger can describe my brother in detail but a disguise, make-up and others might explain it. Leaving aside the problems of a missing motive... The messenger says that the message, and the two copies of the poem were done in two minutes. I could write those things out, as could the scribe here I imagine. But that's our skill and talent. Sam's talents and skills are martial in nature.

"He spent years. Frustrating, heartbreaking years trying to teach me how to use a sword. Bruises and scars for both of us. But the opposite is also true. I spent years trying to teach him the finer points of poetry and calligraphy. I would flatter myself that I know his handwriting better than anyone alive and as you can see..." I held up the two pieces of writing that he had done. "There is a reason that my brother employs a scribe when he has to send a letter."

I put them back down again. Sam was smiling ruefully.

"The original message was written too perfectly for Sam. He can do it when he puts his mind to it, but it's a matter of painstaking effort. If you look here, and here." I pointed at some examples on his careful attempt.

"You can see jumps in his writing, jerks in the word formation where he realised he was going wrong. Proper writing flows like water. It's natural and easy, even when it's not the best quality. He was making the effort here and it took him far longer than the messenger himself says that it could have taken.

"As for Sam's attempt at speed writing? I don't like that messenger. I think he's a snob but I flatter him enough that there's no way he would have accepted that." I gestured at the offending piece of paper.

"My final point is this." I said, picking up the original message. "Even the most careful scribe, the most professional scholar in the world makes mistakes. They blot and spatter ink. If you look at our friend scribe's writing, I would bet that you can see some ink splatter somewhere, small and hard to spot though it might be."

The room turned to look at the scribe. A man of about thirty who looked up from his paper when he realised that conversation had stopped.

"He's right," he said. "In the trade, we make the joke that that's why they invented blotting paper and use sand for drying."

"Again, if you look at the original message. There are no mistakes. None. No ink splatters, no blots... It's perfect. The messenger says that it was done in front of him and he has no reason to lie. That speaks to me of much practice. Why would someone practice that?"

"A forgery." Lord Voorhis nodded. "A frame job. A good one at that. Are you sure I can't offer you a job in the intelligence service?" He turned to Sam. "Apologies Lord Kalayn?"

Sam paused to take a deep breath. "I know that I'm supposed to say that there's no harm done and no hard feelings. But right now I just want to punch someone."

Lord Voorhis shrugged. "Feel free if it would make you feel better. It wouldn't be the first time that someone has taken to hating me for doing my job." He turned back to Kerrass and I. The Empress insisted on being kept up to date so I should go and do that. She gets tetchy when she's not kept in the loop."

"What are you going to tell her?"

"The truth. That we followed the wrong path and that now, we're nowhere."

It took us a short while to get Sam settled down. He was very angry but at the same time a little grateful. I had been the person that put the finger on him by identifying the handwriting as his but I was also the man who figured out that he was being framed. That clash of being scared, angry and grateful along with worry over Francesca and the cold furious longing for someone to hit had left him feeling dopey and restless. I left him at the practice yards where he took a practice sword to a couple of defenceless training dummies that didn't survive the contact.

By that time the Empress had vanished off into one of the numerous balls that were being thrown in her honour. Instead, Kerrass, Lord Voorhis and I gathered in her office to exchange notes and see where we stood. I remember that Kerrass kept checking on me. The same way that he would check a bomb that hadn't gone off or an alchemical solution that hadn't done what it was supposed to.

I was tired. I felt echoey. I was having flashes and after images of things that I was looking at superimposed themselves on my vision. I was full of the same nervous energy that had afflicted Sammy. My left leg kept jiggling, beating out a nervous rhythm on the floor that must have been aggravating. But I didn't know what to do next.

The office had been turned into the headquarters of Lord Voorhis' investigation. He had a small group of men there sat at an increased number of tables going through Francesca's things. The Empress' desk and dress-makers apparatus had been removed and had been replaced with my sisters luggage that was being gone through with the proverbial fine toothed comb.

At two desks were a pair of oldish men that were introduced as the "Baker boys." The term "boys" was pushing it as both men were well into their sixties with huge foreheads that seemed to climb out of thin curtains of hair. They both had small magnifying glasses that were perched on the ends of their noses and they were going through my sisters correspondence which was vast. I have a tendency to think of myself as having quite a large list of correspondents that I write to on a regular basis and whenever I return home I always find a thick sheaf of letters waiting for me. But my number of letters was made insignificant next to the vast number of letters that my sister had received. And those were just the ones that she had brought with her and had received in the meantime. The two men read each letter over and over again, trying to identify codes or if any of the letters might give out some kind of clue as to who would wish harm on my sister. As it turns out there were quite a few people who wouldn't take "The Empress has forbidden me to accept suitors" as a proper and acceptable answer to expressions of affection.

In one corner, a thin forbidding looking woman and another woman of much more generous figure were going through Francesca's cosmetics looking for poisons or potions. Another pair of men were going through her clothes, carefully picking apart stitching to see if there was anything hidden in any kind of secret compartment, whether by Francesca or by someone else.

I noticed that all three sets of investigators wore thick, leather gloves. At the same time, nearby there was a table, on which stood a series of bottles containing various hues of liquids. Kerrass saw me looking and identified them as poison antidotes. Lord Voorhis had then told me a harrowing story about the mysterious death of a lady at court. Upon investigating the death, one of Lord Voorhis' men had forgotten to wear gloves while examining one of the pieces of jewellery, fallen ill and died.

I found the thought incredibly depressing.

It seemed that it was indeed blood that was on the stone that Kerrass had found. That and it was indeed my sister's blood. Some Sorceress had provided the information although I didn't know who. I felt tired and frustrated, turning the facts over in my mind over and over again but I couldn't see a way through.

Lord Voorhis was sat in a chair, arms folded and legs stretched out. He looked like he was on the verge of falling asleep. Kerrass was leaning against the wall pulling at his lip and I watched the other bits of activity in the room without really seeing any of it.

"Right," Lord Voorhis said suddenly. "Let's go through this again."

Kerrass sighed and nodded. I didn't move.

"We know that Lady Francesca had retired for the evening."

"We do," Kerrass answered.

"We know that she entered her rooms because it was seen by many people, including the Empress who was on the way to her own rooms."

"Then, at some point shortly after that, a messenger came with the blue card and the private message. The card was written in Lord Kalayn's handwriting which means that, as her brother, Lady Francesca would trust the message."

"She then left the room..."

"Hang on Kerrass hang on. I have some thoughts about this..." Lord Voorhis got up and brought over a piece of slate and some chalk that he scribbled on. Some kind of shorthand that I didn't recognise. "Would your sister recognise your brother's handwriting quickly? Was it easily familiar to her?" he asked me.

I shook myself from my stupor. "No reason why not. Francesca wrote to all of us on a fairly regular basis, or at least to Emma, Mark and I that I know of. No reason that Sammy would be left off the list."

"Mmm." Lord Voorhis turned to the baker boys. "Many letters from lord Kalayn?"

"Several." Said one of the two men. "The longer ones are not written in Lord Kalayn's handwriting which would emphasise Lord Kalayn's lack of affinity for the written word."

"But enough so that she would recognise his writing?"

"Well I can." Said one of the two men. "So I would have thought that she could. We only have what letters she received here though, we're expecting more to come from the Royal palace."

"Ok," Lord Voorhis waved them back to their work. "Ok, so lets assume that she knew her brother's handwriting. Did she know his handwriting enough to recognise that the writing was a forgery?"

"Impossible to say. I saw it, but I read that message over and over again. As well as knowing Sam's handwriting so intimately from when we were younger. By the time Frannie and he would have been writing to each other...?" I shrugged. "Sam's writing would have settled into his "adult hand" by then which means that his writing style would have been identifiable by her and, presumably by others."

"Right," Lord Voorhis leaned forwards. "Who else would have access to Lord Kalayn's writing? By which I mean. Who would have access enough to be able to write something in his style and practice what was written enough to make it happen? To get the forgery right?"

"I don't know." I thought for a while. "Surprisingly few actually." I said after a moment. "Unless Sammy has changed his tastes drastically, he hates writing. So much so that he avoids it wherever possible. I remember him saying once that when he was knighted and had to take on the training of a squire, he demanded that the squire be able to write as he, meaning Sam, could teach the lad everything else except proper penmanship. Even Sam admits that his own handwriting is almost childishly round and written as if by a spider with wooden legs."

"So it would need to be someone with access to Lord Kalayn's written confidential orders."

"Yes. Sam's lengthier correspondence is obviously not in his handwriting. He hires a scribe to do that."

Lord Voorhis rang a bell so that a page was summoned. "Find Lord Kalayn's squire. He is to be questioned as to Lord Kalayn's papers, who had access to them? when would Lord Kalayn write something himself and when would he get the squire or a scribe to write it? Why? What were the differences? Where did his own writing go? To Whom? And What for?"

I was making to get to my feet but Lord Voorhis waved me back to my seat.

"It is sometimes a mistake to rush off after the latest theory as that prevents further thinking from happening? We have flunkies. Let them do their job."

"I hate doing nothing." I grumbled.

"The perils of command." Kerrass said as he pulled over a chair. "What's next?"

"Ok so," Lord Voorhis stared at his slate. "Writing. The messenger-colonel...who will soon be out of a job by the way, identified Lord Kalayn easily."

"Disguise?" Kerrass asked. "Disguise or magical disguise?"

"He seemed pretty convinced that it really was Lord Kalayn. Enough so that it lead to Lord Kalayn's arrest. The flaw of the forgery being too good is so slight that it actually proves that it was a forgery."

"A paid actor?" I wondered. "A paid stooge or the actual kidnapper?"

"Impossible to say." Lord Voorhis said. "I'm investigating the magical possibility. Or rather Lady Eilhart is, on the Empress' insistence."

I shuddered. "That woman unnerves me. So...what next?"

Lord Voorhis pulled at his lip. "Lady Francesca has a number of enemies that we know about. But why was Lord Kalayn targeted as a scapegoat?"

I shrugged. "Sam and I are close when we get together, but our interests are so different that we don't talk together that much. He could have any number of enemies though. He's a soldier after all and a newly landed Lord which might have upset someone. But isn't it a bit more complicated to frame Sam for my sister's disappearance?"

"That's valid," Kerrass said. "Unless it's a vendetta against the family. Framing Samuel is a lot less risky than risking the Empress' wrath with kidnapping one of her closer companions."

"Right." Lord Voorhis stared at his slate again.

"Was anything seen last night around the bridge."

"The bridge around where she was presumably attacked?"

"I have minions finding out."

I nodded.

"This bit's tough Freddie." Kerrass leant forward and put his hand on my shoulder. "We've got the weight of the Empire behind us,"

"I know Kerrass but I really want to punch something."

Kerrass smiled sympathetically.

We sat, the three of us together. I still wasn't sure how I felt about Lord Voorhis, but there was no doubt that he was doing his job and searching diligently.

I don't know when it happened. It was late though. It was dark outside though. Partying sounds came from outside on the balcony. I found myself getting more and more angry at that. So many people partying when my sister was missing and I was here, absolutely nowhere and straining for inspiration to strike from a clear sky while, in the meantime, it absolutely failed to.

I remembered blowing my breath through my mouth but the door opened.

"Sorry Lord Voorhis but I thought you needed to know this."

The door swung wide to admit Sir Thomas, the sixteen year old guard was still in his armour and still looking fresh as a daisy. It wasn't him that I was looking at though. What he had in his hand was another young lad of maybe fourteen who was wearing a burnished golden breastplate with a shine on it so impressive that I could literally see my face in it.

The breast plate was made to fit which must have been astonishingly expensive. The lad was beautiful, blonde hair that fell down in curls to his starched collar. Greaves and bracers made from the same metal, edged in ornate scroll work. Bright blue eyes shone out from ridiculously long eye-lashes. If I didn't know better I would have been sure that he was wearing eye-liner. I hated the kid on sight. He was just the sort of lad that had gotten all the attention from the girls and the tutors when I was young

The effect was rather spoiled by the fact that Sir Thomas steered the young man, rather expertly, through the door by virtue of a twisted ear.

"This young man," Sir Thomas continued, apparently without effort despite the struggling youth. "said something interesting when we were briefing the guard about Lady Francesca going missing." Thomas used the smallest movements of his hand but the younger man squealed in protest. "Tell the nice men what you told me." He let go, so that the younger man collapsed in a heap at Thomas' feet.

"I'll have your head for this," yelled the purple faced younger man. "Don't you know who I am? I'm an important man and I..."

"Yes," said Sir Thomas without change in his tone. "You mentioned that, and in case you needed reminding. I still don't care. I was talking about the _other_ thing that you said."

"I'll call you out sir. I'll see you at dawn."

"Sir Thomas," Lord Voorhis said dourly.

"Don't worry sir. I think it's worth inflicting this on you."

The younger man had succeeded in working his gauntlet off his hand and threw it in Sir Thomas' face. Sir Thomas blinked, took a step backwards and stared at the younger man in surprise as blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.

Then he moved.

Which was when I found out why Sir Thomas was part of the Imperial guard so young.

He moved forward, caught the younger man's hand in one hand, singled out a finger and twisted. The younger man fell to his knees but Thomas wasn't done twisting yet. He steered the young squire until he was facing my astonished face.

Thomas spat blood from the split lip.

"You see that man there," he snarled, his mouth inches from the golden boys ear. "That pale man, the one that isn't wearing a sword on his back. The one that _isn't_ the head of the Empire's intelligence service that can have the information tortured out of you. The thin, scholarly one? He's the reason I don't take you down to the practice yard and kick you in the face repeatedly until your eyeballs pop out and your cheek-bones shatter. This is a real war shit-eyes. It's his sister that was who you referred to as "another whore." The reason I don't take your challenge is because he has first claim. I've seen him practice. Him and his spear would kill you in three moves. If you're on a good day."

Thomas let go. I was in shock at the sudden intrusion of violence.

"Well, maybe I'll treat myself." Said Sir Thomas and kicked the young man in the balls. The boy squealed and Thomas hauled him up by the hair and slapped him across the face. He was blubbering.

"You make me sick," Sir Thomas said.

"Sir Thomas, what in the name of..."

Sir Thomas was still snarling with rage. "This piece of filth. This, piss stain on the face of the office of knight-hood." He walked over to the small table where there was a jug of wine and water. He poured a liberal amount into a cup which he drank quickly before spitting again. Then he picked up the jug of water. "He wandered through the guard room as I briefed the men on Lady Francesca's disappearance. He stopped, listened for a while and said. "So Laughing Jack has taken another whore has he?"

Sir Thomas poured the jug of water over the blubbering child in gold.

"I hauled him out of there before the men lynched him. Now," He hauled the boy up to his feet again. "Stand up straight, arms down where they should be. ATTENTION!"

The bellow would have done any drill-Sergeant proud.

I was too busy reeling though.

"Over the last few months..." The boy stammered. "Several women have been abducted. Young, pretty, dark haired. They've nearly always turned out to be prostitutes or have been sleeping around. The victim is knocked unconscious and taken off somewhere where she gets raped, strangled and starved to death. When he's finished with her he carves a smile into her face and dumps her. The peasants." the boy actually sneered when he said peasants. "claim to have heard a man's laughter whenever a girl goes missing. Then again when the body is found, strung up by her ankles."

I had staggered, missed my chair and fallen to the ground.

"The peasants call the killer "Laughing Jack"," the boy went on but I wasn't listening. I was looking up at a horrified Kerrass and I saw that he had made the same connection that I had.

"You know this, "Laughing Jack"?" Lord Voorhis asked the two of us.

"Amber's Crossing." said Sir Thomas. "I'm a fan. I read your work. This is the connection."

"Jack," I said...My voice broke. "This is my fault. I brought him..."

"What the hell is he talking about?" Lord Voorhis asked me.

But Kerrass was too busy catching me as I fainted and started screaming.


	53. Chapter 53

(A/N: This is (yet) another chapter that grew in the telling and what I initially imagined as a small flashback grew into something much larger. I promise that I'm hard at work on the action scenes that are to follow. In short, I promise that I didn't _intend_ to keep people in the dark in this chapter.

I did in the previous chapter.

That one I planned from it's inception.)

It was quiet as everyone filed in. I remember that. I remember that I expected noise and people jostling each other. I remember expecting there to be more activity and more...energy about the place.

But there was none of that.

What there was was the occasional rattle of armour against armour. Sword against leg and the scrape of chairs against the floor. Odd snatches of conversation as men greeted others that they knew, small titters of laughter but above all there was an air of expectancy. Of quiet... withdrawn... patience.

Take a strip of cloth and tie it into a loop. Then thread a stick through the hoop and start twisting it until it is coiled and tight. That was what it was like.

Another similarity would be that, if you see an athlete in the starting blocks. Poised and controlled, ready to start off at the sprint. In that split second before he leaps from his place and into the full on sprint.

It wasn't excitement. None of the men and women assembled were looking forward to what was going to happen next. They weren't going to enjoy themselves over the coming nights work. Instead, this was going to be hard and dangerous. But they were anticipating it. Needing it to happen. Needing that release of sudden explosive activity.

There was anger in the air, sullen rage and resentment. A cold fury that had been banked into a slow and hot fire that threatened to spill over and consume everything before them. If the Empress or Duchess had declared war in that moment then these men would be in the vanguard of the armies that would have marched forth.

I sat in the corner on a low seat. Kerrass was next to me and had his hand on my shoulder, a gentle reminder that he was there and that I was not alone. Sam was next to me and was pacing a couple of steps backwards and forwards. Step, step, step, turn. Then back. He looked pale, eyes sunken in his face with huge black shadows under his eyes, his lips were just slightly peeled back from his lips as though he was on the verge of snarling or sneering.

He had told me that I looked awful. I told him that he looked the same way that I felt. He had smiled, horribly.

I had my spear next to me. I had alternated between gripping it so tight that my hands had started to cramp and my knuckles had turned white, to holding it loosely and spinning it round and round in a circle of my hands. I was listening to the sound that it made on the wooden floor. I hadn't lifted my gaze from where the pommel on the ground.

I felt awful.

Over and over again people had been telling me that I hadn't done anything wrong. That it wasn't my fault. That I hadn't brought this here and inflicted it on my family and on the Empire as a whole. But no matter who said that, no matter who or how they said these things. I didn't believe them. Whether it was the Empress herself, Emma, Laurelen, Kerrass, Lord Voorhis, Sammy, Sir Thomas, Lord Voorhis etc. Even The White Wolf himself had attempted to talk me down.

"No matter what happens." He told me. "No matter the circumstances or what other people might tell you. You are not the one that lured your sister out into the night. You are not the one that kidnapped her. You are not the one that failed to inform the relevant people of the situation. All you did was write about an established phenomenon." He rested his hand on my shoulder and stared into my eyes. "This is not your fault. Save your hate for the bastards responsible and don't poison yourself with self recrimination."

But how could I listen. I blamed myself. Of course I did. Kerrass had warned me that in talking about these entities like Jack and his ilk, then I drew their gaze onto myself. But I hadn't listened. I had insisted that Kerrass tell me the story about Jack and I had insisted that I be allowed to publish what he had told me. This was my fault. I needed someone to blame and in the absence of anyone else to blame then I had chosen to blame myself.

I kept running through all of the reasons why it wasn't my fault but over and over again I refused to believe them. It was another one of those differences between what the head knows and what the heart knows. I _knew_ it wasn't my fault but I didn't know it.

There was no-one else to blame.

So I sat, staring at the floor, my boots and the butt of my spear.

Lord Voorhis walked into the room. He was dressed in the full armour of his position as General of the Armoured Cavalry of the Alba division. His armour was ornate and shiny but I had seen it earlier in the day and it was well worn and battle scarred. It was designed so that those people who were looking for orders would be able to find him in the battlefield. Contrary to how the military of the Northern Realms works where people like King Henselt of Kaedwen and King Foltest of Temeria would lead from the front alongside their men. Generals of Nilfgaard are encouraged to stand back from the action, the better able to see the big picture of the battlefield, the better able to maintain continuation of command.

I'm not sure which side of this debate I fall on.

But he walked in. On one side he was flanked by the Sorceress Phillipa Eilhart and on the other hand walked a man that I didn't recognise. His golden armour and huge sword that he carried at his side suggested that he was one of the old Knights Errant of Toussaint. He had a huge drooping moustache and a shaven head and looked as though he hadn't slept in the last couple of days. Behind him walked the White Wolf who led another six Witchers into the room. They stood together in a group.

"Attention," said a young voice. I thought it was Sir Thomas. He was here to somewhere but I had lost track of him as he had disappeared into the crowd to confer with compatriots. The members of the Imperial guard slammed to attention. The former Knights Errant climbed to their feet, not wishing to be outdone.

"That's enough." Lord Voorhis looked as tired as I felt and I felt as though I was on the verge of death. "Let's be honest gentlemen. We don't have time for that kind of bullshit today."

There was some nervous laughter in the room.

"Here's the state of things as we understand it now. Lady Francesca von Coulthard is missing. Those of you that came with the Empress from the south will know in what high regard the Empress holds this young lady. Indeed, you will know in what high regard we _all_ hold this young lady."

There was some rumbling of agreement from the black clad men in the room. That was it, that's the phrase that I was looking for. These people were angry and they wanted violence. The members of the guard were angry at the loss and the Knights errant that were present were angry at the failure of one of their own. This was a preventable circumstance and it was shocking to all of us that it had been allowed to get this far.

"The object of tonight's mission is to locate and rescue Lady Francesca. This is priority one and I cannot stress this enough. After this, we must locate and _capture_ the man responsible."

There was a bit of a rumble of dismay and protest.

"We want this person alive gentlemen." Lord Voorhis emphasised.

More voices were raised in protest. Lord Voorhis chose to be placating in his gestures.

"I know. I know, nothing would please me more than if you brought the bastard back in several pieces but that's not the ideal. We know that he took her but we also need to know how Lady Francesca was lured out into the night before the coronation and if we can't find Lady Francesca then we need to know where she is. It is _vital_ that we find the answer to the question of how she was tricked for the sake of the security of the Empire. If the fellow is killed rather than captured, the killer will answer to the Empress herself who is likely to take out her frustrations on the idiot who disobeyed orders. As it is the Empress is having to be sat on by two Witchers, a Sorceress and the Duchess and is locked in her room. So believe me when I say that her Imperial Majesty is in a foul mood and I pity the next poor fool who makes the mistake of pissing her off."

A number of people sniggered.

"So here's the plan. By now, all of you will have been given your unit assignments. Each unit consists of twenty members of the guards, two Knights Errant and a Witcher. We have eight Witchers in total as two are staying back to guard the Empress, and so there are eight units. The city has been divided into seven sections with one unit assigned to each section and one unit kept in reserve at a central location. The Knights Errant have been chosen for their local knowledge and you should listen to them when it comes to deployment in your area."

"What's the command structure of each unit?" A member of the guard asked. I didn't see who it was.

"The Witchers have been given temporary field commissions of "Colonels of the guard"."

There was some scattered discomfort at this, although the Witchers didn't seem to care that much.

Lord Voorhis held his hands up for silence. "There is a reason why the Witchers are in command which we will get to. After the Witcher, the chain of command goes into the head officer of the guard followed by the senior Knight errant although the Witcher would do well to defer to the relevant second in military matters and matters of local knowledge."

He stared at the assembly.

"Any questions?"

There were none.

"Master Witcher Geralt please."

He gestured and the White Wolf stepped forward. He was dressed in non-descript leather armour with a black band of leather that held his startlingly white hair out of his eyes. He had both swords on his back.

"You all know me," he said. Where Lord Voorhis' voice was trained and magnetic, Geralt's voice was flat and grating, almost dead. I wondered if he had already taken some potions and looked for tremors in his hands but couldn't see any. "You all know what I am capable of. But one thing is different here. The thing that we are chasing tonight is... different. By that I mean that it is exceedingly rare. So I'm going to pass over to the Witcher who knows more about what we're facing here than I do. Master Kerrass of the Feline school."

There was some shifting of weight and discomfort among the people assembled. Kerrass calmly left his post at my side and strode to the centre of the room. Geralt made a point of clapping Kerrass on the shoulder companionably before stepping back.

"By now," Kerrass began, "You will all have heard about the rumours in these parts regarding a figure of fear that the locals of Toussaint refer to as "Laughing Jack." I have spent most of the last couple of days since the discovery of the existence of this threat, discussing the possibilities with Lord Voorhis, the other Witchers and the officers here present.

"There are three possibilities that we are dealing with. The first possibility is that this entire thing is a coincidence. That the figure of "Laughing Jack," is just a man who is taking advantage of superstition and social prejudices to prey on beautiful young women. He takes them back to whatever lair that he has before slaking his sick lusts on his victims."

He took a beat.

"Gentlemen, believe me when I say that we should pray that this is the case.

"The second possibility is that this is an imitation. That some sick fuck is invoking the phenomenon that scholars refer to as "Jack." They will have used magic to take on the form of Jack himself including some of Jack's abilities and character in order to terrorise the locality and kidnap Lady Francesca. If this is the case then we are still dealing with a man. A very dangerous man with skills and abilities beyond the powers of normal man, dwarf or elf but a man nonetheless. If this is the case then speed is of the essence as the "Jack" phenomenon is known to be jealous of it's power, and will be looking to revenge itself on the imitator."

"What kind of abilities are we talking about?" Someone shouted.

"Try and imagine a man. Faster than anything that you've seen. Easily able to outrun the fastest horse. He will be a swordsman the likes of which you will not have seen."

There was an increasing rumbling of dissent and disbelief. Kerrass astonished everyone by laughing, long and loud.

"I know, I know." he said, still chuckling. "I'm a fighting man too and it's the urge of fighting men everywhere not to believe that there is a man better than they are. I am no slouch with a sword. Those of you that have seen the Witchers train in the yard will know the standard that we hold ourselves to, but even we would be lucky to hold our own against this thing with two to one odds in our favour."

There were more sounds of disbelief but the room was listening again. I wasn't the only person who had turned to look at the other Witchers to see their reaction to this assessment. There was no expression at all on their faces.

A number of guardsmen had turned pale.

"Further to this, someone who emulates Jack's abilities can leap to the top of tall buildings and fall of a cliff, landing without injury."

"What should we look for?"

"Jack is always male. He dresses as though he was on the way to a theatre, or a party at the highest level. Eye-witness accounts talk about a cape and a tall hat that might resemble the chimney of a forge. He dresses in dark colours but always in the latest styles and would be considered to be at the height of fashion. He wields a sword cane. The sword in his right hand which he uses in the style of a rapier and his cane in his off hand which he uses for parrying, grapples and to trip his opponent. After that, details start to vary.

"Sometimes he wears a mask of sack-cloth to hide his face. Into the cloth there will be two eye-holes cut. If there is any shade of colour about his clothing, that is not dark it is on his waist-coat which shows as white, sometimes in the pattern of a rib-cage. Sometimes his lower body appears to be in the shape of a goats legs."

There was more discomfort.

"No, I promise you that I am not making this up." Kerrass said to the group. "He often displays a perverse sense of humour as well as a strange sense of personal honour. The laughter that has been described is not unusual in these kinds of cases

"If you see this figure, do not, I repeat, do not attempt to tackle him on your own. You will die. Identify him and track him, alerting your companions and getting word to the Witcher of your group so that the Witcher can make an assessment. It is certainly not safe to approach him with anything less than three to one odds. Try to entangle him, or delay him until help can arrive. I cannot emphasise this enough. As it is, the nights work is likely to be bloody."

"You mentioned a third possibility Master Kerrass." Lord Voorhis said into the silence that met this comment.

"Yes. The third possibility is that we are dealing with Jack itself."

There were some exchanges of glances.

"What should we do if this is the case?" Sir Thomas, I think.

"Pray to survive." Kerrass said. "I should say that it is far from likely that it be Jack himself. The odds are much more likely that someone has read the story of Jack from Lord Frederick Coulthard's travel journals and has chosen to take steps to emulate it. That, or someone equally as stupid as all of us, has invoked Jack and brought his gaze down upon themselves in an effort to make themselves famous or for more malicious reasons."

"You make it sound hopeless Master Kerrass." someone said. I think it was a Knight Errant due to the levels of polite arrogance in the man's voice.

"Believe me when I say that I would be surprised if we don't lose someone tonight." Kerrass said. "But if you do what the Witcher in your group tells you and don't be stupid, then we all might make it out of this alive."

"What if this person simply goes to ground?" Sir Thomas again I thought, although I couldn't see who it was.

"The city has been under martial law for the last day. Wouldn't our target be better off just going to ground and waiting this out?"

"Yes they would. But as I say, Jack is possessed of a perverse sense of humour. He is likely to see this all as some kind of challenge and if someone has been majicked to emulate him then they would share that trait. We must hope that we _don't_ find evidence of him. This means that we are simply dealing with a man and we can be systematic in our search for him. No," Kerrass shook his head. "If it's Jack, someone usurping Jack's power for themselves, someone possessed by Jack or someone trying to convince us that it is Jack that's out there? We will find something."

People subsided. There was lots of sidelong glances being exchanged.

Kerrass shrugged. "Now for the good news though. Lady Eilhart?"

He stepped back, leaving room for the aggressive and cold Philippa Eilhart to take centre stage.

"This is a matter that is important to the Lodge of Sorceresses." She began. "Entities like the being that we are referring to here as Jack are incredibly dangerous. The games that they play with humanity are sick and the possibility that "Jack," has decided to meddle in our affairs, or that someone might seek to summon him, or his attention to this place is potentially catastrophic. As such, the magical community is taking steps to help in the effort to bring down these criminals with all possible haste. As such, the Lodge has formed a coven for the evening. We are focused on the city and the immediate environs and we will be attuned to any kind of magical phenomenon along those lines.

"We will then relay anything that we find to the teams directly to help with deployment and the movement of resources so as to best bring these sick individuals to justice. We are listening for the laughter that has been described, movement of magical powers as well as the existence of any living thing or force that does not normally fall into the category of normal sentient life.

"As such. It is imperative that if you hear a woman's voice in your head. Then believe that voice and obey what you are being told instantly and without hesitation. We may be relaying information to you that might save your life. Primarily we will be passing information to Lord Voorhis and facilitating his communication with the team leaders but in the case of emergencies, we may be forced to communicate directly with you for the sake of expediency."

She stepped back.

"What about all the other magical people in the city?" someone asked.

"Those people have been leaving by magical gate all day and by the time the sun sets the only people that will be in Toussaint capital will be Lady Eilhart's coven." Lord Voorhis had stepped back into control again.

"Any more questions?"

There were none.

"Good. In the meantime, I would advise everyone to read the sections of Lord Frederick's travel journals regarding the "Jack" entity. Copies are being passed around."

He took another deep breath.

"The Empress is watching us gentlemen. Many of you know Lady Francesca, some of you are even in love with her a little bit. The Empress, Lady Francesca, Toussaint as a whole and this bastard's victims have already been betrayed and let down badly by the authorities. Let's make sure that we do them proud tonight. Good luck and be Careful out there."

He stepped back from the front of the assembled people.

The Empress had not taken the news of "Laughing Jack" well.

I had to be sedated and was put to sleep for the rest of the night when we first received news of the presence of someone who was being called "Laughing Jack" in the Duchy of Toussaint. People were concerned that I might end up hurting myself, such was the violence of my actions so I have no memory at all of that night and it wasn't until the following day where I was allowed to stir myself and head back to the palace.

I say allowed because Kerrass, the ever present nurse-maid, had insisted that I eat something before he would let me out of bed. He threatened me with magic, violence and the disapproval of Ariadne so in the end I ate the soup that I was provided. Then I ate the bread and the cheese and the meat along with enough watered wine that I felt as though people would be able to hear the liquid sloshing around in my stomach as I moved. I had the impression that Kerrass hadn't slept. I didn't check but he had that brightness in his eyes that suggested a night without sleep.

I didn't ask what he had been doing and he didn't offer the information.

I kept my head down as we walked up to the palace. I didn't want to talk to anyone, I didn't want to have to stop. It seemed obscene to me that people were celebrating. Still celebrating the coronation of the Empress. I wanted to grab the entire Duchy by the neck and shake them until they realised what was going on. So I kept my head down and walked on, letting Kerrass deflect the many, no doubt well-meaning, people who greeted me as I walked.

We were shown straight into the great hall which was the first time that day that I felt something get through the fog of anger, fear and self-recrimination that had settled over my brain.

The last time that I had been in this room it had been decked out in all of it's finery. Nobles had lined the place in their best clothes while waiting to see the Empress be crowned. There had been flowers everywhere, rose-petals had dusted the floor, banners and flags had covered the walls and the many mingled perfumes of the assembly had created a heady, almost hallucinatory effect.

Now, the first thing I thought was that I was surprised by how much smaller it seemed. The banners had gone, the petals had been swept up and the plants cleared away. There were no chairs on the floor and no throne on the dais. Instead there was a plain wooden table with a simple wooden chair. My courtly instincts were tickling me in the back of my skull.

There was a piece of theatre being played out here and I wondered for whom it was meant to benefit.

We were not the first people to arrive. Lord Voorhis and Duchess Anna Henrietta were already there although she looked strange and I couldn't tell what was different about her. It came to me though. She was dressed in a plane cream dress with no jewellery and no make-up at all. Speaking personally I felt that she looked better for it. Far more beautiful than she had looked previously. There was also a small number of other courtiers and Knights Errant present. From the formal house colours and pageantry they seemed to be of the Toussaint noble houses.

There were also Nilfgaardian guards on the doors alongside knights Errant who were wearing their full plate harness. The contrast between the dull black armour of the guard and the mirror sheen of the golden plate was dizzying.

Emma was there, standing beside Sam in his armour and Laurelen along with Mark who was wearing his most austere cassock. The four of them looked exhausted and I moved to stand with them. Emma reached out and took my hand to give it a little squeeze as I moved alongside. Sam didn't respond and seemed lost in his own thoughts.

With my new vantage point I could see that at the front of the room was a huge burly man, in his armour of the Knights Errant. He had long flowing hair and a strong chin with a cleft down the middle. Ornate scroll-work covered his armour with runic shapes and prayers etched into the armour. It must have cost a fortune. I would have sneered but the sword at his side had a well worn Leather grip and although the scabbard was covered in jewels and ornamentation, the pommel was without ornament. The man radiated arrogance and smug self-superiority.

I hated him on sight.

The reason that he caught my eye was the young man standing next to him. I recognised him instantly due to his busted, swollen nose and black eye. This was the fourteen year old that Sir Thomas had dragged into my presence by the ear.

I was momentarily astonished by the depths of my anger and I hung my head to study my shoes while I waited for the dizziness to pass.

But I had nothing at all on how angry the Empress was.

I learned a truth that day and I have been told to publish it.

The Empress is a woman of strong emotion. She likes to laugh, shout and swear. She does not hold to the theory that a head of state must appear to hide what they are thinking and she wears her heart on her sleeve.

The previous day when she had announced herself by the sounds of her swearing and yelling at everybody. I had thought her angry then but I was wrong. This day she came in and she was cold, stark and utterly, utterly still. She was like ice.

She came into the room. She had on a black riding coat with the Silver Starburst broach over her chest. She was followed by Lady Yennefer, her private secretary, the Witcher Geralt and a number of other people that I didn't recognise. All of them wore carefully blank expressions.

The Empress was carrying a sword.

She stalked to the front of the room and stood in front of the Knight Errant that I had noticed earlier. The fact that she had to look up at him was not lost on me as he towered over her. I couldn't read his expression. He seemed...expectant? Defiant? Certainly very sure of himself. I'm told that he was one of the finer swordsmen in the Duchy.

"You must be Sir Craythorne." She said. She only spoke quietly but we all heard her.

I noticed that the private Secretary was laying out several pieces of paper on the small table along with a candle, quill and ink-pot. The Secretary seemed like a quiet man. I know that he was one of the more powerful men in the Empire and I'm told that he is actually really charming, frighteningly intelligent and has a vast store of knowledge that the Empress finds invaluable. There was a stiffness in his movements that mirrored his Imperial mistress' attitude. But he was well trained or experienced enough that I couldn't tell what he was thinking.

"Sir Craythorne de Kayalese du Lac." The offending knight said loudly, his voice pitched to project and fill the room. "Member of the order of the Heron, keeper of the Keys of Justice and Champion of the Tournament of the Rose." His voice was musical, cultured and spoke of much training. It seemed impossible for a man to appear more beautiful.

"Yes yes." The Empress said, waving her hand dismissively. "Impressive titles all, but I have spoken to the heads of the orders of Justice and the Chalice and have spoken to Lord Knaius of the rose and they have all agreed to strip you of those titles. The head of the order of the Lady of the Lake simply refuses to acknowledge that you exist. They showed me the membership rolls and your name simply doesn't feature. I searched and searched most diligently but I still couldn't find your name despite the new parchment and fresh ink. I am forced to conclude that your claiming of that title is simply false and can be added to your list of crimes although I will admit that that is quite superfluous considering all of the other things that you stand charged with."

"Crimes Madame?" Although his perfect face didn't change you could sense the sneer.

The room hissed. A number of the Imperial Guard even went so far as to almost draw their weapons.

"You will refer to the Empress as "Your Imperial Majesty," or you will be made to." Duchess Anna Henrietta spoke into the silence that came after the clamour had died down.

"It doesn't really matter." The Empress commented. "I am not so fragile in my sense of self that I need to trot out a huge list of titles to make me feel as though I am important."

She turned away and walked a few steps off before turning and giving one of the most false smiled that I have ever had the opportunity to see.

"Tell me Sir Craythorne. What are the principal qualities of a knight?"

"Strength at arms, Pride, a sense of Justice, enforcement of the correct social order, laws and the proper use of authority."

The Empress sighed.

"Oh dear. Care to try again?"

"Imperial Majesty. As has been said by many, including the honoured Duchess. I am the very flower of knighthood. I exemplify all of the qualities that are looked for in a knight. Those things are the important qualities of a knight. They are true because I say that they are true."

"And you can do no wrong?"

"I do not make the rules Imperial Majesty. I am the rules."

"I see. And this is your squire, we have not been introduced?"

"It is my honour to present my nephew. Varneir de Corrine."

"Ah yes. Well, Varnier? We shall test your education. Who was the first knight of Toussaint?"

The young man paused for a moment. It was not lost on me, and I think that the Empress noticed as well, that he looked sidelong at his master for permission before he spoke.

"It is Impossible to say." He said. "The Duchy was hauled from Barbarity by a union of warriors. No-one knows who they were before they became the warriors of Toussaint. When asked, none of them would remove their helms from view. It wasn't until the seven of them had died and the oaths that had bound their wives, children and grand-children to secrecy had been rendered moot, that it was admitted that one of them had gathered the others together. Which one this was no-one knew but it was claimed that he was fleeing from his enemies when he took shelter on the shore of a lake. He was given a vision of the Lady of the Lake who gave him the first tenets of knighthood."

"Very Good." The Empress applauded a little ironically. "It may be that you are not completely beyond redemption after all and that some measure of you may be salvaged. Tell me, what were the first tenets of knighthood?"

"Duty," he said after a long while looking terrified. "Humility, charity, Compassion, honesty, mercy, respect and Kindness." He looked as though he was trying to edge away from his master without actually moving.

"Interesting." The Empress said. "Not quite true as you have invented some that were only valid in certain circles and missed out a couple more that were deemed unsavoury and outdated. For instance, the keeping of Toussaint for true men of Toussaint which, with the migration of populations and inter marrying across borders meant that Toussaint would now be deserted. Also there was Piety and Chastity. But those rules were relaxed so that the noble class didn't just disappear due to lack of children."

She stood in front of the poor young man. I found a sympathy for him then as I began to realise what had happened. He was as much a victim of his master as anyone and had been filled with wrong headed ideas. He looked as though he was heartily wishing that the ground would open up underneath him. The Empress appeared to consider him the young man for a moment.

"I have decided, young master Varnier, that you are not without hope." She moved to the table where she selected one of the pieces of paper that had been laid out for her. "You will report to Sir Thomas of the Imperial Guard. The young man is newly appointed to his knighthood and needs to start training up his own squire. I think you will do well under his tutelage."

The newly made Squire Varnier to the Imperial Guard paled and looked up at his former master.

"Sir Thomas." The Empress called.

The young man stepped out from the crowd.

"Thank you your Majesty." he said. I felt my mouth fall open as I realised that Thomas had asked for this. "I see much of myself in this young man. I feel sure I can get through to the quality beneath the filth that he has been encrusted with."

"Excellent Thomas. Your kindness will be remembered. Perhaps you could take your new squire away. There is enough pity in me that he should not be forced to see what is to happen next."

"Yes Your Majesty. Thank you Your Majesty." In two strides Sir Thomas was next to his new squire. He gripped Varnier by the ear and snarled. "Now bow before the Empress." He hissed with venom.

Varnier did so, Thomas still holding the squire's ear in a death grip.

"Now say, "Thank you Your Majesty","

Varnier managed it on his third attempt despite much stammering.

Sir Thomas bowed again and led a whimpering Varnier through the nobility and out the door.

"I almost pity that young squire." Sam muttered.

"Don't," Emma replied. "It might make him into a better person in the end."

"Ok then," the Empress straightened from the table where she had been scribbling furiously for a few seconds and I saw that she had propped her sword against the table next to her. "That brings us back to Sir Craythorne. So, according to young master Varnier the qualities of the knight. He said Duty. Duty, humility, charity, compassion, honesty, mercy, respect and kindness." She picked up the piece of paper and brought it back over to Sir Craythorne. "Did I miss one?" She asked the room.

"No, Imperial Majesty." It was the Duchess that answered. She looked pale.

"Right. So lets work through the list then Sir Craythorne. Duty. Have you been properly Dutiful." She looked over the top of the paper and gazed steadily at the man. "I will come back to Duty." She said. "I did find it interesting that young Master Varnier said that one first as one's feudal duty is actually some way down the traditional list. But anyway, Humility was next. What do we think of Sir Craythorne's sense of humility?"

She looked at the man again. "Remind me Sir Craythorne, what was it you said? "I am the very flower of knighthood." you said. "I exemplify all of the qualities that are looked for in a knight. Those things are the important qualities of a knight. They are true because I say that they are true."

She sucked the air through her teeth in the same way that my dwarven craftsman had done when I had asked him how much Ariadne's ring was going to cost. "Doesn't sound very humble to me Sir Craythorne."

Sir Craythorne said nothing. He stared at a point a little above the Empress' head. As if he was holding himself above the entire affair. I found myself waiting to see some crack in his composure. But then I realised what was happening here. What was going on in his head. He thought he would be able to redeem himself. He thought that he would be able to take some kind of quest and overcome this minor disgrace. He was resigning himself to a minor penance of some kind.

"Now what's next?" The Empress wondered. "Ah yes. Charity. Madame Duchess, do you have a Chancellor of some kind that monitors money in the Duchy."

"I do, Imperial Majesty." I wondered if it was my imagination that the Duchess was emphasising the title.

"Is he here?"

"He is."

The man stepped forward. He had a book under his arm and I was again struck by the thought that I was watching a piece of theatre.

"Chancellor. How much is Sir Craythorne worth?"

"At a rough estimate, if he liquefied his assets and investments and collected his rents up until today, right here and now, then he would be worth approximately 238 million Nilfgaardian florens."

There was a general sucking of breath at the amount. It was indeed a lot of money.

"And how much has he donated to charitable causes?" The Empress was looking at Sir Craythorne's face as she asked.

"64,000 florins to the building of the statue to St Lebioda."

"I hated math at church school. But that's less than 1% isn't it."

"It's the tiniest fraction of the tiniest fraction of 1% Imperial Majesty."

"huh. So that's what Charity looks like." She nodded as though noting something away for future purposes.

"So Charity. What's next. According to young Master Varnier we're onto Compassion. When referring to the victims of these crimes. How did you refer to those people that died? I seem to recall something...What was it now? Ah yes. "Just another whore," wasn't it? I think we can move onto the next point. Ah yes. Honesty. Now we come to one of the crux's of the matter.

"When we knew we were coming to Toussaint we sent a group of the guards here in advance. Their task was to assess the safety of the realm and whether or not there were any threats to my person or to the personages that I would be bringing with me. We asked everyone as to whether or not we needed to know anything. Our questions were many and wide ranging. I do in fact have a list here somewhere. Ah yes, here it is."

She took another piece of paper from the table.

""Are there any criminals, whether mundane or magical, currently operating in or around the Duchy?" is the question that we asked. There were a few answers of course but then there are always people willing to cause problems. But I notice that your assigned task of catching this Laughing Jack had obviously not been completed and yet you said nothing. Why was that?"

Sir Craythorne didn't answer.

"Come on Sir Craythorne. You're not even trying. You could say "I forgot," or "I wasn't at the meeting." I know that last one was false so that would be a bad choice but at the same time you could say something. It's not a rhetorical question after all so why did you say nothing Sir Craythorne?"

Sir Craythorne said nothing.

"I'm waiting." The Empress snapped.

"I...I didn't think it was important."

"Why not?" she bit the words off between clenched teeth.

"Because they were just..."

"Because they were just commoners or because they were just prostitutes?"

For the first time I saw the beginnings of a crack in Sir Craythorne's confidence but then it was as though he just blinked and the confident facade was back. I could almost see his thought process. "This can't be happening to me. I am Sir Craythorne, title title title title. This is beneath me."

He continued to be silent.

"I'm going to take your silence to mean that you thought both things. I think we have further evidence about the Compassion part of things. But when you were asked, you specifically left out information that was required. You kept that information from us. Doesn't sound very honest to me.

"What's next?" She consulted her paper, "Mercy. One of my favourites. That title you claimed Champion of the Tournament of the rose wasn't it? How did you win that one?"

I suddenly felt embarrassed. The Empress was drawing this out. This destruction of a man. I found I didn't really want to watch any more.

"According to the organiser of the tournament, your final opponent, aware of your reputation for drubbing opponents tried to concede. You refused until he fought you and beat him into senselessness. Thus preventing him from offering his service to the realm. I understand he has been forced to retire to manage his estates as his arm will never properly heal."

"He insulted me by refusing to fight me."

"He paid you a compliment. But you wanted to show off your skills so that people would fear you did you not?"

Sir Craythorne went back to staring into space. There was a slight shift in his expression. He looked as though he had dismissed the Empress' interpretation of events as she didn't understand. As though she couldn't understand, which was when I got another piece of the Empress' anger. He was looking down on her because she wasn't a knight. Because she wasn't a man.

Part of me started to hope that the Empress would take him outside and kick his ass.

"Respect." The Empress read from her list "It can hardly fail to escape notice that you have yet to use my proper today. Also the dismissal of rape and murder victims as "whores", especially as one of them was a farmers daughter visiting town. Even an idiot would see that the possibility that the other victims were taken because they were the only women that were out at night. What's next? Kindness.

"I noticed that you didn't once protest when your squire was removed from here by the ear. Also some of the earlier evidence would count against you.

"So that brings us back to Duty."

The Empress went to the table and put down the various pieces of paper that she had used over her discourse so far and clasped her hands behind her back.

"Duty. It's an interesting idea. Mostly interpreted in these cases as Duty to one's feudal superiors."

She sighed and scratched at her head before suddenly turning on Sir Craythorne.

"Do you know that the earliest stories that I can remember involve stories about the Knights Errant of Toussaint. I can remember stories about men who would do anything. Knights who would defend the honour of a peasant woman just as much as they would the highest nobles of the land. Knights who would place their cloaks across puddles to prevent a woman's feet from getting wet as she walked to fetch water from the well. Knights who would go out of their way to avoid hurting an opponent and treated all that they came across with kindness and decency. But one of the things that I always remember is that once given, a knight would die rather than break an oath.

"But one promise that was held above all else. That was the oath that was sworn on the heron. I will admit never understanding the idea of the perfection of the bird as I remember thinking that herons always looked rather stupid to me but then, as I grew older I saw the beauty and grace of the bird, especially in flight. So then it was clear to me that an oath to the heron was an oath to the ideal. To the hope of perfection and so a knight would die before giving up an oath to the heron.

"Does that sound right Sir Craythorne?"

Sir Craythorne said nothing.

"I checked with two people who administer these oaths. The first was the keeper of the Heron. That man that says whether or not a man is a Knight Errant and therefore able to properly swear on the heron. Despite his informing me that the tradition has become somewhat relaxed and that anyone can call on the heron to witness an oath now, it still meant that the knight, or the oath-taker would not rest or take on any other task until that oath would be fulfilled.

"I also checked with the Duchess. The the other keeper of oaths to the Heron and she agrees with my assessment as well. I spoke to the Duchess at length. She recalls, quite clearly, that the matter of "Laughing Jack" was brought to the attention of the court. She saw the concern of the common-folk and, quite correctly according to the laws and traditions of Toussaint, called for a knight to solve the problem. You were one of the knights that offered your services were you not?"

Sir Craythorne said nothing.

"It doesn't matter. Court records confirm it. They also say that the Duchess assigned the task to you and that you swore on the Heron that you would see "Laughing Jack" caught. The records even show that the court cheered your oath.

"Now we come to the nub of the matter. Yesterday was the day of my coronation. I know that you were in attendance then. I find this unusual as I received a number of apologies from knights who could not attend due to duties that they had taken up, witnessed by the heron. What about the day before. The day when Lady Francesca could still have been saved?"

Sir Craythorne still said nothing.

"I can answer this as well. You were fighting in the tournaments. Perhaps you could explain to the assembly what fighting in the tournament would do to help you catch Laughing Jack?"

Sir Craythorne said nothing.

"Still nothing Sir Craythorne? The tournament has been going on for the last couple of weeks as there have been a number of different events and I see from the records that you are taking part in many of them. How could you possibly have had the energy to hunt a rapist and murderer? A rhetorical question that one which I don't expect you to answer. So during that time, according to my reports, there was another disappearance and death. This was before I was here so I wasn't aware of that. The Duchess heard but, again quite correctly, she assumed that you were dealing with it as you had sworn on the heron that you would do so."

Sir Craythorne looked bored.

"But before the tournament. What _did_ you do to try and catch the killer?"

There was a pause while Sir Craythorne failed to answer the question.

"That wasn't a rhetorical question Sir Craythorne. I expect an answer. Did you interview the victims families and friends?"

No response.

"How about mounting a watch?"

No response.

"Did you even patrol?"

No response.

"These are elementary things in the pursuit of a murderer. According to your squire, who was questioned on the matter last night, you have patrolled four times. You patrolled the nobles quarters and the palace grounds. An odd choice of patrol area given that Jack has only really struck in the poorer districts. According to your squire you said that this was to make sure that Jack didn't take anyone important. You also looked at the crime scenes and shook your head a few times.

"You left word that if the "Laughing" was heard then you should be sent for. Word was sent twice. The first time it took you three hours to arrive at the site given that you were attending Lady Foxmere's ball. The second time you refused to be woken from your bed and didn't arrive at the site until the morning by which time the girl was dead. The common-folk then gave up trying to contact you and formed a militia in an effort to protect themselves. A militia which is considered illegal in Toussaint as the common folk are supposed to bring their concerns to their feudal masters so that they can be protected. But they did that and you failed to protect them. Your failed to protect them and you failed to protect Lady Francesca. You failed Sir Craythorne."

"I will catch him."

"Do you swear by the heron that you will do so?" The Empress sneered. I saw some people shifting uncomfortably. "You will forgive me, Sir Craythorne that I am not going to take your word for it."

She stalked a little way off.

"I am told by many, including you, that you exemplify what it is to be a Knight Errant. I find this lacking in several important areas as we have seen so I am forced to take steps. The people of Toussaint are my subjects too and I need to protect them and unlike some in range of my voice, I take my _duties_ seriously. You, yourself have proven that they need protecting. I have no doubt that there are some good men in the ranks of the Knights Errant but if _you_ are what people are taught to aspire to then this is a significant failure and steps must be taken to correct the course that has been set before further rot sets in. And rot there is. Having looked into the matter you are not alone in neglecting your proper duties and treating others poorly. That you have in turn tried to pass these things onto the younger knights is something I find worrying and now I must take certain steps. Drastic ones.

"I have spoken to the people in charge of the knightly orders that you claim membership of. They have all said that you will be removed from their rolls. In a short while I will administer the rest of your punishment in a while. I would do it now because I am frankly sick of the sight of you but I want you to witness the damage you have done to Toussaint and your way of life."

She moved back to the table.

"This first piece of paper that I'm signing, is an Imperial order placing Toussaint in a state of Martial Law. The Imperial Guard will provide border guards, patrols and police force while I am here until they are relieved by the fourth Alba division. Orders were sent last night to the Colonel of the 4th and he expects to be here in three days."

The declaration met with shouts and cries of dismay from the gathered nobles of Toussaint.

"All matters of Law and order will be brought to the Guard and they will be dealt with accordingly. All knights that are currently on mission will be reinforced by Guardsmen to aid in the completion of their tasks.

"This second piece of paper that I am signing now is a further Imperial order that suspends the authority of the Knights Errant indefinitely and releases them from the oaths that they have sworn without blame."

There were more cries of concern. Even Sir Craythorne appeared shaken.

"This is another declaration that if any existing Knight Errant who presents themselves to the General of the Guard and asks to serve Toussaint, they will be found duties but they _will_ be placed within the chain of command according to the General's whim. Those Knights Errant can consider today to be a clean slate. They will not be tarred by the past. They may either serve, or they may retire. But they will be expected to obey military discipline and the proper chain of command."

The Empress signed the orders and attached her seal of office to each. The secretary took the pieces of paper and handed each to the waiting heralds for the orders to be announced.

The Empress finished, picked up her sword and came back to Craythorne. "What do you say to that Sir Craythorne?"

He seemed a little stunned. "You..."He appealed to the other nobles. "She can't do that."

"She can." It was a different voice that sounded like a whip-crack across the room. "Not only can she. She also should."

It was the Duchess who spoke. The Duchess in her plain, simple dress.

"You made a liar of me sir." Her voice wavered as though she was on the verge of tears. "I swore my own promise, Sir. I told the Empress that she and hers were protected by my knights. I swore it sir. I swore it on the heron. I swore it, sir, and you have made me break that promise. For they were provably not safe."

She visibly took a swallow. "I have read the records sir and I have heard the testimony. I have not slept for the pain that this caused and I am distraught. Distraught sir. You have made me an oath-breaker. Me. The Duchess of Toussaint, an oathbreaker. I have told the Empress that I no longer believe I am fit to rule but she has refused my desire to retreat to a nunnery."

The Empress was back at her table, writing.

"I believe that there is no better person," The Empress said. "No better person to oversee the rebuilding of Toussaint into what it should be, than the Duchess. This last order states that Martial Law will be lifted when Duchess Anna Henrietta declares that the Order of the Knights Errant have returned to their former glory. She will be advised in this duty by the Colonel of the 4th. The Colonel is a good man and will advise you well Duchess."

"Thank you, Imperial Majesty. Thank you and I swear. I swear it and it will be the first oath of the new order. Our new order. I swear by the Heron. The knights Errant of Toussaint will once again be a thing that we can be proud of. I swear that Toussaint will be safe for all of our subjects. I swear that..." I saw tears brimming in her eyes. "I swear that I will do better. I swear all of this on the Heron. Who will help me? Who will help me forge the Knights Errant into something that Toussaint can be proud of? That all of Toussaint can be proud of, regardless of their station or birth."

The other knights in the room cheered their Duchess' oath. I may be a cynic. And I may still have been angry and bitter that day, but she could not have done it better if she planned it. The knights cheered. Both the former knights Errant and the Imperial Guard.

"But there will be at least one knight that will be missing from their ranks." The Duchess hissed and never was there more anger in a voice. As I say, if it was natural and unscripted, it was beautifully timed.

The Empress nodded, playing with her sword pommel. "Sir Craythorne. It was your actions that have forced these circumstances on Toussaint and they must be answered for."

Even Sir Craythorne himself was not immune to his surroundings. He was as much a product of Toussaint and the culture that was there as anyone. You could almost feel his desire to be part of it and his pride's desire to lead that charge. I suspect he was even willing to make some changes in his own behaviour and outlook. That's what made what happened next all the crueller.

"What has happened here has shaken the Duchy of Toussaint." The Empress declared. "Indeed, before it is all done, I suspect it will shake the entirety of the Empire. I know my cousin the Duchess will turn the office of knighthood into the pinnacle of what a Knight should be by the time that she is finished. But it should not, and has not escaped notice that she should not have to do this in the first place. There have been many sins of omission committed here and by the time we are finished I suspect that there will be many punishments meted out to cruel and neglectful men who have called themselves "Knight Errant."

"But today, that neglect and casual cruelty has been given a name and it has been given a face in the personage of you, Sir Craythorne."

She moved to stand in front of him. Again, it was not lost on me that he towered over her physically.

She smiled suddenly.

"I can see it in you Sir Craythorne, despite everything you still believe that you are going to get away with this. You expect to be Exiled. You expect that you will be given some penance and that you will be able to worm your way back into the good graces of this court. You expect to be able to redeem your family name and, by right of arms, reclaim your place as one of the foremost knights of the realm.

"I am telling you now that this is not the case."

Something in the Empress shifted then for a moment. The Empress stopped being the figure of the Empress and became a simple woman, losing all her airs and graces and spoke to Sir Craythorne as another person.

She had her sword in her hand and she seemed different. By this point I had met Cirilla Elen Fiona Riannon the Empress. I had also met, Ciri, the woman. The friend and noblewoman, who knew enough not to take herself too seriously. The woman who watched the world go by with grace and humour. I had shared a meal with this woman and liked her a great deal.

This was a new facet of the woman that I saw, just for a few minutes in the throne-room. I am now, at the time of writing, some distance and time away from these events and writing with the aid of quickly scribbled notes from the brain of a terrified, tired and enormously angry man. But I remember at the time that I was reminded of something.

The bard has told many stories of The Empress and one of the things that he tells us is that at one time, The Empress lived rough in the towns and villages of the Empire. Having no notable skills to live by in that rough time and place, other than her skill with her weapons, while being forced to defend herself from attacks of the most unsavoury nature, she fell into banditry. I have made no particular study of that time in the Empress' life as I was more interested in other directions of study, while also rather thinking that the study of the Empress' life would not be _unique_ enough to make my name as a scholar. I would also have had to deal with the many biographers that had already begun work when she first returned to the public stage.

What I do know and remember is that, at that time, she was known as Falka and she was feared for her quick sword and quicker temper.

What possessed her to choose so blood-soaked a name, I will hope to one day be able to ask her. But in that moment in the throne room of the Duchess. I think we all met Falka for a moment. I for one am glad that she has chosen a more...regal and gentle approach to rulership.

"Shall I tell you what I think?" She asked him. I almost couldn't tell that it was the same person. "I think you are a coward."

He hissed and almost recoiled, his hand going to his sword hilt. The rest of the court backed off and I think that they too expected sudden violence.

The Empress grinned hungrily.

I guessed that she honestly might have begged him to draw on her. I checked over the other coutiers. Lady Yennefer, the woman who I knew the Empress thought of as a Mother was watching carefully, she was playing with a pentagram that was attached to a black choker around her neck. I don't know her well enough to guess what she was thinking but she was looking utterly concentrated on the Empress.

Her "father" Geralt had not changed his physical attitude. If anything he looked bored with the entire affair. I guessed that if Sir Craythorne did draw on the Empress then Witcher Geralt, at least, was not afraid for the Empress.

After a moment, Sir Craythorne realised that he was about to draw steel on the most important woman on the continent. He relaxed his grip and returned to an upright posture.

The Empress almost looked disappointed.

"Oh don't get me wrong," she said after a long moment. "I don't think you are a physical coward. If I declared war on someone or needed a dragon slaying then I suspect that you would volunteer and do so with courage and skill at arms. But that's not the point is it."

She began to return to the poise of the Empress Cirilla.

"Humility takes courage. Mercy takes courage. Charity and Compassion takes courage but of a different kind than the one you have used. These things leave us open to abuse and to others taking advantage of us and it takes courage to overcome that fear. It takes courage to reach out to those strange to ourselves. It takes courage to offer charity to those that we do not understand and to give your last piece of food to the man, woman, non-human or even one considered a monster. That is the kind of courage that you lack. Your arm and your sword have made you strong. Made you famous and wealthy. You have depended on it and have feared losing it and therefore losing your standing. You have bullied those weaker than you so that they would never be able to climb to meet your accomplishments. Beating your competitors until other men fear to face you.

"I flatter the Duchess that she will make these things less of a virtue in the future. But you can no longer be lauded and held up as a thing to be aspired to. Therefore I must destroy you utterly and it will be as though you were never born.

"You will never work your way back into our good graces. You will never reclaim your lands or your titles or your fortunes. Your name and deeds will be struck from the pages of history and when people mention your name it will only be to insult but encourage the incompetence of another."

The Empress made her voice an imitation of a long-suffering craftsmaster chastising an apprentice.

"Well, lad you made a right hash of that. But don't worry. At least you're not as incompetent as Craythorne was,"

Her voice returned to normal.

"Your very name will be made a joke and then you will no longer be the man. You will be forgotten.

You will be taken from here. Your arms and armour will be removed from you and they will be destroyed. The blacksmiths will be instructed to melt them into slag which will be shipped out and dumped into the sea. The jewels will be sold and the proceeds will be dealt with as the Duchess sees fit. But there will be no single gift. No bequest or charitable work for you to be remembered by in the giving of that gift.

"Your mother has already been spoken to and has begged leave to go to a nunnery. The Duchess and I have agreed to allow this. Your sister, we understand, is doing well for herself up at Oxenfurt university after she disappointed you by being neither pretty or charming. The Arch-Chancellor and I have spoken and he has seen to it that the fee for her education will be waived. She will be free to pursue whatever studies she sees fit and when she decides to marry, your mother has agreed to a dowry amount and both the duchess and I will take steps to ensure that she will not be penalised by any who wish to tarnish her name with your disgrace.

"Your lands, holdings and investments will be given over to the Coulthard family from the North as some small recompense for the pain that you have caused. The Coulthard family's merchant endeavours have proven that they are more than capable administrators of farm lands and I suspect that they will take to running a vinyard with just as much zeal and industry. They will be charged with running the lands for the sole purposes of financing the new order of knights so that the new Knights Errant can be drawn from any young man who shows promise, rather than just those people from the families who can afford to pay for the equipment.

"Will you see to that my Lords and Ladies of Coulthard?"

We looked at each other and one by one we kind of turned to look at Mark. Mark looked at each of us with a slight raised eyebrow before nodding at whatever he saw in our faces.

"We shall, Imperial Majesty. It would be our honour to help with the formation of the new knightly order and may I say that we will help in any way that we can above and beyond this."

"Grateful to you Lord Coulthard." Said the Empress.

"May I enquire however, whether the Empress wishes the name changed? I, for one, might be confused if I was ordering "Coulthard wine," rather than a good Kayalese red."

There was a few small titters of nervous laughter at Mark's joke. The laughter increased a little when the assembly realised that the Empress wasn't going to tamp it down.

Mark waited for a moment after the laughter had died down before continuing.

"Mercy, is one of the cardinal virtues." he said in his best Fatherly churchman voice. "Although, I will admit to my own anger against the...thing... in front of you Majesty and it is not my place to appeal for mercy on his behalf. I would though suggest that his ancestors might have been good and faithful servants of the realm. Destroying their name for the sins of a son who turned out to be lacking seems a little...harsh."

The Empress has one of those faces that can smile without moving her lips.

"You see, Craythorne." She said slyly after a while. "That's how you do mercy."

The Duchess walked towards Mark and proffered her hand. Mark frowned a little in confusion before bending over her hand to kiss it but was forced to straighten in astonishment as the Duchess lowered in a curtsy of respect.

The surrounding soldiers of the guard stamped their feet three times in salute.

"Bloody hell," whispered Sam in amazement. I asked him about it later and he told me that that's a sign of respect from the guard. Something rarely given when the guard depend on their anonymity and impartiality. It's a sign of ultimate respect.

"Keep the name Lord Coulthard." the Empress said when the uproar and surprise from the rest of the room died down. "With the Duchess' permission of course. You are right. It would be harsh. The rest of it will be discussed later."

Mark bowed deeply and backed up a bit to the uniformity of the rest of us.

"There is one exception to this." Said the Empress. "The family castle and it's buildings will be turned over to the Duchy of Toussaint for the purposes of housing the new order of Knights Errant. It will be used for training and housing and whatever else is deemed necessary while the new order of nights is formed. If the servants that live there are required to manage the land then they will be housed elsewhere. In buildings still to be built if necessary.

"As for you Craythorne. There will be no grand execution for you to make a final gesture. You will be given no ceremonies or rituals. As I say, you will be stripped and shaved. You will then be shipped out of the castle at night, In secret, and shipped north. Far to the north where you will be given work. It will be menial work. It will be hard work and it will be solitary work. We don't want you forming some kind of Prisoner rebellion or making your way elsewhere and trying to redeem or rebel in some form.

"There, you will spend out the rest of your days. But you will be watched. If you try to leave, you will be beaten and returned to your new place of employment. If you try to commit suicide you will be healed and returned to work. If you lay your hands on a weapon, you will be beaten and the weapon broken, before returning to work."

The gasps of the watching crowd told me that this punishment was having the desired effect. The people there couldn't imagine a worse fate.

"We are trying to encourage mercy now so I will give you this one mercy. Every year. On the anniversary of the night Francesca disappeared. Someone will come to you and you will be taken to a tree and given a rope. You may ask to be hung then. I say hung because you are nothing but a piece of meat to me now. If you transgress in any way, you will be punished by one of the things that you set such great store by. We will remove your teeth for instance, or an eye, or an ear or...well I'm sure you get the idea. There is my mercy. In a years time, we will see if you take my mercy."

She nodded at a guard.

"Take him away."

And away he went. I'm not sure he believed it, even as they took him out. I wonder when he truly began to realise what was happening. At what stage it was. I have since learned that he was smuggled out of the palace in secrecy. I also know, that not one person tried to rescue him, and not one person protested his treatment.

I am a scholar and a student of history. What happened in that throne room that day was history whether we like it or not and historians, certainly historians from Toussaint, will be examining what happened in the days surrounding the Empress' coronation with studious eyes. But for me, here is my assessment. My...editorial if you will.

There is a necessary requirement, sometimes, for rulers to be cruel and ruthless. What happened there to that person, Craythorne, was both of those things. He was held up as an example of everything that was wrong with modern knighthood in Toussaint. He was held up before his peers and the highest people in the land. He was made a fool of, even though he didn't have the wit to see it, before being disgraced and destroyed. He had everything, literally everything, taken away from him. They even arranged it so that he wasn't even left with the shred of dignity that a man gets when he is on the way to the gallows or to the chopping block.

Instead he will go off to be... whatever. A shepherd is one of the possibilities that I thought of. Or a monk in one of those mountainous shrines where there is a holy place but only room or the ability to house one monk who must maintain the shrine.

What was done to him _was_ cruel. It _was_ unusual.

So then the question becomes... was it necessary?

That is something that I don't know the answer to. One of the questions that I have heard asked was... an example needed to be set, certainly. But redemption is a powerful thing and the production of a redeemed Sir Craythorne de tumpty tum would have been a powerful thing. So why did she not try to turn him into a tool for her own use?

And there is another question.

Was he beyond saving?

Another question is this. The Empress meted out that judgement. The Duchess was obviously mortified and I would flatter her and believe that her... distress and later courtesies and grace were truly meant. But it was the _Empress_ that made those judgements.

I wonder why.

There is the point that Sir Craythorne's negligence had lead to the disappearance of my sister who was one of the Empress' favourites. So soon in her office it is unlikely that she has many friends and that my sister undoubtedly provided that thing. A friend. It is possible that the Empress was angry and I believe that she was. I believe that she was furious. Almost beyond the capacity for thought. But she still could have made it happen differently.

Sir Craythorne was not alone in his attitude towards the lower classes of Toussaint and I hear that many former Knights are struggling to live in the new regime. So he was just one among many, so to single him out for his prejudices, neglect and incompetence when there are _so_ many other bastards to choose from seems odd. He was a product of a slow decline. A decline so slow that good people didn't even realise it was happening until it was too late.

The Empress has many tools at her disposal to vent her anger on the fuck who lost my sister. But she didn't use any of them except the most public and the most cruel one.

So why did the Empress do that when she could have done so many other things?

I have a guess. I truly hope that my guess doesn't lead to me losing my head. It will take me some time to get to my point so please bear with me.

Was what she did cruel? As I say, I think so. He could have been killed with a quick blade out back somewhere and quietly buried in an unmarked grave. As I say, the Empress has all kinds of tools at her disposal if she desires some kind of personal revenge. But Craythorne's destruction was _so_ public and _so_ brutal and so utterly utterly uncompromising.

The feeling that I was watching a piece of theatre never quite left me throughout the entire proceedings. I think we were all players there, up to and including The Duchess of Toussaint. I don't know if anyone else was in on it or not. But here's what I think happened.

The Empress was going to destroy someone. It didn't matter who it was and fate threw Sir Craythorne into her path.

There are several perceived problems with the fact that the Empire has an Empress now instead of an Emperor. One of those problems is the rather incorrect and outdated perception that there is a member of the "fairer" or "weaker" sex on the throne. She is expected to be weak, gentle and merciful and people will assume that they will be able to play on that. All eyes were going to be on her first few days of rulership. If she displayed reasoned thought and action then people would take that for weakness and seek to exploit it. They would plot and scheme so all of a sudden the new Empress would have to put down armed rebellions left right and centre with increasingly harsh punishments that people would assume were being carried out despite the Empress' objections.

So instead she decided to pick one. One person, who crossed her early in her reign, who she then destroyed in the most public, cruel and complete fashion. As a result, no-one will ever dare to cross her again and she can be as reasonable and merciful as she likes as everyone will remember what she did to Sir Craythorne.

Sir Craythorne will never recover from that. Even if he was rescued he is now the man who's incompetence led to the declaration of martial law and the disbanding of the Knights Errant. The Duchess will be the hero who rebuilds them. People will write plays about it and sing songs.

In a couple of generations, the Duchess will probably even be considered a chaste saint who bestowed visions on those first few knights who went out into the world to right wrongs and vanquish evildoers. She may even be turned into the new personification of the Lady of the Lake.

They will tell stories of her.

You watch.


	54. Chapter 54

"Is it always like this?" Sam asked me.

He was standing next to me while I was sat at the table in the inn that the central group had commandeered for our command post. There was a bottle of wine in front of me that I was trying not to think about. I desperately wanted a drink but knew that it would be the first step down a long, dark hole that I might never climb out of. Tonight was not a night for drinking heavily. I would need my wits about me.

But it was looking at me.

"Is what always like this?" I asked him.

"The waiting?"

I gave a wry little chuckle. Probably the sort of chuckle that would have made me really cross if someone had chuckled at me in the same way.

"If I had a florin for every time someone had asked me that I'd have... well around 18 florins to tell you the truth."

"That's not a comfort." Sam hooked a chair over with his foot.

"Sam, you're a knight and a soldier. Surely you know what it's like, waiting, before an action."

"It's not the same." I noticed that he was drinking some milk. "With a big battle it's so big and so ….organised that there's no real time to sit around waiting for something to happen. They're always telling you what's going to happen and then they train you to obey instantly so you don't have the time to react with any other kind of emotion. After a while you get into the rhythm of it as well. Archers and bombardment first, loose formation, take cover, shields up, reform, mount cavalry charge, wheel away, defend against cavalry charge, beware infantry... and on and on it goes.

"You don't see a battle, you hear it and a bit of experience tells you what's going on and what you need to do. Battle is proactive. Even when you're waiting for the enemy to fall into your ambush or when you're preparing for incoming enemy charges, you are always doing something, looking for better ground, deciding where to stand and things. It's proactive where as this is just...Waiting for something to happen. Something which might not happen in the first place."

I grunted and stared at my hands on the table.

"No," I said after a while. "It's never like this. This is different, hugely different."

I looked at him after a while, he was staring out the door at the night sky.

"You know that Mark asked me the same question." I said after spending a bit of time trying to guess what he was thinking. "We were sat in the woods, the night before we captured Cousin Kalayn and all of the other sick fucks with him. I remember that he was really unhappy with the waiting and he tried to talk about how unhappy he was about Emma and Laurelen. As I recall I was spectacularly unhelpful to him."

"What did you tell him?"

"You know?" I said. "I can't remember. I probably made a joke. He was so desperately unhappy and uncomfortable that I was trying to put him at ease and make him feel a better."

"Yeah," said Sam, "Did it work?"

"No." I answered. "He was just on the verge of making me cross before we got the signal that it was time to move."

"Probably for the best."

"Probably." I sighed and examined my finger-nails. "But I've been thinking about it since."

"And your conclusions Master Frederick?" When he puts his mind to it, Sam can do an admirable impression of our childhood tutor.

"I think it's different every time. It's always scary but it's always different. In this case... Emotional context is the key to understanding why it feels this way."

"Emotional context?"

"Yes. In every hunt of a monster or waiting for that action in the woods. We were... There's so much emotion involved. If you're hunting a monster that's killed a whole bunch of children then obviously that sucks and you want to bring the beast down. That or the ghosts, hunting ghosts is a little weird in that there's always a tragic back story. Often a really tragic one so that when you are hunting one of those, it's like putting down a sick animal of some kind and it always, always sucks.

"But here. Here there's something completely different.

"For a start, we don't really know what we're hunting. That's a giant Witcher taboo, to hunt something without knowing what it is. We have a rough idea, of course, but even that is very small scale compared to the greater substance of what we're up against. So there's fear there. What we face tonight, or what we might be facing tonight is so much bigger and scarier than a group of cultists.

"But then, and I don't know if I speak for you, there is also the really quite astonishing amount of anger and rage that is fuelling me. I can feel it in my hands and my fingers. My feet and my legs are actively trying to tip me out of the chair and onto the chase. I want to jump up and down on the bastards that did this Sammy. I want to jump up and down on them until their bones and insides are nothing but paste and goop."

Sam shifted in his chair a little.

"I know what you mean," he said. "There is very rarely any emotion in a battle because the poor bastards on the other side are just doing their job. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of fear there and yes, in the heat of the moment, there is anger in the wake of the fear that departs after the first exchange of blows. But before hand and afterwards, certainly in my mind, there is very little feeling. When you look at the horror that you've made of the poor buggers who decided to block my mace with their faces, then you start to feel a little differently.

"Or at least you're supposed to. In every army you get those psychopaths that are in it for the violence and the killing.

"But here? I can't get the image of Francesca's face out of my mind. I can't stop thinking of the fact that the last thing that I said to her was offhand. Something like "see you later," rather than any kind of deep and intentional statement of love and respect. Flame Freddie but I don't want that to be the last thing I said to our sister."

"I know what you mean. There's also the fact that this seems to have been deliberately targeted to piss me off. Invoking a scary thing from my past. Either as a taunt or some kind of insult, or what. I don't know what but this feels more personal somehow. There is another fear as well.

"Back when we faced the cultists, there was a sense of...the worst had already happened. Dad was dead, We knew what we faced and weren't that physically scared. There was a sense of...anticipation almost. There were answers in that clearing full of cultists. Here though... I don't know what we're going to find here and I find that scary. The goals here are so broad and the unknowns are so...there are so many of them. What I'm really scared of...Really scared of is that the worst hasn't happened yet. It's been three days now since Frannie disappeared. That's a long time, She's young, fit and healthy so if she's been locked in a pit somewhere thene there's a good chance she's still alive but it's close. Very close.

"I keep going through these thoughts." I went on. "I keep imagining all of the worst possible things that could be happening to her now. I know, I know I'm not supposed to but I can't help it. I keep imagining her in some cellar, locked in the hold of a ship. Even to the more fantastical, imagining her in some kind of evil ritual circle, being in another world. On her way to some far off shore as a slave. Even then, though that's not the worst thing."

Sam looked sidelong at me. "Do you want me to ask what that is?"

I smiled a little feebly. "It's imagining her dead in some ditch just out of town, with her throat cut. Simple, basic and all too plausible."

Sam grunted.

"But in the meantime there's still the other thing happening." I went on.

"Which is?"

"We're in the eyes of the Empress. Let's be fair with each other here Sam. Did you think that we would ever be here? Or more importantly, do you thing that Father ever expected our family to be hob-nobbing with Imperial royalty?"

Sam laughed. But then we subsided for a while, staring into space.

In the distance I could hear a church-bell ringing. That was the signal to say that everything was in place. It had been delayed by the guard from it's normal time of ringing to mark the passage of midnight. I guessed that it might be a little late tonight as everyone got into their assigned places. I could well imagine everything happening. Soldiers settling into their deployments. Archers and lookouts on the roofs of the various buildings. Additional lanterns and fires had been set in the streets so that the entire place was lit and we could see everything when we needed to.

I shivered. I was afraid.

"You don't need to worry." Sam said, having seen the shiver. "Big brother's here. I'll look after you."

I grinned at him.

"I know. But that's not why I'm afraid."

"You're not afraid of being eaten by terrible monsters from beyond the veil of darkness." My brother joked. "I'm disappointed Freddie. I was looking forward to saving you from some of those."

I chuckled at him. At first I wanted to write that I laughed at him but that would have been a little ambitious as to what actually happened. I wasn't quite up to laughing yet.

"No. If you think we're going to be let anywhere near the unspeakable horror, then I'm afraid to tell you that that's unlikely to happen. It can't have escaped your notice that there are an extra six soldiers with us along with Sir Thomas as an extra officer."

"I had noticed. Not unusual for a central unit I thought,"

I smiled a little victory for the scholar over the soldier.

"I strongly suspect that if we tried to do anything away from the main unit then one of those six men would suddenly find themselves in our way. Also, if we try to run then I reckon they're under orders to knock us, smartly, on the top of our heads and drag us back to the palace where Emma and the Empress between them, will scold us enough to send our ears ringing. I will be grounded until marriage, at which time my keeping will be put into the hands of Ariadne, a woman that doesn't really need to sleep. You will find yourself deployed to some arctic or arid post in the far reaches of the Empire where you can grow old in service."

There was a pause.

"Awww," complained Sir Thomas from nearby where he was playing dice with a couple of soldiers and losing badly. "It's no fun when the target knows that you're coming."

Sam glared at him but Thomas seemed unconcerned. He deserved his confidence as well. I had seen him practising the day before and I thought that he was among the finer swordsmen that I had seen. And I have seen Geralt of Rivia fight.

I got up and walked to the door where Kerrass was looking out into the night with one of the former Knight Errants. They were talking about routes to get to different places as fast as possible.

I leant against the door and kept my peace.

"I notice that you didn't answer his question." Kerrass said, handing me a cup of heavily watered wine.

"Which question is that?"

"What are you afraid of?"

I sighed and looked at him. "I'm afraid that this entire exercise is pointless."

Kerrass grunted but otherwise kept silent.

I looked out at the sky. Only the odd star poked through the haze generated by the fires. The air was fairly cool and crisp. The moon, not quite full which I took to be a positive omen given the circumstances.

"Fine night for it." I heard myself comment.

In all fairness, Kerrass and I have been in this kind of situation more times than either of us care to count. I was also tired, and bewildered by the vast storm of emotions and questions that were rattling around behind my eyes. But even as I said it, I could hear how ridiculous it sounded.

Kerrass looked at me and raised an eyebrow. Then I saw the corner of his lip started to turn up at the corner.

Then he smirked.

But that point I had already had the giggle beginning to form at the back of my throat trying to scrabble and claw it's way out and into the open air.

He chuckled, I laughed. The other soldiers looked at us as though we had completely lost our minds.

Which of course made our fit of giggles only increase until we were both helpless.

We managed to get our sobs of laughter back under control before we would look at each other again which would set us off again.

"Attend," came a woman's voice in my ear. I didn't recognise it. It was cultured and educated. I thought that it was a Temerian accent but couldn't be sure. But as I heard the voice, the other soldiers were climbing to their feet, straightening other equipment and exchanging glances. The air was tense again. Kerrass had moved out, just into the night. He was staring up at the sky although I don't think he was looking for something. His head was tilted to one side and I thought that he was listening to something. His left hand was at his medallion and gripping it tightly.

I moved outside to stand next to him and strained to hear anything over the flickering sounds of the flames and the crackling of the straw and wood that fuelled the burning.

But I could hear something even though it took me a few moments to identify it.

Someone was laughing. A long way off but I could hear it. Just the hint of it, echoing off the walls and other buildings. It was the sound of someone who was anticipating a treat of some kind. Low and sinister.

I could imagine a huge grin and clown make-up.

"He's here," Kerrass said.

"Rather ominous comment," I muttered.

He smiled at me, put his hand on my shoulder and steered me back inside. The Guards and knights had got to their feet and were arranging their weapons.

"Here we go," Sam muttered. "It's exactly the same as a battle after all."

I raised my eyebrows at him in question.

"You don't see a battle," he said, "you hear it."

"Contact," said a voice and I spun round. It was the Imperial knight that was attached to our unit. "Down near the docks."

Kerrass nodded. "Makes sense. Lots of ground and obstacles to make his move without being cornered."

We all crowded round the door to the inn, straining to hear the first sounds of combat. A shout, a yell, a scream, the clash of steel. Anything that might give us a clue.

"Keep a loose net." the guardsman's voice again relaying orders from the citadel and the coven. "Central group hold position. Second and third teams, start moving south. Keep it loose though. Let's not tighten the net too much before we've got the bastard." The guardsman was stood with his hands covering his ears, presumably so he could concentrate on what he was being told.

"Ok, folks." Kerrass told us all. "It looks like this is it. So keep your eyes on your mates. Hold the formations that we've discussed and remember the briefing. I wasn't exaggerating how dangerous this prize piece of shit is so for the Gods and Godesses sake. Keep to your formation. Do NOT pursue unless you are with three others and sound off if you do so."

We all spun back to the door as we heard a scream in the night air that seemed to stop abruptly.

"Remember," Kerrass went on after he was sure everyone was looking at him again. "This is not a search and destroy, this is a search and capture. No matter how much he hurts us we need to bring him down alive. Do we all get that?"

There were affirmative sounds. Someone started to swear by the heron that it would be so but petered off after they realised what they were saying and in who's company they were standing.

"The word is not, Good hunting." Kerrass said finally. "The word is "Be careful," Take it to heart gentlemen."

There were more nods.

There was another scream, but this was more an ongoing exclamation of pain that drifted to us over the roof. It went on and on and on.

"Team 2 and 3," the Guardsman spoke. "Relieve four and five respectively. Four and five, fan out and sweep southwards towards the docks. Eyes on the roof-tops."

I realised that I was kicking the wall. It was foolish but it took an effort of will to stop.

Sam's words came back to me. "You don't see a battle, you hear it" he said but I was becoming awfully concerned that I wouldn't take part in this battle. I wanted to be part of it. I _needed_ to be part of it. To see the thing that I had brought down here to interfere in my families life.

I had gone back to kicking the floor.

"Central team, move south. Take it slow and stop when you reach the band-stand at the end of Higher-market square. Watch the roof-tops."

"That's us," Kerrass called. "Take it slow folks. Good luck."

We left the tavern quickly and formed up in the street. We split in half and stayed close to the walls. We moved slowly, painfully slowly to me but every open door and side street was checked.

We heard another scream and an exclamation of laughter. It was too loud that laughter. It echoed and magnified in a way that could not be possible. I saw a couple of the soldiers exchange glances.

We moved on, frustratingly slowly.

We came round a corner we saw our first casualty.

He wasn't dead. He had been skewered through the thigh and was leaving a trail of blood behind him. He was supported by another two men who were hurrying him along as best as they could. They weren't looking where they were going though and almost walked into one of the Knights Errant that was with our party.

"Hold," the knight rumbled. He was a big man, big enough that it almost seemed as though he was different species from those of us who had smaller, more normal proportions. I saw Kerrass walk over and bent down to talk to the wounded man. I couldn't tell what was said but I know Kerrass well enough to know that he wasn't pleased. The wounded man continued up the hill supported by one of the men that he had come with.

The third man was commandeered by Kerrass and ordered to take us on to where the attack happened.

Sam was next to me and he said something but I didn't quite hear him. I was too busy concentrating on something else.

"What?"

"Clever bastard." He seemed almost startled that he had spoken aloud in the first place. "When Archers are at the point where they're actually picking out targets rather than just aiming in volleys, they are told to aim to wound rather than to kill. Aim for shoulders, thighs and stomachs. Don't try to kill outright. Aim to wound."

I sighed theatrically. "I know why, but tell me anyway, I know you want to show off how clever you are."

He grinned at me. It was an unhappy grin.

"It's because nothing saps the morale of a group of soldiers like the screams of a wounded man. Whether they're calling for water, a quick blade, mercy or screaming for their mothers. The other thing is that a good wound will take more than one man out of the fight. It will take another one, or two to get the wounded man back to the surgeons."

He shrugged again.

"Clever bastard."

We moved up a few doorways.

"Sounds like you admire the man." I commented.

"I do." Sam bared his teeth in a snarl. "I also hate the bastard for making me admire him. I tell you Freddie," he spat. "I quit. After this is decided one way or another, I'm going to devote myself to sorting out the Kalayn lands. Then when...when Mark is no longer with us I'm going to devote myself to the same improvements that Father began. Both at home and at castle Kalayn. I don't want to think like this any more. I want to look on these things with horror rather than admiring the skill that it took to achieve."

"Turn your sword into a plough you mean."

He considered. "Probably not. If the need arises I would still need to be able to lead our families regiments to the front. But I want that to be a last resort. I don't want to do this any more."

"After tonight."

"After tonight, and once more. After we find the bastards that took Francesca." He said with a fair amount of venom.

"Amen brother."

We came round a corner again and we found our first body. It was a guardsman, lying where he had tumbled to the floor, hand outstretched to where his sword had fallen. A man from our group went over and rolled him over. His throat had been sliced open.

He looked surprised.

A bit further round we found more bodies. One man had bled to death trying to staunch the flow of blood from a wound he had taken in his upper thigh. Another man had fallen dead, a look of utter astonishment on his face. Only a small bead of blood had spilled from the corner of his mouth. We didn't have time to examine though as we moved past him.

We didn't see anyone else before we got to our objective. A small band stand at the market place. The Market place looked as though it had been abandoned at speed. A lot of the stalls were still in place while the goods had been taken off somewhere. Apart from the odd fish and piece of vegetable matter that tripped up an unfortunate soldier who cursed a little too loudly for the nerves of a couple of the men who glared at him.

"The three of them had chased him." Sam commented. "And he destroyed those two before chasing the last man down and killing him." He shook his head in disbelief.

"Central group, move west." Came the order.

"Stay together," Kerrass said again. "Do _not_ chase him. That's what he wants. We want to fight him on _our_ ground, not his."

The men muttered. They had been shaken by the dead men. None of them had expected to die during the celebration of the Empress' coronation. Brave men all but I heard one man comment that he would rather face a cavalry charge than this.

Another man commented that we were being hunted.

"No," Kerrass told him. "We are hunting him. Think of him as the most dangerous beast that you've ever hunted. We might lose some but the bastard is going down." He grinned nastily at the younger man.

We moved west. Without signals being given we had split into smaller groups. I saw one of the knights Errant scowl a bit before bending down to smear some horse dung over his armour to take the shine off. No-one commented on it.

"Move quickly west towards the lower gate. Group five is engaging. Keep him busy, Group six is coming in behind you to reinforce. Move it."

Kerrass whistled to catch the attention of the nearby men. He gestured and broke off at a run. We followed him and we came out onto the square that lead to the lower gate into the city. We knew that the cavalry was patrolling outside the gates. There was a group of men against a wall, one was a field medic of some kind and was seeing to the injured.

"He's like smoke." A man said clutching a rag of some kind to his face despite the blood that was still seeping between his fingers. He was obviously in shock. Sir Thomas and his men steered Sam and I into that direction. I shrugged, stole a couple of bandages and a spare sewing kit and got to work. I needed to feel useful.

It didn't help. These men were dying. Their enemy knew his work.

More men were coming and being carried into place. One called for water. That I could do.

We appeared to be in some kind of staging area. I saw Kerrass lead his men off, further to the East. There was no sounds of fighting. I remember that. But now that I was closer I could hear the whistle of weapons moving through the air at speed. The twang of arrow strings and the strange buzzing sounds of arrows flying through the air. Still with the sounds of the flames.

"He's like smoke. You can't touch him. He just isn't where he should be. He's like smoke."

"My God Freddie," Sam was helping me hold down another wounded man who didn't want to stay still. "What is happening here. These men aren't slouches. One man did this?"

Sir Thomas and his men were screening the wounded and was chasing the other men back to the fight.

"He's like smoke."

"I know," I tried to take the man's hand away from his injury. The gash across his face was awful and if he lived, he would have lost his sight in his eye. "I know friend just let me look at it."

"He's like smoke." He stared over my shoulder and a look of horror came across his face. I had seen such things before and assumed that he was dying but he wasn't, his hand lifted to point.

"Freddie." Sam shook my shoulder, "Look,"

A man stood on a roof top. He was dressed in a long coat of indeterminate colour. I thought it might be brown or dark green in the firelight. He had a large hat on his head, the brim shading his eyes so that we couldn't see much of his face but what we could see was covered in cloth. In his right hand he held a long slim sword that dripped with gore and his other hand carried a large club or cudgel. There was also a knife in his belt which was a belt of thick leather. He was wearing long boots.

He was laughing. Even though I couldn't hear it over the groans of the wounded, you could see that his shoulders were shaking.

"More meat for the grist." He called down to us. A bow sang from nearby and he jumped off the roof into the square with us. Sam roared and charged him, followed by Sir Thomas and his men. Other men joined in the formation closing in from the wings of Sam's impromptu formation.

Kerrass called another half a dozen men to him and followed keeping a deliberate gap between his men and the charging men. I wondered why but then the mystery man appeared again, nimbly leaping over the front rank. Kerrass closed with him then as Sam's men turned. It should have been all over. All told I thought that "Jack" was surrounded by a good fifteen or sixteen men.

But then the laughter started to come through clear and free.

Again I felt myself shiver, just before I saw Jack, because who else could it be, vault over one soldier and run at the next line of soldiers. I felt my mouth open in surprise and shock. I had a better look at him now as he ran straight at the next line of soldiers, he darted one way before jinking the other as the next line of soldiers closed on him. Then he seemed to collapse as he slid under the line. Under a man's shield and then he was up running.

A man was screaming. Later I would discover that Jack had slashed a man's femoral artery as he went under. He didn't scream for long though.

A soldier saw what was happening and ran to engage him. I would like to say that I saw the sword moves that this involved. But I didn't. Instead I saw a shimmer of steel and then the soldier spun away, his hand going to his throat to stop the fountain of blood that was bursting forth. But It was easy to see that he was already dying. He staggered aside.

I climbed to my feet and hefted my spear a little but I didn't get chance. I saw Jack dance aside to avoid an arrow that was fired at him from the roof-top before taking to his heels and running down a nearby alley. I saw him run up a wall by the entrance to the alley and disappear over the rooftops.

The soldiers began a pursuit, relatively well ordered to my eyes but Kerrass called them off.

"Stop." He bellowed into the chaos. "Form up."

It took a while but with the shouting of the Guards officers, order was quickly restored.

I was in shock. I had seen the Imperial Guard train. They weren't slouches with the blade. But I had seen one man tear them apart with ease. Two men down with surgical precision in three seconds.

I found Sam. He was white-faced but I was pleased to see that he was unhurt.

"So fast. Sweet flame of the Prophets. So very fast."

He looked up at my face as he drank from the skin of water that I had offered him.

"I couldn't get near him Freddie, couldn't get near him."

"I know Sam, next time."

"God Freddie, I don't think I want there to be a next time."

"Possibly the most sensible thing we've said between us in several days."

Sam grinned at that but it was a tired grin. The kind that had taken effort to perform.

"Freddie," Kerrass called me over and Sam came with me. Kerrass was stood with Gaetan the Cat Witcher who was stood with a cloth held over his arm. His face caught half between a grimace and a wince. There was another Witcher that Kerrass introduced me to with the name of Lambert. A thin, pinch faced man with a surprising widow's peak. He looked as though he had just eaten a sour piece of fruit when he had been expecting sweetness. The Imperial guard Captains came in quick although one waved off and told us that he would be securing the square.

"What's the count?"

"12 dead. Only four wounded. But they won't fight again."

There were winces all round.

"Off one exchange." one of the captains said. "That's a high rate of attrition.

I should mention that it was. The Imperial guard were far from slouches and it was a bit of a knock to see how easily "Jack" had run rings around them.

"This isn't working." Kerrass said. "He's using our numbers against us, tying us in knots and making us become a threat to each other. That and archers firing into the mix means that all we're getting is confused while he leads us around and into whatever position that he wants us to be in. If we keep going like this, all we're going to do is end up with a lot of dead guardsmen and a few dead Witchers and Knights. First of all, am I wrong?"

There was plenty of looking at each other before looking away. The Witcher Lambert looked as though he wanted to argue.

"We concur," The guardsman who was communicating with the magic users said. He had that vacant look that I had begun to associate with the communication without the input of ears and mouth. "What do you suggest?"

"We're letting him dictate the chase." Lambert grumbled. "He's obviously clever and ridiculously fast. We assume that that is magical so he can't be tired out. What can we do about that?"

"We're going to struggle to bring him to us." Kerrass said. "We have nothing he wants so laying a trap is all but impossible."

"What about..."

"No," The Captain spoke for the mages. "The Empress declared that bait is out of the question."

"Lovely," Lambert declared. "So, to face up to him with his level of skill, the only people that stand a hope are the Witchers and maybe, maybe one or two of the knight's errant. The Guardsmen are good but they're soldiers not policemen. When they see the bad guy they chase them. Can we use that?"

"That strikes me as a good way to get spread out and picked off." Gaetan said. He took a deep breath and examined the cloth that he had pressed to his arm before grimacing and pressing it back. "We know he's out there. We know he's not rational or that he's otherwise being compelled in some way otherwise he would just go to ground."

"Right. So." Kerrass blew his breath out of his mouth. "We can't set up a trap or lay bait. So what's next?"

"How are we tracking him?" Sam asked. He was chewing his lip, an old habit from when he was puzzling over a problem that a tutor had set us.

"He leaves a magical trail, an echo if you will."

"So is he the being itself or an imposter?"

"It's hard to say with certainty." Lambert commented. "Leave the thinking to the grown ups would you."

"Go fuck yourself." Sam said without venom. "I suppose it would be too easy for the mages to just disrupt his magic?"

"It would," Lady Eilhart told us through the soldier.

"So hang about." Sam said. "How many of that Coven, coterie, circle -jerk of mages up at the citadel are needed to track the thing and how east would it be to open a gate for the Witchers to jump through to wherever _he_ is?"

"It's possible." said the guardsman, frowning in concentration.

"What are you thinking?" Kerrass asked Sam while glaring at Lambert who was trying to argue.

"Well, I'm just thinking that this is a hunt right? It's the largest and most dangerous hunt that we have. We also need, only the Witchers to fight the bastard so we're reserving the kill."

"Sam," Kerrass' voiced betrayed some frustration.

"Alright look. Father used to run a hunting reserve."

"Is there a point to all of this," Lambert exploded only to be calmed by Gaetan's hand on his shoulder.

"Let him speak," Gaetan muttered.

"Father used to run a hunting reserve. Periodically, when there was something juicy in the reserve that was being saved for a particularly important guest, one of the Duke's or when the King came to stay or something, the beaters would go out to track the beast and find it so that the VIPs could be steered in the right direction."

Kerrass nodded. "I see your point."

"I don't," Lambert said but I thought he was doing it deliberately.

"The Witchers are the VIP's," Sam told him. "The Guardsmen are the beaters. They identify and track the "beast" and contain it in an area. The beaters used sticks and loud noises but, I don't know, big ass shields? Tell them not to get in the way and to just put the shields between themselves and the "beast". One or two Witcher's get gated in and hold the beast there while the rest come in to "make the kill" as it were."

"The idea has some merit." Gaetan admitted. "If the guard station themselves in a perimeter around the city in a ring, move the circle in slowly. Until the guards and their shields become a wall. That way we can steer them into the direction and to the place where we want him to go. That way we can hopefully control the ground as well."

"If I were Jack," Kerrass mused, "I would attack the wall."

"Then the guard fall back." Sam said. "Their job is not to engage, their job is to identify, track and contain the bastard. If we know where he is then that's half the battle. As it is we concentrate our forces making it easier for him to escape and evade. We contain him, the Witchers come and kill him."

"Hard on the Witchers that have to do all the running around though." Lambert complained.

"Aww, poor lamb. Scared of a bit of running." Sam chided him.

Lambert told him to go off and do something obscene.

"What is it with Wolves and going soft." Gaetan seemed satisfied with the state of the rag that had been pressed against his arm and tucked it into a pouch. "Must be all of those Sorceresses that they keep hanging around with."

Lambert repeated his earlier obscene gesture.

The plan was passed around. The Imperial guard weren't happy, they had lost men now and needed to see some kind of vengeance. Being told to back off and let the professionals deal with it was not taken well.

"Where do you want us?" Sam and I were, again, feeling like fifth wheels on the wagon.

"Want you?" Kerrass smiled slyly. "Preferably back at the palace surrounded by guardsmen. But failing that, stay with the guard reserves."

We nodded and did what we were told.

The Imperial Guard did their jobs well. Shields were found, huge long and wide things. I was astonished that they actually had wheels on the bottom to carry the weight. I later found that they were designed for use in sieges to protect those men who would dig the trenches to get nearer to the castle walls. The guard though moved them around with astonishing speed and agility.

As an extra officer, Sam was drafted in to provide some extra authority.

"Step by Step Lord Kalayn." said one of the knights. I got the impression that the knight in question was unsure as to Sam's authority and was just managing to stop himself short from ordering my brother around. My brother ignored him and proceeded to show that he knew how to call the march.

"No heroics." He yelled at the men. I noticed that he was stood directly in front of the men, facing them with his back towards whatever potential threat that there might be as though he was both ignoring and scornful of any danger that might be presented. He knew his business though.

He only had to be told a soldiers name once and he not only remembered it but also seemed to pick up on the men's nicknames and gossip as he ordered them on, step by step. Double ranks and single ranks. "Calling the cadence" is what he called it and although I don't know what he meant by that, that's what it sounded like. I stayed behind the ranks and felt as though I was horribly in the way. I clutched my spear hard, far too hard and wondered what Ariadne would say if she could see me now.

It was the first time I had thought of her in some time and I was awash with a sudden wave of guilt at my neglect of her. The woman that I was pretty sure that I loved by now. Loved and feared in equal measure. I had been looking forward to spending time with her. To spend time with her so that I might confront that fear head on.

But here I was, crouched behind a shield wall hunting what was potentially the most dangerous thing that I had hunted up to and including the beast of Amber's crossing. I would have wept for the uselessness of it. Then I remembered and fished in my shirt and produced the holy symbol that she had made for me. I grasped it in my palm and thought of her.

I got a sense of where she was standing. In a small room, somewhere towards the top of the citadel that towered above us, crouched over a basin of clear water.

"Don't interrupt." She told me but I could sense a smile behind the order.

"I'm sorry," I whispered to her.

"I know," she whispered softly before her voice became stern again. "But focus. We both have tasks to perform this night. Snap to it,"

"Yes ma'am"

I sensed her grin just before she broke contact.

I kissed the amulet. Both as a prayer to the flame to preserve me until I could see her again, but also as a gesture of the depth of my feeling to Ariadne. So that I could feel it even if she couldn't sense it.

But she was right.

I had work to do.

We advanced slowly and carefully. Half watching what we were doing, half watching the rooftops. The archers were still up there and sending signals to each other, tracking our quarry. It was slow going, and for more reasons than the huge shields. The plan called for us to leave nothing behind us. The entire thing would fall apart if Jack somehow managed to break through the confines of the circle that was slowly closing in around him.

As it was though, we discovered that he had no intention of. Instead he decided to make us hate him all the

more.

I didn't see him the first time. I heard his laughter, calls to watch out and then a dull thump of something heavy hitting the metal of a shield. People started swearing as they recognised the head of one of the archers. Sam called out the discipline though and the men swallowed their anger and marched on.

I did see him the second time. He stood on a roof top looking down at us. His laughter rang out. He had a man, I thought he was wearing a guardsman's uniform, the lighter armour of the archers but I couldn't swear to it. Jack held him without any apparent kind of effort and laughed at us.

He never said a word. I find it odd to think about that now but he never said a word.

The soldier that he held was in a daze, he occasionally tried to struggle a little but his movements were like those of a fish that had been pulled out of the water and left to die on the river bank. There was no strength to the movements and he flopped around. Jack was already laughing but he seemed to find the movements even more amusing.

Suddenly, he kicked out at the back of his captives legs causing the poor man to collapse to his knees before taking a knife from his belt and slashing the soldiers throat. He did it slowly and I hope I was only imagining the look of horror in the man's face. What little strength he had left, fled with the blood coursing down his chest.

Jack chuckled maliciously.

He reached back and proceeded to hack the man's head off. It took him three strikes of the dagger. To separate the head from the shoulders. Then he let the body fall to the sound of even more laughter echoing from the rooftops.

"Hold your file." Sam bellowed. He could impose discipline in the men and keep them in their ranks. But he couldn't stop the slow murmur of hatred that passed through the men.

These men had wanted Jack dead before, but now they hated him. It was an odd thing to come to realise. Soldiers generally try not to hate their enemies. But after that first spate of muttering, there was silence and a focus that became sharpened to the very point of the sword. It was terrifying.

But Jack wasn't done pissing us off yet. He still had a way to go on that score.

We had joined up with another unit on our left and were still advancing when Jack came out with his arm round the neck of another soldier in the manner of using him as a human shield. This time the captive had a bit more fight in him and was thrashing around. I don't know many people that would have been able to withstand such a pounding but Jack did. The most that his captive seemed to manage to do was to knock Jack's hat off which elicited a chorus of laughter and cheering from the men. In a fury, Jack again drew his knife and plunged it into the back of the soldier over and over and over and over again until there was no longer blood flowing from the wounds.

"Coward," a man cried, Jack, bowed ironically as he scooped up his hat and placed it back on his head.

Without his hat, his head was still covered with a sack-cloth mask. It was as though he had put an empty sack of carrots over his head and cut some eye holes.

A few streets later we saw Jack fighting on the roof top with someone. I thought it was a soldier but even I could see that Jack was toying with his prey. It was painful to watch but I forced myself to keep my eyes on the spectacle. The worst thing about it was that the soldier clearly thought that he was doing quite well. The fight went out of sight but we found the poor bastard a couple of streets further on with his head caved in. He looked as though he had been pushed off the roof and landed directly on the top of his head. It looked as though the base of his neck had compacted down and made him look hunch-backed.

Strange the details that you remember.

We saw him more and more often after that.

At one stage we rounded a corner and despite everyone's best efforts, Jack had managed to draw out a knight Errant. The Knight carried a huge sword that he wielded with obvious skill. There was a pattern to it that made every parry a strike and every strike a parry. It almost looked as though he was dancing with the sword as his partner before Jack stepped in like a striking snake. Jack kicked the side of the Knights knee which collapsed under the weight of the man before jack simply stepped forward and pushed his own sword down through the gap in the breast plate around the neck.

Someone commented that it was a relatively clean death as things were going.

I wasn't sure that I agreed.

We were still being pruned. One by one we were still being picked off and I felt amazingly guilty. But then I got angry at myself for feeling guilty as it wasn't me that was out there killing soldiers.

But it was me that had summoned Jack here.

But again, It had been pointed out that I hadn't been the one to cast the spells. I hadn't wielded the blade. But I felt those men's deaths on my conscience regardless.

"Are you happy with what I've done?" He was stood on the rooftops nearby. He held a man's severed arm, nonchalantly in his hand. "None of this would have been possible without you." He laughed and laughed, I can still hear the laughter sometimes when I'm not paying enough attention.

"What do you think of my handiwork?" Another question came echoing around the rooftops. Around the forest of chimneys and weathervanes. "Not enough blood for you? I tend to agree."

Someone screamed.

I don't know how long had passed. I thought that it must have been hours and nearly dawn but we came into a large square. It was one of the markets. Near the river in an effort to make sure that there was at least one place where Jack couldn't escape to.

I found that I had no faith in that. I remembered the huge jumps of the older stories. The ones with the burning hoof-prints. That was where disaster struck. Because how could it not.

Jack was arranging heads in a row. There was a stack of bodies nearby and for the first time that night it was clear that he hadn't just been killing soldiers on his rampage. There were several bodies that were dressed in the plainer clothing of the merchant classes in Toussaint, Plain dresses, work aprons and homespun cloth.

There were a lot of them and I wondered how long Jack had been about setting this up. He would go over to the pile of bodies, scoop up his sword cane from a nearby table that was still covered in fish offal from earlier when the workers had been cleared out. Then he would draw his sword and with one, very precise stroke, he removed their heads. The sword would go back into the cane to be replaced on the table before the head would be picked up. Then he strode over to the edge of the water and carefully placed the heads in a row.

He was singing a little song to himself. A cheerful bastardisation of the children's song.

"Ten stupid corpses, lying without a head." he sang. As the guard formed up in the side streets. We weren't all there as those units from further across were still making their way along but there were enough of us to block all the roads into and out of the square.

"Where was I? Ah yes." He placed another head down into the row. "Ten stupid decapitated heads," he sighed suddenly, "not that's not right. Ooh I know," He went back to singing. "Ten stupid faces, sitting in a row and if one stupid face, should purposefully be kicked into the river..." He took a run up and punted one of the heads out into the water where it made a little splash.

He cackled at the sound before looking at his arrangement.

"Aww," he complained. "Now there's a gap in the row." But then his voice brightened. "Never mind." He scooped up the sword cane. "There are plenty more heads to be found."

"By the heron no," a voice rang out. "Fight me demon," came the voice. I didn't recognise the man, he seemed older than some of the other Knights errant but he was weeping openly. He carried a shield with a rose on the front.

"See," Jack told his audience of severed heads. "Here comes one to join you all now." He drew his sword and stepped out to meet the knight. Jack even saluted the knight without a shred of irony or sarcasm. The Knight saluted and then leapt to the fray.

He never stood a chance. A series of quick lunges brought the knight to his knees in less than twenty heartbeats. Jack stood back, settled himself and removed the knights head at a stroke. He wiped his sword and collected the head, carrying it by the moustaches that all of the Knights Errant seemed to wear. I wouldn't go so far as to call it fashion but...

Taking a short run up, Jack drop-kicked the knights head into the river as well. The watching soldiers gave a noise that was almost like a groan.

Jack laughed before chiding himself. "Dammit, I should have kept him for the row." Something caught his eye, "still there are even more replacements coming.

The Witchers had finally arrived.

Three of them at any rate. Lambert arrived running a little ahead of Gaetan came up, both of them chugging a drink from tiny potion bottles as they came. Another man that I didn't recognise came from the other end of the square. The three men didn't even exchange glances. Gaetan and Lambert just charged straight in, Gaetan running up and using a table as a jumping block to attack Jack from on high where Lambert feinted right before spinning the other way in a low pirouette.

Jack ducked under Gaetan's strike and spun away from him while at the same time, somehow managing to parry Lambert's strike. Lambert was forced to recover to a cross-body parry before Gaetan could recover enough to renew his attack.

All of this happened in the fraction of a second and I struggled to see what was happening then because that was when the third Witcher arrived with a vertical figure of eight spin that I guessed was designed to drive Jack back to where Lambert was waiting for him.

Jack sniggered.

It was blindingly fast. So fast that I could barely see the Witcher's blades move in the reflected torchlight. Jack's blade was nothing but a flicker. There was a shimmering in the air as other Witchers began to arrive. I recognised Geralt of Rivia by his white hair, I didn't see Kerrass although he must have arrived and I began to believe that this might work.

But it was then that disaster struck.

It's easy, sat here looking back with the perfect vision that hindsight gifts us with, to say that we should have seen it coming. We should have seen it... We all should have seen it coming.

But we didn't.

It was that moment, just as gates were beginning to form to allow the other Witchers into the square that Jack's blade flickered out and badly caught Gaetan in the side. He did his best. He even tried to hold on to the blade in an effort to trap the weapon against himself but he wasn't quite fast enough.

The Knights Errant had been pushed to breaking point and this was the thing that sent them over the edge into madness. That's unfair really. They were already there really after watching Jack punt the knight's head into the river but it was the flash of bright Witcher blood that was the first stone that launched the avalanche.

They had had so much heaped on them over the last few days. They had been ground down by the disdain of the Imperial guard, by the open scorn of the Empress and that most dangerous of scourges. Guilt. Guilt that they had allowed the office of Knight Errant become so tarnished that they had failed Toussaint as a whole. They were hungry for a cause, hungry for some means, any means, of redemption. They had a longing, a hunger even for it. A desire to set themselves right. To reaffirm themselves.

They should never have been allowed onto the mission in the first place.

But it's easy to see such things looking back. At the time, we needed their swords. And who's to know what would have happened, or how things might have gone if they hadn't been there.

All I know is that as Gaetan staggered away from the combat. Some instinct getting him out of the way of his fellows and that same trained muscle memory caused him to sheathe his sword before snatching a potion from his belt as he fell to his knees. Pain written on his face.

The other Witchers weren't there yet, the gates not yet fully formed and a snarl formed in maybe half a dozen throats. It turned into a growl and forceful expulsion of air as Jack purposefully steered the fight over towards where Gaetan was trying to lever himself to his feet. Jack called to the stricken Witcher, taunting him and begging him to come on and die. Jack wanted his head.

It started with a single knight Errant. A young man, secure in his strength and still possessed of that conviction that he was invulnerable screamed out a negative noise. Not quite an order, not quite a plea. He sprinted forward and put his body between Jack and the falling Witcher.

I never learned that Knight's name. His example was followed by another two men in the shining golden armour that told of their rank but that first knight was already dying hard. Jack rammed his blade into the young man's gut, slanting up under the breastplate and into his digestive tract.

Sam was swearing at the charging Knights to hold their lines, to hold their ranks, his voice echoed by other guard officers but the Knights ignored the orders and ran on.

"Fuck," Sam swore violently before rattling off some orders. He saw it before I did. By the time I saw what was going to happen it was too late and all I could do was to watch impotently.

The Witcher's fighting style is built around movement. The average Kikkimore spits acid and possesses claws that would make mockery of even the best made plate. So they are trained to move and to stay mobile. They trained together and work together. They know how each other thing even though Gaetan and Lambert were trained in different schools. There was enough...communion there that they knew what was needed and how to attack.

Gaetan had been hurt and he had chosen to get out of the way to make room for the incoming Witchers which he knew were due to arrive at any moment by magical means. That was the point, the Witchers needed room to move, room to act. And the Knights Errant took that advantage away from them.

The square was suddenly full of large, heavily armoured men, crashing into each other, trying to strike out at their target that moved like quicksilver. That moved like the fastest fish in the sea, lashing out and striking wherever he pleased.

Jack sounded as though he might even rupture something, he was laughing so hard.

Because he proved another truth there. In a fight, with lots of heavy men with heavy armour and heavy swords swinging around. A quick man, light on his feet and well trained, doesn't need to strike out at his enemies. He just needs to stay mobile and his enemies will strike out at each other for him.

Because then there were wounded that needed to be removed from the equation. Gaetan himself was tugged clear by the first of Sam's unit. A brave young man who Sam had ordered to ditch his gear and carry the wounded Witcher out. But now there was more. More bodies, both alive, dead and at every stage in between. Entrails and innards spilled out onto the floor. More than one man slipped on some bodily fluid that was supposed to be on the inside of the body.

It was chaos.

Then Jack screamed in triumph.

"I've got a Witcher, I've got a Witcher, I've got a Witcher." How he found the space in the swirling melee I don't know, but he had managed to trap the third man, the one I didn't know, between the bulk of another knight and the fallen body of another. The Witcher tripped and jack was on him. Jack simply ran him through, a twist and a tug and most of the Witchers entrails exploded out of the hole. Jack chopped down and scooped up the head and threw it at another knight.

"I'll kick that one later. Unless I can get another." The laughing just wouldn't stop.

I watched in horror as the plan disintegrated around him. Guardsmen ran in to try and pull injured and killed men out of the melee but Jack would steer those men that were still trying to fight him into those guardsmen.

It wasn't long before a guardsman was knocked cold by a knight's back-swing. As I watched, Jack rolled under the blow from the knight and killed the guardsman with a slice across the throat. The knight, realising what had happened turned with an expression of horror and roared, raising his sword above his head. Jack calmly stepped in and stabbed the knight through his open mouth before giggling at the confused expression that the knight wore as he died.

It was awful. It was a mess. The plan had worked. We had him in the open and the Witchers were coming in, swords out and primed ready for the fight ahead. But Jack had goaded these men and on top of everything that they had suffered over the last couple of days and they could no longer contain themselves.

A lot of the blame for what happened that night has fallen at the feet of the knights Errant and don't get me wrong, they do deserve a certain amount of the blame but I find I am sympathetic towards them. Yes, they should have held their ranks and yes, they should have followed orders rather than running into a situation that, although dangerous, was part of the plan. But I also find it far too easy to put myself into the place of those men. Far too easy.

Not four days ago they held a position of privilege and respect. They were servants of the nation and proud servants at that. There was no denying that there were some bad apples among their number but at the same time, many of the Knights that I have met were driven by duty. They genuinely wanted to work towards making their small Duchy of Toussaint into a better place. They had done these things as well before becoming overcome by the pageantry and the atmosphere of the whole thing. But most of them were good men, painfully naïve and as impressionable as a warm ball of wax but they were good men all the same.

But suddenly they were the ridiculed villains of the piece. A knight Errant could expect to walk down the street and where before they would be cheered and greeted with respect. Now they were jeered at and the subject of jokes.

Along with the deep down feeling that they deserved this treatment. It must have been awful. So here was their chance to make it right.

But they failed and made a bad situation immeasurably worse. I don't know what the final butchers bill of that second major engagement with Jack was. What I do know is that only one Knight Errant made it back alive and unwounded from those knights that we had started out with. He was an older man, hair and moustache white as snow and had been chosen for his level-headedness. He had shown his level-headedness.

He had called and screamed and ordered and cajoled his fellows to fall back. He wasn't with Sam and I but I'm told that he wept openly as he watched what happened and spent days afterwards apologising. I'm told that he retired, his nerve shattered after that. When I left Toussaint they were trying to convince him to help train the next generation of knights.

I also know that fewer than twenty Imperial guardsmen made it back alive and unwounded. Just about every man was hurt in that melee and the unhurt men were mostly the archers that were still running towards the fight from the more remote parts of the city.

There were eight Witchers working that night. Another two were with the Empress. Gaetan was badly hurt and we managed to get him out. Another two died. Another Cat Witcher and another from a different school although I never caught his name.

It was a disaster and we watched with impotent fury and frustration as it just continued to happen before our eyes. Our shouts and orders were being ignored, if we sent more men into help then we would just be making the problem worse.

I wish I could hate the Knights Errant for their part in the disaster. I wish I could but they had been pushed to breaking point.

I will admit to the possibility that I am not entirely objective here in my sympathy as I too was pushed to my breaking point and beyond it.

My own point of breaking came. The fight had got to a lull in the action. There were so many dead and so many wounded that it was hard to separate the one from another. There were three knights that were still standing and they looked around themselves in horror at what had happened. Our men, what men who had kept their nerve, were busy pulling away wounded to make room for the next phase of the fight. The remaining Witchers had stepped past the line of knights, brandishing their weapons. I saw Kerrass there and I thought I saw him snarl something at one of the knights but I couldn't make it out.

Jack laughed at them all, he didn't even seem to be breathing that heavily, ironically saluting them with his absurdly slim sword.

"What?" He yelled, "party over? Can't have that."

He walked over to the row of heads that he had laid out and punted a few more into the river with little comments to himself.

"No," he said. "It's not quite as satisfying as I thought it would be." He pantomimed thinking. The Witchers closed in on him carefully. "I know," he called, he reached under a piece of sacking and produced another head. It was a woman with long dark hair by which he held it up, the eyes had been removed and the jaw hung slack.

It wasn't Francesca. It was the wrong shape and the hair was a different colour.

But it could have been and I was far from thinking clearly.

"What do you think Lord Frederick?" Jack called to me, "Remind you of anyone?" He lifted up the bottom of his mask enough so that he could spit into the poor woman's face before heaving it out over the water.

I lost my shit.

I should have stayed calm, I should have waited, I should have held my place and let Kerrass, Geralt,

Lambert and the rest do their job. But suddenly I couldn't.

I felt as though the walls of the square were closing in on me. I couldn't breathe, the edges of my vision turned grey. I could hear my own breathing as though I was panting after a long run or a hard ride.

Then I screamed.

Hands tugged at me, tried to hold me back but I ignored them.

I think someone called my name but I ignored them. I was just consumed by the desire to kill this...this thing that suddenly seemed to be the author of all of my pain.

He laughed at me, turned and ran.

He leapt into the river, still holding his cane and his hat wedged firmly on his head.

I didn't hesitate, I didn't even pause. It was only luck that had kept my spear in my hand as I charged and dove straight in after him.

The water was icy cold but I didn't feel it, I surfaced, looked around and saw Jack splashing his way downstream. I still had my spear and I charged off after him.

I don't think I could have done it in cold blood. I'm not a swimmer, not really but I followed. Still holding my spear which I held in front of me in an effort to cut through the water. I must have been partially successful because I followed. I even managed to gain a little although that might have been because Jack was toying with me a little.

We came to the edge where the ground began to rise out of the water and back into the city. This wasn't the main docks but it was near there. A place for locals to do their washing or for small boats to be pulled ashore so that they could load and unload goods.

Jack stood on the bank and waved his ass at me.

"You can't catch me," he taunted.

Some left over common sense told me not to follow him straight up the bank where my feet would be fouled by water and he would be free to do as he wished.

He laughed as he watched before his head jerked to one side as he caught wind of something. He sketched a salute,

"Ta-ta," he called and took to his heels.

"No, you bastard." I snarled and charged after him.

I could no more help it than I could help breathing. He looked back when he realised that he was being chased and laughed even louder. He jumped onto a low wall and ran along the top until he came to a house which he vaulted up to the roof.

I swore and looked around. If I jumped onto that table there and then onto _that_ window and then I...

Don't think about it, just do it.

I ran, jumped, swung over, vaulted up and climbed up until I was on the roof.

"Did that tire you out?" Jack's voice came to me then. "This doesn't look like your kind of game Lord Frederick," he sniggered. The bastard had been waiting for me. He charged off running lightly along the tops of the houses. I was not as graceful, putting my feet through tiles and through plaster, fighting to keep my balance as I ran, not entirely successfully.

"You know something?" Jack called over his shoulder during one of those times that he stopped, seemingly to wait for me. "I haven't had this much fun in years. I really should think you for this."

I saw a different route and ran along, jumped, ran again sending ceiling tiles to shatter on the street below. And I caught him. On the edge of a rooftop.

Fortunately it wasn't a very high rooftop. He laughed as he fell I remember.

I don't remember if I screamed.

People were calling my name now. I was struggling to breathe as the fall had knocked the wind out of me. I looked for my spear and forced myself to scramble towards it.

By the flame it hurt.

I didn't know where Jack was. I levered myself to my feet, my ankle threatened to give out and shooting pains shot up my leg and into my lower back. I tasted blood.

Sounds of fighting came to me then, Two men in guardsmen uniform had been drawn there by the crash and my yelling and Jack was on them.

He sidestepped one, parried the second before spinning. He still had his cane, using the stick he tangled it in the first man's legs and brought him crashing down.

"No," I yelled, already seeing what was happening. The man still standing was Sir Thomas. "No you bastard." Anything I could do to try and distract Jack. I hefted my spear and took a step forward, and another step but then my leg gave out again and I fell.

Jack had quickly dispatched the man on the floor by braining him with his club. He advanced on Sir Thomas. Thomas had a shield and he fought very well. He was good, far better than I had hoped. I climbed back to my feet and advanced a bit more slowly. It was getting easier as I went.

Sir Thomas, at least, was still fighting with his mind rather than his heart. He just concentrated on keeping his shield between his body and Jack. He had dropped the earlier siege shields in favour of his more normal kite shield. He was confounding Jack as he steadfastly refused to step to the attack and concentrated on parrying and screaming his bloody head off so that we could be found.

I remember that I was nearly there, so close, so very nearly there, I was walking steadily by that point, not quite running but certainly not at my normal strolling pace.

Then came the mistake.

Someone called Thomas' name, he turned his head to shout an answer and like lightening, Jack struck. I don't know how he found the gap in Thomas' armour but he did. Past the shield and into Thomas' left side, he pierced a lung and did untold other damage as he twisted his slim blade.

Thomas groaned horribly before coughing blood.

Jack withdrew his blade and stepped aside, holding his blade in a salute.

"See to your friend," he said to me.

He was no longer laughing.

He turned and ran up the street a little way.

I hobbled the rest of the way to Thomas which was when I learned that his lung had been pierced. Pink foam formed on his lips which only means one thing.

He looked so sad but when he saw me he tried to pull in some breath.

"Kill the bast..." His eyes widened in a sudden wave of panic and agony. He couldn't breathe and he was terrified as he died.

"Mother," there was no breath behind the word and I had to read it off his lips. He looked his sixteen years of age then.

So young.

He died hard. It didn't take long but it was an end full of agony.

I had thought I was angry before.

I rose to my feet. Jack was a little way up an alley. He was looking back at me, expectantly, cane in hand. Half turned away from me. Ready to run.

I came out of my crouched position like a sprinter from the starting blocks. Pain lanced up my legs but I ignored it. I chased him and he ran. There was no time for laughter anymore. Only speed and violence. He ran and I chased him, my lips drawn back into the same expression that I used to see on my fathers hunting dogs.

I chased him and he ran. He did not resort to the tricks that he had used before. He didn't climb the walls or up to the rooftops. He just ran and I chased him.

I was dimly aware that we were, in turn, being hunted ourselves as we ran. Signal arrows were being fired. Shouts were being given, names were being called. Jack didn't react and so, neither did I.

We ran, up the hill towards the palace. Jack, seemingly choosing side streets at random. I ran after him, nipping at his heels but never quite managing to fully close the distance.

He ran and I chased him.

I don't know how long it took us. It can't have been very long. Toussaint town is not that large, all things considered and it doesn't take that long to walk from place to place.

I chased him into the graveyard near the top of the town. I don't know why he chose that place to turn into. There was nothing keeping him from running on. A little bit further than that was the gate that leads to the upper countryside and towards the palace gardens. There was only a couple of men on the gate by that point and Jack could easily have escaped. There was no way that I would have been able to catch him if he had escaped to the countryside. Instead he turned to the side and into the graveyard.

A dead end.

He ran in, through the twisting mausoleums and the stone statues before he came to an open place and turned on me. He twisted and with a jerk he caused the sword to leap out of his cane in a very similar way to how Witchers cause their own swords to leap from their scabbards. But that observation came to me much later.

I didn't pause, I didn't stop to think or to steady myself. I just charged him. Spear whirling.

There is no way. No way at all that I should have survived.

There may have been other factors in place. Luck is possibly part of it. I might have been helped by magical means from the citadel or from other sources. There might have been some other factors as well, things that I have no idea about it.

But I charged him. Spear twirling like the quarterstaff that I had used when I first started my journey. I ran in, firelight glistening off our blades. I did not have any thoughts I just wanted the bastard dead with a white hot hatred that I could no longer control.

I rained blows down upon him as fast and as hard as I could.

He blocked them.

I unleashed a flurry of quick, hard thrusts at multiple targets on his body. Groin, neck, eyes.

He parried them.

I tried all the tricks that I had. I tried to trip him, feints off centre, snarl up his legs and cause him to fall.

He dodged them.

I felt myself getting desperate. The heat of the hatred that I had felt up until that point had begun to evaporate. The cold from my still sopping wet clothes began to leech away my strength and I began to feel the first pulls of fear at my soul.

I began to swing wildly, trying to push him back. Give myself room to think. Room to consider, he ducked and weaved, jumping over my strikes. The fear came on me stronger then as I realised the truth. I wasn't good. I wasn't lucky. He was toying with me.

I redoubled my efforts. Trying to find the fury that had carried me through the earlier parts of the fight.

For just a moment, I thought I might even have had him.

Then he laughed.

It was shocking with it. He had been silent for quite a while by this point and to hear him laugh after so long silent...

It didn't put me off my fight. It put him onto his.

Suddenly I was defending. Parrying like a bastard, desperately trying to keep him back, to keep the ground clear. He pushed me back and back and back. There was no doubt any more. I was going to die here in the graveyard.

Now he had started again, there was no stopping him. He laughed and laughed and laughed and it made me angrier and angrier.

His guffaws ran on and on and on.

And I fell back and back and back.

I tripped and fell backwards. I don't know what on, probably a root or the back of some raised grave. Jack's club lashed out and struck me on the hand, not hard but it numbed the bone enough to mean that I dropped the spear.

He stood over me, almost helpless with laughter. I thought to use his convulsive hilarity to make some kind of escape but his sword never wavered. Instead he advanced on me slowly, only between laughs. Every time another laugh caused him to escape he would stop and wait as though he wanted to savour it.

He advanced and slowly, painfully, awfully slowly, he pushed his razor sharp sword into my chest.

It was agony and I tried to breathe in enough to scream. I tried to move and escape but I was pinned.

But then Jack withdrew the sword and he was twisting away. Desperately away, his sword rising to parry. There was a clash of steel and then I saw as Geralt of Rivia, the White Wolf himself stepped over me to engage the madman.

I had seen Geralt fight before. Kerrass claims that Geralt is the better swordsman between the two of them although he said so without jealousy or anger. It was just a statement of fact. Truth be told, I am not good enough to be able to tell the difference between the two as to which one is better. It's not something I can even reach for. The difference between this fight and the fight down in the market place was that this time, it was clear that Geralt had been prepared for what was going to happen.

He was glowing slightly with the sign, I think Kerrass calls it "Quen", as he charged in. He ducked and parried with an ease that was deceptive and a speed that hurt the eye, but even as he did so, even Geralt of Rivia took an injury, first the golden glow exploded outwards with a wave of force that knocked me back to the floor after an abortive attempt to climb to my feet and then I saw just the tip of Jack's sword graze the Witcher's face causing a small spray of blood. I felt myself disbelieving what I was seeing. It seemed impossible to me that Geralt of Rivia himself might have been outclassed.

But then another figure jumped down from one of the higher mausoleums. I recognised Lambert from earlier. Geralt was calm as he fought, almost placid with an utter lack of expression. Lambert fought with a wordless and soundless shout of fury on his lips.

This is what was missing from before. The teamwork of the thing. As Jack spun to deal with Lambert, Geralt had time to re-establish his Quen shield and then joined Lambert in the fight. Jack was laughing again, confidently and easily but I felt the first fluttering of hope in my chest.

At some signal that I didn't see or hear, Geralt and Lambert broke off and a third figure emerged from between two gravestones. This man was small, stockier and although his swords were still on his back he wielded the twin daggers of the Viper school. It shamed me that I didn't know who he was. Where Kerrass, Geralt and Lambert are all lithe grace, this man was compact, like Letho only on a much smaller scale.

He drove Jack back with his furious assault, ignoring the wound that sprung up over his eyes and the sudden burst of blood that exploded out of his side. He drove Jack backwards. Lambert and Geralt on either side.

I saw what was happening then.

They were steering Jack back, keeping him confined. Military people would say that they were boxing him in so that the only thing left to do was to close the lid. I managed to lever myself to my feet and I could see beyond the melee a fourth figure who was crouched on the floor, sketching something with his hand. A purple glow sprang up to reveal Eskel, the large, heavily scarred Witcher from the wolf school steeped back and allowed the other three men to push Jack back.

The purple light sprang up again and it seemed as though Jack was trying to move through deep water. Eskel joined his four compatriots and the box was closed.

"Now," came another voice from high up, again from the top of one of the mausoleums.

The four Witchers drew back and gestured.

I felt the buffeting from the air blasts of the Aard sign from where I was. Rationality had returned to me with the blood that ran down my chest and I stayed well back, out of the way. Let the professionals do their job. We all should have done that from the very start. Guardsmen, Knights errant, amateurs all of us.

Twice more the four witchers blasted the now, struggling Jack with cannons made from air and he fell. I thought I saw blood.

"Back," came the same voice from above the mausoleum.

The four Witchers on the ground spun backwards and a net came down from the mausoleum and covered the staggering Jack.

Kerras jumped down and joined the other four as they piled onto the now captured man. At one point I saw a sword and cane skitter away.

Then a knife but he was still struggling.

"Get his hands," someone growled. I thought it was Lambert.

Then the laughter just stopped. The struggling fell away and the five Witchers fell to their work, ropes being tied down. At one point Lambert pulled himself off and kicked the squirming bundle hard before falling back to work.

Kerrass detached himself from the group and approached me. I held my hand out to him and was astonished as I realised that I was suddenly looking up at him from where I had fallen back down to the ground.

"You stupid bastard." He snarled as I realised that he had punched me in the face. "You stupid fucking bastard. Have you got some kind of death wish?"

"Kerrass I..."

"What did you think? Did you see what he did to a whole company of guardsmen and a good dozen Knights Errant, but oh no. "I'm Frederick von Coulthard and the rules don't apply to me," what were you thinking?"

"I..."

"Don't answer. Just let me rant. If you say something then I might hate you the more you stupid fucking... Goddess Freddie, I don't want to have to tell your sister and you fiance that you died. Don't make me do that Freddie, don't make me tell them that I couldn't save you."

"Kerrass."

"Don't say a word."

An inhuman wail came from the bundled and trussed up form of Jack. Lambert had pulled his hat and hood off.

"Fucking hell," he commented.

Despite his anger Kerrass turned away from me and went back to where the other Witchers were clustered around the prone figure.

I climbed back to my feet and limped over to them, rubbing my bruised jaw and trying to shake off the ringing in my ears.

Then I saw "Jack's" face and turned away to vomit up the bile that was churning in my stomach.

I didn't recognise the face. I'm not sure anyone could have recognised the face. It was covered in gashes and cuts. One eye was just a weeping sore from where the eye-socket had caved in. His jaw was broken, teeth splintered and the way he wailed we could see into his mouth that his tongue had been torn out. Not cut out, torn out.

He had one working eye and it was rolling back into his skull as he wailed out an awful anguish.

"We didn't lose sight of him did we?" the viper Witcher was sat on a nearby gravestone, pouring a potion into the injury at his side. "That is the same guy that we chased through the city."

"No that's him," said Lambert. "I saw him fight, the clothes match and this is where he led us. This is him."

The Witchers just looked at each other, and then at me.

"Poor Fucker," Eskel said.


	55. Chapter 55

(A/N: This might not make sense here and now, as you read this before the beginning of the chapter. But I apologise for any historical inaccuracies. I just wanted to write the thing without falling down a hole of research. With that cryptic statement out of the way I'll leave you to it.

Also, WARNING for some scenes of descriptions of torture devices and their history.)

"It turns out that Jack's real name, in this case, was Antoine de Mornir. He was a school teacher."

"What?" The Empress demanded. She had her head in her hands, resting her elbows on her desk and was massaging her eyes. "What did he teach? Badassery? Fencing? Acrobatics?"

"None of the above." Phillipa Eilhart said looking as tired, if not worse than the Empress did. "He was actually a maths tutor with some history and handwriting done on the side. He was the kind of man that nobles hire to come and instruct some basic skills to their children. Before the children have begun to decide what they want to do with themselves."

She sat down heavily in a nearby chair before pouring herself a hot steaming drink. "He did that sort of thing four days out of seven and then spent two days "giving some back to society" where he taught some of the children of the townsfolk and what surrounding villagers could make it to the church schools. Widower, no children devoted to his work and to the children. Is known to the Knights Errant as a couple of years ago he discovered that one of the children in his classroom was being being abused by their father. Whole matter was dealt with in a duel and the child went off to stay with an Aunt out of town."

"How can a man like that do all of these things?" The Empress stared over her hands at the other occupants of the room. There weren't that many of us and none of us had slept. "He killed two Witchers, eleven Knights Errant and close to forty Imperial Guardsmen in a single night. That's not including those men that are wounded and may never walk, let alone fight again. You're telling me that all of that was done by a school teacher? And quite a nice, moral man at that?"

"I can't speak for any certainty, Majesty." Lady Eilhart put just the slightest emphasis on the title, I sense an old conflict here but it was glossed over. "But if I was to guess, I would say that he was possessed."

"If it was a possession then it's not like anything that I've ever seen," The Empress' chaplain was there, the first time I'd met the man. He was the kind of quiet elderly man who could surprise you with his vigour and the sudden bursts of charm and very sharp intelligence. "Is there any possibility at all that he wasn't just simply mad?"

"Oh, he was quite mad." Said Lady Eilhart. "But you don't understand. Not only did he not have the skill to do the things that we saw last night, but he physically couldn't have done it. The cartilage in his joints was simply gone. His limbs, especially his legs and feet, were fractured in multiple places and in multiple ways. His muscles were torn and strained. That's leaving aside the fact that his jaw was broken, his tongue torn out at the root and that he was missing an eye. Not that the eye was removed. But because the side of his face was caved in and the eye must have burst.

"It wasn't a madness that made him do all of the things that happened last night. He was physically incapable of standing and holding himself upright. His shattered limbs make that certain. If I hadn't been scrying the events, with my own magic and with other witnesses at the time, I would have sworn that the Witchers and Lord Frederick here, had substituted someone else in place of the killer."

"My God." The Chaplain made the sign of the sun over his heart. "But, possession is normally accompanied by more supernatural elements, things floating, strange voices, promises of power and damnation. This was just a killer."

"Just a killer, Lord Chaplain?" Geralt of rivia was another person in attendance. He showed no signs of the weariness that was affecting most of the rest of us. "Believe me, there was no "just" about what happened last night. That power played us like mandolins. Played all of us. It's my view that nothing happened last night that the attacker didn't want to happen. Up to and, I think, including his capture at our hands. Certainly Lord Frederick here owes that fact his life."

"Why would he want me alive?" I asked the room. Not for the first time. It was one of many questions that I had spinning round my head at that point. It turns out that I didn't say it loud enough this time and so no one spoke. It wasn't as if anyone had an answer for me anyway.

"Why would someone want to do all of that?" The Chaplain asked again.

"Distraction?" Lord Voorhis was in the room and had poured himself a goblet of liquid from the same jug that Lady Eilhart had drunk from. "While we were chasing him across the rooftops, we weren't looking somewhere else. That brings us back to the probability that this whole thing comes down to a matter of state rather than something specifically designed to target or annoy the Empress or the Coulthard family. Nothing else happened last night in Toussaint that was of any note. No ships moved, no boats docked and nothing went anywhere. We checked."

The Empress rose to her feet and walked to look out the window. She was very pale that morning and I suspected that, along with not having slept, she also hadn't eaten anything. Her hair was kept back by a simple silver circlet and a hair design that I recognised as being another from Francesca's repertoire of simple but effective things that you can do with long hair. But other than the circlet she wore no other ornamentation and was dressed in a simple, high collared black robe that was belted at the waist. For all the world it looked like a cassock only it was black rather than red. I guessed at the boots underneath.

"So here's the big question I suppose," The Empress said after a while. "Did he have anything to do with Francesca's disappearance?"

"Oh yes." Said Lady Eilhart.

"Beyond any doubt." Kerrass commented. "As soon as we managed to get his address out of him, or rather, as soon as lady Eilhart and her fellows got his address out of him, we went and searched his residence in the early hours of this morning. Just as the sun was beginning to come up. He had paintings of her all over his little house. That and a cage in his basement where he kept his victims. He had...souvenirs."

The Empress shuddered. "Was this something that _he_ did or was it something that was done to him?"

"There is still some argument about that, Majesty," Lady Eilhart said. "I think though, that the man was possessed and manipulated into doing these things. I think he is as much a victim of all of this as Lady Francesca is. He was driven mad with what he had seen and what he was being forced to do. A lot of his injuries, we believe, were self-inflicted.

"Early on he injured himself in an effort so that the people around him would realised that something was wrong, but the possessing personality simply made him wear a mask when he went out and steal anything that he needed. It's almost certain that he clawed at his own face, tore out his own tongue and bashed his head against a wall in an effort to kill himself. But again, the possessing personality simply wouldn't allow it."

Lady Eilhart is a difficult woman to like but I found that I was grateful to her there for the use of the present tense regarding Francesca.

What she said was an understatement of the horror that we found when we went to the teachers house. It was just a small house, behind a butchers shop, and you got to it by going down a side alley. You would need to be told where it was, you couldn't come across it accidentally. He had a ground floor room in which he seemed to do most of his cooking, a basement room that he hadn't previously been using and an upstairs room where he slept and kept his books. If it wasn't for the location being less than entirely beneficial I would have called it a nice place to live.

But the smell as we walked into the back room was enough to send even a Witcher retching. The reek itself of blood, faeces and offal was overpowering enough but there was another scent here. It was an evil scent of fear, rage and helplessness. It made the hair on the backs of my head stand up.

I will set it out as clinically as I can.

On the top floor he was surrounded by the dresses and small belongings of the women that he had captured. He had dressmaker dummies set out upon which he had set out the women's dresses. He had placed their hair upon the dummies heads and had nailed the poor women's faces to the front of the dummies.

Yes, he skinned their faces off.

As well as this, the books that had once lined the shelves in the room were scattered around the place. We found some evidence to say that many of them had been used to start fires and for fuel for the fire. On the wall, over and over again, were different portraits of my sister. Some were professionally done and I would later learn that those pictures had been created by professional artists in the capital, who had been commissioned by "foreign nobility" who were interested in the eligible women at court. But some, just as clearly had been done by the occupant. They were drawn on the wall using whatever artistic material could be found. Blood, excrement, charcoal and anything else that you might not want to imagine. It was also easy how he chose his victims. Not just for the superficial similarities to Francesca but also by the way they dressed.

On the ground floor it was obvious that he had been eating his victims. He must have struggled to go out into town to get what food and things that he had needed due to his obvious disfigurements and so he had turned to the only food source that he had available.

This was also the room where he clearly had done things to himself, both to call attention to his plight at first, but later in an effort to end his own existence. He had castrated himself with a knife. Flame knows how he managed to survive that. He had torn his own tongue out with a pair of pincers as well as taking a knife to himself. He had a large sledgehammer which it turned out he had used to shatter his own feet as he tried to disable himself into not being able to go out.

Finally, when none of those things had worked he had tried ramming his head into a wall.

Why none of these things had worked, I suppose we will never know. We did propose the theory that the teacher personality, the true personality, was driven mad by the things he was forced to do and the things he was forced to see. Then he tried to prevent himself from doing or seeing these things. But all the time he was prevented from doing so by the other personality that we referred to as the "Jack" personality that saved his life at every turn. All the time forcing him to perform increasingly brutal and horrible things.

It was awful, horrifying and heartbreaking.

In the basement we found his torture chamber. Where he confined, raped and tortured those poor women to death. He used objects after he had castrated himself. We found the instruments on the floor. I stood in that room for a long time looking at the cage where Francesca must have been. No matter for how long she had been there.

Then I had gone away to weep and shake and sweat for a while.

"So, lay this out for me then please." The Empress said. "Was the man interrogated?"

"He was, although it had to be done magically," Kerrass returned the floor to Madame Eilhart.

"Yes, it took some time but we were able to get through the man's madness to be able to talk to him. That was how we found his address."

"How did it take so long to find him?"

"Early on, apparently he seemed quite rational to his neighbours, students and clients. He complained about some kind of family crisis and that he would be coming in and out at all kinds of odd hours. He was well known as a good and upstanding member of society so people just let him get on with it.

"So, as I say, lay it out for me. What was the sequence of events?"

Lady Eilhart took another drink from her steaming cup.

"We think that the man was possessed. We don't know why he was targeted and it's one of those things that we will struggle to find out now."

"Why?"

Lady Eilhart sighed and rubbed at her eyes before pinching at the bridge of his nose.

"You have to understand the depths of the man's madness and despair. He had seen himself doing all of the things that have been described. All the crimes that he had committed. He had seen them, experienced them, known that they were wrong and tried to prevent himself from doing so but his will was completely overcome.

"Towards the end he could no longer distinguish himself from the entity inside him, such was the state of his madness. He had tried to end himself several times in an effort to save future victims but he was kept from that in some way, we assume that the entity just refused to let him die. We can't say any of this for certain because once he told us everything he knew and led us to his residence he finally succeeded in killing himself by dashing his brains out against the floor."

"I see," The Empress winced in sympathy. I was too far gone to feel sympathy for him at that stage. I was tired but I couldn't sleep. I still felt so angry that I was beginning to frighten myself. "Go on, he was targeted, what then?"

"We think he was given a gift of some kind. Or something was slipped into his house or whatever. Something was done to draw down Jack's presence into his mind and his body. He was also given his target well in advance. Paintings and descriptions of Francesca were provided although he remembers them just turning up in his house. He remembered becoming obsessed with her and what she looked like. He freely admitted that he fell in love with her but couldn't do anything about it.

"As I say, he was a widower, he loved his wife and had never felt the need to remarry. When he started to feel the need he would go down to the brothel and spend a bit of money. He didn't spend his money on much else but that way he could express his physical desires in a safe way.

"But now that option was taken from him. Not only that but Jack was taking over by this point and his desires and drives were no longer quite so...wholesome. Eventually, when he couldn't take it anymore he went out and found his first victim. She was similar but at the same time, wasn't quite the Francesca that he was looking for. So then there was another victim and another victim.

"All the while he was being built up into a single, Francesca hunting machine. This was before Lady Francesca had even arrived in Toussaint you understand. When she _did_ arrive, he stalked her. Following her about. He was sensible enough not to try and get at her in the palace so he watched and waited. Then one day he saw her come out, descend through the pathways to the bridge and he pounced."

"What did he do with her?"

"He locked her in his dungeon. He went out for something, possibly another moment where the man overwhelmed the spirit in an effort to prevent harm from befalling the Lady, but when the spirit had reasserted itself. Francesca was gone.

"The spirit went mad with impotent rage and desire. Then the plan was put into place and the "Jack" spirit determined to have a bit of fun at everyone else's expense."

The entire room shifted it's weight in discomfort.

"So this was something that was done to him?" Lord Voorhis asked.

"I have no doubt. It has to be said that from my perspective, the teacher Antoine was an extraordinarily brave man. He did everything he could to fight the possessing spirit and to prevent harm from coming to those young women. He tried to draw attention to himself, to injure himself so that he would find it harder to perform the physical feats that the spirit demanded of his body. Unfortunately the spirit was strong enough to make sure that he couldn't follow through. It simply ignored his injuries. Indeed, the spirit did more damage to that body than the Witchers did in the effort to capture him.

"Was this part of the same plot to remove Francesca?" The Empress asked "Or was it just coincidence that Jack was active in the local area while Francesca disappeared. It would piss me off if we lost all those people to a fucking distraction."

Lady Eilhart shared glances with a couple of other people round the room.

"I think we can discount the "coincidence theory" majesty. This man was used as a weapon to capture Lady Francesca. She was lured out by methods or means unknown. Then Jack captured her and the conspirators removed her from him knowing that Jack would make as big a mess as possible while we were all trying to track him down."

"Fuck." The Empress swore. "Fuck it all." She sprang to her feet and stalked up and down for a moment or two. "That means that all of our current precautions are useless too?"

"Majesty?" Voorhis asked.

"We didn't know Francesca was missing until the midday of my coronation. The people looking for her just thought she had run off somewhere. She went missing the night before. Jack had her, then lost her all before we even knew to be looking for her. That means that she could be anywhere right now."

The Empress stalked up to Voorhis. "Tell me I'm wrong."

He shook his head. The Empress marched up to Lady Eilhart. "Tell me I'm wrong," she pleaded. "Please."

Lady Eilhart wouldn't meet her gaze either.

The Empress went back to her window and stared out at the annoyingly sunny day.

"Fuck," she said again and put her head in her hands.

If you watch carefully, you can see the precise moment that someone gives up someone else for dead.

"Ok," she said after a while and turned back around. She had her "Empress" face back on although she wasn't looking anyone in the eye and her eyes were moving around constantly, refusing to alight on anything.

"Here's what I want to happen. Lord Voorhis?"

"Majesty?"

"What else happened in the Empire last night? Find out would you please?"

"Yes your majesty."

"And mention to the Diplomatic corps I am not in the mood for anyone fucking about.

"Yes Your Majesty."

"Lords Kalayn and Coulthard?"

Mark stood up from where he had sat on a stool in the back ground. Emma hadn't been able to come. Sam stood up with him. "Majesty?" Mark asked looking pale.

"Your family is to consider itself under my protection. But that goes both ways. You can expect some members of the Imperial guard to arrive and to audit your lands and your merchant endeavours properly. I want to know who your enemies are, in detail. I expect you all to comply with these orders. In the meantime you should assume that you are being stalked. You will all stay here in Toussaint until your new Imperial advisers are ready to depart."

"Yes Your Majesty."

"Lady Eilhart."

"Your Majesty?"

"I will expect a full report on the Jack phenomenon and how it happened here. Work with Lord Geralt if you please and complete the investigation into what happened in Toussaint. I also expect you to assist Duchess Anna Henrietta in her endeavours."

"Yes Your Majesty." Lady Eilhart was sensible enough to not want to rock the boat on this one.

"Lady Duchess?"

"Majesty?" Anna Henrietta stepped forward. She had taken to wearing a plain white dress without adornment. No jewellery or make-up adorned her and her hair hung loosely down her back. As I said earlier, for my money, she looked far more beautiful like this than she ever had in her massively ornate gowns.

"I want your Duchy searched from top to bottom. House to house searches. If Francesca is here, alive or dead I want her found. Coordinate with the Lodge and Lord Geralt if you would. If she's...dammit...If she's buried in the back woods somewhere I want to know about it. Martial law and your borders remain sealed without my express permission until the search is concluded. Trade only starts up again when everything has been searched."

"Yes Your Majesty."

"That's it everyone. Fuck off for five minutes and then send in my secretary so we can all get back to work. Oh, and can someone mention it in court that I'm in a desperately foul mood and that if anyone crosses me then I am more than a little bit tempted to pull out their spleen with my own hand."

There was quite a bit of bowing.

"No mother you stay. The rest of you though. Fuck off."

I saw Lady Yennefer move over to where the Empress sat with her head in her hands but I found that I suddenly couldn't move.

"Wait," It was a bit of time before I realised that it was me that had spoken suddenly. "Is that it? Are we just giving up?"

The Empress looked up from where she had been resting her head in her hands. "What would you have us do Lord Frederick. We have no leads."

Kerrass clapped me on the shoulder. "That's it Freddie, just leave it now," he whispered.

The Empress sighed. "We share your anguish Lord Frederick, we love her too but what else is there. She was taken at a time when we weren't looking for her. She was conned into thinking that her brother was summoning her outside the castle. She was kidnapped by Jack and then taken from him as well by persons or people unknown. The clues are either buried in this man Antoine's house, in his body or elsewhere. If you can see any other leads for us to pursue then point them out to us. I have the resources of an Empire Lord Frederick and I have a burning need to use them on this. Give me something, anything that I can do to find your sister and I will do it."

For a moment, the passion that the Empress spoke with took me aback.

"Jack," I said after a long while. "We need to speak with Jack himself."

"The man died Lord Frederick." Lady Eilhart was looking at me oddly. "Believe me when I say that he gave us everything that he knew. But even if he didn't. He smashed his brains across the floor. He was only coherent due to some incredible willpower on his part. Even if we performed Necromancy, which we won't by the way, he wouldn't be able to tell us any more."

"Not him." I said. "Jack himself. The entity "Jack." He had his prey stolen from him so he's bound to be pretty pissed. We know that he has a bizarre sense of duty and humour. We also know that he is jealous of his power and imitators. Surely he would know some more things. Who summoned him? Who put him in that body? how did it happen? Why did he allow himself to get manipulated like that?"

"And how do you propose to talk to him?" Lady Eilhart said. "Even if it could be done, which I'm not saying it can. How would you talk to him? That wasn't the being itself that we fought last night, that was just a part of him possessing a man. Can you imagine the amount of chaos that the man himself might be able to cause to the world. I can."

"It's an avenue." I insisted. "It's something that we can pursue. Something else that we can ask. Another lead."

Lady Eilhart shook her head. "It can't be done."

There was another sigh in the room. "It can," said lady Yennefer somewhat reluctantly. "It can be done although I agree that it's not a great idea."

"How do you know this?" Lady Eilhart looked aghast at the other Sorceress.

"There was a time when I was as desperate to find the Empress as Lord Frederick is to find his sister. There is no avenue that I did not look at to find and come to her aid. I looked into it. Found the rituals but there were other things that I pursued first. Avenues which were more successful."

Lady Eilhart. "This is madness. I want no part of it. This kind of consorting with demons is not something that the Lodge will support."

"Fuck the Lodge," The Empress snapped.

"What?" Lady Eilhart yelled astonished but the Empress ignored her.

"Can it be done Mother?"

Lady Yennefer considered for a while before nodding firmly.

"Then do it. I'm sure Lord Frederick will assist where he can."

"I will also need Witcher Kerrass' assistance.

"You have it ma'am." Kerrass said.

"Then I shall fetch my notes."

The Sorceress got up and left. Kerrass took my arm and firmly led me out of the room from where the Empress and Lady Eilhart were glaring at each other.

The yelling started just as we left the room.

Lady Yennefer had disappeared. There was just the ends of a gate, the silvery writing still hovering in the air to tell us that she had teleported off some place.

"This is a really bad idea Freddie,"

"Worse than facing a dead King to ask him who he sired a bastard with?" I asked. I was trying to feel jovial but it wasn't working.

"Worse,"

"Worse than attempting to talk to a dragon?"

"This is not a fucking Dragon we're talking about here Freddie. We're talking about an ancient and unknowable being. I'm not going to call him evil because calling a thing like Jack evil is like calling water evil for drowning you. A Dragon at least is a creature that can be killed. Jack is..."

"Jack?" I asked him and he subsided. "Kerrass, I'm grateful. I really am for your concern but... I have to know. I can't just sit here and wait while they search Toussaint, building to building, before failing to find her. They are right. They had an entire morning to move her and secrete her some place. She's not going to be found because big and burly men are going to be knocking on doors.

"This is my sister Kerrass. I can't... I can't say how important she is to me. She's my little sister. She's more physically capable than me, smarter than Emma, more intelligent than Mark and more charming than Sam but out of everyone I know. She's the only one that I am afraid for.

If you, or Emma or Ariadne or anyone else got taken then I would pray for the kidnappers. But Francesca is too innocent for that. Even though she probably isn't as innocent as I think she is, I fear for her. I've never stopped being afraid for her.

"When I left home I was worried that our father would turn his displeasure onto Francesca. I saw a little girl of fourteen, bright eyes and smiling, despite being sad to see me go and I was so afraid that I was throwing her to the wolves. That she came out of all of that and was still kind and gentle and...

"Flame, she's the best of all of us Freddie. She's the best thing that my family produced and to think of her being kidnapped, let alone dead and despoiled in a ditch somewhere.

"I just can't Kerrass. I just can't. And I just couldn't live with myself if I thought that there was something that I could do and then didn't do it."

I was astonished at the tears that had sprung into me eyes and I turned away to hide them even though Kerrass must have already seen them.

"It might be selfish Kerrass given all of the families that are mourning the good men that died last night in an effort to find the man that had kidnapped her and it is. It is selfish to worry about one young woman when so many people have died but she's my sister. I need her to be ok, I _need_ her to be ok."

Kerrass sighed. "I'm sorry Freddie, I didn't understand. Look, you've not slept since yesterday. Get something to eat, get some rest and I will come and find you when Lady Yennefer has something or when she needs you."

"I don't think I could eat anything, or sleep."

"Then you will understand that I have absolutely no guilt about harnessing your elder sisters wrath on the subject."

He grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and hauled me off to our new set of family rooms inside the castle.

After the decision that we were innocent of complicity in Francesca's disappearance the Empress had demanded that the family be moved to rooms inside the palace on the grounds that if it was an attack against the family then we would be better protected there than in some villa in the centre of time. I'm told there was a bit of a furore as a number of people had to be kicked out of those rooms to make space but in the face of the Empress' displeasure, people soon found that they could stay with friends just out of town. I can't say I was entirely comfortable with the new sleeping arrangements and I wondered if we were borrowing more trouble for ourselves at a future juncture. However it did mean that I didn't have to worry about Emma, Laurelen or Mark getting into mischief.

I couldn't do anything about Sam. If Sam wanted to get into mischief then I was fairly certain that he could do so without any kind of input from me.

Kerrass marched me through the corridors and all but threw me into the room to an astonished look from Emma who was writing something on a side desk and Mark who was talking with a couple of other churchmen.

"He needs to eat something." Kerrass told the room. "Then he needs some sleep. Tie him to the bed if you have to."

Emma carefully put her quill down. "Is there any news?"

Kerrass shook his head. "But we're going to try something else in a few hours with the help of Lady Yennefer."

"Is it safe?"

"No,"

"Will it work?"

"Probably not. But it's even less likely to work if he hasn't eaten something and gotten some rest." Kerrass said that last to me. Emma nodded at a servant. There seemed to be a lot of them in the room now as well. Far more than I was strictly comfortable with but that's what happens when you sleep in the same palace as the Empress.

"Bring Lord Frederick something to eat would you," she wrinkled her nose, "and run him a bath. Also, kindly enquire of Lady Laurelen or Countess Ariadne if they are free to help put him to sleep."

"That won't be necessary," I tried to say but Emma ignored me. She was another one who looked as though she could do with a month's holiday and the tender ministrations of a gentle sleep spell.

I ate something, some kind of roast meat sandwich with some apple sauce and sage stuffing. I suspect it was delicious but I don't remember much of it. I bathed and although I only went to bed to keep Emma quiet, I suspect I was asleep before I hit the pillow.

It wasn't long though before Kerrass was there shaking me awake.

"If you're still set on this utterly absurd plan then you need to come now."

He watched with amusement while I plunged my head into the basin of cold water for a few seconds and followed him out.

Emma said nothing else to me and Mark had gone to bed. It was late in the evening I think by the amount of light that came in through the windows. Kerrass led me down several flights of stairs.

"Did you know that Toussaint was elven originally?" he asked me.

"Come on Kerrass, give me a little credit. Of course I knew that."

Kerrass snorted. "Well excuse me for tripping on someone's intellectual superiority."

"Fuck off."

Kerrass sniggered at me.

"Well it was elven. We don't know why the elves built a city here. It's certainly a beautiful spot but they could have built it higher up or in a more strategically powerful place. It's the human city that has spread down to the water to make a harbour, that, certainly, wasn't an elven design."

"I've heard it said that most of the larger human settlements are built on the ruins of older elven settlements. I know that Oxenfurt is definitely built over an elven ruin."

"As is Wyzima. Nor do we know why those sites were chosen. The sites aren't similar to each other and they certainly wouldn't be easy to build on or to get workers and goods there, but they were built for a reason. Even the elves themselves no longer know the reason for the locations of these places.

"However, one of the many theories is that they were built on sites of magical significance. We know that magic flows through the world, almost like water. We know that it has currents, swirls and eddies. The magic is deeper in some areas and not in others and it is believed that Toussaint was built over one of those deep reservoirs of magic.

"At one point it was claimed that this well of magic was responsible for the particular flavour of Toussaint's wine industry but that has since been proven false."

"I know all of this Kerrass, why are you telling me this now?"

"Because _if_ there is a room that is at the bottom of this supposed well of magic. Then that's the room that we're going to."

We came to the bottom of a flight of stairs and Kerrass knocked on a door.

"Come in," came a woman's voice.

"Or," Kerrass said as he opened the door. "I might just have been passing the time."

The room was surprisingly well lit for a cellar, torches hung on brackets at regular intervals that gave of a clean flame that neither guttered nor smoked. In one corner stood a large Lectern on which rested a huge book, so big that it must have taken several people to manhandle it into the place. It was marked by a purple ribbon.

Nearby was a large table, covered in many jars of various liquid and solid herbs. I recognised a mandrake, Sage and Cinnamon as well as some puffball but there were many other things that I didn't recognise. Most of them looked...unpleasant.

Lady Yennefer had changed, She was no longer wearing the black and white dress that she had been wearing earlier. Now she was wearing what looked like a doublet over a tight set of riding trousers and boots. She had a dagger belted at her waist and her hair was tied back out of her way. Obviously the colours that she wore were still black and white and her choker with the pentagram sigil was still there at her neck. She was on her knees drawing complicated patterns on the floor with various pieces of differently coloured chalk.

As I watched, she worked slowly, carefully and patiently. Far from the tempestuous and passionate woman that I had been warned about but I suppose that when you're building a summoning circle for powers that you don't really understand, you want to make sure that you get it right before you do anything else.

She stood up and carried the chalk over to the table where she put them into a small box and turned to me.

"I would be remiss, Lord Frederick, if I didn't take one last opportunity to warn you that this is an amazingly bad idea and that it almost certainly won't work."

"I know."

"And yet you still wish to go ahead?"

I nodded.

"Say it please. For my own comfort. I don't want a situation where you change your mind at the last second. Once we start this there is no going back."

"What do you know of Jack?" she asked.

"He is a primal force. A primal spirit conjured from the human race consciousness if that makes any sense to you. There are many of them if you know where to look but, he is possibly the oldest and amongst the most powerful. I don't know why."

She smiled at me. It was the same smile I could imagine a cat giving the mouse before it started to play with it's food.

"Do you want to continue?"

"No," I said honestly. "But I will. I have to."

She nodded.

"Then look at the design. Note that there are two circles inside the design as a whole. For the earliest part of the summoning you should remain in the smaller of the two circles. Do not be tempted to cross the line as the magic that will be unleashed elsewhere in the greater circle will strip the flesh from your bones and your sanity from your mind. Once the summoning is complete, he will appear in the larger of the two circles but he will be unable to cross. You may then move around freely.

"However,

"The small circle is the method of dismissal. Once you have the information that you need, you must step back into the small circle and _he_ will be dismissed. The circle is then designed to protect you from him as much as it is to protect you from the magical forces that can be unleashed.

"Remember this well. His presence is likely to be overwhelming and powerful. If it gets too much then I encourage you to step back into the circle and dismiss him. Do not hesitate. Do not let him draw you out. If you are beginning to think that you should be dismissing him then you should already have dismissed him. This is not a time and a place for fucking around.

"Do you understand?"

"I think so,"

She blew her breath out through her nose in exasperation and I thought, for a moment, that I could see the woman that I had been warned about.

"You must be certain. If you are not then I will destroy the circle now. The risk of you letting this thing out if you forget my instructions under pressure is more than I can bear. I would rather disappoint the Empress then let him loose. So do you understand the things that I have said?"

"I do."

"Repeat them for me please."

I did so.

"Excellent. Then take your place."

I did so.

"Good luck," Kerrass said as he left the room.

"Thanks Kerrass." I said.

"I wasn't talking to you." He got out as he shut the door.

Yennefer had set up another little circle of protection. I noticed that there was a chair there as well as an apple, cup and jug of liquid as well as a book. She moved to her own circle and began an incantation.

At first I tried to listen and to follow the words. Some of them didn't sound as though they could be spoken by a human throat.

At some point, I don't know when, I blacked out as I felt a massive surge of vertigo and felt as though I was falling a huge distance.

Something for the record now. I have told this story many times now to a variety of people and everyone refuses to believe that it actually took place. What they tell me is that I saw something that my mind could not understand and could not come to grips with and as a result it imposed it's own sense of order on what I saw and heard.

The only person, to date, who has listened to this account and nodded thoughtfully before telling me that it sounded probable was the Empress herself. You can take that however you like.

What I will do now is record exactly what I saw and heard. Whether it's what I saw and heard or whether it's what I _think_ I saw and heard, I will leave up to your interpretation. I cannot say whether you are right or wrong on that regard.

I treat it as literal though. Certainly the things that I was told in that strange and alien place.

I woke up suddenly and a wave of dizziness and nausea swept over me as I felt as though my brain was trying to force the top of my skull open and climb out of my head. I scampered a short distance away and heaved up what little food I had managed to choke down over the course of the day. The effort left me feeling weak and shaky and I only managed to crawl a short distance away before I collapsed again. Which was when the awful, awful smell hit me. An ammonia like smell that seemed to be made up of hot metal, burnt wood, vomit, bile, stale urine and strong alcohol. There were other ingredients to it as well but I couldn't quite identify them, chemical smells as well as the smell of salt water. What was there was enough to make me sneeze and to make my eyes water.

The ground was hard and smooth despite feeling like stone. When I finally opened my eyes to stare at the ground beneath me it looked as though it was a pattern of fitted together squares of stone but they were much larger than the cobbles used in the more well to do cities of the continent.

I looked up and almost fell again as I tried to take a deep breath. The air was thick with mist although of a pale green or yellow colour. Nothing could be seen other than the small pathway beneath my feet. If I waved my hand in front of my face, I could see that but beyond a ten meter radius around me, nothing could be seen. The smell of the air was putrid and it clawed at my throat. I felt short of breath and felt the first scrabblings of panic at my throat.

I looked down at the floor, remembering Madame Yennefer's instructions about the circles that she had drawn into the pattern with great care. That there would be a small one that I could step into that would banish the entity. I looked around and I couldn't see anything. It was just flat stone walkway. I was next to a wall and I leant against it. The wall was of red brick and it towered up and up until it vanished into the fog.

An incredible clattering came to my ears but I thought there was something familiar to it. Away from the wall the pathway fell down a steep kerb into a more normally cobbled road. Globes of light were coming towards me, accompanied by the clattering. Suddenly a large black horse, bigger than anything that I had seen came out of the fog. At first I was reassured that there was at least something familiar about this place and I stepped up to try and get a hold of it. But then there was a sound of a whip cracking and I staggered back.

The horse was pulling a strange, open wagon that seemed to only be balanced on two wheels. There was an open seat in which sat a strange man with no beard but the largest sideburns that I have ever seen. He had a scarf over his mouth so I couldn't recognise him. As the thing thundered past, I saw that the globes of light were generated by two lanterns that were attached to the side. I saw that there was another man, sat precariously on the top of the two wheeled carriage that was holding the reins and a large whip. He yelled something at me that I didn't catch before he, his horse and his carriage disappeared back into the fog. The light from the lanterns faded after him.

I backed up, tripped over the kerb and staggered backwards into a man. Possibly the foulest smelling man that I have ever encountered. As I grabbed hold of him to keep myself from falling, his clothes made a sticky, squishy kind of noise.

He laughed at me, I counted maybe three teeth in his mouth and he stank of alcohol so strong that I felt myself almost becoming intoxicated from his breath alone. I staggered back and caught my hands on the stone walls that surrounded me on both sides. My eyes were stinging from the fog and from the awful cocktail of smells that assailed my consciousness. I walked along looking for some kind of chalk drawing on the floor. Something that might have told me where I was and how I might get home.

I heard a monster in the distance. It sounded huge with a vast hissed breath and a whistling sound. Then there was another screeching noise as well as the sounds of men shouting but it didn't sound like they were shouting in fear. It almost sounded as though their voices were rehearsed and considered to be normal.

A shape detached itself from the wall a bit further on. It was a woman shape although she was painfully thin. She wore a long skirt of indeterminate colour and what looked like a tight waistcoat that might once have been an expensive one although it looked a little too tight for the woman wearing it. She also wore a ridiculously small bonnet with ribbons on her head and lace gloves. She barked something at me but again I didn't recognise the words. It sounded like a question of some kind. Like the old man that I had bumped into earlier she had very few teeth and her breath smelled of rot. Her face ravaged by some disease. That or a combination of malnutrition and alcohol poisoning. She ran her hand up my chest in what I assume was a sexual way and asked me the same question again.

Without meaning to I recoiled. She, at least had seemed friendly but I couldn't help myself but to recoil from the horror that was in front of me. I recoiled and one step turned into two steps as my brain retreated from sense and I fled from the strange and alien nature of the place. The panic of not knowing where I was and how to get home was too much and I lost my mind for a bit.

I ran through the streets that seemed to be quiet to me. There were still the odd person about but they were much fewer and further between than would be found, even in the heights of Novigrad.

I didn't manage to run very far. The place stank and the poison that seemed to be in the air prevented me from drawing proper breath. I was soon gasping for air and I stumbled to halt, fell to my knee's and vomited again, this time I was vomiting up a yellow bile and what felt like the dust that I had breathed in from the air.

Vomiting is the wrong word for it, more like coughing up the poison that I was breathing in.

I looked up and I saw a grey, white haze through the fog. I climbed up to my feet and stumbled towards it to discover that it was a white building made out of some kind of stone, or whether it was whitewashed or something I don't know. For all the world it looked like a church. Very similar to the churches of the holy fire that you can find dotted around the countryside although it was far more ornate and elaborate. It seemed to have a repeated motif of a vertical cross. I stumbled up to the stone walls and put my hand out to them. They felt like they were solid stone although incredibly dirty. The entire place seemed to be covered in filth. Even I was filthy just from the short period of time that I had been there.

I shuddered.

I looked around, the fog seemed a little thinner here, as if the large white building provided some kind of shelter from the toxins that floated through the air. It looked like I was standing in a graveyard. Huge stone slabs covered every spare patch of grass. Again the cross motif was common. I walked up to the nearest one and bent to try and read what had been carved into the stone but I couldn't make it out. It seemed wrong to me. Somehow alien.

I recoiled again. I hadn't realised it but there were other people in this yard with me. Filthy children played between the stones, their eyes shrunken in filthy faces, what passed for their clothes being tied to their person with other strips of cloth and bits of string. I saw one child, couldn't have been more than eight, lift a bottle to his lips and drink deeply before passing it to his friend. He belched and then swayed in place where he sat.

Now that I looked again I could see more. More people were trying to sleep behind the graves. A man and a woman was coupling against the wall of the, presumed, church just round the corner from the entrance. His face was buried in her neck and she looked at me. She seemed to shrug at me and looked incredibly bored despite the sounds of pleasure that came from her mouth.

I turned and walked away, The little yard around the church was walled in by metal railings with surprisingly sharp spikes on although whether that was to keep people in or people out I don't know. I walked round it until I found an exit and stepped out into the street. I was weeping with a combination of the awful air that I was breathing, fear and confusion. Eventually the strength left my legs and I collapsed leaning against the wall. No longer feeling the strength to carry on..

I was there for, only a few minutes before I felt my feet being kicked. I looked up to see a large man in black standing over me. I blinked at him a few times before he gestured for me to stand up. I levered myself up and when I was approaching upright he put his hand under my arm-pit and helped me the rest of the way.

When I could look at him properly he was wearing some kind of uniform although I didn't recognise it. Black, or at least a very dark shade of blue trousers and coat that was done up with silvery buttons. He had a black belt that sat across his belly from which hung a small black club, some manacles and a long chain which was attached to something that looked like a short whistle. The belt was buckled with a large silver ornament. There was a white stripe around the sleeve and the coat had a high colour that had two pictograms on it very similar to the writing that I had seen on the grave stones.

He was also wearing an absurd looking conical hat which again had a silver star shape fixed to the front. He said something that I didn't catch and I think I merely blinked at him stupidly. He had a scarf across his mouth which he pulled down to display a bushy moustache that looked as though it had been waxed or oiled in some way. He spoke again although I still couldn't understand him.

Another voice came out of the gloom which distracted the uniformed man as a dark shape came out. The shape resolved itself into the figure of a man who was carrying both a cane and a large cloth bag. The two men exchanged words before the second man moved close to me and clapped his hand to my shoulder in a friendly way.

"You'll have to forgive my friend." He said and I startled as I could suddenly understand him. "He's a stranger here and we were separated at the station." His voice sounded cultured although drawn out. As though the speaker could take their time under the surety that whoever he was talking to would have to stay and listen. As though he had time to say whatever he liked.

"Where's 'e from den?" The other man asked. Even with the change I still struggled to understand him. "Circus?"

"Ah, constable, I'm afraid not. He's from the continent come to visit and speak at the university of Cambridge and Oxford. Possibly going so far as Edinburgh."

The other man looked at my erstwhile saviour as though he was talking about extremely remote and prestigious locations.

"Not sure I would have brought a foriner in to Whitechapel sir if you don' mind me sayin' so. Maybe King's cross might have been better."

"Better, yes. But not as convenient."

"Right then... Well I'll be off then." The man tugged at the brim of his hat and walked off.

"The constablery are well meaning but they sometimes get a bit over keen." My new companion said. "Now lets have a look at you." I turned to stare at him. He had a heavy coat over him and detail was obscure. "Ah yes of course, " he said. "I should have known. Here." He bent and opened his bag from which he took a long scarf. "Tie this round your neck and use it to cover your mouth and nose. It will help until you get used to it."

I reached for the cloth but he just held it out of reach. "This is not a gift. It is a loan and I expect it back. This means that this loan is free from any obligation on your part."

Then he handed me the scarf which I wrapped round my head as instructed.

He looked me up and down for a long moment. I struggled to focus and see if I could see his face but what wasn't obscured by the fog was obscured in a large voluminous, kind of shabby looking coat. It was an oilskin coat with one of those extra little cape things round the shoulders that northern farmers and Shepherds wear. He also had a huge hat on that looked like a chimney with a brim.

After looking at me for a moment he looked around.

"I know a charming little watering hole, not too far away from here where they serve a relatively acceptable mug of ale or a decent claret if that happens to be to your taste. I think it would be much more preferable if we had our little talk over a drink, do you not agree?"

I don't know what I was expected to say after that but he took my agreement as read and stalked off into the night. I stood there for a moment before having to scamper to catch up.

"Where are we?" I asked him as he strode off into the fog.

I thought I heard him chuckle.

"The borough of Whitechapel in the fair city of London. Which might as well be capital of the world in this time and place. But otherwise it is the capital of these fair isles, the Kingdom of Great Britain."

I took this information in for a moment.

"That means nothing to me." I decided after a while.

"And I would be surprised if it did."

"When are we? Is this the future?"

He definitely laughed this time.

"It is both the future and the past but as your species still considers itself prisoner to the artificial, self inflicted law regarding the linear nation of time. I will set a name to it. It is the 16th August in the year of our Lord 1888."

I mused for a while. "But that makes no sense."

"My young friend, I suspect that a good deal of this conversation will go easier for you if you just accept that a great deal of it is not going to make any sense."

The woman that I had seen earlier jumped out of a doorway again and accosted me.

"Buy a lady a drain o pale sir? Just a small cup is all I ask."

I couldn't help myself as I recoiled again.

"Back wretch," my companion hissed and struck out at her with his cane. "Back. Mark well your betters and leave us in peace."

The woman didn't seem to mind the violence of his rebuttal, instead responding. "Can't blame a gal for trying can ye? But I needs the money, I do. Got sick children to feed."

"If by sick children you mean yourself." My companion retorted. "And by feed you mean, "Let them drink gin."

"You says it Y'onour." She responded without a look of shame. I felt my elbow being taken and my companion led me off insistently.

"They are a plague on the streets," he said grimly, "poor wretches but there's no helping them. There are thousands of women just like her on the streets, selling what remains of their pox and disease riddled bodies for the price of a cup of gin. But soon she, and women like her will be quaking in their homes in the face of the Leather Apron."

"Thousands?" I asked incredulously. "How do they make their way? Surely they can't all expect to get work. To support a prostitute population of that size you would need a city of millions."

The man turned to me and I saw a twinkle in his eye. "You would wouldn't you. Be grateful that you have come to us on a day when the fog is thick. If it was not you would see a sea of humanity stretched out in front of you, behind you and on either side. You would not be able to move for the stench of them. You would see great machines and tall buildings built solely for the purposes of storing goods. You would see chimneys belching forth their poisons into the air all in the name of progress."

He laughed. "Truly it's a wondrous sight. All the while the betters of society think that they are building an empire that will last for a thousand years when in all truth the first signs of rot have already settled into the body of the great beast. Along with the Pride of people that have built it all without thinking whether or not they should.

"Ah here we are."

He turned into a building, seemingly at random. In the gloom I couldn't have told you what kind of building that it was. The windows were dark but in I went into a suddenly warm, humid atmosphere full of far too many people who's pass-time seemed to be shouting at each other about whatever it was that had annoyed them most recently. There was the smell of unwashed human and strong tobacco as well. In the back of the place I managed to see a group of men who were playing some kind of game where they threw small hand held arrows into a board which kept score. In the corner another group of men were playing a variety of things which included one man on a washboard and another who was tapping something against his leg to form some kind of rhythm. I saw a couple of fiddles as well but the sound was drowned out by the general hubbub.

My companion forced his way into the landlord by the liberal application of his cane. People swore at us good naturedly and moved out of our way. He seemed out of place here. This was clearly the kind of tavern that was meant for working people. Men were covered in dirt and grime, more than one smelt of river water and sewage but my companions hat and cane set him apart. He made it to the counter and screamed something into the landlord's ear. He ordered a pint of "your finest," and a large cup of port for me. The landlord raised his eyebrows at me and my companion explained my taste by telling him that I was "french," whatever that means.

The Landlord nodded knowingly and passed over the drinks.

In turn I was led towards a set of stairs and walked up them to where there was a much quieter atmosphere of people sat at tables and talking quietly. We went to an empty table where my companion gestured and I took of my scarf and handed it back. He, in turn, removed his hat, put his gloves inside the hat and placed it on top of his folded coat.

How to describe him. To my eyes, he looked faintly ridiculous but I was also very aware that we were not in my world any more. Where his coat was rather shabby, the rest of his dress was anything but. His shoes were polished to a mirror sheen, his trousers were pressed to within an inch of their lives with a crease that I suspect that you could have shaved with. He wore a buttoned up long coat style jacked that was made up of material that was so thick and rich to look at that I was astounded. It almost looked furry in nature but only if the fur itself was astoundingly short.

I'm not explaining this very well.

Underneath the coat, which he unbuttoned to sit down, he wore a white waistcoat that was embroidered with a silver thread pattern. A chain went from one of the buttons on his waistcoat to a pocket. As he sat down he withdrew something from the pocket, a strange flat, round contraption which he opened with the press of a button somewhere before examining the insides, closing the lid and returning it to his pocket with a look of satisfaction. He had on a white shirt which was starched to the point of what I would consider idiocy which kept a huge collar, forcing his chin up and around his neck he wore an immaculate, dark green cravat which was held in place with a golden pin with a red jewel of some kind embedded on it.

He was a handsome man. I put him in his late forties, maybe early fifties with the hair at his temple just beginning to go grey. He had a long nose and startling blue eyes that seemed to house a depth of humour that was bottomless. He reminded me a bit of Ariadne in that he seemed to be looking out at the world and finding everything about it rather amusing.

"Well?"

"I'm sorry," I said, breaking off my inspection, "I don't know what I was expecting." I said sitting down. I reached for my drink but he held his hand up to stop me. I was really struggling to keep myself from liking the strange man in front of me.

He reached out to my hand and kept me from drinking.

"Once again, this drink is merely the hospitality that is freely offered to a traveller that is a stranger to this place. You are to consider yourself free from any kind of obligation towards either me, as the buyer of the drink, or the landlord who is the provider of the drink."

He leant back. The words had the ring of, almost a poem or a prayer.

"Really," he said accusingly. "You need to be more careful with these things. May I give you a piece of advice?"

"You may give it although I would hasten to suggest that I might not follow said advice."

He laughed. "A good answer. I like that."

His face went serious again. "Never accept gifts, especially not from strangers. Words are empty and meaningless but gifts. Those things have value and you do not know what value is attached to those same gifts. If you ever find yourself in a situation where you suspect that you might be given a gift, then have a gift of your own, ready for the return gift. Nothing worse than a gift debt."

"Oh I can think of several worse things."

He smirked. "Spoken like a human. So lets get down to it shall we? Who are you?"

"My name is Frederick von Coulthard of Redania."

He sighed and put his drink back down again. He had just lifted it up to his mouth to take a drink.

"So easy. You give me your name so easily. Heh. Not even an evasion or an attempt to obfuscate. You didn't even try to get my name first or to enquire as to whom you would be giving your name."

"So who are you then?"

"Who am I?" He put his drink down and wiped the foam moustached from his face with a handkerchief that he had kept in his breast pocket. "Don't you know?"

I shook my head, finally managing to take a sip of the drink in front of me. It was a good, highly fortified red wine. Similar but utterly different from anything that I had tasted before.

He shook his own head in wonderment. "I don't know. So very rude of you. You go to all the trouble of trying to summon someone and then you don't recognise them when you see them."

I staggered back from my chair out of pure reflex. He raised his eyebrow and didn't bother hiding his amusement.

It took me a moment to reclaim my chair.

"Did you bring me here?"

"Of course I did. You can't expect me to drop everything and attend upon you whenever _you_ wish it do you?" There was suddenly just a hint of violence in his face. "You don't summon people like me. You run from us. If we take an interest in you then you flee. You run and you hide but not _you_. You hunted me out and tried to summon me to your puny little circle at the hands of your ridiculous Sorceress. You should consider yourself grateful that I'm not stringing your entrails from roof-top to roof top while keeping you alive so that you can properly enjoy the process you imbecile."

I took a swallow of the drink as I watched the shadow cross his face.

"Then why did you decide to speak to me at all?" I asked him.

"Curiosity. A little pity and a certain troublesome sense of humour."

I stared at him for a long while, I think my mouth must have fallen open in astonishment.

"Who _are_ you?"

"That is a large question?"

"It might be large but it is also simple. Who are you?"

"I am me. Who do you think I am?"

"I think you are evil."

"Ah, my young friend. Leaving aside the fact that that is a description as well as being a woeful simplification of me, it is still not the _who_ of who I am."

"You don't think you're evil?"

"Does anyone ever think they're evil?"

"I will concede that point." I said grudgingly "But that does not get me any closer to the answer of the question as to who you are?"

"But you haven't answered my question. Who do _you_ think I am."

"I think that you are Jack."

He chuckled, a little playfully.

"Ah, that name. Do you know that I have never chosen that name for myself. I have never sat up and stated that my name is Jack."

"Have you not?"

"No. I don't like the name if I'm honest. The name of Jack suggests heroism rather than a predatory being. I can't get angry though as it's in the nature of sentient creatures to name things in an effort to lessen their impact. But Jack?" He shuddered theatrically. "Jack climbed the bean-stalk. Jack slew the giants. Jack of all trades. I'm alright Jack.

"Take this place." He waved at the surrpoundings. "Whitechapel. In a few days they will find the first body, her throat cut with two strokes before several more cuts to her abdomen. The medical science of this place is enough to recognise that the stabs were done by the same weapon as slashed her throat. Her name is Mary Ann Nichols.

A little over a week later the second body will be discovered by the name of Annie Chapman. Again her throat will be slashed only this time her entire abdomen will be ripped open.

That's all it takes to get the wheels turning. The wheels of fear. Then a letter will be received by the news services which will be forwarded to the local police force. In years to come it will be referred to as the "Dear Boss" letter and it is signed from "Jack the Ripper,"

"There are many more such letters of course. All sent to various sources and it spreads the fame of "Jack," to the surrounding area.

There are many more deaths but only a total of five are actually killed by the original person. Only five but the letters, which in turn will be discovered to have been sent by the news service to themselves in an effort to up the macabre nature of the crimes and therefore to sell newspapers, will spread the name of "Jack the Ripper" all over the world.

Other killings are done but they are later proven to be the work of other individuals but after those first five, the original killer stopped. No-one ever knows why. But all of London, for this late summer and into Autumn will know the name of Jack the Ripper. Even people who have never been to Whitechapel will scurry from door to door and strangers to an area will be beaten within an inch of their lives before being examined in minute detail. Suspects will be examined and discarded with as much detail as they can. But the name... Jack will be remembered for years to come. Centuries even."

His voice was hypnotic and I could not help but be swept up in the narrative.

"But I still don't like the name." He said with a wry chuckle. "I preferred what the police called the killer. They called him "Leather Apron" or "The Whitechapel killer."

"Why did you prefer those names?" I asked.

"More anonymous." He said. "An anonymous murderer is a force of nature whereas Jack, no matter how terrifying a countenance the term might summon to the minds eye, Jack is a monster. Jack can be hunted down and slain."

He stopped for a moment or two, staring into his drink.

"I'm not sure that I understand your point." I said slowly.

His lips twitched a little. "My point? Tell me, which is the most evil do you think? The murderer Jack, or the people who spread the story, the people who made the populace too afraid to leave their homes?"

"You are joking right? The answer is obvious. The murderer is the more evil. You could argue, and I expect that you will, that if there wasn't a murderer then the town criers would invent something to stir fear into the hearts of the populace to sell their fliers and things and that is true. But if you ask a victim which they would rather be, murdered horribly of fleeced for a bit of money? Having their throat slit before being mutilated horribly or living in fear? I know which one I would choose."

"Ah, but if I asked someone else, someone else in this very tavern perhaps, they might make a very different choice. Some would argue that death is not to be feared for instance. That fear is the real killer for fear is a paralytic that causes inaction."

"Maybe."

"Besides," he went on. "Evil is an artificial construct made up by moralisers in an effort to make themselves feel better about their general, overall desire to be shitty to their neighbours. You see it over and over again. In your world as well as this one. They construct artificial morality rules and laws, often under the guise of religion to excuse themselves, to tell themselves, "Ah, I might have slaughtered entire cities worth of children but I was doing it for religious reasons therefore I'm still going to heaven.

"Humanity is insane that way. They can't just stand on their own two feet and admit that they just enjoy being horrible to each other. They even go so far as to invent "adversaries" for their "Good" Gods so that there is someone to blame. A stick to their carrot. "Do good or the devil wins."

I stared at him for an even longer period.

"Who are you?" I asked again.

He smiled at me. It reminded me of the smile that a cat gets before it pounces on a mouse.

"I am surprised," I said after a while. "You almost seemed as though you were angry at the accusation that you were evil. You almost seemed as though it upset you. You also don't like to be named."

"Names are power my friend. If you knew my true name then that would give you a power over me. A power that I am not willing to surrender under any circumstances. Not even my wife knows my true name."

"You have a wife?" I had felt my mouth open.

He grinned at me.

"So many questions." I moaned.

"Be grateful that you are sat over a table from me rather than my wife." He commented as he raised the glass to his lips again. "She is far more terrible than I am."

I took a moment to think about that. "Then she must be pretty terrible as you strike me as the most awful thing that I can imagine."

"Then your imagination is not very large. To know my wife is to adore her. To love her more than life itself. She would take away your will and your intelligence and your wits and you would give them all to her freely and willingly without a seconds delay. She wouldn't need to even ask for them before you had them all out and you would beg her to take them. You would make yourself into a willing slave and worship her in adoration. If she asked you to you would rip out your own heart to see her smile but importantly, she would do none of those things. She would love you back and that love would burn your soul into a cinder."

"You sound like you love her."

He laughed at me. "Did you not hear what I just said? Of course I love her and she loves me. We just hurt each other too much to spend too much time around each other. She is so good, so pure and so gentle that it causes me pain whereas I am too sharp and too cruel for her to stand being around her for any length of time. But we miss each other all the time."

"I don't understand."

"Nor should you. What is the question you really want to ask me?"

"Who are you?"

"I don't think that's the question. But I will allow it this time. What form does my answer take? Would you like a name, a title... All of these things are merely titles that other people award us with. Someone else calls me Jack. Someone else calls me evil. Someone else called me the Temerian Strangler or the Butcher of Bakersfield. I have so many names. They call me beast, they call me terror, they call me darkness. All of those things are wrong and none of them are my name.

"My name would mean nothing to you, just a sound, some of it in your level of hearing and some of it that would bypass your educated and evolved sensibilities and head straight down your spine to the primal part of you that is labelled, "terror". I am King of my kind, father also, and husband to one who is also three. I have been lover and killer and so long as there is a single thing that is living that is aware of it's own ability to feel pain, or is aware of their own mortality then I will always be here."

"Are you a God?"

"Does all of that sound like I'm a God?"

"It sounds like you think of yourself as a being of myth and legend."

"Close. Very close. Ask your question."

I tried to think, the being in front of me was beginning to be agitated and I could feel a small amount of panic fluttering against my chest.

He didn't help.

He slammed his hand on the table to startle me out of my train of thought.

"Ask your question,"

"What are you?"

"Still not the question that you want to ask." He said after subsiding a little bit. "But a little closer I suppose. Close to a question that I could actually answer with some definition and authority though I suppose."

"And you couldn't answer the last one?"

"What do you think?"

"I think that after all of this time you have yet to answer a single question of mine straight. I think you've come close a couple of times but more often than not you answer a question with a question."

"You're catching on. Well done."

"Did you ever consider something?" He asked. "What makes humans so special?"

"In comparison to what."

"In comparison to whom. Why do you think that all of the powers that are around compete over the lives of humanity? Why do you think that the elven gods fell before the human ones?"

"I do not know?"

"Why is that?"

"How can I possibly know the answer to something like that?"

"Because you are a scholar? Because you believe in a single truth above all others."

"We are trained to believe that. We are trained to believe there is a single truth that is true for all things and that all we really need to do is to hone in onto that truth."

"And thus ignore the role of the observer."

"I think you are leading me off topic."

"I might be. But the thing about humanity is that you are unique in your ability to shape the world around you. I'm not talking about magic although that is part of it. This world has only a little magic compared to the one that you are from and it is a deep thing that needs to be ferreted out with a pin in the same way that you would with a splinter. But humanity...Humanity can change the world if it puts it's mind to it. It's already doing so. Why do you think that the elves are falling back from you quite as fast as they are?"

"I thought that was due to differing breeding rates and fertility."

"It is, but that doesn't mean that the one thing doesn't come from the other."

"Are you saying that the one thing led to another? Which way round?"

He just grinned at me.

"You're not helping." I accused him.

"I'm sorry," he said. "Was I supposed to be wearing a hat that says, "I'm your friend and am hear to help?""

He got up. "Time for another drink."

He left and came back with a tray. "Time for you to try a beer." He declared.

I did so. It tasted like how I imagine sewer water tastes. Only with a thicker taste that coated the back of my throat. I grimaced and swallowed before discovering that the after taste was not entirely unpleasant.

He laughed at my face. "It's an acquired taste."

"How long does it take to acquire the taste?" I wondered.

"I wouldn't know." He said taking a healthy swallow from his own glass. "So where were we?"

"You were spectacularly failing to tell me what you are."

"That's right.

"The human imagination is a powerful thing. It literally gives form and shape to only the things that they dream of.

"When humanity first lived in caves, wrapped in fur and leaves, huddled together for the warmth of their own bodies to protect themselves from the cold in the night. To make the time pass more easily they started to tell each other stories.

"It is debatable which came first, the stories or the music of banging sticks against rock for rudimentary rhythm but I do know that the music happened during the day whereas the stories happened at night. In the dead of night, when the children asked why they didn't go outside, their parents would tell them stories about the horrible and terrible things that lived out in the darkness. The quiet, terrible predators that sucked the marrow from the bones of children and drank their blood. Nightmarish creatures who stalked humanity in the same way that humanity stalked the mammoth and the tiger. Horrible things that would skin the child and make a drinking vessel out of a babies skulls.

"I was the thing that waited in the night. It was fear of me that kept those children from running off. I was the thing that drove the fear into those children's minds. When those children became adults then they told the same stories to their children and their children and so the story of me became more powerful.

"I am the invisible predator, the perfect hunter and killer. I toy with my pray as I enjoy the hunt and the explosion of fear that comes with the prey's knowledge that they can't possibly fight any more. That they know that they are about to die."

"Holy flame." I whispered. "So they told the story of the thing that lived in shadow and you were born."

He smiled horribly.

"I was always there, waiting.

"I am fear.

"I am that primal thing that waits in the darkness that instils fear into the hearts of the living."

I stared at him for a long time. As he had spoken his peace, the flesh had seemed to melt backwards from his face until almost a deaths head visage had sat before me. I will not pretend but instead I will admit that I found it to be terrifying. After a moment or two he leant back and the light returned to his face. Then he was the man again, the man with a wicked and sometimes unpleasantly humorous twinkle in his eye. I found the effect unnerving.

"Now you might begin to understand why I am not fond of being described as evil. I was alive a long time before evil was even a construct, a glint in some proto-church philosophers eye when they were trying to come up with new ways with which to control the populace. They knew the secret. It isn't respect or laws or love or any of that nonsense that keeps society in line, that controls the public. It is fear. Fear of damnation, fear of punishment, fear of the loss of their security, fear of strangers and those things different from themselves. That is my gift to humanity. I am born of it, I am it and I give it."

"You are fear incarnate."

"Yes. That most basic of human emotions. Is it evil? I could argue the point if you wish."

"I am fascinated despite myself."

"That's what makes you different. That's what I like about you. It's why I took an interest in the first place and I decided to meet with you. You don't react to fear in the same way that your fellow humans do. You are fascinated by your fears. You confront them, label them, categorize them and sort them into boxes where you can take them out and examine them at your own leisure. You are actively in love with a being that prey's on humanity despite your self-confessed and quite sensible terror of who and what she is. You look at fear, you look at me with a notebook in hand and seek to tame it, to wrangle it and bring it into control.

"And when you can't do that. When you find something that you can't comprehend or control then instead of reacting how everyone else does, you get angry and attack it."

"You find that interesting?"

"It's precisely what fear does. For instance what is caution? But a healthy application of fear. Military men all over the worlds tell their fellows and young soldiers to respect their weapons because of how dangerous they are. To respect their enemies and to not take them for granted. That is also fear. When a parent tells a child not to eat the strange herb it's because of a fear of the consequences. Fear again."

"So if you're fear. What then, does that make your wife?"

"What is the opposite of fear?"

"Hope? That's the standard answer anyway."

"It's close. Humanity works on the stick and carrot principle. They need both an incentive as well as a goad to stay in doors. So what would keep you indoors? If you remove the fear of the thing, what would keep you indoors?"

"Love?"

"Close, but more visceral than that."

"Joy."

"And that's it. That's my wife. She is literally Joy, personified. She can be just as terrible as I can and just as seductive. There is comfort in joy but there is no...drive to succeed. To improve oneself you have to overcome the fear and make it small. Joy is there to catch you when you fail."

I mused on what he said. It occurred to me then that I was sat talking with a being of primal and elemental terror and I was getting along with him fairly well. I laughed at the thought.

"What are you laughing at?" He asked over the rim of his glass.

"The absurdity of this situation."

"I remind you that you sought it out."

"I did at that."

"Ask your question?"

"Why do you hate me so much?"

He blinked. For all the world it looked as though I had taken him by surprise. He seemed to think for a moment.

"No, you know what?" he said after churning it around in his mind a little. "I'm going to answer that one for free, even though it isn't the question that you want to ask.

"I thought we'd been over this.

"Hate you? I don't hate you. You fascinate me. You are a riddle. You do not react to fear in the same way that people should. You almost take a joy in it. You seek it out and look for it. Hate you, I don't hate you. I actually quite like you."

"But you tried to kill me?"

"When?"

"You tried to lead me into the woods at Ambers crossing."

"Oh, that wouldn't have killed you. My son can be an arrogant little puke when he puts his mind to it but that wouldn't have killed you. I wanted to see how you would react. How you would behave."

My lack of belief must have shown on my face.

"Oh for the love of the creator of all things. Ask your damn question."

"You believe in a creator?"

"You don't? ASK THE DAMN QUESTION,"

"WHAT DID YOU DO WITH MY SISTER?"

I had forgotten that we were in a tavern. Men looked up at us and my companion waved them back to their seats.

"Now we're getting into it." He said with a smile and I suddenly wanted to punch him in the mouth so hard that I could taste it.

"If you don't hate me, then why did you do it? I did nothing to you and yet you have hounded me..."

"Who says I did anything?"

"Oh come on." I said. "Laughing Jack? It bears all of your hall marks. An uncatchable man, a sick sense of humour, a strange and perverse sense of honour. This is you, in all of your glory."

He just smiled at me steadily.

"Oh fuck you." I snarled at him. "Why? If it wasn't you then you must have been involved. You _must_ have been involved."

"Why? Why _must_ I have been involved?"

"Because...Because there's no other answer."

"Because..." He prompted.

"Because if it isn't you I don't know what else to do."

"So you're desperate?"

"Yes,"

"You need answers?"

"Yes."

"What would you do to get them?"

"What?"

"I'm serious. What's in it for me to give you the answers that you desire?"

I subsided a little, collapsing back into my chair.

"What would you want?"

He laughed. "Is that an offer for anything that I might want. I might even invoke the law of surprise."

"Your...son, wanted my soul?"

"And you gave it to him?" he seemed incredulous.

"I did,"

He crowed in triumph and amusement. "Foolish," he said after a moment. "Very very foolish. But no I don't want your soul. What on earth would I do with it?"

"Your son seemed most keen for it?"

"My children? My children are much more complex than I am, their needs are more refined."

"How many children do you have?"

"I lose count." He said, waving his hand dismissively. "There are so many of them over so many worlds."

"The beast of Amber's crossing?"

"Yes, he is one. Lazy little puke, taking up residence in one place and terrorising a village. Heh,"

"What was his whole thing. If you are fear, what was he?"

"I suppose it won't hurt. You've already banished him so he's not going to come back to you. He is darkness itself. Both physically, but he is the darkness in your soul. The part of you that wants to pull legs off spiders and wings of flies. He's the part of humanity that people use to excuse themselves from dark deeds and sinister actions. The part of a man that wants to rape and degrade a woman, the part of the king that wants to raise taxes so that he can pay for a set of jewels to help him seduce this or that woman at court. He is that."

"But I thought you said that mankind created those demons and devils that give that excuse for themselves."

"They did, but as I said before. Just because the one thing is true does not prevent the other from also being true."

"Why would he want my soul?"

"Because he needs to be sustained. That is his true weakness. If, or when humanity moves beyond the point where it can tell itself that it is responsible for it's own actions then he will no longer exist. There will be no need for it to excuse itself for the darkness in it's soul and so my son will simply cease to exist. He, and others, collect souls so that they can use those souls to maintain their own existence in the event of that happening."

"But you don't need that."

"No,"

"Why not?"

He smiled, sickeningly. "Because mankind will always be afraid of something. Fear is the most basic of human emotions after all."

"Then I don't understand, what could you possibly want from me."

"Nothing in particular. But it goes against the grain for me to give you something for nothing. Especially something that you so desperately want. Even answers to questions are dangerous in the wrong hands."

"So what do you want from me?"

"I require your service."

"My what?"

"I want you to work for me. For let's say, the period of a day, I will be able to make free use of your body and mind, after which it will be returned to you."

"Hell no. so that you can turn me into a killer like that poor teacher that tore his own face apart because of what you made him do and see? So that I can be used as a weapon against those that I love? No."

"No no no no." He said raising his hands in defence. "That isn't it at all." Then he stopped and considered it. "Although I should have thought of that in advance because that's a much better idea than I had. You see how this works? Humanity is much more of an enemy to itself than I am, or any of my children ever could be, but no. Where was I? Ah yes. No, I guarantee that you will not be a murderer. You will not harm any of those people that you love. Nor will you kill anyone or take the lives of anyone. You will not, in fact, have any real effect on the world around you. I can guarantee that you will not perform any act that goes against your conscience.

"I require your service and your service only, for the period of one day. One full revolution of your planet from day to night."

"Why should I believe your guarantees?"

"Absolutely no reason at all. But, contrary to popular belief, my word is my bond. Once a deal is made then it cannot be broken, nor should it ever be broken. Do this for me and you will know everything I know about the disappearance of your sister. I promise."

"And my soul will be intact?"

"It will."

I wanted to take the time to consider. But then it occurred to me that I would talk myself out of it. Then I would always want to know what _he_ knew.

"Done," I said.

"Excellent," he said and snapped his fingers.


	56. Chapter 56

(A/N: Some scenes are of a distressing nature.)

I crouched in the ditch, behind the tree and peered through the leaves of the bushes. It looked deserted from where I was. I couldn't see anyone, there was a little smoke coming from one of the chimneys but nothing that might suggest that it was more than just some left over embers of a fire that had been left to die out.

I watched for a long time. I could see a chicken hopping around in the dirt and felt my mouth watering at the prospect of some roast chicken cooked over an open wood fire. The last time I had eaten anything it had been a raw squirrel with some acorn paste pancakes and I could still taste the bile at the back of my throat.

I shouldn't have eaten it raw but at the same time, I didn't want anyone to see the smoke from any potential fires.

I was caked in mud, the theory being that they wouldn't be able to see or detect my body heat in the undergrowth of the forest if I had managed to properly coat myself. It was beginning to dry out now and I would need to apply a new coat of mud to myself before too much longer. The problem with that was that I was cold, deathly cold and I could feel my teeth chattering. The fact that I was crouched in a ditch which had a small stream running at the bottom of it wasn't helping with this.

So very cold.

But that was the name of survival. That's what my life had become, a constant balancing act of risk versus reward. I could hide but what would that hiding cost me. I could run but in turn, what would that cost me? So there I was, crouched in the undergrowth, spear at my side, poised to flee at a moments notice. If anything was wrong, absolutely anything was wrong. Then I would go. The risk wasn't worth it.

But the buildings looked deserted. I could see no signs of activity. But I had been wrong before and that had cost me time and blood.

So I watched, and I waited.

I decided that I would wait until dark. It was late afternoon and early evening anyway. So I would wait until dark and then creep down. My stomach rumbled it's protest at this extra delay but I ignored it. Darkness was an extra cover. Not that anything magical would be depending on the light to help them hunt me down but at the same time...Magical creatures were not the only things that were hunting me.

My mind wandered. I was tired. So very tired. I suddenly had the thought, unbidden, that if the little collection of buildings truly was deserted then maybe I could sleep in one of the beds. Out of the elements and with a roof over my head. Hell, I wasn't as fussy as I used to be. I could sleep in the pig sty, or in the outhouse with the firewood. A blanket draped over some wood sounded pretty comfortable to me right then. Then I could get warm and relax.

Maybe try and start to make some plans for the longer term rather than just having to live from minute to minute and moment to moment. I had no idea what I was doing, no idea where I was going, other than the fact that I was heading north. In theory away from the base of the Empire's power. So in theory, the further I ran, the safer it was going to be.

There were some rivers coming up. I wasn't looking forward to that. I had lost all my money and had little to trade for passage across the Yaruga or the Pontar so I had tried to steer myself North East as well, in an effort to reach both rivers where it would be a little bit easier to cross. Maybe a boat could be stolen or something.

That's assuming that posters of my likeness hadn't travelled north by now and people weren't watching for me at all the major crossing points.

I was under no illusions. I was in no shape to attempt to swim across either river. I was cold, tired and on the verge of starvation.

But no sense in borrowing trouble yet.

I shook myself, realising that I was on the edge of falling asleep. Indeed I had fallen asleep for just a little while, my head had sunk down onto my arms and I had startled myself back into wakefulness with a little snore.

Kerrass had always joked that I snored. I remember protesting my innocence at him in an effort to...do something. It all seems rather petty now but I remember protesting my innocence. He went on to make jokes about pitying my future wife for having to put up with me and my many and varied night-time noises and smells.

Poor Kerrass. I missed him.

But with those memories the sun had nearly sunk down. I was no Witcher, I still needed a little light to see by. Slowly, I backed away from my hiding spot. I didn't want to breach the undergrowth where I had been hiding. It was a good spot and I absolutely intended to use it again. I just needed to get in, find some supplies and then get out again to the point where I could look down at the small collection of buildings and watch to see what happened.

So I backed off. Slowly, using my elbows and knees to move rather than my hands and feet. I shuffled backwards, taking my time and being beyond careful. Every twig crack, every rustle of the leaves was like a dagger through my ears and into my brain. I was so tired but I knew enough of myself that I was beginning to get desperate now. I needed some food. Maybe a purging herb as well to get the last of that rancid acorn paste out of my throat.

Some food, some rest, some...respite. That's what I needed. Just a little rest.

But I needed to keep moving first.

I made it a little bit further round to where there was a gap in the trees. I had scouted it earlier and knew that it was almost a straight line from there down to what I was now thinking of as the "Farm house".

But I was so tired.

I did a little bit of stretching behind a tree. It would do no good to have a muscle spasm or cramp while I crept down to see what what I could find in the way of goods or supplies. No good at all. So I stretched and fitted the two halves of my spear together as slowly and quietly as I could manage.

Then, with another look around and a solid five minutes of quiet waiting to see if anything else would carry it's news to me on the wind, I started to creep down. Slowly at first. There would still be twigs and old, rotten leaves covering the ground and I was wary of the noise that I might make. There was also the possibility that someone was waiting for me to emerge from my hiding space before they started shooting arrows, or charging their horses at me. Slow caution at first, when it was still possible that I could turn and run back into the relative safety of the trees where I could go to ground, or at the very least, find some kind of defensible area to make a stand.

Nothing happened. Step by step I made my way down towards the buildings. There was no sign of light coming from them which made it more certain that they were deserted. I grew bolder in that area of ground between there and the woods. I was in the open, if anyone was watching they could see me easily and there was no place to hide. If I was attacked I would need to sprint to make my way back to the trees or to get to the shelter.

So I jogged up the rest of the way to the buildings and flattened myself against one of the side walls. Stone base, seemingly fairly well made. They had jammed bits of straw and clay between the bricks in an effort to keep out the elements. It must have been at least partially successful. I tried to see if there was any heat coming from inside the buildings but the stone was cold. Probably didn't mean anything.

I could see the chicken rustling about but I didn't want to go for it just yet. Not until I was _sure_ that I was alone. It would be far too easy to do that and then give away my position to anyone who might be watching or listening.

I crept round the house, all of my senses were alert, listening for even the slightest noise that might give, either me away to anyone who might be listening, or that might give any of the watchers away. A clue, something that might tell me what was going on.

A dull feeling crept over me then, some kind if instinct that told me that I should walk away. I can't describe the feeling well, it was like the hairs stood up on the back of my neck except said small hairs were plastered to my skin by the mud that I had been using to hide with. Instead, it was a sense of uneasiness, a growing surety that I should put this place behind me. But I was desperate. Cold, starving and on the edge of my sanity.

I came to the door. It was latched with a simple device and I easily opened it with the application of a dagger blade. The things that you learn when you're on the run. I did so as quietly as I could manage and edged the door open. It was dark inside the building. I listened at the crack for what felt like hours but I could hear no sounds. Slowly, I edged the door open and stepped over the threshold and stopped to wait for my eyes to get used to the even deeper darkness inside the building.

I propped my spear against the door frame and drew my dagger again, clutching it in my teeth. It was another thing that had always seemed strange when I saw other people doing it but I had since learned the sense behind it. If you clutch the weapon in your teeth then it's closer to hand. I felt around in the entrance way, I remembered from someone that farmers often keep torches and the means of lighting them next to their doors in case they get called out in the middle of the night.

I found them after a minute or two of careful searching. But I found something else first. Something squishy. My hands started to shake. I grasped found a torch and a small basket of kindling. Steel and flint were next and I had a torch lit in short order.

I moaned aloud.

There was the body of a child next tot he door. She was about twelve, judging from the height of her. She had been cut in the side with a heavy bladed weapon of some kind and it had spilled blood and entrails from out of her guts as well as all but shattering her spinal column.

Not again. This couldn't be happening again.

I couldn't help myself, that was the trouble, I had to know. I raised the torch high to survey the rest of the room.

I would find no food worth eating here. But still, I couldn't help but look around. The mother of the house was nailed to the crossbeam of the roof by her ankles, she hung upside down and was still swinging lazily in the air. It looked as though something had torn it's way out of her chest. The man of the house had exploded in a shower of guts and gore. I found his legs first and it took me some time to find his head in a corner where it was still attached to a small length of spinal column. There were also another three children that had been torn apart by sharp implements. I don't want to say that they were swords or anything like that as the probability was that it was claws that killed those children.

There was nothing for me here.

But I needed to check the other thing. I needed to know whether or not _they_ had been here. I needed to know if this family was another set of names to add to my growing list of names that I would need to seek Justice for.

I lit a few more torches and propped them up in the brackets that were attached to the walls. Carefully leaving the bodies where they were I thoroughly searched the place. I had to do so several times because, as I say, exhaustion and hunger were preying at the corner of my vision. They make it go kind of grey and wobbly but in the end I found the things that I was looking for. There was a circle on the ground. It had originally been drawn in chalk. There had been some some effort made to clean it up but it hadn't been entirely successful and I found some dust had settled into some of the cracks in the wooden parts of the floor.

Rooting through the hearth I found a sheep's skull and the remains of some other cloth that I couldn't identify. There was a dull purple residue that had been burnt into the stone of the fireplace as well. All signs that I had expected to find but had hoped that I wouldn't.

I _had_ hoped that I might have managed to outrun them by this point but it was becoming increasingly clear that such things were a fantasy.

It had taken me a long time to look over everything and to find everything that I was looking for. In the end I had managed to find some basic supplies, some oats, that kind of thing but I didn't want to eat in this place. Preferably, I didn't want to eat within several miles of this place. Realistically though I needed to burn the building down and to make sure that the taint on the place wouldn't spread any further.

I spread some straw around and was in the process of splashing some lamp oil around the place when they finally found me.

The door to the building opened with a splintering crash and two men stormed in. Tall men, not heavily armoured, mostly in leathers with bits of chainmail over the more fragile areas and over the top of their armour they wore the black tunics of the Imperial Outriders. All Imperial regiments have a company or two of Outriders. It's their job to scout out the enemy, look for the tracks and launch lightening strikes on enemy supply trains. They were trained for hard riding, hard fighting and independent thought. In extreme moments they were also used to chase down fugitives..

I swore.

"Got you you bastard." One snarled as he drew his sword. "You've given us a long chase though." His eyes took in the horror of the rest of the room. "Killed another family have you? By the Divine Sun, I'll see that you pay for this."

The trick here is to not give them time to think. If they're talking then they're not ready to fight. What he should have done is move to the attack straight away. But even the most professional of soldiers sometimes needs some time to work themselves up to violence. The other thing that he didn't know was that he had cornered a desperate man.

I threw the lit torch into his face and charged.

Don't think, act.

I connected with my shoulder and pushed the first man aside. He fell, not properly prepared to receive my action. The second man swung his sword. Another mistake. In confined quarters, as with so much in life, the point will beat the edge every time. I ducked his strike and rammed my elbow into his face. I don't think I did any damage but I had made him step back a little.

I snatched up the spear from behind me. Part of me was screaming to turn and kill one or two of them. Part of me even wanted to do so but... it wasn't their fault. They were just doing their jobs after all. I was also tired and desperate. I had been lucky at first but these men are trained and hardened killers. And they would have horses nearby.

A third man was still with the horses, mounted and holding the reins for the other two mounts. He swore and drew his own sword. I remembered Kerrass' lesson, reversed my spear and swung out at the horses mouth. It reared in shock and pain as the metal haft of my spear struck home causing teeth and blood to spray from the poor beasts mouth. The rider fell, the horse on top of him although he didn't look badly hurt.

I gave him a kick in the side of the head to discourage him as I caught up the reins for the other two horses. I climbed onto one, and sped off.

I must have spent more time in the house that I had thought. The eastern sky was getting brighter by the moment but at least that gave me enough light to see by.

Only three outriders. That meant that there would be more nearby and that they were combing the nearby area. Outriders habitually carried horns so the signal would soon go up that they had found me.

Think. I needed to think and not get caught out because I was too busy riding head long.

Keeping horses was a problem. Speed was a bonus but speed also meant that my tracks would be easier to follow. Also, all I could think of was that I was riding an awful lot of meat headlong into the countryside.

I remembered that I had passed over a stream a little way to the south. It was a risk but if I headed in that direction and turned the horses loose and back of the stream, but then I followed the stream bed, using the water to mask my scent and tracks then maybe. Just maybe, I might get away.

It would be a close run thing though.

I was still too far south that was the problem. Get over the Pontar and the Yaruga and I could find some friends. Friends who would believe me when I told them that I wasn't responsible for the death of the Empress.

It's funny, but this, all this time later and I could still hear her screaming.

I had finished my conversation with Jack and woken up. Still in the summoning circle but it was all going wrong. The door hung open off it's hinges and Phillipa Eilhart stood in the room, her face was terrible.

"How dare you?" She demanded of Lady Yennefer. "You were instructed never to summon powers like this. You were ordered not to..."

"Ordered?" Lady Yennefer asked. "Ordered? Where does the Lodge of Sorceresses get the authority to direct me where to piss? The Empress asked me to do this. The Empress who, lest you forget Phillipa dear, is a member of the Lodge. The Empress who gives us our legitimacy. Where do you think she's going to fall on the matter?"

Phillipa Eilhart grinned nastily. "The Empress is currently under arrest for heresy."

"Heresy?" Yennefer spat. "She's the Empress, anointed and crowned and all that. The church of the holy sun, literally says that she is the walking embodiment of the sun on the continent. How could she possibly commit heresy."

"When the correct heir to the throne is found. A good heir. The Legitimate and proper heir."

"You mean an heir that will listen to you you mean."

Phillippa shrugged. "Even now, Lord Voorhis is overseeing the trial of Ciri. They are wondering how she could have been corrupted."

"Damn you Phil. You just couldn't leave alone could you." Yennefer lashed out, a magical arrow left her hand directed at the other woman, who snickered as the energy exploded off the globe of force that surrounded her. "Don't embarrass yourself Yenn. You've been committing sacrilegious magic. Magic that is illegal according to both the lodge and the council before it. You are exhausted and not nearly strong enough to defeat me. Not that you ever were."

Phillippa gestured and Yennefer screamed as she seemed to catch fire before my eyes. "Your sentence is death you treacherous bitch," Phillippa snarled in triumph.

I was still gathering myself. It seems that travelling through the darkness between worlds is just as exhausting as carrying out massive magical rituals. I managed to get my feet under me and did my best to charge Lady Eilhart, or distract her, or something to try and save the woman who had tried to help me.

But the shield that had protected her from magical assault also protected her from physical attacks. I bounced off as a bolt of pure pain lanced through my body.

"Oh don't worry," she said as she looked down at me. "I'll get to you in a minute."

"RUNNNN!" Yennefer screamed through her agony and I went for the door.

There were sounds of fighting in the corridors outside. I ran left. I tried to remember where the stairs were that led upwards. There were two guards running down the stairs when I found them. I tried to look as though I was injured, which wasn't that difficult given the pain and cramps that still darted between my joints and fingers, and I pointed behind me. They nodded and ran past me before I charged up the stairs.

"There he is," someone shouted, pointing at me. "Seize him."

"What? But I've done nothing."

"Break his legs if you have to." It was a knight Errant that said it. "He was involved in getting so many of us killed. By the Heron I will see him swing from the gallows along with that bitch of an Empress that destroyed us."

I fled. I was unarmed and unarmoured.

I tried to head for my families rooms. But I was already exhausted.

I stumbled a bit along before a hand reached out from a nearby room, grabbed me by the wrist and pulled me inside into what looked like a guest room.

"Oh Kerrass. Thank the flame."

"You alright?" he asked me, handing me my leather armour and my spear.

"I've been happier." I commented.

"You and the rest of the world it looks like."

"Kerrass, what the fuck is going on."

Kerrass sighed. "You know how Lord Voorhis claimed that the disappearance of your sister was probably an attack?"

"Yeah, so?"

"Well he was right. Only the attack was by him and his allies. The thing was that the Empress was upsetting the old, established order of things in the Empire. The old families have had a stranglehold on things for centuries until Emhyr managed to harness that ambition and channel that into the war with the north. At the same time he made sure that the more important conspirators dies in that conflict."

"So what happened?"

"It turned out that he wasn't that thorough and now the younger sons and daughters of the original conspirators have grown up. Their chosen heir to the throne is Lord Voorhis. Your sister figured this all out because the conspirators had been sounding her out as to how involved your family could be expected to get one way or the other. When it became clear that your family would support who they saw as the legitimate heir, then they had her removed."

"So Francesca's dead then."

Kerrass put his hand on my shoulder.

"I'm so sorry Freddie."

"Not as sorry as those bastards will be when I'm done with them."

"Well, the other problem is that since The Empress supported Yennefer in summoning the "Jack" spirit. The Lodge of Sorceresses has split itself up the middle. The elves have gone to ground, Lady Merigold has gone north. Keira Metz is presumed dead or vanished along with Lambert and the other Wolf Witchers. Those that remain support Phillippa Eilhart in her condemnation of the heresy that Ciri and Yennefer committed in the summoning of Jack."

"Flame. What about Emma and the others of my family?"

"I don't know. I think Mark's ok as the church are trying to remain neutral although his position as Baron Coulthard makes that uncertain. I think that Laurelen tried to gate your sister out but there's been a blanket shield against gating since before the coronation so I don't know how successful that was. I saw Sam fighting in the north of the palace as he was trying to get to the Empress along with some of the guard that still remain loyal."

"How was he doing?"

"I won't lie. It wasn't looking good. He was doing ok, but he was outnumbered badly."

"Then we go there."

Kerrass nodded and we left the room at a run.

We found Sam's body on the upper level. He had done quite well, all things considered. His enemy had had to resort to crossbows to kill him and he had been pierced by 4 quarrels.

I spent a couple of minutes going to pieces while Kerrass watched over me. I knew it was foolish to wait but at the same time I was inconsolable. All I could think about was what his headstone would look like.

Presuming of course that I managed to get home to sort this all out.

Eventually I was forced out of my daze by the arrival of a couple more soldiers. Kerrass killed them while I was still climbing to my feet but there were more after them and we were forced to flee.

The Empress' office was deserted, bits of paper were scattered all over the place, on chairs and across her desk. We didn't stay for very long. It was clear that we weren't going to find anything of use and we left, aiming to leave the palace by the quickest route, maybe get some horses and flee for the border.

Oh Kerrass. I am so sorry.

I have run through those last few hours that we spent together over and over again. Could we have done something different? Could we have, in some way, both made it out of Toussaint alive?

Possibly. I am far too tired to think about it now but there is a possibility that we could have done it. If we had gone down one street instead of the other? If we had just stolen the first horses that we came across and just headed for the border? It might have worked. We might have made it out and be much further along than I was but at the same time... I don't know what we could have done differently.

You see, it was the screaming that drew us to that square.

They had tied the Empress to a stake in the middle of the square, lashed her other ladies in waiting to lower parts of the furnace and piled wood and oil around them before setting fire to it.

The women were screaming. The Empress was swearing and cursing with every breath that she had, even as the fire and smoke began to lick around her feet. She was an easy figure to admire at that moment.

I made a joke. "They move fast in the south. It takes a couple of days to burn a heretic in the north." But we weren't the only people that were drawn to the screams.

Three other Witchers attacked the square. I could recognise Lord Geralt by his white hair streaming in the air and I thought I could see Eskel by his scar. They were outnumbered massively but they were attacking. They were attacking with such fierceness and such devotion that it was hard to watch. Impossible even.

So of course we attacked. What else would you have done.

But heroism? Heroism is foolish. Heroism can get you killed.

It got Kerrass killed that day.

We used the distraction of the other Witcher's attack to get into the square. We didn't talk about it. I can't remember who moved first but suddenly we were both running. Kerrass was swinging his sword in a wide circle above his head in an effort to get the people out of the way. There was, only a few guards surrounding the pyre itself as the rest of them had charged off to go and deal with the other three Witchers.

We should have made it. But we had forgotten that the execution of the Empress was backed by a Sorceress or two. Suddenly the flames shot up and the Empress stopped swearing and began to scream.

Kerrass went berserk in his efforts to reach her but no-one could have done it. Instead we stood at bay before the flames as we tried everything that we could think of to get to her.

But it turns out that Willpower alone cannot make a human body climb up a burning pile of wood and people to get to the top.

The Empress screamed one last time before going silent. I have since heard rumours that she vanished in a flash of light but I can't swear to that as the smoke and the horrible sweet smell of burning flesh was overpowering and I couldn't have seen it. All I can say is that she stopped screaming.

The other soldiers were beginning to come back now. I don't know whether they had detained the other three Witchers, or killed them but it was all to obvious that we were going to be overwhelmed. I had to force Kerrass to turn away and we ran for one of the entrances to the square but we simply weren't quick enough. We were going to be cut off.

Kerrass died there, forcing the way open for me. "Get away," he called to me as he charged the remaining soldiers. I couldn't have stopped him. By that point he was too far away and if I'd gone with him then I would have died, making his sacrifice a vain one, so I did what I was told and fled.

I hate myself a little for that.

I stole a horse from one of the city stables and flogged it almost to the point of death before the fear and the pain began to overtake me and I made it to one of the small areas of woodland on the borders of Toussaint where I spent a precious hour or so going to pieces.

Ariadne found me there,

"I can't stay long." She told me after holding me for a little while. "I have to go. There are people here that might be able to help but I need to go now and speak to them. They have to know."

"They have to know what?"

"They have to know that the old power has been found." She told me. "That ancient power that we have been terrified of for centuries. That's what this is all about."

"I don't understand."

She led me to a log and sat me down.

"There are several things that you have to accept about the race of vampires." She told me. "The first thing is that our people are far older than humanity. Far, far older. So old that we make the elven race seem young. There are powers in the universe that hate existence for just being here. Primal darknesses that resent the light. They are the things that are attacking us now. The Empress was the fabled child of the elder blood. She was the one who could hold back the darkness and now they've killed her."

"So what do we do now?"

"Well, I, need to go and warn the elders about what's happened. You need to head north. Find some friends and start to gather allies. Tell people, let them know. Spread the word Freddie. I would teleport you but Eilhart and her new allies have got a blanket over the area which prevents teleportation in or out."

I nodded. She left me some supplies, a few loaves of bread, some cheese and some apples.

We kissed there. For the first time and I haven't seen her since. Not the way I wanted our first kiss to go but there was the very real thought that we might not get another. She told me what to look for, what the face of our enemy looked like and how I could recognise signs of the rituals that I might protect myself and keep track of them if they came north.

It took me far too long to get through the mountain pass towards the north and since then I had been running for my life.

Everywhere I went it seemed that people had been there before me. I had had to flee two towns before someone recognised me from the wanted posters. Smaller villages were a lot more reliable and much more approachable for supplies. But then they started to die. I would walk into the isolated places to discover people dead, ritual circles on the floor and in more than one case, signs of these elder powers breaking loose from wherever they had been summoned. But now there was a different problem. Now I was running away from Imperial Guardsmen that were specifically trained to hunt down fugitives.

Like me.

I rode hard through the early dawn light. I was light headed and had to blink furiously to keep the water from my eyes. But I was done for. Too tired, too hungry and too weak.

And it seemed that I had been anticipated. There were a trio of horsemen waiting at the river and they had reacted to the sound of the winding horn that came from the farm house behind me. I pulled the horse to a stop. There were also torches in the tree line that were moving towards me.

If I went back I was facing those men that I had left at the house while being chased by the fresh horsemen at the stream. If I carried on towards the stream I would face three men that were fresh and ready for action. Into the trees meant that I was facing an unknown number of men. Not good. If I ran the other way, away from all of them then I would be leaving three groups of men behind me. Some fresh and some would be directly behind me on fresh horses with fresh men who weren't exhausted.

Another piece of Kerrass' advice occurred.

Flame but I missed him.

But if you're being caught in a trap and you feel the jaws closing over the top of you. Then you attack one of the pincers.

Three men in front of me on horseback. Which ever way I went then those three men would be chasing me. If I could get past them or through them then my list of options would open again.

I spurred my horse back onto the gallop and unslung my spear.

As an extra bonus to all this time on the run I had managed to teach myself how to fight with a spear on horseback. Fortunately the horse that I was on was military trained and reacted properly to the steering from my knees.

I screamed and drove my horse between two of the men. They had swords drawn and that meant that my longer reach gave me something of an advantage. I charged, and wove a figure of eight pattern with my spear. I hadn't been able to take proper care of my weapon in the time that I had been on the run and as such I only felt one of the blows bite deep. The reverse spin merely struck the man I was aiming for in the chest. I thought I heard him fall on my way past but I couldn't be sure and I didn't have time to check. Instead I rode hard away, the third man was out of position and wouldn't follow too far. I thought I had done fairly well for an amateur. I had got away with a long but shallow cut up the line of my shoulder.

But I had made a mistake. The third man had time to draw his horse bow and instead of aiming at me as I sat low along the line of my horse, he instead aimed for the horse. I shouldn't be too angry, the horse is a bigger target after all but that was it.

It didn't die, but the arrow struck it deep in the back leg muscle. Not too deep but at the same time, it was going to go lame and in the growing morning light, it was leading a blood trail.

As was I. I would need to deal with the cut and I wasn't sure I had time to deal with that. I rode for a while in an effort to break any kind of sight line between me and any pursuing men before I dismounted which was when the other problem was found. I had also taken a short gash across the calf and so the horse wasn't the only one that was slowly going lame. I hadn't felt it at the time, I couldn't figure out why as I didn't have the time.

I slapped the horse hard on the back. I resented hurting it but I didn't have a choice. I wanted to use the speed, I wanted to run but the open ground and the blood trail were too easy to follow. Into the trees then. Go to ground, break the cordon. Same plan as before, attack the pincers. I still had a blanket and I tore a couple of strips from it to bind my shoulder and calf.

But I was limping. It didn't look good.

I made reasonable progress. I really did. I kept to the harder ground, walking across the harder tree roots where I could. But I was done. I knew it and I suspected that my pursuers knew it too. I heard them find the spot where I had dismounted. I must have bought myself maybe five minutes with the horse distraction.

It was not enough.

Flame I was tired, so very tired but I refused to give up.

Not yet. Not yet. Sam had buried himself under a good half a dozen attackers and I refused to face him in whatever afterlife was waiting for me and say "Sorry Sam, I just gave up."

If I was to have any hope at all, I would need to move for a while, take it slow and careful, move from cover to cover.

I thought of Ariadne and held onto my pendant but I couldn't feel her presence. "I'm sorry," I called into the symbol. "I didn't make it. I'm so sorry."

But I couldn't give up. I moved on and on. Blood was seeping from my leg and I was feeling weaker by the moment.

I was astonished to realise that I had fallen to my knees. "Not like this." I levered myself to my feet and kept moving.

"I'm sorry," I said aloud. "I tried."

Movement, that was key. I force myself to move on. One foot in front of the other, that was it. I thought I saw movement off to my left. They were circling me now. They had seen what I was capable of and didn't want to close.

I was done. They had me. The only thought now was whether they would kill me now or save me for trial.

A knight Errant stepped into view.

"Are you finished Lord Frederick?" I didn't recognise him and I had to blink a few times past the tears welling up in my eyes. Pain, exhaustion and defeat were wearing at me.

"Finished?" I asked as I did my very best to straighten before my leg twinged and I had to stagger to keep myself upright. I pushed myself into a fighting stance and brought my spear up. "I haven't even started you treasonous fuck."

"Trying to make me angry Lord Frederick." He drew his sword. "You should surrender."

"Surrender? To you and yours." I batted at his sword but he easily moved his sword out of the way. I tried to laugh but it came out as a whimper. He shrugged and flicked his sword at me. I managed a parry, more by instinct than any kind of skill and swept my blade back towards him in a riposte that was painfully slow. It also overbalanced me and I fell to my knees.

The soldiers laughed.

The injury in my shoulder was making the arm numb as I tried to stand. My leg wasn't much better but I made it upright. The knight danced around me, playing to the crowd, aimed at my back at my legs and knees. I parried desperately. I was being toyed with and I knew it. Eventually he caught me hard across my injured shoulder with the heavy flat of his sword. I screamed in the agony and dropped my spear.

"It's over lord Frederick. Give it up."

I reached for him and he kicked out. I fell again. I felt hands grasping at my shoulder. I drew my dagger. The viper fang that Letho had given me, what felt like, years ago. I spun and drove it into the knights groin from below. He screamed, oddly high pitched as I felt his blood running over my hand. I stood with it driving the dagger further in. I pulled the dagger free and he fell backwards, howling as his hands tried to staunch the blood flow but he was dying.

"At least one more," I told Kerrass before I felt as though I had been punched in the leg. I looked down and saw the crossbow bolt had punched straight through. I wanted to scream but there didn't seem to be much point to it as I fell backwards. My hand found the knights sword.

I felt light headed, presumably from the blood loss. Inexplicably cold. I could see the lightening sky above the tree branches.

Not yet.

I tried to sit up, the pain lancing through my leg. They were getting closer.

I felt cold. And so afraid. This was it, I knew it somewhere in the depths of my soul. I was going to die here in a small copse of trees that I didn't even know the name of. I had always thought I was invulnerable that I would succeed and get somewhere.

But now I was going to die, without seeing Ariadne, without seeing Emma and most, if not all of my friends had gone before me. I tried to get up. Tried to make it count.

But I was so tired. So very tired.

A man came close as I felt the sun being obscured. I weakly tried to lash out at him with my knife but the blows lacked strength.

I wanted to cry. I wanted to live so fiercely that I whimpered.

"Disgusting," the man said as he placed his sword over my chest and simply put his weight on the pommel.

It felt like a hot icicle going through my chest. Aching rather than sharp pain.

So tired.

Darkness. No thought, no sound, no memory.

"Come now," said a voice, "You didn't think it would be that easy did you?"

I staggered out of the police station and badly wanted to vomit. It felt as though a vice was squeezing me across the front of my head but if I stopped to vomit in sight of the fucking pigs then I would be hauled back into the tank for another night.

I don't think I could take another night.

Fucking police. Can't they leave a lady to drink herself to death in peace. I took a deep breath. The desk Sergeant had told me that it was just after one o'clock in the morning. "Night's still young" I told him with a wink and leer. Not that he was going to fall for it. Old cock-sucker like him has seen younger and prettier girls than me pass in front of him and give him the eye.

God but what a life.

So, time to make a decision.

The air outside was making me feel even worse.

I could go right. Fastest route home where, hopefully, I could sleep this off and start again tomorrow. Or I could turn left. The night was still young and I could easily find a John or two, which would give me enough to drink myself back into insensibility before going to bed.

I felt myself sway on my feet. No time for that. Need to move.

I turned to the left, towards Aldgate and put my best foot forward. Left foot followed by right foot followed by left foot again. Step followed step and as I did so it became easier.

Someone called my name "Kate?"

I looked up. I did know him. Jo something. Joseph Lawrence I thought. I found myself wondering if I could sleep with him and whether or not he would be good for any money.

Probably not. Jewish.

I don't know where I got that from but it seemed relevant. I was in their neck of the woods in all fairness.

There was a Jewish working mans club nearby. Occasionally good for some left over grub or the odd piece of charity but very rarely any other kind of "work". I waved to the man to show that I had seen him. No point in upsetting someone who might be good for some help in the future.

I walked on.

A slow feeling came up on me then. Just a gentle kind of pressure at the back of my skull. It would be all to easy to dismiss it as part of my hangover. But I suddenly found I was shivering. I stopped for a moment to take stock. No, I shouldn't be feeling cold just yet. The gin that I had had earlier was still enough to keep me warm in the September night. But I didn't feel good.

There had been the two other deaths earlier in the month. They were calling him the "Leather Apron" killer although the reason for that seemed a little vague. The papers wanted to call him "Jack the Ripper," as apparently they had received letters from the sicko telling them that that was his name.

Hah,

If only the people knew the truth. More people died in the rookery every day than Jack could kill if he worked at it morning noon and night. Women, children, old folk. But they never care about them do they. No, that would mean that the people watching would need to give a fuck wouldn't they.

Fuck em.

I needed some gin. Otherwise I would be more than a little bit tempted to find some fucker and murder them myself.

It's a hard life being a woman and having an opinion.

Gin. I need some gin. Which means that I need a job. I need a nice rich John. Someone that can be pressed into service, ten minutes work and then...

Where the fuck am I?

I looked up, it was a relatively clear night. One of those white signs that they insisted in screwing to the walls despite the fact that most of the occupants of this neck of the world couldn't read them and if the tourists came here then they deserved everything that happened to them. Yes, still in the Jewish quarter. Near Mitre square which is a good place to take a client for a quiet corner so...

There's one.

"Excuse me sir?" I tried giving my auburn hair a bit of a fluff up. It was one of my better features. Auburn hair and hazel eyes, never going to be a beauty, too much gin for that, but once seen, few people could forget me. The man I had seen dressed like a gentleman. Maybe a little down on his luck with a large light coloured moustache he was carrying a large leather bag and wore a large overcoat which seemed to hide his shape while at the same time wearing a large top hat.

He stopped and looked behind him as though he was looking to see if I was talking to someone else. He looked distracted. Frustrated almost, as though things hadn't gone right for him that night as well. But his expression of anger disappeared as he saw me.

To do this job you have to have an eye for it. Even though I wasn't doing the job full time, I still needed to develop a couple of the instincts. One of those instincts is to make sure that I wasn't sending good time after bad time. There's no point in going after a client if he's already decided not to bother. So you have to see whether you were getting somewhere.

This one? This one I had. There was a hunger about him. As always I found that I was curious. Just a little curious about what this man was all about. What had happened to him? What had caused that desperation and that hunger that I had seen in the depths of his eyes. But that curiosity was dangerous.

Even in this there's almost a dance to it. A routine. A routine that needed to be followed. The fish wasn't hooked yet.

I held my hand out to be kissed. Holding the hand out made them feel superior. That attitude of pretending to be a lady of higher status and higher standing made them feel important. As though they were getting a privilege.

He took my hand, putting his bag onto the floor to take it.

"Tell me," he said, his voice was warm and friendly. I thought I detected a hint of education in his tone.

"What brings a beautiful woman like you, out onto the streets on a night like this?"

Oh God, lets just hope he's not one of those people that likes to "rescue fallen women" or anything.

"I feel a great need, Sir." I told him, while also putting my hand to my chest in an effort to appear embarrassed by the compliment.

"A need?" He asked. "What need is that? Maybe it echoes my own needs."

Ah no. He wasn't naïve. He just wanted to draw out this part of the dance a bit further than some would prefer.

"Why sir?" I exclaimed. Time to reel in the fish. "A need for some closeness on such a night as this one. A warming to the blood."

"Really? My heart longs for just such a thing."

"Good, buy a lady a drink?"

"Believe me good lady. Your need for drinking will be quenched by what I can give you." He smiled.

Success!

"So what do you have in mind?" I asked.

"Do you know somewhere that might be a little bit more private?" He asked as he picked up his bag again.

"I know just the place Sir, Little square I know, just down here."

I took his hand and gently led him down the ally and into the square. A walk of maybe two minutes and I pulled his arm around my shoulders. He felt warm and soft. It reminded me of how tired I was. So desperate to sleep. Just a little drink.

I led him into the square, away from the street lights and from the prying eyes that might spot us from the street and turned to kiss him.

Odd, that it seemed to happen so slowly. It felt like I had plenty of time, loads of time to protect myself. To throw up an arm or scream or something. I saw his arm come up, an odd gleam of light reflected in the hooked blade of the long knife, that reached out and with an almost leisurely movement he slit my throat. My first thought was that it didn't hurt. The second thought was that I was wet.

Again, I could see the reverse movement. He had cut my throat with a forearm slash, spun the knife and cut the other side with a back handed cut.

I found that I couldn't breathe. I choked, coughed and tried to claw at the wound. Thick liquid spurted between my fingers. I tried to scream but no sound would come out.

I felt another question. Would I bleed to death? Or would I choke on my own blood?

Dear God in heaven. I was going to die here.

I fell. Probably going to bleed to death then. I felt weak. Some element of me was still trying to run. My leg jerked.

My John crouched next to me and reached into the large and heavy bag at his side. He produced a large roll of what looked like leather and unrolled it. From that he took out a smaller knife.

Rather redundantly, the edges of the wounds in my neck had begun to sting.

It was almost funny.

The pain as he cut into my stomach was indescribable. I tried to curl around the injury, to protect it from him but my protests were weak and he easily batted away my hands. Another almost ridiculous thought but dear God it hurt. I saw him cut into me. He seemed cold, clinical as though he knew that he could take his time.

God just let me die. Let me die now. Just take me, don't make me feel it while he cuts into me. Don't make me feel it. Just let me die. Surely I've lost enough blood by now.

I felt the tears at the corners of my eyes. Another ridiculous thought.

I was wrong. "Ripper" is the right word name for him.

Just let me die.

Please.

Darkness again.

But not for long.

I find my voice and scream into the darkness.

A flash of light.

I've made a mistake. I should have known it really but I was _so_ hungry that it has become necessary to leave the den and go looking for food.

The cubs are hungry my mate is hungry. I'M hungry and we could all just do with a nice chicken, or a rabbit or two but it would seem that that was too much to ask for today.

It's not going to be long before I'm going to have to make a decision. Do I have to leave the chicken that I've got clamped between my jaws.

I heard the first horn a little while ago. I don't think it's going to be long now before I see the first, red coated horsemen. Not long now.

I slink along through the ditches, trying to keep low, trying to stay in the water to mask my scent and throw of the hunters. Not that there's much hope of that but these are the things that you have to try. But those blasted bloodhounds are too good at this game for that. But you have to try.

That latest horn sounded as though it was closer.

Fuck, fuck fuck, fuck, fucking fuck.

Why today? I'd been safe in my den for the last three days. It's the season for the hunts and I know that so

I've been keeping my mate and the cubs inside in an effort to keep us safe. I didn't want to go out now. I didn't want to but it was somewhat frustrating to know that if I had gone out yesterday then I would have made it home by now.

They haven't seen me yet though. There is still hope. I take another grip on the chicken that I had stolen from the farmers yard. The better able to carry it with me and I drive myself on. Low to the ground, that's the ticket. Stay in the undergrowth. Stay low where my red fur and bushy tail can't be seen.

Past experience tells me that they don't want to let the hounds go until the last possible moment for fear that the expensive hounds can injure themselves, get lost or tired out. So I need to stay out of sight, move slowly and carefully, moving through the gaps in the grass rather than pushing the grass down for my to move over it.

So here we go. Choice time.

There are two routes from here towards where my den is with my mate and the cubs. One way is over the flat fields and the other is through the forest and the tress and the undergrowth.

The fields provide flat, open ground where I can run easily and put on speed. There will be no undergrowth for my tail, feet or prey to get caught on as I drag it off and I will be able to use all of my speed. My instincts are screaming at me that this is the right way to go.

But the woods have the cover. Yes it's slower, yes it's more overgrown but in turn that will make it more difficult for the hunters to spot me and catch me.

But every instinct in me is wanting me to run. To put as much speed on me as I can, I'm almost quivering with the desire to turn my tail and speed away.

I have to take a deep breath and calm myself down. The choice is clear.

I turn my nose towards the trees and carry on slinking ever onwards. Nose and body low, dragging the chicken along the ground. Probably doing far too much damage to it and making far too much of a mess of the undergrowth making me easy to spot.

Slowly though slowly does it. Time my movements with the wind.

The forest is getting closer now. I can see it, it only seems a short run away but that last burst of speed and distance is the dangerously seductive one. The one where it's easiest to get caught. But relative safety being so close is seductive it's...it draws you in like a nice warm den with yours and your mates tail wrapping each other for warmth against the chill of the early mornings.

I nearly snarl with anger and fear. I had failed. I was already dead.

The Farmer had come out of the woods and I could hear more humans with him. The farmer had his fire stick bent over his arm along with his own dog walking at his side.

Damn. Damn damn damn damn damn.

Dead already.

It's a physical effort of will not to keen my grief into the wind so that my mate and all the others can hear it.

But that won't feed the cubs.

I take a short moment to control myself but I don't have long. The farmers dog has just lifted his huge head. I see the human bend to ask the dog something. I had been sniffed. I backed away as slowly and carefully as I could.

Looks like I'm going to get that run over the field that I wanted after all.

I go a little way back into the long grass and quickly dig a hole, burying the chicken inside after taking a quick mouthful to give me strength. I spray the mound that this has left with my scent in the hope that my mate might be able to find it and bring it to our children so that my death might not be in vain.

Then I take a step back and look up at the sky sucking down deep lungfuls of soft, beautiful air before

sniffing carefully to try and discover where my killers were prowling.

There was another task here. They would think that I would be running for my own den so I must lead them away. My mate might not find the chicken but I might be able to draw the hunters away, even a little.

I sniff the air carefully and I'm off. Just a gentle run at first. I will want to save the real speed for when they spot me. I need to draw the hounds out and then lead them on a chase in an effort to tire them or even, hopefully injure them. Maybe I can even take one or two down with me.

Unlikely but still. A fox can hope.

I come to the edge of the cover. The urge to hide is back on me now but I know that won't work. I've seen it happen before where the hounds have sniffed out good friends.

I take a breath and charge out. Quicker but still not as fast as I _can_ go.

I don't have to wait long before I hear the first horn call. The first horn that is joined by another and another.

Then comes the thunder of the horse hooves and the yammering of the dogs.

I run.

In the distance I can see the small group of trees where I have made my home this season. She will never hear me but I bark out my farewell to that place and to that female. I had liked that one. Liked her enough that I hoped that we might mate again. She had real spirit.

But I needed to concentrate now. The thunder was getting closer and I found that I needed to control my breathing.

Closer, closer. I looked over my shoulder to see them and waved my tail. The dogs saw me, or smelt me or whatever it is those stupid bloodthirsty bastards do. They became aware at me and they tore at their ropes. I laugh back at them.

"Never catch me." I jeered at them and pissed to show my disdain.

Maybe, if I get them good and angry they will kill me quicker.

I take off again. Quick as a shot before finding another rise to goad my enemies.

But I'm being steered. Off to my right I see another group of horsemen in their absurd red coats. Don't they know that we can see them easier if they wear red?

But that's ok.

They've let the hounds off the lead now.

Leave it just long enough for the hounds to be beyond the range of someone calling them back before I shoot off giving it everything I have.

It feels good. The air tastes sweet.

I can see them encircling me from the right though. The hunters and the other pack of hounds. They must think I don't know that that's what's happening.

I feel myself grinning as I hear the barks of triumph from the dogs. They think they've caught me. They think that they're the clever ones.

Hah.

I let them encircle me. I mustn't let them make a sport of it. If I stand at bay then they will let the dogs take their time tearing me apart. I must make them kill me quickly.

I see the dogs. Now this second group have been let of their leash. I laugh at them.

They growl their own anger and frustration. Their scorn and their hate drips from their teeth. For a moment I feel sorry for these things. They have been bred and trained for this purpose but now I must show them how a fox can die.

I pick out the second biggest dog and charge him.

The other dogs roar as I do so.

I don't make it before I get barrelled aside.

I don't manage much as the teeth tear into me. I just manage to latch my teeth onto one poor bastard and lock my jaw.

I hope the bastard feels it.

Darkness.

"Wait," I scream into the darkness. "WAIT,"

A flash of light.

There are chains round my wrists, chains round my ankles and chains round my neck. So many chains that I can barely remember what it felt like to not have that constant weight, pulling me down.

I'm so tired. So tired and hungry that the pain in my belly and my chest is now like an old companion. I remember once, my mother told me that pain is a friend that we should cherish because it reminds us that we're still alive. She use to maintain that the pain would go away when we die.

I hope so.

But I want to live. I want to live so much. I want to see my husband again. I want to hold him in my arms and to see my children.

But it's not going to happen now.

I'm so tired.

We're led out into the square. There are four of us. A human at the front of the line who's dressed in bright colours with an absurd hat on. He claims to be a bard or a poet of some kind or another but I don't believe him. Even Loredo wouldn't hang a poet. I heard that he'd been accused of collaborating with the Scoia'tael which is frankly ludicrous. Not that humans wouldn't sympathise with the plight of the elves in the woods but more because the man seems far too stupid for it. The Scoia'tael are too clever to use idiots like him.

From the look of the dandy though it's much more likely that he seduced Loredo's favourite whore and now was being punished for it. The fact that his charge had been changed from Collusion to debauchery added to that.

Heh.

Hanging for debauchery. Is there a person in Flotsam at all that _wouldn't_ be guilty of that crime? Loredo least of all.

Then there's the dwarf. Accused of collusion like my fellow elf in the line. Much more believable although I doubt it. They say that Iorveth is distrusting of dwarves and prefers to serve with Elves. I can't comment. I've tried to keep my head down in that kind of thing. Another piece of my mothers advice there.

"Keep your head down and do as your told." She said, "and they'll leave you alone."

I did my best to do that, but then I resisted when the guard sergeant tried to rape me. My mother had managed to curse me with blonde hair and the kind of good looks that humans find attractive.

All I did was say no.

But now I'm a Scoia'tael terrorist about to hang.

I've been beaten and raped many times since then. I heard one of the guards complaining that they actually wanted to keep me around for much longer as I was "a good way to relieve stress".

But it was not to be.

They still had their entertainment though. I was dressed in a shirt and trews that was open to the waist. They might as well just pull what remains of my breasts out of the shirt for all to see. It would probably save everyone time.

They pull us out into the crowd. The crowd sounds interesting. They hate the fact that we're being hanged because they hate Loredo with an unbound and uncompromising hatred. The merchants hate him for his taxes and the elves hate him for his oppression of our people. But no-one in flotsam is going to miss the opportunity to see a good hanging.

Someone throws vegetables because of course they brought vegetables. I keep my head down. I just want it to be over with now.

The last of my fight was beaten out of me two nights ago when I was told that they were going to hang me. I tried to tell them that my only crime was to say "no," so they struck me in the jaw with a mailed fist, breaking it, and causing me to bite a good chunk of my tongue off. The blood trickling down my throat made me vomit.

But now that this is it. I just want it to be over.

We are led through the crowd and up to the scaffold where one of Loredo's men is waiting for us as our executioner.

Bastard.

I'm too weak to struggle as they put me on the trap door and put the noose round my neck. If I was braver I would try to jump in an effort break through the trap door, Not that I think I'm heavy enough to burst through the trapdoor but the thought occurs.

So very tired.

At least I'm on the end of the row. That means I'll be first to drop and perform the gallows dance. It doesn't look like it's a long drop so there's a very real chance that I won't break my neck. Apparently Loredo likes to watch us dance before we swing. Seems a little redundant now as he hasn't attended a hanging for months.

Maybe if I jump as high as I can, just before the trapdoor goes. Maybe the extra distance will help my neck to break.

Unlikely though.

It's a difficult balancing act. To help the neck breaking or to get my neck to stretch that much quicker, I need to be heavier, stronger. But on the other hand that would give me more stamina to withstand the fall and the strangulation.

Gods and goddesses above and below but I want this to be over with now. The peacock on the other end of the row has spotted someone in the crowd that he recognises. Someone he knows and presumably has a claim of friendship with. He's calling for help. Stupid fool. No-one will help us. We're already dead. The more he kicks up a fuss, the more entertaining it is for everyone and the longer that they'll prolong things.

He should just shut up. Let them get on with it. The faster to get it over with.

I can't help it though. I scan the faces of the assembled townsfolk, looking for a friend. Someone who might be sad to see me go.

I can't see anyone and for a moment my eyes sting with tears. I'm going to die alone.

I need to take solace from the fact that my family fled as soon as they heard that I had been taken. Again, none of them were involved with the rebels but once one member of the family swings then they'll soon come for the rest.

I should be glad. Glad that there's no-one to watch as that means that they are all beyond the reach of the hangman. That disgusting, fat, filth in the hood.

It turns out that I can still feel something. I can feel hate.

I'm surprised though. I thought I would hate Loredo for sentencing me, or for the Sergeant for choosing me to slake his lusts against when there are many perfectly good prostitutes in the brothel that are ready and willing. I don't hate my family for fleeing or myself for not agreeing to the Sergeants demands. But I hate that executioner with every fibre of my being.

I can see that he has an erection. He uses the odd movement as he goes about his business to grope himself occasionally.

I hate him so much.

He takes the time to fondle my breasts as he positions me over the trapdoor.

Bastard.

The peacock's friend is fighting his way through the guards and the crowds to get to the scaffold and I feel a fluttering of hope.

It is an alien feeling and I almost shrink from it in fear and terror. The man has white hair and two swords on his back. He's capable and is tearing through the guards.

But he won't make it in time. Not to save me.

The hangman takes a hold of the lever that works my trapdoor.

My body betrays me. It doesn't want to die despite how tired I am. I feel panic and adrenalin flood through my system. I try to open my mouth to scream, to protest. To do anything. To spit my hate at the hangman but it's too late. Far too late.

The lever is pulled and I fall.

It hurts.

It hurts so much. I have time to feel my eyes bugging out of my face and my tongue swelling in my mouth, almost enough to choke me.

I will the feelings to leave my body. I try to jerk around in an effort to break my own neck or make the strangulation happen faster but what little strength I have left is failing me.

Oh just let it end.

I don't want to feel this pain any more

So very tired.

Darkness.

But I am ready for it this time.

"WAIT!" I scream into the void.

"Wait?" he says. "What for?"

"I just need... I need a minute."

"Ah, you need a rest." I hear him sigh. "Very well. I would have thought you would want to get your day of service over and done with as quick as possible. But if you want to break it up with pauses then that will only delay your return to the real world. But very well."

I could almost feel him smile.

"Your fear of what follows is very gratifying anyway."

"Bastard."

He laughed.

"What did you think was going to happen Lord Frederick? A day where I would run around Toussaint, murdering people in your body. What on earth for? My name is already indelibly inked on that place. Laughing Jack is a story that will be told for centuries now. There will be a period of copycats followed by a period where people will look out into the darkness and wonder whether your Empress and the Witchers really caught me or whether the authorities just told them all that Jack had been captured.

"Then people will look out into the night and wonder if I'm waiting for them. In that shadowed alley or behind that tree as the road darkens in the distance.

"The story of Jack will be used to frighten children into going to bed and to do their chores and all the while, the people of Toussaint and eventually the world will know that no matter what happens. Their lords and masters cannot keep them safe from people like...

"Jack,"

He laughed again. Not the mad laughter of the figure that we had chased through the Toussaint night. This was different. Warmer somehow, more genuine and far, far more calculating.

"Besides. I promised you that I wouldn't. I promised, and I quote, "I guarantee that you will not be a murderer. You will not harm any of those people that you love. Nor will you kill anyone or take the lives of anyone. You will not, in fact, have any real effect on the world around you. I can guarantee that you will not perform any act that goes against your conscience."

"Now yes, some people might argue that you would not be the murderer. That _I_ would be the murderer but that would be semantics and we both know. After all, something else I said is also true.

"My word is my bond,"

I could see him now hanging in the darkness. Nothing like the man that I had seen in that other world, nothing like Laughing Jack or the Jack that I had seen in my dreams. He was humanoid, if anything he looked more like an elf but...more elflike and utterly, utterly alien. His skin was white. Bleached white, the kind of white that not even albino's manage. His face was almost elongated which is why it reminded me of an elven face in that his chin was long and pointed while his cheekbones were high. His ears were much longer and pointed than an elves were. But the skin was hard. As I looked I realised that calling it skin was incorrect, it was more like he was scaled. There was a beauty to his face, hard and terrible beauty that found it's home in the eyes. Jet black pupils surrounded by glowing white Irises.

He was dressed like a noble gentleman fresh from court. Shirt and doublet immaculate in black and red colouring, his riding boots polished to a mirror shine and his cape hung around his body in a way that reminded me of the wings on a bat.

He wore a long hat like he had worn in that other world and his cane was cradled in his arms.

He didn't have hands. They were more like talons.

His eyes were shining with amusement.

"I have been thinking about things Lord Frederick and I have decided to give you a gift with no expectation of reward or return as it will serve my purposes well." He said after regarding me for a while. "At first I was going to forbid you from writing about your experiences with me but I have changed my mind. I encourage you to write about me. Tell your readers what we have talked about and what I have said. It will do me good to have at least one world and time where they know that I exist and what I am. It will change nothing as they will still fear that I am out there in the dark. But it will give them a name and a face to fear instead so write about me."

He grinned.

"They may even believe you."

"Why are you doing this to me?"

"Why? Because you asked the question of course. Nothing comes for free."

"But why this?" I was nearly weeping with pain and horror.

He smiled at me again.

"Because I can?"

He laughed.

"A joke, Lord Frederick. A joke."

"Go fuck yourself."

"I will let you have that one although it is beneath your not inconsiderable talents as a writer and a debater. This is why my children like to trade in souls. You see? It's an educational tool as well. I encourage you to write about this too as it will annoy them all which is always endlessly amusing.

"What is the purest form of fear?" he asked.

"I don't know,"

"Oh come now. You've experienced it three times so far."

"I really have no idea." I snapped at him but I could hear the whimper in my own voice.

He smiled. "Then I shall show you another one."

"No wait..."

A flash.

I'm on my way.

Not long now. The guards have come for me and I take one last look around my cell. Not to stall them or to keep them away from me but in an effort to say goodbye to the last place that I ever thought of as "mine".

Because today's the day.

There's only one thing now that's going to keep me from doing the thousand volt dance. That's if the governor decides to change his mind.

There isn't much hope of that though. Never much hope.

Twenty five years I've been waiting for this day. Twenty five years and not a day goes by where I don't think of those poor fuckers that I killed. Twenty five years of answering questions, reading books and writing letters. Always trying to come up with the answer to that most important of questions. Why did I do it? Why did I take those two lives?

I've tried to come up with an answer since I was clean enough to be able to properly take it in. But I can't. I look back at the kid that committed that crime and he seems alien to me. So very different. A product of his time, place and circumstances.

I'm not so far gone as to think that I have anyone to blame but myself. I'm not that naïve. I pulled the trigger. It was my action that sent those brains flying through the air to splatter against the back wall of my uncles garage and I bear the guilt of that every day. The disbelief in the face of the first man followed by the fear of realisation in the face of the second man.

Followed by the relief and relaxation on both faces as they fell backwards.

Or that might have been the last effects of the high that I was on I no longer remember.

I know several things. I know that I pulled the trigger. I know that my best friends older brother put the gun in my hand in return for my last fix. I know that I was conscious enough to check the gun to make sure that it wouldn't misfire or otherwise hurt anyone other than the two pigs that I was killing to pay the man back.

I know that, if I hadn't pulled the trigger then those two cops would have died anyway, probably much harder than the way that I killed them. Then I would have died to, beaten to death with the baseball bat that was being held by my best friend at the ready.

I think back to that time and try to think of a way that I could have done something different. Taken a different path. It's easy with the benefit of hindsight, a word that I've learned since being inside, to say that I could have stayed in school. I could have not smoked that first cigarette that led to that first joint. Even if I'd stopped there and become one of those pot heads I would have probably been ok but I had to listen when my friend passed me a pill and told me that it would make all my troubles go away.

With hindsight I can see that I could have and should have done all of those things. I should have respected my mother and the fact that she was out working three jobs to make sure that we had what little food we had in the house. I should have protected her when she eventually had to turn some tricks to put shoes on my little sisters feet.

But I didn't.

Why not?

Because in that time and in that place it was inconceivable that I should do anything else.

I took the pill because life was unbearable. I hurled abuse at my mother because of the constant rage that I felt. A rage that I didn't understand and had no outlet for and by the time the gun was in my hand, I pulled the trigger because to do anything else was unthinkable.

And now I'm going to die for it.

Unless the governor calls. Which he won't.

I've said I'm sorry even though I know that an apology is not enough. I've written to the widows of those two men that I've killed and I understand that one of them has even found it in her heart to forgive me.

I hope so, because Lord knows I don't forgive myself.

I walk along the corridor outside the cells. The other men are chanting my name. No-one knows how they found out that my time has come but they chant it all the same. It gives me a bit of strength. A bit of courage and right now I'll take all I can get.

I'm bound and shackled although there's no point to the bonds. Where would I go for christ's sake?"

I deserve this.

They take me to the room. It looks like a hospital room. There are medical people all over it waiting for me.

A priest is there and he mumbles the words.

For a moment I want to smack him in his self-righteous mouth.

But I swallow that rage. The same misguided rage that started me on this path all those years ago. Instead I accept the man's prayers. I no longer believe but if it gives him comfort, or the people watching behind the screen comfort then I will take them.

"Do you want to say anything?" I'm asked.

"Hell no," I try for a laugh but it won't come. "But I will." I wanted my voice to be strong at this point but it cracks and tears blur my sight.

I turned to the screen.

"I have no excuses." I tell the watching people, "only explanations but I know that they are not enough. It may seem trite but I am truly, truly sorry. I do not deserve your forgiveness but I hope for it all the same." I shook my head and again tried for the black humour that had been my shield over the last few days. "This fucking sucks." I tell them. "I want to thank those that fought for my survival." My voice cracks at the last word and I swallow the lump in my throat. The warden's looking at his watch and I know that I don't have much time. "And again, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry mama."

I turn away then. And look at all the tubes and bags of chemicals.

I find my sense of humour after all.

"Jesus Christ." I hear myself say. "Wouldn't it be cheaper and easier to put a bullet through my skull."

I let them lay me down but find that my body wants to fight them. Some part of me wants them to wait. That my pardon or the reduction of my sentence might be coming down the hall at any moment.

My brain goes down that particular rabbit hole of hope for a moment as they get the drips and things into my arms.

They tell you that it doesn't hurt but I'm shaking in terror as I watch the three men go to the switch board and at the count of three press the buttons that are going to end my life.

It might not hurt but the delay between those buttons being pushed and my loss of consciousness suck.

That's the bit that's cruel and unusual if you ask me. That's the bit where the pain comes.

I wonder if the pain is real or imagined. Whether the poison really is burning through my veins like liquid ice or whether I'm just imagining it.

Either way the pain is real and I jerk against my restraints.

How long now before I die. Is there no way they could speed this up?

A bullet really would be kinder.

Or maybe that's the point.

Fuck this hurts.

As final thoughts go, it's lacking a little something.

I feel myself wanting to giggle despite the pain. They'll probably think I'm a psychopath if I do that though.

Pain.

Blackness.

"Well Lord Frederick? Do you have an answer to my riddle?"

I didn't. I was too busy trying to fight of the waves of nausea from the poison that had just been pumped through my veins.

He sighed.

"Well, what more could I expect I suppose? I shall tell you as this game is beginning to get tiresome and I have things to do.

"The purest point of fear. The purest moment of fear happens just before all hope is lost. When you still hope that you might be saved, when you still hops that the medical person or the wheels of justice or just plain circumstances tell you that you will be alright. But then, when the hammer comes down and there's nothing else to be done. Life comes out fighting.

"It's really quite fascinating. But that point of fear. The purest form of fear. Ah...that will see me through centuries."

He laughed and I could see him again.

"This is why my children demand people's souls as payment. You see, they themselves are afraid. They can picture a time when humanity will no longer need them. Where they will become redundant and so they jealously guard their souls so that they can be, well, farmed for their resources. Farmed for the darkness that souls contain, or farmed for their energy or the lies that they tell themselves without understanding that when life renders them redundant then they will already be dead.

"Not that that's any kind of consolation to the people who have lost their lives and their souls though I suppose."

I wasn't looking at him.

"So, you ready to get back to it?"

I groaned.

"Good, because I've still got a solid sixteen hours of service that I can drag out of you."

He snapped his fingers.

It's an odd thing to feel your sanity slipping away.

I once heard it said that when a man becomes crazy they actually come to believe that they are the only sane ones and that everyone else are the ones that are going crazy. That wasn't what happened here. I could feel my mind retreating within myself as the lives that I lived melded into each other to the point of rendering me numb.

I found a small dark place and curled myself up into a ball where I couldn't be hurt. I was small, weak and inconsequential as those lives. So many lives flickered out and died before me. I protected myself as well as I could but still the pain and the mind-numbing terror was overwhelming and awful.

I saw so many lives and felt such pain. When I was subject to the vision I was the person or the creature that I was witnessing. Their thoughts were my thoughts and my feelings and actions were their actions and thoughts as though my sense of self, my sense of identity vanished in the fire of that person's existence.

I lost track of them in the end. I can remember and describe maybe the first half dozen of them with significant detail but after that they start to merge together into one huge blob of pain, fear and misery.

I was the animal, waiting in my pen for the slaughter, pissing and shitting myself with fear.

I was the rabbit, caught out in the open air and I hear the scream of the hawk above me.

I was numerous religious martyrs, being brought out to burn before the crowds, my scalp tingling from where they had shaved me wanting to breathe the smoke so that I might die faster but knowing that in that action I would be committing the ultimate sin of self-slaughter and I would be consigned to hell.

I was also numerous people that the holy fire consigned to the flames, watching with hatred as the religious guards openly masturbated as they saw the heat sear my flesh from my bones.

In several cases I was the monster, hiding in my lair when the Witcher came down to end me. I tried to flee from them and tried to protest my innocence but they killed me just the same.

I saw worlds and times that I cannot recognise now to the point that my mind shears of them in the same way that a horse will break off to avoid the jump that is too tall for them. I remember names and places that I have searched for on maps of my own world and I remember things and objects, weapons and items that don't even have a parallel in our world.

I was elf, dwarf, gnome, halfling, animal and creature.

I was the bird soaring between islands over a vast sea, exhausted and knowing that I was dying of starvation but too far gone to turn back and nothing in sight.

I was the sailor, tied to a rack and flogged for a minor offence, torn between the hope that each lash would be the last or that the next lash might kill me.

I was the person trapped in a sinking sea vessel, running out of air and knowing that I will never make it to the surface.

I was the man, lying in bed and losing my mind to dementia and wondering who all these people were that busied themselves around me while the indignities mounted.

I was the woman, trapped inside my own body just wishing that someone would let me die rather than fighting for a life that I no longer wanted.

I was the alcoholic and the drug addict, hoping that maybe this trip, this drink or this fix would be the one that finally ended my path of self-destruction.

I was the parent that watched my child die and found that I could no longer live a life where I had failed that most important life so utterly.

I was the child, chained to a rock, not understanding why this was happening and dying while hoping for a rescue that would never come

It went on and on and on and every time I died I saw darkness and I could hear him laughing.

I woke up suddenly. I was lying in my bed in Toussaint although I didn't recognise it at first. I scrabbled backwards as my nostrils were assailed with the smell of sweat, piss, shit and vomit. I was naked and I was strapped to the bed. My throat hurt with a scream that I do not remember giving as I fought against the restraints.

"He's awake," It was Laurelen that was sat next to me. Her face lined with pain and more than a little bit of suffering. She had been sat in a chair nearby, there was a bowl of water and a sponge inside that I would later find out had been used in an effort to get some kind of liquid inside me. Now that I had control over my own limbs I took hold of the straps and pulled them off myself so I could curl myself into a ball. My hands on the side of my head as if I could hold my brain inside my skull.

It took me a long time to realise that I was in my own body and in control of my own actions.

Laurelen cleaned me with a spell and calmed me with another. I was exhausted and people were coming running. I got the sense of Emma and Mark, I think Kerrass was there but I couldn't swear to it. The smell of Gooseberries meant that Madame Yennefer was also there but I don't remember seeing her.

But I was saying the same thing over and over again.

"It wasn't him. It wasn't Jack. He had nothing to do with it. It wasn't him."

Someone took hold of me. I don't know who it was but someone levered my hands away from my face and turned my face so that they could look into my eyes. I don't know who it was but I'm pretty sure it was madame Yennefer.

"He didn't know." I told her. "He didn't know. It wasn't him."

There was a sharp stabbing pain behind my eyes that I could later identify as my mind being read.

"Sleep now." I was told, the words echoed with power and they were impossible to resist. But I kept on yelling the same thing over and over.

Jack didn't do it. He had nothing to do with Laughing Jack although he was certainly reaping the benefits. He had nothing to do with the disappearance of my sister.

The entire thing had been a waste of time.

I howled my pain into a pillow until the sleep spell took away my senses.


	57. Chapter 57

It was the Empress that found me first.

I had elected to take the back way out of Toussaint in an effort to avoid as many people as possible. There is a path that leads through the gardens and up the side of a hill and I was sat with my back to a tree, legs stretched out in front of me looking out over the entirety of the Duchy. I had my travelling clothes on and my spear was propped up next to me and I had taken great care not to look like Lord Frederick the courtier of the last few weeks and months.

The path was not as quiet as I had thought that it would be. It turns out that it is a favourite path of painters and young lovers who want to "escape" from it all. I had had to force down bitter tears when a young couple had chosen a nearby bush to enjoy each other's company for a while. I easily made my way out of sight so that I no longer had to watch them but I could still hear them.

Fortunately for everyone there had been a short shower of spring rain a little earlier that I had enjoyed. It had left the air feeling fresh and clean in a way that precious little else did.

I wanted to leave then but this is where Kerrass had agreed to meet me, bringing horses and provisions for the road and I couldn't afford to miss him if we were going to escape quietly.

But the Empress found me first. I heard the hoof-beats as her horse trotted up the path just before she walked round the tree to look down at me.

"Looking to slip out quietly were we," she asked with a raised eyebrow.

I tried to climb to my feet, long years of training in Etiquette wouldn't allow me to sit on the floor when the most powerful person on the continent stood over me. But she waved me back down to the ground and sat next to me. She was wearing a pair of soft leather trousers that looked well cared for as well as some riding boots in similar leather. They showed signs of much use but were obviously well loved. She also wear a stiff leather corset which I suspected had metal plates sewn into it, around her middle and there was more stiff leather wrist and shoulder guards. She carried a red scabbarded sword in her left hand which she propped up against the tree although I noticed that it wasn't far from her hands.

It occurred to me that I had never seen her looking quite this comfortable.

There was another new addition as well. The crossbow that I had had made for her was in the holster on her hip. It gave her a rakish, cavalier air that I think suited her.

"I apologise your majesty."

She chuckled. "No you don't. You absolutely intended to slip away quietly without anyone knowing weren't you?"

I admitted the accusation with a nod.

"Don't feel bad Lord Frederick. The Imperial Intelligence service and the men of the third legion work for me." She said it with a certain air of smugness.

I looked at her crooked smile for a moment.

"Kerrass told you didn't he?" I accused.

"He did."

I grimaced. "I'll skin that cat."

"Oh yeah? you and whose army." She sniffed disparagingly. "You can't borrow mine."

I found myself laughing with her.

"Sweet Melitele," She said after a moment or two of silence. "Sweet Melitele but... Sorry I should ask. Do you mind if I call you Freddie?"

I shook my head. She nodded in gratitude.

"I am so, so sorry Freddie. So very sorry."

"Look Majesty, with all due respect to your grief but you have nothing to..."

She held her hand up to stop my flood of very correct and heartfelt words.

"It's just the two of us here Freddie. Call me Ciri would you. When there are others about then I'll let you Majesty me this way and that, but for the two of us here and now? Call me Ciri would you?"

"Very well. Ciri." it tasted awkward in my mouth.

"And don't give me that other bullshit either." She glared at me. "No, it wasn't my fault. Yes I did everything I could but I still lost her. I couldn't find her and I couldn't prevent her from being taken. Let me have that at least would you?"

"The people who took her are the ones to blame."

"I know that." She sighed and looked out over Toussaint. "I do know that. Lord Voorhis, Papa and father all tell me and have told me that there is very little we can do to prevent a lone nutjob from doing their thing. But that doesn't stop me feeling as though I failed her. And if I failed her then I definitely failed you."

She sniffed. I was astonished. It's one of those things that you just don't imagine the Empress weeping. "But even if I admit that I had nothing to do with it," she continued. "Even if I try to convince myself that there was nothing that I could have done, nothing more that I could be doing right now then I would still be sorry for your loss and the pain that you must be feeling right now." She sniffed again. "I am so, so very sorry Freddie."

There was a catch in her voice that brought a lump into my throat too.

"Flame but I miss her." I heard myself say. "I hadn't seen her for years before your coronation but I never missed her like this."

"I know Freddie. Goddess but I miss her too."

We rested against each other. She put her arm round me and I put my arm round her and we wept for a while.

It took a long time but then she pulled away before sniggering and wiping her eyes.

"What?" I asked her.

"Triss keeps telling me that there's nothing more pathetic than a Sorceress in tears. I must look a right state."

"This from the Empress of the continent." It was a weak joke but I tried to inject some humour into it. She pushed me away in indignation.

We sat in silence for a moment or two, staring out over Toussaint.

"You haven't exactly seen Toussaint at it's best." She said suddenly. "Promise me something Freddie?"

"Majesty?"

She pulled a face at my failure to use her name.

"When all this is over," she said. "When things have settled down a bit I will need to come back here. I come back here fairly often actually to see Mum and Dad but I will need to come back here for state occasions. On one of those state occasions I'm going to invite you and your family to come down and visit. I'm going to have Anna..." It took me a moment to connect this casual name with Duchess Anna-Henrietta, "... treat you all as honoured guests and put on a bit of a show for you. I want you to see Toussaint in all it's glory with it's festivals and Tournaments and balls and parties. It's theatre and show-troupes and ancient traditions that are painfully silly and everyone knows that they're painfully silly including the people that are performing the rites. I want you to come hunting and eat and partake in the best wine in the world because if you think that Toussaint doesn't keep the best wine here for itself then you are insane.

"You have only seen the seedy underbelly of it all," she went on. "I would like you to see the splendour of it as well. One of the reasons that I am so angry about what has happened here, what has been allowed to happen here, is that I love this place and I would like you and your family to see the parts of it that I love."

I found my mind shying away from the idea and she must have seen my concerns. "Don't worry, I'm talking about a few years time."

"It would need to be." I said, trying desperately to keep the bitterness and rage out of my voice.

"We have time, you and I."

There was another pause.

"How are _you_ doing Majesty?" I asked her. I don't know why I asked but suddenly it seemed like a very relevant question. "With all of this I mean. Not just Frannie but with everything else."

She smiled and picked up a small twig that she played with between her fingers.

"I heartily wish I was coming with you." She said after a long while. "I'm surrounded by guards but they're not that much of an obstacle, not really although they would be horribly upset if they heard me say that. One of the attractions of the simpler life is that I would feel proactive. I would be doing things, solving problems and saving lives. But the small handful of lives, the small problems that I can save on the road are nothing compared to the problems that I can solve from the throne. It just feels...less satisfying somehow. Signing orders and laws rather than swinging a sword. There's an immediacy that I miss."

She was stripping the bark from the twig and hurling the ragged ends away from her.

"Can I ask you a question?" I said suddenly, "and I hope it doesn't offend you or upset you or anything but I genuinely don't understand something."

"Sounds ominous." She gave a lop-sided smile. "But please..."

"You are the lady of Time and Space correct?"

"Yes."

"So why can't you just go back in time and prevent my sister from being taken?" I heard the pleading whine in my voice and felt a small amount of rage at myself more than anything. "I know it's childish and I know that's not what it's for and I know there's something to be asked for why should _I_ have the benefit of your power when so many other people have lost family and loved ones. I even know the answer is probably "because it doesn't work like that," but..." I felt my rage and pain threatening to overwhelm me again. Not for the first time and certainly not for the last.

"Flame but I'm sorry." I said after the lump in my throat had subsided a little. "I shouldn't be talking to you like that, your rank not withstanding."

"It's ok," she said in a tired voice. "You are right though. It doesn't work like that. That's the quick answer anyway. The long answer is complex and I don't understand it all myself, as well as this world lacking the language to to describe it."

She scraped some debris away on a small patch of ground as she talked.

"Most people think of time as a river. Flowing constantly and steadily in one direction. And to the vast majority of people that is entirely correct." She drew a line in the dirt with her stick.

"But it's not quite true. To get to grips with this you need to understand that when we talk about time there are three perspectives that you need to get to grips with. Those concepts are the concepts of Past, present and future."

From the end of the line she started drawing out many off shoots, in different directions. "In many ways, the concept of time as a river still works here but it's still not quite right. We have the main trunk of the river and then, the further up the river we go, we have the more little streams and tributaries that feed that river. But the model breaks down here as, with rivers, the water runs from the tributaries into the greater stream whereas with time, it goes the other way.

"Here," she pointed at the single thicker unbroken line, "This is the past, while here," She pointed at the part where the single unbroken line broke off into all of the different branches. "That point is the present. Everything beyond that is the future. Are you with me so far?"

"Not even remotely," I admitted. "But I haven't shut down yet."

She grinned and I guessed that this was a common conversation for her to have.

"As we, let's call us "The observer of events," move through the linear time at the point of the present. We are constantly going through the process of changing future events into past events. As the Observer, We are the thing that makes the "Present", the "present"."

"So it's like tenses in language. A future tense, a past tense..."

"Yes, but also a separate "present tense," for things that are happening right now in the instant of observation."

I found my mind bending around the concepts and she chuckled at my face.

"So why can't I go back and change the past? That's the root of your question right?"

"Yes."

"The simplified version of the matter is that the events of the past are set. I cannot change them. That's not just me, if we could send anyone through time into the past then it would still result in the same thing happening."

I wanted to ask why, she saw it and held a hand up to prevent me.

"The reason for this is described as "a paradox." In one of the worlds that I visited, the most common and simplest way of describing this is called "The Grandfather Paradox." This suggests a theory that the time traveller goes back in time and kills his own Grandfather as a child. But that would prevent the time traveller from being born, which would, in turn, prevent the traveller from going back in time and killing his own Grandfather. Which would mean that the Grandfather would never be killed leading to the traveller being born, becoming a time traveller and going back in time to kill his Grandfather.

"The nature of the paradox is cyclical and unbreakable. It can't be broken free from. So Nature, the universe or whatever you want to call it, dictates that this cannot happen. Therefore, the time traveller goes back to kill his own grandfather but circumstances conspire to prevent this from happening. He kills the wrong child, or it turns out that his great grand parents actually had a second son, named them for the child that they had lost and that "this " child was the Grandfather after all."

"So, if I went back in time to try and prevent your sister from going out to meet with her fate that night. Then my actions in the past, are already in the past. They already happened and they still resulted in her going out that night and getting caught. Maybe my interference is the reason that she took the secret passage out of the room rather than by walking out of her room doors into the waiting guardsmen.

"We can't know.

"All that we know is that she was taken from us. It happened and there's nothing we can do now except attempt to change the future."

My mind was working furiously.

"But hang on." I said. "If you went back and talked to Francesca about what happens in the future. From her perspective, she is still the observer in the present right?"

The Empress nodded.

"So to her, the future isn't set. She could them make the choices that change what happens."

"She could. But we know that she didn't."

"Why?"

"Because from our observations. If that happened we would simply cease to exist. We wouldn't have had the conversation that led us to go back in time to change her perspective."

I scratched my head in confusion.

"But also," I tried. "To her, we are in the future. One of several possible futures right?"

"From her perspective yes."

"We can change the future, so why can't she?"

"No-one knows. Because the perspective is fixed to our own perspective. Yours and mine."

"My brain hurts."

She smiled sadly. "As does mine. There is another theory that is impossible to prove. We know that there are other worlds because that's what happens during the conjunction of spheres, when the worlds come together and the barrier between them becomes thinner. We have not, yet come up with a concept to deal with this other theory in our world but others are working on it. The theory goes that as well as being other worlds there are also "Parallel dimensions."

"We live in one dimension. But every choice we make causes a branch in the road. We make a decision and head down one path while another version of us, in a different world, chooses the other path creating a separate dimension. An infinite possible number of dimensions created by all the different decisions that we all make on a daily basis."

"Ok, now you lose me."

"Think about it. Let's say that you are right. I go back in time and warn Francesca not to go out that night. Tell her as much as I know about the conspiracy against her and against us. She takes that knowledge and uses it. We know that to our perspective, that didn't happen but to her...She goes on to make some different choices and as a result she creates an alternative dimension where she, you and I are more properly prepared for what happens next."

"That doesn't help us though does it."

"No. We are still stuck in the timeline and dimension where we lost her."

We stared at each other for a moment.

"Fuck," I said after a while.

"Indeed. I think through exactly the same process nearly every day when I think of my dead mother, Uncle Vesemir, Grandmother and all the other people that we have lost."

She suddenly looked very old then. Very very old.

"But anyway." She shook herself "I came to tell you something else." She said throwing the twig over her shoulder and reaching into one of the pouches at her side. "Turns out you can do some surprising things when you're the most powerful woman on the continent."

"Oh,"

She had produced an envelope which she kept on her lap and she stared at me with a raised eyebrow and a look of amusement.

"Did you know," she began after a while. "That I was advised to destroy your family?"

"What?"

"Yes. I had just come to court and I was already being groomed to take my fathers place. We didn't have a time-scale yet for that to happen but already your family, the Coulthard family were terrifying the southern lords. Not many of the Northern Continent had sent delegates to my court yet and as such the only people around were Nilfgaardians and they were terrified of your father and what he was capable of."

I said nothing.

"They told me a whole bunch of things and gave me intelligence reports about all of you. There were assessments of your families wealth, in both Liquid capital as well as the assets. I read reports on each of you, your fathers ambitions and your families actions during the last war. All of those reports painted the picture of an ambitious northern family whose patriarch was wise enough to know that Infrastructure and trade is far more important than how well you can tilt at the dummy in the yard.

"That kind of man sends courtiers into apoplexy. They were terrified. They predicted that your father would be buying up land, buying up trade resources and gathering economic power. They saw your brothers growing influence in the most powerful religion of the Northern continents as well as your families involvement with the Northern Magic users and your involvement in academia meant that you would have the power over the young minds of the north. They were predicting a few strategic marriages made by your family followed by a slow and steady rise to power over a generation or so."

She giggled. "It seems ridiculous now with the benefit of hindsight but they were absolutely terrified of you. Over and over again we were advised to send assassins or manufacture excuses to lead to your disgrace and executions."

"Why didn't you then?"

"Nervous?" She teased.

"Too fucking right."

"I don't know in all honesty." She admitted. "It just seemed a little...extreme. I still didn't have that much power. Father was handing me more and more responsibility and I was actually making decisions but I could easily see the fact that people were still checking with him. Every time I made a decision they would turn to him to see if he agreed.

"He didn't take it well as I recall and had one of them broken on the wheel for not immediately following my orders."

She sighed at the memory. "I asked him what I should do about the matter. He didn't answer me properly. Instead, all he did was lay out the options for me again. What they all might achieve, what they wouldn't achieve, how they could be used. I asked him about the whole thing of "Keep your friends close but your enemies closer," but he never seemed to agree to that. He would tell me that if you are going to make an enemy then you should destroy them utterly with such extremity that they will never even try to come back at you and will act as a warning to anyone else that might become a threat.

"As an aside he once said that mercy was cruel. He said that living enemies raise armies against you but dead enemies only raise grave-markers. At first I thought him cruel but then he explained that his method would prevent wars.

"Complicated man, my Father.

"Anyhoo, I've got off topic.

"I still couldn't decide what to do but then your sister came to court. I didn't realise it at the time but your family had given me the greatest gift that you could possibly have given me. You gave me a little sister. You gave me a friend.

"No-one else could do what she did for me. No-one. She taught me so much." The Empress scuffed another tear from the corner of her eye.

"She was like that." I said. "She did that a lot."

"No, sorry Freddie but I don't think you've quite got it yet. I have plenty of friends. Loads of them. Tons of them. But they're all older than me. They're all friends of Mum or Dad first, before me. I can think of Dandelion, or Yarpen or Zoltan. Anna is a friend too after a fashion but they all came to me through my history or, now, they all come to me because they want something. I find that I get lonely now and the only person. The only person who seemed to like me for being me was Francesca.

"Some people accused her of doing it on purpose. They used to think that she was pulling the wool over my eyes or that it was all some kind of long term play on the part of your family. I heard that one so often that I was even hyper cautious in my treatment of her and my reluctance to let her into my life. Now I resent the time that I lost because of that.

"She would laugh at me when she caught me being too formal with her. But then she would tell me how much it hurt her. But then she offered to leave if it was causing me trouble and I found that I genuinely believed that she meant it if I thought it would help, she was that selfless.

"She had this knack of knowing when to make a joke to lighten the mood or suggest some kind of mischief when she thought I was getting to serious. She would skewer me with some form of sarcasm or a cutting barb if, as she put it, I was getting to far up my own ass. She used to hug me when I wept with the pressure of it all and she knew. She knew when I needed to do all of those things.

"No knight, or guard or foreign dignitary could get past her when she had decided that I had had enough for the day.

"And every day she would wake me up with breakfast and a smile to warn me that my secretary was coming with the days appointments. There are times when I think that she must have been exhausted but she always had a smile for me and a smile for everyone else. Eventually it dawned on the people that surrounded me that Francesca really was, just that nice.

"I loved her. I really did."

She looked at me side-long. I don't know what she saw in my face as I was too busy listening to pass judgement but she saw something.

"Oh not like that." She said with a smile and a little gentle scorn at the idea. It took me a while to notice what she was talking about though. "Not that my tastes don't occasionally run in that direction and not that I wasn't tempted, but in every way that your elder sister is into women, your younger sister is into men. I was only a little disappointed but only because it meant that at some point in the future it would mean that she would fall in love with some dashing young courtier and I would have to let her go. Instead... Instead I loved her like a sister.

"A little sister and the closest friend that I've ever made that didn't come to me because of what and who I am and what I've been through. She was my friend and I could teach her about the world and she could teach me about living a life without fear."

The Empress sniffed again and wiped her face.

"Goddess but I miss her."

She shook herself.

"But I got side-tracked. I've been thinking a lot about your sister in the weeks since she disappeared. Before she vanished, I could have put none of that into words. But that's how I think of her now. The little sister that I never had. As a result of her influence I have made it my business to get to know your family Not as well as I would like but I have also spent some time talking to Emma before you arrived and your brothers and I have decided not to destroy your family after all."

She grinned at my reaction.

"Uh...thank you?" I attempted.

"Don't worry. But it is pointless to think that the Coulthards are without power and I must bind you to me in some way. Someone suggested a marriage of some kind."

I shifted uncomfortably a little.

"Don't worry Freddie you're off the hook. If it does your ego any good though I would choose you over your other eligible brother though. I like him but there's something about him that makes me uncomfortable. I suspect that he would really struggle with the idea of being subservient to me."

She pulled a face.

"But that was never really a serious thought. Instead I have decided to follow through on my initial thought and I have adopted the five of you into my family."

"What?"

"Yes. On an unofficial basis. You won't have any of the rank, or the land and you certainly won't fall into the line of succession. But I have two Fathers, a Mother, a dead mother who I no longer remember and a Stepmother who it's debatable whether or not my stepmother is older than me or not. I was already thinking of Francesca as a sister and I find that I like the idea of having Emma and you as further extended family. I like Mark and I'm sorry that we won't have time for me to get to know him better and Sam makes me laugh when he's not talking about silly things."

"That sounds like Sam."

"Yes." She laughed. "Of all of you though it is you that I know the least. I know that you're leaving but I hope that we can become friends in the future. I need friends Freddie. I need people that will tell me when they think I'm taking myself too seriously. People that will tease me and cheer me up. Get drunk with me and laugh and cry and remind me that underneath the crown I am still a human being after all. Too many people see Cirilla the Empress rather than Ciri the woman. Francesca did that for me and I've missed that these last few days. Will you do that for me?"

"I will do my best to serve Your Majesty."

She searched my face to see if I was joking. Fortunately for both of us, I was indeed joking and she laughed.

"Good, I'm glad. So..."

She handed the envelope over. "That is your warrant. If you produce that at any Imperial Waystation it will mean that you can get food, a bed and reinforcement if you need it. It doesn't put you in the chain of command though so the soldiers won't just drop everything and run off, when and where you tell them."

I nodded and took the envelope.

"I will continue our investigation here and tear the continent apart until we find some sign of Francesca. I will be in touch with you and the rest of your...The rest of _our_ family if and when we find something."

I nodded again.

"I will be talking to your sister anyway as I want her to have a look over the Imperial treasury and see what she thinks."

"I doubt she will like it." I commented.

"Nor will the people who currently run the treasury, but I have questions that they always evade and my head for numbers is not brilliant. Especially when I'm juggling international relations, military strategies and the rest."

She sniffed in derision.

"Bankers are bankers the world over." I commented.

"Ain't that the truth. I wonder if..." She shook her head. "I will think on that.

"Anyway.

"The Lodge are worried about the type of magic that was used to invoke or imitate the "Jack" entity as they can't figure it out and that's making them nervous. They think that that kind of magic is dangerous and I'm inclined to agree. If it helps, My mother and other elder sister approved of Francesca too. They will be in touch with me and I will pass on what I find out."

I nodded. " _Other_ elder sister."

"Oh, Triss Merigold."

"I see."

"What are you going to be doing?" She asked me.

"We made enemies." I said. "Kerrass and I, while we were on the road together so we're going to investigate some of those things. We are going to start by going up to Sam's "Kalayn" lands in the north to see about the remnants of the cult that killed my father. Also, we know that Jack didn't care enough and that the Amber's crossing beast is banished but are there any other creatures of that ilk that might want to take something out of our skin. Kerrass also has some other sources that he wants to talk to to see if we can find out more about the type of magic that was used from that angle. Lord Shit-head that tried to use Ariadne as a weapon was using some ancient magic of a type that I don't think people know much about, when he tried to control her. Where did _he_ get it from and was that magic part of that? That's the kind of thing that we're going to be looking at."

"Travelling over land? You know that I have Sorcerer's that can gate you wherever you want to go right? It's good to be the Empress."

"I know but Kerrass insisted that we travel overland. Something about some of his "sources" wanting to remain private."

"Mmm. Witchers and their ways."

She got up and dusted off her clothes. "Well Freddie. Good luck. I'll look forward to seeing you again. Apart from anything else, I expect an invitation to the wedding. I really want to see how _that_ story ends."

I tried for a smile "I suspect that between Emma and Ariadne, most of those decisions are out of my hands and I'm already astonished about how many decisions about my wedding have been taken off me. My brothers have already decided who's going to be my best man and who's going to be performing the ceremony."

The Empress laughed.

"Besides." I went on. "You've just informally adopted me as your brother. I would imagine you'll want to stick your oar into the matter as well."

She put her head on one side and considered me. "I might at that. You would probably be happy with a quiet country chapel wouldn't you."

"The prospect of eloping had occurred." I admitted "But now?" I shrugged. "I'll be honest I haven't thought about it very much."

She nodded. "Well think about it Freddie." She gave me a hug. It's an odd feeling hugging an Empress informally.

She climbed onto her horse, waved and rode off. Now that I was looking for it I could see several hidden guardsmen moving through the undergrowth.

I returned to my seated position and stared out across the city.

All told it took me three days to recover after I woke up from my time spent with Jack. Those first days were spent in tears, in pain and resting. On the third day, the anger that I was beginning to feel at the entire circumstance began to overtake and overwhelm what feelings of helplessness and horror that had been controlling me for so long.

I rose, bathed, ate a proper meal and walked out to meet my family to ask them what we were going to do next.

They didn't have an answer. There were no answers. Of course there weren't any answers. We had to wait.

We had to become passive observers in the entire situation while the Imperial investigators continued their investigation.

As I understood it the investigation was continuing in three different directions. The first was that this was still some kind of attack against the Empress and therefore against the Empire. The second was that this was an attack against the Coulthard family. The third possibility was that this was something else. The first move in a play that was still not obvious, something that was still developing with unknown motives and an unguessable end goal.

As I was one of the people being investigated I could only watch on the periphery but I got the general feeling that the third option was the one that people were afraid of.

After the three options as to why the thing had happened, there seemed to be two different threads that were being taken up and pursued. The first was the mundane one. The one that basically needed the legwork and the manpower. These were the people that were in the process of searching buildings and boarding trading vessels. They were the people that were talking to ambassadors and making excessively veiled threats on an international scale to see if they could squirrel out some sign of what had happened and why.

They were the ones that asked me the most questions.

They had Mark, Sam, Emma, Laurelen and I, at first in separate rooms but then in pairs and together as we were questioned and probed about everything. So many things. Almost from the day that I was born. They were asking me questions about things that I could barely remember. Things that I hadn't considered. Things that seemed strange and unconnected in my mind. Things that seemed to make no sense but every answer that I gave was noted down carefully by the scribes and the questioners.

I had to go through all of my adventures with Kerrass. Both the ones that I have written about in these chronicles as well as those adventures that I haven't talked about because they didn't seem to have anything interesting to say.

I went through my private thoughts. They questioned me about Ariadne at a length that I found insulting and about my interactions with the Princess Dorn in a way that I found repulsive. More than one session had to be stopped because I became upset and violent. Every time we had to start again after a break, they reminded me that I had done nothing wrong. That they didn't suspect me of any wrong doing. That I was innocent. But then the questions started again and my rage would be banked up and begin to grow and grow until the next time that I exploded.

At one point I remember asking why they didn't just have a magic user of some kind come to read my mind. Their answer was interesting.

"Because they are pursuing their own enquiries." was the answer.

I didn't pursue it. Nor did I point out that it would save everyone a whole bunch of time if they just knew what was going on in my head. The undertone seemed to be very significant. Someone somewhere had decided that the magical investigation needed to be kept separate from the mundane one.

For the life of me I couldn't tell why it was significant or in what way it was significant.

But it was.

So they kept asking me the questions and I kept answering them until I would begin to get upset and then lose my temper.

I didn't see Kerrass at all in that time.

Then I had another conversation that was both better and worse than the interrogations at the hands of the Intelligence service.

I came into a meeting where I faced five women who were sat behind a table. I was sat in a plain chair, next to me was a simple table with a jug of water, a jug of wine and a cup.

The five women were, in order from left to right as I faced them. Lady Keira Metz, Lady Yennefer of Vengerberg, another woman who was introduced to me as Lady Fringilla Vigo in the middle, The Empress and finally on the right sat Phillipa Eilhart.

The meeting seemed to be chaired by Lady Fringilla Vigo.

"Welcome Lord Frederick," she said. Her voice was silky, obviously trained and only very slightly accented. I could tell that she was a native to Toussaint despite the black dress that she was wearing when I was more used to the bright colours more usual in the Toussaint court. "Please be seated." She gestured and I sat down.

"Help yourself to something to drink."

I caught myself glancing at Lady Eilhart regularly. She didn't seem to be paying that much attention to me though as she was scribbling on a piece of paper while she cross-referenced things to a large book that was propped open next to her. She seemed some how less than she had appeared in my visions. Less... I suppose...Less of a caricature of herself.

I felt incredibly guilty suddenly.

"Lord Frederick?" Lady Vigo asked, smiling gently. "I understand that you've been through a lot Lord Frederick, but are you entirely well?"

I shook myself. "Just tired Lady Vigo, just tired."

"And you have every right to be. We will do our best not to keep you but we thought it was vital that we have this meeting as soon as humanly possible. But I hope that you won't take it incorrectly if we express our dismay at the disappearance of your sister. Each of us know Lady Francesca, some of us well, and all of us share your loss keenly."

It was not the first time that I had heard that sentiment expressed and as always I had to force down a certain amount of rage. How could they share my loss? How could they possibly know what it felt like enough to share it?

I managed to swallow it though.

This time. I had not been as successful in the past, nor would I be again in the future.

"That isn't just in our status as members of the Lodge that we say that," said Lady Eilhart looking up from what she was writing. "But also on a personal level." I was astonished. She held my gaze for a couple of moments before returning to what she was doing.

The Empress was looking at the table in front of her.

"We asked you here today, not to dissect the events or what led to them." Lady Vigo began, "We are well aware of the magical things that led to the "Laughing Jack" attacks and we are doing our best to properly investigate them as well in the hope that it will give us further leads. Not only to help us find Francesca but also to find out about the people that are doing these things. The magic that was used to force that poor man to do those things was utterly alien to our understanding and we need to investigate. But that's not what this meeting is about."

I was about to open my mouth to speak but she forestalled me.

"This meeting is about the entity Jack." She told me. "We are aware of the magic that was used to enable you to communicate with the creature. We know the ritual and it is noted down in our records. However what it did not do was act the way it should have done.

"So the purposes of this meeting is to figure out what went wrong but also so that we can learn more about the entity itself. We would like you to tell us about your interactions with him, as factually as you can manage. At the same time we would ask that you allow one of us to enter your mind so that we can assess what was done as well. The difference between what your words might tell us and what you might have seen or felt can be telling as sometimes that can help us tell if there is anything missing from your account. Do you agree?"

I considered. I desperately wanted to say no. I didn't want to relive those moments.

"I agree," I forced myself to say.

"Good." Lady Vigo took care to keep my gaze locked. "Do you have a preference as to who you allow into your mind?"

"No," I will admit to answering before I had chance to second guess myself.

Lady Vigo nodded. "Phillipa, if you wouldn't mind?"

Lady Eilhart finished the thought that she was writing and nodded as I shivered.

"This doesn't hurt Lord Frederick." Lady Eilhart said firmly but not without sympathy. "If you should feel any pain or discomfort then know that I will feel it too as I will be making notes of these things. It will be recorded in this book. Do you have any questions?"

"Would I be able to have a copy of what we talk about?" I asked.

"That would depend." Said Lady Vigo, "On what we determine is safe to be released." She tried to soften her words with a smile. "We don't want some layman or unprepared person accidentally letting Jack loose on the world after all."

I nodded. I sensed that I wouldn't get any further than that. Lady Eilhart muttered a phrase and her quill left her hand to dance over the paper and I felt a gentle but firm presence in my head. It was like a pressure just behind my eye.

"Then we will begin at the beginning. As defined from the moment that Lady Yennefer started her summoning."

Not the most pleasant afternoon I've ever spent. But it was far more gentle than the interrogations that I'd had earlier. I gave my account. They asked infrequent questions to tease out extra details and things that I had forgotten.

Then they went back over and made some more notes before the pressure behind my eyes seemed to vanish.

Then there were some more questions but this time it was asked of Phillipa Eilhart.

I nearly fell off my chair when Lady Vigo asked me if _I_ had any questions that I wanted to know the answer to.

"Well Lord Frederick." Lady Vigo finished leaning back in her chair after checking that there were no more questions to be asked. "An interesting tale to be sure." She had another look up and down the table although I noticed that she spent most time looking at Yennefer and Madame Eilhart before turning back to me.

"We have a proposition for you Lord Frederick."

I felt my mouth hanging open in astonishment. "Oh?"

"Yes. You and Jack seemed to agree that you would write a book on the subject of him. We have discussed the matter..."

It occurred to me then that the significant looks were them all talking via telepathy.

"... and we agree that such a book is important. However we would suggest that you would only be able to provide part of the story. We wondered if you would like to collaborate with one of our number on a treatise on Jack to hopefully help prevent future mishaps and to spread a bit of understanding."

My mouth hung open again.

"Such is the way of a scholar." I said.

"Excellent. Then you shall write those parts of the book about the being itself and we shall provide those chapters to do with the magical theory involved. Do you have any objection to Lady Yennefer as a collaborator?"

"Uh no?" I wondered if she was being punished in some way.

"Good then, it's settled."

The women rose and I realised that the meeting was over. The Empress had been summoned out of a side door by a message earlier.

"I'll be in touch to discuss the book." Yennefer told me as she passed. "I would do so now but I think you've had enough for one day." She smiled slightly and pushed her hand through her hair. "Get some rest Lord Frederick." She left.

I stood by myself as Keira Metz and Lady Vigo stood talking to each other. Lady Eilhart was gathering up her things.

It took a bit of effort but I managed to screw up my courage and approached her.

"Lady Eilhart if I may," I forced out.

"Mmm?" She collected everything into a satchel and hugged the book to her chest in the manner of a school mistress.

"I wanted to apologise Lady Eilhart."

"Whatever for?" She seemed genuinely astonished.

"My vision?"

She seemed confused for a moment before chuckling in a deep and throaty voice.

"You're talking about casting me as the villain in your hallucinatory melodrama."

I felt myself bridle. "I'm not sure I would put it quite like that."

She laughed again and I was surprised at how musical it was.

"Lord Frederick, you were trained as a politician and a courtier when you were younger yes?"

"I was."

"Then surely you are aware of the benefits of a carefully cultivated false reputation." She sighed. "We have all lost a lot Lord Frederick. Far too much. If you had told me where I would be now, even ten years ago I would have slapped you for cracking a bad joke. I have seen a lot and have been betrayed by many. I have been offended by many more than that. You were not in control of your hallucinations Lord Frederick and I have carefully cultivated an attitude that inspires fear rather than trust."

She grasped my shoulder.

"I know that I would never betray the Empress. She is too important on so many levels. But that doesn't mean I won't fight her tooth and nail, if I have to or if it's about something I need or want."

She smiled.

"I liked your sister too Lord Frederick and if she can be found then I will find her. If she can't be found then I will find the people that did this and I will help you end them, on behalf of that poor man that was forced to do the crime if not on Lady Francesca's behalf. This is one of those few circumstances where an out and out wrong has been committed and it must be righted. After years of moral ambiguity it's actually quite refreshing to have it this way rather than having to live in the moral grey areas."

She touched my shoulder again and moved past me leaving me to pick up my jaw from the floor.

It was Princess Dorn who found me next. Sleeping Beauty herself made her own way up the trail to come and find me.

I had changed my viewpoint a little so I could watch out for Kerrass. My suspicion was that as he had told the Empress where to find me, he also might have told a number of other people. A suspicion that was born out by the arrival of Princess Dorn.

She was dressed in a simple dress, devoid of any of the ornate stitch-work or ornamentation that she usually wore. There was no make-up and no jewellery but there was no disguising just how beautiful she is. She walked up, holding her skirts in one hand to where I had already risen to greet her. She also wore a hooded cloak to keep the rain off. When she saw me she stopped moving for a movement, I couldn't see much of her face yet as it was hidden inside the hood. She was carrying one of those folding stools in her other hand.

After a little while, she seemed to make her mind up and approached me.

"May I join you?" she asked after another long period of staring at my face. Her voice seemed hard and brittle to me.

"Please." She unfolded the stool and perched on it, adjusting her cloak and hood so that she could see me and I her while also doing her best to stay dry.

The gentle rain had begun again a short while after the Empress had left. In all honesty I found that I was enjoying it. I felt as though the world was being reborn in some hard to define way and I had spent a bit of time turning my face towards the water and letting it wash over me.

I might pay for it later when I needed to clean myself up but right then and there it felt good to do so.

I sat before her, crossed my legs and rested my back against the tree. It was a little horrifying to discover that I was no longer as limber as I was and was grateful for the extra back support.

"I'm sorry," she began. "I should have thought to bring you a seat as well."

I smiled at her. "If the worst thing that happens over the coming weeks and months is that I should get a muddy arse, then I will be doing quite well." I was trying for a laugh but it seemed that she was beyond that.

For someone who is, justifiably, thought of as one of, if not the, most beautiful women in the world, the Princess looked absolutely awful. She was always pale but somehow she looked sickly pale at the moment. Huge dark rings under her eyes and those same eyes were bloodshot as though she had been weeping a lot. Now that I was looking for it I found a small tremor in her hands.

"Is everything alright Highness?" I asked.

She laughed bitterly. "I should be asking you that Lord Frederick. You are the one that has lost someone close to..." her voice petered out and she was no longer looking at me. Staring off into the rain mist.

"I'm sorry Lord Frederick. I truly am."

I decided that the best thing I could do at the moment was to let her talk.

"I've been thinking about this for a while Lord Frederick and I apologise but I decided that I couldn't leave what I have to say unsaid. I can only ask that you hear me out and then, when I'm done, I hope that you can forgive me."

"Ok,"

She looked at my face for the first time and I could see the tears on her face, almost hidden by the rain but not quite.

"He's devoted to you, you know." She said after a while.

"Who?" I asked stupidly.

She managed a bitter laugh. "You know that for a clever man you can be incredibly stupid sometimes?"

"It has been said before."

She nodded. "You're making this difficult."

She took another deep breath. "I'm talking about Kerrass."

"I see." I said carefully. I had the feeling that I was talking to someone who was on the verge of shattering like glass.

"No," she said. "I don't think you do." She took another deep breath. "Kerrass is devoted to you. I strongly suspect that he would die for you if you asked him or he would die for you if it meant that it would save your life. He's taken on one of those foolish male things that means he thinks he owes you a great debt."

She looked away again.

"I know you're going away, tramping through the countryside with him, doing what you need to do to assuage your own sense of guilt and grief over what has happened. And I don't want you to think that I'm unsympathetic. Francesca was kind to me when I arrived at court. She made me feel at ease and relaxed in a way that I hadn't felt since before I went to sleep. So I understand your feelings, I really do. But, I need to say this."

She looked me square in the eye. She might as well have pinned me to the tree with a dagger as her lips drew back from her teeth in a snarl that looked all the more vicious for the fact that her face was clearly unused to the expression.

"If he dies. If you lead him into some un-winnable battle or if he sacrifices his life to save yours. If you come back from this latest stage of your journey and he does not. Then I will kill you."

My mouth must have fallen open.

"This is not a joke." She went on. "This is not some kind of empty threat, nor is it some kind of childish response. If you get him killed? I will see you dead."

There was a fury in her that I had not seen. I thought I had seen pain, sadness and a certain amount of anguish but now I saw a rage that I will admit, I had not thought that she was capable of.

"I understand." I said carefully.

"I still don't think you do." She snarled, her eyes blazing. "Whether I have to spend what little money I have left, trade in some kind of political or economic favour or whatever. I will have you brought to me and I will have your entrails pulled out. I..."

She seemed to fold in on herself as the rage which seemed to have been giving her what strength she needed left her as abruptly as it started.

"I can't lose him too Lord Frederick. I just... I just can't." The anguish was back in her voice. She was shaking and I finally managed to recognise what was going on with her. The sheer effort of containing her own survivors guilt and her own traumas and her own emotions had taken their toll. Now they were spilling out of her in waves that she just didn't have the strength to control.

She had clenched her hands into fists. Her eyes had lost the shine of Fury and instead she was pleading with me. She shuddered and shook until she had to close her eyes.

Carefully, I got up from my seated position and shuffled over until I could take her into my arms and hold her.

I had forgotten, that despite her age of over one hundred and twenty years, despite her power and her goodness, wisdom, beauty and intelligence. I had forgotten that she was a sixteen year old girl who was now in a strange world surrounded by strange people and all of her friends and family were dead.

"I'm sorry." I said softly as I began to feel her relax. "I had forgotten and I didn't realise. I'm so sorry."

She wept for a long time. I don't know how long and I just did my best to comfort her as best as I could. How do you help a person who has been through everything that this young woman had been through? Eventually, by stages though, I could feel her claw her self control back. Or maybe she had run out of emotions just then, I don't know and would be willing to bet that she didn't know the answer to that either.

I pulled away first as I didn't want to overstay my welcome.

"I'm sorry." She said after another minute or two which she spent cleaning herself up with a handkerchief which she had tucked inside her sleeve. "After everything you and your family have been through the last thing you needed was to have to deal with an angry and upset princess."

"It's ok."

"No it's not." She said. "But thank you for saying it. I should be cheering you on, telling you that I will do anything in my power to help you and telling you that I will do my best to help your other family members through their own grief. I will do all of those things, of course I will but I couldn't get past how angry I am with all of this."

"It's ok."

"No, it's not." She said again. "Goddess but it's so hard to explain."

"You don't have to explain."

"Yes I do." she said sternly, just a hint of her anger coming back through. "Yes I do."

I realised that my role in this conversation was to listen so I settled back trying to be as gentle as I could.

"Where to begin really?" She, ironically, began. "Ever since I was old enough to remember I've been told that I was going to marry someone. It was like the entire purpose of my being was to marry and produce children for the good of the Kingdom. Beyond that I had no...reason for existence.

"Then I was cursed and I woke up one thousand, two hundred and thirty seven years later to find that this part of my life has, essentially, not changed. Only now it's more desperate. I simply must get married and produce heirs to preserve the future of my Kingdom. I've been out of my enchanted sleep for maybe eight months and already I've met more eligible men of a marriageable age than I could reasonably remember.

"I have hated all of them, with no exceptions and when you write this up, as I know you will, I want you to say that and I want you to tell them why.

"The reason is this. When I look at these people I see one of two things. The first thing is disgust. Rather naively I asked why once and it turns out that to a certain kind of modern noble I am "damaged goods." I am quaint, and backwards. I have no father or mother to negotiate with and my Kingdom is rather far from the centre of the Empire so the chances of any kind of "society" forming there are slim,"

She sniffed derisively,

"Plus there is the rather obvious problem that I am no longer a virgin and have been the mother to several bastards. The fact that I was raped and that what bastards were sired on me were the product of said rapes doesn't seem to enter into the equation. This has made these people think of me as being damaged goods or "soiled" in some way.

"Their words, not mine,"

I managed to contain my loathing and did my best to keep my face still.

"But that kind of honest disgust is almost better than the other thing that I get to see. That being the expression of lust that comes over them."

She sobbed a little and looked down at her hands. She seemed to realise that she was wringing them in her dress causing creases and almost hurting herself. She visibly forced herself to let go and place her hands flat on her legs. She was frowning in concentration as she did so.

"Again this breaks down into two kinds of lust. The first kind is when the person doesn't see me. What they see is a child bearing machine that also comes with the ability to refer to themselves as "King" while having access to all of the land, mineral and trade wealth that my nation commands. The fact that "I have a pretty face and a nice pair of tits" is an unexpected bonus.

"Again, I am quoting things that have actually been said, to my face as well as behind my back.

"But then the absolute worst is the expression of raw sexual lust that comes over a man's face when he sees me. It's like they're hungry or something. On more than one occasion I've seen men visibly start to salivate at the prospect of marrying me. I don't think that you men realise how _ugly_ you look when you do that. When your mouth hangs open, your eyes hood themselves and you start to sweat and lose control of your intelligence. I've heard other women describe it as being endearing but I always though of it as being disgusting. Then, after a superhuman effort, I manage to _not_ take offence before making excuses and leaving which is normally when the man's relatives and friends start trotting out the insults about "damaged goods," and "uncouth whore-bitch."

"Again, I'm not making those things up."

I found I was grinding my teeth.

"My subjects look at me with adoration. They don't see the girl, the woman underneath the crown and they need to believe in that otherwise they would look up from what they were doing and realise how desperate our situation is. But other than them, only three men have ever looked at me differently. Only three."

She looked at me out of the corner of her eye.

"I don't know whether it's because of my history, or what was done to me while I was asleep or because of what I've seen and heard since I woke up but I find I've got astonishingly low standards now when it comes to men. From my perspective the bar is set awfully low but, to date, only three people have passed my little test.

"All a man has to do to catch my eye is to look at me and see _me_. Not my Kingdom, not my history and not my appearance. That's all. That's not too much to ask is it?

"It sometimes seems so though. I've talked to the Empress and she has the same problem although she admits that she has, at least, known physical affection. She pointed out that as I'm already, provably, not a virgin and no, before you get concerned, I don't blame you for letting that piece of information out of the bag. It was already well known throughout most of the world that I had been raped multiple times.

"She asked why I don't take a lover or something. I told her that I was a bit young for that sort of thing wasn't I?

"She looked at me strangely as I recall.

"But I don't have that luxury. My reputation is the reputation of my Kingdom. I don't have the Imperial armies to back me up if I feel insulted or upset by someone. All there is, is me.

"I've left the topic.

"Only three men have ever looked at me the way I want to be looked at, where they see a person rather than...something else.

"One of those people is you."

I very carefully said nothing.

"Unfortunately, Your heart is given elsewhere and the lady in question is someone I hold in high esteem which killed the idea of any kind of romance for me almost as soon as the thought occurred. I did, briefly explore whether your brother Samuel was cut from a similar cloth as yourself but no...I like your brother but there was something about him that just made my skin crawl."

I was still telling myself that I should never lose an opportunity to keep my mouth shut.

"Another person was Sir Thomas of the Imperial Guard." She nearly sobbed again. "I understand that you were with him when he died."

I nodded again. The memory was still fresh for me and a lump had grown in my throat.

"I'm sorry," she said, gently enough to break my heart. "I didn't mean to bring up painful memories."

"No, it's ok. I didn't know you and he knew each other."

"Only in passing. I met him at one of the early balls. It was plain that he had a bit of a crush on your sister but he was kind, gentle, intelligent and funny. I made some discreet enquiries and discovered that he was part of the Imperial royal family, albeit a distant one. I made some more enquiries in the way of such things, his mother told me that he didn't think he had a chance with me which explained some of his attitude towards me but I found that I liked it.

"Then he died. I didn't even know him, not really anyway but I've taken his death hard."

"I'm sorry."

"I know and I've been working every day to convince myself that it wasn't your fault. To feel a bit less guilty that it was you that was with him as he died rather than me but... I didn't know him but I miss him. I miss your sister too. She was kind to me when she didn't need to be."

"She would be."

"But the only person left, who treats me like a person rather than my rank, my looks or my lands. The only person left is Kerrass. I can't lose him too Freddie."

I didn't say anything.

"I know that I'm sixteen. I know that this might well be just some kind of teenage crush, made worse by the fact that he has properly saved my life and watched over me for many many years. He's handsome to look at and he is kind to me. He...He _cares_ Freddie. He loves _me._ Not my body, not my land or my rank. He loves _me._ "

The tears stood out in her eyes.

"I don't know if this is love that I feel. I don't know if this is some kind of childish infatuation or what the fuck it is but at the same time I know that if I lost _him_ as well as everything else that I have lost I... I don't know if I could... I don't know if I would survive it Freddie. I don't know if I could..."

I put my arms round her again and she sobbed.

"You probably think this is all incredibly childish of me." She said.

"No. No I don't." I said. "No-one, least of all me knows even a fraction of what you've been through or what you're going through. If I may though?"

"What?"

"Have you thought about talking about this to someone?"

"Who could _I_ possibly talk to?"

I sighed. "Just off the top of my head. The Empress, Emma, Laurelen, Ariadne, your mother," the mental imagine of the Princess talking to Maleficent about her woes crossed my mind suddenly. "Well maybe not your mother. She might hunt down and torch every idiotic man on the continent. I apologise on behalf of my gender by the way."

"So it might be a good idea after all," I was relieved to see some of her humour coming back. Even if it was just a little part.

"Where was I...Ah yes. A priest of some kind. I would suggest a priestess of Melitele as they tend to be a lot more understanding when it comes to this kind of thing. I understand that you still have Marion to talk to"

"Marion doesn't understand. She thinks that a lot of the societal rules about monogomy, romance, polygamy, sex and all the realms in between are a little...I'm, going to say unusual. She would ask whether my problem is a physical one before offering to make arrangements."

"The mind boggles." I commented.

The Princess giggled. "I'll tell her you said that."

"Please do. Give her my best."

"I will."

"My point though, Highness, is that you don't have to carry this burden on your own. Share the load a little. Add me to the list of people that you can talk to if you want. I'm sure you can convince a Sorceress to get word to me. Speaking of Sorceresses, Madame Yennefer has forgotten more about how Witcher's work than I have ever known. If you want some insight into Kerrass' mindset then you could do worse than talking to her."

"All good points. And I do feel better for talking about it."

"Good. Some more uncomfortable points now. Have you talked to Kerrass about how you feel?"

"I didn't have to." She said, wiping her face again. "He knew somehow. I think it's another reason that he's chosen to go travelling with you again. He thinks that some time apart might change my mind about him... He might be right after all of that. He says that we can't be together. That he is a Witcher and that I am a Princess and that just won't work. It doesn't help that he's right."

I blew some air out of my lungs.

"Look," I said. "I love Kerrass like a brother. In many ways I love him more than my brothers and I want more than anything to see him happy. I know that he loves you."

"I do too."

"But I also know that he sometimes enjoys torturing himself with his past history. He hates himself for so much of it, including what he allowed to happen to you."

She opened her mouth to protest.

"I know, I know. That wasn't his fault. If he'd fought, he would have died and then not be able to come back and help wake you up. But he likes to torture himself. There's a lot of darkness in his past and he hates himself for that. I don't know what I'm saying here but I think it's possible that he might be depriving himself of your company to punish himself for his own stupid...so very stupid...reasons.

"That's not to say that he's wrong. You are a Princess and he's a Witcher. But another reason that he might feel uncomfortable is the fact that, you might be over one hundred and twenty years old but you still look sixteen and he is..."

"Older? I know."

"So give him some time. And give yourself some time as well. I do remember being sixteen and I know you want everything yesterday while also realising how childish you can sometimes be. Believe me I remember the feeling well. But give yourself time."

I laughed. "When I was sixteen I was absolutely besotted with a woman. You'll like her. Her name's Shani and she's a doctor in Oxenfurt. I was convinced that we were going to spend the rest of our lives together and raise many happy children. It took me two years to ask her out and although she did it gently, she broke my heart. I remember that my tutor gave me a version of this speech and it didn't help me then as I'm sure it's not helping you now. But now, Shani is a good friend of mine and I am engaged to be married to a higher vampire who I'm madly in love with. The world is a funny place."

"I know. I'm sorry."

"Finally..." I grinned slyly, "You are the Queen of Dorn. The only person more powerful than you in your realm is the Empress. If you decide that it's ok for things to be reversed and that all you need is some kind of consort whose only job is to make you pregnant occasionally while you do all of the ruling. Then you can do that. Get the Empress to back you up. Have your mother standing nearby grinning at the poor man. I guarantee that he won't complain if you then go off and have "adventures" with whoever you like. And if people don't like that? Fuck 'em. Your people will refuse to follow anyone else anyway.

"Or alternatively. Get your mother to have a word."

She laughed at the idea.

"Lastly," I ventured. "I will say this. And I don't want you to think that I'm being self-serving here, although I am a little."

"What is it?"

"Kerrass makes his own choices. It was him that suggested that we depart on the road. It was him that has come up with a list of places for us to go and people for us to visit. I will do my best to defend him, the same as I would ever do, but he's a big man now. He makes his own choices and sometimes, he doesn't like being looked after."

"I know. I know all of that. But I was, and am a little, still so very angry. Not just at you but the entire world. At my parents for getting me in this mess. At you for taking Kerrass from me. For Jack from taking Thomas from me. All of the little injustices that are not my fault but are also not the fault of those people that I find that I blame. They all mount up and I don't know what to do with them."

"I know. I'm so sorry."

"I'm sorry too. More than I can say. I'm so sorry about your sister. As I say. I liked her, I would have liked to know her better. I think we could have been friends if we had had the time, you know, to know each other a little better."

I nodded.

We hugged again and it seemed that we had both run out of things to say. She gathered up her chair, swore at it a little as she remembered how to fold it up. Gave me a sad little wave before setting off to go back to town.

I had to turn away and have a little cry myself, for a while.

In the end, the search for my sister began to peter out after four weeks as the Knights Errant, the Imperial forces and just about everyone else began to report in to the palace that she couldn't be found in Toussaint.

The final report was delivered to the Empress five weeks and six days after she disappeared and she accepted the report calmly and utterly without facial expression. She read it twice. Calmly and quietly. At the end she had a few questions for the knights and officers in command of the search before dismissing all of us to be alone with her thoughts.

Shortly after that we received word that the Empress had decided to leave Toussaint and head back to the capital city of Nilfgaard of the golden towers and that her escort and bureaucracy needed to be ready to move within the week.

Apparently the search of Toussaint as a whole uncovered the culprits of one murder: A woman had discovered that her abusive husband had arranged for her younger lover to be killed and had buried him in a ditch. The searchers had dug up the grave thinking that it might have been Francesca but were disappointed. The woman was awaiting trial when I left and I haven't heard anything since.

As well as this, the search uncovered three petty smuggling operations of relatively minor importance. People selling expensive wine before it was properly aged and passing it off as the real thing. They also routed six bandit camps and dislodged a larger bandit force that had, apparently, been troubling the countryside for some time.

There were also two brothels that were acting illegally. Prostitution is legal in Toussaint but the operation has to be run according to the safety of the prostitutes. These two brothels were the kind of place that nobles who think of themselves as being "above the law," went to to rough up the girls and boys a little bit. They also found a necromancer who could just about animate a rabbit and a local branch of the cult of the Lion headed spider.

All of these things were found but absolutely no sign of my sister. It was as though she had vanished into thin air.

As far as I could tell, as the Empress had let me read a copy of the report, there was no question that hadn't been asked when it came to the local investigation. Divers had searched the river as completely as they could with the help of the lady Keira Metz. It was suggested that Francesca could have drifted out to sea but that was deemed unlikely as the prevalent currents nearly always meant that anything the size of a body would be caught in the fisherman's nets or would float elsewhere where it would have been found long before it got to the sea.

One of the things that Toussaint boasts is it's own resident Witcher. A strand of the search had questioned whether or not my sister could have been taken and dumped into a nest of Necrophages and as such there wouldn't be anything left to find. Lord Geralt had argued that there are no Necrophage nests in the Duchy that would consume an entire body in one go. If there were Necrophages out and about, he suggested, then they would keep some of the body back to be enjoyed later in leaner times which meant that something would have been found.

The ships that had been in port had been one of the first things that had been searched and there was no sign of her. Orders had been given and the mouth of the river had been blockaded by the Imperial navy and nothing had got out to sea so the theory that a small fisherman's boat could have been loaded up with the body and sent out to sea was denied.

I read the report with great interest. I read it carefully and slowly, making notes about questions that I had and then crossed out the questions when it would turn out that that question had also been asked and answered later in the report. When I was done, I tore it up into the smallest pieces that I could manage and threw them on the fire before going out and getting as drunk as I've ever gotten in my life. Drunker than that time I had declared my undying love for Dr Shani in Oxenfurt and she had gently turned me down. Drunker than I got at my farewell party before departing on the road to meet Kerrass. Drunker than at my Fathers wake.

I got so drunk that I don't know how I got home that night and when I woke up, I was so ill that my kidney's actually hurt.

So drunk that it took me two days to recover.

It was that day that Kerrass came to me and came up with our plan. He told me that the Empress, Lord Voorhis and Nilfgaard as a whole would be handling the mundane investigation. That they would be chasing up political suspects and discussing the matter with nations and ambassadors, with nobles and merchants. He said that every avenue large and small from our families past would be investigated, from Francesca's past at court and he argued that no-one was more qualified to do those things than the Imperial Intelligence Service as led by Lord Voorhis.

That left the magical investigation. It was clear and obvious that the only way that Frannie could have dissappeared so comprehensively was by arcane means. That this was done in a way that circumvented the shield that the Lodge of Sorceresses had put over the city meant that this was a type of magic that ran contrary to established laws of magic and the Lodge were concerned by this. Justifiably so. That meant that they would be investigating the magical implications of my sisters disappearance and that no-one was more qualified than the Lodge of Sorceresses to investigate the magical aspect of the investigation.

But.

There was one element of investigation that was missing. That element was the monstrous element. He argued that, just because it was obvious that there was a magical element to Frannie's disappearance that suggested that an intelligence was behind the disappearance did not mean that the disappearance was masterminded by a government or magic user. He pointed out that there had just been another Conjunction of spheres which meant that there could be something new out there. Something Monstrous. He suggested that we had made enemies of several monstrous things and people during our travels. He said that, although we had both given our record of travel to both sides of the investigation, that there were things, places and Sources that only we knew about. Places that we could go and talk to. Enemies that we could pursue.

When I asked who I had in mind he talked about the Kalayn cult in the north. The lands of which he was still engaged by Sammy to go and investigate. He suggested Lord Fuck-face of Angral who had, thankfully, gotten the magic to control Ariadne wrong all that time ago. Where did he get those ideas from? He also suggested that just because Jack didn't care and the beast of Amber's crossing had been banished, didn't meant that there were other creatures and beings out there of similar power level that might hold a grudge.

He said words like "Schattenmann" and "Horseman." he also said that he had other sources that could be questioned. People and places that neither the Intelligence service, nor the Lodge of Sorceresses would consider contacting.

But we could.

Of course I took him up on the offer. I desperately needed to do something. Anything to feel useful, to feel as though I was doing...something.

But then I found that I didn't want to go. The strangest of feelings came over me. I was the last Coulthard still in residence in Toussaint.

Emma and Sam had gone first, taking Laurelen with them. The Imperial Investigators (the fact that they were referring to themselves as "The Imperial Auditors" was not encouraging) wanted to go through the business dealings to try and figure out if the family had annoyed anyone in particular from that angle. They also wanted to go through our correspondence as well as Father's historical correspondence and talk to many of our immediate neighbours.

I had asked the Empress to see if I could have a look at that report as well when it was done but she declined.

Mark went next. He had stayed for a while, resisting the pressure to leave and get back to his ministry. He sent the Investigators off with his own private secretary with orders that they could look at, read and talk to whoever and whatever they like. But the church delegation left about a week later and as Mark couldn't come up with another excuse to stay. He left.

Which left me. The Archchancellor had also gone a little while ago and had told me that I should take as much time as I needed. He did suggest that if I was going to be taking my time to go back to Oxenfurt then I might begin by gathering material for another book. I made non-committal noises and he clapped me on the shoulder in farewell.

The palace was running out of people that I knew. The Lodge of Sorceresses were going back to their places of power to return to their original research, jobs or to better work to understand the new form of magic that had entered the world and now I was the only Coulthard there. Now that the Empress was making preparations to leave, the Duchess was shifting the way things worked to be more in lone with the vision of knighthood and security that the Empress had set out for Toussaint.

She was taking no prisoners either.

But despite the almost constant queue of Knights Errant who would come to me and swear oaths, often still on the heron, that they wouldn't rest until Francesca was found and her kidnappers brought to justice. I found that I didn't want to leave.

I was being irrational and I knew it. I wanted to be here when they found her. I wanted her to know that I had never given up on her. That I had waited in Toussaint until she turned up. I suspect that this was part of what had held Mark back as well. Emma and Sam were more people of action and felt that they could best help Frannie by going and doing what they needed to do. But I am a romantic and I kept fantasising that she would be found. Held prisoner somewhere and that she would be brought back to Toussaint where I would catch her in my arms and make sure that no-one ever hurt her again.

It was ridiculous and the fact that I knew that made it worse.

But then the scene would play out in my brain, over and over again. The Empress, pale as a sheet in her dark blue overcoat looking up at the investigators. "So she's not here then?"

"No your majesty." The Empress had nodded before turning and dismissing us all.

I was being pointless. I was being useless and that hurt.

So abruptly, one day I rose from my bed and instead of dressing in my court finery I dressed in my newly purchased travelling clothes, took up my pack and my spear and left without looking back. I sent a messenger to Kerrass as to where he should meet me and that he should get supplies and I walked up the hill to wait.

The next person I saw was Kerrass. But he was not the next person that found me.

I was still sat leaning against the same tree. After watching the Princess head down the slope I must have dozed because I woke up suddenly with a hugely stiff neck. I managed to climb to my feet and stretch in an effort to get the kinks out and was just settling down to look down the path. In the distance, still some distance away, Kerrass was stood with two horses. He had his steel sword on his back and his equipment over his own horse that he had presumably brought from somewhere as well as buying my gear and strapping it to a riding horse that I had given him the money to buy for me.

When the time came to leave, I found that I just didn't want to go into town at all. I wanted privacy and secrecy.

I stared down at him as he was still quite a way down the path, standing still. He looked frustrated, maybe a little bored. He saw that I had finally noticed him and raised an arm to point. I followed his gesture to a small group of bushes that wasn't that far away from me.

At first I didn't see it. I even looked back at Kerrass to see if I had missed something before, rather impatiently, he gestured again.

Then I saw it. The bush was moving against the wind. Only slightly but with enough force that I could track it.

There was someone in the bushes moving back and forth.

I hung my head as a wave of shame engulfed me.

"You can come out." I called over.

The movement in the bush stopped abruptly.

I sighed and felt a smile begin to threaten my mouth.

"Please?" I asked.

Slowly, Ariadne's face came into view, peering through and round the undergrowth. I was again reminded of small, wild animals checking round corners to see if it was safe. When she saw that I had seen her she straightened out of view before walking out into the open.

Her hands were visibly trembling.

I didn't know what to do.

"I..." she began. "I would like to talk to you. If...you know...if that's ok."

"Of course it's ok. Do you want to come a bit closer?"

She shook her head sharply.

"What's wrong?" I asked her taking a step towards her. My arms were aching and I realised that I was fighting the urge to hug her. Then I wondered why I was fighting the urge. I took another step forward and she held up a hand to stop me.

"Please don't." She pleaded. "Please." She was trembling so hard her teeth were actively chattering. I came here to apologise."

I must have laughed in astonishment. If I could have chosen the absolute worst thing that I could have done, it was that one. She recoiled as if I had slapped her.

"I'm sorry," she said. Looking at her feet. "I'm so sorry."

"Sorry? What are you sorry for? I should be the one apologising to you. Fucking hell, I should be on my knees begging for you not to hate me," I told her although I don't think she believed me. "I was about to run off to see if I could find the people that took Frannie from us. I want to say something like..."I wanted to protect you," or something despite how blatantly ridiculous that is,"

I risked another step towards her. "Ariadne what do you have to be sorry for."

"I wasn't with you." She said in a small voice. "I didn't think, I should have been there with you, I didn't _help_ you through this and then when you just left I thought...I thought I had done it wrong."

"Done what wrong."

"Being your betrothed. Your fiancée. I should have sat with you and...and...been with you and been there to comfort you and... But I thought that that was useless. I thought that, you already had so many friends and family around you that I would be superfluous and unwanted. I thought I could do much more for you by concentrating on finding the people that did this."

She took a deep breath and the trembling visibly stopped. She clasped her hands before her. She was wearing the flowing black robe, formless and shifting that she had worn when we first met her although now I could tell that there was a woman under there and that the cloth was a lot more real. I saw past her that her staff was propped against a tree.

"I came to tell you that I have made a decision." She told me, her voice was calmer and more still. I wondered if she had put up an illusion or if her sudden calmness was because she had come to the rehearsed part of the speech.

"I have talked with Maleficent." She said. "and we have agreed that there is a flavour to the magic that was used to take your sister that we recognise. It is very old Frederick. Very very old and... your language doesn't have the word for it. Calling it evil would be wrong...It is...wrong. The elves would call it...llygredig anghywir which is still not quite right but it's closer."

My mouth moved as I worked out the words. "Corrupt." I said, "I think. I haven't heard the term before."

"No, no-one has. As I say, it's the closest I can get to. Maleficent and I both agree that such magic cannot be allowed to become prevalent again. My people, and hers worked hard to destroy it. Long before I was born, or she was, but we need to work to prevent these things from being learned again."

She took another breath.

"So I have decided that I am going to take Lady Yennefer and Lady Eilhart up on their invitation to join the Lodge of Sorceresses. Maleficent has also joined under the understanding that the ladies will work to help preserve the draconic race as much as possible. They think I have done this because I want to help them find this..."

her mouth twisted suddenly into a crooked smile. My heart ached.

"...this new form of old magic but that's not quite true."

She took another breath. "The real reason is that I want to help you find your sister. Find out what happened to her. I owe you that much."

She almost sobbed that last.

"I'm so sorry Lord Frederick. So very sorry. I...I should have been there for you."

She took another breath.

"I will understand if you want to call of our engagement..."

Please believe me when I say that somewhere, inside my skull, I was screaming at myself.

"... or... or if you want to delay our wedding until this matter is resolved. No matter how long that might be."

She took off the engagement ring and held it out to me.

I was frozen to the spot. I could hear an odd rushing in my ears and I nearly staggered.

She lowered her gaze. "I see," She said and placed the ring on the floor. "I'll leave it there. It was very beautiful."

She turned away and moved towards our staff.

I stood there for what felt like centuries. I have no excuse but it was though there was a pressure on my skull and the trees were pushing in around me. I felt as though I was falling.

I could hear the voice in the back of my head screaming at me. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING. SEIZE THE MOMENT. SEIZE THE WOMAN OR LOSE HER FOREVER, FOOL."

"Wait," I heard myself say. Far too quietly. "Wait," I said again and stepped forwards, scooping up the ring as I came. There was a bit of mud on it from where she had put it on the ground and I brushed some water off the leaves to clean it before I caught hold of her. "Please wait."

She had turned back. The look of haunted, hunted terror was back in her eyes.

"Don't go." I said. "Please." I fell to my knees and I realised that I was weeping. "I'm sorry. You don't have to be sorry. I'm the one who has to be sorry. I let you down, please don't go." I was babbling and I knew it. "I can't lose you. Not now. Not ever, please don't go."

Tears obscured my vision before darkness blotted out the light as her arms and her dress came down and wrapped me up in an embrace. "I'm sorry." I babbled. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have neglected you. I've been so wrapped up in...Please, I can't lose you. Please don't leave."

"I thought you wanted me to..."

"Never. Never. Never."

"Oh, I'm so sorry, please don't cry."

I laughed then.

"We're..." I managed between giggles. "We're going to have to get better at this "talking to each other" thing aren't we."

She was kneeling in the mud with me. She was trembling again, violently.

"Yes," she said through chattering teeth. "I suppose we must."

"Just for the record." I said. "I love you. I don't want you to go away. I should have talked to you. I should have but I've been too locked up in my own head to come and find you."

"I thought you were angry with me."

"I wasn't. I was just...not thinking. I am so, so sorry and I promise that I will work on that."

"Right," she nodded but she still looked miserable. I wondered if vampires weep but now didn't seem the right time to ask.

"But I've been doing a bit of rational thinking up here today." I said. I had as it turned out, much to my surprise. "And I need to come to terms with an uncomfortable fact. That fact is that Francesca is gone and she is probably never coming back. That's if she is even alive which I am coming to doubt."

A small sob escaped my throat at that and it took me a while to get my voice back under control enough to speak.

"I'm going to look for her now. The Lodge and the Imperials are doing the same."

"I'll come with you." She began.

"No, you are right. If this is old magic and an older threat then you need to help the Lodge understand it. You will do more good there.

"But." I reached down and took hold of her hands and shut my eyes. I realised that we were resting our foreheads against each other. "I also have to come to terms with the very real possibility that we might never find her. Or the people that did this. It might just be something simple or it might be nothing at all. I don't want to wait that long."

I managed to get hold of her left hand and slipped the ring back onto her hand.

"I want to marry you. I love you. I wouldn't have asked if I didn't know that I wanted to marry you. I want to get over my fear. I want to see you laugh and I want... Flame but I want so many things."

It was her turn to sob.

"So." I said, sniffing through the tears. "I want you to get together with Emma, and the Empress seems to want to get involved now but get together with them all and I want you to set a date. Give me a year. Two years at most. I like the idea of an autumn wedding so that we can have a cosy winter somewhere, getting to know each other properly."

"So not this autumn coming but the autumn after that?"

"That sounds right. Is that ok?"

She nodded. She looked confused, caught between joy, shock, terror and astonishment.

"Good. I love you Ariadne."

"I love you too Freddie."

I took a deep breath. "May I kiss you?"

"What?" Now she definitely looked shocked and brushed some damp hair from her face. "Now? But I look a mess."

"Not a mess, beautiful." I stroked some of the water from her cheek.

She nodded again. Still looking a little bewildered. I took another deep breath and leant in before the fear could come back and I changed my mind.

It was...special. I'll say no more than that.

It left us both trembling a little bit when we were done despite it being remarkably chaste really.

"I...I'd better go." She said after a while. "Kerrass has been very patient waiting for us."

"He has, hasn't he."

We giggled together like children. A nine-hundred year old vampire and a professor of the university of Oxenfurt.

We rose. She brushed ineffectually at the mud patches on a dress before scowling at them until they vanished, presumably out of embarrassment. She took up her staff and turned back to me.

"I love you Lord Frederick." She said it with a strange kind of amazement on her face as though she was astonished that the words were coming out of her own mouth.

"I love you too."

She turned away and walked off, her form dissolving into smoke as she went. Dissipating in the wind and the rain.

I don't know how long I stood there.

"Well done Freddie." Kerrass said.

I jumped and he sniggered.

"I don't mind you sneaking up on me Kerrass but how did you manage to get the horses to move that quietly."

"Trade secret. You ready to go?"

"I don't know. Is there anyone else that you told where I was?"

"No."

"Then I think we're ready to go."

"Good." He swung himself into his saddle. And held the other horses reins while I got into mine.

"Kerrass, before we go."

"Yes Freddie."

"I want you to know something." I said staring up into the sky.

"I know Freddie, I know."

"No, this time I don't think you do."

"Oh?"

"I'm engaged to be married now."

"Yes you are and I already knew that."

"I want you to be my best man. I don't think I've talked to you about it yet."

He spluttered and stared at me in proper stunned shock. "But Mark...and Sam. You have brothers."

I grinned at him. "Oh they'll be there. But on my wedding day, there's no-one I'd rather have standing at my side than you." I held my hand out.

Kerrass stared at it for a moment before taking it and shaking my hand firmly. "Thank you Freddie. Thank you."

We rode in silence for the rest of the day, riding north. I suppose we both had things to think about. We slept in one of the inns on the outskirts of the Duchy, it being far too late in the day to make it to the border. We were just finishing dinner when Kerrass laughed suddenly.

"You know what this means?" He said slyly.

"What?"

"I get to plan your stag night."

I paused for thought.

"I didn't really think this through did I."


	58. Chapter 58

(Warning: Signs of accidental animal torture (the perpetrator is incompetent rather than doing it intentionally). I apologise for any innaccuracies when it comes to my descriptions of farming practices and the keeping of pigs. Also, one of the characters says something homophobic in an effort to rile someone else up. I hope people will accept that I do not share his views and would never use that language.

Enjoy)

Unfortunately, the journey did not go well.

I suppose, looking back, that I was grieving but at the same time that does not colour the first days of that journey any differently. For whatever reason I really struggled to readjust to life on the road. I resented those occasions when Kerrass demanded that we set a watch. I grew angry at the weapons drills and the fact that Kerrass was pushing me to be better and better than I had been. I no longer...enjoyed the training although saying "enjoyed" is the wrong word for it really. I never "enjoyed" the training but I suppose it would be more accurate to say that I no longer saw the point in it. I resented the time away from the road, the hours that we spent training and honing our skills would have been better spent being on the road and chasing after our enemies.

I chafed at the slow pace that Kerrass set. I longed to move faster and grew angry whenever Kerrass would take his time getting going in the morning, or when he would vanish into the woods looking for herbs and ingredients for his potions. Or those days when we would stop early to train or because Kerrass wanted an early night.

Or because we had already reached the proper resting point for the particular pass which we were using to leave Toussaint.

When we had first left Toussaint I had been all for taking the road rather than travelling by magical gate, but then the sheer time-scales of what was involved started to weigh on me. It was spring now which meant that it was going to take us a good few months to get up to Northern Redania to meet Sam and work to track down and uproot the remains of my cousins cult. The artificiality of my self-imposed deadline for marriage began to weigh on me. I felt trapped by it and I wanted to get things done. I wanted to find my enemies and pound them into dirt.

And I suppose that Kerrass bore the brunt of that.

We were four days out of the Toussaint pass and making our way north when things began to boil over, which meant that we had been on the road for about three weeks. There was a large tree at a crossroads. You see them all over the continent, both in the Northern Kingdoms and in the Empire as a whole. It's a meeting place, a resting place and a gathering place. Not quite big enough to warrant a tavern or an inn being built in the place but it was a nice big way-post. A landmark in miles of otherwise unremarkable, lightly forested farm-land. There were a series of notices nailed to the tree. Again this is not unusual.

"Half a moment," Kerrass called to me as he dismounted to peer at the notices.

"What are you doing?" I demanded.

"What do you think I'm doing?" He snapped back, just as testily. "I'm looking for work. A Witcher's got to eat."

"Come on Kerrass we don't have time for this."

"Don't have time for what." He had pulled a notice off the board and was reading it through. It seemed a little longer than the vast majority of notices that you find nailed to signposts by the side of the road. He folded up the piece of paper and tucked it inside his pouch.

"Kerrass. The kidnappers are getting further and further away."

"So?"

"So we have to catch them."

"You go off and catch them then. I need the money.

"No you don't Kerrass, I have plenty of...Kerrass."

Kerrass had climbed back onto his horse and was riding down one of the tracks away from the tree. It wasn't quite back the way we had come but it certainly wasn't following the road north.

I chased after him but when he noticed that I was following he increased his speed to a gentle trot and pretended not to hear me calling his name.

For my part, I decided that he was being stubborn and obstinate. Both things that he was more than capable of being, and went after him. Not that I had much choice. He was the one who would know what to look for when we went north up to Kalayn lands. He was the one who had other sources that we could check and knew about the various people and places that might know something.

So I followed him. What would you do?"

It didn't take us long to get to the village in question.

Now that we were climbing down from the mountains we were heading into some of the river deltas. The streams were coming off the mountains full of snow melt and the fish were heading up to their spawning pools. It was a nice-ish fishing village that made it's living by stringing nets across the fairly fast flowing river and catching the fish, which were then smoked and sold on to the merchants. I have since learned that the local area was known for producing a particular type of fish known for it's delicate taste.

Goes well with Pears apparently. Not that I was paying attention.

We had to go downhill to get to the village and as we came out there we could see down the valleys to one of the inlets that fed the sea. If I had been in a better mood I would have seen the beautiful view for what it was.

Another place that I intend to go back to and visit when I'm in a better mood.

In the far distance we could see a huge castle which was flying the standards for Nilfgaard and a couple of other badges that I knew from the coronation. I guessed that it would still be several days ride in the distance but I guessed that this would be the residence of the, heh, local lord.

The village itself was nice enough. Not rich as they were using thatch in their roofs rather than the more expensive tiles. As well as the extensive fishing nets there was also a lumber mill and flour mill working the river. I could see a couple of dozen houses and huts of various sizes and supposed that this was the kind of place that also traded off the local farms, of which I could see several through various clumps of trees.

As we rode down into the village itself, Kerrass strapping his silver sword to his back as we went, I also saw that there was a ruined watchtower up on the hill as well as an old, deserted, decayed looking manor house that looked overgrown and ruined to the point of neglect. Not yet to the point where the locals were cannibalising it for the tiles or stone but I guessed that it would only be a few years before that happened.

The watchtower was made from the kind of grey stone that suggests that it had been there forever. But it was clearly not in use.

We rode down the path and over the single-arched stone bridge. As we got closer we could also see a Blacksmiths, an inn, a tannery and a butchers yard. I thought I could also identify which building housed the local herb-woman and I thought I could see a local building that had the sign of the Nilfgaardian eternal sun carved above the door and guessed that this would be what passed for schooling in the local area.

For the life of me I couldn't guess what we were doing here.

Kerrass led us to the inn and we tied our horses up to a post just outside.

"Kerrass what are we doing here?"

He ignored me.

"Kerrass. Wait, what the fuck are we doing here?"

He stopped and turned to face me. There was a strange, unreadable expression in his eyes as he gazed at me steadily for a moment.

"I told you, I need to work. I'm running out of funds."

"Kerrass. I have plenty of money, I have a line of credit with my family money lenders and I'm sure that the Empress gave us enough authority that we can sleep in the way-stations and eat out of their cooking pots. We don't have time for this."

He sighed and turned on his heel and began to walk away.

But I'd had enough and I stepped forward and grabbed him by the arm, attempting to spin him around to face me.

I don't know, I suppose that I wanted him to take notice of me, to take me seriously or to listen to me in some way. I don't know why I did it. It might just have been one of those irrational things that you do when you're angry and in pain.

I do know that I shouldn't have done it. If only because of the black eye that I received.

I stared up at Kerrass in shock. Fortunately it hadn't been raining on this side of the mountains and I hadn't landed in any mud or dung or anything. He looked down at me, coldly.

"You seem to have forgotten the rules of the road Freddie." He told me. His voice was flat and unemotional.

"They are not the only things that you seem to have forgotten but these are the most important ones so I shall remind you of them before your... attitude costs one of us our lives. I am a Witcher. You are a scholar. You have been lucky in your dealings with me and I have come to view you as a friend. That has not changed."

"Then..." I started to get to my feet and he pushed me back to the ground with his foot.

"I wasn't finished," He snarled. His anger was suddenly oppressive and snapped forward like a whip.

I subsided and his voice returned to it's flat grating sound.

"The deal goes like this. You do what I tell you, when I tell you to do it. You may ask questions but if I decide not to answer them then you will not complain and you will do as you are told. The fact that you are now my friend only means that instead of killing you for failing to obey these rules, I will instead render you unconscious by virtue of a blow to the back of the head, tie you up and deliver you to the nearest Imperial patrol with orders to deliver you to Ariadne, Emma or the Empress. Whichever is closer. Then they can deal with you. Or you can come with me. It's your choice but you will make it now, if you please?"

"But..."

"I know you think that we are chasing your sister's kidnappers. We are not. We are hunting them. There is a difference. Your decision please."

I felt like I had been punched in the gut. I considered myself a grown man and was ashamed of the tears that sprang into my eyes. I looked away and nodded.

"Good." He grasped me by the arm and hauled me to my feet before walking off. I had to scramble to keep up as he led me to the butchers yard.

"Also, just to be clear. I don't want your money. If you offer it to me again I shall take what money you have on your person and jam it down your throat. That is not a joke, or a threat. It is a promise. Now wait here."

He told me before going inside.

I took the opportunity to clean myself up a bit. I had my pack and my spear as we hadn't taken our belongings into the inn yet. I was aware the several people were looking at me and I felt small, lost, angry and more than a little shame. I went over to the water-trough and did my best to clean my face.

"Freddie," Kerrass had come back out. There was another man with him. Tall, heavy on his feet. He was stripped to his waist but wore a huge leather apron over his front.

He was grinning hugely.

I went to pick up my bags.

"Leave them, yes, leave your spear too."

I firmly told myself that I had just promised that I would do as I was told and went over to where Kerrass was standing.

"This is Gustav." Kerrass introduced us. I offered to shake his hand but he just stood there grinning at me. He was, maybe in his early forties, strong and heavy. He was missing his left hand, presumably in one of the wars and had strapped some kind of fake appendage to it. Despite his age and obvious life experience, he was almost bouncing from one foot to the other with glee and excitement. "Go with him and do what he tells you. Everything that he tells you."

"What?"

"I'm going to take a look around and see if I can talk to whoever it is that I need to talk to. I'll be back by evening to see how you're getting on." Kerrass left then, I saw him pick up my pack and gear as he went, marching off back towards the Inn.

I felt lost and bewildered.

"Follow me Princeling?" The huge man said to me. "Come on, chop chop." He sniggered at some kind of joke that I hadn't registered or didn't understand.

Once again I was left scrambling in order to catch up to someone.

"Where are we going?"

"Yes, he said you'd have questions. He also said that I should ignore them."

"Yes, well. He would wouldn't he."

"He's the one paying the money Princeling." He laughed at his own joke.

"I don't suppose you'd let me in on the joke would you?"

"Nah, not worth it."

"I could pay you."

"Yes. He said you might say that too."

He showed me through the butchers that was adjoined to the tannery yard and into a small open area that looked as though it had been cleared abruptly. There were a few more men who were standing around. The giddy excitement of my immediate companion appeared to be contagious and they were giggling to each other. The fact that they were all, fairly large men, heavily muscled and seemed to be wearing nothing but huge leather aprons was not encouraging.

"I feel like I'm the butt of some joke." I told Gustav.

"Maybe, maybe." He said. "But if you are, it's none of my doing. I just takes the money and do as I'm paid to do so...here we go. I have a selection of knives for you."

He led me over to a wooden table that was just under the eaves of one of the out buildings. There were a series of hooks that had been set into the roof. On one of those hooks there hung a dark leather satchel. It looked like an oversized version of what a surgeon might carry around with them, containing their hooks and tools. On the table there was a large pair of scissors as well as several lengths of thin but strong looking rope.

"Ok." I said, undoing the satchel so that it hung down and I saw that I was right. I removed a wicked, curved blade with a hook on the end. "So what am I supposed to be doing with all of this?"

"Lukas?" Gustav called.

One of the men that was perched on the fence climbed over the back and bodily picked up a pig. It was a large beast, not one of the full grown hogs that you see in some pens but at the same time, this was no piglet. He hauled it over the fence and dumped it over into my little enclosure, where it squealed and ran around for a bit before squatting as far away from the humans as it could. It just sat there and trembled.

"So." Gustav said with a huge grin. "Off you go then."

"Off I go, what?"

More laughter drifted over from where the other men were lounging. One of them was passing a hip flask

around.

"Butcher the Pig." I was told as though it was obvious.

"Butcher the pig?"

"Butcher the Pig." He said again.

"Why?"

"What do you mean why?" He looked as though he was enjoying himself a little bit too much for my comfort.

"I mean, why am I doing this?"

"Why do we butcher the pigs or why are _you_ butchering the pigs?" He asked me. "He told me that you would ask this question as well. Witcher's got you down pat if I might say so." He grinned. "He your butt-boy or something?"

I said nothing. He was trying to offend me and I decided not to rise to it.

"We butcher the pigs because we need the meat and the skin." He told me after a while. "Why are _you_ butchering the pig? You'll have to ask the Witcher. He told me to say that if you asked me why I was making you do it, I was to say that "you said you'd follow my instructions,"" He paused for a moment and I could see the words that he'd just said replaying themselves across his mind. "He probably meant that you said you'd follow his instructions."

"Ah," I said. "Ok then. Any pointers, tips or suggestions?"

"Quicker is better." Gustav said. "First you've got to catch it. Then you have to kill it. Then you have to take out the poisonous bits."

"Will you tell me which bits are which?"

"Don't you know?" he seemed scornful but unsurprised.

I sighed. "I can probably guess." I started rolling up my sleeves.

"That's good because I was told not to help you."

"Fantastic."

What followed was one of the more humiliating, not to mention difficult, few hours in my life.

I started off with a knife in my hand as I thought it would be easier to kill the thing while it was on the ground. Then maybe it would weaken enough so that I could capture it properly.

I ask the reader now. Have you ever tried to catch a pig with one hand?

I hadn't until that day and I had not even begun to imagine how difficult it was.

For a start, pigs are STRONG. I mean really fucking strong. And they move like lightening when they're scared, or angry, or anything really. It occurs to me now that I sit down to write this that that just about covers everything that can be said about a Pigs mood.

Other than when it's eating I suppose.

The other thing to say about Pigs, which astonished me. Is that they're relatively clean animals. It's not that they don't get dirty but it's not a thing that they do by choice. If you clean the pigs out regularly then they will stay clean.

They're also hairy. Like many people I had been brought up on stories about pigs. I had seen cartoons of the animals that made them look like fat, jolly, clothed caricatures of people. They would have shiny skin, rosy cheeks and go "Oink".

Real pigs are nothing like that.

They have small black eyes, look absolutely furious and make a screeching noise.

There were several times when it got angry enough to charge me where I was honestly concerned for my life.

I don't know how long I spent chasing it down, rather ineffectually with one hand reaching out to catch the beast while the other hand was clutching a knife in what I hoped was a businesslike grip.

My audience was growing as other villagers were being called over by the other butcher and tanner workers.

I heard bets and wagers being taken. It seemed that the story of my being a Witcher apprentice was doing the rounds again only this time, the story had developed to the point that I was now cast as a minor nobleman's son (accurate) who had run away from home in an effort to avoid marrying the ugly old spinster who would bring my family a massive dowry. A story that was a lot closer to the truth than I was entirely comfortable with.

I don't know how long I tried that strategy. At first I was coming to believe that I had missed something and just assumed that this was an acquired skill. The laughter that I was absorbing was beginning to get through to me though and I began to believe that maybe there was something more to this whole thing than I had first thought.

Eventually I stopped and returned to the table. I was bruised, dirty and sweating. Gustav approached and handed me a water skin. Laughter tears were running down his face but he clapped me on the shoulder good naturedly.

"Still no pointers?" I asked.

"I would son," I realised that I'd been promoted from princeling. I was absurdly grateful for this. "I would but I've specifically been told that I'm not to and I'm being paid a not small amount of money to follow his instructions."

"Oh yes. How much money?"

He just grinned.

"Right," I took another drink and stared at the table and tried to look at the big picture. I have knives, I have string and I have a table.

I was missing something.

Why were the knives near the table?

Ah, I see.

I put the knife that I had been waving around ineffectually back in it's assigned spot. I checked where the pig was. It had run off into a corner and was watching me suspiciously.

Right then.

I looked at the lengths of rope and took a deep breath.

One of the interesting things that I had learned in my time following Kerrass around was exactly how you go about tying a person up and how to tie a noose. Ideally you have the noose ready in advance so that all you have to do is to have the noose slip round the things that you're tying together and then just tighten the noose.

Ooh, and when you're tying up a person you want to tie someone together at the elbows and the knees as well. Not just ankles and wrists.

I looked at the pig again and decided that similar techniques would work here as well.

I selected a few pieces of ropes and tied them into nooses and hung two around my neck and one round each arm. Normally I wouldn't have one round my neck. I'm not that stupid but I was also aware that I might need spares and I wasn't going to take chances with just depending on the ones that I would have on my arms.

Right then. Both hands to work with.

"Right you little bastard," I snarled at the pig who was watching me suspiciously. "I'm coming for you."

The butchers cheered ironically as I went forth into battle.

It was much easier with both hands as it meant that I was much more likely to get hold of one leg and hold onto it long enough to get my feet back under me and be able to drag it over so that I could bind the legs.

It still took me a couple of tries though before I had the thing trussed up to my satisfaction and by the end I was sitting on it to keep it still.

To add to my indignity, the pig pissed itself in terror and drenched me in it. Not just a little bit either, properly hosing me down.

That earned another cheer but I managed to get the thing over to the table and by dint of much effort got it onto the table. People began to lose interest then and I heard some money changing hands.

Gustav approached while I was having another drink and considering the next stage of the problem.

"Not bad." He told me with a grin. "I've seen worse."

"Really?" I asked. "Have you really seen worse?"

"Everyone has to start somewhere." He told me. "And you haven't seen stupid until you've seen brand new apprentice stupid. You realised about the rope fairly quickly considering."

"Considering?"

"You know, considering that you're a princeling."

"So what happens now?"

"Now you kill it."

"What's the best way?"

"That's not for me to tell you." He said. "You have the tools though."

"Look." I told him. "I get that this is supposed to be some kind of learning experience and I'm supposed to take something away from this. For the life of me though I can't think what it is."

He had turned to go but now he turned back. "Have you ever killed anything before?"

"With my own hands?"

He nodded. "Not with a bow or anything stupid like that. With your own two hands."

"Yes." I sighed. "Rabbits and other small game mostly. A few chickens."

He nodded.

"And twelve men."

He stopped nodding. "I'm surprised." He said after a while. "You don't look like a soldier. What did you use?"

"Spear mostly. Well it's more a pole with a two foot blade on the end rather than a spear. Also a couple of them with a dagger and one guy with a rock."

He nodded. I couldn't tell whether I had gone up or down in his estimation. "In the war?"

I shook my head. "Self defence mostly, or what the Witcher would call Proactive self-defence."

"Where you kill them before they kill you?"

"That's the stuff."

Gustav nodded.

"Did you serve?" I asked.

"I did. Served in the brigade. The Cockatrices they called us but we called ourselves The Cocks for a variety of reasons."

I smiled. "I can guess."

"Got my hand cut off at Brenna so I didn't see the third war. Did you serve?"

"Yes and no." I said taking on some more water. "My father was powerful enough to make sure that none of his sons saw combat. I was a bit to young anyway and so I served with the Logistics division. I counted boots. At the time I was really angry at him even though I had less physical coordination then than I do now and I am well aware that I am not very graceful."

"I would have said something else."

"Yes well. Now I find that I'm quite glad that I didn't fight. Not only would I have had to be very lucky to survive but I've met many Nilfgaardians now and some of them are quite good men. Some of them I would even call friend."

He grunted at that before he shook himself out of his thoughts. "Anyway, best get on with it." He said walking away.

"Hey," I shouted after him. "I thought we were sharing something here."

He made an eloquent gesture with one finger and returned to his fellows.

"Ok," I said to myself. "How do I kill a pig?"

I selected a knife, looking for one with a point.

"Same way as you kill a human I suppose." I aimed for the neck.

I missed.

I missed the second time as well.

The pig hadn't given up it's desperate fight to survive. Humans tend to realise the fight is lost and give up.

Pigs though. Pigs fight.

I missed the first time because it jerked away from the blade and instead I stabbed it in the chest.

It screamed at me and relieved itself again in pain and terror. I tried again but it was so busy thrashing around in terror that my blow glanced of it into a deep gash. But it wasn't deep enough. Now it was bleeding, but not enough.

I tried for the throat again but this time the blow went up, gouging under the chin.

The poor thing was really thrashing around in terror and I began to feel sick.

But it wasn't dead yet.

The throat wasn't working for me so I thought about trying for the heart.

Where the fuck is a pigs heart in it's body?

I took a guess and drove the knife in.

Another thing I learned about Pigs that day is that they're made almost completely of muscle. The knife was razor sharp so I knew it wasn't that. So it was either the pig or my technique. I felt as though I couldn't push the knife in any further and I wondered if it had come to rest on bone.

But then I couldn't get the knife out for another go. In my panic at the pigs screaming I had forgotten to twist the blade so now it was stuck. I got another knife and tried again.

Pigs can also cry. I didn't see that it had tear ducts but it sobbed in pain and terror.

I was really sweating now. Drenched in piss and gore. I was almost grateful when Gustav put his hand on my shoulder.

He was no longer smiling and I noticed that my audience had dwindled and what remained looked uncomfortable.

"Use the hooks" He said. "Rear leg tie on the hook so it hangs down and then cut it's throat."

"Helping me again?" I asked bitterly. My mouth was bitter with self-loathing.

"No," he said. "Helping the pig."

We got the pig onto the hook with some little effort.

"Now," He said kicking over a bucket to catch the blood. "Slit it's throat. Use the knife third from the bottom."

I did as I was told and the poor animal finally died.

I managed to duck away to vomit. Not that much though. Breakfast had been some time ago.

Gustav was back and it was just him and me now although I noticed that Kerrass was sitting on the fence, watching us. His eyes gleamed, reflecting the setting sun but otherwise his expression was still.

Killing the pig had taken me the better part of the afternoon.

"Now," said Gustav. "Cut it from chest to crotch, the hooked blade to help you tear through the hide. That will let you get at the offal to cut it out."

I nodded. Taking the indicated blade.

This, also, was much harder than I thought it would be.

The rest of the offal was cut out under Gustav's patient instruction. He wasn't a bad teacher all things considered but it was getting dark by the time we were done and I was exhausted.

He took me aside, well away from the remains of the pig. It was plain, even to me, that not much of the corpse could be salvaged for leather or food as the animals distress would have rendered the meat impossibly tough.

"If you had been sent to me as an apprentice." Gustav said. "I would have told you that you didn't do badly. I would have advised you to ask for an apron next time."

I managed to find a smile somewhere as I looked down at my ruined clothes. "You mean that I could have had an apron all this time?" I had to force the words past a lump in my throat.

"Yes, why else do you think the lads and I are all but naked?"

I grinned at him but it was weak and we both knew it.

"What else?" I croaked

"I would have told you that the worst is over with now. You've killed and butchered your first animal and that anything that comes later cannot possibly be as bad as that one was."

"Ok."

"And I would have told you to go home. That if you don't come back in the morning, that I will understand and I will tell your parents or previous master that I didn't think you had what it takes to be a good butcher, no questions asked. Then I would have told you that I hoped that you did come back before walking off."

"But I'm not an apprentice." I had to swallow a few times to speak. I felt exhausted and wanted somewhere quiet and dark to go and hide in, "What would you really have been thinking?"

"I would have thought that you are a good guy, that I like you, but your heart is too gentle for this kind of work. I would have been hoping not to see you in the morning."

I nodded.

"Thank you Gustav."

We shook hands and I walked over to the Witcher who looked at me a long time.

I could tell that he was still angry.

"Now what did we learn?" he hissed.

"I don't know Kerrass," I wailed. I could still hear the echoes of the animal sobbing. "What was I supposed to learn?"

He sighed and shook his head before jumping back over the fence. "Come on. Dump those clothes in the cess pit. You stink and I've ordered you a bath run. You're meeting with the town mayor tonight."

"Why?" I moaned. Disgusted with the tears that I could still hear at the back of my throat.

"No more questions." He told me and beckoned me on.

He took me to the inn where I was instructed to strip naked before I was allowed in through a back door and into the bath house. At the time I was resentful and embarrassed but in all fairness I was dripping in pig offal, excrement, piss and blood and I would have been cross if some noble fuck-wit had walked through my house trailing all that stuff behind me.

I bathed as quick as I could but it was some time before I could begin to feel properly clean and presentable again. When I looked around for my clothes or my pack to get some more out I found a set of sensible Leather trousers, shirt and trousers as well as my own boots that looked as though they had been scraped clean. The shirt and trousers were new to me although they fit perfectly well but I found them itchy. No matter how much I called though, I couldn't find Kerrass or anyone else that would explain to me where my own clothes had gone, or my pack and weapons for that matter.

I was feeling lost and isolated as well as being a very long way away from home.

I took hold of my pendant and tried to contact Ariadne but although she was there, she seemed to be very far off as well as being busy. I tried to speak to her about small things and even to make some plans for the future but after a while, I realised that I was just making myself more unhappy as well as getting the feeling that I was distracting her from whatever was going on in her life.

I felt wretched but I was dressed and climbed up the stairs into the inn properly where I was greeted with a wave by one of the bar workers. She told me that Kerrass was in the back room and pointed out where to go." I thanked her and moved over to the indicated door.

I knocked, feeling really foolish for doing so.

Kerrass opened the door. He looked me up and down before nodding approval and beckoning me into the

room.

"Kerrass, what...?" I began but he held his finger to his lips to indicate silence.

"Lord Mayor," he said indicating the other man in the room. It was a smallish room that looked to have been set aside for private family functions. There was artwork on the walls, an old pair of swords crossed above the hearth, a few sets of antlers and a boars head although the head could probably have done with being re-stuffed.

There was also a suit of armour in the corner of the room that looked far too small to actually be able to contain anyone.

The Mayor of the town was a the retired blacksmith. His sons now ran the forge although the mayor was still a big man and he moved with the exaggerated care that I had seen in other, well meaning but massively muscled men and women. He was careful that he didn't catch people out or accidentally hurt someone or damage something. He wore a plain cotton shirt despite the cooling air outside and a pair of leather trousers. What I guessed to be his hooded cloak was hung up on the cloak stand in the corner. He was unshaven although he looked as though he was a little uncomfortable with his beard growth. He had a habit of tugging on the hair, occasionally pulling a hair out and flicking it away towards the fire.

He rose to greet me as I was introduced.

"Lord Mayor this is my apprentice, Frederick of Redania. Freddie this is Mayor Lukas."

We shook hands and the mayor sat down. There was a table with a couple of mugs on it and a jug which the mayor poured himself a drink from.

"Now, Mister Mayor. As we have discussed previously, but for the benefit of my apprentice here I would like to just go over it again."

The mayor took a long drink from his mug and nodded.

"So," Kerrass said sitting back down and gesturing me towards a seat. "I have heard your problem, I'm pretty sure I know what's happening and I think I have a solution."

The mayor nodded, obviously looking grateful.

"So what I would like to do here." Kerrass went on, "is to use this opportunity to test my apprentice on what he's learnt so far and to deal with this problem himself. I emphasise that I'm already pretty sure I know what's happening and I just need a few details to make sure that I have everything right which I shall look into while my apprentice is getting some rest."

Kerrass looked at me directly. "He's had a busy day."

"So I've heard," The mayor managed to keep his face straight but I could tell that he was trying not to laugh.

"I would like to emphasise that, now that I am here, I will ensure that no more members of your village will come to harm and that if that situation comes up before my apprentice has dealt with the issue then I will step in accordingly."

The mayor nodded.

"Just to check that that is still ok with you."

"And you say that you will charge me less for your normal services if I allow this to happen?" The mayor asked.

"I will. It's been a while since I've had an apprentice but it's generally accepted that an apprentices work is worth less than the masters. I don't think that this will be too much of a challenge here for him unless I am drastically wrong, but I doubt it. If I am wrong then I will come back to you to discuss it."

The mayor nodded.

"But," Kerrass went on. "I will only discuss price with you separately. My apprentice is quite aware of my costing process and may be able to guess what the problem is from how much I intend to charge you. It is vital to the work that he be able to figure out what's going wrong for himself."

"I see."

"So. What I would like for you to do is to arrange matters so that everything is left the way it was when you showed me the things that I asked to see until my apprentice tells you that he is done. Is that possible?"

"I don't see why not. I've had apprentices myself over the years so I know how this works."

"Excellent, so you can understand my concerns?"

"I can."

"Good. Then if you could lay out the situation to my apprentice so that he can sleep on the problem. He doesn't yet have the capability to be able to work through the night as I can. That isn't a lack on his part, it's just that we haven't yet proceeded to that part of his training."

The mayor nodded. "I understand. You don't want me to blame him for something that he cannot do, in the same way that I would not get angry at an apprentice for not knowing how to make a door hinge if I hadn't shown him how to do it."

"I see that you understand. Very Well."

Kerrass looked at me and then back to the mayor again. "Any last questions before we start?"

"No Master Witcher. I think I have a handle on things."

Kerrass nodded. "In which case I shall head over to the corner of the room and watch my apprentice at work."

The mayor nodded.

I took a deep breath as Kerrass matched action to word and tried to order my thoughts. I was tired, hungry, massively heart sick and I wanted to go to bed.

"Right," I began before taking another deep breath. "Right. First let me tell you that I know absolutely nothing about this situation. I didn't see the sign that was left on the tree before _Master_ Kerrass saw it." I did my best to put a little sarcasm into Kerrass' title. If the mayor noticed then he didn't react to it. "So I would like you to start by telling me a quick overview of the problem the way you would do a healer or a herb-woman before going into more detail and telling me the story from the beginning."

"Right, well..."

"Sorry, sorry to interrupt. Do you mind if I take notes?" I raised my eyebrows towards Kerrass who nodded and indicated the corner of the room where my pack was.

"Not at all," the mayor said. "I must admit that you being able to read sets you a little higher than most apprentices that I have seen. You are lucky in your apprentice Witcher."

"You will, I hope, forgive me if I decide that for myself Mister Mayor." Kerrass let some amusement into his voice to take the sting out of the words.

The mayor chuckled so the effort must have been successful.

"So," I said arranging a couple of bits of note-paper, trimmed a quill and opened an ink-pot. It had been a while since I had done any kind of serious writing and I was dismayed to feel my hand wanting to cramp up.

"How can I help."

"Well, it's like this." he began. "We've had a spate of deaths recently. Suicides mostly. Young kids killing themselves in a variety of ways. Mostly by throwing themselves off a nearby cliff but one lad tied himself to a rock and threw himself in the river and a couple have taken blades to themselves or eaten some berries in the local area that are known to be poisonous. Sometimes we manage to save the child from their attempt or find them crippled when they didn't jump off a high enough cliff to get the job done. The lad that tied himself to a rock forgot that the river he threw himself into wasn't very deep and we were able to rescue him from drowning fairly easily. But in all of those cases, the child was soon able to get hold of the tools or substances that he needed to end themselves."

I nodded as I made a couple of notes. I used shorthand in the same way that I do when I'm noting down what various interviewees are saying.

"You know my first comment already don't you." I said.

"I do,"

"Say it anyway," Kerrass said from the corner of the room.

I sighed. I desperately wanted a drink.

"Why do you think this is a case for a Witcher?" I asked. "Best will in the world, it's tragic and everything, I sympathise with your pain but... children go mad and get sad just as much as the rest of us do. Child suicide happens. Why do you think that there's anything different about this case."

The mayor nodded and I guessed that this was what he had been expecting to hear.

"Because of the number of children concerned for a start. This all started, maybe six months ago, during the autumn rains. Since then we have lost an average of one child to suicide per week."

I whistled. "Ok," I nodded. "That's a lot, anything else that makes you think that this is a job for a Witcher rather than a priest or a herb-woman?"

"There have been another couple of child deaths that have nothing to do with suicide. They just became ill and faded away until one day they just wouldn't wake up."

"I see." I made a few more notes. "Anything else?"

"Yes. All of the children try to die around the old watchtower."

"I see." I took a deep breath. Holy flame but I wanted to go to sleep. Part of me was yelling at me that I should be showing more sympathy towards the man in front of me that was telling me about these horrific events but I just felt so tired and so...

ambivalent.

Is that horrible? It feels pretty horrible.

It feels pretty horrible to admit that you felt ambivalent about the deaths of any number of children but right then I just felt resentful that this was happening. I wanted to be hunting Francesca's kidnappers. I didn't want to be stuck in some village in the middle of nowhere and listening to this old man talking about dead children.

I had to take a deep breath and force my brain back to what I was dealing with

"So, why don't you take it from the beginning." I said. "When was the first case and what happened?"

The talk was a long, meandering one so I won't duplicate it here word for word. I was unused to asking these types of questions, just as much as he was unused to answering them. I got the impression that he thought I was interrogating him as though he had done something wrong. The whole thing seemed strange and I felt as though I was swimming uphill and into a storm.

In the end I gave up. Told the poor, much put upon man who deserved better from me, that I was really really tired and that I was struggling to concentrate properly. I asked if it would be convenient for me to call on him in the morning after I had eaten and had a good nights sleep to go over a few details to make sure that I had the salient points.

I had to explain what "salient" meant. The fact that I had to do so made us both angry. Him because he thought I was calling him stupid and me for the fact that he thought I was calling him stupid.

I'll let you be the judge of who was right and who was wrong as part of that argument.

Kerrass said nothing and told me to get some rest before picking up his things and leaving. I got something to eat which turned to ask in my mouth before utterly failing to get the early night that I had intended.

I really struggle now, to look back at that time and place and try to figure out what was going on with me and in my head and there have been several theories suggested by a number of people to try and explain what was going on.

The first was that I was grieving. Everyone, including me, was talking about Francesca as though she had been kidnapped and that was what my heart hoped for. That she would turn out to be ok, just taken somewhere and held against her will and that we would find her. Either the Empress or the Lodge of Sorceresses would find her and that she would be able to resume her old life. I would admit that I preferred the idea that Kerrass and I would find her and be able to affect some kind of rescue but I was also self aware enough to admit that that was a fantasy.

But increasingly, the logical part of my brain, the part of me that operates on facts and knowledge rather than on the basis of theories and hopes, was telling me that Francesca was dead. By the time that this stories events were taking place it had been, roughly speaking, over six weeks since she had disappeared. In that time, no demand had been made of any of the people that would care for her return. Neither the Empress or my family had been approached for a ransom of any kind. Nor were there any kinds of threats made.

Francesca had been lured out of the palace, kidnapped and had then vanished from the clutches of the kidnapper, much to his distress. And we still hadn't heard from anyone that might know about anything.

Increasingly, that was telling me that it was an attack on Francesca herself, which meant that she was probably, by now, dead.

The thought had even occurred that someone had kidnapped her with an intention to make some kind of ransom demand before realising exactly how important my sister had become to various powerful people, realised what the penalty would be if they were caught and had decided to cut their losses.

Right then I hated that part of my brain. I loathed it and would have cut it out of me if it was plausible.

I was also tired. Physically and mentally. Mentally, I had been turning the problem of my sisters disappearance over in my head. Over and over and over again, trying to look for some kind of clue that I hadn't seen before. Some kind of lead that had not been pursued. Even though I knew perfectly well that this was not the case. That it had been discussed by people trained to investigate crime from all the angles.

Physically, I had been riding for several days. Getting used to life on the road again after an extended break from it. Kerrass and I had split up after the awakening of Sleeping Beauty in Early Autumn and now I was back on the road again in Early to mid Spring. I had gotten used to the life of luxury again and I had forgotten how much an extended ride can make you ache.

I was also, a little lonely. I had been surrounded by friends and family for months. Not least of which was my newly made Fiancee. That I loved her despite my fear of her was no longer in any doubt. The very thought of losing her cost me almost physical pain.

Now it was just Kerrass and I. Kerrass who, to my eyes, had been acting strangely since we had left Toussaint.

I was done. I came to that realisation after forcing myself to eat a meal which was objectively very tasty because I was, again, objectively very hungry. I was also, objectively, very tired and staying in a room that was comfortable, private, quiet, clean and there was no reason that I shouldn't just fall asleep.

I felt out of control and as though events were moving far too fast and I didn't know where they were going and I didn't know what to do about any of it.

I almost laughed before having a little weep to myself as I realised what was going on and what I reminded myself of.

My nanny...

Yes, I had a nanny. Get over it.

My nanny had a term that she used to describe my behaviour when I was a toddler. Later I had asked her about it when she had stopped being my nanny and had become Francesca's nanny.

The term is "Naggy" or sometimes "Aggy" for short. What it describes is a toddler who has had enough. They've just had enough. They're too hot or too cold. They are tired, hungry, upset about something and NOBODY seems to be paying ANY attention to the cruelty of the world against their little being. They are upset and they don't know why and they don't know what to do about any of the problems that are assailing their own tiny little brains and bodies because they don't have the language or the tools to describe to the grown-ups or even to themselves what the problem was.

What they want to do is to go home, build some kind of fort out of pillows and blankets and not emerge. Preferably in the company of some adult who will hold them tight and tell them that everything is going to be ok while also making all the problems vanish.

That was what was wrong with me and I thought back to my old Nanny and her way with words and had a little laugh and a little cry before I relit the oil lamps in the room and sat up with the notes that I had made about the deaths of the children. It occurred to me that I was in my own version of one of Kerrass' depressive moods and what he was doing was trying to jolt me out of that mood by giving me something to distract me from where my head was.

After having a little bit of a cry I took a deep breath and took out my notes from the conversation with the mayor. I managed to read the first sentence before falling asleep.

I woke up with the notes stuck to my face.

Climbing to consciousness was difficult that morning. I ached in places that I could not remember ever having ached before, despite training with the spear and riding for miles but I managed to get there with the aid of a mug of hot coffee and a huge bacon sandwich which the barmaid gave me with a huge, knowing grin. I sat in the common room, eating my food and reading through my notes.

All things told I felt pretty good.

As I understood it from my notes the facts were these.

In the Autumn there had been a bit of a mudslide brought on by extreme weather higher up in the mountains. The water had run down hill hard washing away a good chunk of the bank and causing a bit of a land-slip towards the edge of the village. Before that there were no significant events in the village beyond normal village business. Market days, marriages, festivals that kind of thing. The first death happened about a week after the mudslide.

It hadn't been that big a mudslide by the way. If you're thinking about a huge, avalanche like disaster then you are over-estimating what we're talking about. There was a bit of land-slippage. They only reason that it was noticed as anything unusual really was the fact that the watchtower had begun to tilt a little bit more and one of the stones had toppled off the parapet. (Apparently it had promptly been commandeered by someone in the village to provide a hearthstone for their new house. I had made a note to look at that but as the relevant family had not been affected by the problems.) The other reason that it had been spotted was because, as the village made most of it's money from the fishing nets and the smoking houses. The collapsed banks had meant that one of the fishing traps had been damaged.

The first death was a young lad. You can find a dozen of him in any village and town. He was a large lad, the "leader of the pack" kind of child In the imagined games where the children fought off hordes of monsters, bandits or Redanians, he would be the one that led the charge. Not always the general in charge but was quite obviously the leader of the pack. Not the dreamer up of the mischief but he would be the lad that volunteered to take responsibility. Still a couple of years away from the village matrons eyeing him up for potential wives but he would be well hunted when it came to it.

One night he had complained about being tired after a day where his energy had been... less than was normally expected. His parents had suspected some illness of some kind before doing what parents did. They made him a milky porridge and sent him to bed early with the promise that if he still felt ill the following day, then they would call the Herb-woman.

In the morning he had gone from his bed. Fearing a fever and therefore a delirium a search was quickly mounted but the child was found almost immediately. He lay at the bottom of the light cliff that the Watchtower sat at the top of. His head was caved in. There were several other injuries including a broken leg, collar bone and several broken ribs. It was the head injury that killed him but his broken ribs had also punctured a lung.

It was decided that the poor lad, either in a delirium or for some other reason or sickness of the brain had climbed tot he top of the Watchtower and thrown himself off the top. While he might have survived the leap (the "cliff" was really a steep rise with a loose rock scree and several larger rocks that were embedded in the earth. During the fall it was assumed that he broke his leg on impact before tumbling down the slope and dashing his brains out against one of the larger rocks.

The family and village mourned in the way that villages do when it's lost a child. The child's parents left to live with the mother's sister in another town to join in with the local bakery. The village had been understanding at the departure but were understanding at the families need to distance themselves from the tragedy.

The next child to tragically lose her life was a young girl. In the same way with the previous child she had spent a day being lethargic and lacking in energy. The parents, being careful and caring parents, remembered the previous tragedy and instantly called for the herb-woman. The herb-woman examined the girl but was unable to identify any kind of illness other than fatigue and lack of sleep although the child told her parents that she had slept normally the previous night.

Again, not being stupid or neglectful, the parents stayed in the same room as the girl-child and caught her climbing out of the window just before midnight. The girl panicked, was described as being "mad," and "didn't recognise her parents." She begged to be let go, to be released and left alone. Eventually they let her go but followed her in an effort to keep her safe and to see what was happening.

The girl walked up the hill towards the Watchtower, clutching the sides of her head as though she was in pain. All the way she was pleading with an unseen figure to "let her go," and "just let me sleep." When she got to the Watchtower she became more agitated before attempting to climb to the top in her dazed state. The father of the girl had had enough by this point, bodily picked the girl up and carried her away.

The following morning the Herb-woman came again. In the manner of all Herb-women she had a small, very sharp knife on her belt for cutting herbs. She didn't think anything of it, the parents didn't think anything of it but the little girl did. While the herb-woman was examining the child the girl stole the knife and without warning, plunged the knife into her own throat. Witnesses, for there were several, said that it happened so fast that the first thing that they knew where something was happening was when the blood was running freely down the poor girls hands.

These two were the first two cases and both situations were repeated several times since then. Either the child would attempt to throw themselves off the watchtower resulting in death or injury. If it was injury or if the child was prevented from harming themselves, then the child would find a way to finish the job at a later date. Poisonous berries or sharp knifes were the chosen method of choice if the fall from the Watchtower was unsuccessful.

I checked and found something interesting. There was one child that drowned themselves. I seemed to have spotted the discrepency the previous evening with the mayor. The child was deathly afraid of heights. That was interesting. I didn't know why but I knew that it was interesting.

Then there were the two children who had just, to quote the mayor, "faded away," They had become tired, increasingly tired and more and more lacking in energy. The parents had worried at first but when the child showed no signs of any kind of self-harming tendencies or a desire to harm themselves then the watch was relaxed and the village treated them as sick children.

But the child had just faded away, eating less and less, drinking less and less liquids until they got to the point that their body just gave up and the poor child died. I had asked if an autopsy had been performed before the mayor had calmly informed me that "we're decent folk round here and don't hold with that kind of thing." I thought that the mayor had expected my question and as a result, hadn't been quite as angry as he might have been otherwise. I guessed that Kerrass had asked the same question.

I finished my sandwich and my hot drink before going in search of Kerrass.

I didn't have to go very far. He was down by the waters edge, sat on a rock, eating an apple while reading from a book. He didn't look up as I approached.

"I wanted to thank you." I began.

"Oh?" He still didn't look up from his book.

"Yes." I took a deep breath. "I know what you're trying to do."

He looked up at me in confusion. "You do?"

"Yes. You're trying to distract me. Give me something to occupy my mind with other than Francesca's disappearance. You're trying to take my mind of things and I'm grateful."

He rose to his feet.

"Really?" He carefully put the book away to one side.

"Yes. I got the first good nights sleep since we set out from Toussaint."

He nodded. "So...?" He waved his hands as though encouraging me to get to the end of the point.

"So thank you I guess."

He said nothing, his face went still.

"So can we just finish up here so we can...?"

My voice petered out as I watched his eyes fill with anger and disgust before his eyes narrowed into slits.

"Oh, this is _so_ not about you." He hissed. His eyes searched my face, flitting around, scanning my features.

"So. We. Can. What?" He ground out. His voice was like ice rubbing over granite. I tried to step backwards from him but he grabbed me by the lapels. "Finish your sentence." He snarled.

"I..."

"So can we just finish up here so we can...what? Go and jerk off? Find some whores to plough? What were you going to say?"

"I..."

"SAY IT," He bellowed into my face, spittle flying.

"So we can get on with what's important."

Lights exploded behind my eyes and I found I was looking up at him from where he had knocked me on my ass. It took him a moment to, visibly, bring his emotions back under control.

"Who am I?" He demanded of me after a long while.

"Wha..." I was dazed and my brain was no longer working. Too tired and too emotional to think clearly.

"Who am I?" Kerrass went on, his eyes blazing with anger and disgust. "What am I?"

"Kerrass, you're..."

"I'm a Witcher. SAY IT." He demanded.

"You're a Witcher." I just wanted this to stop now. I wanted my friend back. I wanted to be told it was ok and that things would get back to normal again.

But I couldn't have told you, right then, what kind of "normal" I wanted.

"That's right," He sneered. "I'm a Witcher. It's what I am, it's who I am and it's what I do. This," he gestured at the village. "This is who I am. I am not a Bounty Hunter. I am not some hired killer to do your bidding. I am not a hunter of men. I am a Witcher. I hunt monsters.

"The reason I am coming with you. The reason that I agreed to help you on your quest for answers and vengeance, is because I consider you my friend. I care about you a great deal and it saddens me to see how much you are hurting so I agree to help you. But I did _not_ agree to stop being who I am.

"You are not the only person who has offered to pay for my food, my bed or my comfort while we do this. Your sister and the Empress both offered to foot the bill. But they don't know me and they wouldn't know why I might think of that as an insult.

"But you? I expected better from you.

"The instant I take your money, or their money to do this. Then I am no longer a Witcher, I am a Mercenary, a bounty hunter and a paid killer. Even worse than that, I lose my neutrality in this entire situation. I lose my ability to look at the thing from the outside of the situation to make my decisions.

"Why?

"Because I would now work for you. For them it doesn't matter as much but for you? I would no longer be your travelling companion and comrade in arms. I would be your servant. Depending on you for my food and comfort.

"I won't be that. I won't.

"Neutrality is _vital_ to being a Witcher. It's almost literally our life's reason. Do you think that we do it just to avoid politics and wars? To avoid getting into situations which might be a little bit awkward with whichever Lord we're getting involved with or to avoid assassination missions or that kind of thing? We do it for two reasons.

"The first reason is, yes, self-preservation. I can't save villagers and townsfolk if I'm too busy being trapped into performing missions for uppity noble-folk who think I will be doing what they say in return for some kind of gratitude because they offered to pay for me to sleep in a clean bed that night.

"But the second reason is, by far, the more important reason. Neutrality gives us objectivity. I can sit, outside the entire situation and decide what's going on without silly things like feudal, race or situational loyalty. It's another reason that we travel alone. So that we can make our own minds up without letting other people influence us.

"I would not compromise my neutrality for the Empress when she offered to pay me to help guard her over her coronation because that struck me as dangerously close to being a political action.

"I didn't accept your money when we went to wake The Princess either.

"I didn't take your money when you asked for my help when it came to asking who was responsible for your fathers death. If you remember I did my very best to try and talk me out of using me for that purpose.

"I only ever accepted your money when you were paying me in return for something that was in my remit. You notice that I haven't asked you for any money, beyond the odd desire to not pay for the odd pint or meal in the pub, since I stopped being your subject and started being your friend?

"So why would you think I would accept your money now?"

He stared at me coldly for a moment. "Oh, and in case you're wondering. The reason I helped protect the Empress is because Eskel asked me to, so I did it as a favour to a friend."

He shook his head and walked off for a couple of steps before coming back.

"Eight months." He said. "Eight months since we stopped being on the road. You go home and you live in your castle for six months and a bit, followed by a month at Toussaint where you rub shoulders with, and enjoy the friendship of the most powerful people in the land. Eight months and you turn back into being a spoilt little rich boy who aims your money catapult at problems until they go away. Then you wonder why people are so terrified of your family.

"Eight months that's all it took."

He crouched down next to me but he was looking into the distance.

"You wanna know why I stopped to check the noticeboard. No, I don't need the money. Yes I know that friendship tells me that I could borrow a bit from you for a meal or a place to rest on the road. I know that. So I didn't _need_ the money.. You wanna know why I turned aside to pick up the notice?"

I didn't answer.

"I did it because I'm a Witcher. It's my job.

"I did it because I can. Because I have the skills, the tools and the training to help these people do the things that they can't. Yes I charge them but I still need to eat. That's how society works here. I need something from them, they charge me. They need something from me, I charge them. We all wish we could do it for free but we can't.

"I did it because they needed help. This is another thing that society depends on. We help others because when we're in trouble, we need to know that they will help us. Who else are they going to ask for help. The nobles? Who will probably tax them for the privilege and only get round to it when they remember or don't have anything better to do. A wandering knight? I think Toussaint has ably demonstrated what happens when you trust a wandering knight to do the job. At best, they fail, at worst, they make it worse. A priest? What's a priest going to do. Pray the problem away? I would go for it if you could point to one example where that has actually worked.

"I did it because, in doing so, I can make the world a little bit better. I am a Witcher. I try to make the world a better place by killing monsters. A task for which I am uniquely suited. You are a scholar and a nobleman. Tell me, what was the last thing you did to improve the lot of your fellow man?"

I waited.

"That wasn't a rhetorical question." He told me. "What was the last thing you did?"

"I..." I struggled for a moment.

"What's the matter? Struggling for an answer? When we were travelling together before you were writing accounts of our travels. You did so, yes to earn money but you were passionate about learning. You did it in several different ways. You published, popular, easy to read accounts of what we got up to in Oxenfurt journals so that uptight students and nobles can read them and get a glimpse into what life is really like out here.

"You wrote detailed, academic papers on what we found and what we fought to combat the ignorance and misinformation. You attended and gave lectures on the subject. You would dash off to help wounded people and would stand over a terrified family with your spear in hand and kept them safe while I dealt with the monster terrorising them. I would have to be the one that held _you_ back from getting in over your head and getting yourself killed.

"What happened to that guy? I liked that guy.

"We do these things because we can. We do these things to make the world a better place for the people who come next, when and where we can without getting ourselves killed of course.

"You wanna know where I learned that?

Then he looked at me again.

"I learned that from you Freddie."

He stood again.

"Just so we're clear, _Lord_ Frederick, and it seems that I am having to speak slowly and simply to you at the moment on a number of topics. Grief is an explanation, but not an excuse for shitty behaviour." I felt my mouth open. "I am not saying you don't have a right to your grief and anger. Nor am I saying that you shouldn't be feeling those things. But you are turning into someone and something that I no longer like. Now sort your shit out. Children are dying. Fix it."

"How?" I managed from somewhere.

"You know everything you need to know to be able to fix this already but, just so we can give you an incentive. Sort it out. Or I will. If I have to? I shall follow through on my threat. You will be delivered to the nearest patrol and I will depart on my self-appointed mission to find your sisters kidnappers alone. I am only going to step in if another child's life is threatened before you come to grips with this. Do you understand?"

I just stared at him.

"I see that you do. When you have figured it out, come and tell me which oil you need to coat your weapon with before you confront the thing."

He spun on his heel and left.

I spent a long time waiting to see if he would come back.


	59. Chapter 59

I could just about see the shadowed bulk of the watchtower up on the hill, standing against the darkening sky.

I had been here earlier in the day to get a good lie of the land and to test out a couple of theories, but now it was getting properly dark. All things being equal though, I was in luck. It was going to be a clear night with relatively little cloud cover, which gave the air a sharp, cutting chill to it. It was the kind of cold that you took into your lungs and seemed to freeze your breath.

Not cold enough to make you shiver but cold to make you feel as though you were artificially out of breath. It made your chest ache, is what I'm trying to say.

I had come here early, it wasn't dark yet and I wasn't expecting things to start to happen until it was properly dark but I wanted to get here early in an effort to make sure I know where to go. I had selected a small flat area most of the way up the slope. It was screened from the rest of the village by a thick hedge, all brambles and thorns but it was getting thicker by the day as new buds were forming on it.

Before too much longer the hedge would be blossoming completely and would be covered in flowers. The hedge provided me with some cover from the wind and the cold though as well as giving me a cover so that the village wouldn't be able to see what I'm doing.

Since my story was that I was Kerrass' apprentice, I had discovered that everything I had told them that I was going to be doing had generated a lot of questions. People asking me why I was asking the questions that I was asking and why I was doing the things that I was doing. I had begun to get a new view on things as to why Witchers do their best to be enigmatic and mysterious in an effort to prevent people from asking them a whole bunch of silly questions. I had had visions of getting up towards the watch-tower and queues of villagers lining up to ask me what I was doing, why and what for.

The same as if I'd done my preparation in the village before I had set off. The mayor asking me why I was leaving off rubbing the oil on my spear until later. Why did I need quite so many torches? Why did I need to light a fire? What was it that was killing our children in the first place?

The uncomfortable truth about that last question was that I still didn't know. I was pretty sure that I was right but I didn't _know_ for certain and I wouldn't know until I had gone to the watchtower in the depths of night.

Tonight's expedition would go one of two ways. The first way was that I would be able to get a good look at what we were dealing with here and then be able to make a more concrete plan about what to do next. The second possibility was that I would get up there and be forced to defend myself. At which time it would be a test of my knowledge gleaned from time spent with Kerrass and reading books on the subject as well as my gathering of evidence to narrow down what would be going on.

But there was no certainty.

So I was going to go and have a look.

Ideally, it would turn out that I was right and I would be able to deal with the problem here and now. But if not then...

Well...

I'll worry about that as and when it comes up.

I had already set up a small ring of stones. I set my burdens down next to the fire place and started to arrange a fire. I had brought wood with me as well as some tinder and a firebox so it didn't take me long. Then, when there was a lot more light I could take in my surroundings a little better.

Fire isn't a friend to the imagination though. The firelight flickering through the trees made the shadows jump and the surroundings seem much more frightening than they were as I imagined Wraiths, spectres, Nekkers, Fetches and all kinds of things dancing in the shadows beyond the fire.

I thought of Jack and just for a moment I thought I could hear him laughing. He would certainly find this situation and my current fear amusing.

Concentrate now. You're pretty sure you know what's out there. You know what you're doing. Just need to get the job done. The important thing tonight is information, no need to be a hero. Take your time.

I set about checking my equipment.

Seven torches, heads of the torches soaked in oil. A tinderbox in case the torches went out and I needed to relight torches quickly if there was no other source of flame. A length of rope. A climbing spike and a sledge-hammer. My weapons, my spear and dagger. I laid them out next to the fire so that I would be able to see what I was doing.

I was wearing my boots, trousers and some leather armour. Just soft stuff, kind of light. If it was what I thought it was then thicker armour wasn't going to be much good anyway.

There was a worry there though. I was concerned about space and room to move. I am a spear-fighter. To use that properly I would need room to move and to avoid. If I was confined and channelled by a lack of space then the attacker would find it much easier to get past my point and tear my throat out. True, that's what the dagger was for but I didn't find that reassuring.

There is always the possibility that I might miss with the dagger. I had improved with it since first being gifted with it but still, I was no soldier, no Witcher or trained killer. My entire style was based around mobility and being able to keep the bad guy further away from me.

But there is no use borrowing trouble. If it came up then it would come up and I would worry about it then.

Lastly, carefully, I took out a large potion bottle from my pouch and placed it carefully on the ground in front of me. After ordering and checking the rest of my equipment I sat on the ground facing that small bottle hugging my knees.

It wasn't that big of a bottle. Maybe three inches tall. In fact, calling it a bottle was a bit of stretch, more of a jar really. A dark, black liquid sat in the bottom of it, I knew from experience that this was a little deceptive as the liquid was a deep blue, green which you could tell from the residue it leaves when you smear it on your weapon. It also glowed. Don't ask my why or how it does that but it dies. I did once suggest a theory to Kerrass that it takes the light from external sources and absorbs it, before letting it emerge at a later time when in darker surroundings. He had looked at me as though I might be crazy for a long time before just telling me that it was magical and I was trying to read too much into it.

But it was looking at me.

I had a couple of hours to burn.

In these kinds of situations, I know that Kerrass likes to meditate. Clear his mind for the coming conflict and activity but I never got the knack of that. I asked him how he did it once and he told me that it was down to practice. Long hours of waiting for things to happen with nothing to do other than to wait. He argued that panic takes a certain amount of time to go through the system. The same with anger or fear or any or the other exciting things that can happen to a body so if you just sit quietly and endeavour to empty your brain then you get to a point where those things just fall away.

I remember wondering why that was important. He had then asked me what good panic, fear, anxiety and stress were to a body when you knew you were going into a stressful situation. He argued that excesses of those things just made a bad problem worse so it was better to just ignore them.

I did some stretching exercises to make sure that my limbs wouldn't seize up in the cold. I will admit to pacing for a little while as well. Just for the variety of the thing.

But I was avoiding the things that I really wanted to think about.

What I wanted to do was to puzzle out a further solution to the problem of what had happened to Francesca.

But that was old and tired ground. Over and over again, for weeks now it seemed, I had been playing the scene of the last time I had seen her in my head. I was saying good night as were all heading off to get an early night before the coronation happened. I could see her smile and cheery wave as she went, but it was no longer a good memory. I found myself wanting to catch hold of her, to call out to her and tell her not to go.

To stay and to remain safe.

I had tried some better memories of her to see if I could force my brain over onto new patterns of behaviour. Instead of thinking of the last time I saw her I tried thinking about the time she came pelting out of the crowd and wrestled me to the crowd. Her happy squeal as she saw me for the first time and her smiling happiness at her congratulations on my engagement.

The fact that I thought she was congratulating me on my receiving my doctorate is a detail I tried to leave out of my rememberings.

I thought about her face as the Empress and I were discussing the crossbow and how I had got information about The Empress' preferences and grip.

I remembered the happy amazement as she had admired Ariadne's engagement ring and the joy with which she had embraced the elder vampire as a new elder sister without thought or care to the fact that she was embracing an elder vampire.

That was the young woman that I wanted to remember. That was my sister.

It is a long time, now, from those events at the watchtower and that night. But I think that that was the night where I finally allowed myself to start thinking of Francesca as being dead. Don't get me wrong. In an ideal world, one day, she will read this and be horrified that I gave her up for dead. I didn't. But it was at this point that I started to prepare myself for that moment. It was then that I thought. "I am never going to see my sister again" and started to come to terms with that.

Prior to that night I was aware that this was a possibility, even a probability given the circumstances but there was a small part of me that was still holding onto the hope of seeing her alive. That refused to accept that she might be dead. A deep and primal voice in the back of my mind that just, steadfastly, refused to let go.

I wasn't quite there yet. But that was the night that I started to loosen my grip. That was the night I felt my brain begin to relax.

To be sure, it was still a slow thing. My mind was still racing and working far too hard to justify and figure things out, but now it was beginning to run out of steam. Like a horse after a long protracted and quick ride. At first it gets up, ready for the extended exercise of the day but then it begins to get used to the fact that it would be staying in the same stable for a while and starts to relax. It starts to let itself be tired and let itself...slow down.

That was my what it felt like my brain was doing.

I wanted to cry with it as I became aware of how utterly exhausted I was. Not the weariness of a man who has been working hard physically all day and every day for a long time. Rather this was the brain weariness of someone who doesn't want to make any decisions any more. My brain wanted to go off somewhere and get drunk and not have to think about things and run around after every stray rumour and stray thought.

I would tell the reader that none of these thoughts were new to my brain. It was just the endless cycle of thinking that I had been going through since Francesca's disappearance.

So, I sat there, not remembering at which point I had taken my seat, and looked into the flames. I had thought about Francesca. Then I had thought about her disappearance. Then I had thought about myself for a while and how I was reacting. What I wanted and what I needed.

All of these were well travelled thought processes that I had gone down many times before. They were pointless and wouldn't get me anywhere. I knew where those things led and I knew what would happen at the end of them. I knew that they were cyclical in nature and that those thoughts would present no solutions.

There was still quite a bit of time before I wanted to go up to the Watchtower to see what could be seen. I hadn't brought a book with me, nor had I brought any notes with me to work on anything or to begin the promised chapters regarding Jack.

I hadn't even thought about the book that I was supposed to be writing with Madame Yennefer since I had promised to start writing it.

That alone was evidence enough that I wasn't in my right mind. Normally I would leap at an opportunity to throw myself into some academia but I had let it slide. Neglected it and let it rot.

Was that what Kerrass was talking about next to the river? Was that what he meant by the fact that I was letting myself go.

I took a deep breath and tried to force myself into thinking about my Kerrass problem and what I sensed to be the growing gulf between us.

I had sat on the bank of the river for a long time staring at the currents and swirls and the currents in the water. For a while I had hoped that Kerrass would come back but at the same time, I knew that he wasn't going to.

I was hurt, beyond the bruise on my jaw I was angry and disappointed. I felt guilt and grief and a whole other host of emotions that I didn't entirely understand and couldn't entirely identify. I was torn between wanting to chase after Kerrass and confront him with what felt like his unfair treatment of me. But I also wanted to chase after him and beg forgiveness for whatever I had done to piss him off. Real or imagined in his own little brain.

Several times I tried to examine my own behaviour to see if I _had_ done something wrong but I couldn't get my brain to settle on anything. I felt the same as I had the previous night when I'd been trying to sleep. There seemed to be a thought on the edge of my brain that was trying to jump up and down so that it could be heard but I couldn't quite pin it down in order to identify it.

Most of all I felt a self-disgust and loathing. I kept replaying the conversation with Kerrass over and over in my head until I thought I could recite it by heart. I thought of the things that I had said and about how they had come out wrong. I thought about the arguments and jokes that I could have made to make Kerrass laugh or to distract him from his anger.

Or at the very least to prove to him that I hadn't done anything wrong.

It's easy to look back, from here to there and realise that the thought that was trying to catch my attention was that my brain wasn't working properly. I needed to think clearly and logically and it just wasn't happening.

"Here." said a voice. A wineskin hovered in my sight-line. "You look like you could use a drink." It was a young voice and I looked up at the man standing over me. He was heavily muscled but lacked the grotesque over muscling of the black-smiths trade. That and the leather apron that he had on over his shirt told me that he was one of the butchers.

"Mine says hello." He said as I took the skin off him.

"Yours?" I asked.

"Gustav." He told me. "The Butcher that you worked with yesterday?"

I recognised him then as one of the youngish men that had sat on the fence, enjoying my humiliation.

"What is it?" I asked, shaking the bottle.

"Me ma's Elderflower wine. It's good stuff. Watered a bit because I was bringing it to work and you don't wanna be pissed when you're wielding a giant cleaver. Mine once told me that that that was how he lost his hand. Wielding a chopper while drunk. It wasn't until much later that I guessed that he was having a little joke on us apprentices."

I took a drink. It was excellent. It had that quality that good drinks have where it seemed to scour my throat clean as it just burned through the fug that seemed to have covered my brain in wool.

"Thanks." I said handing the skin back.

"Hey, you know." He sat next to me, clapping me on the shoulder with a big meaty palm. "Us apprentices,

we got to stick together. Any chance to take it easy, gotta be taken right?"

"That's right." I grinned at him.

"Anyway. Yours treatin' you hard?"

"Mine?"

"You know, your master?"

"My master?"

"Wow," He took a heroic swallow from the wineskin. "Is it that easy being a Witcher? No offence, friend, but you seem a little dumb to be a Witcher."

"Oh you mean Kerrass."

The lad's eyes boggled for a moment before checking up and down the area we were sat. "You call yours by his name?"

"Why wouldn't I?"

He stared at me as though I was some kind of demon come from hell to tempt his soul into eternal damnation.

"You must do things differently up in the North," he decided after a while, passing me the skin back.

"Probably." I said, taking another couple of swallows.

"So anyway, treating you hard at the moment is he?"

"A little hard. I'm sat here trying to think about whether or not I deserve it."

"You do," He took the skin back.

"I do?"

"Yeah, we always deserve it. A good walloping now and again." He grinned. "Admittedly he doesn't wallop me as much any more. He claims it's because I'm not as stupid as I used to be." He sniffed to display what he thought of that. "But we always deserve it."

"I don't follow."

"Well how does he stop you from doing something stupid if he doesn't clip you round the ear. Yelling doesn't work over all the din of the pigs and stuff so, nice sharp shock upside the ear. Does wonders."

"If you say so."

"But anyway. Master only ever hits me when I deserve it."

I opened my mouth to make a joke. Something inconsequential but decided not to. He seemed like a nice lad. Now that I could see him up close he looked to be about fourteen. Huge guy and looked as though he would be bigger yet. He was enjoying himself, sat, enjoying the spring air, sharing a drink and a moments laziness with another apprentice.

"So did I provide much entertainment then?" I asked him.

"Mmm?"

"Trying and failing to kill a pig."

He laughed.

"Nah, not during the killing. The catching though? That was comedy gold. But no-one's funny during the killing. Although I will admit to enjoying myself a little as you got the muck all over your fancy clothes."

"What?"

"Yeah, you know. Your frilly shirt with the La-de-da embroidery on the front." He waved his hand in an imagined effeminate gesture. "Your tailored jerkin and your fancy, leather belt with the silver tooling."

He snorted. "Wish I could afford a belt like that. Gotta admit. I hated you for that a bit at the beginning of things."

"Why?"

"Well there you are in your fancy clothes and things coming into our place. At first I thought that your master had given up on you. Deciding that Witchering isn't the right trade for you or something and decided to palm you off to mine. I was looking forward to giving you a good hiding to be honest."

"Were you afraid that I was going to replace you or something?"

"Yes."

He said it simply enough that I believed him even though it astonished me.

"Does it not work like that in the North?" He asked me.

"Does what not work like that?"

"The masters. They pass us round like goods at trade. This apprentice for that apprentice. Sometimes they do it so that they get cheap workers or to get rid of an inept apprentice. But there isn't enough work at the tannery or at the butchers yard to support another apprentice so I thought they might be getting rid of one of us. I wouldn't mind trying my hand at a bit of blacksmithing, girls like the muscles you know?"

He winked at me conspiratorially.

"Do they?"

He gaped at me in astonishment for a moment.

"Wow. It _really_ must be different in the north."

"Not so different." I realised that I was holding onto the wineskin. "My father wanted me to be a scribe. Not many pretty girls like scribes though. There's a bit of money in it but..."

He shuddered in sympathy, taking the wineskin back.

"But yeah, as I say, I quite fancied a bit of work as a blacksmith but the idea of being a Witcher's apprentice didn't really fill me with joy." He admitted, before taking a swig.

I nodded.

"So I was glad," the lad went on, "that you were just learning a lesson of some kind. You look better dressed for the work now anyway."

I looked down at myself, woollen clothing replacing the cotton and silks that I had been wearing for the last eight months. I hadn't realised what I had been wearing, or what it must have looked like.

We sat and drank in silence for a bit. It's a little odd to feel yourself relaxing.

"So," I turned back to him. Bless him, his emotions were painted all over his face. He was a little scared, a little angry about something and desperately embarrassed. "Can I ask you a question?"

"Sure."

"I wanted to ask you last night but couldn't find you. Apparently you were locked in with the mayor."

I nodded and gestured for him to continue.

His face twisted around as he tried to figure out what he wanted to say.

"So, are you," he blew out his breath. Stopped and took another deep breath in. "Are you and your master here to deal with what's killing the kids?"

He turned away from me, staring down the stream.

"That's the idea." I said.

"Good." He probably meant it to be a strong, vehement response but it came out a bit more like a sob.

"Did you lose someone?" I asked as gently as I could manage.

He chuckled bitterly. "There have been twenty seven kids die here. Twenty seven in six months. We're not that big a place. There isn't anyone here who hasn't lost someone to this. I heard my master talking to the smith the other day about when they would need to start thinking about abandoning this place all together."

"Seems a bit extreme." I commented.

He looked at me with a certain amount of horror and a little of the old loathing in his face.

"Twenty seven children. Is there anything you _wouldn't_ do to save the children? I thought that was the Witcher's job."

"I'm sorry, I spoke without thinking."

"It's alright." Just as quickly as he had started to get angry, he subsided again. "I keep forgetting that you're from the north. Also that you're an apprentice Witcher and they say that Witchers don't have any emotions."

I told myself, rather firmly, that I needed to keep a grip on my mouth and learn to think before speaking.

"I more meant that it was a big decision to take." I tried after turning the phrase over a few times in my mouth to see if it could be taken as offensive.

"It is." He said staring out over the water. "I would miss this place. I'm glad you and your master are here though. I hope you can fix it."

"So do I."

We sat in silence for a while.

"Listen," I said after a while. "You don't have to, and I understand if you don't want to, but can you tell me about it?"

"What?" He wiped his hand across his face. "My sister?"

I felt a shard of ice go through my heart and a lump form in my throat.

"I understand if you don't want to." I said. "I know it's hard but..."

"No no, I will. It's just..." He looked up and down the bank again to see if we were being watched. "I've never talked about it before."

"I'm a Witcher." I said before twisting my mouth in a smile in an effort to put him at ease. A trick that I had seen Kerrass used. "Well, almost. I won't judge you."

He looked at me sceptically.

"I lost my sister too." I said, without meaning to. "That's why I'm on the road with my master. I can't kill the thing that killed her but..." I stopped speaking. Letting him fill the silence on his own.

He nodded. "Does it get easier?" He was a big lad. He worked hard, at a physical job, outside so his bulk was all trained. But suddenly he looked very young.

"No," I answered as honestly as I could. "Or at least, it hasn't yet."

He smiled bitterly. "Do you know that you're the first person who has been honest about that kind of thing." He told me. "Everyone keeps telling me that it gets easier over time. "When?" I ask them, "When does it get easier?" but they can't give me an answer." He laughed bitterly. "It's silly but I want them to give me a time you know? Something I can work towards. I think I could live with it easier if that was the case. Even if I knew that it was years away."

"I lost my brother to the war as well." I said, passing over the wine-skin again after it had found it's way to me. "My big brother I mean."

He nodded his acceptance of the lie.

"It's not that it gets easier." I told him, lying through my teeth. "It doesn't. You're going to miss her for the rest of your life. But one day you will realise that you haven't thought of your sister in a while. Don't get me wrong. That day hurt me more than I could imagine. But that's how it works."

He nodded.

"Thanks."

"Tell me about her."

He took a long drink.

"I hated her." He said. "Little bitch that she was. She used to make my life hell."

I stared at him in amazement. Then I felt a giggle bubble up from inside me and couldn't stop it escaping.

He grinned at me although I could see the tears running down his face.

"I'm the fourth of five children." He told me. "An older sister, long married and working down at the Duke's castle now. I see her at festivals and things. Two older brothers. One ran off to join the army and we don't hear from him for ages before he comes back with some gifts and some tall stories and another brother who's a hunter like my dad. Then there was me. Too big and clumsy to be a hunter.

"My brother once told me that Mum and Dad had wanted another baby shortly after I was born but mum got sick and lost it. She was heart-broken and she blamed my dad for a long time.

"Those were dark days in my parents house."

His large and honest face clouded at the memory.

"But eventually she got over it and six years after I was born, my little sister came screaming into the world. We hated each other on sight."

He laughed at a stray thought and I decided to just let him speak.

"Have you ever seen that thing where a new mother takes the baby round the village to show them off in the same way that I used to show off my newest toy soldier that my brother had brought home for me? It's exactly the same.

"My brother brought me this wooden soldier carved to look like the knights of the Morpeth brigade. You could move it's arms and legs and I was well pleased. I went down to my friends in the village to show him off and he got passed around with everyone looking at the paintwork and things and moving the arms in exactly the same way as everyone else had while expressing jealousy.

"It was exactly the same when my mother took this new baby round all of her friends to show her off in exactly the same way. They even made the same noises."

He sniggered at the memory.

"But then I was asked if I wanted to hold her. I didn't, but I could tell that Mum wanted me to hold her for some reason that passes my understanding. Probably so she could go and have a good hard shit in peace."

I couldn't help but laugh. The lad was a gifted story-teller although it occurs to me now that this is how people occupy themselves when they're doing unpleasant, hard, manual work and if you're not entertaining then you shut up and let others speak.

"But Mum handed me this tiny little thing. She took one look at me before opening her mouth and started to scream. Not cry, no, not crying. This is the kind of thing when you hear a little kid really going for it. Taking a good deep breath in before really giving voice to their misery with a full throated scream of disapproval. Then, she pissed, shat and puked all over me. A Sorcerous trick for which my mother refused to allow me to burn her at the stake."

I laughed, what else could I do. It was a funny story.

"We hated each other." He said. "Absolutely hated each other. Everything she wanted to do, I hated and everything I wanted to do, she refused and would kick up a tantrum. To make matters worse, I was often expected to look after her even though she so obviously hated me that she would lash out with every weapon that she had at her disposal."

He stopped so suddenly that I was caught off guard.

"She cried when I left home. We hated each other, I'm convinced of it, but when I left to go and live with Master Gustav and learn my trade, my mother tells me that she was inconsolable for weeks afterwards."

He sniffed again and I looked away from his pain.

"I only found out about it afterwards." He said after a long time. "I didn't even know that she was sick before someone thought to come and tell me that she had died. I have hated master Gustav for years but that day he put his hand on my shoulder and said "off you go son." He said. "Come back when you're ready."

"My family lived out of town, up closer to the trees where Dad could find more game and mother could get at some of the wilder herbs that grew out there, away from town and those parts that were picked clean. It took me ages to run up there. Ages.

"When I got there Mum had had to be put into the other room and a couple of other women were there keeping her asleep. Dad was sat in my sister's room, still cradling her. He wouldn't let her go, can you believe that? He wouldn't let them take her away.

"I found out later that she had taken one of Dad's skinning knifes to her own wrists.

"I can still see him sat there, cradling her in his arms, her head lolling off his biceps, and her fore-arms escaping from his embrace. I can still see him rocking backwards and forwards keening in a voice that I still hear late at night. He was talking to her but no-one could hear what he said.

"All I could think about was a joke I had made when I was younger. She had only been born maybe three months earlier and our mutual loathing was really beginning to dig in now. I asked Dad how it was possible that something so small and tiny could produce quite that quantity of shit. He had laughed at the time I remember.

"But as I stood there, in the entrance to my sisters room which had once been my room, I looked at the huge puddle of drying blood on the floor...

"I'm a butcher. I slaughter and cut up meat for my living so I know how much blood you can expect yo get from a pig, the same from a cow or a sheep.

"But I looked at that puddle. My first thought, presumably from my work, was that that was a huge waste of blood. My second thought was amazement that so much blood could come from so small a person. Then I remembered my comment from years earlier.

"There I was, my mother having to be drugged, my father UN-approachable and I was fighting not to giggle."

"You were in shock." I tried. Trying to get through the layers of self...self-loathing that the lad had seemed to take onto himself.

"Yeah. That's what Master Gustav said. Mother Trexford as well. But I don't understand it. All I can understand is that I looked at my sisters body and had to concentrate not to laugh."

I nodded.

I took a deep breath.

"I have to ask." I said carefully. "Did your sister go and play near the old Watchtower?"

He looked at me.

"Of course she did. What else is there to do round here for young kids other than to climb up the watchtower and pretend you're a noble knight from ancient times saving the nation from Redanian attack."

He realised what he said.

"Errr. Sorry."

"Don't worry about it. My brothers and I used to pretend that we would save our family from the evil Nilfgaardians."

We had too.

"Fair enough. Does that tell you what you need to know?"

"I think so. I want to check a few things though and I'd better get going."

I felt like I was running away from him. His pain was so raw and primal. Witnessing it I found that I felt guilty although I couldn't have told you why.

"Yeah right. I'd better get back to work too."

"Tell your master that I am grateful for your help.

"I will, maybe that will save me from a beating."

I stared after him for a bit.

"He doesn't really beat you does he?" I called out to him.

"Nah," he said over his shoulder. His grief put aside for a moment. "Not really, only when I'm about to do something really stupid so...most days I suppose."

He grinned at me and ran off.

I spent a bit more time staring after him before turning back to the river and staring at the water swirling by for a minute.

"Ok," I said to myself. "That's enough."

I went off to see the herb-woman first. To say that the poor woman was suffering some kind of crisis of confidence would have been an understatement. She was a nice lady, edging into her thirtieth year but now wondering if she had done the right thing. If she was the right person to deal with the problems that had come up since the children had started dying.

She wept when I told her that I was an apprentice to a Witcher. She wept. I don't know whether it was relief or anger at herself for not seeing what was needed or what was going on there. All I can say is that she seemed to fold in on herself to the point that _I_ had to go and make _her_ some tea. The poor woman was exhausted and at the edge of her endurance.

We sat and talked for a while. She told me more about the children that had died. The children that she had lost and the anguish of the families and the village over what had been lost. I nodded and made the correct noises in an effort to keep her talking before I managed to steer the conversation over to what I wanted to talk about.

"So what I really wanted to ask was this." I leant forward to spoon another dollop of honey into my tea. The lady favoured a particularly bitter blend of tea that wasn't entirely to my taste. "I've been told that the children were getting sick before they managed to commit an act of self-slaughter. What was actually wrong with them?"

"You see that's the thing." She stuttered out. I got the feeling that she had spent a good portion of the last six months alternating between self-loathing and self-recrimination. "In every other case, I would have said that the child was just exhausted."

"I see." I said putting the cup aside having decided that it was undrinkable. "I'm not questioning you or your competence," I said carefully, if this woman was going to continue on as the village herb-woman then someone would have to do some serious positive reinforcement for her to get her confidence back. "I'm just saying that I don't know what exhaustion looks like. I'm an apprentice Witcher, I know a bit about wounds and stuff but not exhaustion."

She nodded, sipping her own tea with a relish that I didn't understand.

"They had that peculiar kind of restlessness that happens in children when they're tired. They were angry, sullen and resentful but when you asked them what the problem was they couldn't explain it. They didn't have a temperature but they complained of being cold which is their body telling them that they want to be wrapped up in a blanket. They struggled to look at bright lights and their eyes were bloodshot. A couple of them complained about headaches."

I nodded. I had brought my notebook with me and made a couple of notes.

"Anything else?" I asked

"Yes, a couple of them had bloodshot eyes which is often a sign of eye-strain. Even for children, their attention would wander and they had lost their appetites."

"Is that unusual?"

"It is in healthy children. You have to understand that all of these individual symptoms could lead you into thinking of colds or something but there were no symptoms in association with colds. There was no coughing or running noses, sore throats, fevers. A few head-aches but nothing that made me concerned."

She shook her head, again showing a few signs of her own agitated exhaustion.

"In every other case. Every time you're dealing with this kind of thing, you put the child to bed and wait to see if that cures it. It did every time up until this whole thing started and I've been through my teachers notes and she said the same. I even managed to get her down here once and she was just as mystified as I was."

I nodded again. "So here's my next question. Those children that died without an act of self-slaughter. What did they actually die of."

"Ummm, how technical can you understand.?"

"Try me."

"Do you know what an aneurysm is?"

"I've heard of it."

"Basically, part of their brains started to bleed and it caused the body to shut down. That was the actual final cause of death but... to those of us watching it looked like they slept themselves to death."

"What?"

"Don't look at me like that." It was half sob, half snap of anger.

"Sorry, I don't mean to question you, I just need to know what you meant."

"No, sorry. I'm sorry. It's not been a good few months."

I poured her some more tea and passed over my handkerchief. It was not the first time I had to do so.

"They went to bed. The same as we had told them to do and got them to rest. They did so. Then they just slept and slept. At first we could wake them up to get some food and water into them but after a while we couldn't even do that. They just...slept until we would realise that they were no longer breathing. The only reason I know about the aneurysm is because of the nose-bleeds and the blood spots on their eyes."

I nodded and made some more notes.

"Ok." I said. "Thank you very much."

"Do you know what's happening here?"

"I don't _know_." I told her. "But I've got a good idea." I took a deep breath. "I need to ask. What is that old Watchtower?"

"Oh that old thing? It's always been there."

"Yes, but what is it?"

"Just a tower."

"Is there anything about it that could be making these kids sick? People tell me that all the kids concerned go up there regularly to play."

"Kids round here have always gone up to play. If it was something to do with the Watchtower, _I_ would be sick. We send them there because it's relatively safe, it keeps the kids entertained and away from the village so that they're not underfoot."

I nodded before taking another deep breath. I didn't want her to think that she could have done something.

"I heard about the mudslide?"

She looked confused.

"Oh yes. Which one?"

"The one about seven months ago. I'm told it caused the Watchtower to tilt a little bit."

"The tower has been tilting for years. The mayor says that it would take a lot more erosion before the tower would fall and I believe him. You should go and have a look."

"I will. Is there anything else that you can think of that might help me?" Not that I thought that there might be but you never know and locals come out with the strangest things when you're not paying attention.

"Remember," I told her. "I'm not from round here so I might not know what's important and what's not."

"I don't think there's anything." She told me. "I'll let you know if I think of anything though." She noticed my abandoned cup. "You not going to finish your tea?"

"No thanks. I want to go and have a look at this Watchtower."

She nodded. She proved she could move fast though as she caught my arm as I got to the door.

"Thank you." She said. "Thank you for coming." Then she kissed me on the cheek.

I would like to say that I didn't flee in the face of the poor woman's gratitude but I would be lying.

I went back to the inn to collect my spear and a couple of torches before heading up to the Watchtower. It was a little chilling. As I went up there there was a small group of children dancing around in a circle, holding hands and singing some kind of old nursery rhyme. One of the old rhymes that are actually meant as a warning or as a teaching device but over time their meaning has been lost. I didn't recognise this one but I did hear one of the children complain that there weren't enough of them to play the game properly any more.

I considered going over there to see if I could warn them off the Watchtower but I decided that it would be futile. From what the herb-woman had said, village children had been playing here since the village had first been built. Some stranger telling them that it _might_ be dangerous wasn't going to change years worth of habits.

Instead I went over to the tower itself.

Calling it a tower is probably a bit ambitious. It's summit was maybe twelve feet off the ground. It was maybe nine foot square as a base and the stairs, such as they were, to reach the summit were carved into the outside walls of the tower. I climbed to the summit first to have a look at the view. It was cold up there and the spring winds blew straight through me.

I shivered but I was also procrastinating.

My working theory was that there was something living under the Watchtower. Just be looking at the thing you could tell that it predated human settlement to the area. The stone was the wrong colour for any kind of local stone. It was dark, almost granite like. As always when I find these odd structures that seem so out of place, I'm left wondering what they were built for. What were the original builders guarding against. It was the same feeling that had assailed me when I first saw Kaer Morhen. What was that place? And why was it there? But most chillingly. What was it guarding against?

In this case, what were the ancient builders of this tower watching for?

I looked around but humanity had changed the landscape so utterly that there was no way I could tell what might have happened.

But, as I say, my working theory was that something was under the tower. I reasoned that the erosion of the water coming down from the mountains had worn away at the hill that the tower had stood on but that the landslide had done some serious damage. Not to the stone work as that seemed as solid as it ever had been.

The stone was well put together enough that the original builders had had no need for mortar. A thing that would have been thought of as being impossible to modern human builders.

Reluctantly I climbed down from the tower. I was looking for cracks in the earth, something that could let light in to a newly opened up cellar or something. My plan was to search out from the tower in a spiral pattern. Starting from inside the tower itself.

The insides of the tower were relatively sheltered. As is the case with a lot of these kinds of ruins I found a pile of hay as well as some dry and sheltered firewood. A small circle of stones set out an area for a fire with black soot marks on the floor. I scratched at the floor with my eating knife, I know better than to use my fighting weapons for such investigations and found that the floor of the tower was packed dirt and mud over some kind of stone floor. I spent a little bit of time trying to find if it was made up of flagstones but eventually it became clear that I would need to dig up, just about, the entire floor of the tower to find anything out. Plus, I reasoned, if the gap was recently opened then it should, be at least partially visible. And it was obvious that some of this dirt had been impacted into place over years.

I did pull the hay apart though, and rearrange the woodpile to see if it was hiding anything.

It wasn't.

So I moved outside.

It's strangely off-putting to find what you're looking for almost immediately. When I started going around the edges of the tower, especially down between the edge of the tower and the bank that was being eroded, I found several cracks in the ground.

One of which, in particular, was quite large. I had a look at the edges and found scuff marks at the edges of the crack as well as some grooves that pointed to rope being on the edge.

Somebody had already been down here, recently too if I had to be any judge. I guessed at Kerrass and felt absurdly pleased with myself.

It's always reassuring to know that you're on the right track.

I peered in carefully. It was going to be a squeeze but I thought I could make it down there. I would prefer to have a rope but I didn't want to have to go back into town as I was pretty sure by that stage that if I had to go back then my courage would fail me.

I kept the spear beside me and slid down. It was not easy. On a couple of occasions I went sharply down and then had to climb back up again. I resolved that I would bring a rope next time to make sure it would be easier to find my way. As it was I mislaid my spear twice and had to backtrack to find it again. I was dimly aware that I was moving in the rough direction of the tower itself. I was also aware that I had probably moved a depressingly small distance.

In the end though I made I through to what felt like a small cave. I don't know how it got there. It was incredibly dark with just enough light coming in from the hole that I had crawled down for me to be able to light a torch. I didn't want to leave it lit for too long as I was unsure of the air supply down here as it did smell pretty stale.

Off to one side I found some stairs that led up to a flat stone ceiling which I guessed to be the floor of the watchtower. There was a flat stone there but to get to it I would need to trust the wooden stairs that didn't look to be too stable or healthy but even if I got there I guessed that it would be too heavy. The floor of the tower was so impacted with dirt that I doubted I would be able to lift the heavy looking stone up.

Beyond that it was a fairly standard looking cave. Not too large. Again, I had no difficulty imagining that it might once have been used to house a supply cache for whoever had built the tower. I wouldn't want to sleep down here as it would be too stuffy but I could see that it could be done.

However the floor was muddy and tacky under foot. Water was seeping in from somewhere and had washed the earth into the cave where it had settled into the ground as mud. I wondered if it was also seeping out somewhere.

I also thought about how far down I was. The mud had raised the ground level of the cave by not a small amount so I was moving at a stoop as I looked around the edges. I also found animal holes and guessed at rats, rabbits or other small scavengers.

I was examining one of the wholes when I stood up suddenly and banged my head on the ceiling. The hairs down my arm had stood on end and I shivered.

The room was too small for proper spear work unless I fought from my knees which was not a prospect that I found particularly exciting. I still had my spear in hand and I span, I planted the torch into the mud so that it stood upright, removed the bottom half of my spear and tossed it towards the stairs where I would be able to collect it later without having to scrabble around in the mud to look for it.

I edged back to the wall and put my back against it as I scanned the small cave for the tell-tale green light of a spectre.

It's the strangest feeling being in the presence of a ghost when it doesn't want to be seen, or the conditions aren't right for it _to_ be seen. I shivered, I felt the hairs stand up on my neck and down my fore-arm and I had the strangest sense that something was stood next to me, only a meter or so away.

I turned towards it but the feeling seemed to move to the right.

I know that that seems to be odd or strange but I really can't think of any other way to put it. I took a deep breath.

"Hello," I called out although it might be more accurate to say that I squeaked it out.

Then the thought occurred that I wasn't properly prepared for a confrontation with a ghost. I took another deep breath, scooped up the torch and moved to pick up the bottom half of my spear. I jammed both parts of my spear into my belt and went to climb up and out of the little cave.

I felt eyes on the back of my head.

I was being watched.

Climbing out turned out to be much more difficult than climbing down.

I sat on the hillside for a little while thinking things through although it seemed to be obvious as to what needed to happen next. The kids tried to come up here at night when they were delirious.

So night time it was.

I yawned before climbing to my feet and heading into town.

I found Kerrass sat at a corner table, reading the same book that he had been looking through before. He had a mug of something that was steaming next to him and he was reading carefully, his lips moving as he read. I didn't get to really look at the book but I saw that it was covered in handwriting.

He didn't look up as I approached.

"I need some Spectre oil." I told him.

Without speaking he reached out his other hand, the one that he wasn't using to mark his place in the book with and held out the small bottle of liquid. He must have already had it in his hand waiting for me.

Another sign that I was on the right lines.

I wanted to say something but for the life of me I couldn't think of what needed to be said. To say that I was sorry would be wrong as I wasn't entirely sure what I was sorry about yet so an apology would sound wrong in my head. Also, I wasn't entirely sure what I had to be sorry about, other than a vague kind of feeling that I had fucked up somewhere. Demanding an apology from him also seemed wrong.

It was almost the definition of our association that he knew more than I did about these kinds of situations. In any other situation to do with travelling on the road or hunting monsters I would have deferred to his judgement in every situation. In the same way that he would defer to mine when it came to some kind of social engagement but I...

Oh...

Something to think about there.

I decided that I was still feeling fairly muddled and that talking to Kerrass wouldn't do either of us any good.

Yet.

So instead I went to bed in an effort to get some rest before what was sure to be an interesting evening.

So I stared into the flames. Trying to figure things out. It wasn't going well for me.

What I should be doing was trying to figure out what I was dealing with and how to deal with it. It was almost certain that I was dealing with some kind of ghost. A spirit or spectre of some kind. My working theory was that the ground had been disturbed during the earlier mudslide and that had allowed the spirit of something to escape and start tormenting the village.

If the truth be told, I wasn't that concerned for my own safety. It was the children that had been affected most by the supernatural effects, the adults had seen the results but had not been affected. So I was pretty sure that I would, at worst, need to defend myself from a wraith or some other kind of effect.

I was more worried about what to do about Kerrass. Our relationship, both professional and personal had been damaged somewhere and somehow. I had some ideas as to why but at the same time, Kerrass' actions didn't completely add up for me and I was concerned about what was happening.

I valued him as a friend more than I could say. He was responsible for my ascension in the public eye which meant that he was responsible for my rise in academic rank. Without him I would not have survived to meet Ariadne, I would never have met Ariadne in the first place and although it had only really been, by this point, a little over a year since I had met her, I shivered to think about what my life would be like if I hadn't met her or where I would be by now. It would be almost certain that my marriage would have been arranged by now but that was a rabbit hole that I found my brain fleeing from.

I would never have found out about my fathers killer and what had led to it which would mean that my entire familial situation would be so very different.

Would that mean that Francesca would still be alive?

That didn't bear thinking about.

But one of the important things that Kerrass had taught me about was that he had taught me about the world.

I sat facing the fire for a long time, thinking back tot he person that had left Oxenfurt with a Quarterstaff, some travelling clothes and a bedroll, convinced that my status as a scholar would see me through. Kerrass had taught me about the beauty of a simple life. He'd shown me my prejudices against those people that I just used to label under the overall term of "Commonners".

I shuddered at that thought.

Now of course I knew that the term was too broad. Villagers, towns-folk, farm-folk, city-folk, merchants, craftspeople, travelling entertainers of every stripe, military folk otherwise defined by their use of their weapons to make their living. The underworld that I used to think of as just being evil predators that just made their living by taking from their betters whereas now I had an understanding of the fact that some, if not most people were _driven_ to that lifestyle rather than choosing it for it's own sake.

I owed Kerrass for that.

I also owed Kerrass for the shifting definition of "monster". When I had first set out from Oxenfurt I had thought of a monster as being anything that was not human. If you had pushed me I would have added the other collection of races that are commonly referred to as the "non-humans" to the definition of _not_ being monsters which was another prejudice that I had been forced to get over. But since knowing and travelling with Kerrass I had met and interacted with, and been offered the kindness of other races that I would have thought of as Monsters. Trolls and vampires being the ones that I have written about but also Changelings, Succubi, Godling, numerous spirits and ghosts, Incubi, Dragons and an Isolated Werewolf who had deliberately isolated himself from society but had come to the defence of a local village when it had been attacked by bandits.

No, the monsters were the villagers that then tried to hire a Witcher to hunt down and destroy the Werewolf for existing.

In case you're wondering, Kerrass managed to warn the poor thing that the lynch-mob was on it's way and he was able to get away. Along with his wife and child.

I had also learned that a lot of the "monsters" that Kerrass was hired to hunt were often creatures that had had their habitat disturbed by the activity of humanity. Not conscious, angry beasts but just animals. Large and terrifying though they might be.

Kerrass had taught me that.

But it was time for action, no more time for thinking.

I took the bottle that he had given me, opened it before taking a cloth and, in the same way that you would applying polish to armour, I started to apply the oil to my spear and dagger, taking my time to make sure both were nice and covered in it. That I could see that darkish, green and blue tint on every scrap of business metal.

Right then.

I stood, wrapped up all but one of the torches and slung them in a bundle across my back so that they would be out of my way. The coil of rope went the same way and I spent a bit of time doing some twists and turns to make sure that they were properly settled on my body and wouldn't come loose if I needed to defend myself. I hung the mallet off a hoop in my belt and the climbing spike went on the other side to balance me out. Again I danced a couple of steps to make sure I was settled and comfortable.

Then I stared into the flame and offered a little prayer for my preservation.

It was time though.

I picked up my spear in one hand and let the last torch to see me up the hill.

Strange how even relatively small distances can be amplified in the dark to huge, mile-long treks to which there is no end.

I slowly made my way up the hill. Far too slowly if we're having to be honest with each other. I don't know what was worse, my own fear of what I might find or my hard-taught and hard learnt caution.

Then I saw the green flash.

I've talked about the green flash before, the sign of an angry spirit. I had enough time to throw myself flat, tuck and roll. True to form, the spectre had appeared just behind where I had been standing a moment before and it's blade had passed through where my back had been a moment before. I stumbled to my feet and plunged the torch that I was carrying into the ground at my feet. I had enough time to drop the hammer and spike next to it.

This is why it's always good to have spare torches. Although I hoped that the torch would carry on burning and remain upright there was no guarantee. I could still see my little preparation fire so if it did go out, I could still make it back and light another torch.

I managed those things, I was prepared for this but the thing that I always forget is the deceptive way that spectre's move.

In case you haven't read any of the descriptions about spectres before. They are angry spirits that seem to glow with a green light. Sometimes that glow is a bright green fire but other times it's just a glow. Sometimes they carry what look like lanterns, other times the glow seems to come from some kind of internal source. They often have what look like headstones attached to their backs. I've seen several which trail chains and still more that wear armour.

Fortunately for me, they nearly always use swords which can be parried by anything that you might be able to lay your hands on. Don't ask me why they have material swords that manifest so suddenly like that, I couldn't tell you. You'd be better off talking to a magic user about that.

But they move deceptively. As they move over the ground they seem to move fairly slowly. At no more than the walking speed of humans and they move in the same kind of way, turning and twisting like humans. But then they vanish and teleport significant distances in the blink of an eye.

So, in theory, you fight one like you would a human. But when one vanishes, the best thing to do is to throw yourself into a long roll as there's no way of telling where that blade is going to pass. Don't ask me why but they can't seem to skip and then skip again immediately. As though there is some part of them that is alive and the small teleport leaps renders them confused.

I was pretty sure that I could handle one spectre.

But on the other hand I was still carrying a lot of extra weight and didn't think I had time to get rid of the rope and spare torches.

It lunged forwards and I managed to knock it's blow aside by a sweep of the spear that owed more to my Quarterstaff training than it did to my training with a spear.

Heh.

Back-sliding in more than one way.

Using the technique I followed the movement round to engage the bladed end of the spear. I didn't expect it to strike home but I thought it might give me some room to move and so that I could bring the rest of the pole back into play so that I was wielding a spear again instead of a staff. I lunged and it fell back before vanishing again.

Following the learned rhythm, I threw myself into another roll which carried me a bit further down the hill than I wanted to go. But it did give me room to study my opponent. It was armoured and I could see the top part of leg greaves which suggested that it had some kind of military training. Probably a soldier of some kind in life for it to hold on to the shape of it's armour even after death.

It advanced on me slowly from where it reappeared and I stood ready for it, shifting round so that we were on equal footing. It struck at me twice and I blocked twice before rolling my spear over it's weapon and managed a strike.

It screamed and I felt confidence flow through me.

But then there was another green flash from over to my left.

I swore a little bit as I didn't have time for more than that.

Teach me for being overconfident.

I tried to close with the first spectre to do a bit more damage before the second arrived but there was definitely some military training at work here. It parried my blows carefully and I judged that it was tying me up until it's friend could arrive.

Panic started to flare up and the urge to over-extend myself in an effort to end the first one was strong in me. I was pretty sure I could defeat one spectre by myself but two felt a little bit of a stretch.

The second one was getting closer and I had to move so that I could see both of them. It would do no good to be too focused on one opponent and then forget about the other one as it teleported behind me and cut my head from my neck

Ok, this was getting serious. They knew each other and were working together. While not unusual it was certainly cause for concern. I would need to start getting creative.

The tactic here was to try and isolate the one from the other. Ideally I would be able to destroy the one that had already been injured first before being able to take on the fresh one. But they were working together as a unit, not letting themselves be drawn out or separated.

"Hello," I tried communication. Unlikely to work, indeed I had never seen it work, or heard of an occasion where it _did_ work but you never know. Maybe this time.

The problem with trying to communicate with Spectres is that by the time a spirit gets to the point of being a wight it has lost the spark of intelligence and...well...humanity that would let you communicate with it.

But, if you don't try then nothing ever happens.

"Hello," I tried again. "Can we talk about this?"

No answer. Well what did I expect really.

Instead one of them lunged at me and I had to spin away, not being sure enough of my footing to mount a counter.

Fuck,

Ok, what else is there to try.

Where the fuck am I anyway?

I had a look round. I realised that I was being herded towards the embankment. They would be able to move easily but I would struggle over the steep, rock-strewn ground. I thought about using the tower as shelter.

The problem was that they would almost certainly be able to teleport through the walls and if I ended up in the tower itself then I would be confined when the best way to combat spectres is to stay mobile.

But then an idea struck me.

Cautiously I backed up towards the tower. I was careful, feeling for my feet placement to be sure of my footing. I soon found the tower and started to back round it.

Both spectres had their swords in their right hands. So I backed round, keeping the wall on my left, their right. Nice and slow, calm.

They were getting closer. one followed the line of the fort, the other came round to my right, trying to box me in against the wall. The one closest to the wall was my target. I went to step backwards but I had let them get close. As they should... the spectre took that opportunity to draw back and swing.

As I hoped it would.

It fouled it's sword on the wall of the fort and I lunged forwards to skewer it nice and hard while it's sword was out of position. There was an odd resistance to the blow as I saw my blade enter it. A chill and shock went up the haft of my spear but the thing was dying. I kept going forward. Managing to tuck and roll. The second spectre had attacked while I was skewering it's companion and I needed to get out of the way and make up some ground.

I was getting tired now. Fighting, especially the slow and tactical kind of fighting is deceptively wearying. If he had been human I would have thought the remaining spectre was angry. He came after me quickly and I was forced to focus on just parrying with no mind for any kind of attempt at attacking.

I continued to back off. I needed room. Room to think and plan.

Also a bit of a rest would be lovely.

But the spectre just kept coming on.

It's a fine balancing act, backing away. Just far enough to keep it from trying a teleport but also far enough away so that it didn't get to attack me while I was moving.

But I couldn't back away forever.

I found a patch of ground that seemed relatively flat and stable and decided to make my stand. I planted my feet and as it came closer to me I jabbed at it, the oldest attack pattern that Kerrass had ever taught me.

Throat, groin, throat. Three quick stabs.

It drifted aside and went for a cut to my head. I blocked and was forced sideways. It cut the other way, again I blocked and stepped back the way I came. It's blows were strong and although I didn't know for sure, I thought that this was the uninjured Wight.

It vanished and I dived into a roll and came to my feet.

I was beginning to slow down now. That dive and roll was happening slower and slower.

It closed with me, possibly sensing my weariness.

Oh, that was a bad idea.

If Kerrass saw this he would be _so_ cross.

It was supposed to be a defensive movement but I was running out of other ideas.

It came in for a swing.

I let go of the spear with my right hand so that I was holding it upright with just my left hand. I blocked the blow with the spear as I stepped close and drew my dagger.

It tried to pull back, sensing the danger but not before I managed to stab it twice with the dagger.

The oil on the blade hissed as it made contact with the spectral...whatever it is that makes up the substance of a spirit. It seemed to scream as it collapsed in on itself.

I waited.

The moment of greatest danger is in that moment when you _think_ that you're out of danger but don't yet _know_ that you're out of danger.

Slowly. I started to relax and bent over to lean on my spear as I sucked air into my lungs.

For one glorious moment, I thought that that might be it. That I could go from here, clear away my little fire, find the spike and the mallet and head back to the village. For a wonderful moment I thought that that might be the case. That I might be off the hook.

But of course I wasn't.

Why?

Because the bodies of the children had no other obvious signs of injury. And they hadn't died on the hill itself. The spirits that I had fought had all wielded weapons. These spirits were protecting something else.

But what?

My night wasn't over it would seem.

I found my torch and the hammer and climbing spike and headed up to the watch tower again.

Something caught my eye I was climbing up towards the tower. Off to one side I saw something glittering in the way that sand sometimes catches the light and reflects it back. I checked where I was and went over to investigate.

What I found was a small pile of greenish white dust, scattered over a scorch mark on the floor. I knew better than to sniff it or taste it but I did roll some between my fingers to check that I did indeed know what it was.

Spectre Dust. Another Spectre had died here. Far away from the wall of the tower where I'd killed one and some distance from where the other had died. There had been more spectres here and someone had destroyed them. I straightened.

Kerrass.

For a while I wondered if he was watching me. I didn't bother looking though. If he wanted me to know that he was there he would call out to me. Also, he could see in the dark much better than I could and I was light blinded by the torches.

I set off towards the tower and the cave again.

It took me a little while of hunting to find the cave entrance. I had to re-orient myself to the tower several times and I was also worried about tripping down it and hurting myself. The other problem being that it looked much smaller in the dark. I think there were a couple of occasions when I found the hole and discounted it on the grounds that it looked too small for the hole that I had remembered seeing.

But I found it and set down my gear.

I tied my rope into the climbing spike before hammering it deep into the ground. I tried my full weight on it outside the hole first to make sure that it could take me as I had visions of the spike coming out when I was half way down there. Made sure there was another torch as well, next to the spike and lit that one as well so that I would have a light source that would tell me when I had climbed out.

I really, _really_ didn't want to go down the hole.

I took the spear apart and just slung the bladed end to my back, leaving the pole with the torch. There was no way that I would be able to properly use the spear down there so there was no point in even tempting myself into doing that.

I realised that I was procrastinating. My breath was coming in short gasps and that I was sweating and shaking.

Turns out that it's one thing to climb down a dark hole in the middle of the day while also being quite another to climb there at night.

Let alone, doing so after a fight.

"Tear the plaster off." I told myself and probably went down far too fast. "Fastest done, fastest over."

I guessed that I was about half way down the hole when I began to see a faint, bluish white light.

"No," I said to myself. "This isn't too terrifying." I had to take another couple of deep breaths before I ventured further into the cave. I rolled over the embankment and came to my feet. From here I would be able to walk, just a little bit further before I would be able to straighten up. I lit another torch and left it on the ground, carefully making sure that it was a good foot away from where I had let the rope lie so that the rope didn't catch fire.

Three torches down. Plus the one that I was holding which wouldn't last forever leaving me three left. I wanted one for the entrance to the larger cavern and had thought that I could use one to illuminate the other end of the cavern with an extra torch spare.

I suddenly bitterly regretted not bringing more torches. Like, a dozen more torches.

The glow seemed to come from just round the bend into the larger cavern.

I took a deep breath and held the shortened spear out in front of me.

I advanced slowly, spear and torch before me, which was an awkward way to go caving. But I crept forwards as best as I could.

I came to the entrance to the larger cavern and had to take another deep breath. Calling the strange light "bright" would be an exaggeration. It was only bright because of the darkness, the thrown shadows of my own flame and the depths of my imagination.

As I say. Firelight is not a good way of dismissing fear.

I took another deep breath and lit a second torch. I stepped through the entranceway and into the cavern leaving the new torch on the right of the entrance so I knew that I would need to have it on my left as I left, it's important to keep these things oriented in your mind, and then looked up into the cavern.

The light went out before I could see the source of the light.

Fuck.

A shiver went down my spine and once again I was left feeling as though I was being watched. The hairs on my forearm and the back of my neck started to stand up.

I took a deep breath and saw, in my torchlight, that my breath was fogging in the air.

I could feel my heart hammering in my chest, that strange feeling of the blood pumping through my veins. It was deathly quiet. I remember distinctly thinking that it was "as quiet as a tomb,"

I don't know why I thought that.

It took me another few moments to master myself.

I remembered the wooden framework of the stairs at the other end of the room. I raised my torch in an effort to get some more light into the room and could just see the dime shapes of the skeletal framework at the other end of the room. But I was also aware of the possible distortions of reality that the dark, the fear and the presence of something ghostly. I carefully felt my way round the wall until I reached the stairs before lighting another torch and leaving it there, nice and elevated so it would give me more light.

Ok then, so...what now?

I thought about the presence that I had felt earlier in the day when I had been down there.

"Fuck it..." I said quietly.

I heard a young voice tittering.

I jumped a mile, narrowly avoiding banging my head on the low ceiling.

"Uh, hello." I called into the cavern when I had got myself back under control. "Is there anyone there?" I asked, proving that no cliché is ever too much for this scholar.

I got the feeling of being watched.

Then I made a foolish error.

I closed my eyes in an effort to sharpen my hearing or whatever sense it was that was using to try and _sense_ whatever it was that I was in the presence of. I had felt a sense of it's location before but now I couldn't tell what was happening. I took several deep breaths before giving up and opening my eyes again.

"Boo," said the quiet voice.

"FUCK," I yelled and fell backwards hitting my head on some of the wooden framework of the stairs.

There was again, a sound of quiet laughter.

"You said a naughty word." Came the voice.

"Who are you?" I asked.

"Are you here to play with me?"

I shuddered. I realised that the voice sounded like that of a young child.

"Uhhhh, maybe?" I tried.

"No-one will play with me."

"Why not?" I asked.

"Why will no-one play with me?"

Seeing it written down on the paper doesn't properly convey just how terrifying this was. But now the light was coming back.

I began to get the sense of a small figure stood at the edge of the cavern. Just a shape, a small human shape. It oddly made me feel better but the blue tinged light was not helping. I was used to green light coming from angry spirits and I couldn't tell what this blue light meant. But having a shape, if not a face, to address my words towards was helpful.

"Who are you?" I asked it.

"I'm bored." Came the voice. It echoed strangely off the walls. As though it wasn't being generated by a pair of lungs or a mouth. "So bored and tired and hungry."

"Why don't you tell me your name?" I asked it again but it seemed to be ignoring me.

"I'm so bored." He complained."

I took another deep breath. "What would you like to play?" I asked him. His features had kind of been fading into vision. As though they were becoming more and more pronounced. I could see his nose forming and the outline of eyebrows and clothes. He was dressed in an old-fashioned style. Much more ornate style a mixture of the modern, austerity of Nilfgaard mixed with the ornate and flimsy garb of Toussaint. A simple hat sat on his head. He wore stockings underneath his tunic and worse simple shoes. He looked like a page that you would see in any nobleman's house, or a fostered son learning the ways of someone else's court traditions.

His body language was unspeakably sad. Dejected and despairing.

"I'm not supposed to play with adults." He said, turning towards me. His features fading into view quicker now.

I groaned.

It's odd how the eye slides of things that it doesn't want to see. The eye slides off and the mind refuses to register it.

The boy was emaciated, skeletally thin to the point of death. As I looked at him it seemed as though the skin was peeling off his face and I could see him clearly for the dying young boy that he was. I suddenly had a vision of blonde hair, cut above the collar, clear blue eyes in the way that must have delighted his parents. I would put his age at being about six or seven. He was dying before my eyes.

The thing that sent me fleeing for the sake of my mind and sanity was when his eyeball rolled out of his socket and hung by a thread.

My brain went away for a while. I count myself lucky that I still had my spear because if I had put it down then I think it would still be under the ground there. I ran before that awful sight.

And I've seen some unpleasant stuff in my time of following Kerrass around but there was something so...simple in the awfulness, in the horror of that thing's expression as it's eye simply rolled out. There was something in the innocence of the boys face that cut me down to the soul.

I found my way out more by chance than by any kind of skill and hauled my way along the rope as hard as I could. The lack of care in my ascent meant that I was scuffed against the sides of the tunnel sending loose dirt and earth further down the tunnel.

It felt so much further than I remembered to get to the surface but eventually I saw the torchlight and scrambled to see it.

Strong hands took mine and hauled at me. I looked up and saw Kerrass' face. He had planted his feet and pulled me bodily from the hole.

I was shaking with the sudden effort and the fear and the sheer horror of the thing. When I was out of the hole I still needed to move a little, Kerrass' presence not withstanding I was shaking and my legs still wanted to move.

He waited for a while with the attitude of someone who was waiting for a friend to fall over after drinking too much. As though he was waiting to catch me. I realised that he was saying my name.

"Freddie?" I looked up at him. He searched my eyes for a minute, seemed satisfied with what he saw and nodded.

"I'm on top of the tower when you're ready."

It still took me some time to calm down. I wasn't ready for a conversation yet but it seemed like I was getting one.

He was sat on the top of the tower in the shelter of one of the crenellations. I saw a bedroll in one corner as well as cooking pot that was bubbling over some hot stones. A trick that he used occasionally when he didn't want to build a fire. He would heat a couple of stones with his "Igni sign," and cook over that. He had a hooded lantern next to him, from the light of which he was reading from that book again.

When I arrived he reached over and took some more liquid out of the pot and poured it into a spare mug before offering it to me.

"Here," he said, "It'll help."

I recognised one of the herbal teas that he liked. Sweetened with a little too much honey for my normal tastes but I also knew from past experience that it would help.

I sat down opposite him and stretched out. It was surprisingly warm and well sheltered on the tower top, helped by the hot stones and the drink. I felt my legs crack as the muscles started to relax from their adrenaline fuelled tensions. I stretched out and sighed before staring over at Kerrass who was taking the cover off the lantern so that there was more light to go around.

I stared at him for a long time. I almost felt the distance between us growing like a chasm. He had hurt me and I suspected the I had hurt him. I was still angry but hadn't had enough time to sort out my own feelings about that.

"You alright?" He asked me after a long while of trying to peer at the book again.

"St Lebioda's testicles Kerrass." I told him with some asperity. "What the fuck was that?"

"It was a ghost Freddie." I could see the corners of his mouth turn up in one of his old smiles and decided that he was laughing at me.

"I know it was a ghost Dammit." I snarled. "I'm not _that_ stupid."

"But you _are_ stupid then." He was grinning. He was teasing me and I didn't know what to make of that.

We started laughing at the same time. It felt good.

"It's a type of ghost called "porzucone dziecko" or "wedi eu gadael yn ddieuog" according to the elves."

I thought for a moment. "I've never heard of it," I decided.

"And I would be surprised if you had if I'm honest. Fortunately you deal with them in exactly the same way that you would in any other case of a haunting."

"Spectre oil." I said nodding.

"Plenty of stabbing," he agreed.

"Then the question has to be asked Kerrass. Why haven't you done that yet. Was all of this some kind of elaborate test to tell me how useless I am? I'm not saying that this wasn't important. I've gotten over that particular brand of my own...nonsense but, at the same time..."

"Your influence again I'm afraid." He sighed and put the book aside.

"My influence?"

"Yes."

"I don't understand."

"This is going to embarrass you."

"Maybe but I'll take the embarrassment over confusion."

He smiled a little sadly.

"I meant what I said." He told me after some time. "You have made me a better man and a better Witcher than I ever was before. There are a number of points in my life where I have been influenced for the better, or at least I hope it's for the better. The earliest one in my life was the adventure that brought Sleeping Beauty into my life. It was awful having to see what I did there and if I could give her that innocence back or if I could, I would still go back and change it. But seeing what those men did to her had a profound effect on me. An effect that I still become surprised by.

"Then there was the time that I was rescued and cared for by men that I had been taught to despise. Men who I had hated since I was seven or eight."

"Eskel, Vesemir and the others from the Wolf school?"

"The very same. They taught me more about being a Witcher and about being a man. They gave me a code to live by. The fact that I came up with the majority of that code by myself is immaterial but at the same time, they taught me that a code is important."

He grinned suddenly.

"But I wasn't having fun until I met you."

"Uh, thanks? I think."

He nodded at that.

"Don't get me wrong. There were times there when I was so angry with you that I could pull out your eyeballs with my teeth..."

I remembered the ghost in the cavern below us and shivered at the image.

"...but you taught me about trying to help people. Even if it turned out that you couldn't. I said I wasn't having fun as a Witcher before you. But you have shown me that I can also take a kind of pride in being a Witcher. In helping others with the gifts that I have been given, even if I do ask for money in return for the services. I was never ashamed of who, or what I am but at the same time, I was never _proud_ of being a Witcher."

He looked into his cup and poured himself some more from the cauldron. He beckoned to me and I handed my own cup over to be refilled.

"Which brings us to this ghost." He said before grimacing at the drink and adding another spoonful of honey to his own cup. "It's name roughly translates to Abandoned child. You won't have heard of it because it's rare and getting rarer in the modern day. Indeed, this is the first one I've ever seen. You just don't come across them anymore."

"Why?"

"Because they are generated by specific circumstances that just don't come up. When this part of the world was first colonised by humanity, any burk that had a number of armed men could put a crown on his head and declare himself King."

"Or Queen."

"Yes indeed and we mustn't think that women can't be as bloodthirsty and unpleasant as men. As you know these little Kingdoms started to encroach on each other. Wars happened and then they started to merge into bigger Kingdoms. Then the Kingdoms would often war with themselves as one noble would think, "Why do I have to follow that guy because his Granddaddy was more of a blood thirsty bastard than mine?" So Kings started to look around for "Inconvenient children." Bastard children or other figure heads that ambitious men..."

"And women," I interrupted.

"Yes, or women would pin their hopes on to be the next King or Queen. So the smart thing to do was to exterminate all the children who had, or nearly had, a claim to the throne. The parents of the children tended to be upset at this prospect would hide their children away in an effort to keep them safe. Sometimes though they would lock the child away where they were "safe" and secret before they would go off to be beheaded for crimes, many and varied. Then for whatever reason, no-one came to look for the child and they starve to death or suffocate or otherwise die in their imprisonment."

"That's awful." I said. And it was.

"I agree. It doesn't happen as much now because the Kingdoms are so large that having a spare bastard lying around is occasionally useful for the preservation of the royal line. Out of the way castles can be found to lock away the inconvenient children so it just doesn't come up as often as it used to.

"Which brings me to my point.

"The old Kerrass would have just walked into town, realised what was going on, found the ghost and commenced with the stabbing. But I couldn't.

"We don't know what happens to the spirits that we slay. Do they just dissipate for a while, are they sent on to whatever place we all go to next or are we killing them? No-one knows because of course they don't. That would take away half the fun of the situation. But, recognising the ghost's behaviour I found that I couldn't do that to an innocent life. It's a monster but it's also a child that was dealt that cruellest of blows.

"These ghosts follow a pattern. They kill in a cycle, in this case, the child took a long time to die. Just under a week. I would tell you to think of it like a vampire but that's a little impolite nowadays." He smiled at me.

"A little," I admitted.

"But anyway. It's hurt, it's angry and it's very frightened and incredibly lonely. It, and I use the term loosely, "lives" with it's existence for a period of time that is often arbitrary. In this case, a little over six days. Then, when it can't tolerate the loneliness any further, it selects a playmate."

"A child."

"Yes. Then, if the child refuses to play through, understandable, terror then the ghost becomes angry and invades the childs nightmares and drives them mad and so to suicide. After a playmate dies the ghost actually feels unbearable guilt at what it does and withdraws until it can't take it any more and comes for another playmate. If the playmate agrees then the ghost and the playmate "play," until the playmate simply drops dead from exhaustion."

"So that was why the children looked so tired before death."

"Yes, the herb-woman's diagnosis of fatigue was correct but she wasn't to know that she was treating a symptom of the disease rather than the disease itself."

"She will be glad to hear that." I said.

Kerrass just looked at me for a moment as I heard the words that I had just said.

"Who am I kidding?" I said after a while. "She's going to berate herself for not catching it. The same as most of the people here are going to."

Kerrass nodded.

"So anyway," he said, changing the topic with admirable restraint. "The last child was killed about four days ago now. So, I thought that as there was no danger for the next few nights, I would have a look around to see if I could find something out about who this child was in an effort to lay them to rest rather than to destroy them."

I nodded. I approved

"Any luck?"

Kerrass sighed before shaking his head. "I spent last night up here in case I was wrong and a young kid _did_ come up here to be chosen as a playmate. After you went to bed I went down to the cavern and had a look round for the kids remains so that they could be blessed by a priest. But they're either buried under sediment, carried off by animals or have fallen down the cracks somewhere during one of the earth movements."

"Ooh, while I think about it. Is that what started this whole thing going. The landslide opened the crack which meant the spirit could get out."

"That's my guess, yes."

I was absurdly pleased that I had got that right.

"So in the early hours I went off investigating which was when I found this." He hauled the book into view.

"What is it?"

"Your influence made manifest?"

"Mmm?"

"Remember Castle Dorn? You told me that you often find out more from the servants records than you do from the noble occupants."

"I did."

"Well, it's the same here. Turns out that the maidservant was a diarist."

"They're always the best."

"Mmm well, it wasn't any help. I know the child's name. I know why he was abandoned and why he was important but nothing that's going to help me put that poor kid to rest rather than to simply destroy him."

"Who was he?"

Kerrass was right. It was a very sad story. Giving you the short version here rather than the minutiae of it.

His name was Jiakob and even before he was born he was already a victim of the local dynastic squabbles of the area.

Kerrass and I had seen the larger castle further down in to the river basin. Turns out that that belongs to the local Duke but at the time of the book's writing he was referred to as King, this was, maybe a hundred years ago. The then owners of the local ruined manor house were blessed with a lovely daughter. The Lord of the manor decided that he was ambitious and wanted to try his hand at national politics. The King, at the time, was a notable womaniser (I notice that there seems to be a lot of those older kings with this habit. I wonder if it was some kind of disease that you caught when someone handed you a crown.) and the father sent his daughter down to court in an effort to catch the King's eye.

The King was having trouble conceiving a son. He had no trouble at all conceiving daughters but his wife, the queen, just couldn't give him a son. So when this provincial girl went down to court full of innocent seduction, large eyes and long eyelashes the King was helpless before her.

Having read the book at length before sending it off to the university as an example of history and household life in this part of the world, there was one quote that caught my eye. The maid was trying to play her own game of seduction only on the head of the household guard. Said guard had once told the maidservant of something that the Lord had said which was "There is something in her eyes that hooks onto a man's soul."

I'll never forget that.

The King never stood a chance. Three months later the girl was the King's official mistress, much to the Queen's displeasure. The Queen's family was similarly disposed towards the King and resented the arrival of this new faction in politics and they sent assassins after the Kings new favourite who promptly, and sensibly, fled.

Because she was pregnant.

The Queen's mistake was not chasing after the girl straight away. Instead she allowed the girl to escape and gave her enough time to give birth to a son.

The King was overjoyed at his newly arrived proven ability to produce a male heir.

The Queen was furious as now she was the one taking the blame for everything that was wrong with the world. Her faction went to work to discredit the Girl and her family going to all kinds of lengths to prove that the girl was a slattern, that the baby wasn't the King's child and did their best to discredit her. But the King was a softy and eventually the Queen received word that he was planning to set her aside and marry a younger girl of proven ability to produce sons.

But then another faction rose to the fore and the "Kingdom" was engulfed in something of a civil war.

Looking up the dates this would be around when Nilfgaard was beginning to expand into this area. The King was left to concentrate on these bigger concerns and set the matter aside to be dealt with later.

But that still left the bastard son out there.

The boys mother was ridiculously paranoid about her sons life. I would like to think that she loved her son and was concerned for his safety but the maid was of the opinion that her mistress was well aware of the importance of the child and wanted to keep him safe.

But the threat of assassins from any side of the dynastic struggles.

So she hid him. In her fathers hunting lodge.

He was forbidden from speaking to anyone other than the well known members of her fathers household and when men came, searching for him or to interrogate the household, the boy would be taken into the watch-tower and locked in the basement. He was guarded at all times by a group of his grandfathers guards.

One day, the guards just didn't come back. The boys mother had been summoned back to the court, a visit that she would not return from. The boys grandfather decided to grow a sense of right and wrong at the time and threw in with Nilfgaard. But the boy was still alive and inconvenient to everyone. Inconvenient to the Nilfgaardians who didn't want an extra heir to the castle lying around. The warring families wanted the line of succession to be clear and easy and the boy just became...

Inconvenient.

No-one seemed to know what had gone on. The household staff didn't even know where the guards used to take the boy to look after him on the grounds that the location couldn't be tortured out of them by enemies. They searched but couldn't find him.

It was unknown whether the guards deserted, were bought off, attacked and killed or even tortured to death for the location of the boy. But the boy was never found.

The silence fell around us quite gently after Kerrass had finished telling me the story.

"Wow," I managed after a while. "So who were the other Spectres?"

"I don't know," Kerrass said. "I can guess though, military training and armour. I think they were the knights who were assigned to protect him. Caught up in death, guilt, grief or some left over sense of duty. You did well by the way."

"Two spectres, How many others were there?"

"Another five. I thought I was leaving you one but one must have got away from me."

"Or there was another guard on rotation that was called off for some reason."

"Maybe."

I sucked my teeth.

"I'm sat here trying to think, if there is any way, that I could make that story even more tragic."

Kerrass sighed and set the book aside.

"No," he said. "It couldn't be worse. And now, his existence ends in the flash of a Witcher's sword. I can't think of any other way to deal with this."

I grunted and rested my head on the cool stone of the watchtower crenellations.

"So what was this all about Kerrass?" I asked, more to fill the silence than for any other reason.

"Mmm?"

"All of this. Making me hunt this thing by myself rather than at your side. No, no, don't get me wrong." I held up my hand to forestall him. "I was wrong. This is just as important as my missing sister. Everyone has tragedy, everyone does and I did see the anguish of another man who lost his sister. I saw the woman who couldn't help and thought it was her fault and I am aware that if... if we had ridden by in my haste to carry on then another child would die and there would be more upset. More trauma. It might even have led to the loss of this village in the long run.

"So I was wrong in saying this wasn't important."

Kerrass grunted.

"I do think, knocking me down was a bit harsh though." I commented.

"Heh, No. You totally deserved knocking on your stupid noble ass then."

"The first or the second time?"

Kerrass considered.

"The second time you definitely deserved it. Saying or even thinking that these peoples lives are "less important" deserves a smack in the mouth. The first one was just me."

"What did I do to deserve that?"

Kerrass sighed and thought for a while.

"There were two reasons." He said after a while. "I possibly couldn't have argued this before but I've been doing a lot of thinking since then."

"What about?"

"Many, many things. Including whether or not I even wanted to carry on travelling with you."

I stared at him in shock.

"Okay." I said carefully.

"Don't get me wrong," he went on. "I promised you that I would look for your sister and the people responsible but I no longer thought that I wanted to do that with you. I...I was beginning to think that with you being the way that you were, or possibly still are, that one or both of us wouldn't survive the experience.

That was the other reason I decided to take a contract. To help these people but also to test you. To see what I was dealing with now. I wanted to see if... to see if you could still do this." He sighed. "I'm not explaining myself very well."

"So you decided to test me."

"I did."

"Did you not think I could do this?"

He sat forward suddenly. "That's it." He said animatedly. "That's the point. The old you could have done it easily.

"The old you. The man who took the lessons that Letho gave him and still managed to shake the man's hand afterwards. I was so angry with him for what he put you through at the time but I've read your works on the matter since then and you took his lessons and made them...have weight and substance. In ways that even he probably struggled with."

"I thought you liked Letho."

"Letho is a difficult man to like. I don't like his politics, his way of working or his morals or his ethics. But I can think of fewer people I would rather go drinking with, play cards with and once he has decided that he likes you then he will walk through fire for you.

"But anyway.

"The old you. The man that stood up to an ancient vampire. A woman so powerful that I struggle to think of who, in the Lodge of Sorceresses, could take her in a fight. And that's not a knock on the Lodge, they have some formidable women there. But you stood up to her, changed her mind, challenged her and made her think. You educated her about the world as it exists now rather than the world as it existed as she knew it and you did it in a few days ride. I've read your account of that adventure too and you give her a lot of the credit for getting us all out of that situation alive. You are correct but she wouldn't have made that decision without your help.

"The man that helped me wake the Princess up. A problem that heroes, wizards, warriors, nobles and scholars couldn't figure it out. Including this Witcher and you managed to look at it in a different light. You looked down on her sleeping form and you didn't feel lust but instead you felt pity.

"That guy. That guy could find this ghost. I've thought about this problem for a while and I can't find a way that we can dismiss the ghost without destroying it. If we had more time and you were definitely that man then I would say that you should give it a go, to try and find an alternative method. Just for the record though. The reason that we can't is that the ghost will choose another victim within the next couple of days.

"That man could have found the ghost. That man would have asked what was on the Witcher notice and when he saw that it was children that were dying without dismissing it, then he would have left his own mission to go and help. He would have insisted on it and would have been angry with me if _I_ had been the one that tried to push us on down the road.

"That guy would have found the ghost.

"But the man you've been?"

He clicked his tongue and shook his head.

"That man would have left. He would have continued on his self-imposed mission. He would have ignored these people's plights and done his own thing, rushing headlong into the problem."

"I am the same man I was." I tried.

"No Freddie, no you are not. It's hard because you still show some signs of that man. The comfort that you offered Princess Dorn, your realisation of the neglect that you had been showing Ariadne. These are things that the old Freddie would have done.

"But no.

"You have been through a tragedy and you're under an enormous amount of, largely self-imposed, pressure. An old teacher of mine once told me that when we are under stress we revert to behaving in the way that we first learned to behave. In your case, the spoiled, arrogant and self-righteous noble student."

"I wasn't spoiled."

"Come on Freddie, you honestly telling me that if your Father had put his foot down that you would have been able to avoid your familial obligations. He didn't agree with your decision to be a scholar but he accepted it because he loved you. If he had really wanted you to live up to your duties then you would have been carried home in a sack to marry whoever you were damn well told to marry. Probably some woman who was prohibitively far from the university. A Skelligan woman in return for a guarantee that Coulthard ships wouldn't be raided for example."

"I hadn't thought of it like that."

"Of course you haven't. But since your sister's disappearance, that is who you have again become. The headstrong bull in a glass shop that expects to get his own way, believing in your own invulnerability and that the world will just bend to your will because of who you are."

It's hard to listen to your best friend list your faults. Even if you might not agree with them.

"Lets look at the evidence," Kerrass said. "You insisted on being part of the investigation into your sisters disappearance. Do you know why I volunteered to lead the investigation that day?"

"You said it was because you knew the family."

"That's right. I do know you. If it had been Geralt he would have told you to go back to your rooms and await word. What would you have done then?"

"I...I don't know."

"Come on Freddie, you can lie to me if you like but don't lie to yourself. You would have carried out your own investigation wouldn't you. Even though the smartest thing would be to stay in the room and wait for the experts to do their job, you would have followed him around asking questions and getting in the way. So I insisted that I perform the tasks so that I could keep an eye on you.

"Then again when Laughing Jack is discovered as a presence. You demand to take part in the hunt. You expect it as though you're entitled to it. If we had been anywhere other than Toussaint where they appreciate the romance of the gesture, the guards would have locked you up to prevent you from interfering.

"Then, what do you decide to do. After Jack has badly injured a Witcher, killed many highly trained knights and dozens of expert guardsmen. You, YOU." He jabbed his fingers at me for emphasis. "You dive into the water to chase after him alone. I was so angry with you I nearly killed you myself. What kind of foolish idiot were you becoming? I thought to myself. It's astonishing to me that you are still alive from that incident alone.

"Then when that doesn't work out we get onto the boring part of the investigation. The legwork, the searching of the houses and the ships. The magical surveys of the land and things. You identify that we could ask Jack what was happening.

"This was by far the most useless and stupid idea that you had come up with yet."

"More stupid than talking to the dragon?"

"Yes, more stupid than that. A dragon can be killed. Jack can not. Also, I would remind you that we tried everything else before we tried talking to the dragon. Including the things that we knew weren't going to work but we tried them so that when we _did_ talk to the dragon it was because we had no other choice. But you go charging off and doing it anyway."

"And then, when that doesn't work. Instead of doing the sensible thing and waiting until all the alternatives to happen. All of the boring things which involve legwork. You go off and try to talk to him. You don't step aside and let someone more qualified to do it. You jump and insist that you do the talking."

"You didn't try to stop me." I pointed out. I thought I had been acting fairly rationally and I found Kerrass' point of view shocking.

"No I didn't. Because again, if I had tried to prevent you you would have done it by yourself and in a way that I wouldn't have been able to find you, or without the proper precautions.

"But I save the most stupid decision of all till last.

"Despite what happened to you in Ambers crossing. Despite knowing that Jack, if anything, is more powerful than that thing.

"You made a deal with him.

"For just a moment there. I hated your fucking guts Freddie. You didn't have to sit there with Emma and Mark and Ariadne and watch the fear that they were losing their little brother and the man that they loved to strange, unidentified powers. How could you have been so selfish when there are any number of more qualified people available to do what you just assumed that you would do."

He stared into space for a moment, struggling with some kind of emotion.

"Oh and by the way, when we next meet Emma or Mark, you are going to buy your sister flowers as an apology and do...whatever it is that Mark wants you to do to apologise. I don't know, let him hear your confession or something."

"You're consigning me to a fate worse than death Kerrass?"

"After what you put your family through, you deserve it."

Kerrass didn't say anything for a while.

"I thought you might snap out of it when we left Toussaint but you carried on with it. Suddenly I was no longer your friend or companion or even... or even your business partner or your study topic. I had become your servant."

"Oh come on, that's unfair."

"Is it?" He raised his eyebrows at me. ""Come on Kerrass We can ride another couple of hours before it gets dark. Why are we bothering with training Kerrass? You can fight and I know what I'm doing.""

His impersonation of me was not complimentary.

"Do you remember riding the commoners off the road?" He asked me.

"What?"

"You did. "Make way," you yelled before carrying on riding. I honestly believe that if they hadn't moved then you would have ridden them down."

I struggled to remember. It might have happened I supposed. I struggled to remember.

"It was two days ago." He said, "Just as we left the last border watch-post."

I remembered.

"We were in a hurry to get down the mountain." I protested.

"Were we? Or were we just anxious to keep moving to the expense of everything else. Like, caution for example?"

I had no answer.

What could I say.

"You know my methods Freddie. We rest earlyish in an effort to find a camp-site so that we can properly protect ourselves. We train to make sure that our skills are sharp and to better ourselves. We maintain our weapons so that we can depend on them. I heard about how long you worked at your spear earlier. Wasn't very sharp was it."

I didn't say anything. He was quite correct.

"You're a scholar Frederick. You know more about monsters, history, Witchers and philosophy than most people in the world. Including many people who would call themselves "educated." So why do you keep studying? Not that you've done a great deal recently I notice."

"To better ourselves." I said. "Because there is always more to learn. More to teach, more to understand."

"Precisely. I liked that part of you. I admired that part of you. I miss that part of you and I worry that you are "less" because of it's lack. I worry about you Freddie."

"So you punch me in the face?" I tried for levity.

"I was trying to shock you. To give you a kick of some kind to try and wake you up. Rather ham-fistedly I will admit. But right then and there I was so pissed at you for everything that had built up over the last few weeks."

"So what you're saying is that, it seemed like a good idea at the time?"

He laughed. "It did at that, and it felt _sooooo_ good."

I laughed as well. It felt good and I felt the distance that was growing between us begin to shrink.

"Am I wrong?" He asked, leaning forward and pouring himself another drink. "Is anything that I've said unfair? Say so now."

I thought about it. "Could we not have talked about it?"

"I tried but you weren't receptive if you remember. Just determined to find your vengeance."

He was probably right. I had been locked in my own head for a while.

"So, let's say that I admit to the problems that you're talking about and I will admit you're probably right. I think you might be a little harsh but you're probably right."

He nodded.

"So what's next?" I asked him.

"Well. You need to make a choice. You can either continue with me or you can go on by yourself. But if you come with me then we need to return to our old forms of travel. When we're in courtly situations then I will follow your lead but while we're out on the road or dealing with supernatural creatures then you will follow my lead."

"I understand."

"If you come with me then you need to understand that I am not yours to order around or buy. Money will not enter into it. I want...I need to pay my own way. You taught me that. I am going to stop to help people and carry out contracts. There is another reason for that which I will get to in a moment. I would like your help on those hunts, same as you used to."

I nodded.

"I would also suggest that you need to start your studies again. Write to people, let them know what happened in Toussaint. Let them know what happened here. There is still so much out there that is not known to the world and the only person that is telling them that, as far as I can see, is you. So write your book on Jack, write your journals. Remember why you're out here. It might also mean that other people will contact you with leads that we can follow if they read about your adventures and then think... "Hey, that might be useful for him to know.""

I nodded. "You're right. I still have duties to the university, even if I'm not there at the moment."

"Precisely."

He watched me for a while.

"You had a second reason though." I told him. "Another reason as to why you made me hunt this thing."

"Yes I do, and this is the uncomfortable part."

He shifted his weight until he was sat cross legged in front of me. No longer relaxed he peered at me intently.

"Here's the thing. A couple of days ago, when you were complaining about why we weren't going after the bad guys as quickly as you wanted, I told you that we weren't chasing them, that we were hunting them. You remember?"

I nodded.

"Well that is true. One of the things that we know about these people is that they can gate, teleport or however you want to say it. They can do that. They did it to Francesca right?"

I nodded.

"So how fast we travel is immaterial. When we're hunting whether it's an animal or a spirit, flying creature or otherwise they are invariably stronger, faster, quicker and more vicious than they are. What we do when we're hunting them is that we put ourselves in their position and we learn to think like them the better to track them down. With something like deer we find out where their water is coming from and wait. For rabbits, we identify where their warrens are and set traps. The same with monsters. We don't just chase around the countryside, waiting for the griffin to attack. We identify it's food source and track it back to it's lair."

"So you're saying that we need to think like them." I felt my lip curl in disgust.

"Partially. Which means that we need to toughen up. That's the other thing I wanted you to do for this. You were being emotional.

"Don't get me wrong. You have every reason to be upset, angry and otherwise emotional but if you let that drive you..."

I held my hand up. "I take the point Kerrass."

"So you need to learn to set it aside and focus on what we're doing. That's what I was trying to force you to do but the other thing is still correct.

"Goddess but I hope I'm explaining this right," he said.

"We are _hunting_ them. We need to get into their heads but we also need to make them think that we have given up. That they are safe from us."

"But you've just said that I should keep writing my journals."

"Yes I have. We need to return to "normal". We need to do what we were doing before so that they think that they have us beaten besides. You would only write about what we were doing _after_ we had done it. So if they read what you were writing then they would be reacting to things that had already happened right?"

"True."

"But we need to start thinking like them and we need to toughen up."

"Okay?"

Kerrass was working himself up to a point and he didn't think I would like it. He had stopped meeting my eyes and was shifting nervously.

"What is it Kerrass?"

"Ok, here we go." He cleared his throat. "I need you to start preparing yourself for the possibility that this is your fault. Your families fault."

"What?"

"Don't get me wrong. Them taking your sister is a step too far."

"Right?"

"Here's my thinking. There was hate behind this taking of your sister. Real, honest to Goddess Hatred. This wasn't an attack on the Empress, or Nilfgaard as a whole because if it was there would have been follow up gestures or attacks. This was an attack against her or an attack against your family. It took effort, planning and money. Now I'm not going to go down the rabbit hole of asking who would have access to those kinds of resources but... I'm more asking who would have the motivations to do that."

"But...We've done nothing wrong. We haven't invaded any countries, we haven't had anyone assassinated, we haven't..."

"Have you, for example, written a story about nobleman's death where he came across as the true villain of the piece?"

I felt my mouth open.

"Have you subverted the course of justice by insulting and ridiculing those properly appointed officers of the law? You understand I'm just talking about you now, not your brothers or sisters, right?

"Have you personally managed to jump ranks so that you have more power and influence than you would have any right to? Power and influence that others might have pegged for themselves?

"Have you gone from being a younger son of a fairly insignificant family to a man who is an informally adopted brother to the Empress, future Count of Angral who has the ear of certain members of the Lodge of Sorceresses, member of the faculty of the university of Oxenfurt who is also on friendly terms with many important people while serving to advise the Empress on matters of state.

"This is just you by the way.

"But lets look at your family as a whole for a minute.

"Your family was a fairly minor Barony before Nilfgaard invaded the North. Your Father was, essentially, a merchant who made a few good deals and became rich. Bought himself lands and a title. He would not have got any further, he would not have been _allowed_ to go any further because of King Radovid's disdain for your father. Despite your father's loyalty to the state, and he was loyal, Radovid's death and Redania's defeat opened doors for your family that would have remained closed for decades otherwise. Suddenly they are subjects of a larger Empire. Your Father always had an eye for a deal and sent your sister south.

"Your family as a whole has a talent for spotting holes in the market and plugging them. Your sister filled the hole of giving the Empress a friend and a younger sister figure that she hadn't attained because of her history for instance.

"You saw the lack of up to date knowledge about Monsters and Witchers which has led to your rise in academic circles as another example.

"But your family has done everything it _should_ do for people in your position and it has done so very well. There is no way, no way, that you won't have made enemies while doing so.

"How many other people were angry with Francesca for giving the Empress the confidence and friendship that she needed meaning that they were less able to take advantage of the Empress. Not that they could have done but they might blame your sister.

"It is well known that Emma is the head of a merchant powerhouse. Built by your father and Grandfather to be sure but now Emma is the figurehead. Emma, a woman, in an open, loving relationship with another woman who, for _some_ reason, has managed to gather the loyalty of her people. How many people has she stood on to get where she is. Even if all she did was take advantage of other people underestimating her.

"Mark is a powerful man in the church. I even understand that for a given value of being a churchman, he's relatively progressive.

"You, because of your demanding that _we_ interfere in Sir Robart's investigation into your Father's death, ended up getting so many young men executed for heresy.

"To our eyes, these people deserve what happened to them. To us, we did the right thing. But to the man who watched his son get burned at the stake for heresy which, to him, was just a bit of harmless fun at the expense of people who don't really matter.

"They would hate you.

"The merchant who lost his fortune because Emma could undercut his bid for a trading contract. How dare she, a woman, do that to him? She's a woman. She should know her place."

He leant back against the stone.

"It goes on and on and on. So many examples of what your family has done that would upset, anger and incite hatred against it. To you and from your point of view. You did nothing wrong.

"But to them...?"

I sat and considered this for a while, staring into space.

"My family has risen quickly to be sure." I said. "But doing this...this seems a bit much."

"Is it? Sir William the Ram, Lord Fuck-face of Angral, Sir Robart de Radford. Only one of which is still alive to be fair but every one of them had friends, family and patrons who might have depended on them for their own advancement. Any one of those people could hate you enough to do this.

"What I'm trying to say is that you need to start thinking along these lines. You need to start thinking along the lines that this is not some super, grim dark conspiracy. It's going to be someone that hates you. And they might have a good reason."

"So What are you trying to tell me Kerrass?"

"What I'm saying is that you need to start thinking about what you're going to do when you find out what happened. You need to start thinking about how bloody you want to get.

"There are plenty of people that have every reason to want your family destroyed. And when you find them, they might have powerful friends.

"So how far are you willing to go Freddie?

"Think about that please?"

I nodded. "What now?"

Kerrass sighed. "What's happening in the village is your situation in microcosm. I might be stretching the metaphor a bit but here's how I see it.

"The ghost is angry and lashing out because of the horrible things that was done to it in life. It kills indiscriminately and the lives it takes are innocent. The people in the village who have lost their children hire a Witcher to come and help them."

I shut my eyes and thought for a moment.

"So you are the Witcher?"

"Yes."

"I am the villagers, parents and siblings of the dead, wanting help and vengeance?"

"Yes."

"Francesca is the dead children."

Kerrass was nodding.

"The Ghost is the people that took Francesca."

Kerrass said nothing.

"The Ghost is just angry and lashing out. What was done to it was horrible."

"Does that excuse what it did?" Kerrass asked me.

I shook my head.

Kerrass reached into a pouch at his side and produced another vial of spectre oil.

"So what are you going to do Freddie?"

He held up the vial of oil.

I stared at it for a long time before making my decision.


	60. Chapter 60

(A/N: Another chapter that has been split in half for reasons of length. Part two to follow as soon as I can)

So, as some of you may be aware, Kerrass and I have been forced to take refuge in my family's castle in South Western Redania, a day's ride away from Oxenfurt.

Believe me when I say that I will get to why in a minute.

But first I wanted to thank each and every person that has written to me or my family with your thoughts, prayers and best wishes in our family's time of crisis. Letters from all over the place, from people that I haven't met, from people that I have met once or twice, all the way up to, and including, people that I was genuinely convinced despised me and the ground that I walked on.

It's been both humbling and incredibly touching, to find out how many people's lives Francesca has touched. Along with how much her story has been taken on by the people that are reading about it now.

So thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

I promise you that the letters and messages are all read and although I may struggle to help out as much as I would like due to current circumstances, my sister tells me that she absolutely intends to respond to each and every letter that has been written. The family appreciates your gestures in ways that I struggle to put into words and although I admit that my written tone can sometimes come across as being sarcastic or ungrateful then please take this. As simple as I can make it and know that I write this with a lump in my throat and a tear in my eye.

Thank you. Thank you so much. It means so much to us how much you care.

.

A couple of notes though before we carry on to the topic at hand.

And Oh, how I am looking forward to getting my side of the story out there, in the face of the people that are calling me a treasonous, heretical murderer.

But first, a couple of ongoing and general things to be said about Francesca and her disappearance.

We are not yet in a position to take any kind of legal steps. We all feel it would be wrong to hold any kind of funeral or remembrance service for Francesca until her status has been confirmed. Although my family and I are in the process of coming to terms with what has happened and the fact that Francesca is almost certainly no longer with us... It is important to us that we hold out hope and do not give up on our sister.

To that end, as I say, we have no intention of holding a funeral service or remembrance thing for her, so please stop asking when that will be. We are aware that you only want the best for us and do not intend any harm or insult but we are finding this increasingly upsetting.

However, the family does intend to hold an annual celebration of my sister on her birthday every year where guests will be more than welcome to come and share stories of Francesca, her goodness, kindness and sense of mischief. More information will be forthcoming when arrangements are a little more certain.

On a continuing note on that regard, as I say, we are more grateful than we can articulate for all the kind gestures of kindness that we have received. However I must ask that the gifts of wine and flowers no longer be sent.

The first reason is that we no longer have the room.

The second reason is that the family believes that Francesca would like to be thought of as still making a contribution to this society. To that end we have opened an account with Vivaldi's bank in Novigrad and that account can be paid into in any city where the bank has a branch. Simply ask for the "Francesca von Coulthard" charitable fund and the bank will know what to do with your donation. What we do with the money is a little up in the air at the moment, but we were thinking along the lines of donations to hospitals, war and disaster relief to those worst affected and possibly academic scholarship for those who are unable to pay the university's fees.

The more you give, the more people we will be able to help. So instead of sending flowers, wine or other such expensive gestures. We would ask that you donate what you can to the fund so that we can do something that she would approve of.

My last note is this.

I also want to thank all of those people that have sent in news, sightings or theories about Francesca and her possible whereabouts. I am grateful for these as well, however neither I, nor the rest of our family have access to the necessary resources to follow up on all of these matters. If you do have information regarding Francesca's disappearance or you have information regarding the kidnappers or her current whereabouts then I must ask you to direct your information to the local garrison. If you mark it for the attention of Sir Artur Szostek of the Nilfgaardian security forces as he is the officer who is currently heading up the civilian aspect of the investigation. Your local garrison or messenger service will be able to direct your information so that it gets into the right hands. If you cannot write the information down then, likewise, the imperial garrison will be able to take the message down and take it off to where it needs to go. You will not have to pay to have your message delivered and yes, there is a reward providing the information proves to lead to something useful.

I don't know what the reward is as the family have been ordered not to interfere in that matter. The reward is being offered by the Imperial state and as such is out of our hands.

I think that's it.

Thanks again for all the well wishes. I do not know how my family and I would have got through without your help.

So anyhow. I suppose that there are a few pressing matters of concern.

So lets cut right to the chase. Yes, Kerrass and I have been accused of murder, treason, sedition and heresy. Yes we dispute these claims. Yes there is a large group of very unpleasant looking men made up of some guardsmen but mostly mercenaries who are, increasingly looking bored, currently camped outside our castle's gates, waiting to arrest and execute us.

They are under orders by the right-honourable Sir Robart de Radford, under sherriff of Redania.

Yes. That fucker.

For those readers that might be new to my journals, Sir Robart was the insufferable prick that went out of his way to completely fuck up the investigation into the murder of my father and elder brother. During that investigation he did his very best to have me hanged for the crime myself. As far as I could tell, this sentiment was born out of an intense, class based loathing of my family coupled with extreme ambition. He came from the kind of "old money" noble family that could chart their families lineage back to the founding of the nation of Redania. But, despite their lineage, were actually rather cash poor due to their insistence on "abiding by tradition," promoting for blood rather than intelligence and then got cross when all of the clever people left to go to where their skills would be better appreciated.

My father had been one of the beneficiaries of this exodus of highly skilled and motivated labour.

At the time, my temper was rather short so I may have given voice to some rather choice and juicy insults which did not endear me to the Under Sheriff, he lost his temper and ordered a young watchman to his death despite the warnings of Kerrass who advised Sir Robart of what would happen.

I made no secret of my disgust and called him out for the incompetent and cowardly streak of piss that he is. After my fathers death I made a large gesture to tell everyone that I had challenged him, published that intention far and wide and then, at the appointed time, he didn't show up.

I also informed everyone who would listen that if he was kept from our appointment by more pressing matters, such as duties or the urgent need to shit himself violently, then I would be receptive to an alternative time and date of his choosing.

Needless to say I heard nothing and from that moment on I referred to him, to anyone who asked me about the situation, as an inbred, pox-filled, streak of piss who wasn't even competent to wipe his own arse.

I'm since told that he didn't take it well.

Having looked into the matter since then, by virtue of having several friends who have taken great delight in informing me of what had happened, what he did was this.

After my challenge he fled Oxenfurt to Novigrad but discovering that that was no boundary to the reach of my rage, given that I could easily hire the Novigrad town-criers to holler my challenge out on every street corner, he fled back to the protection of his master the High Sheriff. The High Sheriff was, at the time, appealing for guidance to the Emperor and Empress as to what they wanted him to do with this nation that they had managed to conquer as well as deal with the aftermath of that little adventure and so didn't really have time to deal with Sir Robart's issues.

The High Sheriff found Sir Robart some out of the way town or city in the North of Redania to go and uphold the law in despite the biggest crime that had been committed there in recent years was the stealing of some sheep.

I'm told that he wasn't entirely stupid and sat and bided his time.

Fortunately for him, old blood and noble connections pay off in the long run and the noble classes memory soon turns onto different things. The Empress' coronation, and the scandals that followed that, chased Sir Robart's disgrace from the public view and his father managed to arrange matters so that Sir Robart could return to more important, or more prestigious, I'll let you be the judge, duties.

I'm told that he became a senior customs inspector at the Novigrad city docks. A position that meant that he soon became rich on the taxes and bribes that he was paid to overlook various things, while at the same time being able to victimise those people that he didn't like. Which meant the Coulthard shipping companies and merchant ventures often struggled to ship things out from Novigrad docks. My sister wrote to the merchants guild and the High Sherriff to complain about this unfair treatment pointing out, correctly, that the only contraband that had been found in any of our ships had been planted there by men under Sir Robart's command.

Yes Sir Robart. I just called you a corrupt jack-ass that goes out of his way to ignore real crimes while doing his best to find crime where there isn't any. I call you worse than that even. I infer that you even go out of your way to _create_ the crime yourself where none exists which means that you aren't just a corrupt official. You are also a criminal.

If you take offence at these statements you yellow bellied bag of puke then I shall await you in our castle's courtyard with my spear. I would offer to leave the castle and meet you out front but my castle guards have also pointed out those places where you have hidden bowmen. We captured one once, the day before yesterday. He told us that you had ordered him to shoot either Kerrass or myself the instant that we showed our faces. Don't worry about him though. We fed him some proper food and sent him back to his post after having a good laugh with him at your expense.

He told us that you have offered a reward of 50 crowns for Kerrass' head and one hundred Crowns for my head. We warned your man by the way. He is now well aware that there is a better than evens chance that he would be given up, by you, as the ass-hat the killed me without trial.

Also, everyone should know that Coulthard Emterprises can ship from the Oxenfurt docks just as easily which means that the trade tariffs will be paid into the Oxenfurt city coffers rather than Novigrad. Emma has written to the Merchants guild of Novigrad to inform them of this planned change as a result of the victimisation that we have received at the hands of it's corrupt officials. Yesterday, she received a letter from the merchant's guild that made her laugh for a long time, pleading with us not to change our practices as the loss of our trade would, apparently, be a significant dip in city income.

Emma is still enjoying composing a letter that tells Novigrad that we will not ship any business from Novigrad docks until we receive guarentees that neither Sir Robart, any of his subordinates or anyone of his influence (read anyone that he hires or persuades or blackmails) has anything to do with the right and proper customs inspections of our ships. Essentially she's telling them that they either get rid of him or we take our trade elsewhere.

Oxenfurt are more than happy to accommodate Coulthard family requirements, especially as Emma offered to help finance a strengthening and lengthening of the Oxenfurt docks. As far as we know, Sir Robart knows nothing of the political game that Emma is playing at his expense.

But anyway.

Sir Robart had not forgotten his disgrace at the hands of myself and my seconds, Sir Rickard and Kerrass. He couldn't do anything about Kerrass but he set about doing everything he could to disgrace and spread shit about Sir Rickard.

For those people that don't know Sir Rickard, again, we met during the events surround my fathers death where we became friends.

As a result of the lies that Sir Robart spread about him, Sir Rickard also challenged Robart to a duel. When no answer was forthcoming and having no way to defend himself from the accusations and gossip without being able to confront his accuser, Sir Rickard resigned his commission and took Emma up on her invitation to come and work for the Coulthard family.

He didn't care so much. He and Dr Shani have been getting closer in the mean time and his being able to relocate a bit closer to Oxenfurt where Shani resides has been a boon for them both. He and his men have made the roads through my families lands as safe as they've ever been and it has been some time since there was last an attack on one of our wagons.

But, then came the recent events.

Sir Robart came at us with a dozen guardsmen and fifty mercenaries that he paid for out of his own pocket in an effort to bring us in.

However, Sir Rickard caught wind of this effort to take Kerrass and I on the road and came to our rescue.

Rather forcefully I might add.

So now we're at this stand off.

We made it to the castle gates without incident and Sir Robart had to resort to legal means to try and get me out. He insists that he has a warrant for our arrest. We insist that we have already been proven not responsible for the things that we stand accused of and that the High Constable of Lyria and Rivia has told us that we are free to go.

Sir Robart insists that he does not recognise the law of Lyria and Rivia and as such calls us criminal.

We point out that the, supposed, crimes that we committed happened in and around Lyria and as a result, the High constable of Lyria has jurisdiction.

Sir Robart points out that we are all supposed to be of one Empire now and as a result, "Law has no borders."

We sent for word to the Constable of Lyria who is, as I sit here and write this, either on his way personally or has sent enough people and proof to shout this thing down.

For his part Sir Robart insists that he, as Under Sherriff, out ranks a High Constable because in Redania, a constable is a term for a common Watchman.

I told him that he could tell that to the High Constable's face.

Sir Robart seems unwilling to call on The High Sherriff of Redania, insisting on the superiority of his rank and the rightness of his cause despite many of his men looking at each other and beginning to look unsure of themselves.

So that's the stand off as it currently stands.

Sir Robart spends his days screaming at his men who, being mercenaries, ignore him and follow their own command structure. Or he comes to the gate to loudly and prominently demand that I be produced for summary execution. Or he rides around the countryside telling everyone who will listen that the Coulthard family will pay for their insolence.

Heh.

So we're under siege until the High Sherriff hears about this and takes steps, and/or the High Constable of Lyria and Rivia turns up. Either way, Sir Robart is causing a massive diplomatic incident in an effort to get me hanged.

I've never been under siege before. It's incredibly boring. Sir Robart has ordered that no-one is to leave the castle but he has forgotten that we have a Sorceress as part of the family who is sending out our own messages.

So I've begun to do as I've promised Kerrass I would. I have sent off copies of articles on the subjects of what happened at the coronation to my publishers and have been working on the first couple of chapters of my part of the book on "Jack".

No you can't read it yet.

But that's not the only thing that I promised to do. I also promised that I would help, tell people about what I've been up to and show them a little bit about what goes on in the world.

So, you might ask and indeed, probably are asking. What's this whole thing that I stand accused of? What did Kerrass and I do that someone, even someone as stupid and incompetent as Sir Robart might latch on to, might accuse us of murder, treason, heresy and whatever else it was that people care about?

Well, I'll tell you.

Despite my joking, there is no getting away from the fact that what's going on and what happened is rather serious. Although I'm not particularly worried, there is a risk that Kerrass and I are going to be hanged in the long run.

You see, here's the thing.

We stand accused of Treason. Of that crime we are absolutely not guilty. Theses events took place in the city of Lyria, and we neither know, or care particularly, about the current political situation there. I am dimly aware that Queen Meve likes to split her time between the summer palace in Lyria and the winter palace in Rivia. I know that the Kingdom is called, The Kingdom of Lyria and Rivia as the two countries joined some time ago but beyond that I know very little. I don't even know for sure whether or not Queen Meve still rules there although from what I've heard about the woman, I would be surprised if you could convince her _not_ to rule there without using a headsman's axe and even then I would bet on the Queen's neck rather than the axe.

But I also suspect that that kind of character would appeal to the Empress. I don't recall her being at the coronation but to be fair, I had other things on my mind at the time.

We are also not guilty of Sedition as I rather feel that that is rather covered by my denial of having committed Treason. What we did was talk to some villagers who expressed their dissatisfaction with what had happened. We happened to agree with them.

Heresy is a little more difficult. I maintain that we are not guilty of Heresy. We desecrated no alters, we defaced no images of Gods or Godesses nor did we stand in a large and open space and declare to the world at large that religion is bullshit and that people should run around doing whatever the hell they damn well please in the face of whatever divine retribution that may or may not be coming their way.

We _may_ have killed a priest. I'm not convinced of this though as the person in question was a blemish on the face of humanity and is genuinely better off dead. I also question the legitimacy of his ordination. I say that because the churches as a whole have, somehow, completely managed to fail to protest his death.

You think about it. You think of any situation where a priest has been killed near you. That shouldn't be too hard as, unfortunately there have been loads of deaths of religious people recently. But you think if a priest of St Lebioda, the church of the holy flame, the divine sun or any of the others and think how the various churches react.

They don't react well do they.

We have heard nothing from the official higher-ups in any kind of church organisation. Or at least we didn't until the man's family started to get involved and then applies political pressure to the church to step up. What religious officials that I _have_ talked to seem to be rather embarrassed by the entire affair. Not that I can blame them.

But murder? That we did do. Many times in fact. You can take that as a confession if you like. You can even claim that the reason that I get away with it is because of my rank, status and who my friends are. You can do all of those things and condemn our actions all you like.

I don't care.

You see, the thing is this.

Those bastards had it coming.

Even if the penalty is the ultimate one which, as I say, I think is unlikely then I will march to the scaffold or the headsman's block with a smile on my face knowing that Kerrass and I made the world a better place. Even knowing everything that I know now, I would still do it again.

That's a big statement I know. I am a lord and a member of the ruling class and as such I am supposed to uphold the Empress' laws all over the empire.

This is correct. The reason I'm pretty sure that we're going to get away with this is because that is what I think we did.

Here's what happened and I'll let you be the judge.

I've just taken a break from my desk. The realisation that I haven't eaten anything for a while has started to pray on my mind and I went in search of something to eat. Then I came back and have spent the last...I would say half an hour or so staring at the piece of paper in front of me and I can't think of where to start. There are many layers to what has happened and I'm not sure where it all begins as there is also a lot of context. So this may be a little confusing.

As you are probably aware, Kerrass and I were heading north from Toussaint. Our long term goal was to meet up with Sam in Kalayn lands in the North Eastern chunk of Redania so that we could help him investigate the Kalayn family holdings. We needed to see if there were any remnants of the cult that our cousin had run and maintained, while also cleaning out the keep of any monsters or ghosts that might have taken up refuge there in the immediate aftermath of the greater part of the cults destruction. There was also the matter of seeing whether there was any knowledge of what might have happened to Francesca in that place. Cousin Kalayn had claimed to worship "Ancient powers" and to have access to magic, knowledge and power that existed prior to the spreading of the greater part of humanity and the ascendancy of the prophets and the eternal flame.

Sam has, quite sensibly, built himself a temporary series of cabins for him and his men to stay in while he was waiting for the castle to be properly investigated and dealt with. The church, under Mark's orders, had sent a couple of Inquisitors, church knights and more benevolent priests to help council and stabilise the region while Emma had released funds to have a few simple churches built around the place as both a physical sign, and a psychological sign that the land was now under new ownership and that the new lords were substantially different from the old ones.

But Sam wanted to wait for a professional to come and help with the castle as he didn't "want to put all his faith in Inquisitors and holy knights" to help him clean the place out. He had jokingly told me that most of the knights were happy and understanding about this but the Inquisitors were chomping at the bit. Sam had had to have a couple of them restrained so that they didn't march into the local villagers to roust out heretics.

I hope he was joking.

On the way north Kerrass wanted to talk to a few people about what had happened and to set some other investigations rolling. One of the people, or rather places that he wanted to go and visit was a small homestead in Lyria and Rivia.

No I'm not going to tell you where it is. It's not entirely unlikely that people will want to go there afterwards for less than savoury reasons and they will not do so by my...mistakes.

What we were visiting is the largest library that I have ever heard of. The single largest collection of written documents that has ever been collected into one place.

That is not an exaggeration either.

Wherever I go I try to see the local libraries and centres of learning. I've been to the great library of Novigrad. I've visited the Academia de Vizima and the royal libraries in Toussaint, Tretogor, Vengerberg and Maecht city but that is by no means an exhaustive list of places that I've been to.

This place dwarfed them all and unless you've been specifically let into the secret then it's doubtful to me that you will have ever heard that the place exists.

To go there you have to have been specifically invited by someone else that was already aware of it's existence. When you are there you are allowed to ask questions of one of the three attendants who will look the matter up for you if they don't know it off the tops of their heads but there is always a price.

Always.

The price tends to vary upon what you want to know. If it is a simple thing then the attendants might ask for whatever written pieces of paper that you might have on you. It doesn't matter if that's a bill of sale or a love letter or some correspondence between family matters. Or they might ask for the price of a good meal. For you to do some simple chores around the place or the performing of a simple favour. When I met them I was once told that a bard went there once and he was charged the performance of a ballad that one of the attendants hadn't heard before. The more serious or in depth the question then the more the attendants will ask for.

The only way that you are allowed into the library itself is this.

First of all you must be accompanied by one of the three attendants.

Yes, there are only three of them.

The second thing is that you must bring them an academic piece of writing that they don't already have. This is not easy as their collection is vast. I mentioned the Academia de Vizima. A wonderful place of practical learning in the directions of engineering and practical sciences. Their library is give over to mathematical texts about projectile weaponry, tensile strength of metal wood and the use of different materials in the building of siege weaponry.

I asked one of the attendants of this secret library how big their collection of works was on this subject and the answer would have made the lecturers at the Accademia blush.

What we wanted to do was to go and see if they could tell us anything about the magic involved in kidnapping Francesca. Or if they had any more information about Jack and his children so that we might be able to investigate further. We were pretty sure that Jack was not responsible. We knew that we had banished the beast of Amber''s crossing which we had begun to call by his more proper name of "The Darknes."

We had a list of other names that might fall into this group of beings. Kerrass wanted to refer to them as a Pantheon but I didn't like the term as it suggested that there was something Godlike about them all. I didn't like that.

Right now there are people all over the continent spitting with rage at the fact that they didn't know about this place. That such a centre of learning had been there for all of this time and that it hadn't been exploited and the knowledge shared freely or handed out indiscriminately.

I'm not going to take part in that debate. I'm not going to argue whether all of knowledge should be free or what should be done with it or who deserved to have access to this or to that.

I'm not that guy.

What I will say is this.

Kerrass and the three attendants all swore me to secrecy about where they were and what they had kept. After having met them and seen how they worked then I could absolutely understand their desire for privacy and solitude. Unfortunately though, their privacy has been forever made redundant.

I first met those attendants several months after I had first started travelling with Kerrass. For long term readers, these events took place after the adventure with Sir William the Ram and the death of Tom the Troll but my encounter with the beast of Amber's crossing was still a couple of months away.

Kerrass was much more comfortable with me by this point and I with him. We were not friends, he knew nothing about my family and I knew less about his past. We were still travelling south on our way to cross the Yaruga and head into Nilfgaard and Kerrass had taken a contract that he wasn't entirely certain of.

The contract in question isn't important to our story but just briefly. What it was was that a large winged beast was terrifying a group of villagers roughly a day away. We had sat and watched it from a distance, flying and swooping in amongst the trees and hills of the local area and Kerrass had become frustrated.

To all intents and purposes it looked like a form of Siren or Lamia. The only problem was that sirens and their more powerful cousins Ekhidnas only occur by the sea or occasionally in large bodies of water.

There might have been some small streams nearby but nothing large enough to warrant their presence.

The other thing that it reminded Kerrass of was a Lamia. Lamia are very similar to sirens in size and shape but they primarily occur in desert environments and this was anything but. Kind of a more lush and relatively fertile farm land despite the lack of farmers in the local area.

So Kerrass was confused and this kind of confusion was not doing his temper any good. As has previously been mentioned, the secret to being a Witcher is preparation. It was no good for Kerrass to prepare for a siren, only for the beast to turn out to be a Lamia and the same vice versa.

There was also the possibility of some kind of mutation happening.

So Kerrass wanted more information. He told the people that had hired him to spread their herds out so that the beast couldn't utterly destroy their food-stocks. That the men should not stand and fight but that the use of hunting bows might drive the creature off and that otherwise, they shouldn't allow themselves to be drawn out. Then he told them that he would be back in a few days with a hopeful solution.

That was when we consulted "The Library."

It was unlike anything that I had ever seen or experienced.

Kerrass found what he was looking for in that place, destroyed the beast and we moved on.

That was where we were heading. Kerrass was of the opinion that if any single collection of knowledge would have some information about what we were looking for then it would be this place. I tended to agree.

There was a village near to the library. It was a mining village that Copper and some tin from a nearby group of rocky hills. They weren't massively wealthy as the mine had long since been played out but they still made enough to get by. They prospected quite a bit and spent their time looking for other veins to be exploited. There was also some gold in there somewhere. Not enough to be properly exploited but there was enough to keep the village alive and crouched next to the nearby stream, sifting through the grit and dirt that was washed down from uphill.

On our previous visit they had been friendly enough not to be unpleasant to the Witcher anyway, which can be rare sometimes in that part of the world. Lyria and Rivia seem to have something specific against Witchers although I don't know why. I have heard suggestions along the lines that something had happened between a Witcher and their Queen but I didn't pry and know better than to listen to that kind of rumour.

We didn't see the village first. We smelt it.

You always read about the fact that travellers see the smoke rising from a stricken village first before anything else. I can't answer for it in this case. All I can say is that we were riding down the road to the town before we would follow the path up to the library. I was looking forward to the hospitality of the attendants, a good meal and a bath, despite the fact that I would probably be sleeping on the rug rather than the bed that night, so at first I didn't notice it when my horse shook it's head in protest and refused to go any further down the road.

Then I smelt it. You never lose that smell after you have first got it into your nose. You never lose it. It cloys at you. The sickly sweet smell of burnt flesh.

If you don't catch yourself you find yourself thinking something along the lines of "Oh, I could just do with some roast pork," before you realise what's happening and are overcome with a desire to vomit.

I looked at Kerrass. He was alert, left hand on his sword strap, head cocked to one side, listening.

"I can't hear anything." He told me before taking a deep sniff of the air. "I think that, whatever happened here is over."

"Do you want me to stay here?"

"No," he said, dismounting. "Lets go in. Cautiously though, and put your spear together."

We walked the horses into the village. It wasn't burnt to the ground which was what I had feared but it was certainly not without it's scars.

I've seen it so often. So very often but I never get used to it. I hope I never do either. It would be awful if this was something that you could get used to.

There were four stakes in the middle of the town with piles of ash around the base. A couple of the piles were still smouldering.

"Oh no."

I wanted to rush down there. I could already feel my feet, arms and hands wanting to start moving. I wanted to be down there already. But as I say, I've seen this kind of thing before. Living in Redania around Novigrad especially. I'd seen my first "Witch" burning at the age of eight when my family had gone to Novigrad for some important occasion. To meet some local dignitary or to appeal to the officials about something my father wanted to be done. Even then I remember looking at the crowds and noticing the differences between the people. Onlookers were either watching quietly or they were cheering. But then Emma saw what I was looking at and turned me away.

This is not a new story. We all know someone who has had this happen to them. We all have. We've all either lost someone or we know someone who has lost someone to this kind of thing. Hell, I'd even been responsible for a number of people being burned at the stake which had robbed me of a lot of innocence on the matter.

I will say that if you're going to execute someone, I think it's kinder to use an axe or a noose rather than the flames. But the more...extreme of the priests that I've heard of would argue that the flame is to purify the person responsible.

I once asked Mark, in one of my more cynical moments while he was at home for Yule one year whether the purpose of the flames was to purify the body of the person or whether it was so that we would indelibly remember it happening.

He was skilful enough to turn it into a joke but I was quick enough to see his discomfort. Father was much less subtle and suggested a strict penance from Mark for my... wilfulness.

.

I really am struggling to talk about this. Even as I sit here writing I feel an anger as well as an incredible sadness as to what I saw that day. So much so that I struggle to bring things to the point.

.

So I wanted to rush into the village but I stayed calm. I couldn't see any armed men so I took my spear apart and put it away. These villagers would not want to see any more armed men coming attacking them. They had already been through too much.

Kerrass agreed with me. He took his sword from his back, he was only wearing the steel one anyhow, and tied it onto the horses' saddle. He kept on the same side of the horse as the sword though but there is a difference. He had left it to hand but it wasn't on his person as it were.

The things that we think about.

We walked slowly and carefully down into the village. Kerrass seemed as though he was beginning to get nervous, his hands clenching occasionally and eyes shifting from side to side with nervous jerks from one direction to the other.

I wasn't worried yet but... I resolved to keep an eye on him. It had been a while since his last period of "mutation based depression" which is what we call it whenever he has a shutdown for no apparent reason. Theoretically this meant that he might be due for another one soon. But now was not the time to think about it. I knew he was worried about the library and the attendants but we still needed to check what was happening. It is always a mistake to go rushing in without caution.

The village looked as though it was in shock. As an entity I mean, a couple of people were doing their best to do some work, the normal kind of spring jobs of tidying up after winter storms, making repairs to houses as well as working what bits of garden and vegetable patches that they might have lying around. But if you watched closely, the people that were doing the work would stop suddenly and sit down to stare into space for extended periods of time. It was also so quiet. At this time of day you would expect to see children running around, laughing, joking and playing games. Elders would be gossiping at gates and doorways, there would be tobacco smoke and the scent of wood sap.

You have to remember that villages are noisy places really. Villagers don't have time to be quiet or to spend their time messing around with stupid things like propriety. Children, animals, adults and old folks living and working together in a relatively small space makes for a lot of noise. Hammering, sawing, shouting, laughing, crying and generally living in one place.

Here it was quiet. A hushed sense of...dread and fatigue. It felt like dread as well as a sullen anger that threatened to break free and overwhelm anyone that might be watching.

I'd seen this kind of thing before as well as the burnings. You used to see it quite regularly in the aftermath of war as the armies of two nations rolled over so many of the villages taking what food wasn't locked down or hidden, abusing what women they could see and comandeering what able-bodied men there were that hadn't been taken by the recruiting sergeant before. It was almost like the place was in shock. Trying to decide what to do as well as asking the age-old unanswerable question of "why us?"

They were thinking about survival, what they had to do to carry on and wondering whether it was worth the effort.

We walked down slowly. Already I could tell that a couple of the houses were deserted, shutters closed, no smoke rising from the chimneys. The fact that the places still seemed in relatively good repair told me that this was a recent thing.

We rode on.

"Didn't expect to see you here." A woman called to us. We both spun in the road to see where the call came from. Spun a little too quickly showing how on edge we were. The woman pretended not to notice.

"Maiden Karreen." Kerrass said forcing a smile. He passed the reins over to me before going over to embrace the ageing woman who accepted his hug with good grace before giving him a playful slap.

"Hark at you calling me "Maiden." They call me " _old_ Mother" Kareen now."

I recognised her from my previous visit. When I had last seen her she had been a handsome woman in her fifties, tall, proud with silver hair and a spine of steel. She had stood, unbent, as she told me how she had buried two husbands. One to sickness and one to a mine collapse and was well onto her third while she ruled over a tribe of children and grand-children. She wasn't an Ealdorman or anyone of significance on a town council or anything but she was important. The kind of woman that people turn to when they need some good and proper advice.

She hadn't changed a great deal but those changes were important. She had a large bruise on the side of her face as well as a split lip and a heavy limp which meant that she was walking with the aid of a badly improvised crutch that looked as though it had once been a broom. When she spoke there was a whistling sound that came from the fact that she was missing several teeth and her mouth hadn't yet adjusted to the lack.

"Does that mean you won't run away with me this time?" Kerrass asked her. The joke was feebly made and both he and Kareen knew it.

"Cheeky. I remember you Witcher." She said it with a tired smile. "All charm and false promises."

"It was never false when it came to you Maiden Kareen."

"No longer a maiden Witcher." her attempt at maintaining a sense of humour was slipping.

"You will always be a maiden to me Kareen." As was Kerrass'

As a note, in the local area it seemed that the term that prefixed a woman's name was a mixture of local custom as well as a description of status. If a woman was called "Maiden" then it meant that she was an eligible woman of child rearing age. You might also use the term to describe someone that you consider to be a great beauty so it would occasionally be used between husband and wife. "Mother" described a married woman, regardless of whether or not children had been produced and "Old Mother" meant a woman with Grandchildren or as a term of respect.

As another interesting point. For men, they would be given their proffession before their given name so a man might be called. "Thatcher John of Rivia," or "Cooper William of Yellowdowns."

I would make a study of it if I had more time, but Philology and Anthropology aren't really my field.

Kareen led us over to her house, one of the larger ones towards the centre of the village. She steadfastly refused any offers of support from Kerrass and insisted on making us tea and offered us cake despite our protests. We sat out in the garden. The unfortunate effect of which was that we could see the stakes standing out in the view. In the end I admitted defeat and turned away so that I wouldn't have to look at them while Kareen told me stories about how a young Kerrass had turned up tot he village and offered to "take her away from all of this,"

Kerrass laughed along with her and we made small talk for as long as possible until she eventually ran out of words.

"What happened Kareen?" Kerrass asked.

"They came from the North, over towards Rivia way." She told us. "Came sort of middayish about two weeks ago and demanded food and water."

"Who were they?"

"Knights," she said shaking her head. "Had these strange read tabbards on with a flaming sword on the front. Bastards."

Hearing her swear was odd. Strangely endearing.

"What happened?"

"They knew exactly what they were looking for. They were barely here to stop and water their horses before they headed off up the hill."

The haunted look that was in Kerrass' eyes became shadowed.

Saying that something was "up the hill" was roughly from where the library and it's attendants were. He stood, staring off into the distance. He made to stand up but she caught him by the sleeve. "I'm so sorry Witcher." She told him. "We loved them too."

He nodded and gently pulled free before walking to the edge of the garden and leaning on a fence post.

"Who we..." I had to clear my throat past the emotion that was suddenly blocking it. "Who were they?" I asked pointing at the stakes."

"Just women and a couple of men. They were busy little stakes those half a dozen or so. Went through the last of the villages firewood supplies keeping those fires burning."

"Did they say why?" I asked although I didn't expect an answer. Anyone who proudly wears a tabbard that displays a flaming sword and does this kind of thing doesn't really need a reason.

"They did actually. Apparently all of them had been with _her_ ".

I nodded to show that I knew what she was talking about. That would be enough to a certain kind of religious knight.

"They stood in front of them, chanting as they all burned." Now that the woman had started to talk it seemed that she had uncorked the bottle it seemed that she couldn't stop. "They did this thing with the wood that meant that it wouldn't smoke."

I nodded. I had heard of that kind of thing before. "They wanted them to die from the flames and the heat rather than the smoke."

She nodded and I saw suspicious wetness in the corners of her eyes. She hadn't seemed like the kind of person that would shed tears. "They had a priest with them. He stood before the flames and told us all that we were blessed. Blessed to see that." Her voice shook as she said that last.

She took a moment to steady her voice.

"They burned my son."

"I'm so sorry." I said even though I knew that it wouldn't help her. I put my hand on her shoulder in an effort to pass on some strength. She patted the hand with some gratitude.

"What's that?" Kerrass pointed. Between the houses there was a small lane and at the end of the lane there was a large tree. From one of the low hanging branches there was another body swinging by a rope. Kareen rose to her feet to see what Kerrass was looking at. This time she accepted my help to rise before I lowered her back to the seat.

Kareen was looking around furtively.

"That was the bastard that brought them here." She said it almost quietly. A whisper.

Kerrass had come back to hear and sat back down "A villager?" he asked.

"Sshh." she gestured for silence. "They told us that there were more people here and that they would be watching us."

"You know that that was probably a lie to keep you nervous?" Kerrass said.

Kareen lowered her eyes.

"Of course we know that but..." She spread her hands that were trembling. "But what if they aren't?" She wailed.

Kerrass nodded turning away.

I made placating gestures in an effort to keep her calm.

"The son of a bitch has killed this village." She hissed abruptly. "Three families have left already. Another two are packing. Friends, good friends look at each other with distrust now. We can't trust each other. That's the thought, that anyone could be a traitor. We daren't even go up there to bury _them_. We were ordered not to. Told that they needed to be left out there as a warning to any that might come afterwards. I wanted to go but... I daren't. I'm so...so sorry.

"Sssh, Sshh." I did my best to calm her but even I could tell that she was a woman on the edge of her endurance. "No-one told us not to care for the fallen. We'll take care of them."

She nodded and silence fell as she began to calm down for a moment.

"What happened to him?" Kerrass gestured towards the corpse on the tree.

"I don't know," she lied. It was so blatant that both Kerrass and I looked at her sharply. "That bastard killed us. Why?" We didn't look at her. We didn't need to. Her rage and pain was spilling over. "Because a woman turned him down. Because _she_ turned him down." She snarled that last.

There was no need to ask what had happened. The village had lynched him. But now they were afraid of reprisals.

"He killed a village. He killed us."

I caught Kerrass' eyes and he nodded. I went into the house to make the poor woman something herbal to help her calm down. When I came back Kerrass was crouched in front of her.

"I have to go," he was telling her. "I am so sorry."

She was nodding. "You were so handsome Kerrass." She told him.

I waited in the doorway to let them have this moment of privacy.

"Were?" He tried for a joke.

"Old age changes a woman's desires." She said softly. "But I so nearly went with you."

"You would have been bored," he told her, doing his best to be kind. "You would have had no children with me. And then you would have been alone."

"But I would have had you," she told him. "I would have had you, and I would have been spared all of this."

"No," he told her. "No you wouldn't. You would have exchanged one type of pain for another."

"Silly Kerrass." I could tell she was smiling and I heard tears as well. "I was trying to comfort you."

"I know. And I messed up trying to comfort you back."

"Oh Kerrass," she said sadly. "Story of our lives."

There was silence for a while.

It's true what they say you know. Sometimes, silence is the better part of valour.

"Ok Freddie, you can come back out now." Kerrass called.

"Just trying to give you two a moment."

Kerrass came over to me and took the tea from my hand. "Wait for me with the horses."

I nodded. I considered trying to say goodbye to the woman but she had turned away from me, hiding her face.

That thing about discretion keeps coming up doesn't it.

I went back over to the horses but made sure that I was holding both sets of reins so that Kerrass couldn't call his horse away without me. I didn't think he would but I wasn't sure how he was going to react to what was happening at the moment.

I had had no idea that he and Kareen had had a thing, no matter how long ago.

He came over after a short while and mounted up with me following his example. He wouldn't look at me or meet my gaze. He said nothing, his gaze staring fixedly ahead as he led us towards the path up the hills.

It wasn't a path any longer. It had been trampled flat by horses. Kerrass dismounted once to examine the tracks.

"Shod," he told me. "Heavy war horses,"

"Rather unsuitable for this kind of climb." I commented. The ground was soft with water running down hill. Not as firm as many horses would prefer in this kind of situation.

Kerrass said nothing.

The village and the Librarians didn't bother doing anything with this slope. So it had been left to the grass and weeds that you might find in any kind of meadow. The village herb woman would have been able to come up here and gather medicines which was part of the idea behind it. It served to cover the Library and also added to the village...I suppose "economy" is the right word although it doesn't seem entirely suitable. Most villages have several patches of land given over to, just, meadowland. That way plants could grow and produce strange things that would become old herbal recipes that would then go on to help and nurture food and medicines for the whole place.

It was also a place where youngsters could go and play and where not so young people could go and enjoy each other's company.

We found the first of the three Librarians on the path. Poor thing. She had probably been watching the village as she had been wont to do and had seen the strangers arrive. In her innocence, she had probably even gone out to greet them only for someone to cave her skull in with what looked like a mace. Her being a magical creature though, this hadn't been enough to kill her. It had been enough to cause her eyes to pop from their sockets and for her to bite her tongue in half under the impact and splinter her teeth but then the...

heh...

"knights," and I use the term in the loosest possible sense, had ridden her down as she had turned to flee.

She looked like a broken doll.

That was the thing you see. The Librarians or attendants as they preferred to call themselves weren't human.

This one was a Godling.

For those people who are wondering what I'm talking about. Godlings are small, sentient beings, sometimes called Bozatko. They look like small children only with blue skin and large luminous eyes that seem to glow. They normally live in woody or swampy areas but have been known to "adopt" small villages or areas as a kind of guardian spirit. There they will perform small acts of care over the inhabitants, especially children whose innocence fascinates the creatures.

They wear relatively little and generally, they only do that when they have been persuaded to do so by neighbours as modesty is unimportant to them. They are childlike in attitude as well, delighting in simple mischief unless they are...upset or angry at which time their games become more...not dangerous but more malicious. They do also occasionally tattoo themselves with herbal dyes and adorn themselves with simple looking jewellery made out of natures detritus, roots, grasses and twigs tend to be the basis of such things.

Whoever had killed her though, had known their business.

I dismounted to gather her up in a blanket with a dim thought that we should bury the three Librarians together. There is a herb that kills them although I won't tell you what it is. I want no gangs of people who have read this to go out and start hunting Godlings for sport. But when I examined the poor thing I found the herb in her injuries. She had survived the first blow but was already dying.

Poor thing.

Her name was Sally.

Yes she was a girl. Some fucker had done this to something that looked like a little girl who would never have done anything to hurt anyone without provocation. Indeed, when I had first come here the village had been quite proud of their little guardian spirit and had protected her fiercely.

I took a blanket from my pack to wrap her up in.

Kerrass waited a moment.

"I'll uh, I'll go on ahead."

I nodded. "Wait for me though Kerrass." I told him remembering the old woman's line. "I loved them too remember."

He nodded back and walked his horse on.

After I lay the blanket down and lifted the tiny corpse into the middle of it, I sat next to her and tried to think of what to say.

What can you say?

I was struck by a sudden memory, like being struck between the eyes by a lightening bolt.

It was late summer early autumn when I had last been riding down this path. The air was thick and heavy with the scent of plants and flowers, close with heat and I was dressed lightly in my shirt but even then I was still having to peel the shirt from my skin. I felt sticky, smelly and unpleasant to be around.

Looking back, Kerrass was teasing me. He had manipulated things so that I was riding in front, swatting insects from my eyes and sneezing with the pollen. I should have seen the slight smirk on his face or seen something that indicated what he was plotting, but we still weren't close. He cold make me laugh and I could make him smile while also being fairly skilled at cooking the things that he liked to eat.

It was just after midday and it was hot enough that we should probably have stopped for a break down at the village. Indeed I was surprised that Kerrass hadn't called a halt at the village below but had insisted on pushing things on.

I should have known he was playing a joke on me. I was drinking from a water bottle at the time. Kerrass' old orders of telling me to drink all the time to keep myself hydrated was still preying on my mind.

At first I could hear the sound of someone running. The grass swishing as it parted before a rushing body. Someone running fast.

I had time to turn into the noise.

I must have looked particularly foolish, water still coming from the bottle and wetting my face and chest. But then a shape came out of the grass. Leaping at me, Brown and flesh colours. A high pitched woman's voice, just a little bit shrill.

I didn't even have time to raise my hands to defend myself.

The impact drove the air from me and that was before I hit the ground. I didn't have time to register what was happening. I landed on my backside and fell backwards, my right foot was still stuck in the stirrup and my hip was wrenched and twisted. I fell backwards and hit my head on the road.

I never understood all the things that say that you see stars or hear birds or something. I saw white light and heard a musical tone.

The flashing lights in my vision though were due to the multicoloured flame that was leaping from the figures hands.

"Don't move." it said. A woman's voice, deep,harsh and unpleasant. "Don't move or I'll burn your face off."

That was when I realised that I had also bit the inside of my mouth as well as all of the other things. I blinked furiously for a moment or two trying to focus on the strange figure in front of me.

Reflexively I tried to sit up and get my arm under me but I was pushed back down into the ground by virtue of a foot on my chest.

"Don't kill him," Kerrass' voice drifted up the path. "I've nearly got him trained.

The figure standing over me turned to face down the path.

"Kerrass?" She called wonderingly in a more normal tone.

"The very same." He said openly smiling as he stepped into view.

There was more sounds of someone else running through the grass and my vengeance was sooo sweet as a small childlike figure came running out of the grass. It was accompanied by the sound of the Witchers name being screamed in delight as the figure ran up to the Witcher and leapt into his arms, which was some feat given that he was still riding his horse at the time. The girl wrapped her arms and legs around the Witcher and didn't look as though she would let go willingly as she rained kisses on his somewhat bemused face.

"KERRASS, KERRASS, KERRASS, KERRASS, KERRASS." The girl punctuated the screaming of his name with a kiss on his cheek.

"Hello Sally," He said in a tone of long suffering amusement.

She wasn't done though and continued to scream his name over and over again.

I still couldn't see the figure that had knocked me down though as it was still a little blurry and I found I was having to blink rapidly. I did see that the fires that had sprouted from the figures hands vanished though as quickly as they had appeared.

The pressure against my chest vanished and the figure left my field of view.

The girl Sally was still calling the Witcher's name though. I managed to prop myself onto one elbow and turned to look.

With a bit of effort I could focus enough to see that he had managed to manoeuvre the girl so that he could dismount and knelt to embrace her properly.

It was a sweet image and one that would have possibly had more of an effect on me if my head hadn't chosen that moment to swim

"Did I hurt you?" A woman's voice asked, much more normal register, calmer and soothing."

I turned my head and spat blood for answer.

She chuckled. Strong hands helped me to sit up. "Just sit here while I go and get you some help." Said the voice. The very, _very_ female presence came round behind me and whispered in my ear. "Don't worry, I promise I'll make it up to you."

As quickly as the presence was there, it was gone. Sounds of the grass parting before a figure leaving me astonished with how suddenly I had gone from a state of injury to being aroused.

I looked up and Kerrass stood over me. I knew him well enough to be amused.

"Don't worry," he told me, "She has that effect on people. Don't try to get up or anything. The pain is still there, she's just distracted you from it for a moment."

"You did that on purpose didn't you." I accused him. Now that he mentioned it I could see the flickering grey around the edges of my vision that told me that I was possibly a little concussed.

"I _may_ have planned something along those lines."

"What if she'd killed me?"

"She wouldn't kill you outright." He grinned. "She likes to play with her food first."

"Reassuring."

"Quite. Here I want you to meet someone,"

He reached behind him and pulled the small child-like figure around to his front. She kept trying to hide behind Kerrass' legs and it took some effort to get her round so that she could face me.

"Freddie, this is Sally. Sally, this is Freddie. Say hello Sally."

"'lo," she said sullenly, staring at her fingers and twisting from side to side in discomfort. She was wearing a plain yellow dress that looked as though it had been stitched together out of a sheet. It was torn, ragged and looked as though Sally had been running through mud and dirt as well as being covered in grass stains.

It had the look of a well worn and much loved dress. She also wore a crown of daisies woven together with Dandelions and a necklace of woven grass. Her hair was plainly filthy but I couldn't see any of the signs of matting that you sometimes see in village and farm folk who let their hair grow and don't take care of it properly. This suggested that someone washed it for her regularly although she clearly promptly ran off into the nearest field and got herself all mucky again.

Like all Godlings, she had blue skin and large luminous eyes which were green.

"Hello Sally," I said carefully trying to keep myself upright. I held my hand out to be shaken.

I have little experience with children but I had learned a couple of tricks from Kerrass. Those being that you should always put yourself on eye-level with them but otherwise, talk to them normally. Don't be condescending and don't, for one second think that you are smarter than they are.

"I am very pleased to meet you." I told her.

Sally was already losing interest though and was trying to hide behind Kerrass again.

"Come on Sally, be nice." Kerrass told the Godling. "Freddie here, is a scholar from the university of Oxenfurt."

The Godling smiled in joy and enthusiasm. It was as though the sun came out, my increasing headache vanished along with the nausea and acid feeling in my stomach. I still had aches and, I suspected, some bruised ribs but I suddenly felt so much better."

"You're a scholar?" She said.

"I am," I answered, smiling at her enthusiasm.

"What do you study?" she asked me.

"At the moment?" she nodded. "I'm studying Kerrass."

"Why?" Her forehead wrinkled in confusion. "He's a fairly standard mutation of the Homo Sapient using the mutagens of the cat school of Witchers which were, in turn, derivatives of the Wolf Witcher mutagens. He has some genetic traits of the Elven blood, specifically from that part of the race referred to, internally, as the Aen Seidhe but I would suspect that it comes to no more than one sixteenth of elven blood at best. He suffers from a fairly mild case of depression resulting from some mild psychoses such as..."

"That's enough Sally," Kerrass came back leading the horses, he was smiling gently. "No point in giving the entire game away."

"But I just wanted to find out why?"

"It's not about Kerrass the man. It's about Kerrass the _Witcher_ ,"

"But you know about what Witcher's do." she argued

"I might," I answered quickly. "But the rest of the world does not."

"Why not?"

"They have forgotten or they have been misinformed"

"Who would misinform people."

"People who benefit from the lie. People who don't know better."

"But if you know the truth, why do you need to tell people?"

"Do I know the truth though?" I responded quickly. "Do any of us know the truth? Apart from anything else, what is truth? But before we go too deep down that hole How can I be sure that _I_ know what the truth is other than to check. But also, how do I help _other_ people get to the truth if I don't look for it."

Sally considered me for a moment. "I like him," she decided. "I'm not sure I approve of him not looking for new knowledge though."

"But how do I know I haven't missed something though?" I was beginning to feel a bit dizzy again.

"Then you check don't you," she answered.

I just stared at her for a moment.

"...Oohhhhhhh" Her comprehension was endearingly child-like.

There was more crashing coming through the grass and a huge man came into view. Square jawed and massively muscled. I started to panic as the sheer size of him made me feel dizzy.

"Kerrass." The man rumbled, nodding at the Witcher as Kerrass scooped Sally into his saddle. "This him?"

"That's him." Kerrass tickled the Godling making her giggle.

The man scooped me up into his arms easily.

My dizziness returned as I began to feel as though I was loosing my grip on the situation.

I crouched next to Sally's body and it was almost as though I could hear that giggle echoing around along with the sound of the wind in the grass.

For a while as I listened to the wind I could feel a lump form in my throat and my eyes begin to burn. I covered my face for a moment before I forced it back down. There would be time for that later.

I took a deep breath and wrapped the body up in the blanket as tight as I could. I tried to think of a more dignified way of carrying the poor girl but in the end I was forced to just sling her over my saddle. "She wouldn't mind." I told myself. Given that she was a Godling there was even a better than evens chance that she was already out and dancing in the trees somewhere and in a way that I did not understand and couldn't see.

I hoped so.

I checked around to see if I had missed anything before gathering up my horses reins and led it on. As I did so I could begin to smell the burnt wood and the slight difference that meant I could also smell burnt paper. I sighed. Not only were they dead but their charge had also been destroyed.

My first thought was that it meant that our little detour out to search the library had ended up being wasted and that we were wasting our time. I nearly wept again then with self-loathing. It was an involuntary thought but even so, I found that I hated myself for a moment then.

I remembered that the main cabin was in a clearing surrounded by an almost marshland and a thicket of thick, deliberately placed bushes inter-weaved with twigs and plants designed to make passage difficult if not impossible.

But the undergrowth had been swept aside. First, I guessed by axes and other bladed weapons but after that it had been decimated by fire. I saw Kerrass standing there walking around absently staring at the floor. I had to take my eyes of him for a while as I picked my way through the roots and undergrowth.

But when I got through and saw what was there, I groaned aloud.

There was no other way that it could have gone. Of course they were dead and their home ruined, but until I had actually seen the bodies there was a wild hope. Of course they were dead. They would have died to defend what they had but at the same time. I had hoped.

I had hoped.

The other two of them were there. The Succubus and the Doppler.

The Succubus was badly burned and wasn't really recognisable. But even under the charring it was plain that her body had been torn apart. Looking at the marks on the ground I guessed that she had been tied to a set of horses and pulled apart.

The Doppler had been nailed to one of the big trees nearby where he had been crucified. I could see glittering metal at his wrists and ankles. The fuckers had bound him with silver. Presumably in an effort to keep him from changing shape. I felt bile rise in my throat. They must have nailed him there and he had been forced to watch. While his life's work and the body of his wife and lover burned before him. I wondered if the struggle had hastened or prolonged his death.

Poor man.

The lump was back in my throat.

By my guess, the blaze had been arrested by a rainfall at some point. The cabin itself had been gutted, the roof had collapsed in and what remained of the walls were charred and crumbling.

I walked over to Kerrass and put my arm on his shoulder. Offering strength and what comfort I could. But I may as well have been trying to comfort a statue.

"I'm going to..." I began before having to clear my throat again. "Dammit, I'm going to check inside."

Kerrass nodded. "Good idea." His voice sounded as though it took a lot of effort to produce.

I tied my horse to a post, the poor beast was restive and unhappy. I couldn't blame it. Not only was it surrounded by death and ash but also the smell of burnt non-human.

I thought I smelt rain and looked up at the horizon where rain-clouds were beginning to gather.

Fucking wonderful.

I picked my way into the ruin, for ruin it was.

"The knights came here first." Kerrass' voice drifted to me over the sound of the wind. "They came here and did this before going back into the village to carry on."

I grunted an agreement.

"Probably having too much fun to leave," Kerrass' voice was bitter.

It was a large cabin. Well built. I had never got around to asking how long the three of them had lived here. I know Godlings, to all intents and purposes, are immortal. I had no idea about Succubi and Dopplers but they were magical creatures so there was no reason to believe that they weren't all but immortal. Nor did I know how long the three of them had lived here but the cabin was well built. I remember asking the Doppler about it and he told me that he had learnt to build a house by reading a book.

I picked my way through the wreckage carefully. I had heard far too many stories about ruined and gutted buildings collapsing on people that were exploring it.

The hatch that I was looking for was open. Black smoke still drifted gently from the hatchway and I could still felt warmth. I tried to look through the hole but it was too dark and I reluctantly withdrew.

I stood in the middle of the cabin and looked around. This had been a nice place once. I would have been quite happy living here myself.

Another memory took me by surprise.

The huge man carried me into the cabin easily, moving through the main room which was part living area with a large fire pit and elaborate cooking apparatus nearby. Pots and pans hanging from the roof along with a cleaver and several, wickedly sharp looking knives. Several large and comfortable chairs lined the walls and there was a metal hood situated over the fireplace that I assumed would carry the smoke from the fire outside and into the open air. Also in the corner I could see two desks set up easily in a way that would make most scholars, including me, nod with approval. Stacked vellum and parchment, a place for inkwells and a sheaf of quills wrapped together along with a sharp knife for quill trimming. Above the desk there was a small shelf on which rested a lantern which was held so that it could shine onto whatever the desk user was working on.

As well as all the comforts of home there were numerous lecterns around the place. Made from wood and metal, places where books could be propped and read easily. I noticed one, particularly large one was situated next to the cooking area.

"Welcome to my home?" The huge man rumbled. I began to recognise his accent as being Skelligan originally. He moved through the living area to a door in the back which opened into a bedroom. Large and luxurious with a huge bed, tables on either side of the head board. There was an arm chair next to the window that, again, looked exceedingly comfortable. The chair had a small table next to it on which rested another book and a cup of some kind.

I was a bit put off by the large, thick and strong looking leather straps that were situated at the four corners of the bed.

I must have protested a little when I saw them but he wasn't having it.

"Don't worry about it." He told me. "Those aren't for you."

"Who are they for?"

"Me," he said with a huge grin. "Or sometimes her. It depends on what mood we're in really."

My mystification left me unable to speak for a moment and the huge man took that moment to deposit me on the bed.

"Try to stay awake," he said. "You have a concussion and it might be dangerous if you go to sleep."

"I know," I tried to tell him but he had gone. At first I had thought that the bang on my head was causing me to hallucinate as he turned from being a huge, heavily muscled man into someone with a much slimmer build. He left the room.

The bed was really soft and I really did struggle to stay awake. In the end I did my best to push myself up the bed so that I could lean against the pillows. The effort hurt though and I found that I was having trouble breathing.

I heard voices from outside. It sounded like a woman's voice scolding Kerrass.

"I could have killed him." She was yelling at him but I could tell that she wasn't too angry.

"But you didn't," Kerrass told her. "In fact, how many men have you killed outright."

"That's not the point," she told him. "I could have. That was a cruel trick you played on him Kerrass."

"He'll be fine,"

The man came back in and this time I was sure of it. He had shrunk a good foot in height and had changed from being a heavily muscled Skelligan to someone who wouldn't have looked out of place on the streets of Oxenfurt. Thin, dark haired with the hair pulled back from his face and a scholarly air about him. He had put on a shirt and a jacket and was carrying a basin of water from which there were tendrils of steam rising and he had a cloth of some kind draped over his shoulder. On his other shoulder he was carrying a satchel.

"Alright, lets have a look at you," he told me. Setting the basin of water on the floor. And the satchel on the bed. From the satchel he took a small glass phial of a clear liquid which he uncorked and passed under my nose.

It smelled like needle had been jammed up my nostril and straight into my brain. It did have the side-effect of clearing the grogginess out of my brain though.

"Try not to move," the man said. He was grinning, presumably at the effect that his little potion had had on me.

"Those are _some_ smelling salts that you have there." I told him.

"My own recipe," the man said a little smugly while peering into my eyes.

"I know a number of people that might pay good money _for_ that recipe." I told him, doing my best to submit to the examination.

"I know, but then you'd have to tell them where you got the recipe and we value our privacy here." He seemed satisfied with his examination and moved me so that he could examine the back of my head where he made a tutting noise.

"What is this place?" I asked. It was a toss-up as to what question I asked at the time but the top contenders were either that one or asking who the man was.

"It doesn't have any kind of grand name or anything. We don't call it " _The_ library" or " _The_ Collection" or anything quite so ostentatious although it is both of those things. Mostly, the three of us just call it "home"."

He moved round to the front and was examining the insides of my mouth to check for any injury. Having a strangers fingers inside your mouth will put a crimp on conversation.

"I know that's not an answer that satisfies though." He said as he seemed satisfied by what he saw. "Lift your shirt up please."

I did as I was told. Always best to do what the Doctor tells you to do. He bent to feel around my bruised midriff and to listen at my chest.

"Breathe in," he commanded. "And out."

I complied.

"Ok. You're not that badly damaged." He told me. "A few bruised ribs which are going to hurt like the devil for a while, a minor concussion which is going to leave you with a hell of a head-ache. And you've bit the inside of your lip. I'll mix some stuff together to help with that and the injury on your head and we'll strap up your ribs. I'd tell you not to exert yourself but I think that that would be a waste of words don't you?"

He said that last with a smile.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Never mind." He said He had opened the satchel and was pulling out various pots and bottles, mixing some of them together to make a salve.

"So who are you and what is this place?" I asked, going for both questions at the same time to see if it would trick him into answering at least one of them.

He laughed. "Sorry, yes. Kerrass did say that you were a scholar and that you wouldn't be satisfied with short answers." He moved my head so that he could start smearing stuff over the back of my head. They normally warn you that this process stings but in this case it didn't. Instead it seemed as though it was abnormally cold to the touch.

"My name is Pula. I am a doppler."

"Oh." I said just before my brain caught up with my ears. "Oooohhhhh".

"Yes. I take it you know what a Doppler is."

"I think it would be fair to...Ow...say that I know what a Doppler can do but I don't know what one is."

"An honest answer. Good."

"You can change shapes but only within relatively confined parameters of roughly equivalent mass. You could probably change from a human to an elf or dwarf without much effort but you couldn't turn into a troll or a beetle."

"Correct on most counts. It doesn't also mention that when we get someone's shape that we also get a smattering of their memories, skills and talents as well. For instance, you met the Skelligan stonemason but he wouldn't have the first idea how to deal with your injuries."

"So who are you now."

"A Dr Nathanial Torrence." He began to work on strapping up my ribs, putting my arm on his shoulder. "He came here to consult one of the books about twenty years ago. A skilled Doctor but a bit limited in his understanding of anything outside what was going on with his patient."

"I know the type." I said wincing at the tightness of the bandage. I wondered at how well I was taking this whole situation and considered whether I was going into shock. "Highly intelligent but relatively few social skills. Hell, I've _been_ that type more times than I care to think."

"Honest of you. But since then, this is the shape I use when I'm reading up on anatomy and medical techniques. He has this trick of absorbing medical knowledge with an ease that my other shapes struggle with."

"How many shapes do you have?"

"Quite a few. But if I'm honest I only use about half a dozen on a regular basis. Unless _she_ has any special requests."

" _She_?"

"My wife."

"Your wife's a Succubus."

"Oh yes. We are well suited to each other."

"I can feel bits of my brain shrivelling up and waving surrender in protest." I commented after thinking about this for a while.

He laughed for a long time.

"Let me get you something to drink." He told me. "And I'll tell you the story."

He came back a few moments later with a cup of, well, it looked and smelt and tasted like mulled wine except. The cup was cold so whatever heat that came from it must have been some kind of chemical reaction to what herbs had been put into the drink. It was delicious, not tasting like any medicine I had had before.

The Doppler had changed shape again, now dressed in an undeniably handsome shape. He looked like a rugged out doors type. The kind that always had the female students going all gaga and using descriptive words like "dreamy" and "lickable".

I swear I'm not making those words up.

"So here it is." He said, pulling over a chair and sitting opposite me. I tried to sit up, "No no," he said, "Take your time. Give the drugs a bit of time to work and for you to adjust to them. You would probably get dizzy which would mean that I would have to fix you again."

I subsided but he did help me sit up and propped a pillow underneath my back so that drinking would be easier.

"So you've met Sally?" he asked as he sat and put his slippered feet up on the bed. The slippers were pink and were at odds with his otherwise rugged exterior.

I nodded and took another sip.

"Godlings are fascinating creatures," Pula started. He sounded rather like a lecturer at the university. "They are, at the same time as being child-like and innocent, extremely clever and sometimes they can be uncommonly wise. They see beauty in places that the rest of us don't. In Sally's case, she sees beauty in the written word. She finds the shapes and the patterns of it absolutely fascinating. So she was the first of the three of us to come here really."

I listened carefully to the story, sipping from my drink slowly.

"This cabin is built on the top of an old mine. It isn't human in construction as the mining techniques are far too advanced for humans, so I suspect it was dwarven or maybe gnomish in basis. I struggle to believe it was Elven though, but anyway." He peered at me. "You must stop me if I go off on a tangent."

"Not in the least." I told him, hiding my smile behind my cup.

"So anyway, Sally had chosen this as her home and was collecting written works since long before I came here. Books, pieces of paper, scrolls, maps, tapestries. So long as it contained written language then she collected it and stored it here in the mines."

"How long's she been doing this?"

"I have no idea. I was the next to arrive and the collection was...considerable by the time that I got here. Utterly without order though. She stacked them and kept them according to where it seemed appropriate to her rather than to any other kind of order. She couldn't read at the time you see so, all she had to go on were the shapes of the letters and odd pictures and engravings.

"All things being equal she actually did quite well. When I came here I would often find selections of books by the same author had been kept together because she recognised the pattern of the authors name and decided to keep them together."

"Storing all of that underground though..."

"Oh yes I see. That's why I know the construction isn't human. There is no damp in the mine. There's some kind of air filtration system that keeps out harmful gasses such as fire-damp and the like but it also means that the parchment or skins or cloth that the things are written on, are perfectly preserved. They degrade over time but that's where I come in. Copying the old and degrading works onto the new. I can do that because of the lack of other harmful effects on the paper. Otherwise it would be the work of thousands of people working around the hours of the day to keep things properly preserved.

"I arrived next you see. I was wandering around the countryside having thought it prudent to leave my most recent village as they had begun to notice that I wasn't entirely...human. I was a monk in that place and I preserved the abbey while working with the books. The vast majority of the other monks had been taken off by the wars of the time which left me in my skin of an elderly monk and some of the other older monks who died off one by one until only I was left. The Abbot left to follow his ambitions and I begged for leave to die there which he granted.

"I lasted ten years before the villagers noticed that all was not quite right with me.

"I packed a wagon full of books, carefully disguising them with sack-cloth and hay, changed my shape to that of a poor farmer and left.

"Through a variety of misadventures, I found myself near here. I was camping one night when I woke up one day to fine Sally going through my personal diary. She had lifted it off my person in the middle of the night and was leafing through it carefully, admiring my penmanship.

"She fled of course when I woke up but I waited, took a couple of my other books from the wagon and she gradually overcame her nervousness. I am blessed with being the kind of scholar that likes to share knowledge with like-minded folks, rather than that kind of arrogant idiot who prefers to horde all the knowledge to themselves, so I started to show her that the funny patterns that she so admired were actually words and language that could be read.

"She was delighted and picked up the trick of reading and writing with remarkable speed. Like many, I suppose I mistook her for a child and as such I had underestimated her _hunger_ for the meaning behind the words. She led me to this place and showed me her collection."

He grinned at the memory.

"At first I was quite intimidated by it all. But between us we set about working through the treasure trove that she had put together. A lot of it was meaningless of course, sales receipts, love letters or diaries. But together they gave pictures of that time and place. I saw the value of it all and offered to help Sally with her collection to which she agreed. I taught her to read. The various human languages as well as elven and Dwarven and we set about organising her collection.

Sally would regularly go off and return with new bits of paper, sometimes papers, scrolls or another book. It was clear that she had probably stolen them but she was clever enough to never get caught. We spent our time organising her collection and reading from the vast treasure trove of information that we had access to."

He sighed at a memory.

"Then my wife came. She was running as, she tells me, her people often are. She had made the mistake of bestowing her charms and graces on a nobleman of some power and when she decided to move on to other lovers, as her nature dictates, the man flew into a jealous rage, slew her other lovers and pursued her in an effort to bring her back to him. In chains if necessary.

"Sally found her, unconscious and exhausted in the fields, maybe a mile away and was trying to drag her here by the ankle which was not going well. Instead she came and got me and we managed to heal the poor thing of her injuries, but in taking her away, her pursuers completely missed her. As I was using a shape that moved quickly and easily through the undergrowth, the noble's trackers couldn't see where I had been when I carried her off and rode straight past us.

"As we nursed her to health, Sally and I, I fell in love with her and...thankfully... she fell in love with me. We got a visiting priest to marry us and here we stayed."

"Hold on," I interrupted before he carried on. "With all due respect to the lady and to you. How does that work. Succubi are Succubi after all and..." My words petered out in the face of the man grinning at me.

"You're asking me how I managed to keep her. Why hasn't she got bored of me and moved on?"

"Yes. I suppose I am." I subsided gratefully.

"I'm not a jealous man. I knew what I was dealing with and I knew what I was getting into. Yes she goes off. For days, weeks or even months at a time as she falls in love with a new man. She is...incapable of being faithful in the human sense of the word and I needed to make peace with that."

"That must have been hard."

"Not as hard as you might think. Remember that I am not human either. She is not faithful but she is incredibly loyal. I don't mind her going off and having her adventures so long as she comes back to me and tells me before she goes so that Sally and I don't end up worrying about her. More recently though it has been less of an issue."

"Why?"

"People come to us."

"I see."

"I don't think you do. Not yet anyway. But there's another factor that helps me keep her interest. I can change shape which means that my appearance, manner and almost personality changes with it. So if she wants something different then I can provide that for her. She still, occasionally wants something new and fresh so she does occasionally still go off but..." he shrugged. "I am alright with that. As I say, she comes back. There may come a day where she doesn't... But until then..."

He shrugged again. "I am happy and content and I hope I make her happy and content. She certainly hasn't left yet and we have been together for a long time."

I nodded, considering this for a while

"So people come to you." I prompted.

"Yes. My wife has a talent for organising things and she saw a way that we could turn things to our advantage. Rather than accruing paper without pattern and purpose, she argued that we should charge for our services. If you want knowledge out of our collection then you must give us something in return. Whether that is new knowledge, food, supplies or some time spent with my wife then that is what we ask. We have had enough of a response over the years that we have had to expand the mine twice, with the aid of some people who came here looking for some piece of information or other. We expanded our preservation spells with the aid of a wizard and now here we are."

"How come I've never heard of you?"

He considered me for a while. "Oxenfurt trained yes?"

"Yes."

"Oxenfurt is a nice place. I've been many times but it's still a little elitist. You think that knowledge is a privilege that must be paid for. You can't walk in to the university without sufficient money for it and demand to be taught. You require scholarships and patrons and money. Always more money. What this means is that otherwise perfectly intelligent students are kept from the knowledge that they need. How many clever men and women who might change the world with what they could do or discover in that university, have been turned away because they couldn't meet the price?"

"You are not wrong. But forgive me, you charge for the use of your knowledge."

"But there is a difference. Here we only ever ask for whatever the knowledge seeker can afford. An exchange of knowledge, time, maybe some food or similar. We believe that knowledge should be freely exchanged. How much better would the world be if _everyone_ knew about things like crop rotations and the proper uses of personal hygiene. Also the benefits of having a cat in every house alongside the uses of regular bathing."

"But you still keep it here, hidden and locked away."

"There are two factors. The first is, if we advertised ourselves. How long before a unit of church knights turns up and destroys the three of us for the monsters that we are, before burning the books because they contain things that are considered heretical and dangerous. Or a noble comes to destroy those parts of history that he dislikes. Or the Elves, in an effort to Prove that they were here before humanity and so humanity is stealing what is rightfully theirs without realising that the elves themselves stole the land from the dwarves and the gnomes.

"In our warrens we have the information with which Alfred Nable constructed his blasting powder. What happens if another person recreates that formula and uses it in a manner that Nable specifically killed himself to prevent. In our warrens we have information on the biology of elves that would mean that the humans could wipe the elven race out permanently. Or the dryads out of the Brokilon, or the mer-people out of the sea, or the vodyanoi for that matter."

He leaned forward.

"Or someone comes and discovers an air-born toxin that would wipe humanity from the face of the planet."

He sighed and relaxed after leaning forward with his passion.

"We consider ourselves custodians rather than teachers. Yes, my wife too which is another reason that I think she stayed. Knowledge is power and with the contents of our warrens and mines we could make or break the world. There is stuff in here that could benefit the world but there is also stuff in here that could destroy it."

"I know the answer," I responded, "but indulge another scholar. Why don't you do your own editing of the place?"

He smiled. "Who am I to say what is important and what isn't. What is vital to another might be dangerous to me." he shrugged. "We collect, we learn we aid while we can. My wife has some empathic abilities and as such she can normally tell when a person is dangerous or wants the knowledge for evil purpose. They are led away or prevented from coming."

I rubbed my ribs. "She's not _that_ empathic."

He smiled. "You took us by surprise, almost coming straight through the village. Normally visitors spend a bit of time down there before coming up. She's also a little on edge."

"Why?"

He laughed again. "You'd have to ask her. You well enough to stand? and I'll introduce you properly."

I picked myself up.

"How are the ribs?" He asked me.

"Pretty good actually. Actually I don't..."

He took the bandages off me. The redness and the bruising that I had been expecting had vanished. I looked up at him in astonishment.

"All kinds of knowledge in our warrens. I read a book on rib injuries once and this is what they recommend."

"This could save lives." I pointed out.

"Yes. But the means to heal people is often a derivative from the means to harm people. The stuff that I used to heal you with catches fire in presence of water. Notice how I dried your skin before applying the salve? Now imagine a rainy battlefield, or even a misty one. Catapults with clay balls full of the stuff thrown into a city. Once it catches fire, it does not stop burning."

I shivered at the thought.

I shook myself out of the memory with some difficulty. I was stood in the corner of the bedroom where I had once sat and had my ribs taped up. A little patch of colour caught my eye under some ash and I carefully picked my way over and pulled out a little doll made of straw. It had dried out, presumably in the heat but you could still see the overall shape as well as the small red shirt that had been stitched over the thing. I carefully carried it with me as I went back outside.

I didn't recognise the doll. If I didn't know better then I would have assumed that it was Sally's. But at the same time I struggled to mesh the two things together. The extremely intelligent scholar that I had met who could discuss higher mathematics, ethics and engineering while at the same time taking childish delight from Kerrass tickling her, swinging her around and running through the grass with her on his back.

But somehow I didn't think she would mind the assumption.

I put the doll remains on the bundle of blanket that contained the child and stood there looking at it for a while.

I had known these three people for a matter of days. Not even a week as I stayed with them while Kerrass had gone off to hunt the beast. I had laughed with them, shared their food and talked with them long into the night. Not one of them would have been out of place in the university of Oxenfurt. Indeed, I thought that Pula was possibly the most intelligent man I had ever known.

He knew more than I knew on every subject that I had ever studied. His arguments were so vast and far reaching. Compassionate and cautious while at the same time having a cynicism about people. I remembered one of the things that he had said to me.

"People are stupid." He told me at one point when I was tackling him about the fact that his little family unit were keeping this wealth of knowledge from the world.

"Individual people are clever, they think about things, consider consequences, take people as they find them. The reach past prejudice and learned behaviours. They think things through from beginning to end. But as a whole...people...and I don't just mean humans but also elves and dwarves and all of the intelligent creatures that walk on the continent... _people_ are filled with fear. Anger and hate. They are reactionary and ignorant and so...very...scared.

"Did you know that when the Vampiric race first came her through the conjunction of fears that they were so terrified by humanity that they studied them, almost to extinction in some places?"

I shook my head.

(Frederick's note: Reminding the reader that Pula had told me this before I met Ariadne)

"Fear." Pula said. "Reaction. They didn't think. They saw something that they did not understand and studied it until they broke it without consideration for the thing that they broke.

"I was once told that the intelligence of a mob is the lowest individual intelligence in the room divided by the number of people in the mob. And yet the most powerful Kings and Queens are always the monarchs that harness the powers of the mob for their own end.

"Individuals are clever," he told me. "People are stupid."

I remembered that I had nothing to say. I had thought of the mob rule in Novigrad during the height of the Witch-hunters reign of terror where good people burned the old women and the magic users who only days before had lanced boils and healed the sick. It hough of the way that the people cheered.

I shook my head again to try and free myself from the image and turned to look for Kerrass. He was halfway up a ladder, that he had found somewhere, and was trying to free Pula's body from the tree that he had been nailed to.

"I'm sorry," I called. "I should have been helping."

He shook his head.

"See to Saffron." He said. "I've got this."

Another thought got through the fog of anger and fury that had covered my brain. "I'm going to call Ariadne," I told him. "Maybe she can salvage some of the papers. It seems a shame that their life's work go up in smoke without at least trying to do something to preserve it."

Kerrass thought about this for a while.

"No," he said after a moment. "No, that's a good idea. You should do that."

"Are you sure?" I checked. He was arguing with himself again and I wanted to make sure I got the answer out that he wanted to give.

"Call her," he said after another pause. "Call her, you're right. Better Ariadne than..." He shook his head again before nodding to me. "Call her," he said again before turning back to trying to work the nails free from Pula's ankles and wrists.

I moved a little way off towards the horses to fetch another blanket as well.

I took my pendant out and grasped it tightly, picturing Ariadne in my mind.

She was a little while in coming, her touch feather gentle on my mind.

"Freddie? What's up?" She sounded surprised. We had only spoken through the pendant a week earlier. We were trying to space out our conversations as I was afraid that we would run out of things to say to each other.

"I..." a sob choked me. "I need your help."

"Is it Kerrass?" I had a sensation of movement and the feeling of air in her lab out in Angral. She gathered up a satchel and started putting things in the bag.

"No," I managed, forcing some words out past the lump in my throat "Kerrass is fine. I just...We need your help and I...I kind of need to see you." I sobbed again.

"I'll be there as soon as I can. I just need to sort a couple of things out."

I nodded as she broke contact. I got another blanket from a horse and went back to where Saffron's body lay and knelt next to her, spreading the blanket out on the ground.

The day was getting darker and I thought that I could hear the rumble of thunder.

"So you've met my wife Saffron?" Pula asked me.

"Briefly." I said managing to get a smile on my face in front of the horribly beautiful woman in front of me. "At least I believe I met her hooves." I tried for a joke.

She laughed, turning to Kerrass who was playing checkers with Sally. "You're right. He is funny."

Ok, so what to say about meeting a Succubus for the first time. It seems ludicrous to describe her as beautiful. Of course she was beautiful. This is literally a creature that survives by seducing men and feeding off their essence. Of course she was beautiful but that is just words written on a page.

Ariadne is beautiful. So beautiful that I wake up and think I must be dreaming when I realise that I'm going to be marrying her and she surprises me with it every time I see her. So beautiful that she frightens me but she has a very particular kind of beauty. It is the beauty of the evil queen in stories but as if she has had someone turn around and tell her that being one of the good guys is a nice thing as well.

She gets taken aback by happy thoughts, covers her mouth when she smiles and this... endearing nervousness is what makes me look at her beyond the superficial way of saying. "She is a beautiful woman." I love her for the intelligence in her and the sense of humour that she uses to look out at the world.

The Empress is very beautiful. She has the classical face, high cheekbones, clean jaw line and piercing eyes that would not look out of place on portraits of the most beautiful women in the world. She also has the scar on her cheek which somehow accentuates her beauty but more than that... To me, the Empresses beauty comes from her passion and intelligence, her energy and her ability to relate to everyone from the highest lord in the land all the way down to the muckiest commoner. That air of having seen things and done things.

That knowledge and worldly experience. That's what makes her beautiful.

Madame Yennefer has the beauty of a storm cloud.

Madame Eilhart has the beauty of a cold, flawless and remote statue.

Dr Shani has the beauty of the girl you've known for ever whose beauty always takes you by surprise when you return home.

Beautiful women all.

But there is a difference here. The sight of a Succubus just makes a male mind think of sex. And that's when she's not working at it with her skills and magic.

For physical characteristics, Saffron was around five ft and four inches but her height varied depending on how she used her legs. Her hair was a deep burnished red. Not the ginger frizz that Marion has but a deep and dark crimson that just doesn't occur in human hair without the use of dye. Her hair was long and she had it tumbling down her back. At various points in our acquaintanceship she wore it in a braid over one shoulder or another, piled high on her head but most commonly she wore it down and when she just let it go it went down as far as the bottom of her back.

Yes she had horns that swept down from her temples, round the back of her ears and then along the jaw line until the points extended to just back from her chin.

Her skin tone seemed a little darker than most women on the northern continent and to look at her you would think that she was wearing deep eye shadow so that her eyes looked deep and dark and smoky. I would later find that that was either how her eyes were coloured or was a measure of the effect that she was having on me. Her limbs seemed long, supple and smooth but also with toned muscle underneath the skin. There were tattoos on the backs of her hands that reached up and around her wrists and traced up her forearms. All in the same darker shade that lined her eyes. They were the tattoos of leaves and natural shapes. As though she wore the meadowland on her arms.

At the time she was wearing a long dark blue...dress doesn't really describe it well. It came round her neck and down across her front to cover her chest before it went down and became a skirt. It was not small and skimpy, it was a practical piece of clothing that left her arms and legs free to move. But I would be lying if it wasn't also painfully obvious to me that she wasn't wearing anything underneath it.

She also wore a choker of blue leather, similar in shade to her other garment and a silver pendant that depicted a winged fairy that held a blue jewel.

It seemed that blue was her favourite colour

Somewhere around her mid thigh her human legs started to turn into goats legs which she propped onto a foot stool.

"Saffron?" I asked her, reaching for a topic of conversation, any topic of conversation to take my mind off how unbelievably sexy she was.

"Yes." She smiled as she accepted a glass of some wine from her husband that was cooking us all dinner at the same time. "Because I'm spicy."

She grinned at me and I couldn't help but feel as though she was laughing at me despite the fact that the line about spice was obviously an old joke.

"Be nice Saff." her husband told her. "You did give him a concussion and three bruised ribs."

"He was sneaking up on us," she protested without much force.

"Yes." Her husband responded with a deadpan sense of humour. "If by sneaking up on us you mean, riding up the middle of the track without care for stealth. Upwind of us so that we could smell him coming while also chatting to his companion openly. Yes. Sneaking I thought I recognised it."

She pouted at him but it was clearly an old joking argument. Pula was preparing some chicken. He had taken some chicken, stuffed it with some kind of spiced meet mix while adding some, I think it was garlic butter, and then tying it all together with some thin slices of ham, before pan frying it.

"Yes," I thought to myself. "Focus on the food." It'll take your mind of the unspeakably sexual creature that was sat next to you drinking wine.

"Am I making you uncomfortable Master Scholar?" She asked me.

I took a deep breath and turned to face her, feeling the colour rising in my cheeks. "Would you care for honesty madam?" I asked carefully.

"Ooh madam is it." She lifted her hooves of the foot stool and leant forward. "Go on then."

There's a moment that comes occasionally when an attractive woman does this. Whether intentionally or unintentionally she accidentally shows you a little more flesh than you had entirely been prepared for. The overwhelming part of your instincts is that you should sneak a look at the forbidden area. This is a mistake.

Even though I was now absolutely convinced that Saffron was teasing me mercilessly for her own amusement I forced myself to carefully maintain eye contact.

"Despite your teasing," I told her, being careful with my words so as not to give away the fact that I was all but drooling, "Which is not a game that I enjoy by the way." I added. "You are perfectly aware of the fact that you are a beautiful woman. And yes," I had to swallow, "I find you intimidatingly beautiful."

"Ooohh," she pouted. "I _like_ him."

Kerrass chuckled.

"Stop playing with your food Saff." Pula told her.

"Not much to look at though." She commented.

"Looks can be deceiving Saffron," Kerrass told her from where he was being thrashed by Sally across the game board. "That one satisfied the most jaded courtesans that I know of, in both Vengerberg and Vergen."

He said it with a disgusted tone of voice.

"Did he now?" Saffron's gaze became assessing and contemplative.

"Saffron," warned Pula, gently.

She laughed suddenly and she was a different woman. The hard, mocking edge left her. Suddenly she came across as a laughing young woman. "I'm so sorry," she said putting her hand on my fore-arm and leaning over conspiratorially. "I jest, more to wind him up than anything." she gestured at her husband.

"But you never manage it though." He said, spooning a creamy looking sauce over the chicken

"Can you forgive me?" She leant forward so that she was looking up into my face while making her eyes absolutely huge.

Her eyes were blue, so light in shade that they were almost white.

I was so shocked at the seeming change in her character that I didn't know what to say.

She did confirm for me though that the previous movement of clothing that accidentally exposed some shadowed skin to me was no accident as this time there was no such shadowed opening.

"Of course he forgives you. He's a sucker for a pretty face." Kerrass commented from the other side of the room.

I took a deep breath to push Kerrass' comment from my mind.

"I cannot madame," I told her. "For I have already forgiven you."

She laughed in delight and kissed me on the cheek, quick as lightening before gathering up her cup of wine and sitting back down. She was still distressingly attractive but there was less of an...uncomfortable, aggressive air about it.

"Come on Kerrass." Sally complained. "I've beaten you six times now and you promised me a present last time you were here."

"Did I?" wondered the Witcher with comic exaggeration. "A present? I remember making no such promise."

"You did," Sally protested. "You said you'd bring me a book with more than three hundred pages in it."

Kerrass considered the matter for a while "Really," he wondered. "That doesn't sound like the sort of thing that I would do."

"You did. You promised." She muttered darkly. I shivered, remembering some of the things I had heard about what Godlings could do to people when they got irate.

"Remember Sally, I'm not a very nice man. I break promises all the time."

"No you don't." She protested but I detected a little bit of fear coming into the girls voice as Pula came round and topped my cup up, poured for his wife while giving her a kiss. It was not lost on me that the kiss seemed genuine and warm with love and affection.

"Well, lets see what fell into my saddlebags shall we?"

Kerrass reached into the bag that was next to him and brought out a large leather book which I recognised as being a book of Skelligan ballads as copied down by the bard Collarion. I remembered the scandal of that book. Collarion had got a Skald drunk and had got him to tell him all of the ballads and epic poems before fleeing the islands before the Druidic protectors of the aural traditions could catch him. Rumour had it that the bard had made a fortune before managing to drown in a bath tub under mysterious circumstances.

Sally counted the pages suspiciously.

"Four hundred and twenty three," she cheered triumphantly. She picked the book up, tucked it under one arm and strode off to sit, cross legged in a corner of the room where she placed the book on the floor in front of her, cupped her chin under her hands and started reading.

"That's her occupied for a while," Pula commented as he handed our food round.

It was delicious.

"Where did you learn to cook this?" I asked him.

"Where else?" he asked me, settling into his own chair. "I read a book on the subject. It strikes me as odd that we go through life with the basic need of eating and that we often go out of our way to only eat disgusting food."

"Or drink shite beer." Kerrass added.

"Or have bad sex." Of course it was the Succubus that said it. "Honestly, is it too much to ask to learn how to do these things properly."

I blushed. Although not innocent I was, and am, unused to discussing such things openly and with children present. Or rather, child-like people present.

We ate in silence and I noticed that I wasn't the only one who watched the portion of the food that had been left out for Sally go cold, untouched, next to her knees as she read through her "present", ignoring her food.

Pula laughed as he collected the plates. "I'll take that as sign that people liked my cooking then." He told us. I smiled my agreement and leant back. He stacked the plates in a corner of the cooking area before pouring everyone, other than Sally, a cup of wine and sat down with his own sigh of contentment.

"So then Kerrass." He took a drink from his cup and grimaced at the taste. I don't know what he was complaining about, I had already taken a sip and I thought that the wine was beautiful. "What can we do for you?"

Kerrass set his cup aside.

"There's a monster I need some help identifying."

"Oh?"

"I think it's a mutation from a siren, Lamia or Ekhidna." He told the story about what we'd been hunting. "I want to be sure before I go and make a fool of myself."

"And get yourself killed," Pula smiled as he said it.

"That too." Kerrass admitted, "but right now, I'm more concerned about the embarrassment."

The three of us laughed at him.

Sally didn't, she was too busy being engrossed in her book.

Pula exchanged some glances with Saffron who nodded.

"We can help you." Pula told him.

"How much will it cost?"

"Come on Kerrass," Saffron grinned, "you're not that naïve."

"I'm not. Let's just say that I want to see his face."

Saffron nodded, and shared a smirk with Kerrass. "I want him." She pointed at me.

I spluttered some of my wine through my nose and started choking until Pula clapped me on the back.

"You can't have him permanently," Kerrass told her. "For how long?"

"A night and a day, or the length of your hunt. Whichever is longest."

"It's going to take me a few days at least."

"Then that's how long I can have him."

"He must agree to it." Kerrass responded quickly, after pointedly ignoring my discomfort.

"Very well," she agreed meeting his gaze. I was reeling a little and felt dizzy. The events were spiralling out of my control far too quickly. "But you, Kerrass, must convince him."

"I don't think he will need much convincing," Pula commented with a grin in my direction.

"He might." Saffron glanced in my direction before turning back to Kerrass. What little I saw of her gaze was...appraising. "But my price stands."

Kerrass considered this for a moment before shrugging.

"Done." He said.

"Wait," I tried. "Hang on."

"Excellent." She exclaimed happily, "Then I shall go and prepare." Then she was gone, moving faster than I had thought possible.

Pula moved through the other door in the cabin, there was a thunk and the sounds of a hinge.

"Kerrass." I couldn't decide whether I was angry, scared or excited.

"Freddie," he mimicked. "Be a man Freddie. Man up."

(I would remind people that might judge Kerrass harshly that this was still relatively early in our relationship)

"But..."

"What is it Freddie? Afraid?"

"A little.

"Or is it that you don't like being haggled over."

"That too."

"Think about it. You have visited several whore-houses since we met where the price was agreed with the bordello madams. Are you saying that you are better than the women we slept with on those nights?"

When confronted like that I didn't know what to say. Again, I would remind you that this was early in my journeys and I was still working hard to overcome my societal bias. I wanted to yell at him and scream and tell him that I was not some commodity to be haggled over or used.

But he was right. That was what we did in the whore houses and bordellos. I felt myself falling down the rabbit hole.

That's a term that we use for describing what happens when you have a philosophical question that you don't know the answer to and all it does is that it leads you to more questions. If you're lucky, you learn something new about yourself when you go down the rabbit hole. If you are unlucky it can take you a while to pull yourself out of that hole.

I wanted to tell Kerrass that I _was_ better than those women but I already knew how he would respond. He would say "But what makes you better than them? Your social standing? An accident of birth. That answer will be the same if I argued that I was better because I was wealthy as I certainly hadn't earned the money that I had, that I was better educated or because I was a man.

All of these things were down to a simple accident of birth. Modern nobility has long since moved past the state where a man can become powerful by dint of his own effort alone. Sooner or later he would need allies, money a patron or other kind of backing. It is rarer and rarer for a man to change his class in the modern day. We know those people that manage it but make no mistake, they are the exceptions to the rule.

My Grandfather managed it and as a result, our family was almost universally hated by the noble class that we had joined. Sir Rickard (although I had not met him by this point) often complains about the fact that he is rarely accepted by the knights and nobles that he got lifted up to when he was knighted but he is also no longer a common soldier. This makes him hated by a lot of both sides.

This is one of the reasons Sir Robart hates my family and Sir Rickard both. The other being that he's a massive dick-head.

This is still true today. You can think of odd examples of people that have lifted themselves up from the dirt to cause the mighty lords of the land to tremble, but there aren't many that have survived the attempt. As mostly, to do that, the only to do so is on the battlefield and not many people survive that effort.

I came out of my thoughts to discover that Kerrass was reading a book that Pulla had handed him and Pulla was watching me with a slight smile on his face.

Yes I was angry that Kerrass had traded me away for a book. Not even that, I was traded for access to a book.

He realised that I was looking at him.

"Well?" He asked.

"I'm not happy about this Kerrass."

He smirked a little. "Scared?" he asked again.

"A little."

"Of what?"

"Don't Succubi kill their prey."

Kerrass and Pula looked at each other before laughing. I think that that was the first time I heard Kerrass laugh properly and uncontrollably. I had heard laughter and chuckling but not this kind of side-holding laughter.

"Your religious prejudices coming through again Freddie," Kerrass told me.

"That's not how it works." Pula added. "She feeds of your life essence yes but where would be the sense in killing you. Then she couldn't feed off you again. The process is not unpleasant..."

"Besides," Kerrass interrupted, waving Pula into silence. "We both know that you're going to do it."

"Why's that?"

"Because you're a scholar Freddie. You're curious."

I didn't have a response to that.

(A/N: I know, I know. I promise that there'll be more cheerful stories coming...eventually)


	61. Chapter 61

(A/N: This chapter jumps straight in from the last one.

Also, it may not come as a surprise to any given that there's a succubus involved but the following contains scenes of a sexual nature. I don't think it's too explicit or gratuitous, but that's just my opinion. So be warned.)

The distant sound of thunder began to encroach on my memories and the first rain-drops began to fall. There are many stories in which the presence of rain is a cliché and I am well aware of this. But sometimes, as you go about seeing to the fallen, rain begins to fall. It was fitting for me. I would have laughed at the irony of it but the laughter seemed as though it would be out of place at that moment.

Instead I wanted to cry.

I managed to lever Saffron's carcass out from the ash that was covering her. She didn't want to come free, her limbs were stiff and brittle after the fire and subsequent rainfall. It was only a little bit of consolation to discover that she was dead long before the fire had been set but...

There were ends of old leather tied to her ankles and wrists. As I wrote previously she had obviously been torn apart, probably by horses. I looked up from where I was working up to the tree where Kerrass was still struggling to free the corpse of Saffron's husband. He was having his own difficulty with the fact that he didn't want the body to just collapse to the ground. But he needed both hands to work the nails free.

I offered to help again but he either shook his head or ignored me. I couldn't tell from this distance. Instead I bent back to carefully brushing the sodden ash away from the succubus' body.

Another memory.

"And you're sure that you're ok with this?" I asked.

"Ok with what?" Pula was sat in one of the arm chairs reading the book that Kerrass had given to Sally. Sally was off somewhere doing whatever she did when she wasn't eating sleeping or reading. She had solemnly handed the book over to Pula before quickly eating her dinner, despite the fact that it was cold and congealing before running out into the summer air.

"She's your wife." I told him incredulously.

"Precisely." he told me without looking up.

"I don't understand." I told him.

"Understanding is not required." He told me with a grin. "Only obedience."

"Is that a quote?"

"Yes."

"But..."

"Look, Freddie, can I call you Freddie?"

I shrugged. It rather felt as though it was a little bit too late to be asking the question.

"Yes, she's my wife but she's also her own woman. You are human and you worship the holy fire, am I right?"

"Yes. Which is not helping by the way."

"I can guess. First of all, let me reassure you again that she doesn't take your soul. She's not eating your soul as you mate but rather, feeding off your life essence."

"Holy fire Pula, you're a nice guy, but that is, in no way, reassuring. What does that even mean?" My fear was making me angry.

"Your seed Freddie, we're talking about your seed. There's more to it of course..."

"Of course."

"...But that's essentially it. She's not dissimilar from a human woman. The difference being that a human woman can take your seed and use it to help make another human. My wife will take that seed and use it as sustenance."

"That doesn't make me feel any better."

"I know.

"But...Are you sure you're ok with this?" I asked him again.

"Are you asking me if I'm jealous?"

"I suppose so."

He considered this for a moment, marking his place in the book with a finger. "A little," he admitted. "But she'll come back to me eventually."

"I just..." I began, searching for the right words. "I just don't understand it. How you can be ok with this?"

"How could I stop her?" He countered. "She is much stronger than I am physically, she can run much farther and faster and apart from all of that, she has access to fire magic as well as her more natural powers and skills. Pheromones and such like."

"Phere-what?"

"Pheromones...If you don't know it's hard to explain. Basically she is almost designed to be sexual and to attract men, whether they want to be attracted to or not. She gives off this aura, call it magical or chemical but it's probably both, that reaches past a man's civilising characteristics and causes him to fall into lust with her, giving him an urgent need to...well...fuck her. She can emphasise or restrain these things according to her whim."

"So what you're saying is, that if she wants me she's going to have me."

"Pretty much."

"But you're ok with this?"

He sighed, carefully placed a book mark and examined me.

I was pacing in the trio's living area and it was about mid-afternoon. Kerrass had read the provided book before telling me to be good and do what I was told. An order that had caused Sally to laugh aloud. He then left, leaving my still incredulous and insistent outrage in his dust.

Pula had cleared up the cooking remains before sitting and beginning to read. I had oscillated between sitting and pacing nervously before Pula had advised me to rest properly as I would need my strength.

"What is it that you're really trying to ask me Freddie?"

"I just..." I struggled for words.

"I promise that I won't be offended, although I cannot promise that I won't laugh aloud."

"WHYYYY?" I all but yelled at him. "Why are you ok with this? She's your wife!"

"Yes. She is. But she's not my property. Look. I get that you're a follower of the church of the holy flame and I understand that they use the phrase, "Love honour and obey" in a vow that the wife has to swear before they are married. But...that's not what happens here.

"Saffron is a beautiful, wonderful, individual woman that I love a great deal. It is an enormous privilege that she has chosen to remain here with me and it is not a privilege that I take lightly. I am also aware that that privilege can be taken away at a moment's notice. She, _needs_ to love and be loved by multiple people, the broader the variety in that, the better for her. It's how she maintains her existence. I can feed some of that by being a Doppler but sooner or later she just _needs_ that other person. To deny that is to deny who she is.

"She wouldn't be... She wouldn't be Saffron without that and I find that it makes the return all the sweeter. When she does come back it is all the better for it. Also, she is not in the least bit demanding or jealous in return and when the opportunity presents itself, she is more than happy with it if _I_ go off and have a little adventure or two.

"Hell, on more than one occasion she's even asked to join in. Just as I've joined in on her games on more than one occasion."

"What do you mean?"

"What on earth makes you think that I am _only_ male?"

My mind boggled. "You mean that you can...?"

"Oh yes."

"And you...?

He grinned at me without answering. After a while he took up his book again. "I would take the opportunity to freshen up if I were you. There's a hot water tank out back, run yourself a bath."

"How do you get hot water up here?"

"I had a wizard do it in return for a long essay on the inherent evil of the female form." He told me with a smile. "Saffron took the opportunity to wear her smallest outfits which meant that she was, essentially, just wearing some jewellery with a belt, and spent her time doing stretches and things around the place. The poor man was sweating and shaking by the time she went out before he left."

There was no denying that the image was funny and I had left to do what I was told.

The rain was getting thicker now but I wasn't cold. I had to force myself to go and get a cloak from my packs to keep dry. I dimly managed to decide that I was in some kind of grief related shock. I found that I liked the rain and didn't want it to stop, but I also knew that the chances of being able to dry my clothes was a remote one.

Kerrass had managed to get Pula of his tree now and had laid him next to the blankets that contained Saffron and Sally. We stood together, looking down at them.

"Do you want to say anything?" I asked Kerrass.

"Oh yes. Oh, but I have so many things I want to say." He stopped suddenly. He'd closed his eyes and gritted his teeth for a moment before he relaxed. "But not just yet."

"What do you want to do? Bury them?"

Kerrass seemed to think for a minute before nodding. "Yeah. There used to be a shed out back that might have some tools still in them. See if there's a shovel?"

I nodded and did what I was told. Even then I needed to root through some wreckage to find what I wanted. Kerrass took the shovel off me without a word. He hadn't moved from where I had left him.

"Is this something you want to do by yourself, or is it something I can help with?" I asked him after a long moment.

"No," a small, sly and incredibly sad smile crossed his face. "I remember how bad you are at physical labour, remember?"

"I do,"

"I'll do it." He told me. "Go and..." He had to take a deep breath, wiping some water from his eyes. "Go and see if the other cabin is usable for some shelter or if they burnt that too. I don't want to have to go back down to the village tonight if I can possibly help it but we can't spend a night out in this."

"We've slept in worse." I commented, already backing off to the much smaller path.

"We have, but I don't want to sleep in the rain tonight if I can help it."

I nodded, trying for a smile but Kerrass was already marking out a square to start digging.

I turned and strolled across towards the beginning of Saffron's little path.

She had a secret little path that she liked to walk at night, up the hill, through the trees and along to where she had a private cabin. Turns out that she wasn't so thoughtless regarding Pula's feelings that she would take her other lovers to her marital bed.

Unless he wanted her to of course.

I sighed. The place seemed somehow empty of life, empty of...meaning without the three of them. The trees seemed to hang limp like rags and the grass lacked the shine and the...the lustre that that grass should have. You know, good, clean and above all "green" grass. It was as though the land surrounding the two cabins, itself was mourning the departed.

For all I know that might have been exactly what was happening. Spirits and Succubi affect the world in ways that we can't even begin to imagine.

The path was winding, twisting back in on itself past several flat areas of grass that were devoid of root, rock or branch. A bed of flowers that Saffron used to cultivate, sleep on and occasionally frolic on.

But I saw that the knights had found this path too. There were broken branches everywhere and deep, heavily booted imprints all over the ground so that even I could track them.

I sighed. If Kerrass wanted shelter then I guessed that we would have to go down to the village tonight.

I carried on anyway.

Another memory.

Saffron had come for me just as the sun was setting. It was a beautiful sight. As far as I could tell she hadn't changed her clothes or her jewellery. Her hair was still the same, long cascading waterfall of hair but there was definitely something different about her. When she opened the door to the cabin Pula made himself scarce, off through one of the doors but it would have been impossible for me to notice which one it was. He was right. I didn't really have a choice. Even if I had been trying to resist going with her I don't think I would have managed it.

There was a luminescence about her. She was glowing and the sun seemed to set around her. She just walked over to me and looked down at me from where she stood. She raised her eyebrow in a question although, as I sit here at my desk to write this, I honestly couldn't tell you what the question was. She must have seen what she wanted to see because she bent down and took me by the hand, lifting me up and led me out into the fading days light.

In the distance I could hear pipes being played.

"Sally," she told me. "She read a book on how to make these little pipes, spent days carving them with this little knife that Pula made for her and hours more practising them until she could get it right. I have never heard focus or determination like it in audible format."

I nodded. I was desperately trying to keep hold of my sanity. I could feel my cognitive function slipping away from me as though pulled beneath the waves. I felt as though I was drowning. I shook my head in an effort to clear it.

She laughed when she saw it.

"Still fighting me?" The path was wide enough now that she was walking next to me. She still had a firm grip of my hand but we had stopped. I had the distinct feeling that if I had wanted to stop then she would have allowed it.

"I don't know," I told her and I really didn't. "It feels like I'm standing on the edge of a cliff. I know that I can jump in and that it will be exhilarating and wonderful..."

"Not to mention, insanely pleasurable," she said with a mischievous smile.

"That too. Or at least so I'm told."

She acknowledged that point. "But..."

"I'm also terrified of the jump."

She nodded. "There is time, while we wait. Also there is some time to walk as well and if I may. I have a question of my own."

"Oh?"

We had started to walk again. I could feel the heat from her body. She was holding my hand and there was no other, physical contact but I could _feel_ the shape of her. I could feel her arms and her chest and her legs and her...

"Yes." She said startling me. "Without wanting to boast or put you off. I am a Succubus and I have _known_ many men. You understand that I'm talking in a religious sense of the word right?"

The stars were coming out and the sound of the wind in the leaves combined with the sound of her voice was hypnotic and oh so arousing.

"I do."

"But here's the thing." She went on. I could hear her gentle laughter running through the voice. "I know that you are attracted to me. That's not arrogance talking. That's not me saying that I know that I am beautiful or that I know that you _must_ be attracted to me because of what and who I am. I know that you are attracted to me because I can feel it in my blood. It's part of who, and what I am."

There was a small clearing in the trees next to the path. The floor of the clearing was covered in flowers, a bed of flowers with blue and purple petals covering it.

The term "bed of flowers" scuttled through my brain like a marble or a rubber ball bouncing in a box.

I was overwhelmed by the urgent desire to kiss this woman in front of me and drag my hands through her hair.

"Is that all?" she asked me with a sly smile and a twinkle in her eye. "We can do much more than that. I promise that the grass and the flowers are soft."

I groaned and backed away shaking my head.

But she didn't let go of my hand.

"You see that?" She asked me. We had started walking up the hill again. I could begin to see the outlines of a house. There were windows through which I could see the fire light and the smell of the wood smoke and the flowers began to combine with the scent of this woman.

My arousal was almost painful.

"You see that?" She said again. "That's what I'm talking about. You're fighting your own arousal. You have yourself in a grip, a death grip of control. I don't think it's me that you're terrified of. I think that you're afraid of letting yourself lose control.

I groaned, again and forced myself to look at the stars. To pick one and focus on it. It was a mistake as all I could imagine was that same star reflected in Saffron's eye.

"It's actually quite impressive." She told me. I could hear her laughter along with a certain amount of her own lust in her voice. "You will not be surprised to learn that you are not the first person that I have brought up here. Nor will you be surprised to learn that I am using my powers on you. It is a self building cycle. I wanted you from the moment that I saw you."

I swallowed and clenched my first, digging my fingernails into my palm in an effort to distract myself.

"So because I want _you,_ then you want me. Because you want me, I want you more. It's a cycle. I can _feel_ your desire. Other men have not resisted this much. Not without help anyway. Witcher's are always more controlled, as are others who have certain...magical advantages over normal humanoids. But other men don't even bother to resist their own desires. Normally I have been grabbed and pushed up against a tree, or thrown down onto the bed of flowers before we get to this point on the trail. Often multiple times. So why do you resist?"

I had to take several deep and calming breaths. My normal, one quick, in and out breath wasn't going to cut it this time.

"Can you...uhh... Can you turn off the..."

"My allure?"

"Yeah, that..."

She must have done something as my...oh, lets call it what it is... My erection became less painful. I still didn't dare look at her though.

"Is it such a bad thing to have self control in the face of a beautiful woman?" I asked her.

Dammit, I had meant to not look at her. She was smiling at me but her eyes were hooded with her own desire. I turned away again.

"That depends," she answered. "Largely on the circumstances and the situation. But let's say this. Let's say that the circumstances and the situation are not...what they are. Why is self-control so important to you? Especially in the face of a beautiful woman? You have taught yourself to be this way Freddie. Why?"

She still had hold of my hand and we had moved up so that we were just outside the front door of the cabin. I could barely breathe with desire.

"I don't want to be that guy." It felt like a lot of effort to get those words out. As though I was forcing them out past gritted teeth.

"What guy?"

She had moved up behind me and I could feel her breath on my neck.

I shivered.

"A rapist."

She laughed at me. "A rapist. I never met anyone less like a..."

"You're missing the point." I told her. "I lived in a university town for several years. I suppose technically I still live there. Lots of young, attractive people having left home for the first time, tasting their first freedoms. They get drunk, one thing leads to another and they have sex."

"Sounds natural to me." She had reached round me and was stroking my chest. Flame help me but I could feel her breasts pushing against my back.

"Except when it isn't." I told her, pulling away so that I could think.

She wouldn't let go of my hand though.

"A friend of mine made a mistake." I told her. "Just a little mistake. But it ruined his life. He was seeing a girl, a nice girl that I liked a lot. But one day troops came and dragged him out of his bed to go and stand trial.

"As it turned out the couple used to enjoy a little rough-housing in their sexual play."

"They liked it rough you mean," I could feel her smiling.

"Maybe. I never asked for clarification. But then one night it went to far. I don't know what happened but it would seem that she wasn't into it one night but he couldn't tell. He couldn't tell, he didn't see the problem until it was too late. He was heartbroken, that was the thing that I kept coming back to. He loved that girl with all of his heart but then he slipped up. Till the day that he left Oxenfurt he swore that he didn't mean to hurt her. He _swore_ that he loved her. I believed him. His life was ruined though and he was sent away as the courts took his side of the story. Because of course they did. But now he was a rapist and no-one wanted to go near him.

"But then the other side is also true. Another good friend of mine, also driven from Oxenfurt because of what happened. She came in sobbing after a night at some kind of...party out on the lawns. She says that she woke up in the early hours of the day, with her clothes strewn around her, covered with what she described as bodily fluid. She was distraught, traumatised and if I had caught the bastards that did that to her I would have killed them myself."

I looked up at the stars and shivered.

"I used to see it all the time. I used to work with a girl during my aborted attempt to become a doctor. She was a nice girl, exceedingly pretty but she was a friend first. We had a good working relationship and I found that I didn't want to spoil that. One day I was talking to her after class, moaning about lecturers or something similar.

"I remember it distinctly.

"The university has this piece of lawn where students and lecturers like to sit and argue. We would like to tell each other that we're debating but we're arguing really and we all know it. So the girl and I were chatting,

Carla was her name, short blonde hair and bright blue eyes that shone in the sunlight.

"Then another man walked up and wanted to talk to her. He greeted me first as I remember before turning to her. His eyes hooded and his mouth hung open in lust. He was practically drooling.

"I'll never forget it.

"She turned to him, saw what was happening and her face fell. It literally almost collapsed in on itself. Suddenly this bright and happy young woman was insulating herself and protecting herself against this man's feelings.

"You wanna know what happened? The man, I think his name was Owain, wrote to his father about her and the two were engaged to be married six months down the line. I remember that she was happy at the wedding day.

"It was one of the reasons I changed my field of study to history. I wasn't happy with medicine anyway but that was just the icing on the cake. She was a fantastic teacher, lab-partner and co-worker, and to see her so...robbed of...Flame but I don't even know what I'm talking about any more."

"Did you love this girl?" 

"Flame no,"

"I think the man protests too much."

I laughed. "I liked the girl. She made me laugh and yes she was beautiful. In another life I would have been happy to marry her or have a mutually consensual roll or two in the hay. But then and there I just didn't feel it."

I sighed.

"It was early on in my student tenure. I had been in university a matter of weeks, but that was the moment that I decided not to be that guy. No girl would ever be made to cry by me. No action of mine would ever be misconstrued. I would never rape a woman or allow myself to be in a situation where it might happen by accident like what happened with my friend. I would never be that guy."

There was silence for a while before I could feel a chuckle start in the chest that was pressed against my back.

She moved round me and stood looking up at me with a huge smile. Part mocking, part kind. "Are you asking me, a succubus, for consent?" She laughed as she said it.

I felt my own laughter rise to meet hers.

"The truth is..."I told her. "Even if you gave me your consent, I'm not sure I would know what to do with it."

She looked surprised.

"I thought Kerrass said that you had satisfied the best...No... You're not a virgin. You know what to do."

"I know what to do it. But I don't know how to bridge the gap between laughing and joking with a woman to kissing and fondling. Then again from that to...well...everything else. Even with those Courtesans or the two lovers that I had back in University, they had to be the ones that started...proceedings."

"Oh." She said. She was laughing again. "Then let me make it perfectly clear," Suddenly her grip was like steel and there was no getting away from it. I couldn't have pulled away from her if I tried. She reached into my trews and pull out my rather...

It seems that I'm still prudish enough to struggle to talk about this.

She took my manhood out and held it in her hand.

I groaned at the contact making her smile and lick her lips. Her other hand came round and cupped the back of my neck pulling me close.

I didn't resist, I was completely under her spell by this point. She extended her legs so that she could whisper in my ear.

"You are very sweet."

The hand holding me... I don't know how else to say this...rippled. I sighed as she held me close. I wasn't there yet but I could feel my legs growing weak. She was so strong. Not that I was surprised but she supported my weight easily.

"But do you think you could do anything to me that I didn't want you to?"

Her hand rippled up and down my manhood again. I whimpered

"But just to assuage your concerns." She was barely whispering. I could hear her only as a breath on my ears.

That, and her body pressed against mine was intensely erotic.

"Anything that you do..."

Her hand rippled.

"Anything that you want to do..."

Another ripple.

"Is fine by me."

Another ripple.

"Indeed I look forward to it."

I was breathing quickly now. My breath coming in groans.

"You don't need to hold back."

I gasped.

"You don't need to worry about my pleasure. Mine will come and believe me when I say that you will be ready again much sooner than you might think."

I was trembling as she held me on the very edge of the cliff.

"You don't need to show off to me. You can let go and I will catch you. You can surrender and I will keep you safe. Then when you want to take some control you can do so with my blessing."

I made a sound, somewhere between a whimper and a moan.

"You are a good man Lord Frederick." She whispered. "This won't change that."

Her hand rippled again and I whined.

"Now let go."

She kissed me and I did what I was told.

It took me a little while to recover but when I did she was standing in front of me with the smile of a cat that had just caught the mouse.

"A good start," she commented with a gently mocking smile.

"A start," I found my smile coming back. "I hope you don't mind if I ensure that you get some as well though right?"

She laughed. "You know that you don't need to show off though right?"

"No, but what if I want to?"

She was still holding onto me. I felt a rebellion start somewhere in my belly and I grabbed her back in a mirror to her own embrace, one hand on the back of her neck and the other reaching between her legs.

She let out her own gasp of delighted surprise and pleasure.

"What can I say," as I started with one of my older tricks and then it was her turn to hold onto me. "I like doing it."

The cabin was a ruin.

There hadn't been a fire set this time. I guessed that they had been pushed for time and had wanted to get out of there as fast as possible, but even then I could see that the door had been caved in with an axe and the wooden walls had been splintered with hammers and kicked in with armoured boots. Going inside I found the contents of the small...well...hut had been tossed and searched. Rotten food had been smeared up the walls, the bed had been tossed aside and splintered, the mattress had been slashed to pieces.

Men had defecated up against the walls and the walls had been daubed with graffiti. It made me sick and I didn't stay long.

I didn't want to remember this small room like this.

I left and stood in the doorway. It felt like only yesterday that I had stood here and made love to a beautiful woman and she to me before we had gone inside.

She had taught me so much in the three days that we spent together. She gave me the confidence that I had been sadly lacking. And she had loved me in her own way.

We had lain together for hours and talked. She also taught me a few more tricks that I had used later on other women, much to my amusement and their pleasure.

She had lain next to me, both of us covered in sweat and panting in happy fulfilment. She had stroked the side of my face and told me that "Some day, you are going to make some woman really happy."

I sat down on the ground and allowed myself a few minutes in the rain to have a few quiet tears.

It felt like long time ago. Since those three days with Saffron I had been tortured, had my soul removed and tortured, gone mad, regained my sanity. Lost family members to disappearance, murder and banishment. I had learned how to properly respect women of the night as well as learning so much more about women in general. I'd been poisoned, shot, stabbed, and killed my first man.

Then I had killed several more people.

I had fallen in love twice. Once was with an ancient and unknowable being of over 900 years in age and the other with a woman in a green dress with red hair who was much better than I deserved. I had met living myths and legends. I had spoken with a dragon and talked to the ghost of a King as well as being put through approximations of the Witcher's trials.

I had learned to fight. I had learned to kill.

I had learned more about the world than I had even thought had been there to be learned. I had learned of the evils of my own prejudices and had been forced to set most of my own drama's and behaviours aside as childish things.

I looked back at that...man...that boy that had come here with Kerrass all that time ago. I thought he was incredibly naïve and I was no longer entirely certain that I even liked him that much. I had already started my journey on the way towards being the man that I was today back when I saved that baby from Nekkers all that time ago. I had taken another step that day nest to a bridge when I helped bury a troll. That had been the beginning of my journey towards being a better man.

But I had taken a significant step here. With these three creatures. These three people that the majority of society would kill or condemn them as monsters. That HAD condemned them for what they were. They had devoted their lives to the preservation of knowledge and even though I didn't entirely agree with their methods or their reasons for doing so. I had thought that an important goal.

I wept for them then because I was pretty sure Kerrass wouldn't and these people deserved tears.

That was how Ariadne found me.

She sat down next to me. She didn't say anything. She didn't have to. She just sat and waited for me to calm down a little.

"What happened?" She said after a while, handing me a small cloth for me to wipe my eyes.

"We don't know, for sure." I told her, staring into space. "Could I?..."

"Could you what?"

"Could I have a hug?" I still wasn't entirely comfortable with physical intimacy between us. I needed to be warned or to ask in advance. It sounds silly when I say it like this but...

For her part, Ariadne was content to take it slowly. We were working up to things but I was still very aware that my automatic response is to reflexively flinch away from her. For her part she was still learning to interpret humanity's intimate signals so we had agreed to not be embarrassed about asking if we could, or asking if we wanted something.

Yes, this is partially fed by what I had told Saffron all that time ago.

"Of course you can."

She shuffled closer and put her arm round me. It took me a while to collect myself.

"Ok." I said after a while. "Thank you for coming."

"Of course I came."

I nodded and put my own arm round her. She stiffened at first but relaxed. She smiled though so I decided that it was ok.

"What can I do to help?"

"Let me show you the library." I told her and stood.

She was wearing what I liked to refer to as her "evil Queen" get up. It was a large, voluminous black dress that looked as though it wrapped around her, tied together at the waist by a belt. I had looked before but I could never find any corsetry, ribbing or anything. There was very little accentuation of her gender, it showed no cleavage, nor did it hug her hips or display and leg. But I won't lie. I found it incredibly sexy. She had a satchel of brown leather slung over her shoulder as well as various pouches off her belt. She also had her long golden staff with her.

I held my hand out to her. With a look of pleased surprise, she took it and we walked down the hill together as I told her about what had been here.

"I'm so sorry," she told me when I told her about the three dead. "I'm so sorry."

"I'm sorry too." I told her. I don't know why. I thought that there was a bit of guilt there. I was mourning the death of a previous lover. Ariadne was getting to the point of knowing me well though.

"Don't be," she told me. "You had no obligation to me. We hadn't even met and you would not have been able to resist a Succubus if she put her mind to having you. No man could, not even Kerrass. I'm not jealous."

Something about her tone caught me and I looked at her sidelong as we walked down the hill.

"Well, ok. Maybe a little bit." She smiled at me lopsidedly. "But only in so much as that you and she loved each other and that she had had you before I got the chance. Can I ask you a question?"

I nodded.

"I promise I won't get cross or upset." She told me. "But did you love her?"

I thought about this for a minute as we walked gently and slowly down the hill. Suddenly, the rain didn't seem as important with Ariadne being around. If anything I welcomed the fresh feeling of the air. As though it was washing the world clean.

"I did." I said after a while. "I did love her, for the three days that we had together. She wouldn't let me love her for any longer than that. We parted with that understanding and I may say that she played me like a lute. I couldn't have put up with all of the other things that would have come with loving a Succubus anyway."

"Would you take it correctly if I told you that I'm glad." A look of horror crossed her face. "Not that she's dead. But that she..."

"I understand Ariadne." I smiled to let her know that I wasn't angry. "I get it. She was good to me though. Without her there would be a good chance that I wouldn't have had the nerve to talk to you the way I did all that time ago."

"Then I should thank her as well." she smiled.

Kerrass was just filling in the last of the grave that he had dug. I saw that he had put the little straw doll that I had found in with Sally's grave and found that I was absurdly pleased.

He saw us coming, "Nearly done," he told us. "Be with you in a minute."

We nodded and I went off to show Ariadne where the remains of the library was. Her being her, she ignored the smoke and the flame and strode down the steps, the smoke billowing ominously as she moved.

It was a good job that I loved her otherwise I would have been even more terrified by that.

I went to stand with Kerrass who was resting on his spade.

"The cabin's a wreck." I told him, "although to be truthful. I'm not sure that I would want to sleep in it anyway."

He nodded at that, "Kareen will put us up tonight,". His eyes were vacant and glassy. It was like he wasn't home. He nodded again, and I supposed he was carrying out some kind of internal monologue and nodding to something that he had heard. "I'm going for a look at the tracks," he told me. His voice sounded odd but I couldn't have said why. "See if I can find something out."

"Ok. Just..."

He smiled at me. "Don't worry Freddie. I'll come back. I promise."

"Today though? Not some time next week though right?"

He nodded but then was gone into the grass.

I went and stood next to the grave for a while looking down at them.

It was a very odd experience. I had known people who had died. Of course I had. I had stood next to my Father and brother's grave. I had stood next to the grave's of people that I had killed. But somehow this was different. This had hit me harder than any of them and as I stood there, I tried to figure out why.

I still don't have an answer although I do have a number of theories.

I had spent a little over three days with these people. Not all of it had been in Saffron's bed, or in any of the other imaginative places that she decided that she wanted to take me. I ate with the family on a couple of occasions and had the privilege to observe them as they interacted. (Despite the rather personal questions that Sally had sometimes asked as well as one rather mortifying moment when Pula asked Saffron how I was performing)

There was love in that cabin. Sally loved her pseudo parents, Pula and Saffron's affection for each other was obviously very deep and they both cared about Sally a great deal. It was a warm place and I found that I... That I missed it when it was gone. My own families interactions are much more remote with each other, much more...calling them cold is wrong. I have no doubt that my family loves each other in their own way and I also hope that they certainly know how much I love them. But there was an...

intimacy to it that I found seductive and attractive.

There was also the factor that... I hope this doesn't sound too awful... Tom and Annie the trolls had started me on the understanding that not all monsters are monstrous. However with Pula, Saffron and Sally, they were the first "monsters" that I had met who challenged me on an intellectual basis. They had showed me that intelligence and conscious thought wasn't just the purview of the more humanoid species. But of the others too.

There was laughter in that place. Laughter and kindness and learning and decency and...integrity. In many ways there had been more of those things here than there had been in my own home when I had been growing up. Pula told me once after chastising Sally for not cleaning up her dishes that theirs was a house of standards.

They weren't my morals or my standards. Personally I wouldn't have held all that information back from those other places of learning. I could see his points and understand his fears but I supposed that I was a little bit more optimistic about the continent's...capacity and treatment for knowledge.

That said something about me. I made a note of it and went back to my journeys with the objective of taking these thoughts out at a later date and going back over them.

I had never done that. What with one thing or another I had never quite gotten around to it. I could say why. Obviously I could, meeting Ariadne, losing your parents and elder brother will do that. But now it felt as though I had somehow let them down.

I hadn't even thought about all of this, the three of them, my time with Saffron, for months, years even. It felt as though I had done them a great disservice to them.

"You ok?" Ariadne was slapping soot and ash from her dress as she walked back out into the rain before swearing. "Should have done this inside," she muttered before coming over to stand next to me and putting her arm round me.

I accepted the arm with a smile which I hoped conveyed the depth of feeling that was running through me.

"No," I said after a while. "No, I'm not."

She tensed her arm to bring me closer. It was an invitation for a closer embrace and I found that I wanted it. We moved closer and I put my arm round her as we stood there for a moment looking down at the graves. It wasn't a false statement that I had made before. Without these people, would I have had the guts to talk to this woman in the way that I had. I somehow found that I doubted it.

Kerrass came out of the undergrowth. Ariadne pulled away from me and offered him a hug. "I'm so sorry," she told him.

He briefly accepted the hug before pulling away.

"What did you find?" I asked him.

"Knights, or heavy cavalry. Shod horses. At least twelve but no more than 20. Three groups from all directions. They knew exactly where the cabin was and knew exactly what they were dealing with. I found silver arrowheads in the remains of the fire. Sally was killed first as she went out to greet them presuming that they would be friendly. Then they captured Saffron and Pula, Saffron struggled free and killed at least two that I could tell with her fire magic and before they could restrain her. Then they nailed Pula to a tree, and pulled Saffron apart in front of him."

"Bastards" I muttered.

"Why would they do that?" Ariadne asked after another moments silence.

"Flaming swords," I commented. "The villagers told us that they had flaming swords on their armour and heraldry. I don't recognise them but that doesn't mean very much. Mark was telling me in Toussaint that there have been a lot of new "Holy" orders of knights been founded after the loss of, and the later disgrace of the remnants of the flaming rose over in Temeria and Redania."

I shrugged.

"Lots of younger sons and disgruntled knights that need employment that don't want to go back to work after the end of the war. Same thing that meant that Lord Fuck-face's rebellion managed to get so many recruits back in Angraal."

"So you think it's a religious thing?" Ariadne asked. Kerrass had walked off a little way to stare out over the, now, rain-swept valley and was no longer listening.

"I don't know." I said. "Is it odd that I kind of hope that it isn't. I think it's much more likely that the religious thing is an excuse. Some kind of...explanation that gives people the excuse to do the horrible things that they want to do."

Ariadne shuddered and, not for the first time, I felt the guilt of being a worshipper of the holy flame. The guilt of association to all the fanatics and torturers that the sect seemed to attract. Not for the first time I considered renouncing my religion for this reason and not for the first time I realised that it wasn't the religion's fault. That people will always find an excuse to do despicable things.

Ariadne was looking at me. I cleared my throat on the second attempt.

"How's the..." maybe it was the third attempt. "How's the library?"

"I won't lie Freddie," She brushed some more soot from her dress now that she had been reminded of it. "It's in a bad way. I'm going to need to bring some people in. Not least because there's so much of it."

"Who did you have in mind? Pula, the Doppler, once told me that there was some dangerous information in there that he didn't want to fall into the wrong hands."

"I was thinking of Margarita."

"Laux-Antille?"

"Yes. She's still, mostly putting together a new magical school after Aretuza was sacked. I like her, she doesn't seem to care about the politics of the world. She's one of those rare minds that only cares about teaching so I think this might be well suited to her. She might even make it a school thing and get the students to work on it. She would also respect the fact that there are such things as dangerous knowledge without the knowledge itself being evil."

I nodded.

"Sounds good."

We stood there for a bit longer. I guessed that neither of us really knew what to say. I was happy to see her, excited by the fact that I was seeing her but also... I didn't want to be excited or happy. I wanted to be sombre. I stared over at Kerrass. He hadn't moved for a while.

"Freddie," Ariadne said quietly. "The two of you are going to do something drastic aren't you?"

"Yeah." I said looking at the curve of Kerrass' back and the almost quivering tension in his body. I could also feel the rage in my belly. It was a small thing really and I hadn't noticed it until I had looked for it but it was there. I also thought that it might be the thing that had kept me from grieving too hard. "Yes I think we are."

I sighed and looked back at her.

"To everyone else, these are three dead monsters and to far too many people in authority, the only good monster is a dead one."

Her face was unreadable.

"The other thing is... that if these men were knights then there's almost certainly nobleman's sons in amongst them. If we took this to the authorities then the killer's families will apply political pressure meaning that nothing will get done. Then there's the religious aspect. If they _are_ church knights. Regardless of how legitimate or illegitimate they might be. They would claim that there was provocation and the courts would, almost automatically, side with them for fear of bringing down the entire weight of the greater church down on them."

"So what then?"

"As you say." I told her. "We'll do something drastic."

She nodded. Her face was the familiar mask that I could recognise from all that time ago.

"I'm so sorry, my love." I told her.

The first time that I had called her that as well. Not the way I wanted that to happen but at the same time, I felt as though I had to say it. I needed to say it. After all, it was true.

"It's alright." She said. "It's not you, the Empress or the Duke of Angraal. Just some jumped up bastards who don't know that they're evil."

"It's not alright." I told her. "It's not alright." It felt as though it bared repeating.

"Then we will make it alright." She said with a tired smile. After a moment that smile turned vicious and I abruptly found her more attractive. "Can I help?" She asked me with a certain amount of relish.

I grinned savagely to answer her but, fortunately for everyone, my brain caught up a little.

"No," I said. "I mean I want you to. Nothing would make me happier than to take these bastards on with you beside us but..."

I sighed.

"I'm protected by my rank, status and my fame,"

"and your notoriety." She was smiling, she saw my point.

"Kerrass isn't important enough and I can, and will, kick up enough of a stink until he's ok. But if you do this or are involved then you're just another dangerous monster and you prove them right."

She was nodding.

"You're right." She said. "I don't like it but you're right."

I nodded. "Wait a while, I still need to talk to Kerrass."

"I'll be back in the cabin."

Kerrass didn't react as I approached so I stood and waited for him.

It was a long time before he spoke.

"I'm sorry Freddie." He said. His voice sounded creaky and dusty. "I know I promised you that we would hunt for your sister. I am aware of the hypocrisy in this and the selfishness of this."

He looked at his shoes.

"I'm so sorry that I have to let you down." He told me "But... I need to do something about this."

"I know Kerrass." I told him.

"I'm going to kill those men." He told me. "I'm going to fucking murder them for what they did here. These people were _my_ family. They weren't Witchers but they were my family."

He turned to face me then. His face was awful. "They healed me when I was hurt. They cared for me in my anguish and they gave me love and affection when I needed it most. I told you that I've been married twice? When both wives died, I came here. I didn't go back to the keep, I came here."

"I know Kerrass."

"After I had avenged Princess Dorn, I came here. When my brothers died. I came here and without these people, I would have died a thousand times over. I cannot let this slide."

I know Kerrass."

"I just can't do it Freddie. I can't."

I know Kerrass. It's alright."

"I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry but I _need_ to kill these bastards. I've been wandering around all day trying to think of how I can tell you that I need to leave you for a while so that I can go off and do this, especially after I gave you so much grief for your selfishness a few weeks ago, but..."

"It's alright Kerrass." I had managed to get a bit closer and put my hand on his shoulder. "I get it. I understand."

For a moment, a flash of rage crossed his face.

"They were your family." I told him. "I get it. Of all people, I get it."

His face softened. I stepped a bit closer and put my arms round him.

"So lets go get the bastards." I told him. "Let's go get them."

Kerrass sobbed and began to shake. I recognised the same symptoms from the time with the Grave hags and held onto him until his fit began to subside and he pulled away.

"Let's go get the bastards." I told him again.

"Sorry," he said again wiping his eyes.

"What for?"

"For...all of this." He gestured. "For another delay."

"My bastards will wait." I told him. "Your bastards might still get away."

He nodded again.

"Thank you Freddie." He said. "I'll get the horses together," He moved off.

Another memory.

We were packing our horses. Pula had come out with various supplies, dried meat, energy cakes and a full water bag. Pula was chatting with Kerrass about something and Saffron approached me.

There was a distance now, between us. We were no longer lovers and I no longer looked at her with any kind of desire beyond the aesthetic of knowing that I was looking at a beautiful woman. We were friends but I knew that we would, never again, be closer than that.

She grinned as she approached.

"So this is goodbye." I told her with a smile.

Alright, we were close friends.

"It seems that way." She told me.

"Do I get a hug?"

She laughed and threw her arms round me and kissed me on the cheek. "Of course you get a hug."

"Can I ask a question?"

"Sure."

"How did I do?"

She laughed. "Why did the creator give men their pride?" She grinned at me. Before tipping her head over onto one side to regard me, considering.

"Better than I expected." She told me after a minute or two before smiling a more gentle smile "Much, much better than I expected to be fair."

I nodded acceptance. "Then I will take that."

"You should. Kerrass had told me that my expectations should be pretty high."

We laughed before she hugged me again. "Come back and see us again Lord Frederick." She grinned wickedly and the desire flashed across me for a moment. "Maybe you can show me some more of the tricks you pick up on the road,"

Ok, so we were close friends with the potential of some benefits at a future date.

"I will."

She walked away to say her farewells to Kerrass and help him pry a weeping Sally from the Witcher's leg.

"High Praise," Pula told me as he approached and held his hand out which I took and shook firmly.

"Really?"

"Oh yes. She doesn't often invite people back. Normally it's me that has to do the inviting. Just for the record though, you would be most welcome. Come back and see us when you're in this area of the world." He smiled at me. "Listen though, could you do me a favour?" He asked.

"You mean other than making sure that you get a copy of my notes?"

He laughed as I had intended.

"Well obviously that. But Kerrass." he pointed to where Kerrass was accepting his own hug from Saffron. "Don't judge him too harshly. Believe it or not, he likes you."

"You are joking," I told him. "How can you tell?"

"Because you're not lying in a ditch somewhere with your throat slit." He said. At the time I wasn't convinced that he was joking. Now I'm more sure. "But seriously, you're the first person he's ever brought here. He respects you enough for that. Just...Be gentle when you come to write all of this up."

"I will."

He left. Sally had been avoiding me but when Pula had walked off a little way Saffron tackled me from behind with a hard and fast embrace. The godling was crying. "Will you come back and see us?" She asked through the tears.

"Of course I will." I told her and smiled as I remembered our arrival. "I'll even bring you a present."

"YAY!" She did a little dance. I laughed at how fast she had gone from tears to laughter before climbing on my horse moving to go. But I hadn't realised that Kerrass wasn't following yet. "

So answer honestly Saff." He said to her from the back of his own horse. "How did he do?"

She laughed for a long while before considering him in the same way that she had looked at me earlier.

"Pretty good." She told him as though she was saying it grudgingly. ""Top twenties. High Top twenties."

A look of comical horror crossed his face.

"But you told me that I was only in the top thirty." he protested.

"Did I?" She was fighting to keep a smile from her face. "So I did."

"Son of a Bitch." Kerrass snarled as he kicked his horse past mine and onto the path.

I was laughing and bowed my gratitude to Saffron who blew me a kiss.

I waved again and turned my horse to follow Kerrass.

It was later that night when he made me promise not to write about that library and the people guarding and maintaining it.

The three of us gathered in front of the three graves. The horses had been resupplied as Kerrass knew where Pula's hidden cache's of food were. We had refilled our water skins and Ariadne had gone off to make contact with the various people that she wanted to make contact with.

I didn't want to leave. But there was absolutely no reason to stay.

Once Ariadn'e's contacts arrived she would go back to carrying out her own research and fulfilling her own feudal duties. Not mention getting ready for a wedding. The place was a mess and all that would be happening would be that we would be reminded of happier times while at the same time being confronted with the bad.

But I didn't want to go.

It felt insulated against the rest of the world. The rain didn't help. The constant noise of water on grass, earth and the leaves drew the ear so that I couldn't, or rather my brain couldn't wind itself up to dealing with anything else. It was soothing and gentle in the way that Sunshine, wind or cold is not.

I decided then that I quite like the rain. It's when you combine rain with wind that you tend to get into trouble.

I turned to Kerrass. "Do you want to say anything yet?" I asked him.

"Hell yes." He said, before taking a deep breath. He was still in that phase of his little episodes that I called "wobbly," there was a slight tremble in his voice and in his hands. "Goddess but there is a lot I want to say." He said after a few moments. "But not here. First I want to find the bastards that did this and then I want to kill them." He said it through gritted teeth. "Then I will say the things that I want to say."

We stood a bit longer in silence.

Kerrass turned away abruptly and without warning, from the sounds of it he had climbed up onto the back of his horse. Ariadne turned towards me. We had been standing with our arms round each other as we looked down at the three graves. It wasn't comfortable yet and there was still quite a bit of shifting around while we tried to stand together.

My arm over hers? Do I put my arm round her waist or her shoulders? How about the reverse? Both of us with our arms round each other's waists or shoulders or opposite.

Awkward? Yes. Also wonderful.

"It seems like we're heading off." I told her. "You ok?"

"I am." She said. "Be careful Frederick."

"I will, you too."

We stood facing each other for a moment through the rain. We were already parting again and I didn't want us to.

"I love you." I told her.

She laughed.

"I had just opened my mouth to tell you the same thing." She said before her face became subdued again. "I love you too Freddie."

We looked at each other for a short while again before we turned away. Me to climb on my horse and for her to go back inside the cabin.

"You ready to go and kill some monsters?" I asked Kerrass.

"Goddesss yes."

We rode away down the hill and I looked back.

I want to say that I saw the spirits of those three people, standing together. Pula and Saffron with their arms round each other in a way that spoke of much practice that Ariadne and I had not yet achieved, with Sally chasing after us waving and laughing.

But I didn't.

Instead I saw a ruined house and three graves, the earth already being beaten flat by the rain fall.

Last time I left here I was followed by Sally's laughter.

This time I was followed by the rain.

Time to go and kill some monsters.


	62. Chapter 62

Define Murder for me.

Go on. I'll wait.

The Oxenfurt dictionary defines Murder as an "Unlawful and Premeditated killing of a person by another person."

Having actually done a little research into this, I was shocked to learn that the definition has had to change in the relatively recent past. That was because it _used_ to read as "The Unlawful and Premeditated killing of a human being by another human being."

Can you see the difference?

There are several variations on this, depending on wherever you go. Temeria still has it down as "The unlawful killing of a human being" and just leaves it there.

I assume that as a result, there is a whole lot more murder going on in Temeria than there is everywhere else.

I

've been thinking about this a lot recently. Not least because I find that I'm still trapped here in my families castle against my will and I have little else to do other than to write, answer the mail and think. I have pointed out to my sister on multiple occasions that Kerrass and I could easily sneak over the back wall until all of this dies down but for some reason she wasn't entirely convinced by my scheme. She seems to be of the opinion that Sir Robart has the bit between his teeth now and the only way he's going to be convinced to leave me alone is if the High Sheriff grabs him by the scruff of the neck and takes him elsewhere.

I'm still not that worried about what's going to happen to Kerrass and I as I think we can successfully argue our case before the magistrate and Emma has promised that she can provide enough money to counter any bribes that Sir Robart and his flunkies might be able to provide to any magistrates.

So the only worrying that I have to do is about the state of my eternal soul.

Did I murder someone? Or more accurately, did I murder several someone's?

I have talked before about the duality that exists inside my head. I can know something is true in my head, but not know it in my heart or vice versa. It's on those rare occasions when both head and heart agree that I manage to get a good night's sleep which is, unfortunately, far from a regular occurrence at the moment. Not just historical nightmares but also the faces of those men that I have killed.

I know that it was the right thing to do. I do. Even now, I'm reliably informed that there are people in that area of Lyria and Rivia that still give thanks for the arrival of Kerrass and I to the countryside. I know that there are people who still grieve for the people that have fallen to the swords of fanatics but we have both been told that they will sleep a little easier for the fact that the perpetrators have been killed.

So why can't I sleep?

Here's the thing. The religious commandment, as passed down by the prophets, says "Thou shalt not commit murder" but what does that even mean?

I would like to think that I am a rational human being. I have been at peace, for years, with the fact that my scientific brain counters my spiritual side on a regular basis and that my spiritual side is constantly telling me to put my faith in the Holy flame, while my scientific side is telling me that the Holy Flame might well be just another aspect of magical power that entered this world through an equally magical phenomenon called the conjunction of spheres.

That argument has been settled and I am at peace with that. So now, I worry enough that I can't sleep. I worry for my soul.

So, let's break it down. Did we kill people? Absolutely. Would do it again. Those people deserved to be killed.

Did we pre-meditate doing it? Again, Yes. They outnumbered us by ten to one. If we were going to do so successfully then we would need to "pre-meditate" our strategy and our tactics carefully.

So were they "persons?"

Eehhhhhh.

I mean technically, I suppose yes. They had four limbs, a head and enough intelligence to be able to form words. Leaving aside the perverse pleasure that they took in the murder and torture of others which I could argue takes away that privilege.

So here's another thing that occurs as I sit here. If Kerrass and I had just killed another group of peasants. If there hadn't been some noblemen's sons in there, then this wouldn't have even come up. So does that mean that there are some people who are more "person" than others?

Probably.

Before you all start. I know that this is something that philosophers and thinkers have been arguing about since the law was first conceived. When a man kills another in the street, we call it murder.

But what about on the battlefield? Fighting and killing someone on the battlefield is also covered by that definition of murder. A whole bunch of persons face of against another whole bunch of persons and you'd better believe that they've been premeditating their asses off, thinking about ways to kill the people on the other side of the field.

But that's ok is it?

Religions killings as well. Which is how these fucks got away with the awful things that they did. I know this because they told me that this was the case. They had been told by their "priest" that the killings were ok, indeed that they would be welcomed by the holy flame which means that the killings were lawful.

But what if that priest is an idiot. Or trying to be political. Or has a strong dislike for the colour of the dead persons skin, the shape of their ears, the colour of their eyes. They tell the impressionable sons of bitches at their command that "The Holy Flame says that this is lawful" and suddenly he has unleashed a pack of hounds.

Ooh, while I think about it. We can also claim that we are defending ourselves. If a man intends to do me harm then the law says that I am allowed to defend myself.

I can also defend others as well. People that I care about as well as children, women, the elderly or any others that might require my protection.

It is through this last that I find that I can most easily justify these recent deaths to myself. Yes I am still filled with doubts about the whole thing. Kerrass claims that this is what makes me a good man, that I keep questioning my own actions. It's that duality again. My scientific brain argues, correctly, that the people that did these things were a pack of rabid dogs that needed to be put down so that they wouldn't do it again.

We couldn't take it to the proper authorities as there was every indication that the "Proper authorities" would let the bastards off for political reasons and they would just go off and continue to do their thing somewhere else. So in the end there was a Witcher's sword. But yes, I still have doubts. My spiritual side screams at me and keeps me up at nights that I killed or helped to kill a set of holy knights and a priest. That way lies damnation.

Another reason that I just want to get out of here. I need something to do, to get on with things so that I'm not worrying about this bullshit. No matter how I turn things around, I could not have walked on by and left these bastards to keep killing and maiming and torturing. I keep turning it around in my head despite the knowledge that the answer will still be the same. I killed them. I helped kill more. I would do it again and I absolutely intended to kill the bastards.

Those bastards who strode into a village at the orders of a mad priest who had decided that the church was going soft in it's newer, more relaxed tone, had been brought there by a jealous man who had been spurned by a woman, and decided to kill the woman and all others who might have had contact with her.

Who _might_ have had contact with her. Even when they hadn't.

I'm getting angry again as I write this and I find that the anger is always useful in pushing my doubts away.

Kareen told us that she had been beaten by a knight because she used to go up to Sally's meadow to pick herbs for cooking. Because this _might_ have led her into contact with Saffron then that meant that Kareen was fair game for the beating.

I say beating but let's call it what it was. They took a whip to her. One of those flails that they call Lamia where there are several tails to the whip, each with a small barb of metal. If the Inquisitor is being particularly nasty, they don't clean the barbs between beatings which means that the injuries can turn sour and leave a person dying in agony.

Kerrass has none of my moral quandaries. What he's struggling with is the fact that he's being cooped up in the castle. I understand that he's exercising his frustrations by mercilessly beating up training dummies and sleeping his way through some of the maids in the castle. He has a group of three that are his favourites although that might need to be cut down to two soon as one of them is becoming jealous. Emma told me to have a word with him about this recently, that she had no objection to him having his way with any willing woman, especially as he wasn't going to leave any of them "in the family way," and therefore it was a good way for the girls to exorcise their own..."needs" was the word she used. But she objected if it was going to cause a disruption to the running of the castle.

Kerrass had responded with telling me that I should just kill this Robart cunt and then we could move on. I responded with the, now, family joke of "He's not a cunt. A cunt has warmth depth and feeling," but it still didn't manage to raise a smile to Kerrass' face.

He's bored and I know how he feels.

Emma is busier than ever, handling the transfer of our families trade to Oxenfurt and other ports after Novigrad's victimisation of our families business enterprises. I'm not sure, yet, if Novigrad has realised that Emma isn't bluffing with this. She's already in the process of paying off the various landlords who we have contracts with, on the waterfront so that we can store our goods there while waiting for shipment. The materials and the workmen are already moving into place to extend and overhaul the mercantile docks of Oxenfurt to handle the increased flow of traffic and the burghers of Oxenfurt are rubbing their hands with glee at the prospect of bringing more trade through the town.

For the record, Emma wants a public apology, in writing as well, for the absurd victimisation of Coulthard trading enterprises at the hands of the customs officials at the behest of Sir Robart de Radford. She also demands the removal of Sir Robart from that post as well as the removal or reassignment of any appointments that he may have made while he was in office.

She also expects suitable monetary compensation for the losses that his false accusations have caused the family enterprise.

Privately, she tells me that, in the long run, extending and using the docks at Oxenfurt was a plan that she had been working on for a while and would, in the end, actually work out better in the long run. Because _we_ wouldn't be charged for using the docks that _we_ built while at the same time, we _would_ be able to charge people for their use. I did ask if she still wondered why people hate us but she told me that business people admire ruthlessness and so long as we reinvest our money into the city or the land then we shouldn't have too much trouble. Also, apparently, we aren't the only mercantile enterprise that resents the high tariffs that Novigrad charges and she is being cheered on by many.

Regardless of this I asked Sir Rickard to find my sister, Laurelen and Mark some new bodyguards. Several of them and told him that money was no expense on the grounds that Emma would be able to pay for it out of the docking fees. Sam is a soldier and surrounded by his own men so I reasoned that he would be able to look after himself.

Sir Rickard saw my point but enquired about a bodyguard for me.

Kerrass was listening to this conversation and laughed before pointing out that I was so into doing "stupid things" that the odds of me living long enough to be assassinated was remote at best.

I did not find that reassuring.

But as I say, Kerrass is not bothered by my moral problems. Instead, he is of the opinion that what we did was kill a bunch of monsters.

There are times when I envy the simple life of a Witcher.

But, I chose to be a scholar and to analyse everything with moral repercussions and things, so who's the bigger idiot really?

It's me isn't it. It's always me.

But Yes. Kerrass is of the opinion that we killed a bunch of monsters and, when I sit down and properly think about it rather than letting my training in higher ethics and moral systems get in the way...

He's right.

Because of our actions there will be a few fewer people hiding in the dark, there will be a few fewer little old women who's greatest crimes are knowing a little bit of something about something, who will be tied up against the stake and burnt.

It doesn't bring Saffron, or Sally, or Pula or any of those other villagers back. But by the Flame it does make me feel better about it.

There, see. Now I'm in a much better mood.

After burying the three librarians we went down into the village and began the hunt. Because that was what it was. We were hunting them. In the same way that Kerrass would hunt down a creature or a monster, we asked questions about the men who had committed these crimes.

It was tricky at first, even though a number of people recognised us both from the last time that we had come through this area, we were still running up against the problem that a number of the villagers still believed that the knights had spies, or agents amongst the other people that we gathered there. We found no evidence of that but what this rumour had done had been to fan the old-fashioned hate that becomes entrenched in village society. Suddenly, old...grievances and feuds were brought out into the open air.

"Remember what he said about our Neville," and "Well, he always had a shifty look about him, always said so." were the kinds of things that were coming up. We found out that there had been fights and abuse thrown and as Kareen had said, people were moving on.

Not that I could blame them.

"Holy" knights, like the ones that had attacked this place...

Ok look. I'm a follower of the church of the Holy Fire and my Elder brother is soon to be enthroned as a Cardinal of the church, but these... _individuals_...have nothing to do with the word Holy. I've known a number of good and devout men who would call themselves "Church knights," or belong to "Sacred" orders of knights who would look at what these people did and be disgusted.

And rightly so.

But it would be wrong to deny the fact that sometimes, people of _all_ religions. And I really must stress "ALL" religions, use their scriptures for violent purposes.

So anyway,

Bands of knights like this one, once they've established a place where they know they can get food and other supplies as well as being able to spend a leisurely day or two burning a few people at the stake, will often come back. People, _will_ be encouraged to spy on each other, the better to sell out their neighbours to the flames and thus, hopefully, better prepare their immortal soul for the afterlife.

It's only human to be afraid of whatever comes next but one of the things that pisses me off about these bastards is that they pray on that fear. They pray on the fear of those people that have not had the... advantages of people like me and people that can afford to spend their time and money on a suit of armour and train to be able to call themselves knight.

The first thing that Kerrass and I did when we went down into the village was that we kicked the burning stakes down. One of them had been embedded deep in the ground so I borrowed a woodsman's axe and cut it down. We pulled apart the remains of the ash and stood in the middle of the village square and started to yell for people's attention. We stood there, loud and proud and insisted that people pay attention to us. It was still raining and people were terrified of the supposed "sacrilege" that we had performed but they came eventually.

We stood up and we told them that what had been done to them was evil. We told them that the knights had murdered the people that they had burned, that they had murdered their village spirit in a literal as well as figurative sense and then we told them that we, the two of us, intended to hunt the bastards down and kill them for the monsters that we knew them to be.

I told them who I was and declared that I considered what had been done to them as being evil. That it was my feudal right as a lord of these lands to seek justice for the dead people. I meant every word although I carefully didn't point out that technically, the lands that I was talking about were somewhere to the North West and only claimed Lordship here by being a Lord of the Greater Nilfgaardian empire. I told them who I was and said that if any of the people listening really _were_ spies for the pox-filled sons of goats that had done these things then they could tell their masters who I am and that I am coming for them.

Kerrass did the same. In turn he told them about the affection that he had for this village and the people that lived in it. He told them about his history here and how, over the years, come to view this village on the hill as a second home. He spoke about the love that he had for the land and for the people and about how he thought it was a shame that a few cowardly bastards had spoiled that for the people that were here as well as the children that would come after them.

We dared any spies to come forwards and kill us. We dared any watchers to leave then and carry word of our declaration to our enemies.

Of course no one left nor did anyone walk out and challenge us.

We then did a quick circuit, walking to every house and speaking to everyone we could find in an effort to leave no-one with the impression that we had been informed on by one person or the other. The only person that I thought we needed to pay special concern about was Kareen herself but we met one of her sons and they were already making plans to take the poor woman a long way away from here.

We left the village in the direction that we were pointed, both of us taking the time to piss up against the tree from which the informant swung. Not because we hated him. But because we wanted to emphasise the point that we were enemies of the knights that had done these things.

It turned out that the man was the village bully. He was a wagon driver by trade and his job was to take all the stuff off for market. He would load up his wagon before making the two day journey into "town" where he would drop the goods off to the merchants, collect the money and the other supplies that the village needed before getting back on his wagon and heading back. The problem with this system was that this meant that he was in charge of who got what kind of supplies. Who got the money and whatever else. The village couldn't afford to send another able-bodied worker with him as that meant that someone else would be missing from the work force where every man was needed.

The pattern of the village was such that they were fairly affectionate towards the three monsters that lived up the hill. Sally was a regular presence, playing with the children and the village had known, for a long time that she was there and had adopted the village as "hers" in the way of her species.

They also knew about Pula's presence and had known that if anyone got really _really_ sick, or really badly injured, then the person to go and ask would be Pula as he would be able to perform "miracles". I could identify the miracles as being advanced surgical techniques but I decided that I didn't want to take away from Pula's accomplishments.

The village, as a whole, was less enamoured of Saffron until she had been instrumental in seeing off a bandit attack with her horns, powerful legs and fire magic. The village used to accept that, occasionally she would come down to the village and see if there were any eligible men around.

The town bully had never got a look in. She had turned him down flat on two occasions, spurning him for men who _he_ considered to be "Less than him" in some way.

It was not hard to imagine that he had got to drinking in the town and gotten the idea in his head to hand over knowledge of the Succubus to one of the knights that was nearby, encouraging the locals to inform on each other.

We rode hard for about half a day towards this town, intentionally leaving nice, easy to follow tracks before we turned aside and went off road. What we needed was more information. We knew that they were knights and that approximately sixteen of them had attacked the library. What we didn't know was whether or not there were any more knights or where their base was. Was there a chapter house somewhere or did they have any patrons.

That was the most dangerous possibility to me. That this was some kind of politically motivated situation. That some noble, angry at the increasing power of the Sorceresses or whatever. Or even, they had discovered that their political opponents were particularly anti-religion and so had chosen to sponsor a group of religious fanatics in an effort to tell the world that he was better than his opponent because "Look, I'm so religious that I set up this band of church knights."

For those people that are thinking that this might be a little far fetched then I should point out that I can provide numerous examples of history where this was the case.

I won't give you a blow by blow account of how we hunted the knights though. It involved lots of watching and waiting, sounding out their territory and finding out what they liked to get up to.

We often commented to each other that it was _exactly_ like hunting a regular monster. We needed to identify it's lair, establish it's motivation or type of madness, we needed to know numbers and how far were they prepared to go.

It took time, it took effort.

But we also kept seeing signs, signs that reinforced that we were doing the right thing.

We saw a small clutch of crosses by the side of the road where a group of people had been crucified. We went to look and although we couldn't tell for certain, there was absolutely no reason for their deaths.

We found a burnt out cottage with the corpse of an old woman outside who had been hacked to pieces by swords and axes. There was a herb garden outside and it looked as though the poor woman had committed the unpardonable sin of being old, knowledgeable about plants and being a woman.

We came across a windmill where two women had been burnt at the stake. There was another village nearby who, similar to the village on the hill, were in a state of shock. It seemed that the two women operated the mill. The mill had belonged to one of the women's father so that when he died, she had simply taken it over.

A couple of the villagers claimed that the two women were lovers but the vast majority of people told us that the one woman was a helper. The owner simply didn't want to marry some...man who didn't know how to look after a mill and would ruin the business that her father had spent his life building up. We had a look inside and someone had taken a hammer to the mill-workings.

"I've seen this kind of thing before." Kerrass told me. "They're drunk on it. They had a great deal of fun with Saffron, Pula and Sally feeling as though they were strong and doing the work of their God. Then they liked that feeling so they went down into the village to do some more. Now they've become addicted to the feeling and they want to keep doing it over and over again."

I nodded. I had seen the depredations of the Church of the Holy Flame in Novigrad and this was uncomfortably similar to that.

I felt itchy and uncomfortable in my own skin.

We came to the town where the first wagon driver had made contact with the knights. The trick here is to not think of it as being like Oxenfurt or Novigrad. You need to think of it as being much smaller. Originally a crossroads built around an old stone bridge. It was the kind of place where you need some kind of central town for all the merchants and larger businesses to gather. The countryside needs towns like it once every day or two's ride because otherwise the villages would have nowhere to sell their goods. Every village has a blacksmith, thatcher and a carpenter but not every village has a Tannery, Tavern, Market, Cooper, Inn, Fletcher Forrester, Witch...

By Witch I mean Herb-woman, healer, midwife or whatever. They all tend to get lumped into the same category of "Female knowledges that men don't want to have anything to do with." They get called the local "Witch" despite the fact that relatively few of them have any kind of magical skills whatsoever.

My point is, you can only go so far before you need a bit more civilisation. Sooner or later you need a place where you can get those, slightly more specialised goods that you might not be able to find in your average, 6-7 hut sized village.

We had stopped off at several villages to make our presence felt and as such, we were anticipated when we got to the town. People didn't exactly flee from us, nor was there any of the attempts to get the children indoors which there can sometimes be when there is pending violence. But at the same time both the tavern-keeper and the innkeeper apologised but told us to seek shelter elsewhere with the legend...

"Look sirs, we're decent folk hereabouts and we don't want any trouble."

Kerrass was stewing outside so I was doing a lot of the talking.

"I know that you don't _want_ trouble." I told the poor man. Hollow eyed and nervous. "But let's be honest here my friend. You have trouble, and I'm not talking about myself or my Witcher companion."

The poor man looked miserable.

"This is what's going to happen." I told him. "I know because I've seen this before. Neither the Witcher or I (We were avoiding using each other's names. No reason other than it just seemed prudent) intend you, or any of your fellows harm. Indeed, we want to rescue you from what's happening."

The man just stood there, sweating and shaking.

"In a little while," I told him. "The knights are going to come back. They will ask you whether my friend and I came through town. I'm not going to hide from you and you can tell them what you like, I am quite happy with that as we intend to head in the direction of the knight's headquarters and we intend to kill every knight that we find there."

I had been wrong before... _Now_ he was starting to sweat.

"We think that they are burning people and torturing people and generally executing people to satisfy themselves rather than because of any particular order or need. We think that _they_ are evil. Not the people that they are persecuting and we mean to put an end to that. You can tell them all of that if you wish as well as the fact that we made you nervous and that you really didn't want to get involved, so you turned us out of your inn and refused to serve us for the ungodly wretches that you knew us to be."

He was nodding.

"We really mean you no harm, do you understand?"

He was still nodding and I sighed.

"You can even tell them that I threatened you if you like." I told him. "All I want to know is if you can tell me anything about them. I can pay you."

I flashed money but the people shifted away from me and turned their backs.

I sighed and left.

Kerrass was on the back of his horse already.

"Any luck?" he asked without looking hopeful.

"Nah." I told him climbing into my own saddle. "These people are brutalised. Not only terrified for what the knights will do to them next time they come round but they're also terrified for their immortal souls and daren't speak to the likes of us."

Kerrass nodded and started to lead us away from town.

"We need to know more." he said.

"I agree." I told him, "But what do we do?"

"Well, I all but know where their home base is. The tracks that we've been following head North-East but we still don't know enough. I would also like to see if we couldn't thin their numbers a bit as well as head off any reinforcements that might head their way."

"Not to mention any other pressures that might be brought to bear." I commented.

"That's more your problem than mine." He said with a wry smile. I was glad to see that he was beginning to come back to himself. I had been concerned for him after we had buried our friends but it seemed that he was feeling better with an enemy to hunt. "I'm a Witcher and can vanish into a crowd by simple virtue of taking the swords off my back. But you're a Lord and need to think about your reputation."

"I don't think it will do my reputation much harm to be seen to kill a few murderous fuck-heads. I'm more concerned about escaping alive afterwards."

Kerrass grunted. "So long as we kill the bastards."

"Yes, but I'd like to be alive to deal with a few more bastards after we're done." I told him.

Kerrass just grunted at that.

"So what do we do?"

"We need to find one or two and ask them some questions."

"I'm not going to be a party to torture Kerrass."

He grinned at my slyly, "Murder's Ok though right?"

"For these cunts? Absolutely."

"But torture's where you draw the line?"

"It has to be somewhere."

"You're a funny guy sometimes Freddie. Well, anyway. I don't think we need to torture anyone. They're fanatics but in such circles there's always one or two that disagree with the direction of things but are too weak to go against the flow. They're also knights. Can you imagined them doing their own laundry or cooking or...fuck, can you see these...these _things_ maintaining their own weapons?"

"You've done this sort of thing before then I take it."

"Once or twice. We need to be off the road now I think. These fuck-pigs have carved out their territory now. So we need to scout it out before we start probing into their "headquarters" as it were."

"I might just be thinking like a Lord of the manor but I'm also, still concerned about their money flow." I reminded him as I climbed onto my own horse This sort of thing takes money and they won't be able to steal it all from the populace. If we kill them before their patron then another group will spring up and then we're back to where we started. Not to mention having a man who can afford to have us hunted down after we're done."

"True."

We left the road. The countryside around there was hilly rather than covered in farmland. It was the kind of place where people reared sheep rather than crops. We saw many isolated flocks and small shepherd huts. Kerrass wondered aloud if there might be anyone hiding in those huts that might be able to help us. We checked a couple, just in case but the thing about those places are that they are designed so that the occupents can keep an eye on the flocks meaning that people could just as easily see us coming and escape out the back.

Instead we took to staying in sight of the road waiting for our prey to fall into our laps.

We didn't have long to wait.

You know how sometimes, just sometimes you can look at someone and see the misery coming off them in waves. A person so comedically miserable that you want to feel some sympathy, and you do, but at the same time you can't help but laugh.

The poor man was walking along the road, barefoot through the mud and the filth that accompanies any road in the middle of Spring. Other than that though he was wearing chain-mail that even from this distance, I could tell didn't fit him properly. He had Greaves on, cod-piece, chest-plate, shoulder-guards and bracers as well as Gorget and helmet. All, much to large for him or, looking at the way that he was walking, too small. He had a sword at his hip, shield on his back and a lance on his shoulder.

A lance. A fucking lance. There's a reason that knights carry them round on spare horses and squires are only really supposed to carry them from the horse to the knights hands. But this poor young man carried it across one shoulder and as far as we could see, had been carrying it like that for several miles.

"Fucking hell." I said as we watched the wobbling progress of the poor, bedraggled and obviously much put on creature.

"I sense a penance." Kerrass said pointing. "He's being watched to make sure he doesn't shirk his duties." There were two knights watching from a short distance away. Which is how we got the first proper look at our enemy.

The thing about Plate mail is that it often makes a man seem taller and broader than they actually are. So when you put them on the back of war horses, then they look even bigger. So from this distance the two men looked huge. The sun was peeping between clumps of cloud so their metal armour shone in the reflected sunlight. There was no getting around the fact that they looked absolutely magnificent. They wore red tabbards and their horses wore red barding. The symbol of a burning sword was prevalent.

At the time I remembered thinking that it looked as though someone was mimicking the order of the flaming rose, who's leader did his very best to overthrow King Foltest before the beginning of the war, the symbols were so similar.

Kerrass was strapping his sword to the side of his horse and taking out his crossbow, quick hand movements assembled the weapon.

"What do we do?" I asked him.

"What would you do if this were any other situation and you saw someone being tormented in the middle of the road?"

"I'd go down there and help them."

"You know what?" He said with relish. "That sounds like a really good idea."

As we got closer the sense of amusement at the poor man's pitiable state was replaced by my disgust while my enjoyment faded into a shadow of it's former state.

What we couldn't see from the top of the hill was the blood that was running underneath the armour and congealing down the side of his legs, on his arms or across his face. He was all but delirious with pain and only saw us as we stood directly in front of us.

"Woah there friend." I told him as he all but collapsed in front of me. Shortly before he realised what was going to happen and reared back in an effort to right his balance. "Here," I got hold of him and managed to take the lance off his shoulders for him as he staggered to a halt.

He was swaying as though he was drunk.

"Help me." He said, his eyes wide and feverish. I doubt that he could even see us and his words were almost a prayer. "Please help me."

Kerrass was scuffling around in his saddlebags. "How badly is he hurt?"

"Pretty fucking badly if I'm any judge." I told him. "Easy there fella, take it slow. Let's get you down to the floor so we can have a look at you." He was wearing all the armour but what he hadn't done was wear any of the padding or the lining that is supposed to go underneath the armour. The chain mail was rubbing his skin raw, the edges of the plates were driving into his skin and the wounds were opening and re-opening as I watched.

I helped him to the side of the road and lowered him down.

"No," he muttered delirious. "Have to keep walking."

"My friend," I told him. "You're done walking now. Take it easy. Easy now."

"Unhand that man." I didn't need to look at the speaker to know that I would intensely dislike him.

I'd felt the ground rumbling as the awesome warhorses had been prodded and poked down the hill and I guessed that the reason that it felt as though the sun had gone in was because they were towering over me.

"Alright." I said to the poor stricken...let's call him what he was... victim on the floor. "Let's get some of this armour off you so that I can have a look at you. Come on then."

I took his shield off him first and then unclipped the sword from his belt.

For those people that have never had to help a man wearing heavy armour, I would just offer this piece of advice. Don't start with the belt. The belt should only come off when it's an actual obstacle to taking off other bits of armour. This is because part of the reason the belt is there is to take some of the weight of the armour off the shoulders so that it can be supported on the waist and hips.

Armour is awful stuff. The only reason we wear it is because it's better than what happens to us if we don't wear armour. Don't believe me? Try sleeping in a suit of chain-mail. Your body will literally rebel against you.

But anyway. I've gotten side-tracked. I'm going to make a rubbish lecturer if I keep going off on tangents like this one.

"I told you to unhand that man." There was a rustle of metal on metal and the clomping of a horse as one of the knights got closer.

"I heard you." I told him without looking up from where I was carefully trying to undo the strap that kept the poor lad's helmet on. "I just chose to ignore you."

"How dare you, you filthy miscreant and heretic."

I laughed. I thought that people only talked like that in bad street theatre. The kind that you can attend for a penny at a time.

"Draw that sword," Kerrass interrupted. He was using his most dangerous tone of voice. "And I will shove it so far up your arse that it will pick your nose."

"What?"

It's worth repeating sometimes because it no longer surprises me, exactly how musical Kerrass' voice is. In that it's like a musical instrument. He can be melodic, charming, quiet, loud and everything in between but in this case it was the shade of voice that bypasses your civilised brain and just tells you that there is horrific danger nearby. It tends to put people on their back foot because no-one expects to have to deal with that kind of nightmare in their normal day to day life. I know that this knight didn't. He just wanted to torment this poor fucker but now he was having to re arrange his brain in preparation for some extreme violence.

I couldn't tell where the other knight was but I wasn't worried. I just kept working on the poor, whimpering child that was sat in front of me.

For child he was. I guessed that he was...fifteen? Maybe? Certainly no older than sixteen and he was well into puberty, judging the amount of body hair that had managed to get tangled into the chain-mail.

We, that means Redania, sent younger men than this to war so I shouldn't be too outraged but at the same time, the look of pain and weariness that had settled over his face. He was just letting me man handle him now, as though he wasn't at home in his own head.

"That man, that...thing." He gestured at the poor kid. "Belongs to the knights of the Flaming sword. He answers to us and he is being punished for crimes against the order."

"What did he do?" Kerrass' voice grated like a tombstone being forced into place.

"Oath-breaking."

"I would be interested to know what Oath he broke."

"Obedience."

"Heh. Interesting." Kerrass was putting them off guard. I had got the kid's helmet off. He was wearing a coif underneath which had been plastered into his hair by sweat and constant movement over his scalp. Blood was running freely which meant that it was going to be a nightmare to try and take off so I moved on to taking off his bracers. They were, at least, uncomplicated in the removal.

"Stop taking that armour off." The knight thundered.

I continued to ignore him. Instead murmuring reassuring sounds to the lad, in the same way that I would to a stressed out horse.

"Why the "Knights of the Flaming Sword"?" Kerrass asked him. "I've heard of the "flaming rose" but the flaming sword seems a bit extreme isn't it?"

"We are the flaming sword that purges evil from the face of the continent." The other man finally spoke up.

"Huh." Kerrass commented. "Where are you based?"

"Why so many questions?" The first knight turned towards Kerrass. His attention drawn away from me which I suspect was the point of Kerrass' questions in the first place.

"Because I want to know a bit more about my enemy so that I can destroy you the easier." Kerrass told him with absolutely no inflection in his voice. He might as well have been informing the knight that he needed a haircut.

There was a moment of silence as the two knights tried to process what they had just been told.

Now I looked up to see if Kerrass needed any help. I doubted it but overconfidence can get you killed.

One of them drew their sword. He was the first to die as Kerrass raised his right arm from underneath his cloak and shot him in the eye with his crossbow that had been hidden by his side.

It took an astonishingly long time to fall from his horse. Even though he must have died almost instantly, his arm still came up and groped towards the thing that killed him as though some part of him wanted to pull the bolt out.

The other man swore in a most un-knightly way and spurred his horse towards Kerrass who was clearly identified as the threat.

Kerrass gestured and a shower of sparks leapt from his hand. The horse startled and reared at the sudden flash and the heat. The knight, who wasn't properly braced and prepared for combat, fell off the horse with a crash.

I stopped watching and returned to my patient. The fight was already over.

Kerrass walked over to his horse and drew his sword.

The fallen man had managed to roll onto his hands and knees by the time that Kerrass had come back and was futilely struggling with the weight of his armour, trying to push himself up to his knees.

Kerrass just pushed him back over with a solid kick to the side.

I got another greave off my patient.

"I yield." the knight called to Kerrass who was putting his weight on the man's chest to keep him on the floor.

"So?" Kerrass asked him.

"Ransom will be paid."

"Oh yeah? And what am I going to do with that ransom?"

Kerrass re-sheathed his sword across his back and drew a knife. The knight started blubbering something about mercy.

"Mercy?" Kerrass grated. His voice was terrible. "How much mercy did you show a husband while you nailed him to a tree? How much mercy did you show him while you forced him to watch his wife be torn apart by horses?"

"What? Who are you...?"

"You know what sickens me? Is the fact that you don't know who I'm talking about you rancid fucker."

Kerrass bent down, knelt on the knights chest until he could work the helmet off along with the gorget and cut the man's throat. All the while, the knight was screaming and blubbering about mercy.

"Disgusting," was Kerrass' assessment. "How's our patient? Reckon he can answer some of our questions?"

He walked over to the two of us.

"What have you done?" The killing of the two knights had finally cut through the lad's pain, shock and weariness. "What have you done?" He asked again wild eyed and plainly terrified.

"Killed a pair of assholes, that's what I've done." Kerrass told him.

"Flame Kerrass but I almost don't know where to begin? This is a little bit beyond my skill. There are places here where the plate mail has forced the chain into the poor kid's flesh."

Kerrass came over and bent down to look at the injuries before hissing between his teeth.

"What do we do?"

"Fucked if I know," I replied. I had managed to get the kids boots off. He was weeping with the pain and looking at the raw and burst blisters that covered his feet, I didn't blame him. "We need a healer. I don't want to move him but he can't stay here. I don't know how to take all this stuff off him without hurting him some more but he won't live long like this. He's going to bleed out from all of these surface little bullshit wounds and that's if the injuries don't turn bad. Holy Flame. I daren't even wrap him in a blanket or something because then we would have to peel it off him when the blood dries to it."

Kerrass nodded. "Right. Threat assessment then. Will he die if we move him?"

"I don't know," I looked down at the kid who was sat there staring into space. "Not immediately but he won't enjoy it and it might make things worse."

Kerrass looked around.

"Right. Get as much armour off him as you can, then we'll put him on a horse and you can take him to a healer."

"Do you wanna see if you can catch one of the spares then?"

Kerrass got to work and soon captured one of the spare horses. He also went through the knights pockets, working loose some money and gems although I guessed that the gems were probably fake.

He also arranged the bodies so it looked as though one was sucking the other's dick.

"A bit crude isn't it?" I asked him as I helped him get the poor kid up onto Kerrass' horse.

"And petty," he said nodding. "But it will piss them off. Angry men make mistakes."

"But will also lash out at anyone who they think might be harbouring us."

"True, but we can't think about that now."

I made some kind of disgusted sound. That was now, all that I could think about.

We worked as much of his armour off him as we could and some of it came loose regardless of what we tried. In the end we had to cut a good chunk of his hair away to get the coif off his head and his shoulders looked dreadful. We belted him up as best we could to keep the weight off the top of his body and got him onto the back of the horse which I led. It wasn't that far back to the nearest town where we had to bully our way in to see the local healer who, for a change, turned out to be a man.

Even then we had to use a significant chunk of my remaining funds to get the poor kid seen to.

Taking the chain-mail off him was awful. I won't lie it was fucking awful. It was also clear that the chain-mail that they had given him to wear was the oldest and shittiest chain-mail that they could find. It was literally falling apart with loose rings coming off in our hands. In the end we were cutting it away and taking pliers to pull the bits of chain-link out of his skin, especially around his shoulders. The healer and I worked for the majority of a day and well into the night to get the job done, my working to get the metal out, the healer then applying salves and ointment in an effort to stop the injuries from going bad.

Kerrass was given a list of the herbs that the healer needed to mix the necessary medicines and came back regularly, helping to mix the stuff up.

There was one incident, in the three days that we spent there, where a large group of knights came through the town, looking for the people that had killed their fellow knights. It had the potential to start looking grim so Kerrass went out. Swore at them a great deal and called them the cowardly bastards that they were, before leading them on a massive goose chase before coming back later that evening. In the end we got the kid calm enough to be able to sleep.

He spent a lot of his time being delirious so it was a couple of days after Kerrass had led the knights off before he was able to talk. He also had a martyr complex a mile wide. He was convinced that he was evil and deserved the things that had been done to him.

We got him sat down on a stool. We were constantly applying wet cloths that were soaked through with herbal lotions to his back and shoulders. When one dried out we would have to replace it with another.

"Why don't you tell me what happened?" I tried again for what felt like the fiftieth time.

"What do you mean, "what happened?". I failed didn't I." It seemed we were going to be going for an anger series of questions.

"What did you fail at."

"Being a proper knight."

"Who told you that you failed?"

"Bishop Sansum. Flame but how many times do you have to be told. I was given orders to follow and I couldn't follow orders."

"Why not?"

"Because...Because I couldn't that's why. Because I'm weak and puny and, and too susceptible to evil."

"That tells us nothing of any use." I told him. "But also, while I'm on the subject. Who is Bishop Sansum?"

"The head of my order."

"Never heard of him."

The boy looked at me horrified. "Everyone's heard of Bishop Sansum."

I turned to the healer who was busy mixing another soothing solution for the lads back. "Have they?" I asked him.

"I've heard of him." The man commented. "Ambitious. Thinks the world is being brought to an end by all the filthy female Sorceresses, monsters and other magic users. Mostly though he doesn't like women. Sorceresses, Witches, lesbians, any woman that doesn't do what she's told which means stay at home and put out regular." He sniffed to show what he thought of that. He was a good sort, despite being a little cowardly.

"Ah, so he thinks the more people that he can brutally torture and kill, the better for everyone right?"

"Pretty much," The man (No, I'm not telling you his name. I have visions of Robart or one of his sympathisers hunting down the people that helped us and doing their best to make them see the error of their ways. I won't be a party to that.) changed the latest cloth on the back of the poor kid. It came away with a wet kind of sucking sound but his injuries were so numb now that he barely felt it. "Unfortunately," the healer went on, "he also has a bit of an attitude of "better safe than sorry" which means that anyone who even _might_ be magical are fair game."

"So he's also not very educated?"

"Not really. I learned my healing at one of the Melitele shrines but, being a bloke, am unable to become a "priestess of Melitele" so I came out here. Unfortunately for me this means that I'm a woman worshipping charlatan as he doesn't trust people that are cleverer than him either."

"Lovely. Sounds like a real piece of work." I turned back to the kid. "This is the kind of fuck-pig you're protecting?"

"But he's a priest."

"So?"

"So, he knows things doesn't he. He knows what's right and wrong because otherwise he wouldn't be a priest. He knows the scriptures, he knows the psalms and the prayers. He's the mouthpiece of the Holy Fire itself. Literally, everything he says is holy. There's nothing he can do that is wrong because he is a priest."

"Is he though?" I asked. "Also, just because he's a priest, does that stop him from being a fuck-head?"

"Blasphemy,"

The healer snickered.

"Not really," I told him. "I'm just asking a question. Does being a priest stop you from being a fuck-head?"

"But...But...He's a priest."

"Yes, you've said. Shall I let you into a little secret? My brothers a priest. Doesn't mean I don't hate the stupid turd basket whenever he steals the last piece of cake over the Equinox dinner table though. Self righteous Wanker that he is."

The lad gaped at me.

"You wanna know who my brother is? I guarantee you've heard of him."

The lad was still gaping.

"My brother is Archbishop Mark of Tretogor."

"Fuck off." The healer told me.

"No, it's true." I told him. "My brother who, in a little while, is going to be promoted to Cardinal and called back to Novigrad to serve at the feet of the holy father. Do you wanna know about the giant hairy mole he has growing on his arse?"

The healer was chuckling to himself.

"He was my personal confessor for years." I told the, obviously still horrified boy, but I thought I could see just a little bit of fascination crawling in to his gaze. "He was ordered by my father to give me penance for stealing boiled sweets from my little sister. He had me flogged for that, with a ruler, twice. Bastard. Still love love him though, puffed up prick that he is in his silly red suit and his even sillier giant hat."

The boy laughed despite himself.

"Let me tell you about this trick he does." I went on. "He likes to hold out his finger. He's done it so many times that we all know it's coming but my sister falls for it every time. I had a theory a little while ago that she's in on the joke and is just playing along to annoy us all. But he holds out his finger after a particularly large meal and demands that someone pull his finger for him. After which he lets out the longest, rudest, most obnoxious fart that you've ever heard. Much to the amusement of everyone watching and the embarrassment of the person who pulled the finger in the first place."

"My brother used to do the same trick."

I nearly cheered in joy. He was finally engaging with me.

"My point is," I told him. "Priests are people too. They make mistakes. Fuck, the last Hierophant is responsible for the decimation of the magical class which meant, amongst other things, that the Nilfgaardians walked all over us in the last war. There are other reasons for that but nevertheless, that is a significant point.

The only reason that you or I are allowed to worship the Holy Fire, because I do, and the only person that the healer here is allowed to worship Melitele or the Prophets or the Holy Fire himself..."

"I like the Prophets myself." The healer interrupted. "At least that way, I'm following the teachings of people that genuinely existed rather than some mystical power that I've never seen or heard."

"But the only reason that the three of us worship who we like is because the Empress has a lot of fondness for the Northern Kingdoms and their religions. Otherwise there would be followers of the Sacred and Holy Sun stomping up and down the paths and byways of the North telling us to worship the sun like good and proper little Imperials."

I took a deep breath. There had been some long restrained sentiment in the middle of all of that and I needed to take a minute or two to calm down.

"Wait," the healer was staring at me oddly. "Are you Freddie Coulthard?"

"Errr, yes?"

"Then that Witcher must be _the_ Kerrass of Maecht?"

"That's him, moody fucker isn't he?"

"I'm a huge fan,"

I looked at him as he produced a copy of my collected works and got me to sign it.

Yay, fame.

I looked back at the young man who was staring at me open mouthed.

"What I'm trying to tell you is that, priests are people too." I told him. "Some of them are good people doing their best to do The Flame's work. Others are unscrupulous bastards who use the church and the influence it gives them for their own ends. Both of these things are true but sometimes, just sometimes, you get some real lunatics, men...or women because lets not forget that women can be really unpleasant too, but people in general can go completely bug-fuck insane and these are the people that we need to protect each other against. I don't know if this...Sansum creature is one of these last but..."

I left it hanging, hoping that he would be able to insert his own thought processes into the mix without any further help from me.

"Why don't you tell me about what happened?" I asked him after a while when I could see a tear start to crawl down his face. "Let's start with your name."

The poor kid took a moment to shed a few tears for which I had every sympathy. I have, in the relatively recent past, been confronted with the truth that everything that I had believed about the settled order of the world was incorrect. But to me it happened over the course of several years. It started when I went to the university and has continued throughout my association with Kerrass and, I had no doubt, would continue until long after I marry a vampire. Nowadays I look forward to the challenges of this entire process of self-education as to how the world really works but I do remember the first time I realised that the world didn't really work the way I thought it did.

For this kid, it had all just come crashing down. Probably over the course of the last week or so.

I could relate.

The following account from the lad is severely edited as if I told you every question that I asked or that Kerrass or the healer asked then you would still be reading the account next week. The lad was not that well educated and didn't know how to talk like I do in any kind of narrative structure. He would often leap ahead into his own story while at the same time forgetting things that were of importance and so we regularly needed to ask questions to bring him back to the point. He was also in a lot of pain, both physically and emotionally. But don't make the mistake, as we sometimes did, that just because he was uneducated, doesn't meant that he was stupid.

I should also say that I have changed the lad's name and the name of his family for fear of reprisals against them.

"My name is Maxwell of Tarth." He told us after wiping his nose on a piece of cloth that the healer provided.

"I'm the youngest son of Sir Eustace of the same. I have, or rather had, three brothers. The first is to inherit the lands that my father won on the field of battle and, as far as I know, he defends it against my fathers enemies and our nations enemies still. The black ones claim our family lands as theirs but we took it from them in the first Nilfgaardian war so it's ours.

"My father is not a wealthy man. Like any peasant or commoner, our house is made from timber and the roof is thatched rather than tiled. The only thing that keeps us distinct from the common folk is that my father had a wall built around the manor with logs and our house is slightly bigger than those of the surrounding village. What I'm saying is that we're not rich and if my other brother and I were going to make a name for ourselves we had to do it with the only thing that our family was good at which was that we knew how to swing a sword.

"We couldn't afford tutors or anything to come and teach us about anything else so our education was entirely overseen by our father. Mother had died between the second and third war when I was little and I can barely remember her now. Father didn't like to talk about her. I never found out why.

"But I've been learning how to ride, hunt, tilt and fight since I was five.

"But the war is over, we lost and my father's often predicted "rising of the north against the tyranny of Nilfgaard" has not happened. My family is poor and as a result my brother and I, having no prospects of our own, have struggled to attract potential brides and are therefore unable to bring in any large dowry's so we were forced to leave to make our names in some way, using the only skills that our father had given us. I am, or rather was, a few years younger than my immediate elder brother and I haven't yet attained my full growth so our plan was that I would act as squire to him while I was still growing and we would be able to make our own way accordingly.

"We were young and all we wanted to do was to help make the world a bit better, the same as our father did."

The narrative stopped here for a while as the poor kid had a sobbing fit. Kerrass came in at this point as it was starting to get dark and he felt confident that the pursuing knights were long gone. We took the opportunity to have something to eat which was a rabbit stew that Kerrass had managed to catch while leading the knights around in the darkness.

The lad continued his story as we were mopping up the last of the juices with half a loaf of hard black bread between us.

"We were heading north and looking for a nobleman or something that might take a couple of us on. One of those people that might be getting the courage together to fight of the Nilfgaardian oppression. We wanted nothing more than to sign up with them and help in that regard but no-one was taking anyone on."

(Freddie's note: This is an increasingly common thing. People are honestly surprised by the way things are going in the world at the moment. They keep expecting the iron heel of oppression to come crashing down on the neck of the north. But it hasn't. So there are a whole lot of lords that are milling around in confusion.

They've been fighting,or preparing to fight, Nilfgaard for nearly the entirety of everyone's living memory and now that they're no longer fighting, they don't know what to do with their spare time. The thought that no-one is going to raise some kind of rebellion is ludicrous to them.

I suspect that, at some point, someone, or a series of someones, are going to raise their banners in rebellion.

This will probably result in the greater Nilfgaardian empire laughing for a short while before one of the greater Nilfgaardian armies turns up to thrash the upstart. Most lords that I know are beginning to settle into the idea of paying fealty to client kings and on towards the Empress of Nilfgaard. This has been made easier by the Empress' former association with the North.)

"Then one day we came to a field where _he_ was giving a sermon. It was just outside a village that I never learned the name of but oh, it was like a light shone down from the heavens. There was a line of them stood on their horses on the edge of the field. Armour shining in the sun as _he_ preached. They were like the statues that you see in the greater cathedrals of the lands. Tall, almost godlike, warriors of the Holy fire. Red Tabbards resplendent in the sun. The fire, that was sewn into their tunics, was so realistic that I could almost feel the heat coming from it.

"We stopped to listen as _he_ spoke for what felt like hours. He spoke about the dangers from the heretical south, the evils of magic and Sorcery. He decried the existence of monsters and mutants, non-humans and deviants of any kind and about how they all needed to be destroyed so that the holy fire could help keep us warm when the Frost comes.

"I am unashamed to say that I wept as I listened for the images that it conjured. I wanted to help him. To help _them_ make the world a better place.

"We offered our service and our blades to the cause of the Bishop on the spot. My brother explained that I was still in training as I had yet to come into my proper growth. He was tested a little by one of the other knights who soundly drubbed my brother but at least he managed to break a couple of lances against the man but long story short we were accepted into the holy order."

"Those first weeks were wonderful. Our father had brought us up in the proper faith and the proper way to behave but it felt so good to be part of something that we _knew_ to be right. It felt good to be so...so free of doubt. We were also able to study the scriptures in a way that we never were before and we helped to build our fortress."

(Frederick's note again. It may come as a surprise to you, as it certainly was to me, that the lad couldn't read.

I did ask how he managed to study the scriptures when he couldn't read and it turned out that this Bishop Sansum could recite them from memory, although he did admit that Sansum had several copies of many holy books in his rooms despite never being seen to read them.

How did the kid know that the books were holy, and how did he know that the scripture was accurate?

Bishop Sansum told him that they were.

I'll let you roll that one round in your brain for a moment.

This is one of the reasons that I don't believe that Sansum was properly ordained. I don't _know_ but I suspect that, at best, he was some kind of Lay monk who had taken the bits of scripture that he wanted before choosing to use those bits of scripture in his own way. I suspect that he left whatever monastery or abbey that he had been part of, because there wasn't enough fire and doom in the sermons and the practices there. I've been trying to track the man down in my spare moments but I can't find him. I assume that he did have some training but I'm also guessing that he changed his name for reasons of his own.

"Sansum" is an odd name for it though. Normally such people rename themselves after saints or famous holy men but I can't find the name anywhere)

"We trained as well. Hard, good training. I know more about horsemanship and swordsmanship now than my father had ever taught us. We had been talented before but now we were getting _good._ There was a real feeling that we were a group of friends, fighting the good fight against the darkness of the world. We had to depend on each other, we had to live together and we had to trust each other. We fought...We helped people." He was pleading with us. Pleading for us to believe him.

"What happened?" I asked him.

"I was just a squire, so I didn't really get involved in too many of the missions. They didn't go out for more than a couple of days at a time so I wasn't needed to go with my brother to help him get into his armour or do anything like that.

"Then they made me a knight about three days ago. A mission had gone out and two of our brothers in arms had not come back. "Killed by evil," is what we were told and they wanted to make up some numbers which was when I started to feel my first doubts. I wanted to be made a knight because I had earned the privilege rather than because there were a couple of empty saddles that needed to be filled.

"I liked being a knight though. I liked the extra privileges and having people do what _I_ told them rather than having to run around after other people. I was able to sleep in my own bed rather than having to be called to some other knights bed as women were forbidden in the order so the rest of us had to serve wherever we could.

"But then I could hear the stories of the other knights, including the stories about what had happened when those two men had died.

"I don't know. The way the others were laughing and joking about what had happened, made me sick."

He shuddered.

"They were telling jokes about how someone had squealed like a girl while they nailed him to a tree and about how he had wept as they tore is unholy wife apart. They spoke about the pleading of the villagers while witches were burnt at the stake.

"I had to leave. I get that witches and monsters are our enemies and they need to be destroyed but surely we shouldn't be gloating over that. Surely we don't prolong the suffering. They need to be destroyed, not tortured.

"I took my doubts to Bishop Sansum. He told me that it is only right to enjoy the proper defeating of evil and that I would know the truth of matters when I fought against darkness myself. I left his rooms reassured and began to look forward to my first mission.

"In the end that mission was a day ago. We had heard that enemies were coming for us and that we needed to hunt them down before they came for us. We were to investigate accusations that we had been given that a woman was a witch.

"I don't know what I was expecting. Stories that I've been told, vary from the horrifically beautiful arch-woman who is lewd and overtly-sexual (Frederick's note: I'm pretty sure he didn't know what this meant) to the image of the terrifyingly old crone who is still moving around long after she should be dead. I don't know what I was expecting but I knew that it was more than this.

"This woman was middle aged. She was happy and smiling, a large fat woman with rosy cheeks who was cradling a baby in one arm and chasing another grand child through her garden.

"She reminded me of old mother Gammer in the village near where my father used to live. I looked for signs of magic. I looked for obscene beauty, I looked for the black cat and the demonic sigils daubed in blood against the walls. I looked for obscene rites and anything else that I could think of.

"She just seemed like an old woman who knew quite a lot about herbs.

"I told the leader of the three of us that had been sent on this mission together that I couldn't find any signs of witch-craft and he told me that I wasn't looking hard enough. He sent my brother in and he came out holding a book and a cockerel. Telling me that the Cockerel was a sign of demon's work and that the book was a book of incantations.

"I had seen the book, it had pictures of berries and leaves in it. The woman claimed it was a recipe book. Our leader claimed that that was proof enough. That it was the recipes to her demonic brews that she had written down and ordered her flogged and burnt.

"She had a son nearby. I know because he tried to protect her, despite her telling him not to. He ran at my brother when my brother moved to take the woman and tie her to a stake that another of my fellow knights was already erecting. My brother killed him with this horrible grin on his face. It looked like...It looked like lust. His eyes were hooded and he was breathing heavily.

"I felt sick.

"They stripped her and tied her to the stake and ordered me to flog her as I needed to prove my devotion to the holy flame."

The next words were a long time coming. We all thought that he had stopped talking but, as it turns out, he was screwing himself up to get to the point where he could say it.

"I refused. I couldn't do it. She just looked like an old woman.

"I was weak.

"They chained my wrists and took me back to the fortress where the Bishop declared my penance. That I was to be flogged and that I should complete a circuit of our holdings wearing only armour.

"It was my brother that laid the first lash. He told me that I was weak and that he would not be. That he needed to prove that our bloodline was better than that. He told me that he wasn't my brother any more. I didn't recognise him as he said the words. As he hissed the words.

"Then they put the mail over my body and loaded me up. I don't think they expected me to return alive. They were making jokes about me and wondering if I would...What I would be willing to do if it would keep me alive."

Then he stopped, the tears falling freely.

I felt dirty and sick. The healer was mixing up a drink for the kid. "You weren't weak." The healer told him as he handed over the drink. "You were strong,"

"Much stronger than I would have been." I told him. I hope it wasn't true but until we're in that moment, do any of us really know what we would do in that moment. "You should be proud." I added after a moment's thought.

He drank what he was given and fell into an exhausted sleep.

We spent the next couple of days interviewing him between the three of us. Kerrass did most of the talking. He had questions about layout of the buildings, patrol patterns and training. He asked about deployment and equipment and thought processes.

But still the lad fought us for every answer. He just didn't want to answer us. We would confront him over and over again with the things that _he_ had told us. The things that _he_ had told us, as well as the state of his own body. It was sickening.

But the way he said it, the way he described that time that he spent with those knights. As he described it he had been there for six months at most. Six months. But I don't know whether the scars will ever leave him. If the scars can ever be truly healed. Not my area of expertise.

It reminded me of Cousin Kalayn in a way. The way that my cousin had been so _convinced_ that he was right, so sure that everything was the way it was for a reason. It was the first time that I started to feel a certain amount of sympathy for my long departed cousin, thinking of him being brought up in the poisonous atmosphere of bitterness and anger as well as the declaration that they were in the right.

We didn't ask the lad about his childhood and what that was like. I like to think that we didn't ask because we didn't have time to ask. That there was so much other things going on but at the same time, how much of what was done to him in his order was only possible because of whatever had happened to him at home with his father and elder brothers?

He was convinced, _convinced_ that he was in the wrong. That the what had been done to him was fair and justified. He told us, time and again that he had been wrong to challenge the authority of the knights over him. That he should have burned the witch for what she was but even as he said those things, you could see his youthful innocence warring against it. His...His disbelief at what he could hear himself saying.

We had to be careful, as well, because he was also very, very weak and exhausted beyond reasoning. The healer, regularly had to stop us from carrying on our questions so that the lad could rest.

It was awful.

He cursed himself for his weakness over and over again, telling us that he was weak, that we were evil and that we should have let him die. That we should have let those knights mete out the punishment that he deserved.

I remember this conversation that I had with him. Kerrass was outside keeping watch, and the healer was also asleep so it must have been in the early hours of the warning. We had to keep a watch on him because he had told us that the only reason that he _didn't_ end his own life was because the Holy Flame declares "self-slaughter" to be a sin. Having known despair myself I knew that even the threat of damnation cannot keep the...the pressure of staying alive from being unbearable and the healer had agreed.

"Why don't you hate me?" He asked me.

"What?" I had been writing up some notes. I can't remember on what. "Why don't I hate you?"

"I am weak, I am...unclean and base. I am damned. I tried to let a creature of darkness go."

"No you didn't and no you aren't." It's really hard to not sound as though I was getting frustrated. This was not a new argument between us all. It's all too easy to fall into the trap of assuming that you can tell an upset person that they shouldn't be upset and they will look at up at you and say something like... "Of course you're right, how stupid of me to be upset. Of course, now that you point it out to me I will perk up directly."

That thought process assumes that the person that you're talking to is acting rationally.

I got up and approached him, pulling my chair over with me.

"You didn't let a creature of darkness go. What you tried to do was to appeal to common sense. You asked them to really look at what they were doing. You asked them not to leap to conclusions and run the risk of flogging and burning an innocent woman." I thought about it for a moment. Trying to look for another argument. Another way in to a debate that had been had over so many occasions to try and point out what had happened. Another argument that we hadn't already tried.

"Let me ask another question?" I asked him. "Why did they order the woman to be flogged before they burnt her?"

"To purge the evil from her body."

"Ok," I said, "let's assume that that's true, that that's what flogging does. But isn't that what the burning's about?"

He just stared at me.

"We're supposed to burn Witches aren't we? Flame knows why. I assume that it's because we worship the eternal fire, therefore subjecting a witch to the fire is to purify her. But isn't that what the other knights were trying to get you to do by flogging her? They were trying to purify her weren't they."

"They were trying to _purge_ her of evil."

"Which means that they were trying to get rid of all the evil in her right?"

"Yes."

"Isn't that what purifying someone does?"

"Ummmm."

It is sometimes a far too easy trap to fall into to assume that ignorance means stupidity. His education was rather lacking although this was clearly not his fault.

"So why did they want you to flog her as well?"

"To make sure."

"To make sure of what?"

"That all the evil had definitely left her."

"Ok. Have you seen another witch-burning? Other than the one that we're talking about?"

"Yes. Many times."

"Good." I said aloud as I wondered how many times "many" meant. I also wanted to know how many people this kid had seen burnt. _My_ family had gone out of there way to keep the younger members of the family from seeing the more horrific aspects of the worship of the holy fire. What kind of situation leaves a kid saying that he had seen "Many" burnings. "Was there ever anything left?" I asked him, "After the fires had finished burning."

"Well no."

"So all the evil must have definitely gone then right?"

He stared at me blankly.

"If there was nothing left to contain the evil then the evil must have gone in the flame. Right?"

He reluctantly nodded.

"So, why flog her as well? You even question yourself whether the woman was guilty."

"Evil is evil, there are no degrees of evil. Evil is Evil. If you are possessed of evil then you must be destroyed."

Those weren't his words. I could recognise a quote when I saw one and I wondered who it was had made that quote.

"It is, is it? Oh how I wish I still believed that there weren't simply shades of grey." I tried to take another approach. "What else destroys evil in a person?"

"What?"

"Ok, answer me this. What is it that makes us evil?"

"Sin," he answered promptly, I wasn't surprised. It was a common question answer process in basic theology, the kind of thing that is preached from the pulpit at every available opportunity. "Sin, is the root of all evil." he told me.

"Very good. So if you and I sin, how do we expunge that same sin?" I winced as I realised my mistake.

"We confess. Then we do penance. But I was doing my penance to cleanse me of my sin of disobedience."

"Yes you were. But was the objective there to kill you? or to get rid of your sin?"

"To get rid of my sin, even if it did kill me?"

"What is the ultimate measurement of goodness?" I asked him, beginning to see a way through.

"Service." He told me. Again, as he should. "Service to the flame, to the church and to our fellow man."

That's _nearly_ what that passage of scripture says. So close but again, I decided not to set him right just yet. I also decided to leave aside the fact that that self-same saying separated the Holy flame from the church and again from our fellow man.

"So let me ask another question." I told him. "If service is the ultimate measure of goodness. Why is that woman, learning about herbs to heal her people in the village a bad thing?"

"But you see. That's how evil gets in." He told me. "It starts off with something simple. Something that _seems_ as though it is a good thing and then it turns it's deeds and changes them until it becomes evil."

That small pit at the bottom of my stomach opened up under me again. I was going to lose another argument because, again, I was assuming that the lad was thinking rationally.

The priest, his older brother and, I guess, his father had taken a good and decent young lad and turned him into a fanatic. It was only by dint of something extraordinary within him that he wanted to resist that evil.

That he saw the evil for what it was, even for that briefest of moments when he tried to resist all of the awful conditioning that had been done to him.

"Service." I told him. "How does it serve mankind to kill all of humanity?"

"The few that are left will be the best of people."

"But who will do all the things that needs to be done. Who will plough the fields and hunt the animals?"

I scratched my head as I tried to think of another approach. "Was the man evil? The man who your brother killed when he tried to defend his own mother?"

"He must have been."

"How do you _know_?" I demanded. "Can you tell by looking at him?"

"No. But he must have been evil."

"Why?"

"Because he attacked the knights of the church."

"So? If a man attacked my mother I would do my best to defend her as well. Wouldn't you?"

"Yes. But that makes me evil too."

He sobbed for a while and I saw that I had pushed him too hard and did my best to comfort him. I told him the same things over and over again, that he was a good and decent young man with a long future ahead of him. I did so in an effort to make him believe them but I doubt he listened. I doubt that he even heard me.

Here's a truth for you. Something that I have seen in my own life. If you tell a young person something, over and over and over again. Especially if you are in a position of power or authority over them such as a parent, teacher or priest. Then sooner or later you _will_ get through to them and they will start to believe it, even if you are telling them something cruel and unpleasant.

I still have a lot of rage against my father. A LOT of rage for this very reason. I believed that I was wasting my life for ages. I believed that I was becoming a scholar for my own purposes in an effort to try and rebel against my father's authority but that isn't the truth.

Now, I believe in knowledge and I believe in debate. I believe in studying our past so that we can learn from it and I believe in the betterment of ourselves through the taking on of new ideas and new concepts. So I became a scholar because that's what you do when you believe in those kinds of things, almost because there is nothing else in life that will take these sentiments. Maybe politics, but I don't think I could live with myself.

This lad believed in the holy fire so hard. So very hard, that people had used that belief and turned it into a form of self-loathing.

As I've said before, I believe in the Holy Flame as a guiding light through the darkness that guides me towards a better future and a form of safety. I see it as a beacon, something to be aspired towards rather than as a scourge to drive us.

And it sickens me when people take the same scriptures that I have read and reread a thousand times and turned them into a doctrine of hate.

Which is ironic because I looked at this poor kid, lying on the bed before me and I felt my own hatred against the people who had done this to them redouble.

We couldn't stay for much longer though. There was a danger that we would draw the knights down onto the head of the healer. He was confident that he could move a sick, damaged...young man around with the help of some of the neighbours but the presence of "the Witcher" and "the Man with the Spear" was getting harder and harder to keep secret. He had some plans to flee to the hills anyway so that he could remain safe in the face of the knights potential wrath. He had friends and he knew that the knights were more likely to pursue a woman in his line of work than they were a man. A man is a doctor, a woman is a healer. The one is science, the other is Witchcraft and there were still plenty of "Witches" around in the countryside before they got to him.

I wrote the lad a letter of introduction to Mark. We weren't that far geographically from Tretogor and my brothers seat of power. I would have written the lad himself a letter but I as I knew he couldn't read it, it struck me as a futile gesture. I told the healer what to do though, that he should be sent off to Tretogor with my letter addressed to Arch-Bishop Mark and I also left some money for the journey.

But Kerrass wanted to move on anyway. You see the lad had also given us some other interesting information. Namely the name and the location of the lord who supported the "Knight's of the flaming sword" and he wanted to pay the fucker a visit before moving on.


	63. Chapter 63

"This is a really stupid idea." I told Kerrass. "I know that we've done some pretty stupid things in the past. I know that many of them were my idea but this one? This one takes the cake."

"This one?" Kerrass was watching the knight's enclosure carefully. "This one doesn't even break the top five stupid ideas that we've acted on."

I frowned as a question occurred to me.

"There's a top five?"

"Yes. Definitely."

We watched as the sentry knights, although we couldn't definitely confirm that they were knights, were relieved of duty by another pair of men. Their armour wasn't as ornate and expensive as some of the other "knights" that we had seen and so we had wondered if these men were actually closer towards being normal men at arms, or squires.

From what we had learned about "The Knights of the Flaming Sword" they weren't the kinds of men that enjoyed standing outside, in the rain, watching out for enemies. From what we had learned, the thought that they could be attacked was nowhere near the top of their priorities when stacked against the prospect of a good nights sleep and some warm food in the belly.

So I suspected that they followed their normal pattern which was that they would send their squires to do it. Their arrogance was overwhelming.

"This is pretty bad though isn't it?" I wanted to check. I was fascinated with the idea that Kerrass had been grading our stupid decisions and ranking them in order of our stupidity.

"It's not that bad. It has a fairly decent chance of working."

"Isn't the plan a little complicated? You're always telling me that the simplest plans are the best."

"And normally that would be true."

"So hang on," The thought just wouldn't go away. "What's the stupidest plan that we've ever come up with?"

"You're kidding right?"

"No. Just curious."

"This from the man who thought it would be a good idea to try talking to a dragon?"

"Hey, that isn't fair. The dragon thing worked."

"That doesn't make the plan any the less stupid."

We watched the four sentries exchange some words, probably updating the new sentries on anything strange that they might have seen in the meantime. You know the kind of thing "Watch that bush, it's a tricky fucker. Could easily hide a man behind it." and "Wagon train of people passed a while ago, gave us a glare." and also, the ever popular, "Patrol went out earlier, on their way back.

The new sentries settled into their positions and waited. It was getting properly dark now and as we watched, one of the sentries leaned back into the enclosure to see if anyone was watching before producing a small cloth bag and producing a chunk of what we assumed was tobacco and started chewing.

Kerrass and I looked at each other.

"Definitely not knights." We said at the same time.

"This is still a dumb idea." I told him.

"Well, let's run through it again." He told me backing down from the small hillock that we were laying behind so that he could do some exercises and limber up a bit. "Do you have a better plan?"

"I do actually. You should send me in there first."

"Now Freddie, we've talked about this. I will do more initial damage, but also, they will want to keep me alive for the torture when they inevitably overwhelm me."

"I know, I know. I know that the plan requires for one of us to get captured so that the other can run around and cause havoc. I just think that you are going to be better at causing havoc than me."

Kerrass stopped his exercises and looked at me for a while.

"There's something else though isn't there?" He asked me.

"As a matter of fact there is." I admitted. "I'm not sure that I can slit the throats of anyone that's still asleep. Killing people in self-defence? ok. I can do that. But murdering them in cold blood? I'm not sure I can do that Kerrass."

"Even despite everything that we've seen and heard?"

"I'm just...I know all of that but..."

"These people need killing Freddie."

"I know, I know and I agree." I told him, and I meant it. "But I'm not convinced that, when it comes down to it. I'm not convinced that I won't hesitate at the worst possible moment."

Kerrass went back to his exercising. "I can't take them all out by myself." He told me. "There's too many of them for that. TO do it myself I would need to pick them off piecemeal. I would need to draw them out, isolate them and pick them off one at a time. We both agree that that would make people run off and start spreading the news that someone is killing church knights."

"I know that but..."

"So we need to kill all of them tonight."

"I agree with that too."

"To manage that, we need to keep them all in one place."

"Kerrass we've been over this and over this..."

"So we'll go over it again." He snapped. "To keep them in one place we need to attack them. But it's certain that the person that attacks them will be overwhelmed, right?"

"Yes."

"So, I'm fairly attached to my skin as I assume you are to yours. So we need a way for that person to survive that initial attack. How do we do that?"

"We need them to _want_ to keep the person alive." We really had been over this time and again.

"Correct. They will want to keep me for torture. I am a filthy mutant deviant freak and they're going to want to torture me for what I know and their own enjoyment. You, why wouldn't they just kill you?"

"Because I am a noble. They would want to keep me for ransom." I had tried this point before.

"This is true but, also you are a normal human and they are aware of how famous you are. They're not going to want you to get away and start publishing your stories about them. They also know that if they do let you go then you are going to tell people who and what you saw as well as reporting them to the nearest garrison. So why wouldn't they just cut your throat and throw you in a ditch. You have nothing that they want."

"I might."

"But we don't know that. So it needs to be me."

I sighed. He was right of course. We had had this argument several times since we had found the enclosure and I had lost every time. Mostly because, he really was right. There was absolutely no reason. At all. For the knights to keep me alive. If I attacked them, then they would just kill me. But Kerrass had the skills and the talents to _really_ make them mad. Mad enough to keep him alive to torture him.

The plan _then_ went, that I would follow Kerrass into the enclosure while everyone was still crowing over their capture of a Witcher and cause havoc by virtue of setting fire to the buildings, poisoning the well, setting the horses free and killing a few more knights. The idea was that I would get Kerrass' bombs and potions to him which he would then use to _really_ go to work.

My problem was that I just wasn't sure that we could do it.

"Hold on," I said as a thought occurred. "What about my going off to speak to Jack? Surely that should be the number one, most stupid thing that we've done?"

"Ah, but that was _your_ plan. I had nothing to do with that plan. If we were making a list of stupid things that _you've_ done, separate from me, then this would be a whole different conversation."

"That's not reassuring."

"It wasn't meant to be."

"I still think that this is a bad plan that is, at the very least, going to get you tortured and probably killed."

"If the things that we've seen and heard over the last few days are any indication. I would be quite happy if we just managed to take a few of the bastards with us."

"That's not the ideal though is it."

"No, we need to kill them all. And that Bishop too. That fucker needs to die."

I thought of some of the atrocities that we had seen and heard about. "No," I said. "That bastard I could definitely murder in his sleep."

"Could you?" Kerrass seemed surprised. "Personally, I want him to be awake so that he has the chance to realise what was going to happen to him."

"Now that's a cheerful thought."

Kerrass grinned nastily as he came up the hill to watch as it was now my turn to limber up, keep my body warm in the rain and make sure that I didn't get cramp.

Calling what we were looking at "a fortress" was a little bit ambitious. It was more of a...I want to call it a fortified monastery. There was a central church building which seemed to have a large and rambling building attached to it which was also made from stone. Those were the original buildings and had clearly been there for many years but since adopting the place, the Knights of the flaming sword had made some changes.

There was a hangman's scaffold there as well as well as a large stone that prisoners were manacled to. There were also a number of outbuildings.

We had spent the better part of a day scouting the place out, looking through the gaps in the pallisade to see what could be seen and preparing our entrances and how we were going to play things that evening. We had identified the stables as well as several storehouses which we knew stored the food as well as all the bounty that they had looted from the surrounding areas. We had also seen a dormitory for what we thought would be the servants.

The entire enclosure had been surrounded by a log palisade although there were obvious signs that it hadn't been particularly well made. They had also made a ditch round the outside of the fence but this had actually had the effect that it had weakened the wall itself, meaning that the spacing of the logs wasn't entirely uniform.

Several of the weaknesses in the perimeter opened out into enclosed areas where no sentries could easily see into which meant that infiltration would, in theory, be easier.

The problem was that these kinds of places, often have large and complex catacombs underneath them. It's not just cities that are built on the top of old elven ruins. Old shrines, burial sites and old homes are often fair game. There are even many instances where churches and abbeys are built on the top of what I hesitate to describe as "pagan" sites or sites of natural disaster. Shrines to Veyopatis, Melitele, the Lionhead, old mines, caves and more are often re-purposed into churches. The logic goes that the new and imported holiness goes on to combat the old pagan powers.

There's also the theory of "holy coincidence" which is that "Holy events" are often drawn to the same areas and similar circumstances. The Lay line phenomenon is also a thing, that holy builders are drawn to the same places and build their places of worship, by sheer coincidence, are built in the same place. It does happen, more often than we care to believe.

But my concern was that there were more soldiers and things underneath that we knew nothing about. I was also worried that there might be some kind of escape tunnel to it. As well as watching the place and getting the lay of the land, we had spent some time looking into other buildings to see if we could find an exit for a potential tunnel but we had failed to find anything. We had even moved some large stones aside to see if there was anything hidden underneath but no...nothing there.

But it was still a concern.

Seeing at night wouldn't be an issue as the place was all but covered in torches. This is a common feature in places that have been dedicated to the Eternal flame as the practitioners tend to want to keep the fire around themselves as much as possible. As though it would ward off evil. Practically, in this case though, all it would do would be ruin the night vision of all the people in the enclosure.

I also wondered at the psychological aspect of all of that fire. As I say, it ruins your night vision if you're near all that flickering flame, but the other thing that this does is that it makes the blackness outside of the circle of fire all the more oppressive, thus driving home the point that the knights were surrounded by evil and things to fear. That they should be on guard at all times and the only times that they were truly safe was when they were close to the flame, both literally and spiritually.

Our information was that there were a total of twenty five knights in the order with, maybe, another twelve squires and another eight men that were describes as squires but were actually more the kind of armed man that does the kind of jobs that no-one else wants to do. From looking at the behaviour of the current sentries we guessed that they belonged to this particular caste of "squire". We assumed that they were lower born men who wanted to join but, because they weren't "properly" born, they weren't allowed to be proper knights. But likewise, they were too good at their jobs to behave like the other kinds of squires, who were essentially glorified slaves. So they were made into "men-at-arms." They did the military jobs that the knights considered as beneath them but needed more expertise than what the squires had.

The knights also didn't enjoy letting the younger, more impressionable squires out of their sight.

The knights themselves slept inside the main building. They slept, ate and prayed in the main building. Training was done out of the main enclosure on one of the flatter fields immediately to the north. Both tilting and fencing. To be fair to them, they did look as though they worked quite hard at their fighting skills but at the same time, to my mind at least, that went even further to reinforce that we were running a huge risk.

The Bishop, Sansum, had his own room in the complex. We had no idea where it was as we hadn't been able to get inside the building itself to have a look around. We made some educated guesses though. We knew, from a couple of sources that he had a large collection of books which he liked to show off to visitors and the other members of his little order. So we reasoned that they would need to be kept above ground where there was less danger of getting damp and rot into the written word.

I also thought it was a bit rich that the library that Pula, Saffron and Sally had protected and maintained, had been burnt while Sansum collected books himself.

Sansum was a thin little weasel of a man. He had straggly hair and whiskers that grew in tufts around the top of his head and he looked like a younger man that had aged before his time. He had a huge forehead and a rapidly retreating widow's peak. He would tip his head forward so that he had to look at people through his eyebrows which also made him seem sly and slimy. He moved around at an incredible pace. The rumour was that he didn't sleep and existed off the power of prayer but I don't believe that. We also heard that he would regularly go off to "study" where he wasn't to be disturbed and I strongly suspected that he used those opportunities to have a nap.

He could regularly be seen around the complex. Preaching to the knights at training, preaching to the prisoners, tied to the stone and exhorting the men onto greater efforts. Whenever a group of horsemen went out, he would come to the gates to bless them all, in turn, before they were allowed to leave.

He worked hard, I'll give him that, but it was the kind of work that made me want to punch him. I didn't see him lift a stone, or carry some goods or even help an injured knight. It was as though he was allergic to doing any kind of physical work for himself.

We were delayed for another couple of days while we waited to have all the knights in the place at the same time as we didn't want to lose one that could turn the whole lot of them into martyrs as that would be the worst possible thing that could happen.

Kerrass' plan was to walk up to the open gates and move towards where the prisoners were and attempt to free them. He figured that would gain him more than enough attention to be going on with as he quickly supposed that people would flock out of the various buildings to try and stop him and he intended to go down swinging.

My own plan depended on what the enemy did from there. They would either assume that Kerrass was alone, in which case they would simply all gather round his capture, laughing and hooting which meant that I could simply walk in through the main gate. The other option was that they would be a little wiser and reinforce the outer sentries.

In theory, this would be better for me. Kerrass could be depended on to kill at least four men but probably a good few more than that which would mean that I re-inforced sentry presence would mean that there would be less people walking around the main enclosure to spot me. I would climb in, using one of the gaps in the defences, before making my way over to the stores which we knew contained lamp oil and start spreading it around the place before setting fire to it. I wanted to aim for the stores, then the stables and the stables before I figured that I would have to start closing in on where Kerrass was.

I secretly wanted to get at the prisoners and burn down the scaffold as well. But the three buildings I was fairly certain that I could set those fires in secret. The scaffold and the prisoners were in the open and I wouldn't be able to help them, or set the fire without being seen.

It was full dark by the time that Kerrass was satisfied.

"Right then, here we go." He said. "Wish me luck."

"Kerrass, are you sure that I can't convince you to let me go in your place. You will be far better at the chaos and murdering aspect of the plan."

"You'll do fine." He told me, clapping me on the shoulder. "But seriously though," he said, taking care to properly look me in the eyes. "Thanks for doing this with me. I'm not sure I could have done this alone."

"Of course you could." I told him. "You just wouldn't have done it with quite as much class and sex appeal."

He told me to fuck off and went to walk off.

"Wait," I called out and he came back, a look of concern crossing his face.

I let him stew for a minute.

"What are the other things in the top five most stupid things we've ever done."

Kerrass grinned. "Amber's crossing is number one. The thing with the dragon is number two." He was counting them off on his fingers. "Summoning the ghost of a king is number three although it's possibly tied with that time that we stood up to an elder vampire and told her to behave. So that's three and four. Five? Five was that time we walked into a nest of werewolves."

"I don't remember that?"

"That was because I lied and told you that we were going in to speak to someone I knew who could tell us about about werewolves in general."

I felt my mouth fall open.

"I flirted with his wife."

"Yes, and she thought you were very gallant."

"So there's a separate list for things that _I_ have done?"

"Oh yes."

"Go on then."

"Freddie, I should really get going."

"Yes, but You might not make it so how else am I going to find out about these things.

"Ok. Number one is talking to Jack. Number two is chasing after Laughing Jack without me. Number three is asking Letho about Witchers and the trials. Four and five are all to do with the fact that you agreed to marry an elder vampire. I know that those last two are technically only one thing that you've done but I feel that it's so important a point that it bears mentioning twice."

"Yeah," I mused. "Yeah, but to be fair to me. She is really hot."

Kerrass turned to go.

"Kerrass wait."

He sighed and turned back.

"What are your own personal top five stupid things that you've ever done?"

"I don't know really," he mused. "I'm pretty sure I know what number one is though."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, agreeing to let you tag along with me on my travels."

We both laughed.

"Good luck Kerrass." I told him.

"Good hunting Freddie."

Then he was gone. I climbed back up to the top of the hill. There was no way that I wasn't going to watch this whole thing happen.

Kerrass had left his silver sword with our main cache of equipment. The bags were buried under a rock about half a days walk from here along with the sword as well as some other letters that might be important. I had told Ariadne where to look for them if she didn't hear from us which was when we had our first proper fight.

Having a fight with a woman that you love is never fun. Having a fight with an Elder vampire that you love, who can also rip your spine out of your back with her bare hands, is even less fun.

In the end though, we went on her way. I would like to say that we did so with her blessing but I'm not entirely confident that that would be true.

Kerrass had his steel sword, I had my spear, his crossbow and his potion box as well as a number of bombs that Kerrass had spent a bit of time putting together with a certain amount of relish. We also had some supplies for the long night ahead. Some water, some food and my first aid kit completed our equipment inventory.

So, Kerrass walked up to the main opening in the fence. He did so openly and without any attempt at stealth. He walked past the two, astonished guardsmen with a jaunty wave and a greeting and just walked past them.

It was almost comical watching the two men do a double take straight from the stage-shows in Novigrad.

They looked at Kerrass, looked at each other, looked at Kerrass again who raised his hand in greeting before walking past them. One of them even partially raised his own hand to answer.

I had the strongest suspicion that Kerrass was whistling. He had that, easy, relaxed posture he had when he had just visited the brothel.

I found that I was smiling in appreciation of the showmanship of the scene.

One of the two guards, presumably finally realising that things weren't going the way that they were supposed to, finally called out to Kerrass who turned and shouted something back before carrying on walking towards where the prisoners were chained up.

The two guards looked at each other again. It was easy to imagine what they were thinking. It was as though they were checking with each other that what they were seeing was real.

One of them drew a sword which was when it suddenly became a lot less funny.

Kerrass ignored them until one of them put their hands on his shoulder. Kerrass spun, the metal of his sword flashed in the firelight and the man who had placed his hand on Kerrass' person, lost that hand. He stared at the stump for a moment, he had dropped his sword to grip the stump and even though it was too far away and too dark for me to see, I knew that the stump would be gushing blood. He stared in what must have been in disbelief and shock before the pain and the awful realisation hit him.

Then he screamed.

The other guard had drawn his sword by now and made a good attempt at a stab at Kerrass' right hand side. Kerrass simply rolled his sword over the blade and disembowelled the poor man.

Yes, these men had done awful things to a lot of people that didn't deserve it. But stomach wounds are horrible things.

Two men down. I knew that it was all but futile to start counting them off as we killed them but it was impossible, not to think, that the situation was that little bit better and that there were two less men to face.

Another pair of armed men rushed round the main church building and ran to intercept Kerrass before he made it to the prisoners. Kerrass feinted one way before leaping up and round to the right with a huge chopping motion to the man's neck. Although he didn't sever the head, he was damn close. But now Kerrass was exposed to the other man. Kerrass rolled away and came to his feet, spinning on his heel to meet the charging man. The man swung his sword before Kerrass used the momentum of his rising to his feet to cut the man up through the groin and inside leg from his knee.

Four men dead or dying. Two of which were screaming horribly.

Kerrass ran towards the prisoners again but I had to shift from my current hiding place if I wanted to see what was going on.

As I moved, carefully and away from the ridge line, the church bell started to ring. The alarm was up now and I could, all to easily, imagine men and knights, climbing from their beds, putting clothes and armour on and going out to do battle against the lone Witcher that had come out of the night with bright sword and cruel eyes.

By the time I could see what was happening again, Kerrass was limping while engaging three men around where the prisoners were tied up. These men were better fighters, able to take Kerrass on on equal terms. Kerrass was backing up which took him away from the prisoners, looking for an advantage. One of the knights, confident that he was well outside of Kerrass' sword range, turned and cut the throat of one of the villagers that was tied there.

I assume that it was to try and anger Kerrass into making some kind of mistake. Trying to provoke him or make him angry.

I know they made him angry but whether that made him make a mistake, I'm not sure I could judge.

They were trying to steer him now. There was another group of men forming up behind him under the direction of someone that I couldn't see. More and more men were coming now, putting on helms and shrugging into chest-plates. A couple of the men that I identified in my mind as being "squires" had produced bows and were doing their best to string them while also being shouted at to help the knights into their armour.

I wasn't sold on the idea of using bows though. It was still dark, with flames flickering and there was only one Kerrass while there were so many other people around that could very easily get caught in the crossfire.

Kerrass saw what was happening.

He made a complicated gesture with his hands and one of the men staggered as though drunk.

Another gesture and a different man was sent backwards with a guest of air. Kerrass fell on a third and after a brief exchange of sword strikes and parries, Kerrass found a gap in the man's armour and, once again, blood sprayed in the firelight.

My count was inaccurate now as I thought, or hoped, that Kerrass might have taken a couple more people down in the time where I had been moving. I told myself to be pessimistic though and counted that as five.

Kerrass jumped on the man that he had knocked over, knocking him back down to the ground. I saw that he must have let go of his sword to draw a dagger and used it to stab the man in the chest, twice before he rolled off, scooping up his sword as he went.

Six men down. The last man that Kerrass had quickly tried to enchant, shook his head but sensibly advanced slowly, sword in a proper guard position. I thought that he called for something and a younger man came over and handed over a shield. A squire presumably.

We had hoped, as we had made our plans, that the junior squires. Those men like the one that we had rescued, we would be able to spare. That they might be open to being rescued.

But needs must. Kerrass stepped forward and decapitated the squire with one smooth stroke.

Seven men down, but Kerrass was visibly getting tired now. Stopping to draw breath. More knights were getting better armoured now. People were calling to the Witcher. I couldn't hear what they were saying but the tone was derogatory and mocking. They were jeering him.

Oh, that was a mistake.

I knew what was coming next though. Now, he was just going to do as much damage as he could before they took him down.

Kerrass very rarely bellows with rage when he fights. I tend to note it down when it happens because it's so rare when he actually does it. He says that it tends to give the game away as to what you're thinking and what you're going to do next.

This time, he bellowed and threw himself into the middle of them, sword spinning in murderous circles. I saw blood blood splattering into the night. I heard men screaming and shouting. I saw one man coming away from the general melee, doing his best to hold his guts in. But it was a foregone conclusion now.

I didn't want to watch any more and I moved off and started to count my heartbeats.

It's a trained response. When you're waiting for something, to start to count. It's also really difficult. I've talked about having to spend time waiting for the next thing to happen before and it's never easy. Some people claim that it's because the anticipation is the worst part of any kind of venture but, now that I've done this a lot more, I'm not so sure that that's the case. Now I find that the worst part of the entire thing is the knowledge of what's going to happen next.

So if anyone ever tells you that the waiting gets easier then I need to tell you now that they are either wrong, or psychopaths.

The more I see, the harder the waiting gets. By some margin. When I first started waiting for the action to start, all that time ago in a small group of trees next to a Nekker nest, I had no idea what was going to happen next. I had seen a child die and I'd seen a man have his head removed by virtue of a very sharp sword. But I hadn't seen the horror that's involved in a stomach wound. Nor had I seen the amount of blood that comes out of a slashed neck, or the phenomenal pressure behind a slashed femoral artery. I had not heard a grown man begging for water and the comfort of a mother's love. By this point though, I had come across all of those things.

The traps are there in the silence as you think of all the things that you might not be getting the chance to do in the near future. I might not get the chance to find Francesca, or marry Ariadne or say goodbye to Emma or Mark. I would never be able to go hunting with an Empress or give my first lecture.

That's where the fear comes from. Not the anticipation when you are wondering what could happen and what it might feel like.

But when you _know_ what might happen and what it will feel like.

Yes, I know what it feels like. Any man that has tried to push a man's intestines back into his gut or has comforted a man in the last moments as they wait to die will tell you that they know how much it hurts. It hurts so much that you beg for the death to come to you faster rather than leaving you in agony, or even worse, leaving you as a cripple.

That's the worst thing. As a society, we don't look after our cripples. We leave them out in the streets to starve and beg for the scraps from our passing by. So many of them.

Three wars. Three wars worth of crippled men and crippled women.

.

I'm sorry. It's one of those things that I get worked up about if I don't catch myself.

I sat in the dark and I waited. Counting off the heartbeats.

I lost count somewhere around the three hundred and fifty mark and had to start again.

Then again at four hundred and forty four.

Then I told myself that if I could make it to two hundred then I would go for it.

Which I did on my first try.

The fear coiled thickly in my belly. I took the time to properly relieve myself, took a drink from the water-skins. Strapped the potion box, nice and securely to my back so that it wouldn't come loose, and made sure that the bag containing Kerrass' crossbow was also immediately to hand. I had all of Kerrass' leftover gear on a bandolier that I carried across my chest. I was comfortable with the bombs but precious little else, but the plan needed these things to be inside the circle.

I took up my spear and fitted the two halves together.

I remember a thought that occurred then as I stood there in the dark, listening to the knights and what was left of the squires running around like the terrified, headless chickens that they were. When all of this was over. When I was done with my travels and following Kerrass around like a shadow. What would I do with my spear? Hang it over some hearth in whatever home that Ariadne and I would choose as our home.

I tried to imagine it for a moment, the two of us, sat there, sharing a bottle of wine and reading a book with this weapon fastened to hooks above the fireplace.

I couldn't see it and the image wavered before my eyes.

Last thing.

I took hold of my medallion in a firm grip.

"I love you. So much." I told it. "Please don't hate me for this."

As I had suspected that she would be, she was listening and watching.

"I don't hate you," she told me. "I just wish I was there with you. I love you too. Please be careful."

I nodded. I had been a lot more afraid of that than I had thought I might be.

Time to get this done though.

I had a cautious look over the rise to see what was going on. It looked as though, if Kerrass was alive, he had been taken indoors. In all truth, I wasn't that worried about his survival. He was right, these fuckers would want to take him alive and torture him for a few days before letting him die. He was also right that they would just kill me unless they thought that I might have some information that they might want.

To tell the truth though, I was also a little surprised that Ariadne had not simply ignored my warnings and come after us anyway, despite the problems with that solution.

But still.

Someone had gone round and lit a whole bunch more fires, which might be a problem. I would just have to trust my disguise in that case. There were also a lot of people walking around and trying to look busy.

They weren't really succeeding though, there was a certain amount of "Make-work" that was happening. People were picking things up and moving them some-place. Then they were picked up again and moved somewhere else. That kind of thing.

I spent a while watching them and plotting what I was going to do. There were guards on the gate again and judging from the way that they were stood, all but vibrating at their posts with suppressed emotion and, I hoped, adrenaline reaction, I decided that approaching the enclosure from that direction was possibly not the greatest plan.

The guards looked young as well which I though might make them jumpy. Which was fine, but I didn't want them to jump towards putting a sword through me.

I backed away from the hill and moved round, keeping low. The riskiest bit was that I had to cross a small road that went past the enclosure. It was almost certain that they would keep their eyes on it. It was nerve-wracking too. I knew that their vision would be reduced by the nearby firelight but at the same time, I could see _them_ clearly.

I could almost hear Kerrass' voice. "Patience," he told me. "Watch and wait for your moment."

The sentry that was closest to me was shifting his weight from one foot to the other. Nerves, suppressed desire to do something, fear, anxiety and Flame knows what else.

I watched him.

Here's a thing to note down. Good sentries and guard units don't follow a pattern. Wall patrols should be varied and have different deployments every time. Guard changes should happen at different times. Officers _should_ check the sentries to make sure that they're still awake and free of outside influence, that influence sometimes being an arrow in the face, but they should do so at different times every night.

It's a good thing for a sentry to check about himself. It's all well and good to look out from the walls of a castle but if the castle behind you is burning then you're not really doing your job.

This sentry had a pattern.

I don't know how long I watched but I noticed that he would look up the road, then down the road, then up the road then down the road, then he would look at his mate before checking behind him before beginning the pattern again.

It was like he had been told what he needed to do but not how he was supposed to do it.

I watched him for long enough to make sure that it was definitely a pattern and that I wasn't imagining it before quickly dashing over the road when he turned to look at his mate.

"Careful," I told myself.

His mate, the other sentry, was just checking his quadrant and from that I guessed that he was the more experienced of the two.

I made it over the road and rolled, gently, into the ditch. The ditch itself wasn't wet, but it was muddy from the rains. I guessed that the land was too...absorbent to provide a proper moat. Confident that I was out of sight of the guards now, I climbed up the small slope, careful to keep the potion case out of the water.

I had seen what happened when some of those things got wet.

I got up to the line of logs and found the gap where some of them were beginning to sag away from their upright positions. I tugged on one, gently at first as an experiment. It would kind of defeat the entire objective if, in climbing through, the entire thing came down. But no, I was safe. Just the one log moved and

I pulled it a little more before pushing the one next to it in an effort to widen the gap.

I pushed the spear through first before climbing through myself.

Then I waited, counting off heartbeats and listening to see if anyone was shouting alarm.

I had chosen this gap because it put me behind the storehouse, meaning that I was obscured from view and it was closest to my first objective.

Confident that I was safe now, I turned and pulled through the rest of the Witcher's equipment and secured it back around my person.

Ok, so...inside the compound now. Objective one complete.

It was a little too much to hope that there would be a back door into the store room to a part of the enclosure that you could only access by scaling the palisade. But I examined the back of the small building anyway.

It was, again, a simple wooden structure. The walls hadn't been planted _that_ deep. I considered digging a hole to see if I could get in through the floor but that ran the risk of both, there being floor boards, but also the risk that, the undermining of the foundations would mean that the entire thing would collapse. With me under it.

I also discounted making a hole in the back of the building as it would make too much noise. Then the thought occurred that there might be someone in the storehouse who would be alerted by either of these methods.

Ideally, I wanted to hold off from outright murder just yet. Moral concerns aside, murder tends to leave bodies and blood around the place which gets spotted a lot easier than anything else. It's hard to pretend that bodies just turn up randomly whereas lamp oil and fires can be started by mistake.

So that left me round the sides, or up over the roof.

I could probably climb up without too much trouble. Kerrass' old observation of the fact that people very rarely look up was...reassuring but I was concerned that that might leave me with nowhere to go. I wouldn't be able to set fire to things or cause mischief from up there.

So that was going to be the last resort.

Ok, so, left or right?

Well, Right would take me back towards the gate. They think that that's where the risk and danger comes from so that's where they're going to be protecting themselves from.

SO I went left.

In the end though, there was no way I was going to be able to squeeze through that gap as the building itself was too tight up against the palisade.

I took a deep breath and decided on a short risk. I pushed my bags and spear through the gap. Took another moment to listen to see if anyone had heard me before, as quietly as I could, scrambling up the corner of the building and rolling over the roof and coming back to the ground.

Luckily, that meant that I was behind some stables.

I crouched down as I was putting my packs back around myself before edging round. I was still hidden in shadow but I needed to have a good look round to see what was happening. Lot's of people milling around. A couple of people were whipping the prisoners. But even then, I could see the door into the church.

Interestingly, it wasn't guarded.

I had a little chuckle as I thought about Captain Froggart back at home. He would have been so angry at that. That a choke point wasn't guarded. You do that to protect against villains like me that have managed to sneak past your outer perimeter.

But you know what the hardest bit was. The hardest part of the whole escapade, for me at least and I want you to bear this in mind when you read about what happened afterwards. That moment, when I straightened up and just walked around the corner.

That was the hardest part of the entire thing. Again, Kerrass had instructed me carefully and I could hear his voice as I moved.

"Just act as though you belong there. Just move confidently and as though you have something to do and people will let you get on with it. It's only when you're doing dangerous things, or things that you shouldn't be doing that people start to notice you."

"So, when I'm splashing lamp oil around the place?"

"And setting fires." He had answered.

But even then, it still took me more than a small amount of courage to straighten up and just walk round the corner.

And more than a little bit more self-control to keep myself moving smoothly and evenly, to keep myself walking at a normal pace.

Also, how do you hold a spear casually? No really, I wanna know. In the middle? Over your shoulder? The same way that a Pikeman carries it in the army?

I decided not to go with that last one.

Also, it suddenly seemed as though the compound was so much larger than it had seemed from the outside.

But I walked as easily as I could and with much purpose as I could, towards the front door of the storehouse.

Much to my astonishment, no-one called out to me. No-one shouted my name, not even a "hey, you."

I propped the spear next to the entrance to the door and tried it.

It was locked. Of course it was locked. I took a moment to look around the edges and did my best to examine the door.

We didn't have a plan for what to do if I couldn't get to the lamp oil.

It didn't look very strong. I could probably force it open. But that would make noise and draw attention to myself. Which I didn't want.

I checked and found a latch, which was a mixed blessing. On the one hand it meant that I could open the door with a knife. On the other hand that meant that there was someone indoors who had put the latch on.

Oh well. It needs to be done though.

I drew my knife and, as quietly as I could, I lifted the latch off and pushed the bolt aside.

It must have worked as I opened the door and walked in.

Inside, I found a room full of boxes and sacks. I thought I could see grain, a few racks of weapons, there was a shelf of armour grease and weapon oil. Several stacks of blankets. I moved through and found the person who was inside.

He was a young man, knelt on the floor praying. He must have sensed some kind of movement behind him as he turned round, rising to his feet and drawing his sword.

You know, to be honest?

Recently, in these little essays, I've talked about murder and what the difference is between murder and killing someone. I am pleased to say that I still know, if not the names, then at least the identities of all the people that I have killed. My number has climbed into the double digits now. It stayed at nine for a long time but it's now started to grow again.

I don't know how that makes me feel. Kerrass has told me not to worry about it but I wonder. I still wonder.

In this case, he was praying and something in me doubts that I could have slit his throat from behind while he knelt at prayer.

Asleep?

Maybe.

On guard, not looking in my direction?

Probably but... praying?

I think I would struggle with that.

As I say, he drew his sword. Which was where he discovered that the place was too crowded for the proper use of his sword.

He realised it and went for the dagger at his back but I was already on him. My left hand coming up to cover his mouth to stop him from crying for help as I pushed him to the floor. I still had my dagger in my hand. It's not a great weapon for stabbing and he was wearing a chainmail shirt anyway. I couldn't get at his throat or at his face for any of the other, quicker shots.

Instead, I remembered some anatomy and stabbed into, before slashing up his inner thigh.

I only narrowly avoided the arterial spray.

I was still stopping him from screaming and was leaning on his chest to prevent him from drawing the breath that he would have needed for a good scream so I saw the fear in his eyes.

Not a murder. At least I don't think so. He needed to die, but he would have killed me if he had had the chance.

Eight men down.

I quickly dragged him round the corner of some boxes and stacked some blankets on top of him. His funeral pyre would be big enough anyway. I found the bags of Lantern oil at the back of the shed.

"Careful," I told myself again.

I carried two bags to the entrance before taking the third and doing my best to liberally spray the place with oil, especially around the boxes and those things that I thought would be more flammable, before taking one of the arm loads of torches and carried them, along with the rest of the oil outside. I spent some time ferrying my burdens over to the stables, doing my best to look like any of the other people that were doing their chores around the place.

The stables were much smaller. Also, I have a thing about preferring not to hurt animals if I can possibly help it which changed my strategy a little.

I checked inside to see if there were any grooms that were awake, and or working. I would need to have a good look around the place before I started spreading the oil. From the sounds of things, activities were beginning to calm down outside now which I considered a mixed blessing.

Seeing no immediate activity, I hid the oil, torches and the Witcher's equipment under some hay near the entrance. Propped my spear up along side a rack with some hay-forks on them. Again, Kerrass' words "Hide things in plain sight, or with other things of similar make-up. People notice the strange or the out of place but if it looks as though it belongs, then they won't notice."

Then I took the time to search the place to see if there was anyone asleep in stable. It wasn't large but a large pile of hay can look like an attractive, warm and comfortable place to catch up on some sleep. There are also some Lords who like to have their grooms and stable-men to sleep next to their horses so that they can be ready to go at a moments notice. Another kind of Horsemaster might sleep near the horses if one is sick and he or she wants to make sure that they are ok during the night. Foaling as well. So I thought it best to make sure.

Some people might think that I was being overcautious. But I was intending to open all the stalls and splash oil around the place. The horses were going to be unhappy about that and would, undoubtedly, make some noise.

But no, there was no-one. Not in the hayloft, not in the stalls and not in the rest of the stable.

I couldn't decide whether I was pleased about this or not. It meant that I could work unopposed and quickly as any noise that came from the stables would be confused with the natural noise that the horses made. But on the other hand, that meant that the grooms were elsewhere and enemies for the future.

But the thing that really got my goat was the fact that I kind of saw this as a bit neglectful. My father's Horse-master would be horrified.

"Careful," I told myself.

First I went through all of the stalls and brought out the horses. There weren't as many as I was expecting.

We had been told that there were a good forty five fighting men in the compound and I was expecting at least a horse each for all of the knights as well as horses for many of the squires. But no, there were about twenty five horses, all told.

As I think I've said before, I don't know much about horses but I sometimes realise that I know more than I thought I did. I suppose I can thank father for that. You can't live in a hunter's castle and not learn about horses..

The stable was far too small for even that number of horses.

"Careful." I told myself again

I went through and took them to one end of the barn where the main doors were. When I came back. I intended to set the fire behind me, open the doors and herd the horses out with me.

I really would prefer not to harm the horses if I could possibly get away with it.

After I had got the Horses situated as best I could, I set about dousing the place with oil. I could work quickly here, without needing to be too stealthy so I didn't bother holding back before returning to where my equipment was stored.

All told, I thought that I had about one and a half skins of oil left. I wanted to save one skin of oil for the main church building. A good chunk of that was stone and there was no way that I could expect all of that to burn easily. So I would have to scrimp on the dormitory.

I reconciled myself with the fact that the majority of people that we knew that slept in the dormitory were the younger squires as well as those servants that the rest of the knights couldn't do without. Both of those types of people were the ones that had been beaten and abused by the knights as a whole and so, if there was anyone that I would prefer not to kill then it was the people in this building. But that didn't stop me from berating myself for being wasteful with the rest of the oil.

But still.

"Careful." I heard myself say, "Not too fast, not to slow." Again, I took out my equipment from the pile of hay that I had carefully _not_ covered in oil.

"Careful." I said again before wondering if I had been saying that for a while.

I stepped back out into the night sky and tried to judge what time it was.

Earlier than I thought, but later than was ideal.

I walked over to the dormitory and noticed that the rain had eased off while I was inside the stable. Too caught up in my own bullshit to notice

There was absolutely no way that I could go inside this building and start splashing the oil around without sounding the alarm. No way at all.

I had another look and found that I could squeeze round the back of the building and started splashing the walls with the oil. For a while, I considered trying to put some into the thatch on the roof as well but I didn't know what kind of state of repair the roof was in and there was a risk that some oil would get through and splash onto someone giving the game away. I did pull some of the eaves of the thatched roof out so that, in theory, the flames that would be licking up the side of the building would catch against them and the roof could catch fire.

The side of the building furthest away from the stables was also obscured to general sight and there was some more hay nearby so I splashed some oil there as well, pushing the hay up against the wall of the building.

Ok. So...what's next?

I took a minute to think about my handiwork now and just to reassess what order I wanted to do things.

The spear caused a problem. On the one hand I wanted to keep it with me but I recognised that for the fear that it was. I wanted it as a security blanket. I wanted it with me in case I needed to fight.

But.

If I did carry it with me then that meant that I would be seen as a threat. Knights are special creatures at heart and they assume that if you aren't carrying a weapon then you aren't a threat. They only register other knights on the battlefield but a man with a spear? Especially as odd a spear as I used?

The other thing was that the next part of the plan required speed. I had already decided that I would need to ditch the potion box and crossbow and I had chosen my spot next to the entrance of the spear. There was just too much weight there and it would slow me down. The spear fell into a similar category. It was large, heavy and unwieldy. I would need both hands and be able to move through confined spaces.

The spear would have to stay.

The church entrance, or rather, the entrance to the larger complex was stone. It made a short corridor, the entrance of which was a wooden door that looked as though it was kept permanently open. There were certainly plenty of people going in and coming out. I walked past the entrance in an effort to see if there were any guards inside but I couldn't see any.

That was just a risk I was going to have to take.

I dumped my stuff next to the entrance. There were some other crates there as well before taking out the handful of torches.

It says something about the security of the place that it wasn't until I was walking over to put the torches down that I got challenged by someone.

"Oi." Someone shouted. "Who are you?"

I did my best to assume that they were talking to someone else.

"You. Stop."

I felt a mailed hand drop onto my shoulder and spin round. I blinked into the face of the man that had grabbed me.

"What's your name?" He demanded. I couldn't tell whether he was a knight or one of the more experienced fighting men. I guessed at the latter due to a large cut across the top of one of his eyes that was seeping blood.

"Uh, Samuel sir."

Sorry Sam.

"Samuel is it? Never heard of you."

"I'm new sir, from the village?"

"And what are you doing Samuel?"

"I'm, uh, restocking the torches sir." I gestured to the bundle on my shoulder. "In case we need more light sir."

"Hmmm," he grunted. He was a little wide eyed and I guessed that he was still dealing with all of the adrenaline from the fight with Kerrass. Probably just looking for an excuse.

He looked me up and down.

"That's a nice looking knife." He said, drawing it from where I kept it across my belly. "Very nice."

He leered at me, as though daring me to take offence. "Where'd you get it?"

I struggled to keep my fear and anger down. I had been depending on that knife now that I had left my spear behind. Truth hurts though, if I had needed to depend on the knife then I was already done for.

"My father gave it to me." I told him. "It was his in the last war."

"Hurm," he grunted again. "It is a nice knife." He examined the blade before checking around him. "Can I have it?"

It wasn't really a question. If I said no then I suspected that my throat would be slit in short order and the death blamed on Kerrass.

"Errr. Yes sir. Yes, of course." I did my best to stammer a little as though terrified.

"Good." He snatched the sheath out of my belt.

He seemed almost dissappointed to be deprived of an opportunity to commit murder.

Ah bless. I did my best to remember his face as he walked off. I wanted that knife back. It was indeed a good knife.

I still had my boot dagger as well as one in the small of my back which was little more than an eating knife but it would do at a pinch.

Truth was though, that if I needed to fall back on either of those then it was already all over.

I walked off to the fire-bowl closest to the stables as that was the middle building of the three that I intended to burn. I carefully stacked the torches, keeping one back and lit it before doing my best to walk calmly towards the store-house..

I didn't think about it at the time but this was probably the most dangerous bit of them all. There was no need for light in the enclosure. There was plenty of fire around already and therefore there was no need for someone, least of all the scrappy little peasant that I was pretending to be, to be carrying around a lit brand.

But no-one called out.

I walked to the store house, opened the door and walked in. The smell of lamp oil was almost overpowering. I tossed the brand over to where one of the blankest had been scrunched loosely and waited to make sure that the fire definitely caught.

I had visions of throwing the torch and walking off for it to just gutter and die before the fire caught properly.

I needn't have worried. As it was, I nearly lost my eyebrows along with some of my hair.

I did my best to close the door calmly and walk back to the bowl to take up another torch and lit this one too.

Into the stable which was a lot closer. The horses noticed the fire though and started to get upset, I threw the fire into one of the hay piles that I had made sure was well doused with oil for exactly this purpose before running over and opening the larger gate so that the horses could escape.

I was about half way through fighting my way through all of the horse flesh when someone noticed the smoke and the flames' licking from the storehouse wall and through the eaves of the roof.

"Hey, is that smoke?" someone called.

"I don't know," another voice called. The stable fire was well caught now so I kind of shrugged to myself as I pushed the main gate open. "Fire." I yelled. "Fire." The more intelligent horses got the idea and helped me to push the door open. The stupider ones just stood about and needed to be pulled bodily from the building before they started to panic as well and follow their herd mates.

By this point, other people had seen the danger and had come to help me get the horses out of the stable. Someone clapped me on the shoulder and told me that I was a good man. Someone else said "Brave of you," the sentiment was spoiled by the next man who told me to man up and go and help with the other fires.

As I led the horses out and went to the fire-bowl to collect the next torch, I saw my greatest piece of mischief in action. At the time I had no plans for it. I certainly had not intended it.

Someone had opened the door to the store-house to see what was going on to find the raging inferno, presumably before staggering back from the heat.

Someone else had, rather optimistically, got themselves a bucket of water and threw it through the door.

Have you ever seen a load of water thrown onto an oil fire.

I have.

The results were impressive and almost exactly the opposite of what the water-thrower had intended. I don't think he survived the explosion though. Poor man.

I tried not to giggle as I caught up a third torch. I took up the call of fire and ran round the side of the dormitory. I didn't want to trap myself in so I forced my way behind it to light those fires first, setting light to the oil as I went along before throwing my last torch into the remaining hay next to the dormitory and taking a moment to step back and admire my handiwork.

Not bad, even if I do say so myself.

This bit was going to be dangerous. Now I needed to get inside the church buildings. But everyone that was inside those self-same buildings, wanted to get out and if they saw me, armed, then they would want to know why I wasn't running _towards_ the fire.

And I didn't have my dagger any more for close work.

I moved over and stayed next to the entrance as people were rushing out. There were far too many people in the compound now for me to try and take them on. I needed to do damage now. I needed to make them hurt and if I just took the one nearest to me followed by the one nearest to him and on and on, I would be lucky if I got through three soldiers or knights before I would be overwhelmed.

That wasn't the point about what was happening here. I needed to make them hurt.

Everything depended on it, which meant that I had to go inside the buildings. Funnel their numbers, taking them on on my own terms.

I crouched next to the entrance of the buildings where I had left the rest of Kerrass' goods and did my best to listen to what was going on, while strapping the goods around my body.

A group of people came running out. There was shouting and orders were given. Then there was a pause before another group of soldiers or knights came running out, swords drawn, shortly before they realised how stupid it was to have swords drawn in this situation.

Bucket chains were forming now. Say whatever you like but at the end of the day, they were still getting organised. But I had done my job well and the buildings were now well and truly up in flames.

Another pair of knights, followed by a small number of single men. Then another pause.

I counted. I had set myself the target of a hundred heartbeats before I would make a move.

I was going to have to remove the bottom part of my spear to go into the abbey itself. I hated to do it but it was necessary and I knew it. A spear was no good in the confined corridors, even the blade and pole was probably a bit too long for proper use.

Another pair of men ran out.

Fuck it.

I ducked round the entrance and moved inside.

There was no help for it here. My earlier pretence of moving like I belonged, calm and slow, was not going to work now. I was armed with something that wasn't standard issue, carrying boxes that people wouldn't recognise and there was no way that I wasn't going to be recognised for the intruder that I was.

The first room was a guard room. Nothing fancy. There was a table with a few cups on it, some leftover food and a rack of weapons.

Most importantly to someone like me, there was nothing there that was particularly flammable.

I moved on. The next few rooms were sleeping rooms. They looked...boring, standardised as though people used whichever room was closest and unoccupied. Each room had a bed and a bucket. The scent of unwashed human was...oppressive.

The main church area was still ahead of me.

If they followed any kind of standard human psychology then Kerrass would be beneath me somewhere. In a cell. So I was looking for a way down as well.

I did consider trying to grab someone for some information, to try and get the layout of the buildings. The Kid that we had taken had been unforthcoming on that regard. His memories of the place were unreliable, still so tied up in his indoctrination and the other people that we had interrogated could not give us anything useful.

I had to duck into one of the side rooms when a group of armed men came running past. They were calling to each other that the compound was still under attack, an unknown number of attackers. That they didn't know where they were coming from or who they were.

I allowed myself a little grin of triumph.

Still, realistically, nothing to burn. There was also the other concern which was that if I started setting fires at the entrance to the building then my escape route would be cut off.

Our escape route would be cut off, I should say.

I came to a crossroads. The corridors went left and right. I still didn't have time to stop and think, or to survey anything. I had already had a couple of lucky escapes while people went this way and that. I was listening, trying to pick out something useful. I knew that the main church building was to my left. If this building followed any kind of standard building practices then that meant that there would be more rooms to the right. That corridor would then come round to form a square. That was if the entire place hadn't been re purposed during the occupation by the knights though.

I wasn't interested in normal cells. I wanted the important areas. I wanted the guest rooms and the offices. I wanted the hospitals and the store-rooms.

I wanted the priest. Bishop Sansum.

I wanted to look him in the eye and I wanted him to know who it was that killed him and why.

I was carrying too much bulk though. I needed to explore.

I picked one of the cells at random. Not the ones closest to the crossroads but close enough for my purposes. I hid Kerrass' crossbow and potion box and the other bombs under the bed. Along with the last of the oil. I couldn't afford to just start spreading the oil around indiscriminately. I needed to find the place where it would do the most damage.

The kid had told us about Bishop Sansum's room of books and I thought that that might be a good start. But there was still something in me that suggested that the burning of holy books was a bad idea. I wanted to check them first and leave myself open to other ideas.

I also needed to start killing people. It was an unpleasant truth but there it was. Damaging the place wasn't just about damaging the buildings or the possessions of the knights. It was also about damaging the knights themselves. I was being too dainty.

I needed to get my hands dirty.

But I still had objectives.

I changed my mind and went right. Down the line of the cells.

An interesting piece of trivia for you. Most monk cells have hatches in the doors. This is so that the priors and under-priors can keep an eye on the lay brothers. To make sure that they're not getting drunk or partaking of some of the more recreational herbs and medicines that the average monastary grows in it's gardens. In other words, they needed to make sure that the other monks weren't having fun.

As I walked down the row though, it turned out that the majority of the hatches had been covered or nailed shut by the new occupants.

With good reason too, judging by the fact that one of the hatches that were still open allowed me to see one "knight" sexually abusing a young squire.

There was no way for me to get in there and kill just the knight though and after talking to the other young man, I wasn't sure how the squire would react. He could thank me, but he was just as likely, if not more likely to sound the alarm.

I couldn't risk it and did my best to ensure that I would remember the knight's face so that I could make sure that he died.

I moved on.

I was beginning to get nervous though. I was running out of time. Sooner or later the fires were going to go out.

I killed another man. I don't know what had called him from his bed but he was just in the process of coming out of the door, pulling his chainmail over his head and over the woollen gambeson that he was wearing. I was lucky, he didn't even get the chance to pull his sword out of his scabbard as I ran him through, pushing him back into his cell where I left him.

I moved on.

I came to an area where the doors were more evenly spread out. I tried the first one but it was locked. The second one turned me into a large guest room. Rugs on the floor, wide, four poster bed and tapestries on the wall.

There was a rack. And a series of hooks that contained various whips and chains. There were blood smears on some of the straps.

I started to find my anger again. I had needed that.

The next room was...well there's no other word for it. It was a treasure room. Boxes of treasure, coin, jewels and other such things. There were also other things that we might not think of as treasure but that were clearly precious to someone. Children's toys. Glass baubles. A stack of skins and several stuffed toys.

There was a rocking horse.

Even if I had had the rest of the oil on me, I'm not sure that I could have brought myself to burn it.

Then there was another guest room.

Then another.

The fourth had a girl in it. I don't know how old she was but she wasn't old. Filthy blonde hair and a grubby face where startling green eyes peered out at me, wide with fear. She was wrapped, or had wrapped herself in a filthy blanket in an effort to cover her modesty. It was a vain attempt as it didn't come close to covering her. She yelped as I opened the door, quickly throwing the blanket from her bod and moving towards the bed, before realising that she didn't know who I was.

She opened her mouth to do something. I don't know what, Scream? Yell?

I held my hand up and put my finger across my lips and just prayed that she would understand.

I could see her rib-cage under her skin.

Thank the holy fire. She nodded and pulled the blanket around her.

I backed out of the room, not wanting to push my luck.

The next room was a kitchen. There were several people working in it. Hollow eyed fatigue looked back at me from sunken, shadowed eyes. They barely noticed me.

I had gone too far and retraced my steps, coming to one of the side corridors and going down it. Coming round the other side of the square, the gardens, or what used to be the gardens on one side. More cells on the other.

I was getting really worried about time now.

They were going to find that there was no-one attacking them before too much longer leaving them to the inevitable conclusion that the person doing this had either fled, or moved inside the complex.

I came to a T-junction and chose right.

The first door I opened was a hospital of some kind. There were beds and things along with the more..torturous versions of the more modern versions of medical implements that I had seen in Oxenfurt. There was a reassuringly large number of men in the beds, nursing recent wounds. I considered going inside and moving a number of the injured men onto the next stage in their journey. But injured men weren't the problem. They weren't the people that I needed to be afraid of.

I moved to the next one.

I was screaming at myself now, that I needed to calm down. That I needed to take my time but somehow, I just wasn't listening to myself any more.

I found what I was looking for. A room full of books.

I took the time to take a couple of calming breaths. I couldn't rush this. I needed to do it right.

I checked so that I knew the route to get back here and entered slowly. I had my shortened spear out and ready. It was a larger room though, big enough for some proper spear techniques so I attached the lower part of my spear into it's proper position. I instantly felt so much better.

Our information was that when he wasn't in the church building then Sansum could be found here asleep. I couldn't see him immediately though. I carried my spear in my left hand, holding it upright in case the "Bishop" jumped out and struck at me. I searched the room slowly and as methodically as my dropping patience would allow.

As I had privately suspected though, the books on the shelves were worthless. Most were hollow, leather and wooden, bindings that didn't even have any paper in them. If my luck held and I could get in here, do the deed and kill Bishop Sansum then there was absolutely no guilt at all in setting this room on fire.

Shelves and areas were curtained off, making alcoves that couldn't be seen beyond and I guessed that if there was a sleeping area then it would be found behind one of those areas.. More evidence that Sansum cared even less about the written word was easily found as an open, roaring fireplace was there, not guarded against stray sparks. A comfortable chair was set out against it.

I nearly giggled with it.

As I say though, it was all a sham. Shelves that looked as though they were full of books were covered in books were actually covered in a kind of painted cardboard, made to look as though they were books. The effect was convincing from a distance but as you got closer there was no weight or depth to it. It would easily fool people though if the room was kept dark and full of the flickering shadows of a fire.

I moved round a shelf and cautiously pulled a curtain aside.

I found more treasure there. Not the kind that you would be able to sell though, nor the kind that glitters. I found paintings, tapestries and finally, finally I found some books. I selected one at random and opened it up to find that it was a recipe book.

For cake.

I carefully placed it back on the pile, still making sure that it wouldn't make any noise.

The next alcove was made up of similar kinds of stuff. The next was full of ornate looking armour. Ancient and ornamental by today's standards rather than actually useful. They might hold interest for collectors and antique dealers but for the average soldier, metalwork and armour crafting was immeasurably superior to where it had been in the past.

The next alcove had what I was looking for. It was bigger than the others for a start. A small bed, a chest of drawers and a wardrobe, just about filled it.

There was a figure on the bed, wrapped in a blanket, although I couldn't see his face. I had heard about this kind of thing before though and waited for a moment, almost holding my own breath while I watched for the figure on the bed to start breathing.

I almost sobbed in relief when I saw that the figure was indeed breathing.

A part of me just wanted to do the deed now. To get it over with. To have the man killed but there was also another thought. What if this wasn't Sansum? What if it was some kind of double? I would have to be sure. I propped my spear against the wall, keeping the curtain back with it's weight so that I wouldn't tangle myself up in it if I had to flee.

I drew my boot dagger. It was longer and more made for stabbing than the shorter belt knife. I did have to remind myself to never hold a stabbing blade in an under-fist grip though.

I edged forward, as slowly and carefully as I could manage, until I was up around what _should_ be the neck and face region. I reached out with my left hand and started to pull the blanket up until the figure started to move.

No more time for stealth. I pulled the blanket back.

To stare into the eyes of a young knight, armed with a crossbow that was pointing at me.

"Well done." Came a voice from behind me and I heard the sound of armour clanking and moving along with weapons being drawn. "You got further than we would have expected."

I didn't take my eyes from the knight that was slowly straightening from the bed. His face was beginning to bloom into a smile of triumph.

"You still fell for the oldest trick in the book though." The voice said companionably. "The old, decoy in the bed, trick."

"I did consider that." I said, as calmly as I could, risking a glance sideways to see who I was talking to. Bishop Sansum, it seems, couldn't resist the opportunity of a good gloating session. There were also a number of other armed men in the room although I couldn't count them easily. Sansum licked his lips, his skin looked dry and cracked.

I could hear Kerrass' voice again. "Immediate threats. Concentrate on the immediate threats. Live in the moment. One target at a time." I turned back to the knight with the crossbow.

"Is the Witcher still alive?" I asked aloud

"Why worry about that deviant freak?" Sansum asked conversationally before giving out an odd, dog-like bark of laughter. "When it's yourself that you should be concerned about?"

"Indulge me. Call it a last request if you prefer."

"A last request?" Sansum laughed again and I wondered if I could hear the madness in the back of the man's laughter. "Heh, very well. The Witcher lives. He is too valuable a heretic to be killed out of hand. He will be tried publicly for the crimes of being a mutant and a deviant before we draw, quarter and burn him as should happen with all deviant magical creatures."

"So what happens with me?"

"Well, we can't be quite so public with you."

I felt myself grin then and allowed myself a small burst of laughter. Kerrass had been right and I let that triumph be heard in my voice.

"But we can't kill you just yet you see? We need to know what else is out there? That whore -bitch of a vampire for instance. I know who you are Frederick von Coulthard."

I did let myself laugh then. "Actually," I said, still not taking my eyes off the knight in front of me. "It's Doctor Frederick von Coulthard now."

He laughed as well. "I apologise."

"Also," I told him. "I want you to know that I'm going to kill you for that."

"For what?"

"For calling her that. I'm going to kill you for referring to Ariadne as a "Whore-bitch," She is neither a whore, nor a female dog, but for that insult I am going to close my hands round your neck and squeeze until the life leaves your eyes."

"Big talk from a man about to be tortured."

"Big talk for a man about to die."

He laughed again.

"Take him alive." He told the other soldiers. The movement in the corner of my eyes told me that he left. I was still staring at the knight in front of me. He gestured with the crossbow that I should move out into the main room.

"You would have been better off with a knife." I told him.

He frowned at me in confusion.

Here's another little learning point for you. There is a brief delay between pulling the trigger on a crossbow and the bolt actually leaving the bow. This is because of the changes in mechanism and as a result, ideally, you want to have fired your bolt before someone comes within arms reach of you.

I knocked the crossbow aside with my left hand, listened to the thunking sound of the bolt leaving the bow and drove my dagger into the smug little fucker's neck. I remembered to twist and brought the knife back out before pushing myself away.

I made it to my spear and managed to bring it to bear before the first club was swung at my face.

There were quite a lot of them though and there wasn't quite enough room to use the spear properly so instead I used it like a quarterstaff.

I ducked under that first blow and drove the butt of the spear into the man's gut. He, rather gratifyingly, doubled over wheezing but I didn't have time to focus after that. Instead I pushed the spear head forwards and into the groin of another attacker. I thought I saw him fall back but I didn't have time to check.

When fighting I normally prefer to fall backwards from my enemies to give myself room to think and plan. But there was simply no room for that. Instead, I charged them.

The most stupid of things to do but I eanted to make these people hurt.

I did my best to move. I did my best to eave and I know that more than one man staggered backwards from my whirling spear with broken bones and horrible gashes.

Like Kerrass, this wasn't about calm and precise kills now. This was about doing as much damage as I could. It wasn't going to last though. It was an enclosed space and I am no Kerrass. A club blow landed on my left arm numbing it meaning that I lost the strength for the proper use of the spear. Another blow on the back of my knee caused my legs to buckle and a second blow to my back sent me sprawling. I lost my spear then but

I still had my knife which would, arguably have been a better tool for the close quarters work.

But the men were in chain-main and I don't think I did that much damage with it although a couple of men did call out in protest.

The blows started to blur together so that I could no longer distinguish the one from another.

"Turn him over," someone ordered. I know that it wasn't Sansum. This was a rougher voice.

I had enough time to see a boot descending towards my face.

Then I knew nothing more.

All according to plan.


	64. Chapter 64

(Warning: scenes of torture)

I don't dream that often any more.

Which is odd because I used to dream all the time.

When I say "dream" by the way, you should substitute the word "nightmare".

Especially at the start of my travels and a significant chunk of that first year until shortly after my father's death. I would have nightmares about all the things that I had seen, or had happened. But gradually, they just seemed to peter off. As though the dreaming parts of my brain had been burnt out by the terror and the regret that most of my dreams were about.

Most of my dreams are dreams about memories. Those troubled thoughts about the fights and the battles that I have taken part in. Or the hopeless moments when it was only by the skin of our teeth that we managed to survive. I dream about what would have happened if I had not managed to parry that attacker's sword, or what would have happened if I hadn't managed to roll under the attacking creatures lunge. I dream about what would have happened if Maleficent the dragon had just decided to eat me rather than talk to me. I used to have many dreams, terrifying dreams, about what would have happened if Ariadne had decided to start a new reign of terror in Angraal and what would have happened to Kerrass and I if she had decided to act on that impulse.

I don't have those particular dreams any more in case you're wondering. On those rare occasions when I _do_ dream about Ariadne, I dream about something else instead.

When I do dream, I dream extremely vividly, so vividly that when I wake up, it often takes me a moment or two to realise that I'm awake and no-longer need to be terrified. That horrible moment where you find that you have climbed out of bed, the cold of the floor seeping into your feet and you have to remember where you are and what is happening. That split second where you wonder if _this_ is the dream.

I recently had cause to talk to Dr Shani about this. She was at the castle visiting with Sir Rickard and we were talking about sleep and it's importance in the healing of someone. I told her about my dreams and she asked what I did when I wake up from those kinds of dreams.

I told her that I often take the time to have a drink and to relieve myself.

"But doesn't that wake you up even further?" She asked.

"Well, yes."

"But that would mean that it will take you longer to get back to sleep meaning that you would get less rest."

This is true, but the entire point _is_ to wake myself up, to shock my mind out of whatever thought processes had led me to having a nightmare in the first place. When I _do_ eventually go back to sleep, I don't want to return to wherever the dream left off. To wherever the false memory restarts with the dragons teeth impaling me through the gut, and the first rough caress of it's tongue and the burning of it's saliva.

I want to dream about something else or, more preferably, have no dreams at all, instead leaving me with a quiet and dreamless, infinitely more restful sleep.

Why do I bring this up?

Because when I was knocked unconscious by that knight of the Flaming sword in their small enclosure, I dreamt.

It was an interesting dream and not one that I could remember ever having before. I dreamt about Father Jerome all that time ago.

For the newer readers, this will have been shortly after the adventure with the beast of Amber's crossing and I was struggling to recover from my injuries. Kerrass had left me with a priest named Father Jerome for some spiritual guidance and we would often spend our days getting his little shrine and hospital ready for the winter or sat by the side of the road, watching the world go by and talking.

The subjects of these conversations would shock a lot of people. Before I had been a party to them, they would have shocked me.

You see, the thing that he was telling me was both _how_ to torture someone but also, how to withstand torture.

Father Jerome had once been a Questioner of the Church of Eternal Flame in Novigrad. He had also been really really good at his job but eventually, as happens with many of these people, he had a nervous breakdown of sorts and fled. He now tended a small shrine and did his best to see to the spiritual and bodily needs of the local populace.

I would like to say that it was a horrible topic of things to talk about and I don't know why he chose to tell me about it. I was recovering from being tortured by an otherworldly, demonic entity that had access to my body and soul to use as it's plaything for what had felt like aeons. In our world, the time that passed would only have been a matter of minutes, certainly no more than an hour but the soul's perception of time is not so regimented as our bodies perception of time and it had tortured me to the edge of my sanity and beyond.

I suppose that it could be argued that Jerome was giving me the knowledge of how it all worked so that I would lose my fear of it but I never asked him why he was giving me this particular insight into the mind of a torturer.

As I say, I would like to say that it was an awful topic of conversation but in truth I found the subject fascinating. Not the talk about the implements or the things that you do, or have done to yourself, but the psychology behind the entire process, the interrogation and the questioning.

That I found fascinating.

It was a memory dream. I remembered that time and place so clearly, details that I had forgotten about or not thought about in ages came and went across my vision and brain. The smell of the place, the wood-smoke and the heady smells of the herb-gardens that Jerome kept. I remembered the weakness that I still felt and the incredible sense of fatigue that still racked my body at the time as well as the listlessness and the fog that would drift through my brain at a moment's notice.

At the time I had struggled to concentrate on what Jerome was telling me. But now I could hear it clearly, so clearly that if I just reached out. Just...held my hand out and reached for it.

But my head felt heavy and I could feel it rolling around on my neck.

"He's waking up," someone said. I had the feeling of being carried, of being dragged along a corridor, my feet scuffing along the ground. I felt my eyes trying to roll up into the back of my head and it felt like an amazing amount of effort to peel my eyelids open and to hold my head up. My head felt like a boulder and I was mystified as to how I could possibly support it on the fragile neck on top of a fragile body. The edges of my vision seemed to rattle, as though my eyes were being tapped by the end of a finger.

I don't know but I might have groaned.

"No Wait," another voice yelled before I heard, rather than felt, another impact. To my jaw this time.

I will admit to thinking that it was a little bit unfair. I wouldn't have needed much of a blow to send me back to unconsciousness. If you had left me alone then I would probably have dropped off back to sleep with relative ease.

I then proved my theory about needing time to shake myself awake from dreams otherwise I would just return to them where I had left off. I was back, sitting on the stone wall listening to Father Jerome deliver his lecture on the psychology of the torturer.

"It's a truth to remember," he told me. I could hear him clearly as though he was sat next to me in truth rather than just in memory, "that if you ever find yourself at the mercy of a man, whether on the torturer's table or at the wrong end of a blade. Then hope that you are at the mercy of an evil man."

I had remembered laughing at this and asked him why?

"Because a good man will do his job. Whether that's in the killing or the torturing. The evil man will want to gloat. He will want you to prove him right because that way you justify his actions for him. The good man know's that he's doing the right thing and does what needs to be done. An evil man, you can normally get him talking. If he's talking then he's not torturing you."

"So what do you do then?"

"Engage the questioner. Remember that the torturer and the Questioner are not always the same person. The torturer is just a tool, a weapon if you like. It's the questioner that you have to deal with. Also, always, always be the smartest person in the room. Control the situation."

His face seemed to flicker in front of me as the smell of stale urine washed over me.

"Remember that you have what they want." Jerome continued talking. "So always remember that they can hurt you but never, ever, let them be in control of the situation."

I felt liquid hit me in the face.

Jerome was grinning at me as my head started to feel heavy again and my neck rolled around on my shoulders.

"Keep the control and play for time." Jerome's voice said again.

I was sat down, in a chair. I kept up the pretence of struggling to consciousness for a moment longer while I took stock of the situation. Still had all my arms and legs. All ten fingers and all ten toes. Indeed I was still in the clothes that I had broken into the compound with, so that was a good start. Wooden chair from the feel of the grain under my fingertips.

Ooh, that was a question to work on, how was I tied up? My legs weren't tied to the legs of the chair. I was secured around the waist, and my hands were tied at the wrist. Together not to the chair.

Heh.

Ok, promising start.

"Is he awake?"

Someone grabbed me by the hair and tilted my head back. To try and look at my face. I rolled my eyes back.

"Not quite."

"More then."

I got another face full of piss for my trouble. This one was warmer than the last one, the acrid smell was doing it's best to clean out my brain and scour the wool from my thoughts. My body hadn't caught up yet though. It still wanted to slip into unconsciousness and go to sleep. I felt for the aches and pains around my body.

I had a worrying amount of experience now with being able to catalogue my own injuries. A couple of bruised ribs, some stiffness and pain in my legs, left arm numb and then...obviously...my head was ringing.

I forced myself to smile.

"You see?" I croaked before hawking and spitting. "Here's the first lesson in interrogating someone. A free lesson if you like."

I still couldn't focus very well. There were a number of shapes in front of me, red torso's with pink blobs on top which suggested heads. Just a couple of them.

"Never start with the head." I told them. "It leaves the subject groggy and confused. You can't torture someone and ask them questions if they keep slipping out of consciousness."

"We can always wake you up."

I laughed. Dear flame but it hurt. "No, you can force me back to consciousness, but that's not the same thing as waking me up. Dipshit."

I got a slap for my troubles and let myself sink back into the warm velvety blackness of unconsciousness.

"What you have to do is to try and figure out what they want from you." Jerome told me. Do they want information? Or are they just getting off on causing you pain?"

"What's the difference?" I asked him. I couldn't tell if I had asked him at the time or whether I was asking him now. They must have hit me harder than I had thought if I was beginning to lose track of what was real and what was not.

"The difference is simple as it decides how you need to play it. In either case though, it's a case of playing for time. Make them tell you what they want. Not the surface questions that everyone asks to try and ascertain whether you're lying or not. But the real questions, the underlying questions. The one's that they're terrified of exposing, to you, or even to themselves."

I blinked furiously.

"My name..." My mouth was filled with blood though. "My name is Frederick von Coulthard. Son of Baron von Coulthard and younger brother of Arch-bishop Coulthard of Tretogor. I demand treatment proper and appropriate to my rank."

"We know who you are, heretic," someone said calmly. I lifted my head and tried to focus on my tormentors.

"Heretic?" I asked, having to spit again. I didn't want to think about the taste in my mouth. "Who are you to call me heretic?"

This time they hit me in the gut.

I groaned with it, there was no way that I could roll, or compress myself with the blow so it was impossible for me to lessen the impact.

"Play for time," Jerome seemed to say in my ear.

"Yeah," I said aloud as though I had just finished considering for something. "I can see how you might confuse violence for some kind of witty and intellectual retort, but to those of us that are more civilised will quickly realise that you haven't answered the question."

"We will ask the questions here." A man got close to my face. He was wearing a chain-mail coif and would have been described, by a couple of my female friends as being "pretty." Sharp nose and cheekbones, large eyes and long eyelashes.

I head-butted him. There wasn't much power to it but suddenly there was this face in front of me that I didn't like and, well, you take these pleasures where you find them.

"Bastard," he shouted, staggering back, clutching at his face. He pulled his hands away to see if he was bleeding. He wasn't but his eyes were streaming. He stormed up and kicked me in the chest sending me flying backwards.

The only avoidance that I managed was that I kept my head from bouncing off the floor as I landed on my back.

I started laughing as the whole thing was patently ridiculous.

The man that I had head-butted was being talked at by Sansum. My vision was clearing now and I could take a good look around to see where I was. I guessed that I was in the main "church" part of the place. The atmosphere was thick with smoke as there were many fires dotted around the place, including a large pyre that had taken the place of where an alter would be in a normal church. The smoky atmosphere told me that there was a distinct lack of ventilation but also, that they had been burning people here.

There were a lot of people watching, knights and their squires all watching me with angry, sick hunger in their eyes. Most of them looked dirty, covered in soot and a few in blood.

I didn't bother counting. It seemed rather pointless.

"But he hit me." The young knight complained to the Bishop. Completely independently I noticed that the poisonous little oik's chain-mail was painted gold. "He hit me."

"And he will be punished my son, but for now, we need to know what he knows. Now go and check on the Witcher as I asked."

"Yes," I called over to them. "You can't kill me yet." I made myself sing the old children's boast. "I know something you don't know," I grinned at him.

He stormed over to me. "You're going to wish they let me kill you. After the things that they're going to do to you."

I made a face. "Flame but I already wish they'd let you kill me. The perfume that you're wearing is awful." I made a gagging sound.

The knight spat again and stormed off leaving me facing Bishop Sansum.

"I haven't forgotten by the way." I told him. "Having your crony come and intimidate me is still another evasion so I ask again. Who are you to call me heretic?"

This time it was Bishop Sansum that came forward.

"That's an interesting question," he said, leaning forward so that he could look me in the eye. I noticed that he stayed out of range of any kind of attack that I might make though. "Who am I?"

I grinned at him.

"Very good." Jerome whispered in my ear. "Any time that he's not causing you pain is time well spent. Keep control. Don't let him get so angry that he starts hurting you, hook him if you can, keep his interest. But also have a look around. It's possible that he's not really the questioner. Are you also playing to an audience? He might just kill you to prove his strength to his followers or this entire display might be for their benefit. That's a risk on his part as it means that he needs to keep them happy. Keep control. Play for time. It's all about the time."

I considered my approach carefully.

"May I have some water," I spat again. "I'm struggling to speak round this awful taste in my mouth."

Sansum considered, his eyes flickered from side to side. I saw him glance at the assembled knights and then back at me again.

Jerome's voice was so clear that if I didn't know any better then I would have sworn it was real. "See that?" he told me. "That's a tell. He's thinking. So try and use that to follow his thought process. He's looking at the knights. Why? Then he looks at you. What's he thinking when he looks at you?"

"He hates me." I thought back.

"How can you tell?"

"His eyes tighten, his lip curls and he grits his teeth."

"Very good. So why's he looking at the crowd?"

"To judge their mood."

"So?"

"So he's considering between what he wants to do to you and what he thinks the crowd will expect."

I saw Sansum's face firm into decision.

"Of course." He said with a smile. He gestured and another bucket was thrown into my face. Fortunately this one was definitely water.

"Thank you." I told him. "So, to answer your question. I know that your name isn't Sansum."

"Oh?"

"Oh yes."

"And how do you know that?"

"I hear things."

"Really, from whom."

I smiled at him. "Friends of mine." I grinned in what I hoped was an approximation of cheekiness.

Sansum sighed. "We know that you captured the lad, Maxwell."

"Freed him, you mean. From his tormentors." I felt the bile rise in my throat along with my anger. I could _feel_ Jerome shake his head in disapproval.

"He would never have known such a thing. So how _did_ you find that out?"

"You mean I was right?" I asked him before bursting out laughing. "By the holy sacred flame. You are just no good at this at all are you?"

I laughed at him long and hard. He stepped close and another knight came with him to hold my head back by the hair.

"Oh you are quite wrong. HERETIC." He screamed the epithet into my face. "You are about to discover just how good we are at causing pain." He nodded and the other man let go of my hair.

I shook my head. "Oh I know that you can inflict pain." I told him. "But that's not the same is it. Flogging someone, beating someone, raping someone. All of these things I have no doubt that you can do."

I pretended to consider the matter for a moment.

"Ok, you can do all of those things _badly_ , but the extraction of information is quite different. That, you truly suck at."

I grinned at him again.

"In fact, you are so terrible at it that you haven't even asked me a real question yet. What kind of torturer are you?"

"Very well..."

"But first," I grinned at his discomfort and confusion. "You should really answer my question. I asked first after all."

It was uncomfortably like playing a round of school-yard taunting.

He looked confused.

"WHO ARE YOU TO CALL ME HERETIC?" I demanded putting a good amount of hatred and fury behind my voice. I supported it properly as well. Giving it the strength from the diaphragm as well so that they could all hear me. "YOU, WHO COMMAND MURDERERS. YOU WHO ORDER THE TORTURE AND MURDER OF GOOD, FLAME FEARING MEN AND WOMEN. YOU WHO CONDONE THE ABUSE OF YOUR OWN NOVICES."

My voice cracked. Too much smoke inhalation.

"You. You shame the cassock that you wear. You contravene the flame's holy laws. Of all people here, _you_ are the heretic. _You_ are the murderer. _You_ are the one that should be burnt at the stake."

Sansum regarded me for a long time.

"Are you quite finished?" He said after a long time.

I considered the matter for a moment before nodding.

"Then kindly cease with your tantrums." He told me. He turned to say something to one of his subordinates who brought him a chair. "They tell me that you are a man of learning, _heretic_ and oh yes. I know who you are. I know who your brother is and I also know, that even now, there are many who are looking to see to his downfall and overthrow. He is but a symbol of the churches growing corruption and decadence."

I laughed at him. "You obviously haven't met my brother. Corruption? You can't corrupt someone like Mark. He made his name by making the church give away a good chunk of it's wealth to the poor. He doesn't need money, he's not interested in wealth, he hardly ever drinks and he's not that interested in women. What would you corrupt him with."

"Precisely." Sansum told me. "He weakened the church. He took away the churches power in these things. He saw to it that the church armies were reduced so that we would find it harder to police the countryside. To keep it free from heretics and sinners."

Jerome again. "Good, keep him talking. You have him engaged now. Keep him there. The longer that he talks, the longer that he isn't torturing you."

"The countryside would have been free from sin alright." I answered Sansum. "There would have been no food. People would have been dying in their hundreds, in their thousands. Keeping a church army would have meant that there would have been no-one to farm the fields, no-one to raise the cattle, no-one to hunt the game."

"The flame would have provided."

"The flame would have provided." I mimicked. "That's not the way the flame works. If that was the way it worked then all the beggars, the poor and the starving who go to sleep at night, praying for the flame to deliver them from their trials, would be sleeping on beds with full bellies."

"But the flame only provides for the truly holy."

"And who gets to define what is holy?" I asked. "You?"

"Me." He declared. "Arch-Bishop Sansum and the holy Scripture," he said it grandly, appealing to his congregation and they cheered on cue.

"Ok, first of all. You've been promoted since I last heard your name and believe me, I would have heard about that. Secondly, let's talk about that scripture shall we. Because I've read my scriptures from cover to cover and I would ask you where you find the justification for burning innocent herb-women at the stake. Women who's only crime was to know a little bit about healing and a little bit about herbs in order to make sure that the villagers under her care might have help to survive the winter. So that they can help women give birth and combat diseases"

"Childbirth is a necessary torment. The trial makes the child stronger as well as the mother."

"Bullshit. Childbirth is a horrific event, alleviated only by the help of someone who know's what they're doing."

"By Witchcraft."

"Knowledge isn't witchcraft."

"But the use of magic is."

"Prove that they're using magic then. Go on, prove it."

"Their own books and herbs and spells prove that they are witches."

"So?"

"So, does the scripture not say, "Suffer not a Witch to live","

"Yes it does. I will admit that. It does indeed say that. You know why?"

"That's beside the point."

"Because Hierarch Hemmelfart of Novigrad was getting upset at the increased and increasing power of the Sorceresses over the ruling class. He was jealous of the power of people like Phillippa Eilhart over Radovid and Triss Merigold over Foltest and opined that those positions of power should be taken by churchmen."

"He was right then."

"That's as maybe, but rather than fight their influence by providing good and honest advice and displaying all the virtues of a holy man and showing the world why that was a good thing. He instead chose to adjust scripture to follow his own ambitions inserting the line into scripture to justify the persecution. Meaning that all of those people died because of one man's ambition."

"The Hierophant is the final adjudicator of such things and if he decides that Hemmelfart is correct then he is correct."

"Because the Hierophant is completely free of influence of course. If you want to revert to older traditions then you need to return to the older forms of things. The persecution of the magical class is a recent addition to the church."

I should say that I was and am aware that I was arguing with a fanatical madman and that there is no way of winning such an argument. But it was also why I was arguing with him. He wanted me to believe him, he wanted to win the argument and the more he tried to convince me then the more time we were taking.

"The rest of the churches disagreed with Hemmelfart. The Hierarch's of Tretogor and Vengerberg protested the orders. The Viziman Hierarch also resisted the orders let alone the Hierarchs of Aedirn and Kaedwen, who's Kings were advised by Wizards and Sorcerors. Not Sorceresses. I notice that the scripture says nothing about "Suffer not a Warlock to live"."

"Magic is an abomination. It is not a natural thing."

"Science would argue. What you mean, is that magic is not natural to this world, am I right?"

He visibly brightened. "Correct. Magic came to this world through the Conjunction of spheres and we did nothing to combat it. Instead of refusing it's unholy..."

"Yes yes. I've heard this one." I told him "But if magic isn't natural to this world then neither are we. Mankind came to this world via the conjunction of spheres ourselves."

"Lies."

"The Dwarves and the gnomes who's history goes back, literally, thousands of years, tell us that elves and humans weren't sighted on the world before 1600 years ago give or take. Hell, we only came to the Yaruga basin a few centuries ago. Magic is as native to this world as we are."

"Blasphemy."

"Prove it." I told him. "Prove that it's blasphemy. Prove that I'm lying. Which passage of the scriptures is it that says that Magic is the abomination. I will admit to the passage about "suffer not a Witch to live" but not that one."

"I don't have to prove it." Sansum sneered. "I am an Arch-Bishop whereas you are not and it is holy because I say that it is holy."

"Really?" I did my best to put as much disbelief into the word as I could. "Really? That's your argument. That you are an Arch-Bishop and therefore that makes whatever you say and do holy? Well fuck me sideways I didn't know that that's how it worked. Very well. I'm the Hierophant, did you know that? I got ordained a week ago, voted for by the other cardinals the day after that and ascended to the throne the day before yesterday and I'm telling you that it's bullshit."

"You are not ordained." he waved his hands dismissively. "You are just an uppity little heretic who doesn't know what you're talking about."

"I know more than you. How many other people know that your great collection of books is actually a fake. You have maybe a dozen books in your rooms and..."

"Be Silent..."

"And from what I saw there there was not a single copy of the tenets of the flame or the Catechisms of faith nor was there a copy of "The Life and times of the Prophets," or "The Letters of St Lebioda," which are required readings of any priest. You know how I know that?"

"Did you search the entire room? We know that you did not. So don't bother trying to answer."

"All I'm saying is that if you are going to call me heretic, then I deserve to be shown the proper treatment. A panel of investigation needs to be convened. I get to justify my actions and explain why I did what I did."

"You are condemned out of your own mouth. We are well aware of you _Lord_ Frederick."

I'm not often sensitive about my title but the way he said it, with scorn and disgust made me ache to put my thumbs through his fucking eyes.

"You," he went on, "Who consorts with vampires..."

"Technically," I interrupted, "there hasn't been any "consorting," done yet. We're kind of waiting for our wedding night for that sort of..."

"You, who are friends with mutants."

"Yeah ok, you have me there, but I'm not a mutant myself so..."

"You, who supports your family in their deviancy..."

"Well that's just a case of the fact that Sam doesn't like to wash his...hang on...what?"

"Your sister, lying with another woman, and a Sorceress no less."

"You're telling me that my sister is a deviant because she prefers the romantic company of women to the company of men? _I_ prefer the romantic company of women to men, so I don't understand the problem. Unless you're still holding to the political practices of Hemmelfart in condemning female practitioners of magic."

"It's an abomination."

"Who says?" I demanded.

"The scriptures say so."

"No they don't."

"It is an abomination." He insisted before taking up a position as though he was about to deliver a proclamation. "And lo it was said to them that Man shall not lie with man and woman shall not lie with woman as it is an abomination."

"No it doesn't. It says nothing of the kind."

"I..."

"It doesn't say that." I insisted trying to catch his eyes as well as the other men around them. "I looked it up. What it says is that " _You_ shall not lie with man as with a woman. It is an abomination." Which is quite an old and vague statement. First of all, who is the "you" in the statement as that might suggest that even women aren't allowed to "lie" with men. Speaking of which, define "lie" for me. Does that mean lying down or telling lies? In short does that mean that I'm allowed to tell lies with, or to, a woman but not another man?...Bit harsh on the woman there. The other verse from the same section that talks about this kind of thing actually says, "If a man lies with a male then both have committed an abomination."

"Still not a condemnation of what my sister and her lover do. It refers only to what men do to each other."

"Be silent."

I ignored him.

"So what they get up to in the privacy of their own homes is actually ok according to the scriptures."

"The scriptures tell us that such things are evil."

"No they don't. They tell us nothing of the kind. By the way, if homosexuality is a sin, then I saw one of your knights committing that same sin with someone as I came through the cloister earlier. I told you about it earlier and you said nothing then either. Not very moral of you there. Sounds a bit like...One rule for us and another rule for everyone else. So, now that we've cleared up the fact that what my sister gets up to is absolutely fine, according to the scriptures, then we can move onto your next point please?"

"The church has long said that a woman's proper place is to please their husbands. Not their wives, their husbands."

I laughed at him again. He was trying to fight me on _my_ battlefield. Kerrass knows about swords and monsters, Emma knows about Boardrooms and mercantile meetings. But this? This is my place. The debate of ideas and what people said historically and why.

"Yes they did. They did indeed. They told women that for many years, that their place was to be seen and not heard. You know why? There are three reasons. The first reason is that for a religion to spread then it needs more followers, the quickest and easiest way to do that is for children to be born into the religion and so they want the women to be little baby making machines to pump out the next generation of fire worshippers."

"This is blasphemy,"

"The second point is that most of the other early religions. The ones that predate the holy fire and the landing at the Yaruga. Gods and Goddesses like Veyopatis, Melitele, even the Lionhead."

"Say not their name here."

"Don't worry, I won't but I don't think that there is much desecration that I could do that you scum-fucks haven't already done.

"But Melitele is a female religion for women. Veyopatis is well known to have many priestesses."

I laughed at a sudden thought.

"For the ignorant in the audience that's the word for female priests."

"Oh you are going to burn in the purifying fires of..."

"The only religion that is almost exclusively male is the worship of Kreve. I find it interesting that that's the one that has been adopted by the eternal fire and the same, vice versa. The priesthood of Kreve probably wanted some kind of ally against all the women that were hanging around, being all divine around the place.

"That's another reason that women are told that they're second class citizens so that they don't get ideas above their station and start to believe that they might be able to start becoming important people in the church. The senior priests want the priesthood to be a boys club where they can all sit around and jerk each other off with how powerful and wealthy they are."

"A priesthood that includes your brother." Someone shouted. I craned my neck to try and see who it was but they were behind me.

"Yes. Brother Mark is considered a progressive which is why Sansum here doesn't like him very much. He likes doing things like, giving all his money away to provide food and shelter for displaced war refugees and allowing anyone who has a calling to support the church."

" _Arch-Bishop_ Sansum," One of the knight's in front of me insisted. Sansum had retreated from my constant stream of words and was examining the implements of torture.

Jerome came to me again as I saw Sansum pick up something that looked like a vice. Jeromes voice drifted to me from out of the murmuring in the crowd.

"Pay no attention to the revealing of the instruments. Torturers use it as a method of intimidation. They will take out a table and from some kind of bag they will take their time setting out knives, bodkins, thumb-screws, needles, bottles of unidentifiable stuff that you won't recognise, syringes, hooks, straps, gags, funnels, tubes and all kinds of other things. This technique works on men of excessive imagination. Men who like to feel as though they're in control of any given situation. Men who inflict pain and like to feel as though they are the boss. Nobles who beat their servants, priests who abuse their congregation, wife-beaters and child-abusers.

"They know the horrible abuses that can be done to a person and they see, in the displayed implements, everything that they have ever done to other people and they are afraid of having it done to themselves. Ignore them. Most of them are for show. Proper torturers have methods and they only need one or two individual methods of causing pain or discomfort. Good torturers rarely need anything more than a knife or a hot piece of metal."

I nodded my acknowledgement of the point and tore my eyes away from what was happening.

"Now where was I, ah yes. My third point. This goes back to the founding of the eternal fire. You have to have studied this kind of thing to find it out. I'm a historian so I spent a good amount of time looking into the historical basis for some of the more...wacky parts of scripture but I was interested in. But in this case we're going to talk about the founding of the cult of eternal fire."

Someone had brought one of those fire-bowls up to where Sansum was setting himself up. I watched as he put a poker deep into the hissing fire.

"Don't look at it." Jerome told me. "It is only pain. You've known pain."

"So yeah... When we, I mean humanity. Came to the mouth of the Pontar we found the Elven ruins on that place that we now call Novigrad. Yes, I'm sorry to the doubters, Novigrad is not purely the product of human ingenuity. The Elves got their first in the same way that they did for a lot of the "great" cities of mankind. Vizima, Trotogr, Vengerberg, Nilfgaard City. Toussaint doesn't even bother hiding it. But anyway back to the story."

Sansum gestured to one of the knights who drew a dagger and came towards me. I had already been stripped of my leather armour. He took hold of the collar of my shirt and used his dagger to strip me of the garment.

"That was a good shirt," I complained. "Not that I object that much." I told him, "but at least buy me dinner first."

Not the greatest joke in my arsenal but you work with what you've got.

"The colonists came to Novigrad and they climbed up through the city and across the bridge up to where the cathedral now rests. Most of the colonists were establishing camp and it was only a few of the settlers that had chosen to explore. Nor did it happen at the point of landing. They didn't land and then walk up the road to see what was going on, they needed to make sure they had somewhere to sleep first and that there were proper supplies laid in for when times got a bit harder as they always do in these early settlements."

Sansum had pulled on a huge leather glove. The type that blacksmiths use when they had to hold onto hot metal. He drew the poker from the fire and examined the end. It was certainly hissing smoking but he didn't seem satisfied. I assume that he wanted the metal to be red or even white hot before bringing it over. A bit of a ridiculous hope to me as the little firebowl was certainly hot, but it takes real heat to be able to make an iron poker glow red.

"So anyway, the colonists were mostly sorting themselves out when a small group of kids, young kids, no more than sixteen at best, got bored with all of the endless chores that go with establishing a new settlement and decided to go and explore."

My lips were getting dry and I had to lick them so that I could continue speaking.

"Off up the hill they walk and they came to the ruined elven building, probably a temple, that had been deserted for some time and they saw a bright, warm glow emanating from it. There, they found a large fire pit, huge it was, easily ten feet across."

"The scriptures say that it was fifty feet," someone called.

"Does it now?" I answered with a smile. "The only person that would say that the "Bowl of Flame" was that large would be someone who hasn't actually seen it. I have, I was taken to Novigrad by my parents at a young age so that I could be baptised into the faith. I had already been baptised in my families shrine but they kind of just wanted to make sure. I've been back and seen it many times. Even describing it as ten foot across is probably a bit of a stretch.

"But...the scriptures say nothing of the sort. The scriptures describe a bowl, but mostly they are too busy talking about the fire rather than the bowl that contained it.

"Also," I went on. "The whole point of the eternal fire is that we need to keep it alive. It isn't an entirely supernatural flame, it needs fueling. Can you imagine how much wood and oil it would take to keep a fire burning where the bowl was fifty feet across. My understanding is that, as it is, the church has to maintain several forests of it's own in order to make sure that the fire never goes out."

I was babbling now. Sansum had withdrawn the poker again and was advancing on me.

"Continue please, heretic," he told me. "I am interested in hearing the remains of your story."

"Which story?" I asked him. "The one about the founding of the church of the eternal fire? Very well. So this small group of children went into the temple and they found the bowl and the flame. They found that there hearts were gladdened and they felt a sense of security that they had not felt before. That they had not seen before..."

I screamed as the hot metal was touched to the side of my arm. It wasn't held for long but it felt like it took for ages as my flesh started to cook.

Again my brain went somewhere else. I was still conscious now but at the same time I could _see_ Jerome sat on a chair watching the whole thing.

"There are several ways to deal with the pain." He told me. "First of all, you have to understand that the use of pain is there for several reasons. One of the main ones is so that he can exert control over you. He wants to show you who's in charge of the situation and that he can do anything he likes to you. The pain is a means to an end. So what is his end? Remember that he hasn't asked you any questions yet.

"Secondly. Focus on what you want out of the situation. Never believe that you have no power as you sit in the chair or are strapped to the table. You have everything that the questioner or the torturer wants. As I say, it's about power. He wants something from you. Whether that is information, a confession, or an acknowledgement of power. He wants you to beg for him to stop, is the most common example. That's the point when the questioner asks his questions or pushes the confession over the table for you to sign your name.

"So you have to decide what you want out of all of this. If you wish to survive then you must play for time until he starts to get desperate. Then you start to give him what he wants, but in stages. Think about what information that you can give him and in what order. What's the least important piece of information that you can give him? Can you get away with lying? But ration the truth. Don't spend the coin of truth in one go, other wise he will think it was all too easy and just jump straight back into hurting you. So what do you want from him?

"But above all, don't let him take charge of the situation. Be in control, be smarter, be angrier, be stronger than he thinks you are. Fight him. Remember that he can only see and hear what you show him."

I nodded my thanks to Jerome's apparition and wondered if I was losing my mind.

Then I wondered if it mattered.

I looked up at Jerome who was standing over me. He was examining the small part of my skin that had stuck to the hot metal of the poker. I drew my lips back in a snarl.

"But then." My voice came back. "But then they looked over and they saw a man, or at least they thought that it was a man, scripture certainly said that it was a man, but he was sat next to the fire as though he had been tending to it. They greeted him warmly and asked who he was and he told them, "I guard the Eternal Fire; so long as it will flame in this place, so long this city and your kin will endure" The kids ran off downt he hill to tell the people about this, other colonists went up to investigate the fire and indeed found it there but the man who told them about this had disappeared and although they searched for him, he could not be found."

It was as though Sansum had listened to my story for a moment as though he had been caught up in it before he nodded, and pressed the poker back to my flesh. At first I tried to clench my jaw against the pain. I tried to show them that it wasn't affecting me. I looked over at Jerome's face.

"I was talking about combating pain." he told me. "Remember that what he is doing is torturing your body to get at your mind. Your soul doesn't care, he can't touch your soul, but that's what he's doing. Hurting the body so that the mind rebels. Your body is a complex system full of nerves and veins and capillaries. Instinct and intelligence all wrapped up in a giant, leather bag, mostly made up of water. So how do you combat pain?

"Your body knows what it's doing. Let it get on with the business of being hurt. Right now it is flooding your body with adrenaline and other chemicals to help combat the pain. Help it. Get angry. Get more endorphins flowing. Let your body scream if it wants.

"But always remember that he is hurting your body to get at your mind. He can't touch your mind so he's going for your body."

I looked away from Jerome and back up Sansum. I let myself smile.

"So," I said clearly. "These kids told of what they'd seen far and wide. They spent their time tending the fire and spreading the word of what they had seen."

Sansum turned and went back to the fire-bowl before pushing the poker back into the hottest part of the furnace.

"Eventually," I went on. "Followers of the warrior god Kreve came and listened to the children's tales of what they had seen and got together and agreed that what the kids had seen was an aspect of _their_ God Kreve. This, in the biggest example of different religions joining with each other in an effort not to get wiped out. Hell, even the traditional "enemies" of Melitele and Kreve got their shit together when they were threatened by the eternal sun from the south. But I digress."

Sansum had taken the poker out of the fire again and was examining the end unhappily. I could see that he was arguing with someone about it but neither side seemed particularly happy about it.

"I've completely gotten turned around with this and lost my point." I told my audience. "Ah yes. I was talking about women in religion. Here's my point. Something that I learned from the study of history over scripture.

"Scripture tells us that there were two founders of the Cult of the eternal Fire and that they were friends called Samuel and Terrence."

Yes, long time readers, my brother was named for one of those two men. One of my points of gratitude towards my parents was that I wasn't named after Terrence. Frederick is bad enough as it gets shortened to Freddie but I'm not sure I could cope with being called Terrence.

No offence to anyone out there called Terrence.

"We know that the two friends became very protective of the flame. Scripture tells us that they had two ideas and therefore that the cult of the eternal flame should have two branches to the church. The first branch should be martial and proactive in the protection of the flame. This was headed up by Samuel as he was the more martial of the pair. He told his friend that in order to keep the fire burning then it needed to be protected from anything that might cause it and the city harm.

"He would go on to travel the surrounding lands, hunting out those monsters that might grow to threaten the growing city of Novigrad. He had some luck at the pursuit before he tried to take on a dragon and got eaten for his trouble."

My audience rumbled their discontent at this statement. Sansum was coming back with his poker. "St Samuel was martyred protecting the city from monsters." He intoned, "we should all be so lucky to martyr ourselves in such a way."

"In which case, Witchers should be saints too as they regularly die, protecting areas of civilisation from monsters."

"Which they charge the people for." Sansum protested.

"Who is going to give the Witcher something to eat then. You?"

In place of a retort, Sansum pushed the hot metal against my other arm. This time he dragged the metal down my arm.

I let my body scream. A scream that left me panting for breath when it was done.

"What's the matter?" I snarled as the pain began to recede back to the agony of burnt flesh. "Couldn't come up with a better retort?"

This time he went for my shoulder.

I found some laughter in the depths of my belly when he was done.

"Every time," I told him. "Every time you fail to respond to one of my arguments. You prove me right in the face of your followers."

He examined the metal again before turning back to the fire.

"So Samuel got eaten by a dragon. We don't know much about him really as it was Terrence that tells us most of these things, including the fact that Samuel got eaten by a dragon when it's much more likely that he died shitting himself to death by the side of the road, given the time that he was travelling around. Terrence had stayed in Novigrad and wrote his famous letters to the various Kings and Queens of the continent, preaching the good word of the eternal flame.

"It's from his writings that we know about Samuel's martyrdom at the hands of a dragon. It's from these writings that we get the commonly held tenets of faith, including the thing about Homosexuality and the hatred of monsters. He told us that the holy flame keeps us safe from monsters which is why it must be protected at all costs. It's from these things that pricks like you find their justification from committing appalling acts. He preached protection. It was him that set up the two arms of the church, the knights and the priests. It was him that ordered the fires built and he was the first Hierophant of the Church of the Eternal fire. Stealing the term of "Hierophant" from the druids as he went.

"What he didn't mention was his sister."

Sansum had withdrawn the poker from the flame again and was advancing on me.

"That's right," I told him. "Saint Terry had a sister. It wasn't just two male friends that went up to the fire it was also Terry's sister. We don't know much about her because her brother spent a good amount of his time ignoring her and having her name taken out of the records."

This time I didn't even try to stop myself from screaming.

"Because Terrence and his sister didn't get on." I continued after a moment. "She would tell everyone things like "We need to see the fire as a welcome, as the warmth of comfort and a beacon in dark places." and "We need to use it to guide people towards their homes and make Novigrad a place that they would want to travel." She used to preach that "The fire is not literal. The fire is not something that only exists in the church but also in ourselves, that we are the flame and we need to carry that warmth of hope and compassion and comfort every where we go." As Terrence got more and more tyrannical and extreme in his views, his sister got more..."

I screamed, and screamed and screamed.

"How dare you speak against St Terrence, the first of the saints?"

"But he wasn't though was he. There were plenty of saints before him. I think you might have meant to say that he was the..."

I was cut off again as the agony ripped through me. The earlier burns were throbbing in the heat of the place, the salt of my sweat was getting into the injuries and making them hurt even more.

"She told us that The Fire needed our help. That it was meant as an inspiration, rather than a scourge. But Terrence was the one that wrote to all of the important people. His sister walked among the poor and the dispossessed, doing her best to help those people less fortunate than herself. Other records of what she did were destroyed. That's why women are kept down and haven't been allowed in the clergy. It's because Saint Terrence wanted to stop people from listening to what his sister was saying and listen to him instead. He wanted his _sister_ to _know her place._ "

"You condemn yourself out of your own mouth. There was no such person. The Fire protects us from monsters and keeps us from harm. It is sacrilege to even suggest otherwise."

"It hasn't done a very good job of it has it." I pointed out. "Three wars, the last one of which, we lost."

"No." He grinned, "It's not the flame that has deserted us. It's we who have deserted the flame. We use magic. We consort with monsters and allow the use of magic."

"Yeah, about that. Here's an interesting thing, and again I quote from actual scripture. "And the flame shall cast out and condemn all those monsters who mean us harm." A bit vague I will admit but at the same time there is a second passage. "We shall protect ourselves and our great city from those monsters that seek to destroy Novigrad and extinguish the flame that keeps us safe." That is what the scripture says. It condemns those creatures that mean us harm, although the term "us" is variable but the second passage says that only monsters who attack Novigrad are actually fair game.

"Do you deny," I coughed on the smoke and the smell of my own roasting flesh. "Do you deny these passages?"

"I don't..."

"Then tell me, you twisted fuck. Where does it say that a little girl who likes to read books is a threat to Novigrad. Or a Woman that happens to need the act of sexual congress to survive. How is she a threat to Novigrad?"

"They are monstrous deviants who..."

"Who don't threaten Novigrad. They lived miles and miles away. By any stretch they would have to travel through two countries to even see Novigrad let alone threaten it's existence. And as for Ariadne, the woman I intend to marry. She is currently studying the scripture of the holy flame before we get married in a ceremony conducted by a priest of the Flame. She told me that she wants to know what all the words mean."

I screamed again. The metal had cooled a little since he had been standing with it in his hand for so long. The burning lasted a long time.

When it did, finally end. I allowed myself a little whimper.

"Where does it say that?" I asked him. "Where does it say that you get to strip a boy naked and make him wear chainmail before marching through the countryside wearing armour that even properly grown men struggle with, all for the crime of expecting a fair trial for the woman he was told to torture?"

"The Scripture says, suffer not a witch to live." He bent close to my face to deliver the line. "You are right in saying that the Flame has deserted us. We must prove our devotion and there is no room, no room at all for even the smallest hint of doubt, either in our minds or in the minds of those people that follow us. The countryside must be purged. Not just of evil but even the temptation towards evil for we are wicked and the temptation towards darkness is strong."

His face changed and he became almost gentle and fatherly.

"I pity you Lord Frederick. You have studied the ways of false knowledge and are so far into the teachings of evil men and women. I do not doubt that you were a good man once and that you wanted to serve the flame in the best way, but you have been corrupted. It is not your fault that your parents were heretics and went against the proper order of things. You were right to flee from your home but instead of running to the church for proper guidance you were caught by the snares of that most insidious place of decadence and heresy. The University of Oxenfurt."

I can recognise a man who has set off on a sermon and I left him to it. In truth the rest from the pain was good although my burns and blisters were increasingly on my mind.

"Don't misunderstand me." He went on. "I know the reason. That's how they get you. They promise you all the secrets of the universe and those truths that can soothe your troubled soul. There might even be some truth mixed in with all of the lies, but then the lies take their hold and then they follow them with more lies, and more and more until a man that could have been one of the foremost warriors of the flame is turned into the heretic that is sat before me. Betrothed to a monster, in service to another one,"

"Just to check," I interrupted. "But you're talking about the Empress there with that last one right?"

He smiled at me gently without saying anything.

"I thought so." I commented.

"But do not worry." He told me. "We can purify you. You will burn in the fires of purification and your mutant Witcher freak will burn next to you."

I gave myself the gift of a wry chuckle. He had just confirmed, again, that Kerrass had to still be alive if he was going to be burnt alongside me.

"Just a point." I commented after a moment. "a small one. I notice you still haven't condemned or even mentioned the Homosexual acts committed by your own knights on their squires. You tried to divert me from the subject when I talked about it earlier. Twice, but I have not forgotten. What about your condemnation for those men who forced those horrific acts on those in their charge?"

"Men are sometimes weak. But the work they do outweighs the evil. They can be forgiven their sins and they confess their..."

"So just a point. Why can't all of these people that you condemn also confess or serve in some way?"

"They are too far sunken into sin."

"I'm not so sure. Homosexuality is an abomination remember? Also, is it not a greater evil to force another to commit evil acts. Which is what was happening that I saw. There was no way that...that child was enjoying what that knight was doing to him."

I grinned at him.

"Ah but you are not an Arch-Bishop," he countered.

"I'm pretty sure that you aren't one either."

"Oh yes. And why do you say that."

"Because I would have heard of you."

He laughed and I wondered if I had miscalculated. "So arrogant."

"But also because you so manifestly get the scriptures wrong." I told him. "You keep quoting passages that are simply not true. Tell you what. You go and fetch a copy of the scriptures from your quarters and we'll see if it even matches."

"I don't have to play your game." He straightened up in front of me.

It was my turn to laugh. "You can't even read can you?" I laughed again. "Flame but if there was any other proof that we needed to prove that you aren't what you say you are, you can't even read. Required for the ordination of a priest let alone a Bishop."

He returned to the fire bowl where he put the metal back in.

I did my best to just keep the laughter coming. It was not easy. I looked around for a bit and decided that it was time to change tactic. They weren't rising to the attacks regarding their faith but maybe they might respond if I challenged them on a military level.

"Tell me." I said. "What's the plan?"

I waited for a little while. "I mean, here you are in the middle of nowhere, terrorising a few villages and killing a few people that you have arbitrarily decided are monsters. What's next? Gather more followers?"

"We will do the asking of questions around here, heretic."

SUCCESS!

"And yet I notice your utter failure to ask me any questions at all. Holy flame but you're bad at this entire thing aren't you."

He ignored that comment.

Jerome was nodding. "Good. Now we're getting to the heart of the matter."

"But seriously," I continued. "What are you going to do next? I'm not an unimportant man. People are going to come looking for me. Some very important men in the church not least. You think you're going to hold them off with your twenty five knights, a few squires and a handful of actual soldiers."

I thought I heard someone snigger but I couldn't be sure.

"I mean, _I_ managed to sneak past your perimeter and cause a whole bunch of damage and I'm nothing but a lowly scholar. What are you going to do when actual trained killers start coming for you. Do you think that they're going to be frightened off by your silly little stockade that is sinking into the ground that you put it in?"

"More will flock to our banner." Sansum intoned.

"No they won't. These people are terrified of you. Who's going to come and help you?"

"We have friends. Powerful friends."

"Not as many as you might think." I told him. "If you're talking about Lords Barton, Polis and Telisson, then you should know that Kerrass and I have already paid them all a little visit."

I left it intentionally vague there.

There was some shifting in the men watching. I could hear them shifting their weight from foot to foot and guessed at the sidelong glances.

"Suddenly, your men don't seem as confident as they had been before." I told him. "So you face the very real possibility of a church army and an imperial army on your doorstop in the very near future. What are you going to do then? Preach at them? yell at them? Depend on harsh language and the threats of eternal damnation? Soldiers are taught that their Sergeants are the flame personified and that to disobey their superiors is to commit the blackest heresy. You will not convert them to your cause."

Sansum came back, no implement of pain in his hands.

"I think you're bluffing. I don't think you've had the time to visit all of our friends, but despite that, how do you know that you got them all?"

"Simple." I said. "I asked them. They told me where to find you, how many you were and where you got your funds. They told us everything. You see, unlike you, we actually know how to ask some questions."

"I do not believe you."

"Yeah? Lord Polis was the first one that we went to speak to. Tall man, thin red hair. We talked to him on the back lawn outside his house where he was practising his archery and getting increasingly frustrated. He admitted to us that he was ill with something and none of the healers could figure out what was going on but he knew that he was dying. He had no children as his sons died fighting against Nilfgaard when they crossed the Yaruga. He had decided, in the way that such men often do, that he must have lived an extremely sinful life and so deserved all the calamity that had occurred to his family. As such he wanted to make amends to whatever God he had angered and pledged the remainder of his fortune to the foundation of the knights of the burning sword.

"All of this after you, in the guise of a Bishop, promised him that you would "personally see to his moving into grace," in the event of his death. He had been under the impression that the knights would be a roving band of do-gooders. That they would travel the roads, saving villages from bandits and monsters in the same way that the old knights of the flaming rose used to do before they got absorbed by politics.

"He told me that you invoked the name of Sir Siegfried in speaking to him and about how that good and noble man was an inspiration to you in doing your part."

"Take not the name of Sir Siegfried in vain. St Siegfried was a good and noble man."

"He was. I won't deny that. He was a good man who worked hard to save the common folk from all that might be done to them. He just made the mistake of following the wrong master is all. But we were talking about the men who you expect to come to your aid. We told Lord Polis of what we had seen and what we had heard. He rode with us, despite his failing health, to see some of the things that we talked about. To be fair to him, he didn't want to believe that you would betray him in such a way."

"We have not betrayed..."

"I use his own words you fuck." I spat. "He was a sad, sick and broken old man and you took advantage of him when he was at his lowest."

I got a smack across the jaw for my trouble. I must have bit through my lip and needed to spit some blood mixed with phlegm onto the floor.

"Don't worry though." I told the room. "We left him at his notary's house changing his will so that you won't get any support from his death."

The majority of our audience didn't even know who Lord Polis was, was my guess. They just knew that they had powerful friends. But I saw a couple of people shifting their weight uncomfortably.

"So let's move onto Lord Barton. Nice man I thought. Married a bit beneath himself though."

"Lady Barton is a good and holy woman and..."

"And a clear fifteen years younger than Lord Barton who is clearly devoted to her. I can see why. She struck me as a good woman, don't mistake me and she was the very light of Lord Barton's eye. He hung on her every word and we soon found out that he was paying into your coffers in a manner to keep her happy. But you miscalculated."

"Did I now."

"Oh yes. This time it wasn't Lord Barton that we needed to convince, it was his wife. We talked to her about the cruelties that had been inflicted and she was horrified. Absolutely horrified. And as fast as the money started to flow into your coffers, it soon started flowing out again as Lady Barton fluttered her, entirely sincere, eyelashes and wept her anguish into her husband's face. She pleaded with him to stop supporting you. Pleaded with him. What's an older man to do in the face of his young and beautiful wife's tears?"

"Lord Barton is a true follower of the flame..."

"Lord Barton loves his wife." I snarled. "As is right and proper. He was swearing to build a hospital to help all the people that you have hurt when we left."

Sansum was grinning at me.

"But not Lord Tenisson. You won't convince him so easily."

"No we didn't." I said. "You mistake me. We didn't convince him. And you would know about that if you would patrol properly. When we went to him we found his people in misery and he had surrounded himself with guards who shared his tastes. It was him and his friends that would stay in your little guest chambers wasn't it. He would stay there and torture whatever little heretics you found for him. You turned his already natural sadism into a religious fervour that was not being sated despite him spending his rage on his wife, his children and his household staff. His wife was broken when we found them. His children were cowering and his household staff let us in.

The chief cook told us where to find the kids Grandfather and we took them there after we burned Lord Tennison and his entire manor house to the ground. If you checked your surroundings properly you would have seen his funeral pyre from the top of your tower."

"You lie."

"Why would I lie?" I retorted. "I am going to destroy you. I'm going to destroy you and everyone that follows you. I am going to take your name and drag it into the sewer where it belongs. I am a flame fearing man and I know, I _know_ that my deeds are going to be judged when I stand before the scales of fire. There are things that I am not proud of in my past and names that weigh on my conscience. But you, you and your little rabble of torturers and murderers...

"I will have to answer for what I've done but if I had just walked on by, I would have had to answer for that as well.

"You don't know it yet but every single one of you is dead already. Your only hope is to throw down your weapons and flee from this place and beg the holy flame, Kreve, Veyopatis, Melitele or the divine Sun for their forgiveness because I will not forgive you for the women's tears, the ruining of good and pure souls and the corruption of people's love for each other that you have perpetrated you unspeakable, unholy fucks."

I was out of breath and panting with a dim kind of feeling that I was approaching the end of my tether.

Sansum turned around and headed back to the table with all of the torture implements on it. He spent some time looking them over, picking up this one and that one, turning them over in the light to examine the way the firelight shone of the sharp edges.

It's an odd feeling when you start to disassociate with yourself. That moment when your body and brain is on the verge of just giving it all up as a bad job. Panic and adrenaline were prevalent in my system, I was tired, stressed and exhausted and knew that I was only going to be heading for more pain, the longer this went on.

But I sat there, the hallucination of Father Jerome sat next to me as we watched Sansum take his time choosing whichever sharp and unpleasant blade he was going to use to torture me with. I could see it from a distance, as though through a long tunnel. If I thought about it, I could almost see it happening from Jerome's point of view, along with his thinking on the subject.

"He's re-exerting his dominance over the room," I thought to myself. He's telling everyone who is watching, me not least, that he's in charge and that he's going to take his own sweet time over doing whatever it is he's doing. He's telling his followers that they shouldn't be afraid. After all, _he_ isn't afraid and therefore, why should anyone else be afraid.

In the end he selected a small knife, no longer than the length of my thumb. I was reassured by the fact that it looked relatively clean.

"Do you know why we chose to keep you alive?" He asked me.

"Finally," I said, doing my best to infuse the words with as much sarcastic relief as I could muster. "You're finally going to start asking me questions. It's about fucking time. What was all that other bullshit that you were talking about."

Sansum considered this.

"You are not incorrect." He told me. "We have been giving you the time that you might be hoisted on your own noose. To someone as well trained as I am, it was always obvious that you are a heretic so awful and black that to _not_ kill you would, in and of itself, be a sin. However, my average follower hasn't had my level of training and as such they need to be convinced that you are as evil as I say you are. You have spent the last hour or so convincing them all of that. Therefore they know that all of the things that we are about to do to you are entirely justified."

"Ah, so you're justifying your acts to yourself. Trying to convince yourselves that you're not the scum-fucks that I know you to be."

"Quite. I have not explained the rules to you yet. To be fair though, you haven't stopped talking for long enough to let me get a word in edgeways. But here it is. I'm going to ask you a series of questions. You are going to answer them. If you lie to me, or if you try to hide anything from me then you will be punished. Do you understand?"

"Yes, I know how torturing works."

he smiled thinly.

"You know? I imagine that you do don't you. But still, are you ready for your first question?"

"There's more than one question?"

He sighed, before turning to one of his colleagues. "Pull out one of his toe-nails. One of the smaller ones."

It's an odd thing when I think about it. In my time I've been beaten, stabbed, slashed, burnt, poisoned, bitten, screamed at, posessed, fallen, bled and all of the other kinds of pain that I could think about. I've even had my soul removed from my body and had it used as the plaything for an otherworldly demonic entity which, quite frankly, made the torture that I was undergoing under the hands of Bishop Sansum, seem quite...tame.

But despite all of that, I still get squicked out by the thought of someone pulling my nails out.

I don't know why.

Even the thought of having my teeth pulled out is less terrifying than that.

You know what? It was agony, but on balance, it wasn't that bad.

"Did that hurt?" Sansum asked me, sarcasm dripping from every word, after I had finished screaming and swearing and promising every pain that I could imagine on the person holding the pliers.

"I don't know." I told him after sucking down a few extra breaths in preparation for what I knew was going to come next. "Could you do one on the other side, just to see if it could be balanced out?"

Yes it hurt, but the joke was worth it and I was still laughing as I finished screaming.

"Flame but you're bad at this." I told them.

"I see you take the point as to how it works." Sansum told me, still playing with the knife, turning it this way and that.

"Of course I fucking have." I told him, "Will you just get on with it and ask me some fucking questions already so that I can get on with refusing to answer you."

"I can see that you are eager for it. Some part of you still hoping for redemption I suspect."

"I think, as far as you're concerned, that ship has sailed. Why haven't you killed me yet? We both know that you can't afford to keep me alive. If I survive this, I'm going to use my time to systematically destroy you. If you tried to keep me captive then I would need to watched day and night. So why do I still survive?"

"You are correct. We can't kill you, yet. Because we need to know who helped you."

"Who helped me?"

"Yes. How many friends do you have in the darkness. There is no way that you could have done this alone so we need to know who the traitors are in our midst. I would remind you of the consequences of a lie or a misleading answer."

I closed my eyes and did my best to hide the victory in my thoughts.

Kerrass had been right.

In that moment I went back to Father Jerome's chapel listening to him speak. I was weak then as well, horribly tortured in body and mind at the hands of another monster. A thing that was worse than the so-called Holy man that was stood over me.

"Interrogation is an art form." Jerome told me. "Don't get me wrong, it's a sick and twisted art-form to be sure but an art-form nevertheless. But one of the misconceptions about it is that the main part of that art is the torture. Torture is merely one of the tools in the collection of a proper interrogator and by some margin, it is the least effective. At best, torture is a means to an end. You use torture when you just need to extract a confession despite whether or not the person that you are interrogating is guilty.

"It's the blunt instrument of that aspect of the work. You just going and going until they beg you to stop. You tell them that they can stop as soon as they make their mark next to the confession and, sooner or later, they will.

"But you learn nothing from that. You don't learn whether or not they actually did it. You certainly don't learn anything new and more times than not, that kind of interrogation is just a political one. We need to execute this person because they disagree with the King or one of the other people in charge, but he's quite popular with the rabble so we torture him until he confesses to something so utterly horrible that even the people on the street will agree that he's a bastard and we can have him killed. It was primarily what we had to do when we were working against all the magic users in Novigrad. Torture them until they admitted to plotting against the King and then we could burn them.

"But torture is all but useless as a method of trying to extract information from a person. This is because, sooner or later, the persons sanity will simply snap and they will tell you anything that they think you want to hear, simply in an effort to get the pain to stop. That information is very rarely reliable and will always, always need verifying by another source before it can be acted upon.

"Real interrogation though. Real interrogation happens in the mind and that's the bit that is fascinating."

"Can you give me an example?" I had asked, trying to show some interest.

"Certainly. The most common form of it is having someone present during the interrogation who is pretending to be the subject's friend. "Tell me what I need to know," he will say, note the use of the word "need" in that sentence, "and I can help you." Practice has shown us that a friendly approach is much, much more effective than shouting, screaming and torturing has ever been. Pretending to be the subjects friend works. Not all of that torture, or the causing of pain and most interrogators know this.

"But torture is a tool to extract confessions. It's also well known that people in power don't want to believe that torture doesn't work. They see the confessions mounting up and they think to themselves, "Ah well, if it's having such a massive effect then it must be working".

"What they don't know is how many innocent people those confessions sent to the flames, or how much false information that we were forced to swallow just to satisfy their lust for blood."

He had seemed so sad, I remember thinking at the time. So very sad.

"What should I do, if I ever find myself in the torturers chair?" I asked him, trying tot urn him back towards a more positive topic of conversation.

Strange how that seems like an odd sentence to say right here and now.

"Think it through. Plot your strategy." He told me without hesitation as though he had already been thinking along those lines. "The simple fact of the matter is that no-one can withstand torture forever. No-one can. Everyone has their limits. That part of them that they cannot bear to allow it to go any further so that sooner or later, something inside them will just snap and they will start spewing information out at a rate that is overwhelming, both to them and to their questioners.

"There's a reason they call it "breaking" after all.

"So here's the trick. Stay in control. When you feel as though you need a break, or if you can't take it any more, then reward yourself. Give them something. Something small, something that they could probably figure out anyway. Ration the truth that you have to give though. Don't give them it all at once or they will think that you are lying to them. Take your time with it. Just a little bit of truth before returning to silence."

"Should I lie to them?"

"You can, but be careful. If they catch you in a lie then the consequences are dire. So wrap it up in truth if you can."

I nodded to myself and opened my eyes.

Maybe a second had passed. Not even that, and Sansum was looking down at me, his face twisted with scorn and hate.

"How many friends do I have in the dark?" I asked him. "Is that what you want to know?" I said it through gritted teeth.

He nodded at me.

"Oh so many friends." I told him. "So many friends that you wouldn't believe. People see you for what you are now. They've seen you for the evil that you have visited on them and I will watch as they tear you down. I will laugh and give thanks to the fire for everything that they do to you. You will know what hell feels like. You will all know what it's like to go through that hell because my friends and I will show you."

I screamed then as they took another nail.

"How many friends do you have out there?"

"Absolutely none at all." I grinned at him. "Everything that's happening to you, I did it all by myself with the help of a Witcher?"

Another toe-nail followed and I convinced myself that I was getting used to the pain.

"Twelve." I told them. "Twelve soldiers of the Empress."

Another toe-nail and another scream.

"Five, Witchers all."

The answers just tripped off my tongue and I laughed with every answer and with every scream I hammered home my victory over him.

In the end they ran out of toe-nails and started on my fingernails. When they ran out of those they started breaking my toes with a mallet.

The pain was starting to mesh together then and it took me a moment to realise that Sansum was asking me a question.

"What?" I asked him. "What do you want?"

"Why do you put up with this?" He asked. "Why do you let this happen? I can keep torturing you all day. I can torture you to death if I choose to so why do you let us do that. Just tell me the truth."

I was no longer able to laugh but from somewhere I summoned a grin.

"Let me tell you something about me." I rasped through the pain. "Let me tell you about some of the things that I have been through. I have been tortured by demons. Your little tray of implements isn't that scary to someone who's soul has literally been the plaything of demons. You forget several other things as well. Everything you do to me is fleeting. You take my toes, they will heal. My fingers? A little bit more of a blow, I will admit but at the end of the day, they will heal.

"I am engaged to be married to a Sorceress and my sister in law is also a Sorceress. Take my eyes, take my teeth, carve me up however you wish and I will simply be healed. Take my hands and they will grow me new hands. Take my ears, teeth, nose, genitals, take anything you want and I will grow them all back. You hold no fear of me.

"Kill me." I told him. "Whether deliberately or by accident and I know two things. One, I will stand before the holy flame proud of my actions here and two, I know that my friends and loved ones will visit such a vengeance on you and all those that follow you that the world will tremble when your name is spoken. Children will be frightened with the tales of your fate for generations to come and I know, for absolute certainty, that you will freeze in the hell of the eternal frost."

As I thought he might, Sansum lost his temper then and beat me, knife and other implements forgotten. Yes he caused damage and I drifted in and out of consciousness.

Time passed in a blur.

Finally though, I heard that sound that I had been waiting for for far too long.

It was the sound of the church bell ringing. Dull and hollow, badly maintained and obviously not rung with the clapper. This was emptier. More...shrill somehow.

I waited before I heard another one ringing crash and felt my whole body relax.

Finally.

Sansum was advancing on me again with his knife, but he had also heard the bell tolling as he moved towards me.

"Wait," I whimpered, a little surprised that I didn't need to pretend that I was at the edge of my endurance.

"Wait." I said again.

"Well," he grasped me by the hair and tilted my head back. I could barely see him as one of my eyes had swollen shut and the other was full of the tears of pain. "Have you come to your senses?"

"Would it surprise you to learn that I have already told you the truth?"

"Go on."

"There is no-one else out there." I told him. "No-one else. Just me, and a Witcher have been the architects of your destruction."

"Our destruction?" He laughed. "You are tied to a chair and in no shape to do any destruction and the Witcher is locked in his cell, waiting for when we take him to the nearby villages where we will kill him for all to see. So that they can all see the proper way to destroy mutants and freaks."

"Oh." I said. "Locked up is he?"

"Of course. Does that crush you little hopes?"

"Not really,"

"Why not?"

"That idiot with the golden armour. The one you sent off to "check on the other prisoner." He's been gone a really long time hasn't he."

I grinned at him, showing all my teeth in what I hoped was a terrifying smile.

Sansum turned his head onto one side and considered.

"No," he said after a while. "No, I don't believe that. I think you've got more than that out there. I think there's a half a dozen people, peasants most likely, who have been feeding you information and giving you the layout of the place. I think you've suborned our cooks and our servants."

"Slaves you mean," I interrupted but he ignored me.

"I think that vampire bitch is out there. You've been in touch with her from the start haven't you?"

He was suddenly at me, holding his knife to my throat.

"ANSWER ME," he screamed at my face.

"If I was, How am I doing that do you think?" Swallowing past a blade is harder than you might think.

"She's a monster, a sorceress. She has her ways."

"As a matter of fact, she talks to me through the holy symbol round my neck."

He recoiled.

"The holy symbol that she, not only had made for me, but also had a real arch-Bishop bless for her."

"Impossible," he declared. "Impossible. Even approximations of the holy fire are harmful to creatures of evil."

"Which is kind of my point." I told him. "But that's not important now."

"I still don't believe you. Two of you couldn't have done everything that you claim."

I shrugged at him.

"I can prove it." I told him.

"How?"

"Send two of your knights to go and check on the Witcher."

He thought about this for a while. "You," he pointed at a man out of my line of sight. "You, you and you."

He turned back to me and grinned. "Only sending two men seems a little bit silly if the man has _really_ escaped, don't you think."

I would have shrugged but I was tied up. The respite from the pain was allowing my brain to clear so that I could start thinking again.

"Suit yourself." I told him. "But you're making a bit of a mistake there."

"Oh yes, and what's that."

"Kerrass is no man. He is a Witcher."

"A Witcher," his lips curled. "A mutated form of evil."

I laughed but then looked at him as an insight struck me.

"While we're waiting for your people to come back, can I ask you a question?"

He said nothing and I took it for permission.

"Why do you hate us so much?" I wondered. "All the Sorceresses, all the strangers and the creatures. The mutants and the weirdos. All the people that think something differently to you. Why do you hate us so much?"

"Hate you. You condemn us all to hell with your deviancy and your..."

"Yes yes," I told him. "Religious doctrine and all that, but what drove you to that. Not, what drove you into the arms of the church, that I can understand as I have felt the pull of the church and the security of knowing...Of knowing that you serve the flame. But why? What drove you to this level of extremity? I once offered this same chance to another person that was considered a monster? She sat down and gave me her perspectives and her thoughts and her drives. Fucking hell man, I'm marrying that woman. So use me. Tell me why this has happened to you. And I will record it all for posterity."

"Record it?" he snarled. "You are going to die soon." And I saw the fear in him for the first time.

"You're afraid of us aren't you." I told him. "You're afraid that we might be right. That we might be correct. That the definition of monster is out of date. That knowledge defeats ignorance every single time. That we are all together here in this struggle for survival, that we all came here from other places and we need to be working together to survive. That we are all monsters to each other. That's what you're afraid of isn't it. The change, the differences and the things that we represent. We are the change that you cannot handle,"

"BE SILENT."

I laughed at him then as I knew that I had won.

"I'm going to cut you," he snarled, "and I'm going to raise you up for all to see as we burn you for the heretic that you are. First you are going to tell us what you know and then you are going to die."

"Maybe."

There was a scream from somewhere a long, drawn out and horrible scream that sounded like it was intentionally drawn out. It seemed as though it echoed down the corridors.

"Maybe," I said again as the last echoes of that terrible noise died out. "Maybe I might die but I suspect that you will be dying first."

Then, proving that Kerrass enjoys a sense of the dramatic. A single soldier came walking in from somewhere. I couldn't see him as I was still tied up but men started yelling and shouting and running about.

He walked into the main church room and keeled over where he died on the floor.

Orders were given, weapons were drawn and swords were clashed, oaths were given and men started rushing about.

I could no longer help it. I started to laugh and I laughed for a long time.

What can I say? Sansum's face was a picture.

"No," he said after a while. "No, I'm not afraid of you. I despise you. You are going to be the end of the human race. You and your freaks and deviants. You are going to destroy us all. The frost is coming for us all and the only thing that can prevent that is the holy fire. We _have_ to obey. We _have_ to obey every order, every tenet every holy law. We _have_ to do it or the frost is coming for us all."

A man walked up to us and saluted. His hand was shaking.

"They're all dead." He almost whispered it. "It's like a butchers shop out there. A slaughter yard. There's blood on the walls and on the floors. Bodies are everywhere."

Sansum didn't look away from my eyes.

"The prisoners?"

"Gone."

Sansum still didn't take his eyes off me.

"Search the complex. Do it in teams. No one man walks alone, in pairs."

"Arch-Bishop we..."

"Do it." He snarled. "One man can't have done this."

"No?" I asked him. "He's a monster deviant mutant freak. He's a creature of darkness and he can perform magic and all kinds of horrid deviant things. Do you not think that splitting your men up is exactly what he wants?"

"Or," he told me "Is your arguing for that to get us all in one place so that he can have us all together in one place."

I shrugged.

"Suit yourself." I told him. There was more running and shouting.

Then we waited. No sounds of combat, no sounds of violence or fighting. Just Sansum pacing backwards and forwards in front of me.

"You asked me a question earlier." He said suddenly. "If I ask you a straight question now, will you give me a straight answer?"

"That depends on the question?"

"Why do you hate us? All we're trying to do is to save the world. We're not as caught up in current problems. We're trying to save your souls, why can't you see that? The church is just trying to keep you warm, keep you safe and keep you away from sin. But then when we do that, you accuse us of going to far or doing the wrong thing. There is no such thing as going to far when it comes to the immortal souls of our people. Even the people that we burn are purified of evil in that burning so that when they die, they can be reborn into the flame's eternal light. Why can't you see that?"

"Because that's not what's happening here." I told him. "Because it is provably not true. I shall give you an example, a well-known one actually. My fiancee is a higher vampire. So by your reasoning she should be the very height of evil right? If fire purges all evil then why is she immune to flame? She's not alone either, there are plenty of creatures that are immune to fire, Ifrits just off the top of my head. A Shaelmaar wouldn't even notice a fire pit, it would just curl up into a ball and have a nap until the flames died down.

"What's happening here, is that you are persecuting people that you don't like. The Holy Flame is an idea, an ideal that we aim for. It was a thing that they used to hold a new city together in the face of enormous odds against an enemy that we couldn't possibly have defeated without the hope and the security that the Holy Flame provided. But now were in a whole new world. We have tamed the wilderness, there are no more monsters clawing at our gates. We won.

"But now we try and move forwards into that new world and into that new light. People like you, and hierarch Hemmelfart and King Radobid hold us back, keep us in the dark. You try and keep us afraid, of each other and the world and the realities that we find out here.

"I don't hate your knights although I think that they're incredibly stupid and blind and...all the other bullshit that comes with that.

"I don't hate the church either, or the holy flame. I love the flame and when I return home to my families chapel then I will, as I always do, fall to my knees and give thanks for my deliverance.

"But I do hate you you unspeakable wretch. I hate you for your ignorance and your fear and your own hatred that you force onto the rest of us with flame and sword."

I stopped speaking then.

He hadn't moved.

I shrugged again. "You asked."

The same knight ran in and came up to Samsum and again, he saluted, "There's no-one out there." He said.

He said that shortly before his eye seemed to sprout a crossbow bolt. He toppled backwards in almost the same exact way that a tree might fall in the woods.

"That's because I'm in here with you." Kerrass' voice echoed of the walls.

I couldn't take my eyes of Sansum. He was looking around the church hall in a panic then.

My chair was spun round so that I could see the rest of the hall, the flaming torches on the walls, the firepits on the floor and the huge chandelier that was covered in candles, swinging from the ceiling.

"Show yourself." Sansum demanded. I could no longer see him but he sounded as though he was a short distance behind me. "Show yourself now, or we kill him."

A man in armour walked up behind me. I could tell that he was in armour because I could hear his chain-mail jingling. A dagger was drawn and the knight placed his hand on my shoulder and I could feel a cold point of metal pressed against the back of my neck.

I saw the flash of the bolt, a split second before I heard the thunk of the arrow striking flesh. The man's grip slipped away and I heard him crash backwards.

"Any man who touches Freddie, dies." Kerrass' voice echoes again. This time, it sounded like it was coming from somewhere up in the rafters

"Why?" Sansum moved to stand in front of me, other knights spread out in a circle surrounding us. "Do you love him?" He was attempting to sound as though he was being scornful. The truth was that he was just beginning to sound a little afraid

"He is my friend." Came the voice. It was definitely Kerrass' voice but it sounded distorted somehow. It sounded slow and drawn out. As though he was taking his time to say the words.

A torch in the corner of the room snuffed out.

"Come out, coward," Sansum was pacing again, getting his confidence back from the fact that he was surrounded by his knights. "Or are you afraid to show yourself?"

"Fear?" Came the voice as another torch seemed to snuff out followed by another one immediately opposite where the last one had vanished. "Fear is surrounding yourself with lesser men and demanding that they obey you. Fear is victimising those who are not as strong as you. Fear is pretending to be something that you are not." The sound seemed to come from all around us. As though Kerrass was speaking directly into our ears.

"Why don't you come out?" Sansum taunted. "Why don't you come out and face us."

But the voice didn't answer. Instead, another torch went out. And another.

"Your little fires won't protect you from me." The voice was a snarl now. Uncompromising and chilling to the very bone.

"We outnumber you twenty to one," Sansum called to the room. "How do you expect to fight us?"

"Actually," now the voice was playful. "By my count, it's more like sixteen."

Something whistled through the air, an object, spinning. I saw firelight reflected of it's metallic pieces. It smashed against the ceiling. Even if my hands were free I don't think I would have been able to shield myself from the bright flash in time.

I heard running feet, a clash of metal on metal and a sound that felt like a razor blade cutting through silk.

Then I heard a man gurgle.

"My mistake." The voice sounded a bit more normal now. "Fourteen."

There was a crash, followed by another man who was trying to scream through the blood that was now flooding his throat. I managed to blink the glare away and had time to see one of the men clutching at his neck in an effort to try and stop the blood gushing from it before he collapsed as well.

"Fight us," Sansum screamed. "Fight us damn you."

"He is fighting you." I told him. "Just on his terms rather than on yours."

There was a pause. The torches continued to go out one by one which left a sooty, oily smell in the air that reached down my throat and threatened to gag me.

"Make him stop." Sansum snarled at me. "Make him come out and face us."

"And how do you suppose that I'm going to do that?"

"Everyone knows that you hold his leash."

I laughed at him.

"Do I hold his leash? Or does he hold mine?

Kerrass ran out. To my sight he looked awful, pale, drawn and tired. But from all the hollering it would seem that to everyone else he must have seemed monstrous. He didn't move slowly though. He ran across the hall and his arm moved. Something flew from his hand. I can't tell you anything about it other than that it glowed blue. There was a massive kind of Whompf kind of a noise, silver dust started to fall from the ceiling.

Kerrass gestured and I saw one of the knights lower his sword, he seemed to shake his head before turning on his comrade and bringing his sword down on the man's head.

It didn't do anything else other than to make a huge clang. But the struck man reacted instantly with all of the training that he could muster, the confused man fell, clutching the huge wound in his belly. He was screaming.

"Thirteen," called Kerrass. "I tell you what _Archbishop._ I will fight you on your terms. Are you ready?"

He audibly took a breath and cleared his throat, his voice still echoing off the walls. "To the men surrounding my friend and your, I hesitate to use the word, superior. I am going to make you an offer."

There was a silence, more sounds of footsteps.

"This is how you do it isn't it, Sansum? You make the people an offer?"

There was an audible chuckle.

"So here's my offer."

"Heretic," Sansum growled.

"You are all going to die." Kerrass told them. "The only way that one of you is going to survive is if you drop your sword, and untie my friend."

"Don't move," Sansum snarled at the knights. "Don't you move, not one step. If you even consider doing what this mutant orders then you will freeze in the hell of the eternal frost."

The knights were looking at each other.

"See that Sansum?" I asked him.

"Be silent." Sansum screamed, spittle flying from his mouth.

"One more sign that you are beaten." I told him. "One more sign that you are done."

"Fuck this," said one of the knights and turned away. "You can all die here if you want but..."

He didn't get chance to say any more as his friend struck out at him. The dissenter managed to block a couple of blows before another knight joined the fray. The dissenter wasn't that good and soon fell under the rain of blows but he also had friends of his own who decided to join in on his side.

Two more men fell out of the fight.

I laughed for a long time at that.

"That's exactly how it happens in the villages isn't it." I told Sansum, struggling to contain my mirth. "You turn them against each other. You tell them that only one or two of them can reach eternal salvation and only then if they agree to sell out their friends. You put the fear of pain and death into their minds and they cannot cope with it. They feel the fear, not just for themselves but also for their loved ones. Their wives and children so they sign up to your cause and sell out the old farmer who likes to hedge his bets occasionally and prays to Veyopatis for a decent harvest."

Sansum spun on me, took two strides and struck me across the face. "Never forget, heretic, that you are still in here with me and I can kill you just as easily. That you will never make it out alive."

I couldn't stop laughing at him.

"Fear and superstition." I told him. "That's what you use to keep the local villages in line. Now Kerrass is destroying you with your own tools. Look, Now your knights are looking at each other to see if they can tell which one of them is going to betray them first." Even I could hear the hysteria in my own voice.

"Stand to your posts." Sansum called at them.

"Eleven men left." Kerrass called. His voice sounded a bit stronger now and I guessed that he had used the time to take another potion. "Let's make it a nice round number shall we."

There was another wet sound. Kerrass was getting really good at these eye shots.

"Ten men." Kerrass said. His voice had re-attained that echoey sound. "Now that your numbers seem a little bit more manageable. Shall we dance?"

He walked out from behind one of the pillars. He seemed to be moving slowly and carefully, taking his time to place his feet on the ground, each footstep carefully planned and positioned. He held his sword in a ready position and as he moved, his upper body stayed perfectly upright, his arms unmoving. He looked awful.

There was a cut in his temple that was oozing black blood that ran down his face. His skin was paper white with stark black lines running this way and that under his skin. He was still along way away from the cluster of knights but his appearance could not have had a more profound effect on the waiting knights.

"Let's just rush him." said one. "There's ten of us and only one of him."

"Shut up," hissed another.

"Come on," a third was bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet. "We can do it." There's only one of him and we can see him coming."

"Hold to your posts." Sansum insisted. "Stay where you are."

"I can take him." A quiet one said. From the way he held his sword it was easy to tell that he knew what he was doing, or rather, he thought he did. "I can take him." He said again, not taking his eyes off the moving Witcher.

"Can you?" I thought it was time I added to it. "Can you take him? Be sure now. That is a man who has been practising his craft for the last hundred years. A trained killer and veteran of so many fights that it would make your head spin. He was killing soldiers and knights before you were born."

Kerrass was coming closer, not taking his eyes of Sansum but he was still some distance away.

"And then you lot, with your misplaced fear and morality made a mistake." I continued,

Kerrass took another step.

"As Witchers, the other men of the Witcher schools are their brothers. But Kerrass had another family."

Kerrass took another step.

"A family of good and caring people."

Another step.

"People that he went to when he was hurting or when he needed help."

Another step, he was getting much closer now.

"People who loved him."

Nearly there. I judged that they just needed a little push before they would snap. I waited for Kerrass to take another step.

"And then you killed them." I did my best to make my voice sound ominous and scary. In truth I was doing my best impression of my father when he was handing out a punishment to Sam and I after we had done something wrong.

It worked though.

One of the knights, I thought it was the one who suggested that they all rushed Kerrass, moaned. There was no other word to describe the noise that came out of the young man's throat. He moaned and started moving forwards his sword coming up. The one that thought he could take Kerrass realised what was happening and stepped forward also,

Sansum finally realised what was happening and screamed something but it was too late. Another two knights moved to join in and so, a total of four knights moved forward to attack Kerrass and Kerrass sprang forward to meet them.

It happened so quickly that I could barely follow what happened so this is just a guess as to what I saw. I should say that I soon lost track of the identities of the men who attacked him.

One knight simply fell over, I guessed from one of Kerrass' signs. Kerrass then spun away from the attackers, taking him across their little group, the spin continued and Kerrass was backing up, but the knights had the scent now and were chasing him. One stooped to help the fallen man, so that in reality Kerrass was only facing two men.

He stopped fleeing in the space of a thought and was suddenly attacking. Driving one knight back into the second so that they knocked each other over.

Sam would have been furious with them, even despite the rest of their mistakes. He would be angry at the lack of unit cohesion and awareness of each other's positioning.

Kerrass killed one while he was on the floor before he was attacked again. I saw Kerrass grin suddenly as he spun in a parry and kicked one of the attackers in the face who staggered back. Then another man died as Kerrass could devote all his attention to him. Then he ran over and killed the other one who was entangled with the corpse of the man who had fallen against him.

The knight screamed in fear as Kerrass ran him through.

The fourth knight, I guessed that he was the one who thought he could take Kerrass but I couldn't be sure as I had got them confused. I thought that he was though as, after making sure that Kerrass was a safe distance away, he checked his ground before checking the distance back to Sansum and his small unit who had been cheering their support for their fellows but now watched in silence. Then the hapless knight checked to make sure that his ground was clear and fell into a ready stance to receive the Witcher.

I've spoken before about the way it works when two decent swordsmen meet so I won't go over it again in too much detail here. Suffice it to say that it never quite goes the way you would think. It's never as long as you would expect for a start. You hear these stories about wide ranging fights that go this way and that way with the combatants going all over the place. But the truth is that that simply doesn't happen.

In this case, the two men faced each other. Kerrass was the quicker but the other man had the armour protecting him. The real mistake in this instance was Sansum's. He was calling the remaining six soldiers closer to him. I don't know what his scheme was, whether he was planning on making a run for it or something but he positioned two men behind me and then kept the last four between him and the Witcher.

What I would have done is order the last six men to surround Kerrass and bring him down before fleeing during the distraction.

Well no, that's not quite true. I would have _led_ those six men to surround Kerrass and bring him down but that's what I might have done if I had been in Sansum's shoes.

Thank the holy flame that I wasn't, that I'm not and that I will never be.

The knight fought well. There were several exchanges of sword play. The knight trying his best to probe Kerrass' skills to see where the openings were. My guess is that he became a little overconfident and that Kerrass took advantage of his thinking as I _think_ that the knight thought he was probing Kerrass' defences before the duel actually started whereas Kerrass was already fighting. I also suspect that the knight was expecting some kind of "formal duel" situation where there are rules and things.

Regardless of what happened, you can always tell the opponents that Kerrass feels some measure of respect for as those are the men that he kills quickly.

Those and the men that he feels sorry for.

The knight moved forward in an effort to engage Kerrass' blade. There was an exchange before Kerrass grabbed some part of the knights forearm and pulled him forward, off balance. Then Kerrass spun and decapitated the man cleanly.

I doubt that the knight even had time to realise that he was dead.

Kerrass was breathing heavily though as he cleaned his sword on one of the tunics of the fallen men and as he stood back up he seemed to be swaying on his feet. He took a deep breath and started walking towards us again.

Sansum had started to laugh.

"And you say that _I_ am beaten." He said. "You, who can barely stand. You say that I am beaten."

Kerrass straightened and moved so that he was stood facing us all.

"Yes, I think you're beaten. Also, that you are no longer as scary as you were. You wanna know why?"

Kerrass was breathing hard, limping and dragging his feet.

"Because two of us." He forced a smile, even though it looked as though it hurt him. "Two of us, took down your entire operation. Your supplies, your men, your home. All of them burned to the ground. Two of us. One of us isn't even a combatant, not really. The only reason that he agreed to this plan is because of how ridiculously monstrous you are. Two of us took you down."

"But you haven't taken me down. Look at yourself. One of you is tied to a chair after hours of torture and you're barely able to stand, let alone fight and there are still six knights to fight you. My most disciplined, my most fierce and loyal men. How do you intend to get through those six men to get to me?"

"Would you like to know how?" Kerrass took a step towards us and the knights flinched. "Would you really like to know how?" He took another step and dragged his sword up into the ready position.

"Go on then, I shall indulge you. How do you intend to get past six of the most highly trained men in the continent." He gestured and the two men that were stood behind me moved to be in front so that a line of six men stood between Kerrass and Sansum. They looked at each other and started to move to surround the Witcher.

"Because I've already got past them." Kerrass said, his face a rictus of death, his eyes not moving from Sansum's face. "Our very first trick. The same trick that we've used over and over again on you. You fell for it at every stage and you've fallen for it again. I'm distracting you."

"Distracting me? From what?"

Kerrass' weariness vanished "From the fact that Freddie has just worked his hands free from his bonds."

I stood, shrugging off the rope that had held me back in the chair and held it in my hands. By the flame but it hurt as I lunged forward and screamed as I put all of the pain and fury into that last convulsive leap. I nearly didn't make it as I was still tied to the chair by my ankles.

But I got him, I held onto the back of his robes as he began to turn towards me. With a flick, I got the rope around his neck and then let my weight drag me to the floor with Sansum on top of me.

First he scrabbled at the rope digging into the flesh at his neck, then he clawed at my hands as I held onto that rope and pulled, and squeezed until I felt that I was at the very end of my strength. Then, when I couldn't take any more, I thought of Saffron's torn corpse, and the figure of Sally with her skull caved in and I found an extra ounce of strength from somewhere and squeezed even harder.

The knights panicked, some attacked Kerrass but others ran back to try and free Sansum from my clutches. It was the only opening that Kerrass needed as he showed that he was not nearly as exhausted or injured as he had been pretending. Their distraction and their inability to free Sansum from me without hurting him provided that confusion and so Kerrass was in amongst them, cutting and spinning.

But I didn't see that. All I could feel was the rough rope as I pulled and pulled.

All I could see and feel was Sansum and the desperate desire to end that sick fuckers life.

I squeezed and I squeezed so hard that I didn't realise that the fighting had stopped. Nor did I realise that Sansum had stopped moving.

"It's ok Freddie." Kerrass' calm voice. He was drinking two potions in quick succession. He would later tell me that it was the "White honey" potion that would clear the effects of the vast majority of the potions from his system and then a potion that would help his healing process.

"It's over. You can let go now, the bastard's dead."

It took a long time for the words to come through to me. And when it did I could no longer feel the pain or the fear or the awful awful rage that had been burning in my gut since we had discovered Sally's body. I just felt so sick and tired.

"You know the sad thing?" I said to Kerrass. "The sad thing is that I really can't."

He laughed. One of his small bursts of Witcher laughter. No more than a wry chuckle and it burst some kind of dam in me so that I finally started to weep.

Kerrass went off and found his satchel and some of the medicines that he kept there and helped me to peel the rope out of my hands. Salve was plastered over the worst of my wounds before bandages were wrapped and new clothes were found but even despite all of that, he still mostly carried me out of there.

The pain was indescribable but somehow it wasn't too bad. Nothing compared to what the Beast of Amber's crossing had left me with. Those injuries were psychological and spiritual whereas this? Somehow this felt righteous. I could look at my injuries and tell myself that they would heal over time.

There was quite a lot of aftermath that happened next. At my request, Kerrass deposited me on the hillside where we had watched the compound. He went off to find our things and made me a drink to numb the pain.

He told me about how he had freed the prisoners as well as chasing off some of those men and women who were forced to work in the compound. He described how, after being captured, Sansum had ordered that Kerrass not be harmed so that he could be properly interrogated at a later date and they had thrown him into a cell in the basement. A part of the compound that I had not had the chance to see and after Kerrass' descriptions of the place, I found I was glad of it.

In the morning, still far too energised to sleep, I watched the sun rise as Kerrass got back to work. He was helped by some of the "servants" who had started started to come back as well as some of the local villagers after they had heard about what had happened and seen the flames.

First the bodies were laid out. The knights and all of those others that had died were laid out in one of the more flammable parts of the remaining compound and a work crew spent a good amount of time cutting down the wooden pallisade and making a huge fire out of it. At first there was some argument from some of the villagers that wondered why the soldiers should get such a decent funeral. But I thought of the corruption that had gotten into the head of young Maxwell as well, I will admit, as the brain fucking that had happened to Edmund and my mother and so I insisted.

Other than Sansum. Also at my insistence, Sansum was taken a little way away and buried in an unmarked grave. Two men did that work and I told them that the grave shouldn't be under a tree or any other kind of identifiable landmark. That, if possible, even _they_ should struggle to find it if they went looking for it. I told them to bury him under a field that would grow crops to feed the locals or, even better, to feed the livestock. I didn't want him to be a martyr with a grave that could be visited.

The knights had gathered a not inconsiderable amount of wealth. After conversing with the other villagers it was decided that Kerrass and I should take the more identifiable pieces, the ornaments and jewellery and turn them in. Any reward that we might get for those things should then be donated to something. A real church or shrine or something. The smaller money, or things that the villagers could realistically sell without drawing attention to themselves were divided equally among those people that came to help, on the understanding that they would be used to help the villages worst struck by the knights.

Kerrass and I also took the paper that had been in Sansum's rooms. It was soon re-emphasised that Sansum couldn't read as the majority of the letters that he had received were unopened but had been carefully hidden away so that no-one could call him on that. We also took what books there were, those that wouldn't be of use to the villagers themselves.

As we left, having ransacked the place of anything useful or of worth, Kerrass doused the place in oil as we had found another store place of it in the basement, and brought me a lit torch to start the fire. I hadn't wanted any kind of ceremony for the burning. I had just wanted the signs of this place to be obliterated but the other villagers seemed to want something.

So I stood, only slightly leaning on Kerrass and told them that the Holy Fire keeps us safe from evil and as such it was fitting that fire would destroy a very dark point in the history of this strip of land. I spun and threw the torch into the pyre and it went up most satisfactoraly.

Kerrass and I stayed and watched it burn for a while as the rest of the villagers started to drift away.

"Thank you Freddie." He told me.

"What for."

"You didn't have to come with me to do this. In fact, there's a significant part of me that is saying that you _shouldn't_ have come with me. When you are so desperate to hunt down what happened to your sister, you didn't have to come with me on this. But I am grateful that you did. I'm not sure I could have done this without you."

"It was rather special though wasn't it?" I told him with a grin in an effort to change the subject. "How many distractions was it?"

"Let's see," he started counting on his fingers, "I distracted them so that you could get in and start causing destruction and mayhem. So that's one."

"Then when I've done that, I get myself captured to distract them from you getting free and making with the killing. That's two."

"Then I distract what's left of them so that you can get free and kill Sansum, so that's three." He smiled in triumph.

"Ah no, because in turn, that killing distracted them so that you could get amongst them and kill them. So that's four."

"So a distraction within a distraction within a distraction within a distraction." Kerrass mused. "That's a lot of distraction."

"And you say that you don't like complicated plans." I teased him.

"Hey, it was your plan."

"True."

There was another pause as we watched the place burn.

"But thank you Freddie. I owe you."

"No you don't." I told him. "I loved them too and besides, that's what friends are for, remember?"

As we watched the central roof beam of the church building collapsed inwards.

"Let's get the fuck out of here." Kerrass said after a long moment.

I sincerely wish that that was the end of the story.

The kid, Maxwell, never made it to Tretogor. When my hands had healed enough so that I could write, (it wasn't that long,) I wrote to Mark to tell him to keep an eye out for the kid but he never showed up. We received word that, after some time, genuine church soldiers went out to search for him. In the end they found him handing from a tree in Northern Lyria with his hands tied behind his back. A search was made for the killers but they were never found.

We _did_ find out who Sansum was though. He was an illegitimate son of a bishop of Rivia. His mother had been trampled to death under the feet of the panicking masses during the Pogrom against the non-humans. The same incident that had supposedly killed Geralt of Rivia. His father, not being the stereotypical, remote father of a bastard had arranged for his son to be taken into a local monastery but his disdain for what he had called "the dimming of the flame" under the leadership of people like brother Mark had caused his hatred and disdain to boil over. In the end, the abbot had been forced to kick him out in the face of the churches move towards tolerance after the end of the more recent war.

The supporting Lords, the men who had supported Sansum in his crusade protested their innocence and swore to work towards the betterment of the countryside.

The thing that got Kerrass and I in trouble was that a couple of the knights had important fathers who had been quite proud of the fact that their children had joined a holy order and protested at the summary execution of their darling little children while also refusing to believe what they had gotten up to, citing their disbelief in a ragamuffin Witcher and some minor son of a Northern Lord.

The thing was that the Constable of Lyria and Rivia was well aware of Sansum and his knights but was not authorised to do anything about it because there were "bigger problems" closer to home. It seems that Sansum had been cautious enough not to anger anyone too important and as a result, the people that held onto the Constables leash wouldn't release him to deal with it. He was actually quite grateful. Grateful enough that he sent us on our way with a few spare horses and enough money to get to the river and catch a boat to Oxenfurt but, as you know, we didn't manage to outrun the protests.

So what's left to say. As I write this, Sir Robart is being escorted North which means that Kerrass and I should be safe to leave the day after tomorrow. The slight delay is due to the fact that Captain Froggart and Sir Rickard want to do a sweep of the local countryside to ensure that there aren't any mercenary hitmen that are waiting behind in an effort to pick us off and collect some kind of bounty.

It has been decided, by people other than myself, that Sir Rickard and his gang of Bastards are coming North with Kerrass and I. According to Sam's letters there is a considerable problem with ghosts and other "things" for which the Bastards would be most useful. Sir Rickard is looking forward to it claiming that his men are getting fat on all of the lazing around and getting paid for it. But I suspect that the extra escorts are my sister and Ariadne conspiring against me for my own good. I can't say that they are wrong to be concerned, but don't tell them I said that.

This doesn't feel like a proper ending to the story. Instead I will say this.

A number of people have contacted me with anti-flame sentiment. They point to the Witch-hunters and the questioners and the burnings of non-humans and anyone that the church took offence to. They point out the depths that the knights of the burning rose sunk to after they had been all but wiped out at the hands of Radovid's displeasure. There have even been calls for banning the worship of the Holy Flame altogether.

To them I will say this.

For a start, I still follow the tenets of the Holy Flame and I have been tortured by fanatics.

Some things to bear in mind.

The Witch burnings and the pogroms were encouraged by two men. The Hierarch Hemmelfart and King Radovid of Redania. The two most powerful men in Redania. Provably, both men had reason to hate magic users. The first because of political ambition and the second because of his resentment at the way he had been brought up. In such cases, the bad rise to the top.

It was a political purging and such things will always attract the psychopaths. But they are the rarity rather than the main.

Yes I know that Mark is my brother but...

There is a movement in the church at the moment which is dragging the Holy Flame into the modern era as the continent as a whole moves back towards Polytheism. Priests are being encouraged to be more tolerant and understanding as scholars like my brother and others argue for progress and to work together with magic users and the other religions. Change is coming but change is always painful.

There are also, always, people for whom change is terrifying. Mark is one of these people.

There are also people for whom the old ways gave them an outlet for their old prejudices and hatreds. Sansum was one of those.

So I will just say, there are people who give the church a bad name. But there are also plenty of people who do sterling work looking after the poor and the sick and the hurt.

What I'm saying is, don't blame the whole thing for the actions of a relatively small number of ass-holes.

Yeah, that's a better ending.


	65. Chapter 65

(Warning: Some lewd and potentially offensive jokes.)

"So," I told Kerrass as we rode north. "I think you should talk to her. Write her or something."

"When are you going to leave this alone Freddie?"

"Mmm, never." I told him. "Besides, after all the fun that you had at my expense over the Ariadne thing, I think I deserve some payback."

"For the last time," he said. "It's not up for discussion. She's sixteen years old."

"She's nearly seventeen, going on a hundred and thirty four.

"But she's only been conscious for sixteen years."

"She's also a Princess, although technically a Queen by now, and was forced to mature faster than anyone has ever done. Look, I don't understand why you're finding this difficult."

"Don't you? Do you really not understand why this is so difficult for me?"

"To be fair," Sir Rickard, who was riding on the other side of us, "I don't entirely understand any part of the situation. Can someone go through it for me."

Kerrass pinched the bridge of his nose in exasperation.

"Here it is," I explained to the knight. "Kerrass here, has been in love with the woman that has been called Sleeping Beauty for over a hundred years."

"I thought he'd only been alive for the last ninety odd."

"No, I mean that she's been called that for the last hundred years."

"That would make more sense."

I was really coming to enjoy the dry humour of Sir Rickard. He was still all but indistinguishable from his men. The only badge of his rank was the signalling horn that he wore on a strap over his shoulder. Other than that, he rode in his shirtsleeves like his men with his hair long and his armour in a bag. Also, his equipment was a little better quality although not by much. I know that he paid for a lot of his men's equipment out of his own pocket, insisting on the best bows and weapons that money could buy. He would take his men into Oxenfurt and buying weapons according to their own preferences. He carried a heavy broadsword and a shield without ornament and his bow was a recurved thing of beauty which he spent hours caring for.

It was a much slower journey than the one that we had taken when we had first met. That time we had been riding south towards my families castle with breakneck, almost reckless speed. We had commandeered horses as went to maintain our fast pace and had eaten in our saddles. I had been in a state of grief, all but falling off my horse when spasms of grief would overcome me without warning and we hadn't really gotten the chance to get to know each other.

Now though, Sir Rickard was fast becoming another friend.

He had sixteen of his bastards with us and they rode easily in front, behind and off to one side in a formation that I doubt is in any of the military hand books. I know that there were a couple of outriders on either side as well as an advance scout and another man bringing up the rear that would, in theory, warn us about any followers and any advance attacks. The rest of them rode with an easy, relaxed posture. Their swords were in scabbards at their stirrups and their shields were attached next to it. I had seen how fast these men could go from a relaxed posture to being fully armed and ready for a fight.

Instead they rode with their bows cradled in their arms as though they were cradling their children. Each horse had an arrow bag of no less than a hundred arrows on their opposite stirrup from their swords and shields.

I had been surprised as to how many arrows each man had wanted, when I had seen them earlier they had had relatively small bundles of arrows, but this time Sir Rickard had insisted that the men equip as though they were heading to battle. I had asked him about that and he had simply asked me how many arrows a fully trained archer could fire in the space of a minute. Then he had asked me how many decent fletchers there were with Sam's forces.

Then he told me that most military long-bowmen traditionally expected to carry a couple of hundred arrows into battle. Then he had asked whether I could fit that many arrows into a normal hunting quiver.

I had left, admitting that I didn't know that much about warfare. He had laughed, admitting that he didn't know that much about history either so that made us even.

But other than their weapons, they wore no uniforms or armour. Riding easily in their shirtsleeves and their trousers. They traded jokes and abuse with each other, calling of names and insults was common. Some men smoked, another man was singing gently with astonishing craft and a voice that rasped with age and a pitch that was pure and unwavering.

We rode easily, stopping often and avoiding winding ourselves or our horses. We wanted to be ready for anything as there were still regular reports of bandits in the countryside. I even know that we were mistaken for a band of bandits at one point and I had to exert my fragile authority. In the end though there was a line of armoured men facing the line of grinning bastards before both sides decided that it would be better to walk away and live another day.

When we stopped, a couple of the men who had been poachers would set traps and we managed to live off the road fairly well. When the night fell we would gather, sentry's would be sent out and hid in the undergrowth to protect us from whatever might be out there and we sat, the men off to one side and Sir Rickard, Kerrass and I nearby in our own little clique.

The first night I had tried to mix with the men, share some drinks, play some cards and tell some jokes and stories but I had felt...uncomfortable and out of place until Sir Rickard had come to collect me and take me over to where there was a smaller camp fire that he had built next to his own bedroll where he had a pot of tea brewing.

"They don't want us to be the same as them." Kerrass had been off somewhere training. Working his own sword forms separate from the rest of us. "Don't take offence."

"Why?"

Rickard grinned. He has this scar across his cheek that always makes him look as though he's sneering except when he smiles which knocks a clear ten years off his age. Most of the time he comes across as this kind of hardened, grizzled veteran of many campaigns but it's easy to forget that he's only a couple of years older than me.

"I read your book." he said, gesturing for me to join him. He poured me a mug of the bitter soldiers drink that they all seemed to like and passed it over as I settled in. "I thought it best to know something of the family that I would be working for."

"Oh yes, and what did you think."

"I think that you're a little naïve with your class politics."

I laughed at him. "Thanks a lot."

"Don't get me wrong. I think it's admirable a lot of the things that you say. I agree with you on a good chunk of it. The vast majority of the noble-class are absolutely worthless scum and could do with fighting a decent battle on the front lines of the pike regiments. Or failing that, a day digging latrines, shovelling muck out over someone else's stables or my personal favourite which is listening to the wailing of those people that have lost someone to the various wars, famines and diseases that nobles simply ignore from the safety of their homes."

"I sense that there's a but coming."

"And there is. There is one place where men like to be separate from their ruling classes and that's in the army."

I said nothing, just sat and drank my tea.

"Men like knights and officers to be separate from them. Above them somehow. They want to look up to them and think that, no matter how much they might hate their knight, that that same knight is different somehow. Blessed is the word."

"Why?"

"Interesting question. Soldiers are the most superstitious bastards on the continent. More than sailors, merchants or farmers. And just as much as the soldier has a lucky dagger, a lucky rabbits foot or their lucky arrow. They like to believe that _their_ officer is a man apart. That he has been blessed, consecrated and set apart to do better things. That way, if he is a better man, then he will be able to lead them to safety."

"You once told me that leadership was easy. Just pick some simple rules that men could follow easily."

"That's right. Also, set high standards and meet those standards yourself. In short, never ask a man or a subordinate to do something that you wouldn't do yourself. Also, give credit where it's due. I mean there are some refinements as well but that's just about the long and short of it."

"So why do the men need their officers to be apart from them?"

"Because in being apart, they are special. They are lucky. They lead charmed lives and will always, always bring them home."

"That sounds more like trust. That they trust you to do those things."

"That's right. But why do they trust me?"

"Because you are lucky."

"Correct. I'm the luckiest cunt on the face of the planet." He said it gloomily. "I swear, if I'd known what was going to happen, that Lord Natalis was going to knight me in return for saving his life I would have run a mile instead. Bastard."

"You never told me what happened."

"That's because, in all truth, I don't really know myself. I was just a common soldier." He poured himself another drink, topping it up a little from a hip flask which he offered to me. I declined. "They used to call us The Harriers in Temeria. Our job was to give the enemy headaches."

"This all sounds very technical to me."

He laughed.

"No, what I mean is, we would sneak round and fire a bunch of volleys of arrows into unprotected flanks before legging it. Or we would make ourselves a big and tempting target to try and draw out the enemy and make them expose themselves to a waiting cavalry charge. In short, if there was a nasty job where they needed some hard fighting and creative thinking it was our job to do it. The Redanians called the same job "skirmishers" while the Kaedweni referred to us as "mounted infantry." Lightly armed and armoured bastards who can move with great speed and do any number of things, from destroying siege equipment to disturbing an enemy shield wall."

"How do you do that?"

"Oh you'll be surprised. There aren't actually a lot of uniforms on a battlefield, a good chunk of the skill of being a soldier is knowing who's on the other side and who's on your side. A lot of it is in the recognising of the standard issued equipment, but anyway.

"I once had to sneak right round an enemies lines and then came up through their baggage train. A knight thought I was being cowardly and pushed me into line. There were a few dozen of us and because I was then in the ranks, I could tell the people around me that the people coming up were my mates and then they could be pushed through to join me.

"So there we stood, in the middle of our enemies lines watching our own soldiers marching towards us in good order. We waited to meet them. I caught the eye of a soldier who knew me and gave him a little wave. He saw me and passed word to his sergeants who called the charge. As he did so, we turned and started hacking away. The enemy shield wall shattered like glass."

He chuckled at the memory while I did my best not to look appalled.

"But anyway, we could all ride so that we could get about the battlefield as quickly as possible. The enemy were falling back and we were getting a little too far back from our own lives for comfort so the call was given and we started to ride back to our own lines.

"Now, the thing that you have to remember about Constable Natalis is that he's a very sensible commander. He's not like the Foltests or Henselts of the world in that he likes to command a battle from a hilltop so that he can see what's going on and make proper and informed decisions. When to charge, when to fall back, when are the forces beginning to bend, where is our line going to break, where is their line going to break, and so on. That's not to say that he won't get his hands dirty when he has to. He knows the value of being a fighting general but he only commits himself when there are no more orders to be given. When the reserves have been committed, the archers have run out of arrows and it's getting to the point of it just being brutal and hard hitting.

"So we were fighting against the black ones. It was the last war, shortly after Foltest was killed and we weren't doing well. Not well at all. This must have been, just before the winter where Radovid invaded Kaedwen."

I nodded to show that I was up to date with wherever he was.

"We were retreating north. The Black ones had crossed the Yaruga and nothing we could do was stopping them. The problem was that Foltest wasn't there to call up the nobles so the nobles were just fucking off and taking their troops with them. The only people left were those of us that had nowhere else to go. Not gonna lie, more than a little tempted to go myself.

"It was getting colder. The vast majority of the army was fleeing north. Those of us that managed to keep our discipline had stayed back as a rear guard. Natalis had stayed with us as well. Both because of the kind of man that he is and also because we were the only troops that might actually listen to him rather than just throwing our weapons down and running for it."

"We went forward. Aiming to snipe at the vanguard. Running backwards when the cavalry tried to mount a charge. We weren't doing anything other than slowing them down as their armour was far too thick to properly penetrate and they had gotten wise to our tricks. We were slowing things down but only because they had had to advance their heavily armoured troops to the front to prevent us from picking them off. But someone in their command structure had gotten clever. They advanced to behind the heavy troops and when we started our own volleys, they answered with a bombardment of arrows and crossbow bolts.

"All that we could do was to find what cover we could and hide, taking cover behind the tiny shields that we had been issued, and making ourselves as small as we possibly could.

"Survival was a lottery. Those of us that lived, didn't do so because we were better than those who died but because we were luckier.

"Then the enemy commander showed that he was really clever, the heavy ranks opened and the cavalry charged.

"Slaughter isn't the word for it. We broke, because of course we did. At best, we were light infantry. The lightest of chain mail and our shields weren't going to stand up to a broadsword impact, let alone one carried by a cavalryman.

"Natalis charged with his escort. I don't know if you know about the Temerian order of battle but the way it works is that the Lord General travels with the standard. Heavy knights surrounding the army banner with halbards and all of the nasty tools that military minds can consider. There weren't many of them but when those bastards charge, you know about it.

"But our opposite numbers knew about it too. They saw the General's banner coming for them so they ran through us, hacking and slashing as they went, but then the enemy missile troops started to change their targets from us to Natalis' people.

"It's not that they were poorly armoured. Nor were our earlier efforts so bad that we couldn't have effected the black ones but there's a difference between shooting at advancing soldiers with lightish bows to sustained volley fire from trained long-bowmen. We had damaged the Nilfgaardians and they couldn't advance without caution. The sheer weight of fire from the Nilfgaardians meant that Natalis' men started to fall. Including the banner bearer."

Rickard sighed and poured himself another mug of the strong herbal drink. I wasn't the only man that was listening to the story and it was beginning to feel as though it was one of those, often told stories, that men love to listen to.

"Soldiers are a funny lot." He said after a while. "And I was no different, back when I fought on foot rather than from horseback. Most of us didn't sign up to the army because we felt some sense of patriotism or honour. This is the standing army that I'm talking about now, not the levies or the various guards of the various Lords.

"We're talking the _proper_ army. You don't do that kind of thing for the love of country or because you feel like you have a calling. You do it because you don't have a choice, most often because you have to either join the army or starve to death, or go to the penal colonies, or jail or the hangman. Men join the army when they're at their lowest point of life but then they are given their equipment, taught how to use it and then there's a steady torrent of abuse thrown at you. Your country hates you, your people hate you, often even your lords hate you.

"You quickly learn that there's no-one that you can depend on, other than each other and so, you learn to depend on the man next to you. Even if you hate each other, you depend on each other for survival. You have pride in each other and the fact that no-one else would do this fucking job but us. The symbol of that is the flag.

"If you ask the average soldier why they're fighting and you would get a variety of answers. Their country, won't even come into the top ten most common answers. The top three will be the money,"

He counted them off his fingers,

"Their mates,"

Another finger,

"And their flag."

A third finger.

"Flags do funny things to soldiers and when that standard fell under the weight of the number of arrows, you could audibly hear an army groan. No-one gave an order but suddenly, we were running towards where Natalis and his men were falling off their horses. As is often the case, a lot of the men were un-hurt by the falling arrows but the horses weren't so lucky.

"And the arrows were still falling.

"We ran in, our numbers dwindling, many of us gave up and were already sprinting for the safety of out own lines. Many more were dead or dying but then there were about half a dozen of us that were amongst the General's party. We found the flag and hoisted it back up. A buddy of mine called Lorick waved it around in an effort to tell our side that we were still alive and that we needed help. One of the knights insisted that he was, and I quote, "too important to die," and fled leaving us there. I took great delight in seeing his body later when he had been ridden down. We lost another man then as the last of the arrows fell as they'd stopped shooting.

"We could feel the ground shaking which meant that the cavalry was coming back. We found the general under his horse. His armour was good enough that he was essentially unhurt but he couldn't get out.

"There were four of us left including Lorick who was waving the flag. The rest of the flag party were down, dead, dying or fled and I saw that we wouldn't get him out from his horse.

"So I picked up one of the axes that they used to protect the standard."

He chuckled suddenly. "I've still got the axe, it's back at the castle. Absolutely ludicrous it is. I've tried using it in the practice fields and I can barely lift the damn thing let alone use it effectively. But I was terrified and angry at the fact that the stale-mate had been broken and that we were on the losing side. I didn't care about the general but those fucking cavalrymen were going down.

"I don't remember much of it. I remember screaming in terror and swinging that axe wildly. When the cavalry had passed, some of them dismounted and came at us on foot. The prize of taking the enemy standard as well as the enemy general, one of the few men that the north still had that knew when to fight, when to retreat and how to win. Him and Lord Roche were the only real leaders we had left by that point as the rest had signed up with Radovid.

"Idiots.

"Guess who Radovid put in the vanguard, every time he attacked someone else. Prove yourself faithless and no-one will ever trust you again.

"But the prize of the enemies banner would have been too good to give up.

"Lord Natalis, I still can't call him John even though he tries to insist every time I see him, says that, as my remaining two comrades dragged him out from under his horse, I was screaming at the enemy to come on. Begging them to come and die by my hand. If you let him, he will tell you stories of the dozens of men that I killed that day and how I made the ground soggy with the enemies blood. He says that when he was freed, he and the others joined me and about how, three Temerian harriers, the constable of Temeria and the banner bearing Harrier routed the enemy. He goes so far as to say that the rest of them were just trying to keep up with me.

"Heh,

"We didn't route them. They were cavalry and not very good at fighting on foot. What had happened was that a bunch of our own cavalry, finally decided to do their fucking jobs and mounted a rescue party.

"Another piece of learning for you Lord Frederick. Infantrymen hate cavalrymen and vice versa."

"Aren't you also cavalry now?" I enquire innocently.

He stared at me for a long time. "As you're a friend and your sister saved me from ignominy, I will refrain from killing you for that. I ride horses to get about. But I dismount when the fighting starts."

"Fair enough," I chuckled.

"As I say, I don't remember much of it. I remember that Natalis had to insist that the three of us should come with him and that the cavalry were not to leave us behind. We'd lost another man in the fighting. We were dropped off with the army, and the three of us wandered round in a daze. We found the remains of our unit, those who hadn't come with us towards the flag party and we told our story. It wasn't until two days later before Lord Natalis found the time to "reward us."

"My fellows were promoted to Sergeants and I was knighted. At the time I remember being honoured. Now?"

He sighed.

"Despite everything that's happened. Despite the increase in status and the ability to tell people like Lord Robart to fuck off and not have to worry about the flogging afterwards. Despite meeting your family and the Lady Shani. Sometimes, I wish he'd just given me a sack of gold and made me a Sergeant."

"Why?"

"Because now...I'm not a common soldier any more. I'm never going to be one of the lads again and they won't accept me amongst them. I can't go drinking or whoring with my mates. I can't go through life depending on being told what to do. I'm not one of them any more. Luckily, they think I'm lucky and so they follow me where I lead them. A fact that never ceases to astonish me."

He grinned at me sidelong. "Don't tell them I said that."

"I won't"

"But I'm not one of them any more. But neither am I one of your lot."

"My lot?"

"Yeah, don't get me wrong. I like your family for the most part. Lord Samuel's a bit up himself but your sister's decent enough. She pretends not to notice that I check to see which knife and fork she's using before I select my own cutlery from the positive arsenal of silverwear that's put before me. I think she's even considering asking me to stay on as captain of the guard when Captain Froggart retires. A position which I never thought I would achieve when I ran away from the watch to join the army."

"She did mention..."

"And it _is_ tempting. But I'm not one of you. I study every day, but I don't know how to bow, I don't know the proper way to talk or how to behave. I'm never gonna marry some lady and go hunting and keep dogs and falcons. I know nothing about art or wine or etiquette or any of the other things that you're supposed to be good at if you're a lord.

"So I'm not a common soldier, but nor am I a lord of men. I'm caught in the middle."

"You sound a little bitter."

"Sometimes," he mused. "Sometimes when I hear a song being sung in a pub or I see a campfire with a group of men sitting round it. Like that one over there." he gestured.

"But that's not the point." He said after a while. "The point is, soldiers are soldiers. In the same way that _you_ will never be a farmer, or a tradesman. You will never be a soldier. Don't try to be or they will resent you for it."

"Not to argue the point." I said, "But I have a good relationship with many of the men back at the castle."

"You do. But those men have known you since you were a boy. They're good men, all. But you are lord of the manor. They like you because they see you working hard and because you talk _to_ them rather than at them. You take care of your own shite. As I say, Leadership. Set the standard and meet it yourself. When you wake up, you get up and train hard. You see to your own equipment, take care of your horse and get involved in castle life. That might seem like a low bar to you, and it is, but a surprisingly large number of your class...our class...don't meet that standard."

I spent a long time thinking about that over the march. Looking at my interactions with the servants and the men-at-arms in a new light.

I spent some time over the next few days watching how Sir Rickard interacted with his men and found that I was actually quite surprised. He hardly gave any orders, indeed, he hardly interacted with them at all other than to occasionally thank the man that brought him a cup of tea or his share of the evening's rations. He would occasionally call out for drills and when they men did train then Rickard worked just as hard as the rest of them. He practised his shooting, sword play and horse-work along with the rest. The only difference seemed to be that when the entire thing was over and everyone stopped for the night, he would go off to his own camp-fire and the men would go over to theirs.

He would arbitrarily pick a time and go out to check the sentries though. Sometimes in the middle of the night where he would gather up his sword and have a wander around to see if he could find his own sentries. It seemed to be a game between him and the men. If they could challenge him before he saw them then they would consider themselves to have won a point.

I asked him about this as well, a couple of days north of Coulthard castle and he rubbed his chin.

"The lads know their jobs," he told me. "Why would I try and tell them how to do it when they already know it. They know what happens if I catch any of them shirking so..." he shrugged.

But after a while, I did begin to see his loneliness, more than I had previously thought possible, I found myself hoping that he and Shani manage to get it together. Two intensely lonely people, in positions that they shouldn't be doing, the one because women are generally not allowed to become accredited doctors and the other because he was common born and shouldn't be allowed to be a knight. I hope that the two of them manage to come to some kind of agreement as I think they would do well together.

But we travelled slowly, taking our time. Our plan was to travel along the main northern road as far as Blavikan before we set off east, following the line of the river up and into the mountains to where the old Kalayn lands were. We travelled easily as well, stopping off at various way posts to collect the news and the dispatches which is where Kerrass received the message that had caused so much amusement between Sir Rickard and I.

It was a long letter and although I didn't get to read it, I did get to see that it was written in a flowing hand, a little more angular than the more modern styles of penmanship and that the letter bore the seal of the Southern Kingdom of Dorn.

My entertainment started the morning after he had received the letter as I watched him take it out of his saddle-bags and examine it for a long time, as far as I could tell he hadn't broken the seal. He sat and stared at it for a long time. He was sat in front of a fire, his breakfast untouched next to him. He had cleaned himself up after we had spent a bunch of time training before sitting down to stow his gear when he produced the scroll. There were several times where he looked as though he was going to hold it out towards the fire but, at the last second, he pulled himself back. Finally though, after staring at the seal for a long time, he broke it with his thumb and read the contents quickly.

He didn't get to finish it though as it was shortly after this that The Sergeant of the bastards. A huge Skelligan man named Padraig, called out that it was time to mount up.

Just as another aside, calling him a Sergeant is doing him a disservice. The way Rickard treats him is a bit closer to a second in command.

But I watched Kerrass over the course of the day and I could feel my amusement growing. Periodically he would reach out and touch the part of his jacket where I had seen him stow the message. I managed to contain my mirth until Kerrass, Rickard and I were sat around the camp-fire that night after doing some training and having something to eat. Our habit was that we would sit together, Rickard was usually reading something as he was stubbornly trying to improve himself. At the moment he was reading a book on the history of Temeria.

It's very bad of me, but I had to force myself _not_ to help him with his reading as he still has to track the words with his finger and is often sounding out the words as he reads them. He tells me that he can read military despatches easily where they're deliberately written and worded so that imbeciles can understand them, his words, but some of the works of the poets escape him. He tells me that one of the first things he had to do upon being made a knight was to learn to read and write, an activity which he had considered a waste of time as he could have spent that time killing Nilfgaardians.

But there we were, sat around the fire, Rickard reading, myself making some notes while Kerrass stared into the flames, when I could no longer resist it.

"So how's the Princess?" I asked Kerrass, doing my best to look all innocent.

"What?" he looked startled and I could no longer help myself. There was no holding it back any more and I started to laugh. "Admit it Kerrass, you were thinking of a small woman with thick blonde hair and blue eyes weren't you."

He glared at me. "If you're going to be in one of _these_ moods then I'm going to go off and sleep somewhere else." So saying he gathered up his blanket, took some firewood and started his own small camp a little distance off. My giggling didn't subside though.

"What was that all about?" Rickard asked, marking his place in the book he was reading with his thumb.

"He got a letter from "Sleeping Beauty" yesterday, in amongst all the despatches."

"Oh. You mean the one that you and he..."

"Woke up from the curse yes."

"The one that he..."

"That's the one. Despite his best efforts, she's decided that she likes him and wants to see him again. He is resisting."

"Why?"

"Because he likes her back."

Rickard's face creased in confusion.

"That makes no sense."

"I know," I told him laughing. "That's why I'm having so much fun with it."

"You're a bad man," Rickard told me.

"Yes," I admitted, "but to be fair, he was the one that set _me_ up with an elder vampire,"

"So, just to be clear, your vengeance for him setting you up with a gorgeous, immortal vampire woman, is to tease him about, and set him up with, a woman who is declared the most beautiful woman in all the land."

"Pretty much, you wanna help?" 

"Holy Thunder, yes."

So the following day we started off. Just innocent questions, little needling points and questions. Apart from anything else, it was a way to pass the time. We were travelling up the main road so there wasn't a great deal to do other than to watch the scenery go by. The bastards did their best to look villainous and scare the shite out of passing merchants and farmers which I should have been outraged at, but I couldn't help laugh at. But it was also a little heart-warming how they all stopped, spontaneously and without orders given to help a tinker get a new wheel onto his wagon. Also the way they would form up into perfect military order whenever there were other soldiers on the move.

Then they would leer at some perfumed nobleman's wife and her calls of outrage would set the men laughing again. The mood was infectious and it was hard not to enjoy myself.

"So, hang on, let me see if I've..." Rickard scratched his head for the effect. He had asked all of these questions multiple times but kept on asking me to go through it. "She fancies him?"

"Yes,"

"And he loves her?"

"Yes."

"Then am I being really stupid?"

"Undoubtedly," Kerrass intoned with dire overtones to his voice.

Rickard and I ignored him.

"Get together with the girl, bang her brains out, get it out of your system, and hers, and then move on. Or, if that actively makes the problem worse then give it up as a bad job and settle down with the girl. I don't understand the problem." Rickard declared.

"The problem is..."

"Is what?" Rickard did his best to look innocent. "That she's just too good for you?"

"She's a Queen."

"So? Adds an extra thrill to proceedings."

I was enjoying myself. Rickard had a gift for getting under Kerrass' skin when he put his mind to it.

"But I'm a Witcher."

"So?"

"So..."

Rickard made a pretence of considering it. "No, I still don't get it. You like her, she likes you. Make with the fucking. And always remember that you have to screw her till her ears bleed." He accompanied the joke with a pelvic thrust.

I groaned and slapped him.

"You don't understand. She will need to marry."

"So?"

"And produce children."

"So?"

"And I can't do that for her."

"So?"

"So I thought that that was quite an important step."

Rickard considered.

"No, I'm pretty sure that you can marry the girl."

Kerrass looked at him, somewhat aghast.

"What?" Rickard had been reading my book on the law. "She's the Queen right? So her word is law right? So she says she can marry whoever the hell she likes. Also, if the person she chooses to marry happens to be a Witcher then that's her decision and anyone who doesn't like it can fuck off."

"But then her neighbours will invade."

"No they won't." I told him. It was my turn to join in on the argument now. "They're not going to invade. What is there to gain other than the ire of the Empress. Remember that Princess, sorry, _Queen_ Dorn is close friends with the Empress now. If someone invades then all she has to do is to retreat to a border fort and wait while the invading army starves to death in her kingdom that is mostly still covered in blade vines. Then the Empress turns up with one of her southern armies who are _bound_ to be getting a bit bored by now and be looking forward to a stomping and then it's all over."

"But the Queen would never agree to that. She would owe even more to the crown."

"You're thinking like a man Kerrass. If that happens she gets what she wants out of the situation which is, one less enemy on her borders."

"I still can't give her any children."

"But you can give her orgasms though right?"

"N...what"

"You nearly said no." Rickard pointed and laughed.

"She needs to provide her Kingdom with an heir." Kerrass insisted. We were getting to the stage in our entertainment that he would lose his temper and storm off.

"Yes." I told him. "Yes she does, but there are ways and means of doing that nowadays. She could choose a consort. Or marry some idiot to get her pregnant, then get the Empress to order her "divorced" which the Empress, who's facing a similar problem, would undoubtedly do and then the problem is solved."

"But she's sixteen."

"So?" Rickard again. "I lost my virginity at the age of thirteen. One of the older boys in the gang decided that it was time I became a man. The lads spent a day picking pockets for the purposes of buying me a night with Sally."

"Sally?"

"Local prostitute, she was like an elder sister to all of us really. I think she must have been in her late teens or early twenties." His eyes unfocused as he stared off into the mists of memory.

But I was morbidly fascinated with this.

"Good memories?"

"Best twenty three seconds of my life." Rickard told me happily. "It was over so quickly that she took pity on me and gave me another go half an hour later. I'll never forget it. The first few seconds of thinking that there was nothing to this "sexing" lark and that I could carry on pounding away for hours. Ten seconds later I was just holding on for dear life trying not to disappoint her. She was good to me though."

"What happened to her?"

"She died. Got her throat slit seven months later by a customer for saying something that he didn't like. We always told her that she was pretty enough to go and work in one of the proper houses in Vizima but she didn't want to go. She wanted to look after her old man. A drunken idiot who drank away every penny that she earned. Git."

A sudden flash of anger crossed the face of the normally relatively placid man. "But we weren't talking about me, we were talking about Kerrass and this "Sleeping Beauty" That I've heard so much about."

"Look," Kerrass tried to make his voice a little dangerous. "Just drop this topic of conversation would you."

Sir Rickard and I exchanged glances as we pretended to consider it for a while.

"Nah," I said.

"This is way too much fun"

"She's only sixteen." Kerrass protested again.

"Nearly seventeen." I pointed out...again.

"And I'm pushing a hundred."

"You're talking to the man that's about to marry a nine hundred year old vampire." I pointed out.

"Yes, but to be fair to Kerrass here. That's not a good point." Rickard put in. "I've met your betrothed and she is a _lot_ better looking than Kerrass is."

"That is a good point."

"Look," Kerrass decided. "It's not going to happen so just drop it."

He kicked his horse into a canter and went up to join the advance scouts.

This was the pattern for a lot of the time that it took us to head north. Rickard and I tormenting Kerrass as we travelled before Kerrass would take his vengeance out on us when we stopped for the night and we trained.

It was a good few weeks.

"So what is his issue?" Rickard asked me one night before we settled in for the night. "I genuinely don't get it."

I thought about it as I poked the small fire that we had set up with a bit of twig before checking to see where Kerrass was. "It's complicated." I told Rickard. "You've read my accounts on the subject right. About what happened between him and her."

"I have. Don't get me wrong, it sounds all kinds of fucked up."

"It is, and it was. But I think it's complicated. He loves her. There's no doubt in my mind about that. I don't think there's a day goes by where he doesn't think about her in some way. But there's also a reason why he instantly dropped everything to come chasing round the continent with me in a, probably futile, effort to find out what happened to Francesca. Yes loyalty to me is part of it but it's also an effort to keep himself away from her."

Rickard shook his head in disbelief.

"I think there's a lot going on there." I continued. "The Princess once told me that he's the only person who has ever treated her like a normal person and she loves him for it. She knows about all of the horror and she knows about everything that Kerrass did for her and she loves him for it. But when he looks at her, he sees everything he ever did wrong, or everything that he feels as though he allowed to happen to her.

"The other thing about Kerrass is that he has a martyr complex a mile wild. He blames himself for every evil thing that has ever happened in his life along with every bad deed that he has ever performed. While at the same time, he is unable to see any of the good that he's done. So the other reason for staying away from the girl, sorry, the woman that he loves is that he doesn't believe that he has any right to being happy."

Rickard stared into the flames. "Damn," he said.

"Pretty much." I agreed. "Everything he says about him being older than her, along with her needing heirs and her deserving better than him is true and she knows that. But he's trying to make that choice for her which she is rebelling against."

"Will he break and go to her do you think?"

"I don't know. I hope so. Even if it _is_ only for a little while. Both of them are very damaged souls and they might be able to help each other out there. Plus," I chuckled at the thought. "I don't know if you've met her."

"I haven't,"

"But she's very determined. It might get to a point where Kerrass doesn't have any choice in the matter."

"Serves him right."

"And that's if the Empress doesn't get involved. The Empress' knitting circle is increasing in size, lots of powerful and important women getting together and realising that they have more influence than they previously thought possible. The world is not going to be the same after this. Not for anyone."

"No bad thing in my book."

"Possibly not. But still."

"How far have we got before we get to your brothers lands?"

"We should be reaching the border in a few days where the main road goes up towards them. The castle itself is supposed to be up among the foothills of the mountains."

"You ever been there?"

"Once when I was little. I don't remember much of it though as I was five. I remember it being a dark place and spending most of the time there being afraid of things. We weren't there long and I get the feeling that we only went out of some kind of sense of duty but that no-one involved wanted us to stay there for long."

"What's the terrain like?" 

"Rocky, you're up amongst the foothills of the mountains up there. Sheep and goat farming country. There might be mining deposits up there but from what I understand, my Great Grandfather on my mothers side wasn't that keen on getting in the dwarven or magical expertise that would have been needed to find whatever ores or deposits that there might have been up there and so the place has generally fallen on hard times. I get the feeling that there are a few villages there that are mostly holding on through sheer stubbornness."

"Lovely. Wooded or open?"

"I heard that it's wooded. It's up near the mountains, miles away from any kind of easy route to get decent quantities of lumber down from the hills so I can't think that there would have been any kind of serious deforestation happening."

"Mmm." He picked some left over rabbit out of his teeth. We had plenty of rations but the men did their best to live off the land wherever possible, shooting rabbits as we rode and setting traps around the camp for any other stray game that might be picked up. The skill of the bastards was astonishing and there was rarely an evening went by where we were unable to supplement our rations with something a bit more exciting. "What are we likely going to be going up against?"

"The job is two-fold for us, for Kerrass and I I mean. The first job is to clean out the castle. A lot of really dark stuff happened up there and we need to make sure that the remains are put to rest and whatever ghosts and spirits that are flying around are put to rest."

"You mean destroyed."

"Yes, unless we can figure out a way to give them the rest that they need. But the other reason that we're going is to see to any remains of the cult that the Kalayn family were part of. From what Cousin Raynard told us, the cult had been falling on hard times, with the older generation dying off and the younger generation beginning to lose interest. However, the very fact that Raynard himself managed to be produced as a devout worshipper of the crooked man by this area suggests that the cult itself is not...entirely dead. So we want to go up and see if there's anything still going around up there and if they might have been involved with Francesca's disappearance."

"How likely is that to be a thing?"

"We don't know. So we're going to look."

"Makes sense. Who is the crooked man?"

"Again, I have to ask. But you've read my work on the matter right?"

"I have, and with great interest. But lay it out for me anyway."

"As best as we can understand the crooked man was an old pagan deity. The kind of spirit where farmers and things used to make sacrifices to him in an effort to make up for bad harvests, diseases in the cattle and things like that. They called him the crooked man of the mound. Crom Cruarch. However the name seems to have been caught up with something else. The historical worship of Crom Cruarch is relatively harmless farmer superstition whereas the cult was dangerous so Mark thinks that one of two things have happened.

"The most likely thing that has happened is that the original cultists realised that things were happening when they slaked their unusual and awful lusts. Then they had a look around for whatever cults or other religions that they could find and adopted the first name that they liked the sound of. This would mean that what they're actually worshipping isn't Crom Cruarch or at least, not the original version of him but they have given their new...deity that name. This seems the most likely explanation as all the cultists that we have heard about so far have been nobles of various different varieties and it seems difficult to believe that they would deliberately choose an old religion of a group of farmers."

"So they made contact with a power, tried to figure out what, or who it was, and then just picked the first name they liked the sound of."

"Pretty much."

"Nobles." Rickard's voice dripped with scorn.

"I tend to agree. But the other possibility is that the figure of Crom himself has changed in some way. That what we know about him is incorrect. This is by far the more terrifying of the possibilities, however unlikely."

"Why unlikely. Isn't one spirit or "power" the same as any other?"

"It would be, but the symbols this cult use are the denial of the natural order. Crom was a God of the harvest, or at least that's what we think he was. Also, Crom has his own symbol, and we know what he looks like. He looks like a foul misshapen lump of a man, a kind of limping hunchback. It's entirely possible that those ancient villagers saw some kind of creature with some kind of power. Not unlike a Godling. Then, when they mistook it for a God, then it behaved like a God in turn. I can't answer for that, it's just a theory, although in dong so he would be very similar in appearance to the Nilfgaardian "Rumplestiltzkin". Regardless, he wasn't a very nice creature. The villagers were supposed to sacrifice their young to the creature. Baby's at first but later it became lambs and other small animals."

"Still sounds pretty unpleasant."

"Oh don't get me wrong, blood sacrifice is still awful but in this case, the rites don't track. Crom worship was about the sacrifice of the one for the good of the many. A child or three in return for a bountiful harvest for all the surviving children as well as the rest of the village. What we saw was the sacrifice of many to slake the lusts of a few and to empower...something. Not for the sake of sustenance out of some kind of misguided desperation but to slake lusts and desires and the need for taboo. The cultists belittled and tortured those that they saw as being lesser beings than themselves.

"Both religions were bloody and unpleasant but the one is not the same as the other."

Rickard grunted. "They both sound pretty bloody and unpleasant to me."

"Who do you worship?"

"Me? I don't really know. Like most soldiers though, I suppose that if I follow anyone it would be Kreve. I like Kreve, he's a remarkably un-complicated God."

"That doesn't surprise me. I'm told that he is the God of Soldiers."

"Mmm," he grunted. "The God of fighting, decisiveness, risk-taking and and defence. What's not to like? But still, I'm not that religious. It's not that I don't believe it's just that it's really hard _not_ to pray when you're under heavy fire from an enemy, or you have to charge the breach of a fortress or..."

"I get the picture. My tutor once told me that it's the same reason that Melitele is so popular. It's really hard for a woman to _not_ blaspheme when she's giving birth so it helps if she has someone to blaspheme against."

Rickard grunted his agreement.

We spent the next few days climbing as the road started to rise up towards the mountains. We had travelled alongside the river since Blavikan, there not being that many ports further up river which meant that the possibility of catching a barge up river was impossible. The roads were also, not the greatest quality being as most of the roads were simply there so that people who lived further inland towards the mountains, could come down towards Blavikan and the road in order to get to other, more civilised areas. The roads to get over the mountains into Kaedwen were easier to use a little further north so most merchants and serious travellers went that way rather than trying to pass over the mountains.

So the thing that we were using to travel was becoming less of a road and more, what would charitably be called, a track. You know the kind, with wheel ruts down either side of a central grass line that went down the middle. We travelled with the river on our right. We could see the odd fishing boar as well as an occasional, rather optimistic ferry crossing that looked unused to us and the southern banks of the river were well covered in farms and small villages.

North of the river though, civilisation was a lot sparser in it's coverage of the countryside. There were villages and farms but they were ruined or deserted as often as not. There were still men working in the fields but a lot of the ground had been abandoned to tall grass and wild-flowers. In comparison though, the game was plentiful and we lived well.

Although the war was now long over and the resulting wave of famines, diseases and banditry had all but died out, we could still see small groups of bandits here and there but they were small groups, no more than three or four desperate men who had nowhere else to go and nothing else to do. And for whom there was no other solution other than to flee into the countryside. But they didn't look that frightening to me and the bastards didn't even twitch when the brigands came nearer.

Something else had stolen over the bastards. Although we were eating well and still taking our time in the growing heat of early summer, a sense of uneasiness began to creep over us. The men rode with bows strung and arrows nocked. That might not sound like much but you have to bear in mind that these men could draw and knock and arrow to a bowstring in a fraction of a heartbeat. In nocking the arrows they had saved themselves moments, not even that but they rode, like that. Eyes scanning the undergrowth and the treeline for any signs of enemies.

"What's that all about?" I asked Sir Rickard who still rode as though he was relaxed and enjoying himself. It was a lie though. He was just as tense as his men but he was hiding it better for their benefit.

"Mmm?"

"Why are they all on edge so much?"

Rickard looked around. "Tall grass, near a river, no common folk, plentiful game. Why is there no-one living out here?"

"Because most people have gone to where they might get some more money out of things. Because they can't make crops grow. Bandits? Any number of other things."

"Precisely. There's no-one out here. There has to be a reason so we're ready for those reasons."

Kerrass chuckled at the conversation. I was used to his changes and his sudden adjustments in his gear and equipment for completely arbitrary reasons so it was almost a surprise to notice that he was wearing both swords now whereas he'd only been wearing his steel sword up until quite recently.

I laughed aloud at myself.

"What?" Rickard asked me.

"City boy, last person to notice." I said pointing at myself.

Rickard grinned in response.

We came to the fork in the road that Sam had told us about in our lest letter. The...okay the "path" went off to the left and that's when the climbing really started as we headed into the treeline. I saw Rickard Nod to the Sergeant who barked out a couple of orders and most of the men dismounted and headed into the undergrowth. A few were left to lead the horses along the path but there was no way that we would be able to ride. It was slow going and what _had_ been a relatively pleasant journey so far turned into a slow going trudge. The ground was loose with scree and the trees closed in around us. At one point, Kerrass tugged on my sleeve and pointed, just in time for me to see and Endrega worker slipping off between the trees.

"Lovely," I commented.

The other thing that contributed towards our sinking mood was the fact that it had started raining. The slow, kind of early summer, late spring kind of drizzle that left us feeling wet and grumpy. We slept carefully, propped against the evergreen trees on beds of needles that were surprisingly comfortable when you spread a blanket over them. Conversation became shorter and more to the point as well although there was some amusement.

Sir Rickard had decided that it was time that he wrote his first letter to Shani. It was an agonising process, although I had a slow suspicion that he was stringing it along deliberately in an effort to entertain Kerrass and I along with the rest of his men. Asking for suggestions as to what he should say and what he should write, various lewd things were suggested along with some occasionally, surprisingly sweet and sentimental lines that would have brought a tear to my eye if it hadn't immediately been followed up by some kind of joke.

As we climbed we were hailed from the treeline by a young man who looked as though he had been camping there for several days.

"Lord Frederick." He shouted from his post. "Lord Frederick." I looked up and recognised Sam's squire. I'd only met the lad a couple of times. Since Sam's inheritance of the Kalayn estates he had warrented a proper, full time squire and had been presented with one by the Redanian court.

I should talk about Sam's position a little bit so that people are up to speed. Now that Sam was a Lord in his own right, rather than "just" a knight, it was considered a little bit...off colour for him to still be serving in the Redanian client military on the grounds that, and I quote, "We don't want the common folk thinking that it's regular for the proper nobility to be serving in the military do we."

If you're imagining that sentence being spoken in tones that would cut glass then you are doing a suitable imitation of how Sam claimed that the news was given to him. After that he had been given a squire from the more remote parts of Nilfgaard. I understand it was some kind of "cultural exchange" so that men of the south could find out what it's like to live in the North and vice versa. It's a nice idea in theory as it's a lot harder for me to hate Nilfgaard now that I've got to know a few of them. So if the future nobility of the North and South know each other and get on reasonably well then there is less likely to be future conflict.

Also it meant that both sides had hostages in the event of their adversaries getting a bit uppity.

Sam still served but he did so under his own heraldry and devices rather than in the more general forms of Redanian colours. He finally resigned in good order shortly after the Empress was crowned so that he could properly look after his own lands.

The Squire's a nice lad named Johann who, I suspect, is a little too interested in women and wine than he is in martial prowess, and rather likes the ideal of reading poetry to pretty maidens from underneath their balconies while sitting astride his noble steed. In short, he likes the romantic ideals of knighthood rather than the realities and I once teased him by asking him what he would do after declaring his undying love to the maiden. He seemed a little mystified by this as, as far as he was concerned, there was nothing more to it. He would declare his undying affection for the lady and then she would reciprocate "with ardour."

I checked. He didn't really know what "Ardour" meant. In either his own language or in ours.

Still, he's clever enough and Sam was telling me that he was, much to his chagrin, beginning to find the lad irreplaceable. Apparently Johann has the head for figures and bureaucracy that Sam himself had always struggled to achieve. The kid was thirteen years old and I liked him a great deal. I thought it was doing Sam some good to be responsible for a young persons development.

"Lord Frederick," he crashed down through the undergrowth towards us, announcing his presence for miles around.

"Easy Johann." I told him, "Where's the fire?"

"What? Oh." He grinned sheepishly at his enthusiasm. "Sorry, it's just it's been really boring waiting for you up here."

"It was very nearly, very exciting." Rickard said, approaching with a smile and a certain look of admonishment.

"Sir?"

Rickard kept eye-contact with the poor kid.

"Not now Jenkins."

Jenkins was one of the bastards. One of those men who had been heading for he hangman's noose for the murders of multiple people when the recruiting Sergeants had been getting a bit desperate during the last war. According to the gossip amongst the bastards, he had killed four people after he had found out that his wife had been cheating on him with them. He had then presented the removed sexual organs of her former lovers to his wife before asking if she was satisfied as, apparently, she enjoyed the drama of it all. She had married Jenkins because he could provide for her but he was neither particularly handsome or adventurous. One of the ladies complaints was that she could never tell whether or not Jenkins even loved her and upon this rather...extreme...display of jealousy, she had settled down to the life of a soldiers wife.

I met her. A fairly nice woman in all honesty but a shameless flirt. She had come to live in the castle and worked in the kitchens.

For me I found Jenkins a fairly charming man, endlessly funny and able to converse on a variety of topics with some skill but every so often he got this gleam in his eye that suggested that he was considering removing your scalp.

He also had an odd sense of humour. As demonstrated by the fact that he had snuck up behind Johann with his short, wickedly sharp dagger and was just poised to slit the lads throat.

"Sir," Jenkins complained. "He made so much noise sir that I thought..."

"I know Jenkins but..."

"Can't I..."

"Not NOW Jenkins."

Jenkins sulked off. I wasn't entirely certain that he was joking.

"It's always best to announce yourself properly." I told Johann. "Especially when approaching a nervous, heavily armed and experienced band of soldiers."

Johann swallowed nervously.

"Yes sir. Sorry sir."

"It's a learning point son." Rickard added. Kerrass was standing staring into the trees. He had his medallion held in his fist.

"Johann, do you know Sir Rickard of Temeria?"

"I don't sir," the lad saluted with precision. Sam had always liked a particularly crisp salute.

"Sir Rickard, this is Squire Johann of Nazir, my brothers squire."

"What's the lay of the land, Squire Johann?"

"Sir, The land is heavily wooded for another couple of miles before beginning to open out into a flatter area where there are some farms before the land starts to rise again towards the mountains."

"Any risk to the order of march."

"Not that we've seen sir. There are some small colonies of Endregas that our men have been hunting and there are rumours of Elves further to the North. I can't answer to that though sir."

Rickard nodded, his manner becoming more military. He turned to call for his Sergeant.

"Who's here?" I asked the lad as Rickard started calling off some orders.

"Other than your brother sir? We have twenty men at arms on loan from the Redanian guard sir. Father Danzig has brought a half company of church soldiers from Tretogor and Knight Father Trent has brought a small group of men from the order of the White Rose."

For those of our readers that might be from the South, as I understand that a number of people from the southern part of the continent have started reading the Oxenfurt magazine, this is how religion works in the North.

I can already feel Mark wincing.

I stress that this is just an overview and is not meant as an exhaustive list but I do think it bears repeating in case any of our Nilfgaardian readers are reading this and saying, "but that's madness."

Well, you'd be right but I won't judge.

Whereas in the south, the Church of the Divine Sun has, just about, absorbed and assimilated all other religions apart from some very old, local pagan Gods and Goddesses into the worship of the Sun. The North has done things somewhat differently. The South is mostly Monotheistic, the North is Polytheistic in that we have lots of different Gods. That might not be apparent from what I've been writing as my family and the area around where my family lives is almost completely covered in the worship of the Eternal Fire.

The Eternal Fire has learnt from the Church of the Divine sun and has followed the same model by agreeing with a lot of the local religions and getting them to sign up saying things like "Yes, but don't you see? That means that essentially you're following the Eternal Fire," and then pretending not to listen to any objections.

But unlike the south, there were still a lot of Gods here first and they had centralised and organised. The Eternal Fire is a relatively recent God, only having been founded at the founding of Novigrad whereas other Gods and Godesses have been around a lot longer.

Melitele is the oft-mentioned woman's God. Goddess of fertility, motherhood, harvest, nature, abundance, peace, Love and Marriage. If there's one God-head that's going to be around long after every other one is disappeared it will be Melitele. Almost, but not quite, exclusively worshipped by women she is at her most prominent in rural areas. Used to also be called Adala in Temeria, I don't know why.

Freya is, essentially, the Skelligan version of Melitele but I would advise you not to confuse the one with the other as Skelligans get quite protective over their Goddess and regard her as being a different entity. They also add that her spirit animal is a cat. Which possibly says something about the nature of cats.

I won't talk about the Lionheaded Spider here.

Each of the local areas seems to have their own Gods and Goddesses. Many are recognisable as being different aspects of the same being, for instance, Verna, Melitele and Adala. For a long time, religious scholars believed that the newly emerging power of "The eternal Fire" was simply an aspect of Kreve, but it was later proven to not be the case.

Which brings us to the reason that I'm talking about Kreve today as he, and his worship come up quite a bit in the next story.

Kreve is much older than the Eternal Fire and much more, extreme in their views. That might come as a surprise to people who went through the Witch hunts but it's true nonetheless. He is the Sky Father and the Lord of Thunder, his symbol is that of a lightening bolt. He is quite an expansive God and would be described as loving decisive action, energy, spontaneity, resourcefulness, expansion and the defence of ownership.

Worshipping Kreve is a remarkably simple affair as his only discernible commandment is that his followers should fight evil wherever they find it. What is defined as evil tends to be up to the definition of the local government of the area which is why Kreve tends to be quite popular with Kings and Lords of men. The first people to acknowledge the existence and the divinity of the Eternal Flame where priests of Kreve. Indeed they thought that the Flame might be an aspect of Kreve which was later shown to be inaccurate, however the influence of Kreve on the early church of the Eternal Flame is prominent.

Both churches have an order of knights which serve as their military arm. The Eternal Fire had their "burning rose" and Kreve had their "White Rose." The church has been overtaken in Redania and the surrounding areas, by the Eternal Flame. This thanks to the patronage of King Radovid but you can still find Kreve worshippers in the armies of the nations and his worship is a lot more widespread in Kaedwen, Aedirn and Southern Temeria.

The main enemies of the church of Kreve are anything that doesn't adhere to "civilised society" and "the proper order of things". As examples, they don't like unassimilated non-humans. Non-humans that live in towns and cities that contribute to society are fine though. They also don't like magic users as they were thought to be outside the settled order of things. If you want to look up more about the historical actions of the church of Kreve then I refer you to the books "The extermination of the Vran" by Sir Wilhelm Dothir and "The Aelirenn rebellion" by Tomas de Sande.

They also tend to give their priests, military ranks in an effort to show how much they are "warriors in the fight against evil."

I used to really look down on followers of Kreve. From a certain standpoint they are relatively good people, their objectives are good in that all they want to do is to fight against evil but I always had problems with the fact that their fight against evil seemed to define evil as being anything that was different from human society where human society was defined as being the average kind of society of the northern Kingdoms. In doing so they were significantly responsible for the final destruction of the Vran and also a significant reason for the endangerment of the Elves.

Oh, and they also persecute magic users.

Once again, I notice that they don't really care about the dwarves and the Gnomes as those two species have the good grace to stay below ground and out of the way.

But now I'm not so sure. I look at the Cult of the Eternal Flame and I kind of see the sins of the past being reflected in my own religion. Again I see magic users and non-humans persecuted to the point of endangerment. I am well aware that the Eternal Fire Cult was driven to those extremes by other factors but at the same time, I look back at Kreve's worship and start to think that my former condemnation of their actions is a bit "dirty pot calling the kettle black".

I know that the road to the Frost is paved with Good intentions and that there is no excuse for some of the evil actions that the followers of Kreve did. But the Eternal Fire does seem to have been following their lead and I no longer feel that I can just condemn the worshippers of Kreve quite so vehemently.

I have, also, now met a lot more worshippers of Kreve and as has so often been the case I find that I am less able to hate, now that I know the human face underneath the cowl.

Johann led us further up into the trees. He did have a horse with him and there is no more perfect description of his character other than the fact that he mounted up and tried to ride up the slope before realising how hopeless this plan was, giving up and leading his horse up like the rest of us.

Sir Rickard looked at me and had to hide a giggle behind his hands.

Kerrass was walking along with a vacant expression on his face, head tilted to one side as though he was listening for something although he didn't once tell us to quieten down. He had his medallion clenched firmly in his fist.

We came to the top of the ridge where the path then led downhill into a bowl of, to be fair, rather picturesque land. If you ever have romantic ideas about what it would be like to try and settle some kind of unsettled frontier, then that's what it looked like. It seemed to be a land of valleys and hills, topped with large piles of stone. Huge trees were everywhere and a gentle mist seemed to roll off the mountains and to fill the valleys and the dells. You could see farms at various intervals where they had cleared small patches of land from the all consuming forest and there were several small villages where smoke could be seen rising from chimneys. It looked, it looked idyllic and unspoiled. Even though I knew that people had been living in this part of the world, probably longer than they had been living around Novigrad and Oxenfurt.

"Is it always so misty here?" Kerrass asked Johann.

"Couldn't say sir," Johann was still enough of a product of his upbringing that he was a little put out to be addressed so familiarly by Kerrass, even though the two had met before. So he took refuge behind formal military language. "There is often a mist last thing at night as the land cools and again first thing in the morning but the sun often burns it off."

"Mmm," Kerrass grunted and went back to staring into space.

"Something?" I asked him quietly, wandering over.

"I don't know, maybe. There's a large amount of background magic here. That, in and of itself is not unusual, or at least, not unusual enough to cause comment but the fact of what we know used to happen here?" He shrugged and pulled a face. "I hope it's not telling."

As we climbed down into the valley and we were able to mount our horses again, I saw the Kalayn family castle for the first time in what must have been years.

I had only been to these lands once before when I was young, maybe four or five when our two families were relatively friendly with each other. Before Cousin Raynard had got his hooks too far into Edmund. I remember staying here for only a couple of days and not liking it very much. I remember it being cold and dark and a general kind of oppression to it all. Since then though I had found out a lot about what had gone on in Castle Kalayn and I now wonder whether modern knowledge has tainted past memories.

But now, I looked up and saw it above us.

It was indeed dark, remote and almost austere in it's appearance. I wasn't as big as Castle Coulthard or Kaer Morhen. But then I don't think it was meant to be. If it was a military outpost it would have been the kind of watchtower or fortified position that was meant to hold the enemy up. It was high up the beginning of the mountains and I suspected that the views from up there would be spectacular so I imagined that it's builders had constructed it so that the occupants could keep an eye on things. It was certainly not the kind of a place that would hold or house an army and I definitely had problems imagining that it would be big enough to be some kind of royal residence. It would be far too much hard work to get any kind of luxury up the path towards it, apart from any other reason.

However I could imagine it being the kind of place where a small, but elite force spent their time, marshalling and sallying forth to patrol a large swathe of countryside, where it could protect and monitor a mountain pass before other, easier, routes were opened up.

I certainly struggled to imagine how you would set about taking the place easily. We could see the path to reach it snaking up around the mountains, sometime with steps cut out of the rock to facilitate but the path was narrow, far too narrow for anything wider than a small, two horse wagon. It was the kind of place where military men say things like. "Give me a score of good men and I could hold that place through an invasion of the Gods."

They probably could to, even though it now, had no real strategic significance to speak of. I tried to imagine where you would site siege engines, getting anything more than the most rudimentary battering ram up the slope would be all but impossible. Siege towers woud be a laughable thought. I could only see one direction where you could get ladders up against the walls and to get there you would still have to climb the path.

"I would climb." Rickard had guessed my train of thought. "It's a beast, there's no doubt about that but you're not thinking about one military advancement that we've made in the mean time."

"Which is?"

"Modern War-bows." He told me. "A couple of dozen good archers up on that plateau up there," he pointed, "and you could rain arrows down on any defenders coming up through the pass. Then anyone defending the gates would also have to be careful to avoid getting skewered." He grunted as he worked the problem. "It _was_ an all but impregnable place. Now? It would cost the attacker, a lot, but the attackers would wear the defenders down eventually. I also struggle to see where the defenders would store any supplies for a protracted siege. The gap works both ways. A couple of dozen attackers could block anyone trying to get out, just as easily as the defenders could block anyone trying to get in."

I nodded and looked at the castle with new eyes.

Sam had ordered a much more temporary residence built. A large hall patterned after the long houses of the Skelligans and made from the local wood. He had wanted to just move into the castle but several people, including Kerrass had told him just how bad an idea that was going to be. So instead he had the hall built as a place to receive visitors and as a temporary residence. It was situated on a field at the bottom of the path that led up to the castle. There were several other small buildings that had been built for the use of guests, they were no more than small, huts really, more like permanent tents.

Sam had told me that they were big enough for a bed, a fire and a place to get cleaned up if you had a bath running. He was still struggling to get to terms with the common folk on Kalayn lands though so he had warned us, in advance that he was modelling the residence on military lifestyle, in that you were expected to take care of yourself. There were a couple of pages and squires to run messages, there was also a cook that Sam had kidnapped from Coulthard castle but generally, you were expected to pitch in with chores.

His first letters had commented that he was finding it refreshing but later missives suggested that he was beginning to get a little bit tired of this and was looking forward to some creature comforts.

He came out to greet us as we rode up. Shaking hands with Rickard and Kerrass before enveloping me in a bruising bear hug.

Rickard turned down the offer of one of the huts saying that he would prefer to camp with his men. Kerrass and I were shown which huts we would both be sleeping in and it was made clear that if the weather became unsuitable then we would all be welcome to shelter inside the hall itself.

We made appropriate noises and scattered to stow our gear. The bastards made some noises about looking for some food and checking to make sure that they wouldn't be hung for poaching. Sam laughed and told them that there was plenty of game, indeed that one of his major exports was going to be deer skins and meat but that there were several nests of Endregas and Arachnomorphs around so that they should be careful where they step.

The Sergeant made note of this before heading off.

Sam had given me a hut with a writing desk in it. I didn't know whether to be annoyed or amused at being so pigeon holed. Flattered I guess, to be known so well by your big brother. Kerrass and I collected Rickard before heading back to the hall where Sam enthusiastically introduced us to the other men who had come here to help him with the ghost problem and to help root out whatever leftover cult influences there might be.

There were indeed a good half company of Redanian regulars camped outside the hall although the other half of them were out on patrol inside the "Kalayn Province" in an effort to convince the locals that the new Lord of the Manor was concerned about their safety and security. They were led by a Knight Lieutenant Sir Kristoff Lennox. Sir Kristoff was a cheerless man who looked old to be a Knight Lieutenant to me which suggested that he was not that important or lacked the money or rank to progress. The army had been downsizing in recent times though so there was also the possibility that he had taken a reduction in rank to stay on in the armed forces. Maybe he was unhappy at home or something. Regardless he was an older man, in his late thirties or early forties who kept his head all but shaved clean. You could see the reflected firelight in his scalp. He was sat at a table and doing paperwork as we walked in and rose to have his hand shaken and accept a salute from Sir Rickard. He then excused himself and returned to his reports.

Father Trent of the Eternal Fire came bustling up next.

What can I say about Father Trent? Calling him a new breed of priest is a little bit of an unfairness to him as he had been serving with the church for many years when I met him. He had joined a monastary at an early age in a similar pattern to Mark, in that his parents had wanted to guarantee their place in heaven and so had sent one of their sons to serve in the church.

Unlike Mark, however, his family had not seen his appointment as a political opportunity and they had then considered their obligations fulfilled and left him to it. He had toiled away as a lay brother before eventually becoming ordained as a priest in, his words, a remarkably unremarkable church in a wholey unremarkable town. He told me that his entire job was keeping the different factions within his little town from each others throats while, on the side, doing his best to see to their immortal souls.

During the madness of King Radovid he had kept out of it, having seen plenty of goodness in non-humans and "magical or suspected magical folk," before coming to the conclusion that people were people no matter what size, shape, race or talent was and that they were all as equally awful to each other as they ever would be.

However this cynicism hides the soul of a true diplomat and he was able to broker a situation where the more extreme servants of the church would be able to come to his little flock and he would be able to maintain the peace. His town was one of the few, in Redania at least, where the locals did not live in fear of the Inquisition and that was largely due to the efforts of Father Trent.

He later admitted that it got dicey a few times where he was forced to protect a local alchemist in his basement while a couple of the more forceful Inquisitors searched the town for the woman's whereabouts but that everything seemed to come right in the end.

Now, the more modern church tended to use him when they needed to work with other parties or other religions and he was a fine choice for this delegation.

After the introductions he expressed pleasure upon meeting me and I told him that I was pleased to meet him after hearing so many nice things.

However two men were stood behind him in the long, red trimmed black robes of the Inquisition. They weren't wearing their hoods though so, on balance, I suspected that I wasn't going to be dragged away for burning immediately. One was tall, aristocratic features with his dark hair tied back into a queue while the other was a much shorter man, bald with a trim of white hair around the back of his head that he had cut short. I automatically assumed that the shorter, older man was the "nice one" and the taller aristocratic one was the "nasty one,"

"Lord Frederick," Sir Trent blushed a little as he realised that he had been ignoring the two men for some time. "Allow me to present Inquisitor, Father Hacha," he gestured at the smaller man, "And Inquisitor Father Dempsey," He gestured to the taller man.

"A pleasure I told them both." I couldn't decide whether I should offer my hand or not when Father Dempsey astonished me by grinning hugely.

"I offer you my hand sir," he said, "just to save us all some confusion."

"Thank you," I told him, taking his hand and shaking it firmly.

"A genuine pleasure to meet you," Dempsey continued.

"Thank you," I said again before turning to Father Hacha who also held out his hand, looking at me strangely. He had this strange way of staring at you as though his eyes seemed to boggle out of his face. You could see the white's of his eye, all around the Iris.

I just need to talk about this.

I've known a lot of people that claim that they can tell a lot about a man by the way that he shakes your hand. More than one person has told me that the correct way to make a good first impression is to shake the man's hand firmly while looking him in the eye. Then, that there is no need to maintain contact for any more than a couple of seconds, certainly no more than is required to talk about the initial exchange of greetings.

There is a problem with this though which is that _everyone_ knows that this is the correct way to shake your hand and therefore that's what everyone does.

But I digress.

There are other things that can be said about the art of shaking someone's hand. Make sure that your hand is dry as there is nothing worse than a clammy handshake where you have to wipe your hand afterwards but another thing is to make sure that your wrist is also firm as you can grip perfectly well but if your wrist is limp then that can give the wrong idea.

I don't know what the wrong idea _is_ but apparently it gives the wrong one.

Warriors tend to grip each other by the wrists. Apparently the logic is that if they grip you like this it shows that you don't have a hidden weapon somewhere. A largely pointless gesture as this, right handed grip, only occupies one hand and you could easily do some horrific murder with the other hand.

However, one of the more interesting things about handshakes is the way that a certain kind of people use their handshakes to try and exert dominance, the one over another. You can do this by gripping the hand and squeezing it. I've never been certain what this proves but people try to use it all the time on me. I never get into a contest with them as it always seems a little pointless and eventually just relax my hand and let them get on with it.

The other famous one is where they tilt their hand over onto one side so that their hand is over the top of yours. I'm told that this is exerting dominance by showing that they are above you in some way.

Not only did Father Hacha do this but he also squeezed my hand and wouldn't let go.

"Yes, a pleasure," he said as he held on. "A pleasure although I can't say that I entirely approve of your recent adventures."

"Oh?" I carefully managed to extract my hand from the man's grip.

"Yes," Your handling of the Sansum affair could have gone a lot better if you ask me?"

"Really," I made no pretence of hiding the fact that I needed to massage some life into my palm.

"Yes, you could have done things a lot better if you ask me. Nasty business to be sure but that doesn't change the fact that you and your, _companion..._ "

He managed to make the world sound like an insult. It wasn't lost on me that Fathers Dempsey and Trent had both shaken Kerrass' hand whereas Hacha did not. There are some people that are just born to piss you off I find and when that sort of thing happens, the best thing to do is to just hold your nose and jump in with both feet.

"...murdered a churchman and a number of holy knights."

"Not that there was much about them that was holy," Kerrass commented to Sam and Sir Rickard but his voice was pitched to carry.

"Well," I told him. "We did what we felt we needed to do in the heat of the moment."

"Yes well," he sniffed in a way that managed to convey just how much he disapproved of our actions. "Not how I would have done it."

"How would you have done it?" I asked politely, the question that he was so obviously begging to be asked. I was also having to be really careful not to laugh aloud. Father Dempsey was stood behind the other man and had comedically rolled his eyes before miming Hacha's voice with hand puppets.

"Well, I would have taken the matter to the proper authorities of course. Taken it up with the church hierarchy."

"Yes," I told him. "I have heard this criticism before. In the time that it would have taken us to reach the proper authorities, more people would have been murdered, more young men would have been abused and still more would have been radicalised."

"That doesn't change the fact that you killed a priest when it was not your place."

"Who's place was it then?" I demanded, feeling myself getting hot. "We were there, we had the tools and the capability. The rest of the church had done nothing, whether because they didn't know there was a problem, or because they had other things on their mind."

"Or because they didn't care." Kerrass spoke.

If anything, Father Hacha's eyes bulged out of his skull even more.

"Now you listen here, you filthy..."

"That's enough," Father Trent spoke up. "These men came here in an effort to try and help deliver these lands and their people from evil."

"That's as maybe, Trent" Father Hacha spat. "But you cannot melt ice by hitting it with more ice."

I felt my hackles rise a little bit more. I was still a little sensitive to being called a heretic and a blasphemer given that the last person to call me that had tortured me, and felt the need to defend myself.

"I take it that you do not approve of Kerrass and myself." I told the Inquisitor who was getting far too puffed up for his own good. "Well I will tell you that you can shove your disapproval up your ass for all I care."

"How dare you sir?"

"How dare I?" I was suddenly reminded about the long ago scene outside our families castle when Sir Robart had got all red-faced and angry in the face of being challenged by people he saw as being lesser than himself.

A small part of me wondered if Robart and this Hacha were related in any way. "Where were you, sir, when young boys were being raped and tortured? Where were you when good, honest, flame fearing men and women were being burned at the stake for no crime other than keeping a recipe book of herbal potions in an effort to protect the people under their care from sickness and death? Where were you?"

"I..." But I was still angry.

"Why didn't we go to the church authorities? Would they have done something or would it all have been carefully brushed under a rug. The knights moves somewhere else and put on a shorter leash. They _were_ churchmen themselves and in my experience the church protects their own so why would this be any different. We killed them because they needed killing and the way people, especially other church men seem to get up in my face and beat their chests with their righteous indignation. I swear that if another priest tries to tell me that I'm an evil heretic and sinner for killing heretic sinners who committed greater sins than some monsters that I've met, I swear I'll kill him as well."

The statement shocked a number of people, myself not least.

"You wouldn't dare." Hacha struggled for breath in the face of my blasphemy. Danzig looked equally as shocked despite his firm support of a lot of what I had said.

Father Trent tried for diplomacy. "Now Lord Frederick, there is no need for that. Your brother Mark will be outraged that you could express such a statement. You run the risk of damning your soul to all..."

"Nah," I told him, My own shock at my own level of leftover anger from the incident with Sansum was leaving me now. "Mark will be cross and will yell at me for a while. But he's yelled at me before and I'll live. But still, the self righteousness of some people. I apologise Father Hacha but you weren't there. You didn't see what those men did to children. To children Father Hacha."

I shook my head.

"I know and have known many good and holy men that are members of the cult of the Eternal Flame. Yourself, doubtless one of them. But I keep hearing about these atrocities, similar to what I saw down in Lyria. It's enough to make me convert to Kreve. At least their atrocities were committed years ago rather than months, or weeks in some cases."

"And we would be proud to have you."

I had diverted the conversation as I had seen another man coming up behind them all. A tall man, made bulky by the fact that he wore armour underneath his robes of office.

"Knight Father Danzig of Kreve." He said, pushing the Eternal Fire delegation aside and seizing my hand and shaking it hard and with enthusiasm. "For my money you did very well in Lyria."

He had a large, expansive and booming voice.

"It's just a shame you're marrying a vampiric, magic using harlot."

I felt the outrage climbing up my throat before I realised that he had just winked at Kerrass and Rickard as he shook their hands in turn.

"Funny guy." I told him. "I'll tell her you said that."

"Please do." he told me.

"I should also point out that she is currently working towards being baptised into the church of the Eternal Fire." I told the assembly. "Thus probing that she is just as holy as anyone else. Also, that she prefers the worship of the Eternal Fire over the worship of Kreve, given Kreve's proven dislike of magic users, and I wouldn't want to disappoint her."

Danzig lifted his hand to his heart.

"Oh, you wound me Lord Frederick, you wound me. But I suppose I deserved it. Here let me get you a drink." He steered me past the, now bickering, Eternal Fire contingent. Sam had gone off somewhere and Danzig beckoned Rickard and Kerrass to follow.

We sat at one of the long wooden tables that Sam had had placed within the hall. Someone brought us a large jug of the frothy ale that Sam liked to drink as well as some cups. Danzig poured.

"Don't let the Flamers get to you." He told me with a grin. "They're actually really good at what they do."

"Really?" I was still smarting a little bit and wondering whether I was going to get through the coming few days without accidentally murdering another churchman.

"Yes, he may not look it, or sound it but Father Hacha is the best investigator I've seen. Not so good with the interrogations but he can walk into a room and tell you what happened there. I've seen him pick out a guilty man from a line-up of people that he's never seen before based on what the guy was wearing. Dempsey's a gifted interrogator. Rarely uses tools or implements but somehow manages to get information out of even the most stubborn person. Just, makes them his friend and they tell him anything."

"What about Father Trent?" Rickard asked, eyeing the man a little cautiously. "Without being too obnoxious, some of my men will object to being preached at."

Danzig laughed. "I know the type. If Trent had gone into the civil service he would have been a diplomat. The kind of man that you send to finalise trade deals. Now he spends most of his time arbitrating between the different factions within the Eternal Fire hierarchy. He's far too busy to go around preaching all the time though so I don't think your men have much to worry about."

"What about you though?" I couldn't hide the suspicion in my voice. "With all due respect, the priesthood of Kreve is not known for it's tolerance."

He laughed again. He was a hard man to dislike but I was doing my best.

"Not an unfair criticism." He said. "I'm a simple man Lord Frederick. I like to find evildoers and hit them with my mace, or my sword, or my axe, or my...well, I like to hit evil. Does that make me shallow?"

"It might."

"Well, regardless. I'm a simple man. I was a soldier. I fought on the front lines between Kaedwen and Redania when Radovid crossed the mountains in an effort to unify the north. I hated him for that, far more than I hated the Nilfgaardians and so I joined the priesthood. I wanted there to be less moral quandaries there, less questions, more simplicity.

"Luckily I found it."

He took a long drink of ale and refilled his cup.

"I liked your more recent story Lord Frederick, the one about your destruction of those knights. If I had been born in a different place, I could easily see myself being caught up with a group like that. The search for meaning and a sense of belonging is sometimes an all-consuming thing so that when someone offers you that, the temptation is to jump in with both feet.

"I was lucky though. The man that recruited me was a good man and I am forever grateful that he didn't take advantage of my "wide eyed naivete." He taught me to look deeper, to look past the surface and see what could be seen."

I took a deep breath. "I hope you will forgive my nervousness Father Danzig. But my best friend is a Witcher, my fiancee is a Vampiric Sorceress and my elder sister is in love with another Sorceress. As I say, Kreve has his reputation though so I hope you can understand my feelings."

"Absolutely." Danzig responded. He sighed and stared at the three priests of the Eternal Fire. "I won't deny that there's some darkness in the past history of the church of Kreve. The Elves might have started the genocide of the Vran but we finished it for them and then started in on the elves ourselves."

"I'd heard that it was, by no means certain, that it was the elves that began the destruction of the Vran." Kerrass piped up. He was still peering into space with his medallion held closely but he was listening.

"That's as maybe. I'm not a student of history or archaeology, but that doesn't change our role in those deaths." Danzig said. "And yes. Our distrust of magic is...pronounced. But our first duty, our most important duty is the destruction of "evil"."

He held his hands up to forestall my comments. "I know, I know that the term "evil" is subjective but at the same time...I like to think that "good" people are people who contribute to society or go out of their way to not be part of the problem. If you don't want to contribute something then you should go elsewhere. If you want to be isolationists then you go for it, so long as you don't bother other people."

"What if other people are bothering you?" Rickard asked.

"Then I'm afraid that that's what the law is for. For me though, the person that was there first has prior claim."

"The dryads of the Brokilon would tend to agree with you." Kerras muttered.

"SO they would." Danzig grinned. "Look, that's why the church hierarchy argues about such things. But in the meantime, fortunately, there are plenty of murderous bandits, monsters and scum-fucks that roam the roads and by-ways of the Continent for me to practice my craft on."

He turned back to me.

"I won't deny, Lord Frederick, that there are plenty of people in our priesthood that would condemn you, your sister and her...lover?" he lifted his voice in a question to see if he was using the right term of address, he subsided when I nodded. "your friend and your fiancee to to torment and death. But for the younger generation, I may say that we share your definition of monster and evil. My master gave me some of your earlier works as a gift, and I make them required reading for my squires. I think there's some interesting moral discussion in some of them."

"I suppose that that's close enough."

"Can I ask some proffessional questions?" Danzig asked.

"What did you have in mind?"

"Dealing with what we have here? What are we going up against. Lord Kalayn tells us that there might be cultists, spirits and Thunder only knows what else. Could you break that down for me?"

His manner had changed from genial soldier to attentive man of action.

"I don't know yet." Kerrass responded. "It's too early to try and guess. I want to go and have a look first before I start saying what's going on. I suspect that there will be ghosts and spirits of the angry variety. Maybe some un-quiet dead. That kind of thing. There is a very strong back-ground magic aura around here and that will have an effect."

"But you don't know what the effect is?"

"No, not yet." Kerrass sighed and finally let go of the pendant. "I won't lie. It's all a bit...nebulous and wishy washy. We know there was a cult. We know that they did a lot of horrific things to a lot of innocent people. We also know that the cult were using rituals and holy symbols that, over time, would effect the flow of magic and channel that flow of magic into doing some horrific things."

"That sounds like a bleak picture."

"It is. Don't get me wrong. Dealing with the potential spirits in the castle is only one of the reasons as to why I'm here."

"You want to know if the cult has anything to do with the disappearance of Lady Francesca?"

I winced and tried to hide my discomfort behind a mug.

"Pretty much." Kerrass said, glancing at me out of the side of his eye. "The cult must have had a reason to set up their headquarters here. I want to know what that is. But if anyone has a motive for causing the disappearance of Lady Francesca, then it's the cult."

"Mmm."

Father Trent had given up on the other two Priests of the Flame and came over to join us. Danzig poured him a beer and the two men clacked the rims of their cups together in a silent toast.

"So, Are we mounting an expedition up to the castle tomorrow," Trent asked.

"I don't see why no..."

"No," Kerrass interrupted. "No, no expeditions. I want to go up there and have a look around myself first."

The churchmen looked at each other a bit concerned.

"Uh, no offence Master Kerrass but shouldn't we..."

"No," Kerrass said firmly. "This first one I do by myself. Don't worry, there will be plenty for the priesthood to do later."

"But,"

"We do what the Witcher says." Sam had come over. "It would be a mistake to hire a proffesional and then not listen to what he says."

He spoke with a voice of authority that I had not heard him use before. It suited him.

"Freddie," He tapped me on the shoulder and beckoned me to follow him, taking me off to a quieter corner of the room.

"How you doing?" he asked me.

"I'm fine."

"Freddie," He glared at me.

"I said I'm fine."

He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Then can I admit that I'm not?" He asked.

I looked at him and felt a little bit of shame. I hadn't noticed how tired he looked. Bloodshot eyes with huge black bags under them. He was pale too, greasy hair and he looked as though he had put on a bit of weight.

"Dammit Freddie, we lose Dad, Edmund and then Frannie in a year. Suddenly I'm the lord of this Flame forsaken hell-hole."

I sat him down and poured him a drink.

"I thought it was quite pretty." I tried for a lighter tone but Sam wasn't taking it.

"The peasants hate me." he said after taking a long drink. "Not that I blame them, the Lords Kalayn haven't treated this place well, but no matter what I try I can't seem to get through to them. Now it turns out that Mark is dying of some kind of...heart thing and very soon, I'm going to be named Baron Coulthard as well as Baron Kalayn."

He sighed.

"Mum's gone, Emma and I were never as close as you two were and now...Dammit Freddie, you know that this stuff is hard for me."

"I know Sam."

"So then you go and get your self tortured by some psychopaths. Just...Just be careful would you."

"I will."

"I'm just not sure I could be the only male Coulthard."

I nodded. "You know I have to look for her though right."

"You mean Francesca?"

"Yes."

"I know. And I applaud. Out of all of us, you are the one that can look freely. I'm not trying to get you to stop but...That was not a great plan you had with the knights of the flaming cock rot or whatever their names were."

"Oh I don't know, it worked didn't it?"

"I'm serious Freddie." He snapped. "I need you alive. I _need_ you alive. I get that you need to do this but you need to remember who you are now. You are no longer the estranged youngest son of a minor lord. You are a mover and a shaker. A powerful important man and you are also my heir. So if anything happens to me then it's you that's going to be Baron Coulthard, Kalayn and Angral from what I understand. So...Look, just be more careful would you."

"I'll try."

He smiled. And I answered with a smile of my own.

"Now what do you need us to do here?" I asked him


	66. Chapter 66

(A/N: Sorry for the delay in the production of this chapter. Not gonna lie, the last few weeks have been pretty hard going in my small part of the world. This has been made worse by a broken laptop keyboard so that I _could_ write but that it didn't always work the way I needed it to.

So there may be a few more spelling mistakes this time round. So sorry for that.

Also, just wanted to say, as I sometimes feel that I don't say it enough. Thanks for reading and all of your support.

Warning: stories of historical sexual and psychological abuse and abuse with drugs)

I stood in front of a portrait of my mother. I knew it was her because I recognised some of the body language of it, in that it was extremely similar to how she had stood when Sam, Mark, Emma and I had stood in judgement of her.

She looked ashamed, her body language was hunched over, shoulders together with one arm coming across her midriff to hold onto the other one. Her head was bowed and she was looking out of frame to her left out of the corners of her eyes, as though she was watching someone carefully, or as if there was some kind of wild and untamed animal sat, glaring at her and she didn't know when it was going to leap up and rip her throat out. But at the same time, she knew that this was going to happen eventually, whether she was careful or not.

I guessed that she had been about fourteen when this painting had been commissioned. If it hadn't have been my mother in the frame then I would also have said that it was a beautiful painting. A real tour de force, one of the best examples of modern oil painting techniques that I have seen. If it had been hung in the galleries of Oxenfurt then the title would have been something like "A girl in fear."

But it wasn't anonymous in that it wasn't some unknown person that it depicted. It didn't display some nameless person dreamed up out of the imaginings of a painters fevered brain. It was my mother. I guessed that the painting showed how she had looked at the age of fourteen. She was certainly young and lacked some of the self-assuredness that she had gained in later life, her figure was not yet fully developed and her hair was not quite as long.

There was an extra, insidious side to the painting as well.

There is another portrait of my mother that I have described before. It hangs in my father's chambers still as Emma has not yet taken the step of moving into the master bedroom of Castle Couthard and a lot of Father's belongings and character are still imprinted on the place. Over the hearth there is a large portrait of my mother. It depicts a young woman, maybe a couple of years older than the one that I was looking at.

In my father's painting, my mother looks happy, smiling and confident. She is sat for the portrait with several pots of flowers nearby that the artist has expanded to compliment the colours of mothers dress and ornaments, to properly "set off her complexion" as my artist friends would say.

She looks as though she has just been startled by a joke, her smile genuine and her eyes shining in amusement. Her hands are resting demurely in her lap as she sits for the portrait.

But here's the insidious part. Now that I have seen the original. It's plain to me that my father's version of the portrait was copied from this one.

I don't know how I know this but somehow...I just know.

I know very little about art, even less of that part of the art-form which is how to get a subject to sit still for long periods of time and display the required characteristics that people want for their portraits. I remember little things about art, small observations and comments, like the fact that you will very rarely find a picture of a pastoral scene where there isn't a farmer somewhere, toiling away whilst wearing a red shirt.

I know that a painting has to have a subject, something to draw the eye and that everything else serves that subject. Landscapes need to have a central animal or a landscape feature that catches the viewers eye.

I also remember certain tricks although I couldn't tell you where I obtained this information. I know that whenever you see a portrait of a person and he is fiddling with a ring then this serves two purposes. The man in question is displaying his signet ring and therefore displaying how powerful he is, how important he is. But it's also a way for the artist to convey a certain amount of energy. To suggest that the subject of the painting would rather be somewhere else, anywhere else, doing more important things than sitting for the production of a portrait.

I also know that the majority of a picture is completely made up in the artists head. I've seen paintings that depict loving couples where I know for a fact that the two people in question were forced together through a political marriage of convenience and famously hated each other. I've also seen portraits of men who are standing up, looking vigorous, active and powerful in their old age. Commanding the room with their stature and their presence. All this when I know for a FACT that those men were old, could barely walk due to the excessive gout and were also, corpulently fat and half blind from the pox.

Warrior Kings have been painted on rearing horses while in real life, they disliked riding and preferred to command their armies from the tent up on the hill.

This is pronounced in the case of portrait paintings. My understanding of the process in these large scale, detailed presentations, is that they sit with their subjects a couple of times. Nothing grand or lengthy and the artist might make a couple of sketches and take some notes on things that they have seen. About the way that the subject carried themselves and the proper placement of beauty marks and the like.

I dreaded to think what the artist had seen when they had first sat down to paint my mother. How bad must she have been if, the best that the artist could draw forth from her was this image of fear and self-consciousness.

I wondered who the artist was and whether they were still alive.

I wondered at the skill of the man who had painted that other portrait. The one that still hangs in my father's room today. The one that I now know to be a "courting portrait" where pictures of prospective spouses are sent out to eligible bachelors in an effort to snare a suitor.

I wondered if Sam would let me burn this painting.

I found it upsetting in a deep and powerful way but at the same time, I found that I couldn't look away from it.

The castle was full of them. Portraits I mean. I also got the feeling that the position and location of the portrait and where it was hung denoted some kind of...pecking order. The most important men (obviously, in this castle, the women weren't important enough) were hung in the banqueting hall whereas the lesser people were hung in back corridors, in the drawing rooms and the private studies, in the armouries and what was laughably referred to as "The Library"

The Women were consigned to a separate room. The former lady of the castle and her immediate daughters were in a room that was literally referred to as "The Ladies room". Sam had found a couple of old Castle Servants in some of the lower villages and had managed to convince them to come back and work for him. In this case they were acting as guides to tell the people going up to the castle where everything was and they were the ones that would tell us what all these rooms referred to. Apparently, this was the room where the ladies were expected to spend their days when the men folk hadn't given them anything to do. When there wasn't some kind of social event, or there weren't any chores to do.

There were more books in this room than the library.

I found it really odd. My father wasn't particularly a collector of art. We didn't have pictures covering the walls like they did here. What few pictures and tapestries there were, depicted the castle and it's immediate environments. He liked pictures of people at work, whether that was people, noble and commoner alike, working on the castle being built, farmers working in the fields or the industry of a forge, he seemed to like it. He also liked hunting scenes and pictures of horses being ridden. He wasn't really a man for battle scenes or martial displays. You wouldn't have found the famous "standing suits of armour," in Castle Coulthard, nor will you find sword racks or other ways of displaying weaponry and tools of war.

He also had a habit of occasionally buying pictures that he simply "liked the look of" or reminded him of important events.

On one of the rare occasions where the two of us had talked on the matter, he told me about one of the pictures that was hung in the corridors outside the family chapel. The picture is a fairly simple, still life that shows a basket of fruit. It's a very unusual painting in that it's unlike many of the other paintings that were around the place.

I should say that Mother's taste mostly seemed to follow father's in this regard. Now that I had seen her home castle and her families traditional take on the subject, I could kind of see why.

But I remember asking Father about the basket of fruit. He told me that it reminded me of the day of my baptism in Novigrad. He told me that we had gone to Novigrad for me to be baptised by the Hierarch. I was one of many noblemen's sons that was going to be baptised in the same go as it was a duty that the then Hierarch of Novigrad hated so he liked to get them done in batches. The then Hierarch (not to be confused with the Head of the church for our southern readers. That would be the Hierophant. The same word that druids use to describe the "Head druid". Never let it be said that the cult of the Eternal Fire only stole elements of their religion from Kreve and Melitele) would often do these kinds of mass baptisms and it was one of the _many_ ways that people could claim to be slightly better than the person next to them by saying that they were baptised by the Hierarch rather than by the local priest.

There was, at the time, a small art shop on the way from where our lodgings were at the time and the Cathedral. As we were walking past it, this picture just caught Father's eye. He thought nothing about it at the time and we simply carried on to the service. Later, it transpired that he was in Novigrad on other business and happened to be walking past the same shop when he had seen that same picture in the window and was suddenly reminded of that, rare, happy family occasion and had gone in to buy the picture.

Because it meant something to him. That was the kind of thing that father liked.

Not this sad procession of portraits that looked down on the people walking through the corridors, galleries and rooms.

These were the real ghosts of the castle. Not the lost spirits and the frightened, angry spectres that roamed the place. These were the real ghosts, standing on high and looking down on you. As though you were being judged or, in the case of those portraits like my mothers portrait. You were being asked for help. Begged for help.

I hated this place.

Sam had expressed a certain amount of indecision as to what he should do with it all. He was torn because, on the one hand, the castle was a symbol of the domination of the Kalayn family over this part of the world. A lot of awful, evil things had been done here and to keep it standing was a constant reminder to the world about what had happened. But on the other hand, as I should know, history is history and we need to remember it. We should take the lessons from it and move on.

I was also well aware that I was having a strong emotional reaction to it all. The atmosphere of the place wasn't helping.

When Lord Kalayn had left to go and see if he could prevent the execution of his son, he had ordered the castle closed. What that meant was that the drapes and shutters had been drawn and bolted against the potential attacks of outsiders. He seemed to live in fear of thieves and other things that would take advantage of the empty and unguarded state of the castle despite the fact that his wife would still have been in residence.

The poor woman had removed herself to the dower-house elsewhere in the province when she had learned of her husband's and son's death. Sam had found it but had kept finding reasons to _not_ go to visit.

We were in our second day after our arrival in Kalayn lands and I still didn't really know how I felt about the entire thing.

In an almost mirrored scene to every other client meeting that I have ever sat in on with Kerrass. Sam sat us down, over a table with a jug of beer between us. He looked tired and a little lost.

"This would be so much easier," he had said, "if I had inherited a fully functioning and working realm. You know, a place where things were already ticking along nicely but that would be too easy wouldn't it?"

Kerrass and I smiled in sympathy.

"In short," Sam went on, "The place is fucked. Nothing works. No taxes come in, we have no exports, nothing being imported. We are barely self sufficient and barely anything gets done. The roads are in a state, fences are falling down all over the place and I can't see any kinds of signs of modern industry. It's like these people are living a good, couple of hundred years in the past.

"But that's not the worst of it. The worst of it, by far, is the people here. I feel for them, I really do and I really want to help them but I can't help them if they don't tell me what the problem is. I can live without servants, I can live without luxuries although I won't lie, a hot bath and some properly cooked food is something that I'm really beginning to look forward to, but what I can't do, is make these people's lives better if they won't help me to do that."

"What makes you think that there is a problem?" Kerrass asked, "more than what you already expected there to be I mean."

Sam blew some breath out ins exasperation.

"Don't get me wrong," Kerrass said. "You were already fighting an uphill challenge as it was. These people have been victimised by their masters for so long. You knew that it was going to be difficult to earn their trust."

"And if that was the only problem here then I would agree." He told us. "I knew that that was the case. I knew that the Kalayn family were not going to be loved by the common folk. I knew that they might even be hated but...this is different. I don't know why. They're not just afraid of me, but... I don't know, this is going to sound weird."

"Believe me, at this point, if you even manage to crack the top ten of weird things that I have seen or have been told by people that try to hire me, then you will be doing well."

Sam nodded and took a deep drink from his ale.

"Then here it is." He said. "It's not just that the people fear me, but they pity me too. They kind of look up at me and shake their heads sadly when they see me leaving. I swear I've heard some of them saying things like. "Shame really," and "Pity...Seems like a good sort as far as Kalayn's go."

"They recognise your family then."

"Oh yes. One of the few people that came forward was a steward that had lived in the castle for a long time. He told me that he would have known me anyway if I hadn't announced myself and that was echoed by his mother when I met her. But it's not just that. It's this place...It feels like that place in stories where innocent travellers get caught up in the traps and schemes of dark creatures. I tell you this Kerrass, Frederick, I am a soldier and a knight. I have fought in wars and against men who should have beaten me but I am still here. I am afraid and I am not alone."

Kerrass grunted before staring off into space.

"Look," he said after a while. "I'm not saying that this is the case, but have you considered that you might just be overly affected by what has happened with you and your family over the last few months. You were there when we fought Laughing Jack. You've lost your sister as well. Have you thought that you might just need a break and that it's the fatigue and things that might be getting to you."

"I have thought about that."

Sam stared into space. "I know that it's not just the hire that brings you here. Clearing a castle out of ghosts is not exactly a large scale job and I imagine that you could be done with it in an afternoons work if you were so inclined."

"Probably true."

"You're here to see about Francesca and to see if there's anything here that could tell you how she was taken as well as who might have been responsible for it."

"The thought had crossed our minds yes."

Sam nodded. "I want those answers too. I _need_ to know if there's anything here, but I also _need_ to look after these people. I didn't want them, they sure as shit don't want me, but at the same time, they're mine now and I need to do something about this. If there is a problem here and it doesn't just exist in my own little brain. Then I won't be able to leave them to it until we get it sorted out. I won't desert them in the face of whatever it is that has got them so afraid."

Kerrass nodded.

"There is something here." He said after along while. "Something on the edge of thought, just crawling around at the edge of my vision and I don't know what it is. It's not Jack. Nothing like that but it is something. There is a strong magical aura here. A strong background...thing that I can't put my finger on.

"My medallion has been twitching since we crossed the border and came up through the trees. Not the same as it does in the presence of magic users, nor in the way that it does when it's near monsters. But enough to let me know that..."

He shook his head.

"That's worrying." He told us both. "The cult back near Oxenfurt were using rights that was channelling the magical fields in the local area. The rituals that they performed were powerful. We should all, every so often, remember to get down on our knees and pray to whatever powers we prefer, that there wasn't someone in that little group that was actually magically trained otherwise we would be in a lot more trouble right now. A _lot_ more trouble."

"So," Sam seemed to shake himself away from the dire warnings that Kerrass seemed to talk about. "The job here is threefold. The first part of that is to clear out the castle. To lay to rest any spirits that are still up there and making the place look untidy. Second?"

"Second is to see if there are any remnants of the cult that Cousin Raynard was part of up here." I said. "We know that his father is dead but we also think, from his account, that there might be some other people up here that are still following those traditions. Neighbours and other nobles for instance. We need to find them and destroy them. We need to make sure that the cult is properly torn out to the roots. Finally..."

"If we do find any remnants of this cult, we need to find out whether they were responsible, to any degree, for the disappearance of Francesca." Sammy finished.

"Ok." Kerrass smiled. "That's not a short order there. Lot going on. How do you want to set about doing this?"

"You're asking us that?" I laughed. "You're the one with the theories and the expertise."

"I meant," he gave me a withering look. "What order. The ghosts or the cult first?"

"I think the ghosts need to be done first." Sam said. "Tempting though it is to just turn two Inquisitors and a Knight Father of Kreve loose on the populace, I think it needs a softer touch. So if you could start here, Master Witcher?" he smiled as he said that last.

Kerrass nodded. "I had already decided to go up tomorrow and have a look around by myself. I don't think, unless we're very lucky, that we're going to find anything about the cult up at the castle. The former Lord Kalayn must have known that the noose was closing in around him and wouldn't have wanted to risk it by leaving anything out in the open."

"No, but he might have left clues. That's what Father Hacha's for."

"I had wondered."

"What can we be doing in the meantime?" I asked Kerrass.

Kerrass took a deep breath.

"We need more information."

"But the people aren't talking."

"I suspect that that's what Father Danzig can do for you. Or that other Inquisitor, you know, whatsisname. The one that isn't Father Hacha. Send those two down and out and see if they can scare something up. We need local stories, folk lore, rumours...That kind of thing."

"Will that work?"

"It's a start."

Sam nodded and we began.

I slept badly that night and woke up feeling more exhausted than I had when I first went to bed. I dreamed that I was on an island in the middle of a lake. The water was moving gently, lapping at the edges of the island but it seemed strange and insubstantial. I could hear the sounds of thunder in the distance but I remember that I wasn't alone on the island. I heard harp music playing but it was discordant and there other sounds too. Like people yelling at each other.

I was scared, desperate and so badly wanted to get away but what I wanted to get away from? I couldn't tell you.

I shivered as I woke up. The air was much cooler up here. We were heading into summer now but although the days were getting hotter, the evenings were cool and fresh. I remember thinking that if it wasn't for all of the other factors that made this place a problem...then I could live here.

Of course, that was a day before I visited the castle.

When Kerrass had allowed us to come up to the castle, it was a day later. It had been quickly established that the main body of the castle was safe. No ghosts or spirits in there that needed to be appeased. Father Hacha was rubbing his hands with glee at the prospect of going through the place with a fine toothed comb to see if he could find any evidence of heresy. I wasn't convinced that he was going to find anything as I was pretty sure that any proof or correspondence would be hidden elsewhere. It would take a very particular kind of heretic to hold their dark and sinister meetings in the library, or the dining room where the heretic would also have to entertain tax collectors.

In short, I didn't expect us to find any sinister robes with arcane runes and blood spatter up the front behind the evening best in the back of the masters wardrobe.

So I was given permission to wander the place on the understanding that I would need to keep my spear with me and that said spear would be coated with spectre oil in case of attack.

I was accompanied by a servant. An old woman who had been in the castle since she was a young girl and simply couldn't imagine another life. It was plain to see that she expected to be taken off and burned at any moment now that the church really had arrived but Father Dempsey had already questioned her and was of the opinion that she was as much a victim of the rest of the family as anyone else. He had spent a bunch of time listening to her confession before deciding that her penance would be to act as a guide for us. To show us where the places were and to tell us what she had seen.

She had already done a lot of the "telling" part of her penance with Father Dempsey and her testimony had already been noted down and set aside before Kerrass and I had arrived.

She told us that there had been other servants but that many of them had fled in fear when they had heard of the death of Lord Kalayn. They too had guessed what the results would be and had taken the necessary steps. Sam, much to the dismay of both Father Dempsey and Father Hacha, had tried to tell anyone who would listen that he would guarantee the safety of anyone that came forward. Especially if they could provide us with any information that we might need to contribute towards the investigation.

He had not succeeded.

The only person that had remained was Old mother Anne who, even she, had had to retreat to making a home in the gatehouse to avoid the Ghosts and spirits in the castle itself. Real or imagined.

It was true that the place was oppressive. Like the weather which was damp and came with a chill wind off the mountains, but it felt as though it pushed down on you. Like a library where the Librarian resents the presence of any visitors and thinks that books should be left on the shelves where they belong.

Anne led me through the various rooms of the castle. I asked to see my mother's old room but I was disappointed. It had long since been converted into some kind of guest room and there was no trace of my mother there.

I looked into the other bedrooms. Father Hacha was in the master bedroom with a scribe. He was carefully and meticulously searching the room, speaking his observations aloud to the scribe who dutifully noted them down. I had not gotten over my initial dislike of the man but I will admit to being impressed with his diligence and work ethic. I had expected him to throw himself into things, tearing rooms and furniture apart like the proverbial bull in a pottery shop. Instead, he reminded me more of a man performing an autopsy. He removed things in slow measured steps, not moving on to the next problem until the previous thing had been dealt with. I stood there and watched him for a while, him oblivious to my presence.

As I watched he was working through a drinks cabinet. There were a series of bottles that he was removing from the cupboard.

He would take one out, read the label aloud before carefully, peeling the label off. Then he would examine the seal and comment on the state of it, as to whether it was open or not, if it was open, how regularly did it look as though it had been used. Then he would examine the state of the glass, the colour of it, any bubbles in the glass, was there a manufacturers mark? And so on.

The bottle would then be placed into a straw lined crate. I had expected him to open the bottles, to have a look, sniff or even a taste but I would later find out that Father Hacha was also a bit of a chemist and would take the liquids off to experiment on later to see what they contained.

He was slow, methodical and very, very thorough.

I moved on.

As I said, the library wasn't really a library as the collection of books and scrolls there was laughable. In my travels, I can honestly say that I've seen more books on the shelves of farmers and villagers. It might be true that the farmers were just keeping the books for something to wipe their arse with but even so. Instead, the walls were lined with hunting trophies. So many little glass eyes stared down at me from the walls that, even more so than with the other portraits, I felt as though I was being watched.

That was where the portrait of the former Count Kalayn was. Standing proudly, playing with his riding crop. He looked every inch the noble man, tall, slim, lean and well dressed. He looked as though he was staring off into the distance while in the background of the painting, you could see horses being ridden across fields and jumping over hedges. I spent a bit more time looking at this painting, looking for some kind of family resemblance to my mother, seeing as how this man must have been her brother.

I was, by no means, entirely objective in this regard but I could see no similarities other than, maybe, the hair colour. It is true that this was a more modern portrait. It's also true that it'[s entirely possible, even likely that the artist would have adjusted the appearance of the man standing in the painting to better suit his customers requirements and ego. But I was looking at a handsome man. Energetic, strong and upright of posture. The picture suggested a strength of character and a desire for greatness. It was a lot like the kind of picture that would, occasionally, be painted of my father.

Father didn't go into portraits very much. Each of his children had had a portrait done at the age of fourteen in order to be sent to prospective suitors and I also know that he had a portrait done of himself and any child that was living at home, once every five years or so. You can find them around the castle if you know where to look. The only main ones are the portraits of mother and Father that hang above the hearth in the drawing room and another one of Father in his ceremonial armour which hangs in the great hall above my fathers seat where he sat on those occasions where he had to keep court.

The great hall only gets used rarely as Father used to like people to come and talk to him regardless of whether or not he was "holding court" or not. His only requirement was that he should not be interrupted while he was eating, nor while he was sleeping. According to castle legend, if news was brought to the castle that was urgent, the sort of thing where father needed to be woken up for the purposes of dealing with the news, then first the news needs to be run past Father's squire. Then and only then, if the squire agrees, is the news taken to wake father up.

Also according to legend, the only times this has EVER been the case, was at the birth of any one of his children, in which case he was already awake waiting for news, and then again when we received word that Nilfgaard had crossed the Yaruga for the third time.

Every other time, the squire had listened to the news carefully before telling the messenger that the message could wait until morning and not once, not _once_ did father ever punish one of his scribes for getting it wrong.

I was being reminded of my father keenly here, wandering around the hallways, looking at the faces of relatives that I had barely even heard of, let alone met and interacted with. I was struggling to keep my objectivity and was fighting off an instinctive dislike to everyone that I saw looking down at me from the huge canvasses.

This wasn't helped by the fact that yesterday, while Kerrass was having his scouting expedition into the castle Sam and I had ridden off with Knight Father Danzig and his men, to go and see Aunt Kalayn.

Ok. Again, I need to explain a couple of things for our more Southern readership. On a castle's estate, when the Lord of the estate dies and is survived by the lady of the estate, the lady is required to step aside for the wife of whoever is taking over so that the new lady can put her own stamp on things and isn't overshadowed by the presence of the older, more experienced and well known lady. There seems to be some kind of assumption that the older lady might _want_ to still be in charge and boss everyone around but I'm not going to get involved in that debate.

Nor am I going to get involved in the debate of the correctness, or the incorrectness of the practice.

But anyway.

The place where the lady goes during this retirement is referred to as "The Dower house." Which is often a smaller house, still on the Lord's lands, often close to the castle, if not part of the castle itself in times of war. The lady, who might have been a countess or a Baroness or Duchess, would now attach the extra title of "Dowager," to the front of a title, so the widow of a Duke would be referred to as "The Dowager Duchess," so that everyone knows who she is. She is given her own servants, often those who she was closest to in her original residence. Again so that the new lady of the manor can establish herself.

In the case of the Kalayn lands. The Dowager Countess, (the matter of my brothers title was still up in the air. People were arguing over it, saying that the Coulthard family were becoming too large for our own good. Soon, upon my marriage to Ariadne, I would be called the Count of Angral which is now a "real" title rather than just a reduction because of the realm of Angraal. Sammy was about to inherit the title of Count from our Uncle and the "Barony" of Coulthard is one of, if not "the" by now given my sisters open management of the lands, richest barony's in the north. Easily richer than what my lands and Sam's lands are put together. But the thing that sticks in their craw most of all is the fact that Sam is inheriting the title of "Count". Not the land, or the money, it's the title that upsets these people.

I got nothing.

But anyway)

The Dowager Countess lives in a small house, maybe an hours ride away from the castle and we resolved to ride out in the morning. There was a little bit of an uproar that Kerrass had refused to allow anyone to accompany him on his first foray into the castle with Father Hacha loudly declaring that it was simply "outrageous that good and decent churchmen should be dictated to by a Witcher," and that went about as well as you could expect.

But in the end it was agreed that I would ride to the Dower-house with Sam and Father Danzig. Not that Father Danzig particularly needed to come on this family expedition but we thought it might do the common folk some good to see soldiers of a "good" God patrolling the roads that weren't going to just burn them on sight on the assumption of heresy. Rickard's Bastards were off patrolling the woods to "see what's out there," and do some hunting.

The Dowager Countess, Aunt Kalayn, reminded me of my Grandmother. I don't know why given that she was actually nothing like my own Grandmother. It was a clash of opposites. This woman was substantially older than mother was as my uncle had married her for the money rather than for any physical attractiveness or age. She had already been a widow when she had married into the Kalayn family from one of the other older families of the North. She was about the same age as my father's mother had been when _her_ husband, my Grandfather, had died. Which is why, I assume, I found myself comparing the two. It was a useless comparison really as they were nothing alike. Absolutely nothing alike.

You can find old women like my paternal Grandmother all over the north. Tiny little old women that are built like a barrel and look as though they're going to go on forever. At her tallest, she came up to my shoulder, a shock of white hair on top of her head which she cut short on the grounds that the long whispy threads kept getting into her eyes. She had been a farmer's wife before she had risen to the gentry and she ruled her manor house in the same way that she had ruled her farm house which meant that she ruled it with a smile made from steel.

No-one crossed my Grandmother when she put her mind to it, least of all my father and Grandfather. She had survived to see us moving into what is now Castle Coulthard and would admit that she struggled with the fact that she wasn't allowed to cook any more. She used to get a real kick out of making cakes and other treats that she would insist, much to Father's annoyance, on feeding to her Grandchildren.

She died when I was eleven. Only slowing down in her last month before she died. This was before the "dower house" had been properly renovated and so she had still lived in the castle itself. She was still up and out of bed long before the rest of us and drove the rest of the castle's occupants to distraction by insisting on being involved in every aspect of castle life. She used to tell the grooms how to care for the horses before they would turn around to find my Grandmother, in all of her finery, shovelling manure with the rest of them. She would go into the kitchens and be helping peeling vegetables having to have the peel picked out of her dresses.

But, and here's the important part of it, the way she did it would put the rest of the castle's occupants at their ease. She wasn't nobly born and she knew it, as did everyone else and she never pretended to be anything other than what she was. The castle-folk loved her for that.

Another slight proof against Sir Rickard's theory of the common folk liking to keep the classes separate. He would argue that the exceptions are so marked as to almost prove the rule.

She was absolutely indomitable. Father would try to talk to her about the "proper conduct of a lady". Grandma would listen carefully, ask a few questions and then, just as carefully, ignore everything that Father would say. When Father would call her on this she would come back with this piece of effortless wisdom.

"You're never too old for me to give you a clip round the ear my lad," before wandering off and making some kind of fruit pie that would be served to guests with glee.

It was uncanny. To the young child in me it seemed as though she was immune to any kind of reprisals. Instead of getting angry, Father would laugh.

To the young child in me, it was like being told that "the eternal frost" meant that the world would get a bit chilly. She was just this small, iron haired old lady that seemed as though she was indestructible. I honestly believed, as a child, that if she decided to walk across a battle field when she was in one of her "stomping moods" which meant that she was cross about something and had decided that "something needed to be done about it". I honestly believed that armies would get out of her way.

The other thing about her was that she didn't seem to age. She was roughly the same size and shape in my earliest memories of her as she was the day she died. The only sign of her ageing was the fact that her hair changed from steel geay to white over the course of years.

She was also fascinated by everything that happened. When Emma was still a little too young to be interested in my school work it was my Grandmother that I went to. The things that Father would tell her about the proper behaviour of a noble-women, it wasn't that she wasn't listening. She was fascinated by the subject. She had questions and one memorable time, she turned up to the dinner table with a scroll full of questions that she had jotted down on the subject. As I say, she listened carefully and asked searching questions until Father was done at which time she looked down at her notes and declared in a proud and happy voice that "all of that sounded a bit silly really," and that "she would be having none of it."

I miss my Grandmother. I would love for her to have met Ariadne.

This woman though, this Aunt Kalayn was so starkly different that it was...honestly...remarkable. Same age. If anything, Aunt Kalayn was younger than Grandmother was when we moved into the castle.

But if I hadn't _known_ that fact, then I would have guessed that Aunt Kalayn was ancient.

Something to be said about that I suppose.

The dower house wasn't really that much to look at. The nicest thing that could really be said about it was that it had a nice view attached to the gardens which we could see as we rode up. It was not a good first impression as it looked rather overgrown to my eyes and sorely in need of some care. The house itself was fairly large, the same kind of thing that you could expect to find in a more upmarket district of Novigrad and you reached it by going down a long avenue of fir trees. I found it an odd decoration as the entire countryside was covered in Fir trees so that if you really wanted to display your wealth you would put out Oak or Elm trees.

But still.

When we arrived, there was little sign of any activity. One of the church soldiers dismounted and knocked on the door to inform the lady of the house that we wished to visit. There didn't seem to be any stables so, again, a couple of the soldiers acted as squires and grooms to take our horses off us. Sam ordered that they remain saddled. He didn't look happy about the entire thing and my guess was that he didn't intend to stay very long which was absolutely fine by me.

In the end, Father Danzig, Sam and I were shown into a small room with a few chairs by an elven woman. She looked a little thin to me, even for the fact that she was an elf and she glared at us all suspiciously. Despite the Kalayn colours that she wore. She informed us that the Lady of the house was still getting dressed and that she would be with us shortly.

We were _not_ offered tea while we waited.

The lady that was helped into the room by the Elven woman was old. I mean really old. This is one of those things where age isn't a measurement of the passing of the time. I mean this in the way of... She was walking with a cane and still needed to be supported by the servant. It was one of those situations where Father Danzig and I immediately leapt to our feet. Not out of respect but so that we could help her into her seat and to see whether we could do anything to help her.

Sam was by the window and was coming over but then he saw Aunt Kalayn brandish her cane in a threatening manner towards us both and beat a strategic withdrawal.

Sensible man my brother.

It was just going through my head, over and over, that this woman was the same age that my Grandmother had been when I was ten.

She was frail, almost skeleton like in her appearance. It was painful to look at. Her hair was immaculate however and her dress was precisely worn. In fact, that was a good way to describe her. She was _precise_ about everything. She was missing several teeth and her eyes would wander about the place as though she was looking for something to talk about.

She walked over to the chair where Father Danzig had been sat and glared at the fact that his travelling cloak had been laid over the back of the chair.

In his defence, there wasn't anyone there who had offered to take our cloaks so we had just taken them with us.

Father Danzig quickly scurried over and rescued his cloak from the old woman's ire.

I say again, I wouldn't normally describe someone using only their age but in this case, the age was a relevant factor. She looked old, she sounded and behaved old. The entire atmosphere _felt_ old as if we were in an old woman's company.

She sat down and sort of glanced around the room as though she was trying to remember what she was doing there, or reminding herself that she was exactly where she was supposed to be and that this was indeed, her house.

Eventually her eyes settled on Father Danzig.

"And who might you be?" She asked.

"Umm," his eyes slid sideways to the two of us. "My name is Knight Father Danzig of the church of Kreve and I have the honour of presenting..."

"Has anyone offered you tea?"

"My Lords Samue...er...what?"

She bridled. "Does the priesthood have no manners in the modern world?"

"Uh..." His face lit as he hit upon a way that he could get himself out of this. "I was endeavouring to introduce my companions."

"Mmm," she stared into space for a while before a thought visibly struck her. "So have you been offered tea."

"Uh...no, no we haven't."

She sighed. "Oh dear. Well I'm so sorry, I shall see to it directly while you get on with your business."

She started to struggle to her feet, using the cane as leverage which of course meant that we all had to leap to our feet to assist her.

"My husband will be right with you I'm sure." She said as she almost got to her feet. Fortunately we were saved from the disaster by the Elven Maid who was at the old lady's elbow whispering in her ear. I didn't catch much but it sounded like she was reassuring the old woman that _she_ would call the servants to get the tea and that the lady should stay seated. She tried to remind Aunt Kalayn that her husband had died which Aunt Kalayn seemed to have absorbed as she sat back down.

"Ah yes, of course." She laughed and the sound surprised me by being remarkably musical. "How silly of me to forget."

She bestowed her most benign look on the three of us. "You'll have to forgive me," she said. "Memory like a sieve these days."

We nodded sympathetically.

The Elven maid glared at us as she left on her mission to fetch the tea. I don't entirely know what she was trying to tell us but we all nodded acceptance of the message.

We all sat in silence for a few moments as we waited for the next part of the conversation to start. It wasn't helped by the fact that Aunt Kalayn was looking at each of us with just as much confusion as we were feeling looking at her.

"So?" she said after a while. "Who are you?"

"Well," Knight Father Danzig rose to the occasion, feeling as though he finally had proper permission to speak. "My name is knight Father Danzig of the church of Kreve and it is my honour to present your nephews. Lord Samuel von Coulthard and new Lord Kalayn, who has been named as heir to your late husband on the unhappy event of his death."

We had had several conversations about this given that Sam's title hadn't been ratified yet and so we had decided on the non-committal title of "Lord" Kalayn.

"And his brother Lord Frederick von Coulthard." Danzig's voice began to falter as he came to the end of this statement. The old woman was glaring at Sam with a hatred that looked as though it would scorch the grassland.

"You," she hissed. "You _dare_ to show your face here."

Sam swallowed. We had briefly discussed the possibility of Aunt Kalayn not being happy to see one of us but we had thought that she would be forced, by good manners if nothing else, to tolerate our presence. But it seems that the manners and societal rules that govern us all are not as prevelant in the older generation.

I was shocked. If there had been anyone that we expected to make her angry, we had rather assumed that it would be me, given that I had been the one responsible for the deaths of her son and husband.

"After everything that has happened," she went on. "After everything that I have seen and you come here as though you own the place. As though you have some kind of hold over me."

Sam carefully rose from where he had sat down.

"With all due respect, Aunt. I rather think that I do own the place and I would thank you to..."

"You own nothing." The old woman snapped. "Everything you have, we gave you. Everything you rule, you rule on our sufferance. You have no rights here. No authority."

Her eyes blazed and I began to see a shadow of what she must have been like when she had been younger.

"You are nothing but a little weasel that scurries around under the tables and behind the walls, stealing the scraps from the dogs as though you have a right to them. You are nothing."

She was breathing heavily and I started to grow concerned.

"After everything you've done." She continued, spitting the words at Sam as though she was driving daggers into his chest. "After everything you've seen and every, awful act that you have perpetrated. You dare to show your face here. You _dare_?"

Sam had gone pale. Fortunately, just as he was opening his mouth to speak, the door opened and the Elf came in with a tray of drinks which she laid out on a small table which seemed intended for the purpose.

Instantly, the old woman subsided. It was as though she had placed a mask back over her face and she was instantly the slightly doddery old woman. I tried to search the slightly watery eyes to see if I could identify any remnants of the angry, bitter old woman that I had just seen a moment before.

But there was nothing. Nothing at all. If it wasn't for the rattling of the cup and saucer that betrayed Sam's agitation as he accepted a drink from the servant, I wouldn't have believed that anything had happened. Father Danzig was peering at Aunt Kalayn intently. When I asked him later he was doing the same as I was, trying to ascertain whether this entire old woman thing was an act.

But it couldn't have been. No-one's that good an actress.

"Milady," I began tentatively after taking a small sip of my herbal tea. "May I ask a question?"

"Mmm?" She absolutely sounded as though she hadn't realised that I had spoken.

"Who do you think this man is?" I gestured at Sam.

"Why, he's Lord Kalayn, my husband's heir." She began to show signs of some distress, confusion and wonderment crossed her face. The maid, after depositing and serving the tea had sat on a stool at her mistresses right hand. At the sound of the confusion in Aunt Kalayn's voice, she leant forward so that she could see into the old woman's eyes.

"Remember," The Elf said, firmly and forcefully. "These are your nephews. Your sister in law's sons."

"Ah yes, of course they are. I forget you see. I remember you now."

I wasn't in the least bit convinced that she had remembered us at all.

"Now what were your names again?" She asked.

"I think I'd better go." Sam stood. Still pale and shaking a little. "Forgive me Aunt Kalayn, but matters require my attention. May I borrow your maid for a moment to discuss the dispensation of the household, number of servants and the like?"

Aunt Kalayn nodded absently and the maid rose. Father Danzig rose as well, he was eyeing Sam with some concern and he caught my eye. Non-verbal communication is difficult at best, even when you know the person well but I tried to convey my concern, that he should keep his eye on Sam but that I was going to stay for a little while.

I thought that he told me that he would do so and that they would wait around until I emerged.

"So then, Aunt Kalayn." I began. "How are you?"

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," she began, flinching away from me. "Please don't hurt me?"

"I'm not going to hurt you. Of course I'm not going to hurt you."

"Oh good." She perked up instantly. "Then, who are you again?"

"I'm Frederick remember? Your nephew?"

"Ah yes of course. I remember."

I wasn't entirely convinced that she did.

"You've grown a lot since I last saw you. When was that?"

"When I was five remember? We came to visit?"

"Ah yes, I remember." It seemed that that was a common phrase. A small shadow crossed her face. I assumed that it was a memory but she ignored it with the ease of what looked like much practise. "So how are you?" she asked.

"I'm good thank you." I told her. "I'm getting married next year. As I understand it they're looking to combine it with the harvest festival."

"Oh well that'll be lovely. Who's the lucky lady."

"Well..." I smiled and she giggled with me, the very picture of the kindly elderly relative. This at least was something that she shared with Grandmother. "I would rather say that I am the lucky man."

"Oh really, what's her name."

"Her name is Ariadne?"

"And how is she...situated?"

For those people that don't speak "noble" she was asking what Ariadne's rank was and how much of a dowry she would be bringing to the family.

Occasionally I am proud of my diplomatic skills as I gave her this speech.

"Well she belongs to a very old family (true) with a lot of power in their branch of...society (also true). For herself, she is a lady of power and influence (true although you'll notice that I left out the fact that I was referring to "magical" power as that might have gone down badly), and she comes with the rank of Countess which she holds in her own right due to an inheritance (technically true although my wording is somewhat circumspect. She did indeed inherit the land and title from the man that we had arranged to have killed). So in a little while, they will be naming me "Count Frederick". The land is not large but we have some ideas as to how to improve it."

"Good, good." She nodded approval. "Moving up in the world then?"

"I am."

Notice that she didn't ask whether or not we liked each other or not. Such matters are beneath nobles of her social strata.

"And how are you Aunt Kalayn?" I asked. The real reason that I had remained behind.

"I'm alright I suppose." She lied. She wasn't being malicious with it, it was just that there is a certain kind of person who won't complain if they were being tortured and bleeding from every orifice. However, there were also tears streaming down her cheeks which kind of gave me a hint.

I'm being flippant I know. I found this meeting incredibly tough so please don't hold it against me.

"I just...I miss my home."

"Back at the castle?"

She nodded. "The green fields and the windmills off in the distance. The sounds of people working drifting up to my bedroom window."

I guessed that she was talking about her home before she married Uncle Kalayn. There aren't any fields around Castle Kalayn and certainly not any windmills.

"I suppose you miss your husband as well." I tried to plant the suggestion in the hope that it might steer her towards a topic that I wanted to ask about. I was worried that this woman knew the answers to the questions that I had, but at the same time, I was also becoming increasingly concerned that she could no longer give us that information. Simply because she could remember none of it. Or if she did, her memories were not dependable. I found myself looking at the door with a sense of longing. I wanted to go and I wanted to go now. That same feeling that I've talked about before. My legs wanted to move. They wanted to get up and run away. Run, with all of the pain and heartbreak behind them.

But, there was also a slim chance that she could give me a clue about Francesca's whereabouts.

I firmly forced my legs to stay where they were.

"Oh he was so handsome." She told me. "So very handsome. He was like a God out of the old stories."

There are some times when I can hear my mouth speaking and I just want to shut it down.

"You mean, demanding child sacrifice and worship?"

Fortunately for me though she was lost on a raft of her own memories.

"He came for me in the spring you know."

"Did he?"

"He came and we just sat and talked for hours. My first husband had died a year earlier and I was only just out of my mourning garb.

"I wonder if it still fits, I must make a note and ask my Lilla to get it out."

"Get what out."

"My mourning garb." She snapped. No sooner had she said it than I was clearly forgiven though.

"He looked so handsome as we sat in the castle grounds, talking. Just talking. He had such grand plans for the future, we were going to have children so that we could continue a grand legacy that had been set out for us. We were going to be Lords of a new domain. Where people would work together for a common purpose in order to make our lands great."

I nodded. You hear stories like this all the time. The man courts the woman with flowery words so that she will agree to marry him and bring in the huge expected dowries. It was almost always false but I didn't want to tell this old woman that.

I felt sorry for her.

"May I ask a question though?"

"Mm? What?"

"Why do you hate Sam and not me?"

"Sam?"

"My brother. He was in here just a moment ago and you got upset."

Her forehead creased in concentration. "I don't remember that."

"Then why don't you hate me."

"Why would I hate you?"

I took a deep breath.

"Because I was the one that caught your son in the heresy for which he was killed."

She looked at me for a long time.

"My son is dead?" She asked with a straight face.

"Yes."

Another frown.

"I thought it was my husband that had died."

"They both died. Your son was executed for heresy and your husband ended his own life either in grief or in protest."

The woman sat there for a long time, staring off into space.

"May the Gods forgive me." She said after so long a time that I thought I had lost her again. "May all of the Gods forgive me but..." She shook her head. "I'm glad. He was a...He was a wretch." She said it as though it was the worst possible thing that she could think of. I would have been amused but then she dropped the other clanger. "I almost hated his father for that."

"His father?"

"Yes his father. I tried to hate him for a long time but oh... I couldn't stay angry with him for long. He was so handsome you see and so..."

She had drifted off into another memory before shaking herself.

"Sorry, but who are you again?"

"I..." My brain fought the change of subject. "I'm your nephew."

"But I don't have any nephews. My husband was an only child."

She shook her head and climbed to her feet. This time she seemed to do it confidently and with energy.

"I will thank you to leave before I call the guard."

She leaned back into a chair and was asleep faster than I could believe.

"Aunt Kalayn?" I called gently, then again with a little more force.

"It's no good."

The Elven servant had re-entered the room quietly. "She'll sleep now for a few hours."

I nodded.

"Would you mind if I ask _you_ a few questions."

She looked uncomfortable for a moment.

"Just a few."

I nodded.

"Who are you?" I asked her. "I, to my occasional shame, know servants and you are no servant. I've made the mistake before of assuming that someone who looks like, dresses like and behaves like a servant, actually is a servant but I was watching more closely this time."

"I...I."

Then she realised that she had lost, she tensed, eyes darting around as she looked at the doors. I could almost feel her dismiss the door that was immediately behind her with the presence of Sam and Danzig on the other side, but also realised that she would have to get past me to reach another exit.

A knife appeared in her hand.

"Wait," I told her, raising my hands. "I mean you no harm,"

She moved slightly. Not being foolish, I mirrored the movement to keep the furniture between us. She wasn't holding the knife as though she meant to throw it.

"That's what they all say," she snarled, her eyes flashing with hatred. "You, fucking d'Hoine."

"They might," I countered, still keeping the couch between us. "But on the other hand, I could call for help and I have not."

"Your overconfidence will be your death."

I sighed.

"You look tired." I told her, largely because it was true. "How long have you been running now, how long have you been hiding from everyone, including people like me. When was the last time you had an honest nights sleep or a decent meal that you weren't testing for poison in advance?"

She sighed.

"It's been a long time." She admitted and I nodded acceptance of the fact.

"Trust is tricky." I told her. "I know this. Although I cannot claim to have lived longer than you, or have known even a fraction of the pain that you have felt, I do know that trust is hard. Especially when you have been hurt."

Carefully, I sat down. Still keeping my hands away from my body. I still had my boot knife but my spear and dagger had been left by the door.

"How can you possibly..." She closed her mouth like a trap.

"Well," I said. "Sit down and I will tell you."

She moved and sat in the chair closest to the other door in the room. She still had the knife in her hand though.

"I'm getting married to a vampire." I told her. "An elder vampire at that."

Her eyes widened.

"I'm not lying when I say that she scares the shit out of me. Still, even though I've agreed that the marriage can go ahead."

"Why?"

"Why? Is it not obvious. Her species used to use mine for sport."

"No, not why are you afraid, but why did you agree to the marriage?"

I shrugged. "Because I love her. Oh don't get me wrong, there are times when I question my own sanity for doing this but... From the moment I met her, she has done nothing to hurt me. She could overpower me in an instant. She could control my brain, cast magics that could swallow me whole or make me her slave. But she asked me."

I sighed as I thought about it. I hadn't taken these feelings out to examine for a while.

"She could have taken me if she wanted. She could have re-written my very being if she had decided to but she hasn't. Instead, she came to me and asked me.

"That's not to say that we haven't hurt each other." I winced at the memories. "There are several differences between human society and Vampire society and they sometimes clash as we make mistakes with how that works. Also, I was a Jackass towards her a little while ago. There were reasons but... heh...sorry, it's becoming a family saying. Those reasons are explanations, not excuses for how I behaved."

I leant forward and ignored the fact that she flinched. "She could rip my throat out at any second. But she hasn't. Instead she speaks of our future together, she talks of love and poetry and philosophy and history. The last time I saw her she helped nurse me back to health after I had been tortured at the hands of some religious fanatics. Fanatics of the same religion that I am a confirmed member of. She terrifies me because of what and who she is. But gradually I am learning to trust her.

"It's slow, and my body and my instincts still cause me to flinch whenever she makes sudden movements. I know the flinch it's coming and I know it's going to happen but the only way to stop it is to tense up and that's more hurtful to her than the flinch is. She knows it's involuntary and so...

"All this after another supernatural creature tore the soul from my body in order to torture me. Which caused me, in the long run to fear her even more."

"You've been tortured a lot."

"Mmmm. How much is a lot?" I laughed. "Still, that's what you get when you travel around with a Witcher."

"You travel with a Witcher."

"Yep. It's no lie to say that he's my best friend. I wouldn't have met my fiancee without him and instead I would probably have been married off by my family to some woman where we would have ended up boring each other to death."

"He's your friend?" She frowned in disbelief. "You, a d'hoine, friends with a Vatt'ghern."

"Yes," I answered in Elven. "Although I don't think he feels like he's getting the fair end of the deal at the moment. I'm trying to bully him into talking to the girl that he loves."

She gave a little, involuntary bark of laughter before her hand shot up to her mouth and covered it.

"I would like to meet a Witcher."

"I would be glad to arrange it."

"How did you know?" She asked, after staring at me for a long time as though she was weighing me in some way. "That I wasn't a servant."

"It was a guess, but a good one. A lady like Aunt Kalayn," she flinched at the name, "would know that you offer tea to visitors upon arrival, even when they're waiting. Even if you are understaffed you would know that. The onus is then upon us to wait until refreshments are brought. Also, you served the lady before the guests and when Sam wanted to discuss the, what did he call it, the "dispensation of the household," you went with him yourself rather than summoning a butler."

"There isn't a butler."

"Precisely my point. Aunt Kalayn is a noble lady of the "old school." She would expect there to be a butler, as would any other visiting noble but you didn't even think it was a thing. The female staff always defer to the male staff. Even if you had to go and fetch the gardener to speak on those matters, then you would have fetched him. The female household deal with things like cleanliness, decorations and provisions. Not "number of servants and the like". That is a man's job."

She grunted. "I thought I had this all down."

I laughed, as gently as I could. Kerrass calls it my "court laugh," but I was gambling on her not knowing the difference.

"Believe me when I say, as someone who grew up with this kind of thing, that it will never make sense. You will never get it all down. You need to be brought up to it."

"But," her eyes became a little sly. "How would you know that your Aunt would see those kinds of things as important."

"Because of her little finger."

"I don't understand."

"When you hold a cup of tea, one of these smaller ones here made from pottery," I leant forward and demonstrated with Sam's abandoned cup. "You are supposed to hold it by the handle only yes? It's the height of bad manners to wrap your fingers round the pottery."

She nodded.

"Most people know this and do so, but they automatically stick their little fingers out. Don't ask me why this happens, it's an involuntary thing. Apparently it helps with balance. It's also considered rude as it suggests that the little finger possessor is superior to the others as they are showing off the fact that they are only using a few fingers to eat their food rather than the five that "peasants" use. So a properly trained person, like I am or Sam is, holds their fingers in like so,"

I demonstrated. "That is the sign that you have been brought up in high society. Or that your parents have hired you a tutor to teach you such things."

"That doesn't say why the lady would care about such things."

"Didn't you notice how she frowned at Father Danzig when he stuck his little finger out. It was a momentary thing and it passed almost instantly but..."

She sighed. "Humans." She took another breath. "Ask your questions."

"I don't want to ask you questions." I told her. "But perhaps we can talk for a while."

A ghost of a smile crossed her face. "Then what would you like to talk about." She said in the common tongue. "You're very good at Elven though, your accent is odd to me."

"That is because it is the scholarly version that we learn to read the more ancient manuscripts. We learn to speak it so that we can feel superior to the other people that pass us on the street."

She laughed allowed.

"You, a race that looks down on me and my kind, using our language as a method of looking down on each other."

I think I surprised her by laughing with her.

"To be fair, some people look down on us for using the language so it's a kind of share of disapproval,"

She laughed some more but slowly her laughter turned to tears.

"Goddess," she said after a while. "I have been so dreading someone spotting me."

I nodded. The question of "why," hung in the air between us but I guessed that she wasn't quite comfortable enough to answer me yet.

"Let me tell you what I know about Kalayn lands and my history with what I found out, how and why. Then you can join in when you know the words if you like,"

She nodded her agreement to this plan.

I spoke for a long time. Telling her about father's death. About my brother's involvement and about what we had found going on in the area around Oxenfurt.

"I met your brother," she said suddenly in the middle of the conversation. It shocked me out of my narrative and I stared at her a little dumbstruck. "He visited the Kalayn's a few times. He was a snake."

I sighed. "Yes." I agreed. "Yes he was."

There didn't seem to be any further comment coming though so after a while I carried on talking.

Then, slowly, she started talking. The comment about Edmund was the first in a stream of comments, one following after the other. Before she intended to, I think, she was part of the conversation.

In the end though, things became stuffy in the small room that we were sitting in and we went for a walk. I saw Sam, Danzig and the others were still at the entrance to the house waiting for us but the Elf, who finally introduced herself to me as Lillafaswen took me out into the gardens.

Once upon a time I suspect it was a rose garden judging by the walkways but whatever it had been, it was now a herb garden.

"I should bring Kerrass down here." I told her. "He will want to talk shop with you about this."

"Yes well," She sighed looking out over the flowering plants, some of them, looking as though they were struggling in the damp mountain air. "I spent my life studying Chemistry, herbalism and the like. I'm hundreds of years old, most of that devoted to the study of plants. It was my passion, my drive my world...everything. But now... I look at these plants and I no longer care."

She looked at me. She looked as though she was under so much pain that she actively couldn't weep.

"The Kalayn's took everything from me. My life, my...sense of being, my passion. Do you know about Elven reproduction?"

"I know that they don't do it enough for the survival of the species."

She snorted at that.

"You are right you know. Possibly more than you know. And all because of people like me."

"You know I have to ask you about what you mean now."

"I know. Elves are at their most fertile in their first couple of hundred years of life. Fertility after that is rare. But that's also the period of our lives where we are at our most passionate. That's where we choose what is to become our life's work. It takes passion to reproduce but what if we get distracted.

"That's what happened to me. I was so fixated about plants and their uses. Most elves are only interested in the plants for their beauty or for medicinal purposes. But that's hardly the point. What else can we learn from the plants. The flowers and the fruit of these things."

She was staring at an odd purple flower. The base of the petals was bright yellow but as they grew out from the stem.

"But Goddess, I hate this place now. Come..."

She led me through a small stone doorway in the wall that surrounded the herb-garden and out into the fields behind the dower-house. I imagined that, in better days, there might have been people out playing games on the grass, children running around and playing hide and seek in the ever present trees.

The air smelt like it was going to rain.

"Why don't you leave?" I asked her. "We are not the old Lords Kalayn now. Sam's a different man, he won't mind you leaving."

"I have considered it, but then...where would I go. Home? Home to the people I betrayed by simple virtue of pursuing my art rather than finding a husband and giving birth. Or human society where I would have to prove that I had served as apprentice to someone who's herbal expertise is but a fraction of mine. How about the villages where elves and other non-humans are looked down at and spat upon."

"But that's not all is it?"

"No."

"It's Aunt Kalayn isn't it?"

"Yes."

"Why? I thought you hated the Kalayns."

"I do, but she? She saved my life several times. She sheltered me when they wanted to use me for their own sick amusement. She pointed out how useful I could be, even as they abused her too."

I opened my mouth to ask the question.

"Oh yes," she smiled grimly. "Lady Kalayn was no immune to their...depredations. The men, including her husband and father in law used to pass her round like some kind of "After dinner treat" to their special guests. That was my job you see. As a herbalist. I created the medicine and the drugs that would keep her docile and the men high. Her and your mother and any of the other women and boys that they would bring in."

"They never used men?"

"No, never men. They seemed to think that that was somehow...filthier than everything else that they did. So I kept them in their drugs. Kept her high so that she didn't complain and I salved her injuries and the injuries of those people that they couldn't afford to leave marks on. Then, I could make some people forget what had happened. I'm that good at what I do, you see."

She said the last with a self-loathing that hurt my ears.

"They could bring a girl up, rape her for days and then she would given to me. I would feed her one of my herbal potions and she would remember none of it. That's how they decided who should marry their son you see."

She looked at me for the first time since our conversation. She had been avoiding my gaze "You did the world a favour when you killed that monster."

I grunted something to the affirmative. There was a fire in her eyes that was hard to see.

"I did awful things to that woman," she went on. "And she begged me to do them while at the same time saving my life. Or it would have been me tied to the rack and having specially forged implements shoved into me until I died screaming in agony."

We stopped on the edge of the grass and stared back at the house.

"She's dying." She said. "You can't tell it but her system is so tied into the herbs that I gave her over the years that she can't live without them now. But at the same time they're destroying her from the inside out. She's had a hell of a life that woman. You can map her injuries on her body, the badly healed scars and things and still I have to feed her the drugs or she will die all the quicker."

She sighed and kicked at the ground.

"What I did to that woman was evil. I should go and ask your Witcher friend to end my life."

I shook my head.

"The greatest evil that a man can commit, is to force another to do evil." I told her. "You were just trying to survive. What would have happened if you had refused?"

"I would have died in agony."

"Then you did what you needed to do. I can't condemn you and you may find that more than one person will agree with you. Especially Kerrass as he has more experience with evil being done to him and by his hand than most."

"Kerrass?"

"My Witcher friend."

"Ah."

"In the meantime. If you want to stay here then I imagine that Sam will agree to it. I won't give away your secret if you don't want me to. (Freddie's notes: As it turns out, she didn't care that much) He, certainly, won't have noticed who you are. But when you feel that you have no more atonement to do here."

"You mean, when she's died."

"As you say. When you're done here. The Coulthard family would give you things you could do with your skills that would only benefit the world. If that doesn't appeal then I'm on the faculty of Oxenfurt university and I can easily arrange for you to give some lectures there. Or I can recommend you to members of the Imperial court who are currently looking into the creation of another Witcher school for which they need skilled alchemists and you surely qualify."

"You are well connected."

"Yes, it has been said. But what is the use of power if you don't use it to help people."

"Some would say that you should use it to put down others."

"Now those people are arguing for evil."

She nodded.

"I am grateful, but I will see this out I think, for now at least."

I nodded and we stood back together and looked at the house. "Shame really." I heard myself say. "Otherwise it would have been a nice house."

"Do not be seduced," she told me. "This entire countryside is poison."

"Why do you say that?"

She shook her head in response. "You cannot see the things that I have seen and not think that. You cannot do what I have done and not think that. This place is tainted. You should leave this place before it becomes angry and decides to take it's vengeance. Or it overcomes you."

"Is that what's happening here?"

"What do you mean?"

"This place feels wrong. It's objectively beautiful. The climate is a bit damp but I could imagine it being truly beautiful. But there is an oppression here that I can't put my finger on. The world seems...I don't know. The villagers hide in their homes and won't talk to us. It's like they're afraid of us."

"They are afraid, they have every reason to be. You spoke about the horrible things that you saw your cousin and brother do, the rituals that they would perform. But here it was different."

"In what way."

"It was more ritualised. It took longer. I don't know but they had a good thing going here. They could have stayed up here for years without anyone finding out what was going on. Indeed they _had_ stayed up here for years. So why did your cousin go south. It was so that the hunting pool was so much larger. Your cousins appetites were no longer sated here. Here they took their time. They would drug their targets which is where I would come in of course. But every part of what they did was wrapped up in ceremony. They would spend ages looking for, choosing and grooming a single victim."

"So why are the villagers still afraid? They know that Lord Kalayn is dead. That was one of the first things that Sam did was to let people know that they don't have to be afraid."

"Of course they have to be afraid. They are villagers. It's habit now."

"No," I said. "No, there is something more. I don't know why."

"Humans," she said with a strange combination of a sneer and a smile. "Always looking for it to be more complicated than it actually is. This land is so soaked in fear and pain and hate. It is doubtful that it will ever recover. Let alone the villagers that live here."

She shook her head again. "I am tied to this place. There is a certain part of me that suggests that I should die here. I certainly deserve to die here after everything I've done but I am tied here. You should tell your brother to leave here. Keep the title if he has to for the foolish obsession that your people seem to have with the titles and land grants, but he should tear that castle down and leave here. Take the people with him and never look back."

"Do you not think that we can heal it?"

She looked at me for a long time.

"What's to heal?" she said. "Let it die."

I thought about her comments a lot as I wandered through the castle the following day. Those last three words seemed to stick in my brain.

"Let it die," she said. As though the land was a living breathing thing. As though the horror that had been perpetrated in this place had somehow scorched the very air that we had been breathing, tainting the water that we drank and the ground that we walked upon. After some of the things that I had seen in the castle's basements, I could believe it too.

We've all heard about the implements of torture. Iron Maidens, racks, vats of oil for boiling or broiling alive. We know about hot pokers and thumbscrews, pliers and hammers. Various things to cause our fellow humans pain. I'd even had recent experience with such things myself although, thankfully, at a reduced rate. But what was here was different.

There were still implements of torture but everything, and I do mean everything, had a sexual twist to it. The Iron Maiden had holes at the groin and the face so that people could still stick themselves into the person trapped inside. The pokers weren't the normal, sharp edge, instead they had been shaped like phalluses. There were still whips and chains but they were focused on the binding of people rather than in the stretching.

There was dried blood everywhere as well as dried...other substances that I prefer not to think on their nature.

Sam was having it cleansed. A large bonfire had been built and anything that was wooden was being thrown into it after being smashed with one of the soldiers had applied the business end of their war-hammer to them. The other implements had been, likewise destroyed. Another of the soldiers had a background as the son of a blacksmith and he was supervising the melting down of the metal. A large furnace was being built to help with this process.

I am avoiding talking about some of the things that I saw that day when I went up to the castle because I am aware of the people that I'm talking to. I find that I don't want to tell you these things so that they don't disgust you or worse, for those people that might find these things...appealing. I don't want to give you ideas.

But just to give you a sense of how awful it was, the Inquisitors...The _Inquisition_ declared that it was disgusting.

Nor was it the only thing we found.

We found the cults collection of skulls.

The upper stairs of the castle, where everyone lived and where the guest rooms were as well as the servants quarters, the living areas and the kitchens. Those appeared normal. There were some oddities but I dare-say that you could walk into any living castle and find something that would strike you as a bit weird or a bit...off. My family castle is overseen by my elder sister and her Sorceress lover for instance. I don't think that that's a bad thing but I have received, many, letters that tell me that others find it disgusting.

But, if you hadn't known that there was anything going on there, you would have gone into that castle and had a look round to find the residence of a fairly eccentric, but otherwise perfectly normal dwelling for an older noble family that had fallen on hard times.

But, there was a door at the end of a corridor on the ground floor. It was round a corner and out of sight but if you went through that door, then you would find where the cult lived. As you go through the door, on the right hand side there was a small, cupboard that contained a set of robes. Just a couple, one or two that looked as though they might have been tailored to meet specific sized people and then another couple, less ornate, that we guessed would be for visiting guests that didn't have their own robes.

Then there was a flight of stairs which you would descend to enter hell itself.

The contrast between the two kinds of rooms that we found down there was extreme. On the one hand were those rooms, those dungeons where the prisoners were kept in the most filthy, obnoxious, closed in, stifling rooms where the scent of excrement and human waste was overpowering. Not just the urine and the faeces but also the genuine waste, blood, entrails and skin, all of it could be seen and identified.

But on the other hand were the richly appointed guest rooms, the large beds with rich furnishings. Bottles of spirits on the side. We found a dining room with glasses and silverware resting on polished wooden surfaces.

But then there was the ritual hall. Same as back in that clearing outside of Oxenfurt. A strange pillar in the middle of it, next to an alter. Everything was carved with various jagged spiral patterns but the other reason that we knew that it was the right place was that we found a stone disk, with a silver ankh strapped to it, inverted so that the one cancelled the other out.

We found a bone room. The upper castle had a room dedicated to the trophies that the Kalayn family had collected over the years and it seemed that their upper castle habits were reflected downstairs as well. They had a room that was piled hard high with various bones of different sizes and shapes. I saw femurs and rib-cages. Bowls that were filled with toe and finger bones. And of course, there were the skulls. Some piled haphazardly but others mounted onto things, polished and obviously much handles by people over the years.

I found myself imagining cousin Kalayn showing people round and telling his guests things like. "Ah yes, I remember this one. A blonde boy, just coming into his teenage years but surprisingly tough and strong. He lasted for weeks and his screams were a music that lulled us to sleep in the afterglow of the rituals.

There was another drinks cabinet in the room. That told me all that I needed to know about the place.

As we were walking through the room, Kerrass gave this little, almost like a, chuckle.

"Heh," he said.

"What?"

"Remember Amber's crossing?"

"Of course."

"Just like that."

I grunted my understanding but that didn't seem to satisfy Father Hacha that was still following us around suspiciously.

"What do you mean? You've seen this kind of thing before?"

"Not like this." Kerrass said, holding his medallion next to a couple of the bones, especially the skulls and the rib-cages.

"There was a village that Kerrass tried to save."

"And you as well Freddie. You were involved as well. It wasn't just me." Kerrass added.

"Yes well. A village was being tormented by an ancient spirit of darkness. It seems that an ancestor left over from close to the villages founding had sold his village to this thing with the price that it could take whoever it wanted, whenever it wanted in return for the villages prosperity."

"A common Heresy, unfortunately."

"Yes," I cleared my throat in discomfort. "But that man was long dead but the village itself was under this things spell. After we defeated it, it turned out that the spirit had kept the bodies of it's victims. It had a collection."

"A lot like this one." Kerrass said, he was peering at a particular skull, holding his medallion over the bones. The medallion was jumping slightly. "This skull needs properly seeing to." he said to a couple of church soldiers that came to take it away.

Father Hacha surprised me again.

"Evil is evil," he said. "Sometimes in humans, sometimes in creature. We should not be surprised that we find elements of it in both."

Kerrass grunted.

"This is worse." I told Father Hacha. "The deeds performed at Amber's crossing were performed by an entity according to it's nature. The people who did this, _chose_ , to do this. One person can be sick. Maybe even a couple of them can find each other but this kind of torture on this kind of scale? They worked at this. They decided this."

Father Hacha said nothing.

I couldn't stand it for long and decided that it was time to go and get some air, eventually stumbling into what must, once, have been my mother's rose garden.

Again, I was struck by the place. If it wasn't for the family and everything that had happened within these walls, this would have been a nice place. I could well imagine that I could have been happy here. The climate was to my taste, the scenery was breathtaking. I thought that I could have been happy here.

Now that I think about it a little clearer I suppose that I would have missed Oxenfurt. It's sometimes nice to be so far away from the university and the society that comes with it but I guess that I would miss it.

I found a bench and sat down.

The garden had been all but stripped bare. I guessed that some had gone with Lilla the elf woman when she had left to go with Lady Kalayn and the rest? Torn up by angry villagers? But at that point, I didn't really care. I wanted to be alone with my thoughts.

The problem with Big brothers though, is that they tend not to care about the wants and desires of their younger siblings.

"Still alive?" Sam asked, offering me a hip flask.

"Not gonna lie Sammy. Feeling pretty shitty." I took a long drink.

"You and me both." He took the flask back. He shook it to see how much was left and raised his eyebrows in surprise.

"What are you gonna do Sammy?"

"Do?"

"With this. With all of this?"

"Let's be fair brother mine, it's far too early to be making big decisions like that."

"True."

"Just to say it formally though. We've found no signs of Francesca here. No signs of anything that would suggest that she's ever been here or that these people had anything to do with it."

"I know,"

"The Kalayn family was destroyed long before she was taken."

"I know that Sammy." I felt a touch of asperity in my voice. "Sorry,"

"Don't worry about it. I'm the same. I just..." He shook his head. "I don't know what I can do about it." He took a swig out of his own flask. "These last few years...I dunno, but it kind of feels like We're under attack."

"That's kind of because we are. Francesca was taken."

"Not just that. But before that and bigger than that. Dad and Edmund's death. Mother's exile," He leant over to me. "I never thanked you for that by the way."

"Thanked me?"

"Yeah, it would have broken my heart to see mum executed."

"Mine too. But that's not why I did it."

"I know. But that, Mark's illness, Francesca's disappearance. I just..." he stared off into the distance. "It all feels a lot to have happened in the next couple of years."

"That's because it is Sam. It is a lot."

"Now you're gonna move away to...where was it? Angrel?"

"Angral. Careful you don't get it wrong when you get there. There's Angral, Angrel and the Dukedom is called Angraal. I'm also told that there have been duels fought over people getting it wrong."

"Then I shall look forward to visiting."

"You should. We'll make a fuss of you."

There was some silence for a while.

"You're going to go off." Sam went on. "Emma and Laurelen are happy together and more power to them but...It feels like the family is shattering under outside stresses. We're all going off on our separate ways."

"We're growing up." I told him. "Getting older. That's what happens."

"Maybe, but I don't have to like it."

He sighed again looking at the castle walls. "It sounds crazy," he told me. "But I kind of wanna stay here. I know there's a history and that the villagers don't trust me and possibly never will, but I wanna stay here. I want a place that I can make my own. Not father's or whatever."

"What about Coulthard castle?"

"That's Emma's castle and we both know it. When Mark dies, long may he live yet, I know that I inherit but let's be honest with each other. I would be a fool to try and live there all the time. It's the centre of a business empire and Emma runs that. The first rule of leadership is to never try and do someone's job when they are better at it than you are."

I considered this.

"I should point out." I began carefully, "That that's about the seventh "First rule of Leadership" that I've ever heard."

Sam sniggered. "You're probably right, but that doesn't change the fact that Emma runs the business stuff. I would be lost if I tried to take charge, so she needs to be at the centre of it which means Castle Coulthard. So I kind of want somewhere else that I can call my own. A land that I can make mine and put my own stamp on. You will always have your books but me? Sooner or later I'm not going to be good at this swordwork stuff. I'm twenty two now and I'm already...

"I can already feel that I've lost the hunger for it. When we were younger I was so hungry for it all. I wanted to be better at everything, better with the lance and spear, better with the sword and mace. Now, I just don't care as much. I no longer have that...that drive to compete, to get better than I am now. I am content. When I met Kerrass I wanted to test myself against him. Even though I _knew_ that he would eat me alive, I wanted to see. I wanted to learn that lesson. I've lost that somewhere.

"I'm as fast, and as strong and as durable as I will ever be. Wearing all this armour is already heavier now than it was when I was nineteen. How heavy will it be when I'm twenty five, or even thirty should I live that long."

"Of course you'll live that long, don't be silly."

"Sometimes I wonder though. The luck our family has been having recently." He shook his head. "That was a bit maudlin, sorry."

"Don't be. It's this place. You know what they say about being in sunshine making you happier. Well it's been misty, damp and overcast since I got here. When the sun comes out, it's going to be something else entirely. That and the castle is so dark and miserable. Get some light in there, get some singing and dancing going on."

"After Kerrass has cleared out the ghosts you mean."

"After that yes."

"But it's not just the castle is it?" It was a question that Sam asked me but at the same time, the way he said it felt more like a statement. "There's something else going on here isn't there?"

"I think so yes. These people are afraid and it's not just of you or us. There is something else that they're afraid of."

"These "things" that that priest was talking about?"

"Yes."

"What do you think they are?"

"I don't know, but I mean to find out."

"Well, start with talking to that priest again would you?"

"That will, indeed, be my first port of call. I'm gonna try and see if I can talk to him without Father Danzig being present this time. Maybe he'll open up a bit more."

"Good idea. Are the bastards gonna go with you?"

"They are, technically, my escort."

"True."

"But also, with a bit of luck. The locals might talk to one of the bastards before they talk to us, or one of the priests."

Sam was nodding. "In the meantime, I think the Inquisition is going to be here for a while, burying bodies and going through evidence."

"Are they still looking to see if the cult might be wider spread than just here?"

"Oh, we know it's wider spread, but it would be helpful if we had some ideas where to look. Papers and that kind of thing. Unfortunately, we're guessing that the remaining servants were well briefed and destroyed anything incriminating when Uncle Kalayn left here."

I nodded.

"Well, we thought that might happen." I agreed.

"Yes. If the boys come up with anything though. We'll send word."

We'd found the priest that Sam was talking about on the way back from seeing Aunt Kalayn.

It had begun to rain as we left the dower house. Sam had been disguising his discomfort from his little confrontation with Aunt Kalayn by making an inspection of the dower house. As well as the Elven maid it turned out that there was also a grounds-keeper who seemed to do little else other than to smoke his home-grown tobacco and grow vegetables in a large patch of land that was noticeably separate from the herb-garden. He also kept the chickens and a pair of pigs. Sam also told me that there was a cook. All three servants, not just the maid were still there because they so obviously had nowhere to go.

Sam promised them that as soon as it could be arranged, the dower house would be fully staffed and maintained, he had taken notes about several small but important repairs that needed doing around the place and the maid and grounds-keeper nodded and smiled but it was plain that they didn't believe him. Not that they thought he was lying, it was more that they just thought that he would get distracted by other things that might be more important. They had been used to serial and repeated neglect by their Lords and saw no reason that such things would change now.

I sincerely hope that Sam is able to prove them wrong. On the way back he was conferring, or rather trying to confer, with me about how much help he could feasibly ask for from Emma. I told him that he needed to write to Emma directly as I'm ever more determined to keep my nose out of family business than ever. I can dimly feel, in the future, that there may come a time where I need to become involved and take an interest in the family business. But it is not this day and I remain forever grateful that Emma is the one who has taken charge of those matters. Out of all of us, she is the one that has the head for it.

We were on our way back to Castle Kalayn, or rather the camp at the base of Castle Kalayn when I saw it. A small church, some distance from the side of the road. If anything, calling it a church was actually a little ambitious really. A chapel would have been closer to the truth.

It was old, very old. Possibly even older than Castle Kalayn itself. Grey stone blocks piled up on top of each other in a way that suggested that it had been done with hands rather than any of the modern crane techniques. I imagined villagers climbing up and passing the stone, hand over hand to get to the upper parts of the building. It seemed to be made up of a short, stubby tower with a small hall attached to it. I suspect that, in total, my family chapel would possibly give it a run for it's money in terms of square footage. It was surrounded by a perimeter made from a drystone wall that was well covered in Ivy and other lichens. I saw the odd headstone peering over the top of the wall which was what gave it away to me.

It was well hidden amongst the trees and I wondered if it was actually the fact that it was raining that seemed to be beating down the trees that meant that I saw it. Or it just might have been kept out of sight due to the direction of travel on the way out to the dower house.

Knight Father Danzig was doing his best to keep a conversation going by himself. The man was terminally cheerful about everything. I had liked him upon first meeting him but there was something about his enforced cheerfulness that was beginning to grate on me. Sam was still grave, upset and hurt by his treatment at the hands of Aunt Kalayn. I was surprised but also thoughtful and I think that both Sam and I would have felt a lot better about everything if we had just been left to our own thoughts.

But Knight Father Danzig was determined.

Bless him.

His topic of conversation could have been better as well.

"There is something about this place." He said. "I don't know what it is but there is something about this place."

I sighed audibly, Sam was lost in a world of his own and I couldn't let that go. My scholar's thinking was that Danzig might have something to add that might shed light on the whole affair, but I was also thinking that it would be rude if we just ignored him.

"What is it that's bothering you?" I asked him.

He flashed me an almost puppy-dog like look of gratitude, despite his seniority of rank and age he sometimes seemed very young. "I don't know," he said. "I feel as though I am being pushed down upon. I am on edge and feel the need to check that my sword is loose in my scabbard."

"This place has known some horrible things in the past." I told him, privately hoping that this would be the end of the conversation but, as I say, Dnazig was determined to keep things light and breezy.

"This is true but I feel that there is something more at work here. I feel...nervous but also I find that I am struggling to fight off an incredible melancholy. As though the land itself is saddened by what is happening here."

I felt my interest pique. Almost reluctantly.

"Well, Kerrass did point out that there was a strong magical field in this area. That it started when we crossed the border into Kalayn lands."

"Interesting. I wonder if he would be willing to map it out for us."

I shook my head. "I can already tell you what he would say. He would tell you that you would be much better served by hiring a proper magic user. I can all but here him. "It will be quicker, easier and will waste less time," he would say,"

My Kerrass impression is improving but not quite there.

Father Danzig took it with good grace.

"It is interesting to me," he said with a smile, " that for all that they seem to carp on about the dwindling monster population and the increasing difficulty in finding work, that the Witchers do tend to work remarkably hard in _not_ taking on contracts."

"He would say that it was a matter of ethics." I replied. "He's right. To detect the magical field and to properly map it out, Kerrass would have to ride up and down these lands with a medallion out in front of him while making notes. Is the medallion dancing a bit, a lot, a fucking amazing amount? What's the difference on the scale. Whereas a mage could probably produce you a proper map of the currents and flow of the magic in relatively short order."

"True, but that would mean that I would need to talk to a mage." He made a face.

"I thought that the church of Kreve was moving towards relaxing their views on magic users."

"We are. But there's a big difference in knowing that they're not all unnatural deviant monsters and believing it."

"I remind you that I am marrying a Sorceress,"

"And I wish you well of the union." He said it with an admirably straight face. "What we need to know is more of the history of this place. We need to know what happened here. Why this place? Ok, so there's a magical aura here. Why? What caused it? Is there a reason?"

"I don't know." I said. "It's possible that there was an elven sanctuary here. Or, from what I remember my brother telling me, the constant rituals that the Kalayn's performed could have caused the magic to come here of it's own accord."

"Mmm, I don't like that idea."

"Unfortunately, the only way that we're going to hear about the history of this place is if we find someone willing to talk to us. Like, say, a priest. The villagers won't talk to us so who else are we going to find."

Danzig made a face. "Without wanting to be funny, but it's almost certain that the people around these parts worship Dark and Pagan Gods."

He made the sign of the Lightening bolt on his chest.

"Also," he went on. "For there to be a proper priest, religion would have needed to be encouraged by the local nobility. I hardly think that the Kalayn family would have encouraged the worship of either the Eternal Flame or of Kreve."

"I notice you left out Melitele there."

Danzig shrugged.

"Melitele is all well and good and everything but, they also like to be _seen_ to be doing good works."

"Unlike the priesthood of Kreve?"

"Not an unfair comment," he admitted. "But that doesn't make it any the less valid."

"Well, why don't we find out." I said, pointing at the small chapel some distance away. I had been trying to bring the conversation round to it for some time.

"Bugger me." Danzig commented.

A quick conference was had between Sam, Danzig and I and it was agreed that Danzig and I, along with a few of the church knights that were accompanying Danzig, would go and investigate the chapel. The rest would ride on with Sam to the camp to check on Kerrass' progress. Sam was getting his energy back and seemed increasingly keen to get things started.

I don't know what I was expecting as our small party rode up to the chapel. All told, Danzig, myself and three church knights. The rest having gone with Sam.

When you think of these old churches in the middle of the countryside you kind of get these definite visions of what's going on in your head. You imagine a ruin, with maybe some birds flying out of the holes in the thatch. You imagine ruined and derelict land with neglect creeping over the gravestones. There was a bit of ivy creeping over things but otherwise the small yard was carefully kept, neat and tidy.

Also, when you imagine the priest of such a place, you kind of imagine this ancient man, bent under the weight of years. Maybe you go so far as to even imagine a hunch-back. Hood, and rotten teeth. Long, wispy droopy beard as well.

The priest that was there though, was the very opposite of this image.

Well, not quite though. He did indeed have a beard.

He was hugely muscled with a build that reminded me of the lumberjacks in Amber's crossing and down in Queen Dorn's kingdom. Very top heavy. With huge arms and massive shoulders. He was crouched over a vegetable patch as we rode up, wearing a pair of woollen trousers and a cotton shirt. His hair was more grey now than black but it was long and shaggy.

The chapel had a stone circle above the entranceway which depicted a simple thunderbolt symbol, declaring the chapel a church of Kreve. The symbol was reflected in the wooden disk that was hung around the man's neck with a bit of string.

He had a jagged scar across his face and one of his eyes was grey. He watched us without speaking as we rode up, straightening up from his work.

Suddenly he blinked, paled visibly and there was a deep inrush of breath. He almost flinched, as though he had stubbed his toe or hit his thumb with a hammer. He shook his head and pinched the bridge of his nose for a second, his face all screwed up before his face cleared. He turned and quickly strode into the chapel.

I went to move forwards but Danzig put his hand on my chest, holding me back.

"Wait," he said. "I know this man."

"You're kidding."

"No, but I thought...I thought he'd died."

The priest came back out. He'd pulled on a breastplate and was just finishing buckling it into place. Then with one hand he pulled on a helmet before pulling the largest battle-axe that I have ever seen into view. He stood in front of the church entranceway, his legs apart and with the axe ready.

"Come on then, cunts." He bellowed. "Come on and die."

"Wait, what?" I managed.

"Wait," Danzig said carefully. He took a slow step forward and carefully lifted his own helmet off.

"What's it going to be then, fuck-pigs. One at a time or all together, it makes no difference to me."

I don't mean to make fun of the poor man but it possibly bears mentioning that I am translating from his broad accent. What it actually sounded like was "Cum on thennnnn. Khunts. Cum on an' dyyyyeeeeee. Wha's I' gonna be den fuck-pigs? One a' a time or awlll togevver, it makes neow difference to meee." He was wild eyed enough that we could see it from here, his lips pulled back from his teeth in a rictus smile and he licked his lips several times. Danzig handed his helmet off to one of the soldiers and stepped forwards.

"Father Gardan." He called, speaking the words carefully and clearly. "It's me. Foot soldier Danzig."

The man swung the huge axe as though it was nothing.

"I don't care what your fucking name is," he screamed. "I'm ready for you."

"No," Danzig called again. "No, we just want to talk. I'm a priest now, they made me a Knight Father. Remember, you taught me the strokes of the sword in Bann Gleann. You were my sword Father."

The words seemed to hit the axeman in the face as though he had been slapped. He staggered backwards, blinking furiously. The axe lowered and he bent over, placed the axe on the ground flat and spent a bit of time sucking air in through his lungs with his hands on his knees.

Again I made to move forward, wondering if I could do anything to help. I'm not sure what I could do but it seemed as though the man needed something.

Danzig waved me back again, gesturing for quiet and for us to stay where we were.

The older man straightened. He looked at my companion.

"Danzig?" he asked in a small voice. He looked afraid, like a tiny child in the body of this powerfully strong man although his voice was a bit more clipped, losing the accent that had permeated it a moment ago.

"Yes Gardan, it's me." In his place I would have stepped forward to comfort my friend and was surprised to see that Danzig didn't move.

The older man scooped the axe up from the ground, wiping the blades on his shirt as he turned away from us.

"You'd better come in then," and abruptly, without looking back at us, walked inside the chapel.

"We will see to our horses first." Danzig called after him but there was no response. He walked back to me.

"Melitele's sagging tits but I didn't think I'd find him out here," Danzig was almost speaking to himself.

"Who is he?"

For a moment, Danzig looked at me as though I'd crawled out of his arse, before his face cleared.

"Sorry," he said. "It's sometimes easy to forget that you're a Redanian Fire worshipper. Knight Father Gardan, the axeman of Kreve."

The words sparked something.

"Oh wait, I _have_ heard of him. That's the lightening slayer, the axe-captain?"

"The very one." Danzig's face was troubled.

"I read stories about his adventures when I was younger."

"We all did." Danzig said and believe me he was just as formidable in his prime. He fought at Sodden _and_ Brenna and led many missions to purge some of the monsters from the hills of Kaedwen, Redania, Aedirn and Lyria. As well as less savoury by more modern standards, adventures where he fought against the non-humans during the Scoia'tael raids in those parts. He was my hero when I was growing up as I came from the same quarter of the city of Ard Carriagh as he did and he is certainly the reason that I'm still alive today."

"What happened to him?"

"Injured."

"That is some scar." I agreed.

"No, no. Not that, he got that early in his career and for some reason it even seemed to make him stronger. Also his eye going grey isn't because of that no... It was more...Well...I'll let him tell you the story if he will first before I try and tell it. But in a brief overview it's like this. Just while we give him a moment or two to collect himself.

"I've read your works. You spent some time commenting about how ill you were after your adventure at Amber's crossing."

I felt the hairs on my neck stiffen as he said it.

"Yes." I said. "And how... ill I still get, sometimes."

He nodded. "Please believe me when I say that I mean no offence when I say this but you were lucky. He was injured in a similar way. But he never recovered."

I felt my mouth hang open in horror. I didn't know what to say to that, or even if there was anything that I _could_ say.

"Please," Danzig went on, "I beg of you. Be gentle with him."

I nodded.

Danzig gestured to our remaining escort and they stayed outside the ring of stone walls and I followed him into the church.

It was definitely still chapel but it looked as though it had been adapted a little. There were no pews as I would understand them and instead there was a large fire-bowl in the middle of the floor where the smoke would feed up and leave the church through a hole in the rood. Now that I was inside I could see where there had been some efforts to make the chimney a little more permanent. There was an alter at one end of the room with a lectern nearby. I could also see stone steps which once may have led up to what might have been a pulpit but it looked as though the wooden pulpit had been torn down, along with the wooden prayer rail. It was definitely a place of worship though. It still had that _feel_ about the place. As though there was still a reverence, a holiness, about it.

There were chairs though and in the back, somewhere near the alter I could see another door which led out to what would later turn out to be a living area for the priest. It didn't have much more than a bed though.

The axe that I had seen in the man's hands, rested in a sheath on the alter.

The priest, Gardan came out, he was wearing the blue robe of Kreve now. There was a dampness about his face and I guessed that he had taken some time to splash some water on his face.

"Well Danzig," he said stomping up and grasping the other man by the wrist to wrist grip of warriors. "You've grown."

"Only because of what you taught me Knight Father."

"None of that," Gardan waved him off. "If you really must insist on giving me a title then, at best, it should be Father." he shuddered hugely. "I no longer deserve the title of knight."

Danzig smiled, a little sadly. "Such things are not yours to decide however."

I turned away, feeling, more than a little, as though I was intruding.

"No they are not." Father Gardan boomed, his voice really was large and expressive. "If they were I would have been cast out, as I deserve."

"I will not argue the point with you now."

"No, I suppose not. Who's this?"

I took that as my cue. "Allow me to present myself. My name is Lord Frederick von Coulthard."

The man took me in, inspecting me from head to foot. Appraising me in the same way that Kerrass or I would assess another warrior.

Then he started to shake.

"Forgive me." He said. "Curse me for a fool."

"It's quite alright." I told him. "Take your time. I have some experience with injuries such as the one that Knight Father Danzig tells me that you received."

Danzig was helping the poor man over to a chair.

"Injury?" He spat, bitterly. "There is no injury. It's damn cowardice is what it is." His teeth were chattering.

"No sir," I said. "I don't think so, but I will not argue the point."

"Really?" He turned to Danzig. "There's some water in a rain catcher out back. Tea is in the copper pot, over there on the shelf."

"Yes Father." Danzig bowed and went off to do his chores.

Gardan turned back to me.

"Coulthard eh?"

"Yes Father Gardan."

"Any relation to the Merchant Baron?"

"My father, sir." It was easier to think of him as a soldier rather than a priest.

"I heard he died."

"Yes sir. Just under...Flame, just under a year ago now. So much has happened since then that it seems longer."

"Have I heard of you?"

"I doubt it sir, unless you get the Oxenfurt gazette up here."

He gazed at me through his bushy eyebrows. "I do not."

"Well sir, I'm a scholar of Oxenfurt university. I follow a Witcher around and take notes of his adventures while also taking part in them on occasion. I record what I see and publish it accordingly."

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why that topic of study?"

"It began because no-one had done it before."

"I seem to recall the tales of a bard of some kind."

"Yes, the tales of Dandelion the Bard. But those are hardly historical records. I wanted to write something to record the Witchers themselves. So that they will be remembered."

He gazed at me for a while.

"How long have you been following him around?"

"I dunno, two and a bit years."

"But you still do it?"

"I do."

"How much more is there to tell?"

"I do not know."

He nodded.

"A Witcher eh?" He stroked his beard for a moment and I saw an odd kind of hunger in his eyes.

I have seen this kind of hunger before. I've mentioned that a friend of mine is a recovering drug addict. He gets that look sometimes. I saw the same look in Kerrass' eyes when we were going out to wake Princess Dorn and he was telling me about his past with that lady. I'd seen the same hunger in the eyes of starving men and women and the lust of a man when surveying the women in a decent whorehouse.

I strongly suspect that I've worn that expression more than a few times myself.

But Father Gardan got that look as he contemplated Kerrass' presence.

Then he started to shake again.

He gritted his teeth against the spasms, scrunching up his eyes against it and sweat stood out on his forehead. He looked as though he was in pain but that pain was not physical.

It was a few moments before the spasm passed and he gasped for air.

"Damn me." He said. "Damn me."

"I'm afraid." I said carefully. "I'm not inclined to do so."

A sudden smile split his bearded face.

"No, I suppose it's a bit to much to ask from a complete stranger."

"What happened to you?" I asked carefully.

He waved it off.

"A life on campaign." He said. "From the age of fourteen when I took up my Grandfather's axe to slay the witch that was terrorising our village. Through two wars with the south. Always I stood at the front of the line and no-one could stand before me.

"Then they sent me to clear out a shrine of the Lionhead." He shook his head. "There wasn't even anyone there."

"My understanding of such places is that that's when they're at their most dangerous."

"You are probably right there. But it un-manned me. Me. A seasoned veteran and I couldn't move over the threshold. I was shivering, sobbing and pissing my pants with fear. Never been able to..."

A tear formed and ran down his cheek.

"Curse me for a cowardly fool." He snarled but he brushed the tears away with the back of his hand.

Danzig brought us both a cup of tea over. It was brewed strong and sweet, the way that soldiers like it.

"So what brings you two fine gentlemen to my door. It's been a while since I've seen anyone of your...calibre."

He sketched out a mocking imitation of a bow.

"We have questions." Danzig said. "So many questions."

"I bet,"

"You know that Lord Kalayn is dead?"

"Yes, and the puppy that was supposed to inherit."

"Well my older brother stood to inherit but we have come across some problems and we can't get any straight answers."

"You want to know if I knew about the cult that went on up there?"

"Yes, among other things."

"I heard. But I could not investigate." He spread his hands in an expression of helplessness. "We had heard that things were...going on up there."

"Well it's over now. But at the same time. The villagers are afraid. Not just the villagers, too there is a palpable...fear and oppression to the countryside."

Gardan nodded and leant forward. He took an iron poker out from a stand and poked the fire back into life.

"Yes." He said. "Yes there is. There has been for a long time."

"Do you know why?"

"Yes." He sighed. "Look. Danzig can tell you my story and believe me it's a long story. There is more than a little bit of a suggestion that I might be utterly mad and it's something that I might have considered but there are clear signs that...that _something_ hangs over these people. That hangs over this place and the people that live in it.

"Including me.

"Danzig will tell you, but I left the official church of Kreve back before the third war with Nilfgaard and I wandered until I found this place. It's pretty much unchanged since then. I tried to convert the heathen people that live here as best as I could. They're good folk mostly despite their pagan ways but they won't come to me. They are so afraid but they daren't leave. They think they deserve this scourge you see."

"What scourge?" I asked. The way that he was talking reminded me of people of Amber's crossing and I wondered if we were biting off more than we could chew here.

"I don't know what they are. They come in the mist, dawn or dusk. You won't see them for a week or a fortnight but then they come again.

"What... who come?" I asked but the poor man was lost.

"I've never seen them."He said after a while, his eyes staring into the flames. "I keep a circle of salt around my bed and I sleep inside that circle from nightfall to daybreak. But I've heard them, howling like demons from my nightmares. I huddle in my bed when I hear them, the ground shaking with their passing as I just lay there whimpering."

He snarled that last with a grimace of self-disgust.

"What are you talking about?" I asked him. "I travel with a Witcher and if there's a problem then maybe we can help."

"I'm not sure you can." He said. "The locals call them "The Hounds of Kreve"."

(A/N: A number of people have been asking about an ending to a Scholar's travels. I am torn as on the one hand, I don't want to give the game away but likewise, I don't want to give people false expectations that I will end up disappointing so here is the answer. Yes, I am working towards an ending now. It is, however, some distance off so you have no need to worry about it yet, or indeed for some time. No, I'm not going to tell you what this means.

Thanks again for your continued support.)


	67. Chapter 67

(A/N: Warning: The following contains some scenes concerning mental health which some may find upsetting,)

"Bollocks," I said with a certain amount of feeling. "Giant, hairy, sweaty bollocks."

I was standing near the walls of the chapel, looking up at the tower. From which hung the body of Father Gardan the axeman.

The silver slayer, the Axeman of Kreve.

Thick rope made a noose around his neck and as he swung from side to side in the breeze, he seemed to look out at the surroundings. In a lot of cases, when people can see the eyes of the dead, they seem to stare out of their faces accusingly. As though they are angry with whoever had found the bodies. In this case though, that wasn't true.

He looked sad. Incredibly old and sad.

It wasn't pretty either. For all of those people that have never seen a hanging body, you should know this, that it's an ugly, unpleasant death. His tongue lolled out of his mouth but it was also red with dried blood where he had bit down in his agony. The rope had cut into his skin as he had thrashed around. The eyes that were open, staring so unhappily at the world, were goggled and you could see, even through the grey film that had begun to cover them, that there were was blood in his eyes.

He'd also shat himself. Excrement and urine had fallen down his leg and stained the walls that he hung against.

There were scuff-marks against the wall where his feet had beaten against the walls. The old stone was unmoved by what must have been some extreme struggling from the dying man but you could see grey scuff marks where some, more recent, repairs had been done to the stone-work.

"No way for a man like that to die." Sir Rickard was standing next to me looking up at the body.

"No way for anyone to die really." I said. "If a death must happen, then a clean death in my opinion. An axe or a sword stroke. Or at the very least, a sufficient drop so that the neck is broken rather than this slow strangulation."

Rickard grunted. "I have to disagree I'm afraid. Kiddie fiddlers, traitors and rapists deserve everything they get. An old man though? Not least of which a man like that. He deserved better."

Like Sam, Sir Rickard had been excited to meet Gardan of the axe. Both men had heard stories of his soldiering exploits. Sir Rickard had almost insisted on coming down here to meet one of his heroes the previous day but Sam wouldn't allow it, claiming that _he_ wanted to meet the hero that lived on his lands first. He was honestly cross that he had decided to come back to the castle after the visit with the Aunt Kalayn as that would have meant that he would have met him.

We should have let Rickard come. Maybe then we would have known more or been able to protect him from whatever had happened to him.

"Did he jump, or was he pushed?" I mused aloud.

"He's not tied up." Rickard said. "A man like that, you would need to tie him up to push him off the tower."

"You didn't meet him Rickard. He was sick, badly so but he plainly had been for years. If he did jump, why now? But likewise, if he didn't jump... if he was pushed?"

"Why now." Sir Rickard nodded.

I took a deep breath. "This might be my fault. Our fault I should say. But we don't know enough. Can one of your men get up there and lower him down to the ground?"

"I think that can be managed."

"Also, get Dan to have a look around, see if he can spot any tracks and tell us if anything happened out here. See if anyone other than us visited him."

Dan was an old soldier. The oldest soldier in the gang of Bastards. I have spoken about him before but it does bear repeating. He had been a poacher, stealing game from the lands of the local lords. Game birds mostly but also the odd boar or deer. He used the meat to feed his family and any of the other families nearby that might be struggling to make ends meet. One night though, he had been drinking and was caught. The Lord that caught him was sympathetic to the problem, Dan's gathering of meat was not that prolific and had not damaged the stock of animals in the lord's lands and so, instead of jailing or removing a hand from the poacher, Dan had been offered the opportunity to join the army.

An opportunity that he took.

He was the best shot with a bow that I've ever seen. He carried a trio of bows. A short bow for what he described as "Short distance work". This was for when the longer, more powerful bows would be ungainly. In woods or buildings. That kind of thing. Then he had a Longer, medium length recurved beauty which was his favourite bow. He used that in most situations, for hunting, skirmishing and when proper aiming needed to be done. But he also had a Warb-bow. Fully two meters long when unstrung and when he hadn't strung it, it lay almost straight with hardly any bend in it at all. It was a huge thing and would fire vast distances. He used this bow when standing and shooting into a mass of men. When accuracy was less needed and everything depended on the stopping power of the arrows.

He treated his bows like his children and had even named them.

But as a former poacher, he was also a skilled tracker. Not on Kerrass' level but Kerrass was still working away up at the castle.

Sir Rickard nodded. "I'll see to it."

I nodded and turned away, moving to go inside the chapel. I was angry. Not the formless and all consuming fiery rage that had come on me previously in the wake of Francesca's disappearance. This was something lesser than that. I was angry, to be sure but I was frustrated with myself. Disappointed was the word. I had that sinking feeling that you sometimes get when you realise that you've made a mistake and I was increasingly certain that that was what I'd done.

I had allowed myself to feel pity for Father Gardan and had allowed myself to be pulled away from him. I had told myself that the old man had needed space after the stress that Danzig and I had put him through by turning up on his doorstep without announcement and out of the blue. I had also wanted to see what was going on up at Castle Kalayn. I had wanted to see the halls of my relatives, to see what had happened there and what I might be able to learn from that.

In doing so... I was very afraid that I had left the old man to his fate.

I wasn't convinced by the idea that he had killed himself. I think he might have liked to, but at the same time I thought that, if he _was_ going to kill himself as a result of everything that he had been through. Then he would have already done it. His horror had already taken place in the past. Now he lived in, according to Danzig, self-imposed exile in the remotest corner of the world that he could find.

I also didn't want him to have killed himself. I wanted there to be an enemy. Someone I could hit. Even though, that made it even more certain that my ignorance was as responsible for this death as anything else.

He had deserved better than this though and I stomped into the small chapel.

It looked, all but the same. There were still the chairs next to the fire pit. Still the same kettle and stew pot. The smell of burnt meat greeted my nostrils. The fire had burned down and the old man's stew had boiled itself dry and that's what I could smell.

The axe, that he had hated and loved with equal passion, was not on the alter though. I couldn't see it anywhere. I spent a bit of time searching for it before deciding that it was big enough and shiny enough that I would have seen it. The priest had not hidden it from view. He had treated it with reverence, resting it on the alter to his God.

It had been taken then.

I started to feel better. There was an enemy that I could pursue, whether it was just an opportunistic thief or whether it was some lynch mob that had come for Gardan, someone _else_ had been here. Someone _else_ had taken that axe.

I now know better than I had before, that there is no point in leaping to conclusions. So I spent a bit of time, searching the small building thoroughly for the weapon. For the first time, I went into his small, sad little sleeping area. As he had first told us, the pallet that he slept on was surrounded by salt. It seemed a well maintained circle and I could see there was a sack of the stuff next to the door where there was another line of salt, and again next to the wall where the sole window was.

The living area was an addition to the structure of the chapel. Half made from wood and thatch, but thoe other half made from stone that looked as though it had been salvaged from the dry stone wall that surrounded the church and the church-yard. It must have been bitterly cold in winter but I found that I could easily imagine Old Gardan, shivering under his blankets, believing that the cold was a scourge for his back.

A just punishment for his sins.

I thought that he deserved better than this and had resolved to convince Sam to be gentle with him. I don't think I would have struggle to do that persuading.

Kerrass has a lesson that he tries to teach. It's a truism of the life that he leads and it isn't a pleasant lesson but it's a lesson that I needed to bear in mind here. That lesson is that it's impossible to save everyone. You can't do it. Sooner or later, something's going to happen. Someone will make a mistake and it might be you, and someone will die.

For those people who lead relatively safe lives then this philosophy might not be for you.

But for him, he says that it's an important lesson to remember. You can't save everyone. Someone will make a mistake and get themselves killed. You can't beat yourself up about this. You can't give yourself grief or let it get to you. All you can do is work on the best information that you have at the time, move forward and attempt to do better next time.

But you also need to be happy with the fact that you might not do better next time.

If you let it eat at you, then it will kill you. One day, you will be frozen with indecision and try to do too much and try to save everyone and it won't work. More people will die and there will be nothing that you can do about it.

I know that this is true. It's a think that I'd already had to tell myself before but nowadays, since Francesca's disappearance. I was finding it harder and harder to keep that perspective. I was struggling with it now as I looked around the small chapel that would become the final resting place of a hero. A hero who had deserved better than the self-hatred and loathing that he had been left with after suffering injuries that he didn't understand.

I should have been here. I should have helped him. But I hadn't thought this was a major problem. I hadn't _known_ that there was a risk. I had thought that I could come back at my leisure. There was no way I could have _known_ that this would happen. But I was blaming myself for it already.

"The Hounds of Kreve?" I had asked him.

He smiled, bitterly. "Believe me, I know how it sounds."

I could feel my brain rejecting the concept. It's a phenomenon that both the bard and I have commented on when it comes to the work of a Witcher. Commoners, especially farm and village folk are rather subject to superstition. So much so that they often see problems and monsters where none exist. It's one of those things, that if I had more time or more of an inclination to look into, I could probably study at some length but in short. Otherwise perfectly common problems are often blamed on creatures, or monsters that simply don't exist.

Villagers might complain about devils that steer honest men away from their route home. Where the man in question is called out into the nearby fields and woods by the sounds of beautiful singing or the cries of something. The man wakes up the following morning with a thumping headache, several small injuries and an empty coin purse.

The fact that he had stopped off at the tavern, the night before to celebrate payday with his friends is considered unimportant to the case.

A sickness that befalls the children of the village is never something to do with the fact that someone dumped a deer carcase into the river, but is always to do with the fact that the local witch-woman had given her the evil eye.

I've heard stories about giant bat creatures that swoop down and attack farm hands. Spirits and imps that steal tools and belongings. That rip the clothes from people's backs and damage houses so that the elements can sneak through the open windows and holes in the roof to trouble good and decent folk.

The problem is that such things don't exist. There are things that _might_ do those things, but if they were there then there would also be other signs of the creature in question like, for example, the explosively exsanguinated corpse of a cow.

But here's the nub of the matter. The flaw in my argument. The villagers absolutely believe that what they are telling us is true. They are convinced of it. They even spin elaborate tales of sightings of the creatures in question and can produce evidence of the thing's presence.

But it's all nonsense.

Kerrass and I were once sat outside a tavern while Kerrass was talking to a group of villagers. We were just on our way from somewhere to somewhere else and Kerrass had politely enquired as to work. More out of habit than anything else while I saw to provisions for the next couple of days. But I had watched with amusement as the villagers complained earnestly about a man who had gone missing one night after having collected his wages from the quarry. He had gone to the village and had a few jars of the local moonshine before heading home where he had fallen off a cliff to his death.

A tragic story to be sure and it could happen to anyone. Death by misadventure is certainly a valid thing and happens every day. But the village was convinced that the man's death was as the result of some kind of supernatural occurrence. They cajoled and pleaded with Kerrass to investigate the matter but Kerrass was unmoved. In the end another man had been produced who had claimed to have seen something out in the darkness.

They told a story about how the dead man had recently lost his wife to some kind of wasting disease which was why he had been drowning his sorrows but that the ghost of the man's wife had called him off the cliff. They even went on to claim that the dead and departed loved ones of the villagers would often call out to the other villagers in an effort to provoke other such accidents. The people were being called to join the dead, to leave behind their worldly values.

Kerrass had shown remarkable patience, listening to all the stories before telling the people that there was nothing to fear. That they simply needed to be a bit more cautious about their day to day lives and spend some time looking after their neighbours when they had fallen on hard times. He advised them to contact a priest and left directions to the nearest abbey.

I found the experience incredibly sad, that an entire village would prefer to believe in some kind of supernatural interference over the probability that a man had lost his wife, got drunk and wandered off the path.

Early in our association, Kerrass had even spent a day hunting the "Things that lived in the trees" for my benefit. To show that there were some things that just didn't need to be hunted. We spent a day tripping over roots and having our hair and clothes pulled at by brambles before we both agreed that there were no imps in the forest and that the missing tools, damaged homes and lost items were the results of perfectly normal neglect and misadventure.

As I say, I found the entire thing incredibly sad and I was struck by an equal sadness as I sat in the chapel looking at Father Gardan.

"Believe me," he said after a while. "I know what it sounds like. I do. I didn't just study the blade when I fought for Kreve. I know about monsters and magic and theology and I know that there's so much wrong with the name and so much wrong with the existence of such things.

The very fact that he was shaking and sweating with fear as he told us these things did much to calm me.

"I know," he went on. "I _know_ that Kreve is a warrior God. I know that he's a soldier and a ruler, so why would he have hounds?"

He shook his head in disgusted bemusement of himself.

"But you haven't _seen_ them." He said. "You haven't heard them howling in the dawn. You haven't seen their shapes in the distance as they stand on the edge of the hill, looking down over all that they survey and all that they own. You haven't felt your flesh crawl as they move through the mist or the screams as they hunt down their victims throughout the countryside. This land doesn't belong to the Lord Kalayn, whoever that is, nor does it belong to the people that live here. It belongs to _them_."

He sobbed.

"I tried. I tried, I tried, I tried, I tried. But I can't help them. These poor people. These poor poor people."

There is nothing sadder than the tears of a broken man.

"We know you did." Father Danzig looked as though he was on the edge of tears himself. It can't be easy to see your heros broken down to a shadow of their former selves. But for this man, it was the wrong course of action. He didn't want sympathy. He didn't feel as though he _deserved_ sympathy. He wanted rage, and somewhere, in the depths of his belly I think. He found it.

"No, you don't," he snarled, throwing off Danzig's hand. "How could you know? I should have done something. I could have done something. I even managed to strap my armour on once. All of it. I had sat up late that night in prayer and as the red sun began to set, I could see the mist slowly falling down the mountainside like water. A tide of mist that crashed over us with the violence of falling into a pillow.

"I have never really examined the way mist spreads before. I had always thought that it rises out of the ground. From the water that stands in the grass and has fallen during the night. I imagine it lying over the land in the morning, in the way that it seems to smother everything into a dead kind of lethargy before the sun comes out to chase it away. Like a blanket that we are reluctant to leave when we wake from our own slumbers.

"But the must here is different. It creeps around the trees and through the lanes. It's more like smoke in that way. You can see it billowing out through the breeze and the air currents. Especially that night.

"I don't know why I did it that night. I still do sometimes. I still try and exercise the way that Kreve taught us to exercise. I go to my armour and place each part on me, carefully strapping it into place before I take up my axe. Ah, my axe. My constant companion throughout so many battles. My truest friend. My oldest friend. I used to be able to make that weapon sing in the morning air as I swung it round. The air whistling as it moved out of the way."

He shuddered violently.

"Another one of the little pleasures that have been taken from me. I can't even take the pleasure of my craft any more. Just the training for the training's sake. I can't even do that. Martial skill was the only thing that I was ever good at that and then it was taken from me.

"But that night I had intended to go out and do some training. I had little more planned than to run some laps around the chapel walls but something made me pick up my axe that night and I took it outside. I can still touch it, can still do things providing I don't think of violence or ponder on it's use. It's still sharp and oiled to the best of my abilities and should someone take it then it will still work in the hands of a skilled soldier.

"I took it outside and I stood out in the churchyard and I stood to watch the sunset.

"The villagers had told me about the Hounds. Of course they had, they're not bad folk as heathens go. They don't worship the Lionhead or any of the especially _evil_ heresies. Just a slightly watered down version of their old harvest God that they brought with them when they settled here from where they had been before. I stood out in the yard and I felt myself stand ready.

"I was afraid. I cannot tell you what it's like if you don't know it. I was a soldier all my life in one form or another. Soldier first, then knight, then general and I know that a soldier without fear is a soldier without sense. Without wisdom. I knew fear of every hour of every day throughout my career. I've seen the horrors that men do to each other on the battlefield and I've seen the awful things that my own axe have done to people much younger than me. Much weaker than me and I have often wondered what would happen when I was wounded like that.

"That fear though. That fear is manageable. I can do things about that fear. I can, or rather I could, survive it. But that's not the kind of fear that I'm talking about here.

"The kind of fear that turns your bones to jelly. That literally causes the sweat to stand out on your head as though you are forcing your way through ice or fire or both at the same time. When your breath comes in gasps or when you can hear your own heartbeat echoing inside your chest. When you can feel it beating and the blood shooting round your arms and legs to the point where you become honestly concerned that you might explode.

"When every movement is pain. When the light gets too bright and your axe becomes to heavy. When even the slightest sound splits your ears and sears itself into your skull with bolts of fire and thunder.

"That is the kind of fear that I'm talking about. It almost drove me to my knees.

"You have seen this place now. You have seen how beautiful it can be. How wondrous and marvellous. Even in the rain or the depths of the deepest snows of winter, this place is beautiful but no painter or poet would be able to capture the real feeling of living here. The constant fear of what is coming. What you know will one day claim you unless you manage to gather enough strength to break out.

"I had only just arrived. I had been warned but I did not know what I was facing. I had gone out into the yard to see the sun and to give thanks to Kreve for letting me see the end of another day. Anything else seemed a little churlish. I went out and I saw the mist beginning to creep round the trees to the east, towards the mountains. I felt it inside me then, the first flutterings of "The Fear".

"I tried, I really tried. I knew that I was facing danger. I knew it. You can't spend a lifetime on the battlefields of the continent and not get some kind of instinct about when peril is descending over you. So I knew it, that tonight, the mist was different. That there was something else coming, crawling down from the mountains. Or maybe it was the mist itself that made the land...able to support such monsters.

"I stood, in my armour and with axe in hand. In the same way that I have stood, facing down armies. But it was different this time. This time, my knees were shaking so that I could barely stand. My mouth was dry and I couldn't breathe.

"You hear them first, the Hounds of Kreve. You hear them in the thunder. I heard the thunder echoing out over the landscape. It was a distant thing at first, in the same way that you can sometimes see a storm away at sea but know that you are relatively safe from it even though you can see the shadow that it casts and the forked lightening descending from the clouds.

"Then, after the earth has shaken with their thunder. Then the howling starts. Remember that the mist is still creeping in over the grass and the trees, the stream, a little distance away from the chapel was now more, sound than sight and over coming it all was the howling. First one voice, Lower and deeper than any wolf that I've ever heard. The kind of sound that you hear in your chest. It thrums in your belly like the deeper feeling that makes you want to shit yourself after you've eaten some bad camp food.

"The first howl came from the same kind of distance as the thunder. It sounded for a long time, deep and mournful. I've heard that howling many times since, both real, memory and dream and I have wondered if there are words in those calls. But it sounded for a long time, the echoes never dying away. But then another voice joined the first. Another noise, another howl. Rising, calling and shrieking across the red glow of the evening.

"The red light seemed to infect the mist. Reflecting it and absorbing it until the land itself was tinged with red. As though it was tinged with blood.

"A man came then, well, I say a man, he was actually an elf. I don't know much about elves except when they are attacking me. But this one was dressed like any other villager or wild man of the local area, plain trousers, cheap boots and a woollen shirt. He ran past me, almost without seeing me. He was almost on top of me when he did finally see me and he almost staggered backwards.

"Help me," he pleaded. He begged. "Help me." He turned back to look the way he had come and screamed, the primal voice of terror that both our people's share. We both know that same terror and he had it that night and I felt it myself as I saw that the elf was injured. Blood matted the hair on the back of his head and had long since dried on the back of his shirt making it sticky and stiff with the stuff. How he was still standing I don't know, let alone running for his life. As that was what he was doing.

"Running for his life.

"I count myself fortunate for what happened next. If he had pleaded again, I don't know what would have happened. I would like to think that I would have helped him. That I would have tried to defend the poor thing against the evil that was coming for him. For again, there was no doubt in my mind that the thing that was coming for him was evil. I fear that it would be much more likely that I would have fled. That I would have fallen to my knees in terror and wept as he was taken.

"But that wasn't what happened. Because as he looked back. He saw the thing that was chasing him and he carried on with his flight.

"I was frozen to the spot then. Frozen, utterly unable to move. But my eyes moved to look in the direction that the elf had come from, my eyes working to pierce the murky, blood red fog that was still sinking like a blanket over the place.

"At first I saw nothing, but I kept looking. Elven sight is much better than our poor human sight so I waited. I would like to say that I was being patient but the truth is that I just couldn't move I was that scared.

"Then I saw them. Three of them. They stood their horses on the top of a hill nearby."

"What where they?" I asked. It was the first question that I had asked in some time. I couldn't help but be spellbound by what he was telling us. He had the gift of oratory that you get in the truly great tale-tellers, a skill that is sometimes necessary in educators, priests and soldiers as well as minstrels and bards.

He shrugged. "I don't know." He said. "I could barely see them, and the truth is that my own fear distorted a lot of what I could see and a lot of what I can remember. Their appearance was vast and demonic to me and I couldn't comprehend them. My mind just refused to allow the sight to be properly taken in."

"But they were definitely mounted?" I asked, I was reaching for some paper so that I could make notes. I was fairly convinced that Kerrass would be furious with me if I couldn't give him some kind of information.

"Oh yes. What they were mounted on, is anyone's guess. Certainly I couldn't tell you. They looked like horses but I could also see that they seemed to breathe fire and that their eyes glowed red. Trick of the light? Maybe. Sweat and terror misting my eyes so that I didn't know what I was seeing? Even more likely. but I spoke to other peasants that have commented on their appearance that have suggested that they saw the same thing. But the rhythm of the hoof-beats. You can't be an old soldier like me without knowing what cavalry sounds like. It was awful.

"But there they stood. They had the skulls of wolves for heads and it seemed as though their bodies were burning. They seemed to have wings you see, wings from which flame and smoke seemed to come from. As they sat on the hill top. They seemed to sit there for a long moment before their wings came up and one of their number, I don't know which one, leant his head back and howled." He shuddered again.

"Could that be all there is to it?" I asked. "Could they just be cavalry that have done things to themselves. Could they be trying to instil fear and...?"

"I don't know," he wailed. "Maybe."

"It's just..." I tried.

"I don't know." He yelled and his face sank forward into his hands. Danzig gestured for me to back off a little and I did as I was told. The man was beginning to lose it. We'd already pushed him rather hard but I got the sense that he really wanted to tell us these things.

"They thundered down the hill though. Their wings flapping with the wind of their passing. You could see the smoke billowing from them and the haze of heat that they left behind themselves like...like a cloak billowing in the wind.

"They split out and rode around the chapel walls twice. Still howling. I let the axe fall to my feet but I still couldn't move. I couldn't do anything but shake in terror.

"It was like being visited by evil itself. But then it looked down at me. The evil, it looked at me and it was as though it didn't even deem me worth the effort of killing. It scorned me. It lessened me because I was so worthless. They rode round the chapel twice before riding off in the direction that the Elf had fled. When they were out of sight and that horrible smell that accompanied them began to lessen, I finally felt myself unbend, as though my muscles had been clenched up in a way that kept me from moving. That kept me from acting. I bent down, scooped up my axe and fled inside. I couldn't do anything.

"So I was inside when I heard them catch the elf. I don't know how far away he was. The mist deadens the sound and it meant that his death could have happened next to us or it could have happened miles away. The poor lad had no chance though, injured as he was. He did well though I think. I couldn't have run as far as he did.

"He took a long time to die though. A very long time. I could hear his screams for hours as I lay there, just inside the entrance way." He pointed with a shaking hand. "I curled up into a ball and tried to block the sounds of his screaming out. Closing my hands over my ears in a desperate effort to block it out. I was even screaming myself by the end of it. I don't know why."

He laughed at himself.

"Fucking coward that I am."

"What could you have done?" Danzig asked but Father Gardan was having none of that.

"What could I have done? What could I have done? Anything. That's what I could have done. Anything else. I could have gone after them. I could have stopped them, I could have fought and yes, I probably would have died but I might not. I might have given that elf a chance. I might have delayed them for just a bit of time. I might have given him a chance. That's all he would have needed, just a chance at survival. But no, I stayed in here didn't I. I stayed in the protection of the chapel and waited for the screams to stop.

"It took him all night to die. Poor little fucker."

We waited for a while. Danzig had been forced to turn away by the pain in his hero's face and voice and was stood a short distance away, staring towards the open door. But I could tell, just from his body language, that both of us wanted to help the poor old man. We wanted to do something, anything that we might be able to alleviate and lessen the anguish that the old man was feeling, desperately thinking of some kind of comfort but I couldn't think of anything and Danzig must have been the same.

"I went to find him in the morning". Garden carried on his tale, some time later. "I took a shovel with me to bury him. I don't know what his people would have done or what their beliefs are on the subject but I didn't want to leave him there. I thought that he had fought to survive and fought hard, and so, deserved better than to be left for his tormentors and for the wild things that live out in the woods to fight over and desecrate. So I went out to find him with a shovel.

"I said the prayers for him too. He died hard and even after it took him all that time to die, they had still...spoiled him. Even the animals wouldn't go to him to worry at his face. Even the beasts wouldn't go near those injuries.

"Poor sod. Not even a knife ear deserves that. Not even them.

"Stupid pointy-eared cunt. Poor, stupid bastard.

"So I said my prayers and I buried him. Not much for an elf but it was the best I could do. I came back to the chapel and I read my book and I prayed like a motherfucker but three nights later I heard the sounds of howling in the distance. And again, a week after that.

"Sometimes they stop for a month. Maybe even two months but sooner or later they come back. Sometimes they come every other day. Sometimes even the same day, but it's always the same. Red sky, mist off the mountains. The sound of thunder and the howls of wolves."

I waited for a bit, to make sure that the old man had finished his story. But then he kind of eased off. My guess was that it had cost him to say so much in so short a period of time. It looked like he had been living in isolation for some time here and I thought that it might be the most that he had said to another human being in some time. When I was sure though, I asked my questions.

"Why are they called "The Hounds of Kreve?""

"I don't even know that that's what they are. The peasants call them that. They scare their kids with it only the thing that they're warning them against will, actually, come for them. But I know it makes no sense."

He seemed to be coming back to himself now that the conversation was moving a little bit more towards the theology side of things. Stuff that he knew rather than the things that he was afraid of.

"Kreve doesn't have hounds. He's a soldier, a king, a general. He isn't a god of the hunt he's a god of the fight against evil. That's his thing. When you say "hounds" you think of hunting hounds. You think of them as aids in whatever it is that you're doing. Kreve preaches that a man should stand up and do the labour himself."

He sighed again and got up, he began to pace.

"Personally though, I think it's my fault." He looked at us, a little slyly and I was glad to see a little humour in his eyes. "Not just my fault you understand, but also any priests that came before me, and the people that built this chapel. I think we have quite a lot to answer for in this regard."

"Why do you say that?"

"I think that my predecessors were lazy in spreading the good word of Kreve. I am weak, and a coward and exiled from the gaze of the God, but my predecessors? This could have been a bulwark against the encroachment of those Fire worshipping pussies from further south."

"Careful," I told him with an answering smile. "I'm one of those fire worshipping pussies."

He stopped and stared at me for a moment, his mouth hanging open in surprise. "You?"

"Me."

"But you're a fighter. A killer."

"So?" I shifted my weight in the chair. I don't mind being described as a fighter but being described as a "Killer" left me feeling a little uncomfortable.

"So? That's everything here. Don't get me wrong, at least you're not a Melitele worshipping woman..." He said that with a kind of affectionate scorn. Priests of Kreve are well known for their disdain of Melitele and that feeling is reciprocated but it's interesting to note that the two churches close ranks against interlopers with astonishing speed. "...or a heretic. Let alone one of those dirty sun worshipping bastards from the south. Talk about worshipping the egg when the chicken is still wandering around after laying the thing. Anyway...

"Flame worshippers are passive. They wait behind their walls, telling everyone the blatant untruth that the flame will keep them safe and protected from the monsters, all the while the monster roam the streets and prey on the less fortunate. Last time I was in those parts they used to torture people for questioning the holiness of the Eternal fire when all the person was doing was bringing attention to the fact that they had seen a drowner wandering about down at the docks."

He sniffed derisively and I began to see the figure of the man that he must have been. Strong, charismatic and clever. It was a lot easier to imagine him as a leader of men.

"I had hopes for them when I heard about them founding that order of knights, what were they called?" He snapped his fingers as he tried to remember. "Flaming rose that was it. Even _that_ they copied of our order of the white rose. Pompous ass-hats that those bastards used to be. But even then, instead of dealing with the problems that beset the world, they turned on Foltest and tried to lead the world into a brighter future where that brighter future is whatever the knights decided it to be. If they had been proactive, and actually helped people rather than trying to get involved in politics then they would still be around today.

"But no...

"Then when Nilfgaard invaded...Again...the flame worshippers turn on their own people. Those people that could have been drawn into their service. Don't get me wrong, I hate the Magic users as much as the next priest of Kreve, but setting aside that advantage on the eve of war? Ludicrous. But They like to stay in their places of power, that's why I'm so surprised to find out that you're a silly fire worshipper. You're a fighter, you're here in the middle of nowhere and you're fighting the source of an evil."

He gestured to Danzig. "You should convert him to our side."

I hid a smile with a cough. "I thought that Kreve and the Eternal Fire got on." I commented.

"As I say, you could be worse. But I was talking about our faults in this area and why we're at fault here." He got up and started to prepare some food. To my mind it looked astonishingly basic, some hard bread and harder cheese along with a hunk of salted meat that looked as though, if you gave it to a cobbler, some perfectly good shoes could be made out of it.

"I would offer," he told us, "but I'm an old soldier and you're probably used to much...nicer fare."

"Oh you might be surprised." I said. "After some of the things I've eaten by the side of the road."

"See," he exclaimed with glee. "You should be a Kreve worshipper."

"But you were saying."

"Yes, I was saying. Kreve came here and built this place. A small chapel in an effort to try and convert the local folk from their little heresy. They worship a harvest God in these parts. They believed that they had to sacrifice their first born in return for a decent harvest. Pleased to say that the practice has been somewhat diluted since those earlier years so that now, it's more about sacrificing the first fruits of the harvest. So the first lamb to be born, a portion of the first crop gets burnt that kind of thing. Better, still not ideal but better."

He sniffed, biting off a huge chunk of cheese. The cheeses crunched audibly.

"So then we came here. Built a church and started wandering round telling everyone about the good word of Kreve. But for whatever reason they gave up. I spoke to a couple of the elders and it would seem that those early missionaries were quite lazy about it. They would wander into a villager, all proud and upstanding like, where they would tell the people there about Kreve. The villagers would listen politely before calmly stating that they were ok for Gods thanks and politely told them to piss off."

He snorted in derision of those historical priests.

"The missionaries came back, built this chapel and spent their time "praying for Kreve to intercede." I think, that whatever happened, happened and these things came these, "Hounds of Kreve" came and started terrorising the countryside and some idiot said words to the effect of "Well, we told those priests of Kreve to piss off. They told us that there would be consequences and now they are here"."

The old man made the voice sound comical. As I sit here, looking back over my notes I find it surprising that he was able to go from terror, shame, bitterness and sadness to being a happy, humorous and charming man in the space of minutes, but at the time, it seemed to be quite natural. As though this was just how it worked.

"So, I think that that's why. That's why they call them the hounds of Kreve. That and the wolf-skull heads."

"Do you think that they're human under there."

He winced and a shadow crossed his face.

"I don't know. I really don't. I've only seen them the once. I've tried to go out many times. I might not be able to fight but maybe I could help the locals defend themselves. Maybe I could show them that Kreve is not some arch-punisher of the ignorant. We punish the Wicked, yes, but the ignorant? They need to be taught the error of their ways, not hounded like this. So maybe I could help them get into shape. Help them defend themselves. But I can't. I just can't. I stand at the gate into the church-yard and I try to step over the threshold. When I start to see the sky turn red and the beginnings of the mist on the mountainside, I try. I've tried so many times but before I know what I've done, I've turned and I am hurrying back inside, pouring salt over the threshold."

"You say that the village folk are ignorant rather than being wicked, rather than being evil."

"Yes, they're good folk really."

"Why do you say that?"

"They care for each other. They care for me. Do you see the goats in the yard that gave me this cheese? Where is the oven in which I baked this bread? They bring me the food and the blankets. When I get _really_ sick, they bring me herbs and medicines to help me get better. They've even come and helped to rebuild the old chapel."

He looked down at his plate full of food as though he was surprised to see it there and set it aside.

"When I first came here, I was weak. I had just left the church and I was struggling to stay on the straight and narrow. I couldn't stay with the other soldiers and the other priests. They would tell me that I was injured but I knew the cowardice for what it was. I couldn't bare the pity of the men that I had worked with. I used to hate and berate those men that I had thought suffered from cowardice. I used to loathe them with every fibre of my being, loathe them for the weakness that I was now suffering from and I couldn't bear it.

"So I ran. Proof enough of my cowardice.

"I was still strong then. Much stronger than I am now..."

"And you are far from weak." Danzig put in.

"Kind of you to say," the humour was back in Gardan's voice then. "But I can feel the difference in my own body.

"I came here, a small chapel out in the middle of nowhere and I thought I would do it up. Some peace and quiet would do me good. I could live here amongst the, objectively, beautiful and wild countryside. The untamed lands that I had always idolised when I was younger. I still had a bow, arrows and things so I reasoned that I could live fairly well.

"At first that was the way it was. I would hunt, gather food and meet the locals. I took the option of general reminders when it came to my preaching. I would do some odd chores for the farmers, advise people and offer blessings. The heresy in these parts is so entrenched that to come in with ice and savagery wouldn't work, indeed it hadn't worked before. So I just worked and lived as best as I could and when people asked me about Kreve, I would explain to them how it all worked.

"We lived together well."

"Were "The Hounds" attacking at that point?"

"Oh yes. You could often hear them. It was a good six months before I saw them for the first time. The locals tell me that "The Hounds" have been plaguing these parts for many years and I've been here for the last..." his eyes went vacant as he counted "ten years. Kreve but it's been so long."

He sighed and shook his head.

"I'm dying. I'm not sick, there's nothing wrong with my lungs, my heart beats fine and I'm as strong as I can be given that I can't exercise as much as I used to.

"When I first got here I was weak to be sure but I had plans. I wanted to do things and get involved in the lives of the villagers. I wanted to save them from their little and relatively harmless heresy. I wanted to be part of their community.

"But my cowardice got worse and worse. Soon, I could only travel to the nearest village and spend time there. Then I had to make it back to the chapel every night. Not too much time passed from there and I was only going to the village to stock up on supplies before coming back here as fast as I can. Then I started asking the villagers to bring the supplies straight here. Now, I can barely even leave the enclosure around the church yard. It takes me all day, sometimes, to be able to go and get water from the stream. I go there, with every intention of refilling all my water skins, only to be able to refill one at a time and have to go back.

"How long before I won't even leave the enclosure and I'm begging for my visitors to refill the water for me? How long after that before I can't leave the chapel? How long before I can't leave my room? or my bed?

"Kreve but that's all I want to do sometimes, is to lie in bed and let the world pass me by. Or I'll hear something out in the woods and I spend the rest of the day hiding under a blanket, shivering and shaking.

"I hate this. If I had the balls to do it, I would end my life and stand before Kreve to be judged.

"But I'm even afraid of that. Not least because Self-slaughter is the ultimate act of cowardice and how could I be forgiven if I went even remotely close to actions like that.

"But this is going to kill me. I know it. Maybe not today, maybe not even this year or next but I am not long for this world. I recognise the symptoms you see. I've seen this before in other men and it shames me now that I used to look down on such men. Indeed I would still look down on such men. I hate myself for it as it is."

"It's not cowardice." I told him. "It's a sickness. I know you've probably been told this kind of thing before, by people that you know and respect more than a..." I let my mouth turn up into the first semblance of a smile, "...a flame worshipping pussy. But I too recognise your symptoms. Something happened to you. I don't know what it is and I'm not going to try and delve into it. But something happened to you and it made you this way. This is not your fault."

"It's kind of you to say that my friend. It is, but you are young, what twenty one? Twenty two?"

"Twenty one."

"I am well into my sixties, so far in that I no longer bother counting. I can accept that this is something that was done to me. I can. I can accept that it is alien to me and unnatural. But what I cannot come to grips with, the thing that I cannot abide, is that I can't overcome this obstacle. I've been afraid before but now my mind simply won't overcome. I can't...I can't overcome and that is galling and hateful of me."

I nodded.

"A wise man once told me that a man cannot be brave without knowing fear." I told him, "When we approached and you didn't know who we were or what we were there for, you got your armour and picked up your axe. You stood in the doorway and challenged us. Given everything that you tell us about how you feel about this, that was incredibly brave."

He chuckled sadly, and bitterly.

"Did I?" he asked sceptically. "I can't remember. It is a nice thought though."

"I won't argue with you." I told him. "But I will visit you if I may. I have been injured in similar ways before now and I would talk to you if I would."

"You can't possibly know what it's like to feel the way I feel."

"No," I admitted, "No I can't. No-one can because no-one is in the exact same place. Maybe I would roll off what you have been through and maybe you would ignore what I've been through but it's equally as likely that what you've been through would have broken me and what I've been through would have broken you."

I took a deep breath.

"But I have fought darkness. I had my soul ripped from my body and tortured in the dark. I wake up some nights and worry that what I'm doing now, what I'm feeling and seeing now is no the real world. I worry that this is all just a demented figment of that _things_ imagination to be used against me and that at some point, he will pull the curtain aside and show me that it isn't real.

"I resisted, and still resist the fact that I love my fiancée because I am afraid that she is some kind of torment designed by the creature that held me. I still struggle with believing that she is real, or that she isn't some temptation towards evil despite the fact that...as we speak...she is taking instruction to be baptised and confirmed into the faith of the Eternal Fire so that we can be married in a proper ceremony of that same.

"I still wake up having woken myself up with my own screaming. I still shiver in the woods, afraid at the incoming darkness. Not always but sometimes I huddle under my blankets and pray that this is all a dream. I still, I _still_ want some kind of proof that I am not in some kind of hell of that creatures devising. But I am all alone on my path and I don't know where it ends or what will happen when I get there. I'm on entirely new ground for me, any of my friends or my family. There is no-one to tell me that it's ok.

"I am sorry for what was done to you. I am sorry ffor the way it makes you feel. If my brother, the new Lord Kalayn, can do anything for you then you have only to ask and we will do our best to make sure that you have the best care that we can provide. But likewise, if you want to be left alone to your retirement and hermitage then we will do that as well. Simply seeing to it that you have what supplies you need.

"Of all people, sir, if only half of what I have heard about you is true, you have earned your retirement and deserve to be let off the hook for a bit of weakness."

He stopped looking at me about half way through that speech.

"In the meantime, may I ask a couple more questions and then we will leave you be. I would leave now but this might be important."

He waved his hand, "Ask your questions." His voice was small and quiet. If a voice can be distilled into an animal form this was the small and starving mouse that is hiding in it's warren. It can see the cheese but knows that the cat is still out there somewhere.

"You say that the heresy of the locals is harmless?"

"Yes, just some harvest God. It might have been dangerous a few centuries ago or when it was first brought to these parts but nowadays it is a harmless thing."

"What is the heresy? What is it called?"

Gardan sighed, staring into the fire. "They call the thing they worship "Crom Cruarch","

It's an interesting thing to feel your brain switch to a different level of thinking. My mouth went dry and I leant forward.

"Crom Cruarch?" I asked. "Are you sure?"

"Course. You know the heresy?"

"I've heard of it. My cousin, cousin Raynard Kalayn told me about it. Do you know what form of the heresy they used? Was it the crooked man of the mound or was it the... _other_ version of that heresy that they used up at the castle."

"The _other_ version of the heresy?" The old man asked.

"The inverted ankh." Danzig whispered.

For those people who need catching up...

When we were investigating the matters surrounding my Father's death we discovered the presence of a cult in the local area. That cult liked to capture young and pretty individuals and feed off them in an effort to take on their youth, vitality and beauty onto themselves. They did this through acts of the worst kind of degradation as they believed that those actions were also sacrifices to another power. That power was signified by the symbols of an inverted ankh symbol atop the sign of the Lion-headed spider.

The idea was that the two symbols, representing life and death, cancelled each other out thus denying the natural order of things. The church believes that this is the representation of a new, or a previously undiscovered, power in the world. They thought that it was the God of Magic or Magic itself. The fact that every mage that we spoke to on the subject is equally as horrified at the thing goes some ways to dispel that theory.

When we had interrogated my Cousin, the de facto leader of the heresy in the Oxenfurt area, he referred to this new/old entity as being Crom Cruarch.

However. Mark had done some research into the matter and had discovered that Crom Cruarch was originally a harvest God but we knew little else about him. So we didn't know if this was the same thing or if it was something else. That was part of the reason that we were here in the first place. If you would like to know more, I refer you to my earlier essays on the subject of my father's death.

The old man shuddered and touched the holy symbol hanging round his neck.

"No," he said after a short while. "No, that's not what they do. I've seen it. They get everyone together and burn the first fruits of harvest. I've seen them do it. It's an excuse for a party, one of the few excuses that people have round here. It's harmless if a little wasteful. They tried killing the first lamb a couple of years ago although I told them not to on the grounds that it was sinful. They still did it though as they were trying to invoke the protection of their God.

"It didn't work though.

"Kreve, the inverted Ankh." he breathed in disbelief.

"You've heard of it then."

"Of course. It's possibly the only power that's worse that The Lionhead."

At the name of the spider he shuddered violently despite the fact that he said it himself, and again, scrunched up his eyes in pain but this time the spasm passed quickly.

"The Inverted Ankh. If I had known that that was what was going on up at the castle I might have taken more of a notice."

"You didn't know?" I did my best to keep my tone from being too accusing.

"No, I swear. If I did I would have sent word. They're dealt with now though?"

"The Kalayn branch is, as far as we know. We're here to see if the cult has any more branches in the local area."

Father Gardan mused for a bit before shaking his head. "If there are, then it's amongst the nobles. The villagers are too desperate, too...they depend on each other too much for survival to do that to each other."

I looked at Danzig who was frowning in concentration. We needed to know more.

"What can you tell me about Crom Cruarch?" I asked.

"Not much." Gardan responded, "I know that the villagers brought him with them when they first settled in the area. Harvest God, God of farmers, someone for them to get angry at and pray to when the harvest goes wrong. In the same way that women worship Melitele because they can scream and call to her when giving birth gets too painful. They need someone to pray to when the planting happens, over the summer that there is the correct amount of rain and again in Autumn to make sure that the harvest is properly bountiful. It's entirely possible that it was once some kind of spirit or creature that had some kind of control over magic and could legitimately affect the harvest but if it was, the spirit is either no longer strong enough to act properly or it has moved on."

I nodded. I had taken out some paper to make some notes. The old man was looking tired though.

"Who would I ask if I needed to know more."

Gardan's hands were beginning to tremble again.

"Local village alderman is probably your best bet. Called Edward. The village is about a mile west of here."

I made a note and nodded.

"Then I will enquire of Edward, although I should probably head back to the castle tonight. Will you be ok?"

He smirked. "I was fine before you showed up. I'll be fine after you've gone. This thing'll get me sooner or later. But not today and not tomorrow."

"We're going to be busy up at the castle tomorrow. But we'll be back the day after. We'll just pop our heads round the door to pay our respects and drop off some supplies."

He nodded and waved us off.

"Thank you." He said before climbing to his feet and leaving through the door to his bed with quick steps.

Danzig and I stood together as we watched him go. "He never liked charity." Danzig said. "Hated it."

We left moving towards the horses.

"What happened to him?" I asked as we started climbing into the saddle.

Danzig sighed.

"It's exactly as you said. He got hurt and we don't know what from and we don't know how to help him. Or people like him for that matter. Are we going to try and get to the village tonight?"

I looked at the sky, the sun was beginning to set and the sky was beginning to turn into it's more interesting shades of red and orange. I had a little giggle to myself as I felt a thread of fear running through me before I turned and examined the mountains to see if there was any mist forming.

There wasn't.

"No," I decided. "It's getting late. We'll save the village for another day I think. I want to know what Kerrass found and get involved with the search up at the castle."

Danzig grunted his acceptance of the decision before turning his horses head towards the castle.

"Don't think you've avoided the topic of conversation though." I told him. "What happened?"

Danzig stared into space for a moment.

"Gardan was a priest of Kreve according to the old school." he said, it sounded reluctant as though the words came from a great distance away. "I say that with all of the possible nuances and problems that come with that. There's no getting away from the fact that that comes with a certain amount of darkness, the persecution of elves, Vran and magic users are all part of that and Gardan would be the first to admit that he took part in some dark deeds. But that's not what I mean."

He sighed again, twisting his mouth this way and that. I decided to throw him a bone.

"Hey look. You're talking to the man who follows a cult that likes to burn magic users to death, even if they're only roughly heading down the direction of magic or have a passing acquaintence with it. We define people as being evil if they come from outside of Novigrad and literally have, or had as is probably a better phrase, an arm of the church called "Witch-hunters," and we still have an Inquisition to hunt out heretics, were we define heresy as being anything that we disagree with. Believe me when I say, that I know what it's like to have a religion with a sordid history."

Danzig smirked.

"It's not that." He said, "It's more about our attitudes towards what happened. As I say, Gardan was a priest of the old school. This meant that when he wasn't preaching or training up subordinates like myself he was liberally smiting evil."

"This evil being defined as whatever the church of Kreve disapproved of." I commented slyly.

"Pretty much. We, the church I mean, said that there was no greater cause than the fight against evil. We still do but now we have a greater and more nuanced take on the matter despite a few hard-line fundamentalists. But therein lies the issue. If he was still active, Gardan would be considered a hard-line fundamentalist. The old Gardan would still agree that the heresy of the villagers version of Crom Cruarch is relatively harmless but at the same time, he would be in the village, axe swinging, converting the heretic to Kreve whether they like it or not. I would like to believe that he would go against the cult that you describe first as there are degrees of heresy here. The one being much more dangerous than the other.

"But that wouldn't make his condemnation any the less... intense.

"So he was his normal self. Through both wars with the Nilfgaard which we fought on the belief that the deification of the Emperor of Nilfgaard as the physical embodiment of the sun was a dangerous heresy, notice how politics adjusts what constitutes heresy by the way."

"I had noticed," I told him.

"He was the veteran of two wars, he only had that one scar across his eye to show for it. I mean yes, there were cuts and bruises but nothing that would leave a worthwhile scar such as that one. He had sacked and desecrated numerous heretical temples, fought against the Scoia'tael in Kaedwen and had hunted down the cult of the Lionheaded spider to the point of extinction in Kaedwen. There are still odd shrines, and I should say that I have read your account of your brothers description of the Lionhead and his assessment of how she works as part of existence. But the cult that attaches itself to her is often dangerous and evil and we want no part of it.

"But then one day, He goes out to investigate rumours that there was a shrine to the Lionhead in some nearby countryside. He's a priest, he travels there with a pair of his squires but decides, correctly, that the danger to the squires was too extreme and he goes in alone.

"I should stress that all of this is quite correct, he'd done exactly this hundreds of times before and emerged unscathed. But this time? This time, something was different.

"As had been arranged, after a day of his not being found, one of the squires rode back to fetch another priest while the remaining squire remained behind at the camp-site. The remaining squire was checking his traps to see if he had caught any game when he found his former master in the undergrowth. He was shaking with terror, he couldn't see, had soiled himself, was sweating and bleeding from a thousand little injuries that he had done to himself because of his armour's sharp edges.

"The thing with his eye? We later figured out that he had put one of his fingers in his own eyes to try and stop himself from seeing what he had seen. It didn't burst the eye but it damaged it beyond repair and the only reason he didn't lose his other eye was because that hand still had his gauntlet on.

"The squire got his master out of his armour and back to camp, he recovered as much of the armour as he could and did his best to see to the comfort of his master.

"The next priest arrived, investigated the area, found the shrine to the Lionhead and desecrated it. It showed no signs of being attended so it was one of those dangerous shrines that need to be looked out for. They found Gardan's axe and brought it back but Gardan who was still weeping, screaming and shaking, shrunk away from the weapon as though it was going to bite him."

"Were you that second priest?" I asked.

Danzig shook his head. "No," I was away at the time. Kaedwen was getting ready for another go at the Pontar valley. This will have been just before King Demanvend was killed. But anyway...

"The party got Gardan back to the local church and saw to his injuries but he was only recovering his wits slowly. It was several days before his tremors and anxiety began to drift away but there was a new problem which was that he could no longer fight. I spoke to the people that were involved later and they said that it was really strange. That he would put his armour on, pick his axe up and then, just as he was about to step up to face an opponent, even a training dummy, he would start to shake, scream and soil himself.

"Now the church of Kreve is more enlightened than it once was. But we still don't have a name for what had happened to Gardan other than what we used to call it. Which is "cowardice". He was suffering from an extreme fear reaction. We recognise it as the same thing that happens to anyone when they're facing the enemy or facing death at the hands of...something but his reactions were more...extreme. Now, and at the time of Gardan's injury, we recognise it for what it is, an injury. But we still don't have a better name for it.

"In the more...academic branches of Kreve, a part of worship where we still lag behind the Eternal Fire I think as we still spend far too much time looking for evil where there is none, but that's a conversation for another day, they have begun calling this kind of injury "induced cowardice," or "Manufactured Cowardice","

"Still not great names." I commented.

"I agree but that's what happened to him."

Another sigh. I flattered him that this talk was a little distressing to Danzig but all of this sighing was a little grating.

"Unfortunately for Gardan, his fall was quite high. From being lauded as one of our bravest warrior-priests he falls to having _this_ done to him. But that's not the difficulty. The difficulty is that our more enlightened approach to treating people with this kind of problem is relatively recent. Indeed it had only been spotted amongst the troops of the, then, most recent war with Nilfgaard. Before that, they would execute people for cowardice.

"To hear Gardan tell it. He himself had summarily executed many people for cowardice and, being a priest of the old school, he couldn't understand why we were trying to help him when we should have been executing him. He just couldn't comprehend that difference. He hated himself for his own weakness. Self-slaughter was a greater sin though as that was, and often still is unfortunately, seen as the ultimate act of cowardice but he didn't want to live like that. He begged us to end his life even as he came to hate himself for his own perceived weakness.

"We tried to help him, we really did but it became clear that out "help" was, in fact, making a bad problem worse. Our care and solicitation was distressing him rather than helping him get better. He wouldn't suffer magic users, and may I say that it would seem that in the intervening time his attitude towards magic has mellowed somewhat, so we couldn't see if what had happened to him was of a magical nature.

"He couldn't stay with us and we couldn't keep him there. It was killing him to be surrounded by combat so we let him go. We found an old church law that said that when a knight is injured then they could "retire." They would go off, find some old shrine that no-one looks after and live there as best they can so that they can spread the word of Kreve and live out their lives in prayer and contemplation.

"So that's what he did and this is where he ended up. We thought he would recover or emerge from the woodwork when Nilfgaard invaded again as that had made him so, incredibly angry the first couple of times that it had happened but when he didn't appear or make himself known?" Danzig shrugged. "Even as a camp priest he would have been a boon to our troops, but when he didn't appear, we believed that he must have died out here somewhere."

The narrative petered out there and I let my mind wander, thinking on the castle and what we would find on the morrow but it seemed that Danzig wasn't quite ready to stop the conversation yet.

"You know, I wonder if it wouldn't have been a kindness to let the poor man die there. If we didn't do him a disservice by letting him go."

"No," I told him. "No you didn't do him a disservice at all. You and your fellows gave him a chance. Not much of a chance, I'll grant you that much if you want to flagellate yourself a bit but you gave him a chance. More than your predecessors would have given him. More than he would have given himself."

Danzig grunted but I could tell that he wasn't convinced.

"Loot at it this way." I told him. "He came here and has been part of the community. He might not have made an impact but he knows people, he's talked to people and when these people have made Kreve into something that, in their eyes is an object of fear and terror that would, in theory, drive them even further away from Kreve into deeper and darker heresy, he worked against that. He presented them with a flawed, human perspective on Kreve. It might not have made much of a difference but on the other hand, that might have saved these people."

"We'll have to see won't we. Thank you, though, for being understanding and kind to him. It broke my heart to see him like that. He's much worse now than when he left. Much much worse and it's hard not to blame ourselves for leaving him in that state. He deserved better at out hands. Much much better."

I remembered Danzig saying that as I stood looking at the alter inside the small chapel.

He deserved much better.

I turned and strode outside. The same rage that I had felt before was churning in my gut as I rounded the corner to look up at where one of the bastards was on top of the tower.

"Wait," I called.

Sir Rickard looked at me strangely as I came closer to him.

"He didn't kill himself." I said.

Rickard shook his head, "I don't know Lord Frederick. He's not tied up, he could have climbed up there and jumped off. I don't want to believe it either but..."

"But he didn't did he." I said. "Look at him, tongue lolling out, soiled himself. I can't remember how long it takes a body to soil itself after death but I know that it isn't straight away. Something like that..." I pointed to the caked on dirt. "Happened during the struggling for his breath. I think we;'' find other injuries. I think we'll find he was tied up or knocked unconscious or that he was drugged or something. If he jumped off the tower he would have broken his neck wouldn't he?"

"I don't know, maybe."

"He's old but he's not light. Still got a lot of muscle mass on there so that extra weight would have surely added to it. If he jumped off the tower his neck would have broken but if he jumped off a lower thing to strangle himself then where's the thing he jumped off. He would have either kicked it aside or something when he leapt or it would have been leaning up against the side of the tower from how he got up there."

"My man climbed the tower." Sir Rickard wanted to be convinced.

"Yes, but your men climb trees and all kinds of things. But this older man. Strong? Yes, nimble enough to climb to a roof without aid?"

"The rope that was already there would make for a good climbing aid."

"Same difference but there was no rope here the other day. Also, where's his axe? He was the axeman of Kreve. Surely it would be somewhere around here?"

Rickard nodded. Finally letting himself be convinced. "Jenkins? Pendleton?"

The two youngest members of the bastards came running up and saluted. Street thieves both of them but it didn't matter if they were moving through city streets or through the forest, they were quick and could move through terrain that I would struggle with.

"Up to the castle." Rickard ordered, I was only half listening. "Compliments to Father Danzig and he's needed down here."

"Sir," The lads answered in unison before pelting off.

"Castleton, Barnsley."

"Sir," two men called.

"Dig a grave in the church yard. I would say that the old man earned it."

I nodded my approval.

"What next?" He asked.

"I've honestly no idea. We need more information. Has Dan found anything yet?"

Dan was summoned. "Well?" I asked him.

Dan was chewing on a chunk of tobacco. Same as he always was.

"No way the old man killed himself." He decided with finality. "There was a fight here. Quite a large one."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, there's relatively fresh blood on that grave stone," he pointed." Also, someone went through the fire inside. I think that several people died here, not just the old man. Poor bugger died hard. They tried to hide it and, to be fair, I can't find any other tracks. So much so that this place was cleaned. I haven't finished looking yet though but that would take some effort."

Rickard nodded and Dan went back to work.

"So, someone went out of their way to obscure the tracks or,"

"Something supernatural happened here."

"Not reassuring, either way."

"We should have told the boys to fetch Master Kerrass down here as well."

"He wouldn't have come." I told him. "Kerrass is busy with things that are definitely Witcher's work. He's in the middle of a contract, that being to help clear out the castle. He won't leave it half done."

"So what next?"

I looked up to gauge the progress of the day. I also checked to see if there was any mist on the side of the mountainside.

"It's still early. Let's...Let's finish the grave and bury the priest. I'll do a quick examination but nothing to invasive. We'll wait for a bit for Father Danzig to see if he can perform last rites or something else to help put the old man's spirit to rest. Regardless, at midday we'll carry on our way and head to that local village. I understand it's more of one of those places where they could build a group of houses together but there will be people there. We need to know more."

Rickard nodded and strode off

We waited for an hour. As I had expected we found sign that someone had hit Father Gardan on the side of the head until he fell unconscious.

Danzig arrived looking stricken and we performed a quick funeral over the body of the old man before laying him to rest. Danzig remained behind to tidy up and do a few things but I suspect that he wanted to be alone with his grief and who can blame him. We told him that we were on our way to the local village and that he should send any stragglers that turned up to follow us.

I couldn't help but find myself grateful, as we rode away. But by the grace of a Witcher, a priest named Jerome and the care of some fine women, that might as well have been me that we tipped into the hole. It might still be me yet.

I don't talk about my injuries very often. I now have a small collection of them and although many of them have been healed so that, theoretically there will be no lasting damage from those injuries, they have still left scars.

I don't talk about them because I still feel it in myself, a learned disgust at a perceived weakness. Every single person that caused me harm is dead and my physical injuries have been healed through magical means, but that doesn't mean that I am not scarred.

I find it difficult to trust knights in full armour. Men like Lord Dorme who poisoned me to the point of death in return to coerce us into performing him a service. I like to pretend that I can't remember his name on the grounds that saying his name gives him some kind of power over me. But, every so often, I see someone with dark, dyed hair, wearing their full plate mail and I get an overwhelming urge to smack them in their stupid smug mouths. It's that or to run away screaming. I didn't write about it at the time but I actually really struggled with some of the time spent in Toussaint for this exact reason. Even though many of the men in question were coming to me to offer their condolences on the loss of Francesca or their congratulations on the engagement to Ariadne. Good men all, but something about them made my fists itch.

I am a religious man. I started to become so after my run in with the beast of Amber's crossing as I was confronted with the existence of my immortal soul and the proof of powers greater than I was used to. It was a sobering realisation that there were greater powers in the world that I couldn't run away from if it got it's teeth into me. That couldn't be stabbed with my spear or struck with Kerrass' sword but even though my faith has grown, along with my need to believe in something greater than myself. I no longer trust priests. I can thank "Arch-bishop" Sansum for that. I know he wasn't an Arch-bishop and that his name wasn't Sansum but that's who he was to me. I know that not all priests are bad. I like many priests and there are many good and holy men who do their best to help the people of the continent with their spiritual needs. I like individual priests. Jerome, Mark, Danzig is a good man, Father's Trent and Inquisitor Dempsey are both reasonable human beings even though I don't know them very well. Father Hacha is not a person that I like but I can see that he has his uses. But I struggle to trust priests. A random holy man met in the streets or on the roads of the Continent. I distrust them, I withdraw from them.

I really struggle to be alone in the woods at night. Caves? Fine. Mines? No problem. But amongst the trees? Fuck that. Often I can manage it and overcome my fear. It's not so bad if there's a fire, or if Kerrass is there. Warm food in my belly after some hard training will often send me to sleep easily. But when I am alone for some reason and I can hear the wind blowing in the branches?

Especially in winter.

I check my horse equipment obsessively now. I always, always know where my spear is. Always. I also always have at least two knives on me. My eating knife which is now much sharper, better balanced and pointier than an eating knife ever should be, and my boot knife. My fighting dagger is often taken off me in polite gatherings but the other two are always on me.

I started keeping my dagger in my hand while I slept. At first Kerrass tried to tease me about it to try and diffuse my fears but he stopped when I exploded in rage and terror at him. It took him a while to calm me down and he looked incredibly sad as he did so. He looked at me with pity in his eyes. It is hard to accept that but it was there.

I've already talked about how my feelings towards Ariadne have been tempered by these problems so I won't go into those things again here.

These feelings have even tainted my home. I don't talk about this either, but I even struggle with being at home now. Castle Coulthard is home to me and, I hope, it always will be _a_ home despite the home that Ariadne and I will build in, presumably, Angral. But after discovering our family secret and knowing that such things were going on behind my back for all that time? I occasionally find myself looking around at those people closest to me and wondering if there's anything else that I don't know. Any other secrets that I might have missed or might have...not been looking for.

As I said to Gardan, I still wake up screaming and sweating after nightmares. Sometimes Kerrass wakes me up if we're by the side of the road or I am woken up by a servant or the innkeeper of whatever tavern or inn that I am staying in.

I recognised Gardan's struggle. I have not walked down his road, but I might have. If not for, as I say, the care of some good people, that might have been me that was tipping over the edge into madness.

So why am I saying this. It might seem a little heavy-handed but the reason is this.

A little while ago, Kerrass called me out for no longer writing these journals and sending them off to the Oxenfurt papers. He said that I had lost sight of my most important duty which was to educate others and to use the insights that I have gained on the road to help others learn from my experience. So that's why I'm talking about this now. To hopefully spread a bit of understanding. My doing this might only be a small drop in the ocean, or rather a small drop falling in the desert but every little helps.

So here's my preaching. My "moral" if you prefer.

Like many people I was brought up and told, over and over that I need to "be a man," that displays of emotion are signs of weakness. That self-slaughter was the ultimate act of cowardice and shame.

I no longer agree.

I feel as though I don't have the correct words to talk about this properly. Ariadne would call it "a lack in the modern languages of the continent" but I look at someone like Knight-Father Gardan. Yes, I use his full title and rank as I feel he earned it. I look at him and some people, including him, would see weakness and cowardice. I see astonishing bravery.

Bravery cannot exist without fear and his fear was colossal. So large that it caused him physical pain. But when he felt threatened he managed to find something inside him that made him pick up his axe and stand before Father Danzig and I. He stood before us and challenged us to face him.

He later had no memory of doing that but I think that that was astonishing.

He fought when they came to kill him.

I will never forget Knight-Father Gardan and I will remember him in my prayers. I hope you will join me.

(A/N: I'm going to talk about mental health here for a bit. You don't need to read it and if such a discussion makes you uncomfortable then so be it. Feel free to move on with no hard feelings from me and I will see you in the next chapter.

Ok, still with me? Good.

I debated writing my thoughts on this down. I know I'm exposing myself as a target for trolls and fools to shoot at me here, but I figured that if one person reads this and gets something from it then I will have done my job.

Neither Freddie, or Father Danzig have the language or the knowledge to talk about what's going on in this chapter. When I first sat down to write this bit, Father Gardan was an incidental character. We all know the kind of character I mean, he was there to give Freddie some information so that Freddie could move on with his investigation of the local area but then the question of "Why" started to come up.

Why would a priest find himself out here and have done nothing to work on the heresy that surrounded him? Given that many of the "good" religions in the Witcher universe are quite proactive in their combat against evil, real or perceived, then surely a priest would have done more to investigate. So I needed someone to give Freddie the info while still leaving the situation available for Freddie, Kerrass and their companions to solve.

As I was asking these questions, Father Gardan got some more flesh on his bones.

I hope it is clear to the reader that poor Father Gardan is quite seriously ill. To my mind he's suffering from rather severe PTSD as well as crippling anxiety, depression and self-loathing. Those symptoms might have been amplified by his contact with malicious magic but that doesn't change the fact that they are there.

Just for the record, His experiences are not based on mine. I have had _similar_ experiences in that I was diagnosed with PTSD and depression but nowhere near what Gardan suffered from.

However they are based on a number of stories that I have close contact with. I recognise Father Gardan in a number of my friends and family members. Many have since, with the help of modern medicine and care, been able to recover to a point of a relatively normal life.

But many have not.

I know of more than one person who spends their days shaking in their rooms because they can't summon the strength or the enormous energy that they need to get themselves out of the door. This is not cowardice. The very thought of doing this causes the them physical pain.

Mental health is a subject that is close to my heart. Although I do not suffer from these problems nearly as much as someone like Father Gardan does, or any of the friends that I have mentioned as I am one of the success stories where the treatment worked and I was able to get on with my life.

That's not the point of this little speech.

Many of my characters suffer from mental health difficulties in one form or another. Certainly both Freddie and Kerrass do to varying degrees and one of the reasons that they do this is because I think it's more realistic that someone like Freddie would be affected by his history, long and short term. And Kerrass went through a lot during his training and I wanted to illustrate that fact.

The point of this little speech is that, although Freddie didn't and doesn't have the language or the knowledge to address these issues...I do.

If you recognise any of these symptoms then there is no shame in it at all. No shame. Nor is there any shame in getting some help if you need it.

Do not suffer in silence. Tell someone. If they mock you for it then you deserve better. If you cannot think of anything then go and see a proffessional. My GP used to say that "If it's nothing? I will tell you that it's nothing. But if it's something, then we need to know so that I can help you."

Another piece of advice is this, if you struggle with medical proffessionals or you know someone who does. Then write the problems down in the comfort and security of your own home. Be exhaustive in your notes and take them into the GP. Take your diary if it will help.

A paragraph for the men. I was taught, like many, that you shouldn't feel these things. That "real men" don't show, or don't feel these things. That it's not a "manly" thing to do. I was told that it was our job to care for those weaker than us and that we need to be strong at all times otherwise we have failed. This is incorrect. Your friends and family need you, yes, but they also need you to be healthy. You can't help them if you are sick so let them help you for a while. To those men that might be reading this...It takes balls to ask for help. More balls than it does to keep it quiet. But there is no shame in asking for help. No shame at all.

Lastly, for those people who are fully healthy but might be worried about a friend, colleague or loved one. Speaking about my own experiences for a moment. I had to be _told_ that I was sick. A GP listened to me speak for five minutes before telling me that I was sick. There were referrals and appts that came after that but I had to be _told_ that I was sick. I just thought that I was "in a slump" and "needed to pull myself together," and "that it would all come right in the end." Sometimes, we need to be told that the way we are feeling is not ok, it's not normal and that there are people out there that can help us.

That's all I have to say on the matter. Thank you for listening.)


	68. Chapter 68

My mind was still puzzling over the riddle of Father Gardan's death when we came to the village. So much so that Sir Rickard had to poke me in the ribs when we finally came up to it.

It wasn't a big place.

Sheltered on one side by a rise in the land that formed an almost, cliff face, presumably as part of the mountain range further to the east. On all other sides it was surrounded by wood and meadow land, a place of small fields and tiny little paddocks. This was the kind of farm-land that poets talk about and artists paint. Small patches of vegetables were attached to each house with ivy crawling up the wall and as we watched there were people working them.

That's not to say that there weren't fields that grew the wheat and barley that are essential to the running of places like this, but they were odd shapes. Fitting round the trees and the bits of streams. This was a place that was still lacking the three field system or the more new-fangled crop rotation.

They had a windmill and a couple of large barns. There was also cattle at some distance, a hardier, hairier and more lean kind of mountain cow as well as goats and a few paddocks full of sheep.

I could hear the ring of a blacksmiths hammer and also felt that I could detect the faint aroma of a tannery. It looked...quaint, industrious and gentle. The only thing it lacked was a village shrine or chapel but I suppose that that was to be expected given what we knew about the local practices.

"Right," Rickard mused, picking at his lower lip as he looked out over the quiet, peaceful scene. "Sergeant?"

"Sir?" the Huge Sergeant of the bastards was a man of enormous strength and astonishing stealth. Skelligan originally he grew up on one of the smaller islands where life is a bit harder than it is on the larger islands.

He's full of stories about his brothers and sisters but is a little shy on specifics so I always assumed that he came from a large family. From a rough overview of what he was saying, I think he ran away from home for one reason or the other and found himself in Temeria where he signed up with the Temerian harriers. He was far too large and independently minded to fight in the battle line, swinging a huge sword that he claimed was once carried by an ancient Skelligan hero named Roary Mac'Ferghus O'Flanagan who had fought against the Temerians and Redanians in ancient times.

He had a vast store of stories that he would tell with relish regarding the wars of the Skellige against the mainland. It seemed that he had no problems in the fact that he often fought alongside those self-same people though. He would often throw out insults the way the rest of us throw out nick-names but he was an absolute professional. As well as his huge sword, he carried a mace and the largest crossbow that I've ever seen carried by a man who walked on his own two feet.

He was indomitable and was always ready with a laugh or a joke, even when the elements were against the men and they were cold, tired and hungry he would exhort the other men onto greater effort and they would always, always rise to the occasion.

"Let's go in careful," Sir Rickard told him. "Lord Frederick and I with no more than five other men. In the meantime, take the rest of the men and have a look around. See what the surroundings can tell us. Assume that we will have to fight here and that we're going to have to defend this place."

The Sergeant nodded and started barking orders. Rickard and I were joined by the two youngsters Perkins and Pendleton, presumably on the grounds that as they were younger, they would be less threatening. Also joining us was a man called Taylor. He was Redanian originally and didn't bother hiding the fact that he was on the run from...something. He was a charming man who I suspected to be some kind of nobleman's bastard because of his use of proper speech and his obvious education. He was the best swordsman in the unit and would often be leading the training drills including giving pointers to Sir Rickard on how he could improve his technique. Fiercely charming, handsome and intelligent. He also had a reputation for being something of a ladies man which didn't surprise me in the least.

The twins were the last two that accompanied us into the village. Absolutely inseparable, they did everything together and the only way you could tell them apart was by their equipment. They shared everything, food, drink and some of the other men claimed that they even shared women. A thought that made me shudder with fascination although I couldn't bring myself to ask them more about it.

They didn't talk much but Sir Rickard told me that they joined the army because their father was a patriot and that they had been told to. But after the war, they had gone home to find that their home was one of the places that had been eaten up by one army or the other and their father was nowhere to be found. With their mother long dead and their elder sister married to another man in another village, the twins had decided to return to the army and to the only things that they were good at.

If I had had my head in the game I would have approved of the choices. As five men go, they were more likely to put the villagers at their ease. None of them were among the more dangerous of the bastards. All of them were well-spoken and did as they were told. The only slight danger was that Pendleton and Perkins would need to be held upside down and shaken until anything that they might have stolen fell out of their pockets.

But I didn't want to take my head out of Gardan's death yet. I was still too tied into that. Too many questions to be answered, The big ones, obviously being, Who? And Why? Along with the almost as important, why now?"

"Self-recrimination doesn't work like that," Sir Rickard told me as we dismounted to lead our horses down towards the village. We had decided to walk on the grounds that it would look less intimidating than if we rode. I still had my dagger in my belt and Sir Rickard wore his sword but the rest of our weapons were strapped to the sides of our horses in an effort to put people at their ease.

"I know," I told him, "And I will get there. It's just that right now, all I can think about is that I should have brought him up to the castle with us the day before yesterday. He would have been safe then."

"Would he?" Sir Rickard commented. "Look, your brother strikes me as a fine man despite the fact that he sometimes makes me uncomfortable but for the rest of them? I don't trust them, they all seem a little too...political to me."

"You make that sound like the ultimate insult."

"I'm a soldier. It _is_ the ultimate insult. Think about it though. What do you know about these other churchmen that turned up. Two Inquisitors that are _bound_ to have a different view on heresy than Danzig or Gardan would have. Trent seems like a decent fellow but you also have to be ruthless to be as good a diplomat as he is, given that he is balancing those other two egos and as for Danzig..."

He sucked his teeth for a moment.

"He's a militant warrior priest from a militant church full of militant warrior priests. To rise in that kind of environment you have to show that you're just as ruthless and militant as the next guy. Sure he seems like a nice guy but how much of that is a practised mask that he's hiding behind knowing that he would have to work with members of another religion.

"You have a suspicious mind." I told him.

"True, but I could tell you stories about the number of times that being a suspicious bastard has saved the lives of me and my men." He hawked and spat by the side of the road. "Where the hell is everyone?"

He was right. The sound of the smith's hammer had stopped as we had begun our journey from the tree-line into the village.

"Must have been your face Taylor," joked Pendleton. "Scared 'em off."

The older Taylor cuffed the younger soldier round the ear with a grin.

"Hiding." I said. "They saw us coming and are scurrying for cover."

"Why though?"

"Wouldn't you? A village that's lived in fear for it's entire existence who know that they worship a pagan God, they hear there's a new Lord in the area who's brought a load of churchmen with him. I would hide as well. I should have thought this through a bit better really."

Sir Rickard looked at me in surprise.

"Personally," he said after a moment, going back to scanning the surrounding area. "I would be sharpening my knives or stringing my longbow. Then I could kill the stupid fucker that comes towards my village and threatens me and mine."

"That would certainly bring some consequences."

"Yes, but at the time and the place, thinking in those kind of long term stakes is a luxury that I don't really have."

We walked into the centre of the little village. More the area where a couple of tracks came together to form a small triangle with a well off to one side. There was a large pole standing in the middle of it so that I could easily believe that this was a place where ribbons could be tied on before the pole would be danced around.

The village looked deserted now. We hadn't heard a signal but one must have been given. I fought an overwhelming urge to march up to a house and kick in the door and shout "BOO!" in the faces of some surprised village.

I mean really, did they honestly thing that we would all just turn around and walk away now that it seemed as though no-one was there?

I could smell bread baking.

We walked through the village to the well, leaving Pendleton and Perkins to look after the horses before drawing a bucket of water and taking a drink.

"Ok, so what now?"

Rickard looked at me before shrugging. "I dunno, tell me to sack it, attack it or defend it. That I know how to do. This bit's on you." 

"Thanks for that."

"You are quite welcome."

I sighed and took a breath. "Hello?" I called to the village in my best "oratory" voice, support the diaphragm, take a deep breath and... "I know that people are there. We're not here to loot, or steal or anything. We want to talk."

No response.

"My name is Frederick von Coulthard of Redania and with me is Sir Rickard of Temeria. I promise that he's not a demon or anything. The other men with him are his soldiers. But I promise, I promise that they won't steal anything or kill anyone."

Perkins sniggered and got a cuff round the ear for his trouble.

Movement out of the corner of my eye. I shifted slowly so as not to frighten, whatever it was off. "I just want to talk. I have news of the new Lord Ka..." I realised that the name "Kalayn" might not be the best received mid speech, "...the new lord up at the castle. He's my big brother and a good man."

The movement was a small girl of about eight, she had long wild hair, skinny but not painfully so. She had a jagged scar down the side of her cheek and the huge eyes of the very small. She wore a formless dress that looked as though it was made out of cheap wool and was clutching a doll made from straw.

I held my hands out from my side in what I hoped was a decent equivalent of "I'm not going to hurt you" and walked towards her slowly.

"Hello." I attempted. Talking to children is not a skill that I've managed to acquire from my association with Kerrass. I know all the tricks, I know about lowering myself to their eye-level and to not talk to down to them. I know about not being condescending and things but somehow I always seem to upset children and make them angry. I have a sneaking suspicion that this is because they can smell fear.

"Are you a demon?" She asked me.

She did this thing as she spoke. I've seen it before but I've never heard it talked about in any other place. She was holding her dolly in front of her and she was twisting her body on the spot from left to right. Feet and head not moving as she stared at me unblinkingly, body always moving, twisting side to side.

"Nope," I responded beckoning Taylor over and gesturing for him to turn around. "See," I said, "Not a tail or pair of horns between us." Taylor smiled his best and most charming smile and bent down so that the little girl could examine the top of his head gravely.

"Is your mother home?" I asked when I assumed that she had taken enough time to be able to properly examine the soldier.

"Yes," Part of the problem I have in this situation is that she seemed so serious but I can never tell if they are teasing me or having a laugh at my expense. There's always that suspicion though, deep down, where I suspect that the child is laughing at me.

Probably tells you more than you need to know about my childhood.

"Can I speak to her?"

"No," and she shut the door. I could hear people talking inside in the way that people do when they want to express how angry they are while also making as little noise as possible.

I sighed and moved away, raising my voice again as I tried a different tactic.

"Does anyone know the priest from the chapel a little way to the East? He told me that he had friends here."

"Aye, we know him." Came a voice, from the end of the village. A man stood there and walked into the open area between houses. "Good man that priest." His hair was long and shaggy, along with a beard that was unkempt. He didn't look especially dirty as some villagers sometimes do, it was more that he looked as though he was a man that worked hard and was beaten down by too much hard work and the requirement to make hard decisions that affected those people around him. He wore a pair of leather trousers and boots that looked well, if simply, made as well as a long tunic that was belted in at the waist by a broad, brown leather belt. He had a woodsman's hatchet that swung from a loop at his waist. As Kerrass had trained me I examined him for details.

His clothes were simple, roughly made but they were built to last. Un-dyed they looked simple. The hatchet looked well used and the way it was carried on the belt suggested that he could get to if quickly and easily. I put him as the kind of man who _could_ fight and _would_ fight if it meant that he had to save someone weaker than himself but that he would rather hide from confrontation. He was a man that faced his responsibilities keenly and felt them pressing down on him.

"Yes, Father Gardan asked me to talk to a man called Edward?"

"That's me." I saw him relax a little as he visibly decided that I wasn't lying. He didn't trust me yet but at the same time, he was prepared to listen.

"I have bad news," I told him. "Can we go off somewhere private and talk?"

"You're asking me?"

"Why wouldn't I?"

He scratched his chin as he took some steps towards us.

"Begging your Lordship's pardon but...normally...uh..."

I thought over what I had said and felt a small realisation strike me.

"I'm not that kind of man." I told him. "This is your home, not mine. If you really want me to leave, I will after I've delivered my news. I also have some questions that I would like answering if at all possible and then we'll go."

"Who's we?" He asked, still not ready to let go of his suspicions. "Just the seven of you or those other men in the woods?"

I pegged him then. The man was cleverer than most and that was why he was in charge. He thought a bit beyond where the next meal was coming from or what to do about things. Where the fences and the walls needed to be built and trees planted.

It is always a mistake, _always_ a mistake to assume that, just because someone hasn't been educated, that they are stupid.

"Those men mean no harm." I said. "We didn't want all of us to come down and startle you any more than I knew you would already be startled.

He finally allowed a small smile to creep across his bearded face. "We know our little chunk of woodland mi'lord." He told me, "Anything changes in it and we know immediately."

"I bet." I wanted to tell him that he didn't need to call me "mi'lord" but I knew, also from experience, that this would never happen.

The man considered me some more. "So there's a new Lord Kalayn is there?"

"You mean you didn't know?"

"There's always rumour. Always. But, begging your pardon m'lord, if the rumours were always true and wishes were magic then the village would be a lot better fed."

"Well, hopefully, my brother will be able to help with that. Our family owns some good land from the south and we can show you some modern farming methods that will help you grow more and more reliably too."

I could see it warring in his face. On the one hand, he was curious and excited by the prospect of being able to raise more food but he was also resistant and distrusting of change.

"You'd better come inside then." He said, wearily. "We might not be able to provide as good a welcome as we would like but we can still give you something to eat."

I nodded and moved where he was gesturing. Sir Rickard came with me.

"If I may?" He asked, he'd let some of the newer "rank" fall out of his voice and let his thicker accent shine through. "Where I come from, guests bring something to help with the meal. We can't offer much but..."

"We won't take charity." The man snapped.

"Not charity." Rickard responded. "It's just one of my people's things."

Edward considered this. "Where you from?"

"Temeria." Rickard responded quickly.

"You're a long way from home then."

"I am. And I miss it sometimes. But for now I work with Lord Frederick here, he's a good man."

Edward nodded.

"Can I bring the rest of my men in?"

Edward thought again. "They won't...They won't..."

"No, My Sergeant'll keep them in line."

Edward thought about this a bit more before nodding. Rickard took the horn from his belt and blew the signal that I recognised as "Close up."

"I'll wait here." He told me.

I nodded and followed Edward into the larger building that seemed to double as a meeting hall for the village where things got decided.

It was not a large building. A small pit for a fire in the middle of the floor with a metal frame over the top of it to hang a cauldron from. For the uninitiated, this is called "The communal pot." How it works is that there is always some form of stew bubbling away in the pot attended by the older parts of the village community who stand nearby to make sure that the flames don't get out of control and to make sure that the stew itself doesn't boil dry. Periodically they will call and a new load of vegetables, salt and occasionally meat will go into the pot and be stirred for a bit until the old person attending it decides that the stuff is fit for human consumption again and allows people to go to it.

There is always a small pile of wooden bowls that you sup from directly and you are expected to clean up after yourself before returning the bowls to the stack.

It always, _always_ smells better than it tastes but sometimes, the village has nothing else to go on and it's a good way, especially during winter, for a village to make sure that everyone has a hot meal inside them even if, what it mostly is, is soup.

You can tell a lot about a village from the state of the common pot. In poorer villages, you can find old shoes and bits of belt as well as weeds and leaves and things. The more meat there is in there, the richer the villagers and if a village is particularly swanky then you might get a loaf of bread to go with your stew.

This place seemed to be a middle of the ground kind of village. There was no bread offered but there weren't any major roads for tax-collectors and things so I suspected that the village had a separate store space to hide from the noble Lords Kalayn and their inspections.

We needn't worry though, Edward was seen talking to the older woman who later turned out to be his mother and she nodded appreciatively. This was aided by the fact that Perkins and Pendleton came into the building after a few minutes laden down with what looked to be a substantial amount of the units day rations.

The older woman rose to the occasion and called for some assistants who were set to cutting up the bread, cheese, meat and vegetables that the lads had brought with them. They were still living off the land so the stuff they brought in was mostly the results from the hunting that the Bastards had managed to do in the meantime.

Edward and I settled down to one side.

"So," He began, taking a pair of cups from a nearby shelf and sneaking a bottle out from under the watchful eyes of his mother. Thus proving that it doesn't matter how old you get, you still live in fear of your mother. He gave me a cup and poured a small measure from the bottle into both cups. "What news do you have for me?"

I sniffed at the cup cautiously. Another game that villagers sometimes like to play is to see what kind of eye-wateringly strong alcohol they can get the visiting noble to drink. My tolerance is a LOT higher than it used to be but even so, I resolved to not drink that much.

"It's made from apples." He told me, "well, mostly apples." He hid a smile behind his own cup.

"I take it that you're supposed to sip it?"

"Take it slow, yes." 

I took a sip. Not the strongest village hooch that I've come across but it was still potent. I saw myself visibly achieve some extra status in the village man's eyes when I drank without wincing and did NOT cough.

"Nice," I told him. "A friend of mine up at the castle would appreciate this. Can I buy a bottle or three?"

"Not your brother?" he asked.

I laughed at the thought.

"He would be mortally offended if he heard me say this but My brother Samuel, the new Lord Kalayn as is," I was very good, I only put a _slight_ emphasis on the word "new," "would like to think that he is a rough and ready man of action that drinks with his troops. However he's more of a wuss than he would like to think and this would make him choke."

"I will remember that."

"He likes beer." I told the Village headman. "So if you're looking to butter him up then that's a good start. This is probably a little too sweet for him."

"I will remember that too. Now, have we gossiped enough?"

I looked him in the eye. "I wasn't coming here today. I came down to see Father Gardan and to continue our conversation from a couple of days ago." I watched the man carefully. I didn't think he was involved in Gardan's death but it pays to be cautious and to never assume anything. "We found him hanging by his neck from the chapel tower."

I was further convinced that the villagers were as innocent as you can be given the circumstances. Edward winced in sympathy.

"Poor man, poor, poor man." He topped our cups up. "We tried to help him you know. We really tried, took him firewood and food and stuff. He set traps and things around the church but you have to move the traps occasionally other wise the wildlife realise what's going on and simply avoid the place. He couldn't go further than that though so we did our best but..."

He sighed and took another drink.

"We tried to get him to come and move into the village. Even told him we'd build him a little shrine to Kreve if that would help him but he refused. Poor man. Wouldn't leave his church you see."

He nodded to himself.

"Well thanks for telling me. It's a shame and I feel for the man but at the same time, I would be lying if I said that I hadn't seen this coming for a number of years. He was no longer a well man."

"Why do you say that?"

"Well, he hung himself didn't he?" 

"No," I said shaking my head. "No he didn't."

There was no way that Edward could have faked his reaction.

"But who could have...? Why would anyone...? He was just a harmless old man."

"I was hoping that you might be able to help me out with some of those answers." I told him. I wondered if it was lost on him that my drinking cup was in my left hand ready to throw the liquid into his face while my right hand had drifted towards my dagger. When Kerrass had taught me this trick I had wondered if that was why, when we hold cutlery we hold our knives in our right hands, traditionally the weapon hand, and our forks in our off hands. He laughed and told me that no, that was ridiculous but he did insist that I learn how to drink with my left hand until it was a habit. So many tricks to learn how to keep my weapon hand free.

That was the dangerous question. And it's the most... risky proposition. Sooner or later you have to ask someone a question which tells them, implicitly, that you suspect that they might have had something to do with the crime. That moment is often the crux of an investigation. The moment when you confront the person with the suspicion that they have summoned a spirit or cursed someone or otherwise caused events to happen in a way that would lead to... death. You build up these moments in your mind, making them larger than they actually are until you get to the point where it becomes this kind of pressure, you feel it behind your eyes wanting to surge out of you. You can almost taste it the questions on your tongue but your carefully constructed line of questioning becomes clumsy and ungainly when you actually come to speak it aloud to the person that you are talking to.

As an example for those people that don't have to accuse people of crimes or investigate hauntings or interview subjects. Imagine that feeling that you had when you were just beginning to realise that you had a crush on another person and you wanted to ask them out for a drink or to see a play or something. You know, the first time that you started doing this in that period before you get used to the probability that the other person will, at best, turn you down or, at worst, not know who you are.

That feeling... Not the one about talking to a stranger at a bar or asking a stranger for a drink. Your crush. Your childhood or teenaged crush. You go away and you think about how you are going to set about setting up some kind of situation where you can help them out and ask for them to come for a walk with you. You think of all the things that you can say and all the things that you can do. You probably sound quite witty in your head along with being charming and debonair and things but when it actually comes down to it and you're standing in front of the, to you, most beautiful and wonderful person in the world and suddenly, the words come out in the wrong order.

That's what it's like.

Edward looked appalled, his mouth working in silence. "You don't think...You can't think...I swear we didn't..."

I held my hand up to stop his flow of words. "If I did, I don't now. No, it doesn't make sense. You've lived with him for many years now I understand and despite his world view, he lived with you in peace." I did see that Edward shot me a sidelong glance as I said that. "So instead, the question would no longer be about...why would you kill him but why haven't you killed him before now?"

I sighed and pointedly took a drink. I was still watching him carefully out of the corner of my eye in case he decided to just kill me on the grounds that one fewer noblemen is a positive step into the new world, but I flattered him that he was a lot cleverer than that. He was the kind of man that would weigh the consequences of his actions.

"Before I do ask any more questions though." I put in. "I think it's important to say that although my brother is in charge up at the castle and it's the people that used to live up in the castle that are being investigated for heresy. There are two Inquisitors up there along with another Knight Father of Kreve who is seeing to Father Gardan's body as we speak."

Edward nodded. "I need to...I have to..."

"Take care of a couple of things?"

He nodded.

"Ok," I told him. "As I say though, I bear you no ill will. I'm trying to solve a puzzle and I don't have all the pieces yet. Father Gardan told me that you could provide more answers or, at least, help me make the questions a little easier. Please don't make a liar out of him."

He looked me in the eyes and I, again, got the feeling that I was being weighed and measured.

"I won't. I will come back. I just need to..."

"Take care of a couple of things." I finished for him. "Don't worry. I will be here."

He fled.

I offered my services to the old woman preparing the food, boasting that I was a dab hand with a peeling blade. She took my jest the way it was meant and I bent to chopping onions and bits of turnip. It seemed that I wasn't trusted with any of the fresh meat that the The Bastards had managed to procure through fair means or foul.

Edward came back after about an hour but still with enough time that the old woman in charge of the pot was fending off enquiring minds with the aid of a large wooden spoon in the same way that a soldier would defend the breach in the city walls. He did seem a little calmer though so I thought that that was a good sign. He sat back down, picked up his cup, drained the contents before pouring himself another. I declined a top up. I had a feeling that I would need to be thinking with the entirety of my head rather than just one, small, alcohol soaked portion.

"Ask your questions." He told me after another long drink. Like so many people from his walk of life, his capacity for his villages own alcohol was frightening but at the same time, lacking in the wine front, they need something to drink to purify the drinking water so it's a very real possibility that this village had been drinking their alcohol made from apples since they were being weaned off their mothers milk.

"But I have so many," I protested. I got the laugh that I was looking for and decided that Edward had visibly relaxed.

"Right," I began, "let's start with who could have killed Father Gardan and why." I started. "He was telling us about the local scourge called "The Hounds of Kreve," now..." I was still watching Edward carefully.

Although I had decided that he wasn't just going to try and kill me out of hand, he still didn't trust me so there was nothing to stop him from obscuring the truth. Edward smiled sadly, almost resignedly when I mentioned the Hounds. "... this is not my first time trying to figure out who murdered someone." I went on. "So one of the major possibilities here is that he had more information at his disposal and, given time, he would have told me everything."

Edward nodded, listening carefully. Once again I reminded myself that this man was not stupid. Probably just uneducated. His lack of vocabulary was not a sign of his lack of understanding.

"The things that he was talking about where you and yours." I pointed at him. "The Hounds of Kreve, or the heresy that the dead lord Kalayn used to practice."

Edward nodded again.

"I have to work on the possibility that whoever killed him was preventing me from learning more. Therefore the killer needs to be someone who knew that I had visited, knew that I was going to go back and talk to Father Gardan again. But one of the main things that I'm lacking about this entire situation is context. I don't mean to insult you but do you know what I mean by that?"

I genuinely wasn't trying to insult him. What I was trying to do was to get into the habit of talking to me. Into the habit of answering my questions as once you've started doing those kinds of things, it's a lot more difficult to stop.

"Not really." He answered.

"What it means is that this area of the world seems to operate on a series of rules and laws that I simply don't understand. For example. I know that my cousins, the former Lords Kalayn were unspeakable shits that I wouldn't piss on if they were on fire and I passed them in the road."

Another slight smile.

"I know this. I also know that they were heretics and that they followed a very specific religion that any decent person would frown upon..."

Here comes another one of those moments that I was speaking about earlier. "I only spoke to one of those heretics, my direct cousin as it happened and he described the heresy as worshipping something called Crom Cruarch."

As I expected, Edward's mouth twisted in distaste. Good, I was beginning to get a grip on how this man worked now.

"Since speaking to him I have learned a bit more about Crom Cruarch and have learned quite a bit about his worship that goes against the heresy that I witnessed being practised by my cousin."

As I watched, Edward subsided a little, it was as though all of his muscles relaxed at once.

"Indeed," I went on. "Father Gardan himself, someone who reacted violently to what had happened up at the castle," a small lie on my part, "said that the worship of Crom Cruarch was nothing to do with what we had found and, indeed, what we are still finding up at the castle. He called the worship of Crom Cruarch, and I quote, "a relatively harmless little heresy"."

Edward's mouth jerked towards a smile which he had to hide in his cup of alcohol.

"So, there are two things. On the one hand, we have a noble family that have abused this area, their populace and each other to the point of destruction and it still remains to be seen whether the area can be saved in this generation. So far, all of this confirms the thought that the nobles had..." I reached for the right word, "adopted the local religion, or heresy if you prefer, of Crom worship with their own sick rites given that they came here, did their established rites and saw results. They thought they were accessing a local power, found out that the local power was called Crom Cruarch and assumed that that was what it was.

"So far so good. Sam has every intention of sorting out the problems up at the castle and helping out with the agriculture in the area before gently bringing in some Melitele worship and a few, more liberal priests of the Eternal Fire."

I leant towards him as though I was including him in some kind of secret, "Again, I should mention that my brother and I come from a family of followers of the Eternal Flame." I leant back. If the village did have a history of distrust towards Kreve then I wanted to paint Sam and I as being a little more fluffy and relaxed.

"So that was the plan. But that doesn't reflect what we find. It's as though there is a weight on the countryside. It's a beautiful place that you have here. I don't know much about farming but as I've seen plenty of wild creatures as well as your small herds, I can't think of any reason why the land can't produce food. The Lords who must have inflicted a lot of the pain and misery that might contribute to the kind of weight that I'm talking about but surely that should have lifted since the Lord's Kalayn died nearly a year ago now. Yes, I suppose people could be thinking that the new Lord will be worse but there is, at least, the possibility of positive change. But over and over again I am told that this area is cursed and that I should just ride away and I couldn't figure out why."

"Then I meet Father Gardan and he tells me something that I did not expect. He tells me about the Hounds of Kreve, both as though this explained everything and also as though this was the answer to all my questions. He himself admits that he knows little about the Hounds and that he questions his own perception of them given his illnesses."

I turned back to him as though I had been thinking aloud and all but ignoring him. I had actually been watching him closely though, drawing him into my thinking patterns.

"So that's the context of the area. I don't know about the things that you take for granted and I don't know why you think or behave the way that you do. I need to know that if I'm going to unravel this problem. I should also say that if you are afflicted by supernatural problems then, as well as Inquisitors and priests, there is also a Witcher up at the castle who is a good friend of mine." It is often amazing how much even isolated settlements, like this one, still know of Witchers.

I took care to stare straight into his eyes. "We can help you." I told him. "But I need to know more."

He took another deep breath.

"What do you want to know about?" he asked finally, just after I had begun to believe that he was holding his breath until he suffocated to spite me.

"What can you tell me about the stuff that happened up at Kalayn castle?"

"Their heresies?"

I nodded.

"I don't know. They had little to do with us all if I'm honest, as though they didn't really care. They would come round to us and demand their taxes. They would always express disbelief that we didn't ave any more physical money when we tried to pay in skins, metalwork and grain and the like. We don't have money, what would we spend it on?"

He sniffed. I sensed the disdain of a working man for those who clearly don't know that they're born.

"They get cross at our...what was the word they used?...Insolence, that was it. They search the village a bit but when they fail to find anything of value, they take the taxes that we offer along with a load of food that we _didn't_ offer and ride away, telling each other how clever they are."

He snorted again.

"If I'm honest, I couldn't tell you what Lord Kalayn looked like. For all I know, you could be Lord Kalayn come down here to play a big prank on us."

"That's a horrible thought." I said with a smirk.

He grinned at me.

"Nah," he said after a while. "Gardan would know the difference and he wouldn't have sent you on if he didn't believe you. Also, I can't see any of Lord Kalayn's men giving us some rabbits for the pot."

I nodded. "So what they did up there was nothing to do with Crom Cruarch."

"What did they do up there?"

I told him about the cannibalism, ritualistic sexual assaults.

"No, That's nothing to do with the Crooked Man of the mound."

"So, that's the next question? You and your village worship and old deity called Crom Cruarch?"

"Not just us, but most of the villages in this part of the world do." He sniffed again. "At least, the ones that we occasionally hear from and do some trading with. There's a village further north that has some good clay in the ground that they've been making tiles out of and they occasionally trade us some in return for some grain and apples. They have a form of the worship of Crom although it's kind of different to ours. Not by much but they celebrate on a different day. Not that it makes that much difference. They tell us that there are similar villages to theirs that follow the same rites further north and that they have even more contact.

"It's not a small thing. It is not a cult that can easily be snuffed out. Even if your Inquisition comes here and starts burning people, Crom will prevail."

"Not that I think you are wrong, but why do you think that?"

"I know that."

"Ok, buy why? What is it about Crom that gives you that security?

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I'm not saying that the church, either of the churches that traditionally like to go into the woods and hunt down worshippers of, so-called, evil pagan Gods _will_ come here and start hunting folk down. Mostly because they have bigger problems to think about. They are too busy fighting for their own survival against the South, Magic and all the people that are remembering how much they didn't enjoy being persecuted. But you said, "Even if" my Inquisition came here, that your God would prevail. How do you know that? Why do you know that?"

"It's...hard to..." He reached for the words.

"I don't need to understand." I told him. "Just tell me _your_ reasons."

He thought about it for a moment or two, taking the time to have another drink. "Crom is not a thing that we have to believe in. He is not like Kreve where you see him in the lightening and hear him in the thunder. Crom is in the earth. He is in the trees and the leaves and the flowers. He runs with the animals and stands the watch with the shepherds. He helps us in the harvest and he works with us in the barns and the workshops. The smiths feel his strength in their arms and the farmers feel his company when they plant their crops. Woodcutters feel him guiding them to the right trees and the herbwomen look for their herbs where he points."

It is not your imagination if you think that this discourse became more lyrical and poetic. I got the impression that he was saying words that he had learnt as a child or as a young man. The kind of phrases that you swear by and get spoken at your wedding.

"Tell me about him." I prompted.

"How does a man tell another about a God? How do you explain colour to a blind man?" The first hints of dismissiveness came into his face and voice. I have seen it before in the faces of people that I speak to. They look at me and see a privileged son of the nobility pursuing a hobby rather than an equal. The first hints of scorn, superiority and pity. I've seen it on soldiers who think that no-one can truly understand what it's like to be a soldier unless they've fought alongside them and gone through the same struggles that they have.

In that example, the heavy cavalry disdain the footmen and vice versa. You can't be a footman until you've stood in the spear or shield wall and you can't be a cavalry man unless you've been part of a battlefield charge.

What was happening here was that I was an interloper, invading his space and asking about his things. He was still a little afraid of me but I was trying to probe into his way of thinking. The other problem was that, as I say, he was a clever man but he lacked the education. I guessed that he was struggling to think of the words that he needed in order to get his points across. The danger in this kind of thing is that if a person starts to feel this kind of anger and resentment,they can just dismiss you and shut you down. I find that you need to bring them out of it as soon as possible. You need to be on their level or show them that you know what you're talking about.

"Explaining colour to a blind man?" I asked. "You say that Yellow is like the sun on your face, Red is the heat of the forge, Green is the sound of wind in the leaves and blue is the feel of cool water over your skin on a hot day."

I saw my point drive itself home but I also needed to bring him back on side. Alienating him was dangerous.

"Tell me what you know?" I asked carefully. "How did this worship start?"

It was a long time before he spoke again. I began to be afraid that I had driven him away and he was staring off into space when, almost as though someone else was speaking through him, he started to speak again.

"Crom has always been here. I don't know whether we brought him with us when we first came to these parts or whether he was already here. Some ancient kind of elven, dwarven or halfling spirit that took up residence here and stayed when the others moved on. Ancient he is. Old and terrible but with his age he learns new things. He watches us and supports us through all things.

"We call him the crooked man, the man on the mound although I don't know why. They say that he hovers, just out of sight in the corner of your eyes as you walk through the path of life. You can only see him in those times when you are at your most tired because that's when he comes through as you need more of his help. Then, if you look carefully, for he is difficult to see, you will find him watching you. Waiting for you to do the next task of the day.

"That's his thing you see. He is a God of work, A God of toil in the fields. He won't do the tasks for you but at the same time, he will help you if you set to with a proper mind and a hand turned towards the work. A farmer will find his fields planted that much quicker, a woodcutter will find his axe cutting that much deeper and the tree falling sooner. But cross him...Ah, then he will become angry.

"The tree will be rotten, the harvest will fail, the plants will die and there won't be enough to eat for the winter.

"You must keep him in your mind. All the time as you work. As you seek to provide for your people. Keep him remembered and he will help you in your tasks."

"How do you worship him?"

"We go to our sacred places. Every village, every community has one."

We were interrupted by a couple of the older women handing out the bowls of the stew. It was delicious. Yes, there were herbs in there that I didn't recognise, along with vegetables and other things but there were several sizeable chunks of meat as well as a large hunk of bread which was reassuringly solid in my hand. During the meal, Edward refused to carry on the conversation. He asked some questions about me and where I came from, things about my recent history and what I was doing.

We made small talk mostly. I met his wife. A pleasant enough woman with her hair wrapped up in a red scarf. Obviously a symbol of prominence within the village as most of the other woken wore their hair in braids or with more drab colourings to the cloth covering their hair. There was a nasty looking scar across her eye.

I suspected that I was being diverted but it rather seemed as though there was some kind of local thing about discussing business when you eat as the take was taken up immediately after the meal was finished.

"As I say, every village has their sacred place." he said after the bowls had been cleared away. My bowl because I was a guest and his bowl because he was the head man and talking to a guest.

"We have a cave." He told me. "You go through one of the houses that are up against the wall." he gestured in the direction of the small stone cliff that the village nestled against. "There's a tunnel in there that leads you down a set of steps, deep into the depths of the earth. We've got a rope that you can hold on to now and there are torches on the wall. But as you go down there you come to a flat space in a cavern. It's huge under there, huge pillars of stone that come from the ceiling and rise up from the floor to meet it.

"There is a lake there and off, into the middle of the lake there is a small rock island. My Great Grand uncle once built a small raft and rowed out to the island to see if that's where the God lives."

"Did he find the God?"

Edward laughed and I was pleased to see that he was able to laugh at himself as well.

"He would never say apparently. But isn't that the way of these things?" He chuckled again. "The truth is, though, that you would know it was holy even without those little stories. There is a feeling about the place, a sense of of...holiness. I don't know how to describe it."

He shrugged.

"There is an alter there. You asked how we worship?"

I nodded.

"There is an altar there," he repeated. "The oldest and hardest wood that I have ever seen. Definitely not stone because you can feel the grain in the wood, but it is so old, it is black. Even despite the damp from the lake, it has never rotted away and is slightly warm to the touch.

"Once every lunar cycle we go down there, light a big fire and have a little party. We take down the first products of the months work and lay them on the alter. If if It's lambing season we put a lamb on the alter, during the reaping we put bushels of corn up there. The offerings in autumn and during the harvest are often larger than they are elsewhere but even if all we've caught are some fish in the stream or some rabbits that have wandered into the snares. That is what we leave an the altar."

"You sacrifice the animals?"

"You mean kill them?"

I nodded.

"Oh yes. It is by the aid of Crom that these things are produced. If we are using the lambs for food then he gets a slaughtered lamb. If we intend to grow the sheep and use it for it's wool then we would wait and gift Crom with the wool from that years shearing season. We also offer hide, firewood, metal ingots and some of the products of the trade that we have with other villages as well when it is warranted. It is his fair share you see?"

"I think so, but explain it for me."

He made a face. As though he was being exasperated with my stupidity.

"Ok, think of it like this. We work to get the things out of the land that we need. We take the FRUITS from these things. He is part of that process so it's only fair that he gets some of the benefits as well. It's an offering but also, his just rewards."

"What happens then?"

"To what?"

"Well, both the offerings but also, then what? DO you pray, ask for things, have a party? What?"

"Oh, I see. We have a little party in tune with the moons success. If we have lots of things to offer Crom then we have a big dance and a piss up. If it's winter and all we're offering is a few nuts and some firewood then we go down there, make our offerings, have a toast to Crom and to the future before leaving."

"Do you do anything along with that? Funeral rites? Marriage rites, do children get presented to Crom or anything?"

"Marriage happens down there. We go down and offer our devotion, walk round the alter twice, once each and then once again, together, before the party starts. All of this happens in the new moon. Then, it's considered lucky to...uh...consummate the marriage on the alter."

"Isn't that a bit uncomfortable?"

He shrugged. "Are you married?"

"Not yet. Betrothed."

"Then let me say that by the time you get to that stage, it doesn't matter if you're on the softest bed or on the hardest stone floor. If the passion is there then you don't notice."

I considered some of my previous exploits. "I suppose that there's some truth to that."

"Anyway," he continued. "It all happens at the same time. When the moon finally goes dark. That night we all go down there, preform any marriage ceremonies, present the children, make the offerings, have a party or a toast which is where we also ask for our boons..."

"What do you mean, you ask for your boons?"

"Well, we all stand in a circle. The entire village other than pregnant women or any of those too old, sick or young to properly offer their service." He realised something "It's not that we think of the old as being lesser, or the sick for that matter but, this stuff can take it out of you. This is a situation of trade. We ask the God for something and we give him things in return. If you can't give anything then it seems impolite to make any requests for anything. In the case of those people then it is the duty of the parents to make requests and offerings on behalf of the children, husbands on behalf of the pregnant wives, the children and families of the old and the village as a whole to ask on behalf of the sick.

"But anyway, we stand in a circle and we pass around a large hunting horn of our strongest apple mead. Similar to what you are drinking yourself only much more potent."

"More potent than this?" I was shocked.

"Oh yes. Don't ask me how it's made as the women take care of it. They also...add things to it. Herbs and such like."

"What kind of herbs?" 

He grinned.

"Let's just say that a lot of children are conceived on the night of these things. Especially during the spring and autumn festivals when people have more energy."

I answered his grin with one of my own. "So you pass around this horn."

"Yes. Then we each pour a bit of the apple mead on the floor before drinking a bit for ourselves. We say what we are thankful for over the last month which is anything from the birth of a child to the continued survival or a venerable old person, to the new and bountiful harvest that has been brought in. Then you make a request, something that you hope that the God will help you with."

"Not for something that the God will do for you."

"No, never that. But something that you hope for his help with. Bringing in a harvest, building a house, producing plenty of milk, that kind of thing."

"Conceiving a child?"

"That too. It can be a private thing that you whisper quietly or a loud thing that you speak for everyone to hear. For instance, When I asked for help with asking my wife to marry me..." He smiled at a private memory.

"I imagine that the party can get started after that."

"Pretty much."

"What happens to the offerings?"

"What?"

"The offerings that you leave on the altar. What happens to them?"

"The God takes them."

"I see." I took a deep breath and looked at the ceiling for some inspiration. "I'm going to ask a question that might be a bit offensive now." I told him. "I don't want to upset you or make you angry, I just want to understand."

He nodded, looking wary.

"What happens to the offerings?" I said. "I know that the God takes them," I said quickly as I saw him stiffen, "but how does that happen? Does a physical manifestation of the God turn up and take them or does some priest or priestess turn up and take them off somewhere."

"I see." He said, smiling to show his understanding. "In truth I don't know. Again, this is something that differs from village to village. All I know is that the stuff is still down there when I leave the cave last thing at night and it's gone when I go back. It should be said though that it is not a man's job to look after such things. The women maintain the torches and the fires that are down there so they might do something with it.

"The only people that spend the night in the cave are those couples who consummate their wedding night down there and...when I consummated mine, the offerings were still there when my wife and I left in the morning." He smiled at the memory again. "Although I will admit that I wasn't really paying attention to them at the time."

"Is it the same for all the people that follow Crom?"

"No, some villages burn their offerings. Some cast their offerings into pits or into lakes and ponds and things. The method of offering isn't important. It just needs to happen in places that are important to the God."

"How do you tell whether a place is important to Crom?"

"There are carvings if you know where to look. Mostly, they happen on stones or on the trunks of old, ancient and gnarled trees."

"Can you tell me what the carvings look like?"

He thought about this for a moment before shrugging. "I can't see the harm." He took a piece of charcoal from the fire and drew on the stone.

"The carvings look like a hill." He said as he drew, "A very simple hill, surrounded by trees and mist."

He drew a hill with wavy lines on either side which, presumably signified mist before drawing some stylised trees on either side of the hill.

"After that, the design varies. One of the names of Crom is "The man of the mound." Sometimes "The man _on_ the mound" and the carvings reflect this. Sometimes there is a stick figure of a man on top of the hill, sometimes as part of the hill itself or alongside the hill."

He pointed to different places on his rough design. "But the hill, the mist and the trees are always the same. Apparently so anyway."

He scuffed the drawing away with his foot.

"Would you let me down into the cave?"

He smirked. "No. No, the only time any of us go down into the caves are for these little parties and even then, I don't have that kind of power. But before you ask, it's the women of the village, led by my wife as she managed to marry the headman of the village so she's Crom's high priestess if you like."

I looked over to the woman who was marshalling her troops towards clearing up after the communal meal. As I say, she wore a homespun dress and a red headscarf.

"She doesn't look like any kind of priestess that I've ever seen."

"Well, that's part of the God isn't it. In our neck of the woods, the priests and priestesses work for their living. In working the fields, the land and the trades, they worship Crom."

"Would _she_ tell me more?"

"Not a chance,"

"Why not?"

He looked at me as though I was suffering from some kind of disease that spread stupidity as a symptom. "Because you're a man." he said after a while. As though it should be obvious.

"Makes sense."

We sat in silence for a while after that. "I have another question for you." I told him. "Another question that might give offence but I need to ask it."

"This is going to be about the human sacrifices isn't it." It wasn't a question. He said it with a sigh.

"Yes."

"I thought so. Father Gardan asked the same question when he first came here." He offered me a top up from the clay bottle at his feet. I declined, I could just begin to feel the fuzziness at the edge of my brain that suggested that I was beginning to be affected by the alcohol and I didn't fancy the ride back to the castle while my vision was trying to rebel against me.

"Here it is. I'll tell you it, the same way as I told it to him. Life was hard when we first came here. Really hard. I can't tell you much because I don't know that much but the women folk tell us that life was hard when we came here. How did we survive?"

He shrugged expressively. "Crom saved us. As I say, we don't know if we brought him with us or if he was already here when we came. The things that we asked of Crom were vast, far reaching and were not...they were not small. So the things that he asked for us in return were also...not small. The more we give him, the more we get in return. We gave him blood and he repaid in kind. We gave him the lives of children and he repaid us with more births.

"But the most important, the most powerful thing that we could give him was the lives of our first born."

He sighed and I thought I could hear some sadness and a little grief in the depths of the man's voice. "It is not something that we're proud of. It was certainly never done in my time or my Father's time. My Grandfather used to tell a story where they sacrificed a criminal to Crom at one point, only to be answered with storms. He claimed they were still sacrificing the children in _his_ Grandfather's day. But eventually that kind of thing just...stopped. According to our traditions, it seemed that Crom started to object to the sacrifice of children and I suppose that that would follow.

"We were taking the easy way out rather than being prepared to _work_ for it. "Just sacrifice a first-born son and the harvests'll be fine." we told each other but that stopped working. Crom became angry with us and gradually, the practice just died out. I don't know if that's true or not. Certainly we don't do it and as far as I know, the other local villages don't do it either."

I nodded. Saying that I was "pleased" is the wrong word for it. "Relieved" might be a bit better.

"I have more questions."

He laughed. "M'lord if I may be so bold?"

He waited for me to give him permission to be bold.

"I've known you for a couple of hours and I already know that you would keep asking me questions until one or other of us died of old age if I gave you the chance. As it is, I think one of your men is going to have to pull you away from this place by the hair to get you home tonight."

"It's possible." I admitted. "But not set in stone."

I sighed.

"So that's your religion?"

"Yes."

"That's not the problem that's affecting this part of the country is it?"

It took him a long time to answer so I kept going.

"This feeling of dread." I said. "The reason we keep being told to abandon this place. The way it seems to sit on our shoulders and I wake up after every night with a scream in my throat after having dreams so dark that they scare me. It's not because of Crom is it?"

"No," he admitted in a quiet voice.

"What is it?"

He didn't answer.

"Is it the hounds?"

He stood abruptly and I grabbed his wrist. "I can help you." I told him. But I need to know the answers to this if I'm going to do so. What are the hounds?"

There was a group of children playing some kind of game with a small ball of leather and some small bones over in the corner of the barn. Edward watched them for a moment.

"Let's talk outside." He said.

I followed him out of the door and along a little way. I also noticed, much to my amusement that Sir Rickard had assigned Perkins to keep an eye on the two of us and spotted him on one of the rooftops of the village where he was keeping a lookout. Edward led me to a place, just outside of the village and leaned against a fence on the edge of the village. There was an old stump of a tree nearby and I perched on the edge of it.

I waited for a long time for Edward to start speaking. His eyes were moving this way and that.

"Tell me," I prompted.

"It's because of them." He said at almost the same time. I smiled at the embarrassment of the situation.

Edward did not.

"It's all because of them." He said. "I don't know what they are, no-one does. No-one living anyway. They come in the early morning or last thing at night. When the mist comes and the sun turns the sky red. Then you can hear them riding this way and that in the darkness.

"They howl as they hunt." He told me. His eyes were terrified. They goggled out of his skull and there was real fear there.

"What are they?" I asked again. "Who are they?"

"I don't know." He said again. "I only know that when it comes to last thing at night, we leave a mixture of salt and sage outside the doors and along the window ledges and that that keeps them out."

"Why?"

"Crom's breath but I don't know." he snapped, throwing his hands up in the air. "I don't know." He said again. "But they are killing us. Every so often they catch one of us. Sometimes a farmer gets caught too far from home and safety when he's out watching his sheep. Sometimes a trader or a peddler that's travelling between villages. Sometimes people just disappear and we don't know anything about why or what's happening. Then we find them. Two days, a week later. In a place where we know that we've searched and we find them. They've been torn apart. Tortured. There are...bits of them missing as though they've been ripped apart by animals but we also find signs that they've been tied up. That whatever it is that's done that thing had some form of intelligence. But that's better than when we never find out what happened. Oh I don't know."

"So they keep you isolated." I said. "You can't travel for fear that the hounds come and take you away. You don't travel too far from home in case the hounds catch you."

"That's pretty much the size of it yes. We're a small village really but we're all closed in. They're killing us." There were tears in his eyes. "My son has just married and he came to me the other day, in tears because he wanted to know what to do. Both he and his new wife want children but they are terrified of bringing a new life into the land when _they_ might come for the child at any point. He was thinking of running for it. Taking his wife and just running for it. Run west, towards the road and safety. South, towards the river.

"But they won't make it. No-one ever does. These couples or families that try and go off. We find them, the children sometimes, sometimes the wife, in pieces. But we never find all of them. It's as though they're taunting us. That they know that we're here. That they know what we're planning on doing.

"So we take our precautions. We mark the children, we block the entrances with salt and we pray. We pray so hard."

"Why do you mark the children.?" I asked. "What do you mean by "marking them"?"

"They take the pretty ones," he said. "The pretty girls and boys. Children, teenagers and young women. For some reason, men are safer. Not safe, but safer. They take the girls so we mark them so that they look uglier."

"What happens if they don't get marked?"

He smirked. "My uncle tried it with his eldest daughter. She made it to the age of twelve before she was taken. She was a pretty girl my cousin, blonde hair, always smiling. Would have married her myself if she wasn't too close for that."

"You don't have a scar." I pointed out.

"Oh, I do. It's one of the things that all of the men in this part of the world do. We all have beards to hide the scar. We have it done down the cheeks or along the chin. I'm lucky in that my beard colour doesn't tell a watcher where it is."

I nodded. I felt the lack of Kerrass keenly. This was different to talking to Edward about his religion. There, he _wanted_ to talk. He was... not proud, proud is the wrong word, he was... passionate about his religion. He wasn't afraid of it. These things, these...hounds. He was afraid of them. Deathly afraid of them. Kerrass would know what questions to ask. He would know what to say or how to put the man at his ease. I was left with the impression that I was beginning to outstay my welcome. That he had already answered all the questions that he intended to answer.

Time to break it down. Time to ask for some specifics.

"So," I said. "They come in the early hours of the morning or last thing at night?"

"Yes."

"Is there a pattern to it?"

"Eh?"

"Once a week, twice a week, once a fortnight?"

"No, they come when they come. Sometimes months will go by before we see them. Then, just when we're beginning to believe that they're never coming back we hear their howls on the wind and we realise that it's not over. That it will never be over."

I nodded. Now was not the time to tell him that we were going to fix this for him. There was no way that he would believe me.

"When did they first start coming? When did they first start attacking?"

"They first came here, to this village in my grandfather's time, before I was born."

"Did they come here from elsewhere?"

"They started off further to the North, or so I've been told. Then they would only come once or twice a year but then they came more and more often. We started to believe that we were being punished for something. That this was Crom's punishment for lessening our devotion to him but no, Crom's displeasure comes in the form of storms, disease and failed crops. He wouldn't send this kind of plague against us."

"So they started in the North but they expanded south." I was talking to myself in an effort to remember the answers. I was confident that Kerrass would be furious with me if I forgot any details.

"As far as I know, that's right yes."

"Are they riders? Men? Creatures? Non-human?"

"They ride horses. But not like any kind of horse that I've ever seen before."

"In what way."

"They breathe fire."

In case you, dear reader, aren't sure. There is no such thing as a fire breathing horse.

"They breathe fire?" I checked.

"I know how it sounds but you haven't _seen_ them. You haven't seen the rippled in the air from the heat that spills out from their nostrils. You haven't had the awful stench of them in your nose. You haven't seen the green fire rippling across their skin as they move."

He let his head fall into his hands and let out a sob.

"My people depend on me to keep them safe," he moaned. "And these things come out of the mist to carry us off one by one. Every time, every fucking time we hope, we dare to hope that that was the last time and that maybe they will leave us alone after that. But every time they come back. Every time."

I waited for his anguish to spend itself out.

"We're going to fix this." I told him. "We are."

"How?" He demanded. His pain and the pressure that he had been under for so long turned into rage and I was an easy target. "Do you think it hasn't been tried. No-one comes here. No-one, and they are right not to come here. The only reason my family is still here is because they will catch us if we run."

I let him be angry with me, maybe it helped him.

It took him a while to calm down.

"I'm sorry," he said after a bit of time. "I'm not angry at you, I'm just so very tired."

"I know, I understand. I do, so don't be too hard on yourself. But I've got a Witcher, priests and soldiers who are just itching for something to hit."

"Do you not think it's been tried?" He asked. "My father stood up to them once. He was a hunter, he would take his spear out into the woods and use it to hunt boar. Strong as an ox my father was. Easily winning any village wrestling match that we ever had and he got together with a couple of his friends and my older brother who felt the same way. That something needed to be done and the next time the hounds came through, they went out to face them.

"They screamed horribly.

"In the morning my father lay in the middle of the road having had his right arm hacked off by something. He'd tied it off with his belt and was delirious with the pain. One of the friends was dead, trampled underneath the horses. The other had made it to the safety of his house. We never found out what happened to my brother. Never found out.

"We tried to keep father alive but at the end of things, his wound quickly turned bad and he died soon afterwards. He died badly, ranting about how the wolves were coming for him and that he could hear the howling of wolves."

He stared at me for a long time. "You can't fight them." He said. "You can't do it. There's no fighting things like that. How do you fight things that can't be killed."

"Who says that they can't be killed?"

"You can hear of hunters, good men, that have shot arrows at them. Traps have been laid. We are not cowards, we have fought back over the years, but not once, not once has anyone ever managed to hit one let alone kill one."

"Why?"

"They say it can't be done."

"What? Why?"

"Even the surest arrow goes astray. It's like the bodies of them ripple and the arrow passes straight through them. They know where the traps are and no weapon can pierce them."

"I see," and I did. That line of questioning was going nowhere.

What have I become. That I would listen to a man's anguish like this and pass comment on what he was saying.

"But what do they look like?" I tried, going for an alternative approach.

"I don't know," he was getting frustrated now. "What can I tell you? They have wolf skulls for heads. They wear long flowing clothes but they clink when they move as though there was metal underneath. Their breath doesn't steam in the cold. They don't talk to each other except in howls. Is that what you want to hear?"

He shook his head.

"All of us try it. All of us disbelieve the stories at one point or another and, dared by our friends, we stay up at night and peer through the shutters to try and see what's happening. It's not an official thing but for many of us it's the difference between being a child and being an adult."

He sighed in frustration again.

"Look, I'll try and explain what I saw. I can see it in your eyes. You don't believe me, you ridicule me, telling me that I'm imagining things and that it's all a mistake and that I can't possibly have seen the things that I have seen, but I have.

"I was fifteen when I finally plucked up the courage. I was late to it too, shamed into it by the fact that all of my friends had done this before I had ever managed it. My Father died when I was eight and so I had the fear for a long time but I was beginning to have people look at me funny and I didn't want to stand out from the crowd any longer.

"You never forget the first time you see one of the Hounds of Kreve. Never. I've talked to many of my friends and family about it and they agree with me. It's like they're _more_ real than the rest of the world. As though they stand out more and the rest of the world seems to fade away around them. As though they are the only things that you can look at, the only things that you _should_ be looking at.

"I'll never forget it.

"I was fifteen and it was autumn. Just when the leaves start to turn from green into yellow and then into red. As the pine needles start carpeting the floor and the air starts to become heavy. The sun sets to the west and the sky seems to burn with red, as though the sky itself hates to look down at the rest of the world. A mist formed, there is always mist when _they_ come. Always.

"When you get used to it, after a while you get to know when they're going to come, you know when there's going to be an attack. We knew that night as children were chased indoors and people shouted to get us to hurry up and leave what we were doing. But the truth is that we weren't doing much. Otherwise rebellious children drop their games and flee indoors.

"This time though, I had made my mind up to see what all the fuss was about. As I was told, I fled indoors. I still had not been betrothed to anyone so I still lived with my mother. She still needed my help with my younger sister and brother who hated us both with a passion. She because she was in danger of growing into a real beauty and had been marked across the face the year before and hated us both for it. My brother because he was young and didn't know where our father had gone and why people were laughing at him because of the lack of that extra parent. So they hated me for what little authority I was supposed to exercise over them and I hated them back for their hatred and because, for all my strength and power over them, I was still ruled by my mother.

"But I waited, I had a bag of salt that I would use to cover the window sill and prevent them from coming in. There was a knot-hole in the wood of our shutters and I sat there, my eye glued to the hole, as my mother sat in the room with the two younger children quaking with fear. To this day I don't know if she knew what I was up to or what I was doing. She must have gone through the same ordeal as I have but I never got up the chance to see it.

"The dogs sense them first. The sheep dogs and the couple of hunting hounds that we have in the village. They began to howl at first, barking at the doors to their enclosures and to tug at the ropes and chains that we use to tie them down in such times. They howl at these interlopers and we know that they're getting closer because then the howls, growls and barks start to change towards whimpers and whines.

"Then I saw them. They stood their horses on the cliff above the village. Eight of them standing their steeds on the edge of stone, surveying the village. Their horses, if that's what they are, paw at the ground and seem restless moving around and pulling at their harnesses. But truth be told, I wasn't looking at the horses.

"My gaze was held by the leader of them. He sat on his horse there, looking down at us and I swear, even all of these years later, that he was looking at me.

"They have wolf skulls for faces under the hoods of strange blue cloth. They look as though they wear these strange robes made out of strips of leather, the leather sewn and riveted together in strange ways. But then they extend themselves and you find out that they aren't robes at all. That they are wings.

"Their horses quieten as they stand there on the ridge, their wings extended and then, as if from nowhere, the wind picked up and pushed through them. Their robes and wings flapping in the wind which is when the smell hit me."

"The smell?" I asked wanting to check. He was telling his story well, without pause and I didn't really want to distract him. It had the feeling of a well rehearsed story as though he had told it many times before.

"What?" he seemed startled, "Yes, the smell. But that isn't the right word for it. This is like daggers of ice being jabbed up into your brain by means of your nose. It makes you vomit, makes your eyes water and your knees turn to jelly. The smell is the primary thing that lets you know when they've been through the area. When you know that they've passed by. On those times when you find their victims in the woods, torn limb from limb. It's the smell that tells you that it was the hounds rather than a relatively normal Endrega, Ghoul or Wyvern attack.

"But then they came into the village. The smell was getting to me but I was still determined to see as much as I could. I knew it for a lie, all the other times that my friends had told me about how they had stayed up all night to watch what the Hounds had got up to when everyone else was hiding in their homes. I knew that to be impossible as no-one, absolutely no-one could withstand that smell.

"But I fastened my eye to that knot hole and watched for as long as I could."

He groaned at the memory. "I wish I had looked away now."

He took a long drink and it occurred to me that by now, looking at his rate of consumption. There was a good chance that he was getting pretty drunk but his words were as collected and clear as they had ever been.

"I swear that two of them rode their horses off the cliff as though they flew down off the top of that cliff. I swear that was what happened. The others came in on either side of the village, sweeping round on both sides as though they were hemming us in and cutting off our escape. Not that we would ever try and run for it but that's what happened."

For those military people paying attention, that's a pincer movement with a thrust up the middle.

"They rode through, howling. They barked at each other and screamed. Occasionally I can hear words in their howling, sometimes it seems like laughter, I don't know but to hear it, freezes the blood.

"They had an elf with them. A woman.

"There are a few non-humans in the area. There's the herb-woman up at the castle, or she used to be. She's down at the dower-house now though isn't she?"

I nodded. I thought it odd that he hadn't connected the movement of the elf with the death of Lord Kalayn but then again...

"She comes down occasionally to sell medicines and some of the rarer herbs that don't grow in these parts. The women of the village know what they're doing but she know's all of that plus a bit more so they like to call her in when there's a particularly difficult birth and things."

"How often does she come here?"

"Once a week to ten days."

"And the other elves"

"They roam around a bit. We won't see them for a long time but then they'll come in. We were not the only people who lost during the war and not all Elves want to fight as part of the Scoia'tael. Some of them just want to hunt, and live amongst the trees, same as anyone really. Occasionally they come in wanting to trade for bread and things. They leave us alone though mostly and we do the same. No point in making each other miserable."

I nodded, filing that piece of information away for later. "So, they had an elven woman with them." I prompted.

He had lost the rhythm of the story somewhere "They tied her up in the middle of the village and did...things to her."

He shuddered.

"In the end they tied her to their horses and simply rode their horses off in different directions, howling. We found her in the morning, or at least what bits of her we could find and buried her as best as we could. Ella, the herbalist, told us that the body was just an empty sack of meat and that we should throw those remains out into the trees so that she could rejoin the great cycle of life. But somehow, we just couldn't bring ourselves to do that."

I nodded and motioned for him to continue. "What else can you tell me?"

He shrugged. "What more is there to say?"

"Think," I insisted. "Even the smallest detail might be significant. Do they wear armour?"

"Not that I could see although they do clink as they move."

"You see, there's a point. Do they walk like men? Do they move the same way that people do?" 

"No," he shuddered again. "Not like people. They writhe and move about. They butt heads and growl at each other.

"What else. Do they use weapons? Swords, bows, maces?"

"No. They have claws that grow out of their hands?"

"They grow?" I couldn't help myself. I was struggling to believe him. Don't mistake me though. I absolutely believed that he _believed_ what he was telling me but I just couldn't make what he was telling me make sense.

"Yes."

"How do they look for things. Do they sniff the air like dogs do? Or do they look around. Do they tilt their heads if they hear a sound?"

"Both, Either."

He groaned. "They saw me, they looked straight through me. I could hear it laughing at me. I heard no words but I was convinced that he recognised me. That he knew me and that he would come back for me." His face scrunched up in remembered fear, pain and remembered terror.

"That was when I pulled back from the window. As he was coming towards me and he rattled the shutters but he pulled back from the line of salt and howled in pain."

"He howled?"

"Yes."

I nodded. I was pretty sure that I was coming to the end of what the poor man could tell me now. The best thing to do now would be to head back to the castle and talk to Kerrass. I had no doubt that he would have an opinion on what was happening as well as all the things that I should have done better and simpler. I leant forward and put my hand on his shoulder to try and comfort him.

"It's ok." I said. "We'll deal with it. We will."

"Don't," he said, shaking my hand of his shoulder. "Don't make promises you can't keep. You can't fight demons."

"Oh you can." I told him and decided that it was time for a bit of swagger. "I have. You can kill them too. I have one last question for you though before my men and I leave."

"What is it?" He signed, resigned and weary beyond his years.

"Why do you call them "The Hounds of Kreve"?"

"What else could they be?"

I looked as deep into his face as I could. He had decided that that was what they are and judged that there was no way that he would be turned aside from that.

I let him off after that. I didn't want to push my luck too far. We stayed for a bit longer in the village. Not quite long enough to eat our dinner there but long enough to spend some time getting to know folks before we headed off and collected Father Danzig on our way back.

I was falling for what Kerrass sometimes called "The compassion trap." This happens when you've spent some time in the local area and have gotten to know the people there. The thing that you're after turns out to be a clever bastard, hiding it's tracks well and is proving difficult to track down and destroy. Maybe it flees at the sight of you or maybe it disappears when wounded, but whatever...you end up spending some time in the local area. Eat their food, spend time among them, maybe have a few drinks and a tumble in the hay with a willing partner and before you realise what's happening, you find that you're making plans. You want to stay for the market day or the festival that happens over the weekend.

Or you promise that you're going to help out with fixing the old woman's roof. Or meet the girls sister, or help them hunt some food. Or even worse than that...

You find that you _want_ to help them. I will admit to struggling with this quite a lot. The Coulthard family is a wealthy one. While travelling with Kerrass I have often found myself in areas of the most utter, abject, back-breaking poverty that can be imagined. I find that I want to spread my money around, buy supplies or food or the goods for the merchant or...or...or...the list goes on and on.

Kerrass had to warn me not to though which was when he started to tell me about this problem. You see, the flip side of things is that compassion is good, but sometimes the village needs to realise that it's dying and the people need to move on. The people need to go elsewhere and find work in more prosperous regions.

Witchers deal with those monsters and creatures that run contrary to nature and civilisation which is why, if the creature can be spoken to, they leave it alone because then it can be part of the natural cycle of things.

It may seem harsh to say this, to say that sometimes the village needs to be left to die but the way Kerrass said it was this. "Sometimes a forest needs a fire. Sometimes the farmer burns the field." I don't like it and I struggle with it but then he told me something else.

If I gave these people all my money, even what I had on me was worth a good amount then there were a couple of possibilities. The first being that a passing noble might see the money and assume that the villagers had stolen it. The same thing with any goods that might have been given by me. At best the things would be confiscated leaving the villagers back where they were or at worst, the villagers would be punished for an imagined crime.

The other possibility is that no community exists on an island. No single place is all alone and _completely_ self-sufficient. There is always the need for a peddlar or a merchant of some kind. Especially in arable communities, someone needs to fix the pans and bring in the metal that the smith might use. No-one village has everything that they need. So even if they don't have that much contact with the rest of the outside world, they depend on each other for trade, inter-breeding, mutual protection and various other things. They know things about each other as well. Gossip gets traded and news gets spread.

So if I gave a village a load of money or rich goods that they would be able to go on and sell, then it might breed resentment, or even worse, it might make the village a target for nearby bandits.

What I'm saying is that it's very easy to upset the balance of such areas. Witchers exist to remove things that might upset this balance anyway so it would be hypocritical to do anything that might make a problem worse.

I knew all of this, but I found that I wanted to help these people. I was determined to help these people. I still wanted to find out if there were other cultists in the area that _might_ have had something to do with Frannie's disappearance, but I had put a human face on the problem now.

The elf, Ella had complained about this part of the world being oppressed by something that she didn't want to talk about. She had been through a lot though and by herself, she could potentially be dismissed as someone that had been through a lot and was imagining evil when she had been subjected to very real sinister forces.

The priest, Gardan. His story and then his death had cut me deep. I felt for that old man and I still felt a certain amount of responsibility for his death. I couldn't help but feel as though it was no coincidence that he had died shortly after he had spoken to me. He had spun a tale about The Hounds of Kreve that had caught on to my brain and wouldn't let go. I had tried to dismiss it as the potential ramblings of a madman but there was something about the pain and fear in his eyes that had caught hold of me and wouldn't let go.

Then there was Edward the villager who had a similar story. Similar but different enough. He seemed like a reasonable man. Not too crazy and certainly a victim to the superstitions that plague a small rural village like the one in which he lived but his story was backed up by the whisperings of the village. By the fact that they deliberately scarred their children to make them ugly and therefore of no interest to the Hounds.

That night I took my evidence and the stories that I collected to what Sam used to jokingly call his "council meetings." He joked but those were really what they were. He gather the priests, Fathers Danzig and Trent, the Inquisitors Hacha and Dempsey, Kerrass, Sir Kristoff the head of Sam's small unit of soldiers, Sir Rickard leader of the bastards and myself.

Most of the talk was what was going on up at the castle.

There had been a flurry of spectral activity when they had started to remove the various bones and remaining bodies which had kept Kerrass busy. He claimed that it wasn't particularly hard work but that there was so much of it that he was finding it tiring. When we did retire to our small enclosure he would often throw himself into bed and be asleep almost immediately while I stayed up long into the night making notes and thinking.

But they were coming to the ends of his side of the work now. The remains of the victims of the Kalayns had been removed, taken a short distance away and had been buried with all the traditions and compassion that a pair of priests could manage.

Father Hacha's report was possibly the most extensive. The difference between the blustery, arrogant and smug man that I had met when I first arrived in the area and the cold, clinical logician that he became when he was talking about his work was marked. He told the assembly what had happened with cold, minute and emotionless detail. He told us a tale about how Lord Kalayn had access to, and seemed to use extensive narcotics of various kinds. Both as recreational substances for himself and for his friends but also there were other sedatives and stimulants that could be used on potential victims or family members but all he laid out were the things that he had definitely found. He didn't speculate on what those substances might be used for.

He was also mercifully clinical when he came to describe the obvious horrors that the bodies of the dead had undergone. Performing the investigations with compassion and understanding. Recording his observations clearly and concisely.

I won't go over them. Suffice to say that they were everything that we had feared they would be.

After a bit of discussion it was decided that inquisitor Dempsey would travel out to the dower house to talk to the former Lady Kalayn as best he could and to ask Ella a few questions, including if she could identify some of the more...esoteric narcotic substances that had been identified. Father Hacha would go with him to ask for some of the more clinical details. As both of the Inquisitors would be going, Father Trent also decided that he would go in an effort to "keep the peace". Sam joined them and told them, in no uncertain terms that Lady Kalayn was a victim of her husband. As was Ella the maid and that both women were under his protection. There was some argument about this point as both Inquisitors insisted that their work not be curtailed. But Sam declared that he was going to go and visit his Aunt on the morrow and that the Inquisition could come with him, or not as the case may be.

It was only then that the talk turned to me and what I had discovered.

"I still don't understand." Father Danzig began. Slamming his cup of watered ale down on the table. Sam had taken some of my advice by seeing to it that there was something to eat on the table and that we were all sat down. "I don't get why they call these things "The Hounds of Kreve."

"I would have thought it was obvious." Inquisitor Dempsey piped up. I hadn't seen much of Dempsey and had yet to be sure what to make of him. He was supposed to be the "people person" of the two Inquisitors but hadn't spent a lot of time talking to him. "The answer is that the villagers in question don't have any current equivalent of modern ethics and morals."

I noticed that Father Hacha was nodding as well.

"What do you mean?"

"It means," Inquisitor Dempsey leant forward and rested his elbows on the table. "That if what Lord Frederick is telling us is accurate and I see no reason to believe that it isn't. What we have here is a "pre-church" society."

"What do you mean?" Sam asked.

"It goes like this. All of humanity has a spiritual need. They _need_ a belief in something greater than themselves or an explanation as to why the world works in the way it does. They need someone to blame for why the crops fail or why the lightening falls and they want to know where the sun goes at night. People fill this need with whatever occurs to them. Soldiers join the army, priests join the church. Some people, I'm told, find Atheism a great comfort although I struggle to see why.

"These people have this...Crom Cruarch. Whether that's a God, spirit, power or maybe it was an ancient ruler from before mankind came to these parts of the world that has since been deified. It's unlikely that we will ever know for certain but here he is. It's only natural that, as a pastoral group of people, they have decided to worship a God of the harvest, which is what it seems to me this thing is."

"Yes, ok, but that doesn't explain why they have decided that Kreve is the bad guy here?"

"They're being attacked. They want someone to blame." Sir Rickard piped up. "They wonder who it could be. They've been told that Kreve hates heretics. They know that he would think of them as heretics therefore he is the enemy."

Again, I was astonished as Father Hacha spoke up.

"You have to remember that Evil is in the eye of the Beholder." He said pouring himself a cup of wine. "To us, these people are backward, in-bred, uneducated and stupid. To them, we are elitist, arrogant, threatening magicians who have come to disrupt their way of life." I hadn't noticed this about him but Inquisitor Hacha had a lazy eye that would occasionally spasm. He would rub at his eyes, especially when he was tired.

"My learned brother is correct." Inquisitor Dempsey spoke up again. "It is no surprise to me that these people have come to view Kreve as their "devil," their version of evil. From Lord Frederick's account we know that there was an attempt to convert this part of the countryside to the worship of Kreve a long time ago. I don't know because I wasn't there but I would suspect that the priests that they sent here were of the fire-brand, sword-waving, damnation promising variety. With this "Crom" worship being so entrenched the common-folk heard this man or men telling them that they would be damned and punished by Kreve for their ways. Ways which had worked for them for many years. So naturally they saw themselves as being against Kreve.

"Then, strange "things" start attacking them for no readily apparent reason and so they blame Kreve. I would also suspect that if we start looking into things we would discover that someone, somewhere planted the idea into their heads that these "Hounds" were sent by Kreve."

Father Hacha leant forward again. "It would also make sense from the perspective of the Former Lord's Kalayn. They didn't want a widespread religion in their territory that might see what they were up to and call a crusade against them. It wouldn't surprise me if they pushed the locals into that direction as well."

Dempsey nodded.

"So these people are not evil?" Sam was taking on Father's habit and model of leadership. He listened to everyone's opinion before asking any questions that might be left over in his head and then making his decision. I wondered how long this question had been sat in the back of his head.

Hacha shook his head.

"Flame no!" Dempsey exclaimed. "No, evil is in magic and demon worship when you do those things _knowing_ that they are wrong. Everyone knows that magic is dangerous..." I had to hide a smirk behind my own cup and I also saw Kerrass' lip twitching in his version of amusement. "... so the only reason to practice it is to further your own selfish power. I know that some of the more modern magical practitioners are becoming reasonable people and I would agree that some of our immediate forbears went too far in Novigrad and the local area but that doesn't change the fact that magic users study magic for their own ends. Not in service to anything else."

I, very carefully, looked at the ceiling. Fortunately, the priests were talking to Sam, whose face had gone carefully blank so they didn't notice my expression.

"These people are heretics, yes. But they are heretics because they have never been taught any better. Their sin is ignorance but it is hardly their fault. In your place, Lord Kalayn I would gently discourage their religious practices and apply to the church for some missionaries. Obviously I would recommend some followers of the Eternal Flame but also of Melitele which would have the other added benefit of raising the standards of health-care in the local area."

"Not Kreve then?" Father Danzig almost snapped but he did so with a slight smirk.

"With all due respect to yourself and the Sky father." Father Trent said. "But the damage there has been done. These people will automatically distrust any priest or missionary from the church of Kreve and it might even push them further down the path towards heresy."

Sam nodded. "Right then. But that sounds like a plan for the reasonably distant future when things have started to settle down a little more."

There was more nodding.

"I want to know more about these "Hounds"," Sam went on. "Whether they belong to Kreve or not it would seem that they are keeping my small patch of countryside in fear. Thoughts? Master Witcher, I'm looking at you here."

Kerrass shrugged expressively. "There's no such thing as a Hound of Kreve." He said. "No monster or creature looks like that or behaves like that. The fact that they only come out in the mist is suggestive but nothing that depends on mist would ride a horse or any other kind of steed for that matter and what those things do is kill to feed. I haven't examined the situation in any detail so I may be wrong but I think we can be pretty sure that we are dealing with something mundane here."

"I agree," said Father Danzig, feeling a bit safer now that he was talking about things on his own level.

"Hounds though?" Inquisitor Dempsey spoke up. "Hounds suggests hunting. Might they be riders of the Wild Hunt?"

Kerrass shook his head firmly. "The Wild Hunt was a separate thing. I say was because, as far as we know, they were defeated. But separate from that, the Wild Hunt wore heave armour, not these robes and leathery wings that have been described. They were also accompanied by deep and oppressive cold. Cold enough to actively freeze the bodies of their victims. The Wild Hunt also had _literal_ hounds. Not creatures that Lord Samuel would want to take hunting but that's what they were none the less."

"So, not the Wild Hunt then." Sir Kristoff sounded relieved.

"That's not to say these things aren't dangerous." Father Danzig piped up.

"No," Kerrass agreed. "I could dismiss Father Gardan's ravings as the hallucinations of a self-confessed mad man but what the man Edward described was a lot more forceful. Much more unpleasant and reliable."

"Could he have been conditioned though?" Father Trent asked. "Communal suggestion is a powerful thing. If everyone sees something and you have believed that you will see something in the dark then you will find something to see."

"Possible. Either way, we need more information." Kerrass put in. "Either way, things at the castle are still going to take a couple more days." He smirked slightly. "I would say that Freddie has the project on his back now. I would suggest that he pursues it accordingly. Go back, ask more people. Talk to other villagers. Are these riders local to Father Gardan and that village or are they more spread out. Is it the entire countryside? Because I notice that Ella the elf didn't tell us about them and she could be referring to some other "fear" that is keeping the countryside under it's boot heel."

"I agree with the Witcher," Inquisitor Hacha spoke up, again surprising me. He hated Kerrass on a personal and profound level but there was a respect for Kerrass' professionalism. "However there is an extra factor here."

"Which is?"

"Regardless of whether or not these "Hounds" are supernatural entities or whether they are merely human enemies that take advantage of the superstitions of the locals, I think it would not be unfair to say that they are, at least, aided by mundane means."

"What do you mean?" Sam asked, looking concerned.

"He means Father Gardan's murder?" Sir Rickard piped up. "That and the isolation of the villagers."

"Yes." Hacha nodded approvingly in Sir Rickards direction as though he was a teacher bestowing a rare compliment. "Lord Frederick meets Father Gardan, spends a day here and then goes back to find the priest dead. That is not a coincidence. Father Gardan has been here for many years and has been tolerated without issue but the moment that he speaks to another person then he is killed. Even worse than that there was, I understand, some efforts to make it seem as though it was a suicide. That kind of thing is human, not supernatural."

I noticed Kerrass, Inquisitor Dempsey and Sir Rickard nodding.

"Then we have to read things into the fact that the village strongly believe that they need to stay indoors to protect themselves from these "Hounds". Indoors and they need to remain in the local area. Loose travellers and people moving between villages and trying to escape the locals don't make it and are hunted down by the "Hounds." That is the oldest form of Human strategy, military as well as politically. Divide, Isolate and conquer."

There was some more nodding.

"I would also like to know more about these "Elven settlers" that the village described." Said Knight Father Danzig. "They must know something and you can never trust them anyway. Individual elves are fine but when they start getting into groups then they have a tendency to form Scoia'tael commandos and try to disrupt things."

"Possible," Hacha admitted. "But there is another factor. There are two ways that these nebulous "enemies" might have known about Lord Frederick's visit to Father Gardan. "The first is that they were watching the chapel. Or there is someone here who heard what Lord Frederick said and decided to take steps."

Sir Kristoff and Father Danzig stiffened in indignation. Trent and Dempsey looked thoughtful.

Kerrass didn't give a shit and looked as though he was nodding off in the corner.

"That's enough." Sam spoke up. "Let's not start accusing each other or spark a witch hunt here. I won't have it. I know all of you and I trust all of you so we are not going to break apart and start accusing each other until we have more evidence."

He fixed everyone with a glare, I tried to convey how...amused isn't quite the right word but how...wry I was feeling about what had just been said. But he didn't react.

But Sam started to speak again. "It is, indeed, more than possible that there are people that are feeding information up to the Hounds. That would certainly give us something to pursue but it is quite correct that we need more information.

"Freddie, would you mind carrying on with that. There's a map of the local area somewhere which will tell you where you can find other villages to speak to."

I nodded.

"Sir Rickard?"

"I will continue in my duties of keeping Lord Frederick safe Sir,"

"Good. But you also have my authorisation to save him from himself if he gets too uppity."

Sir Rickard grinned nastily.

"Also, is it safe to stay in the castle yet?" Sir Kristoff asked.

"Mostly." Kerrass roused himself to wakefulness. "If We don't spread out and I can place wards, traps and people do what I tell them."

"Well, if there are enemies out there then this small collection of huts is indefensible. I don't think that we've had a serious mist with a red dawn or dusk yet so that might be significant but I don't want us sleeping in the open." Sir Kristoff said before abruptly realising that he was giving orders. "Or at least that's what I would recommend Lord Samuel."

"Then that is what we shall do." Sam nodded. "Anything else?"

There wasn't.


	69. Chapter 69

(Warning: Scenes of torture and other scenes of a horrific nature that people may find upsetting. There is also some comments that might exhibit some slight sexism but that is written as an attempt at demonstrating the kind of society that the characters live in.)

It was several days before we finally caught sight of our enemy.

Even then, it was in the distance, a long way off through the distortion of the rain soaked mist that was blanketing the countryside.

I had thought that I knew what to expect when it had been described to me, that mist that came off the mountain, bubbling up through the ground and the trees as it slowly spread across the countryside but I couldn't have been more wrong. Some of the people that I had spoken to had described that fog as being an almost living thing. The way it seemed to spread like some unimaginable tentacled beast that extended it's reach and touch across the land.

Mists are not unusual in that part of the world. Something about the mountains, the dampness in the air make it happen and it was a regular occurrence for us to wake up to find the world, blanketed in the damp greyness of the mist. When nothing would ever seem as though it would ever be dry again. It was a bit odd that it was still happening with frequency at that time of the year but I thought that the higher altitude might have gone quite far to explain that.

Red sunrises and sunsets were also not that uncommon. Again, I couldn't tell you how any particular sunrise or sunset would turn red rather than orange but in these cases it did so relatively frequently. It also seemed that dawn or dusk took a long time. Much longer than I had been used to, but Kerrass teased me when I commented on this, that I had been spending too much time in the south.

Nor can I tell you why it makes that much difference, how far North or South you are. Kerrass really does enjoy these bits of ignorance that I have in those fields of knowledge that I haven't studied. He keeps them and takes them out to torment me occasionally because he's like that.

We were on our way back from speaking to some people in one of the villages in Sam's realm. All told there were around four, larger villages in the local areas. As well as this there were numerous smaller farmsteads where large sprawling families would live in a collection of old buildings and work the land. Edward's village was one of the villages further to the West of Castle Kalayn.

As it turned out there was another one, much closer and to the North while the other two were further north than that. Beyond that there was a "river that ran out of the mountains that marked the Northern Border of Sam's territory, all told it was about two days ride North of Castle Kalayn. We never bothered figuring out how far to the west the lands extended and to the east of the castle, the mountains became inaccessible and the land unusable except as an area in which you could lose a herd of goats.

Since our little conference I had ridden to all four villages and spoke to numerous people. The locals seemed relatively friendly, if cautious but the stories that I got told about the Hounds of Kreve were repeated over and over again. That was the reason for the unhappiness in the land. That was why people were afraid all the time. That was why the children were always scarred in hideous ways so as to mar them should they turn into young people of beauty.

I spoke to one family of farmers who had not carried out this thing. They were relatively new to the local area having fled the wars to south back when Nilfgaard had first started showing signs of wanting to expand northwards. They had arrived, explored a bit and chatted to some of their neighbours when they found out about the practice of child scarring and had rejected it utterly. The locals had done their best to warn them but the father of the family had refused.

I ended up speaking to the son of this farmer, his father had died some years previously and was buried nearby. Apparently, some months after first settling in the local area, the red mist came and they heard howling from the trees. He had been trapped out in the stables where the family kept the draft-horses when the howling figures had come and had hid under a mountain of straw as he saw the cloaked and hooded things stalking towards the farm-house. He had watched, unmoving as they emerged from the trees and the mist. He described them vividly, about how the darkness had seemed to coalesce into the shapes that moves with their terrible purpose. Their skulls stark against the rest of the figures.

He had burrowed deep into the straw so he didn't have to see what happened after that. He hid there, soiling himself in fear as the Hounds kicked down his family door, raped his mother, beat his father into unconsciousness and made off with his elder sister.

He had been twelve at the time. In the morning he had taken one of his fathers skinning knives to his own face before scarring the faces of his three younger siblings.

His father had never recovered and although his mother had remarried a local man in an effort to give her children a father figure as well as to learn some more about the local customs. The lad had become the head of the household when his mother moved out shortly afterwards.

They never found his sister.

The other stories that I would get told were much the same and I learned some other local terms for what was happening and what could be seen.

I heard more stories about people staying up at night on a dare from their friends to see how much they could see of the Hounds of Kreve. I heard of another dangerous game where children would stand out in the open in a circle of salt. It was a game where they dared each other to stand for as long as possible in the face of the encroaching red mist. The adults would often forbid the children from doing this but at the same time, who could stop them? The parents wouldn't risk going out to collect their errant offspring and it was always certain that sooner or later the child in question would break and flee indoors.

There was always rumour of the kid that stayed in the circle of salt all night. About how the Hounds ranted, raved and prowled outside the circle in an effort to provoke the children into leaving the circle so that they could be devoured but it was always the rumour of this happening, over in the next village or the next settlement. Never locally.

It took a little more careful probing but I also found the variety in the worship of Crom Cruarch. Some of the farms had a holy tree that had the sacred carvings on the trunk or on the roots of the tree, one village had a nearby body of water in which they fished and collected some of the more water based herbs. Fed by a small stream that ran out of a nearby set of rocks, they would make their offerings into the lake, the signs carved into the rocks from which the water flowed.

A couple of places had trees where I was told that the offerings were left there over night for wild creatures, birds and whatever else might be there to take away. That way, as well, the offerings became symbiotic with the God and the local area even though they didn't know what "symbiotic" meant and looked at me strangely when I used the word.

But in all other cases, the story was the same. The mist would come, particularly and notably thick and the sky would turn red as blood. The locals referred to this as being "The Blood Mist" although they couldn't tell me why they called it that.

I will be honest and say that I though this was a little melodromatic until I actually saw it in action.

But the mist would come in and the world would feel, that little bit different. Slightly unreal as though they were being transported into another world that was different from this one. Then they would hear the thunder. Thunder without Lightening, without waves thundering against the shore, but it would feel different.

Then the Howling would begin. In the distance at first but getting closer all the time. Some people claimed that they could hear words in those calls. That the Hounds were communicating through their howls in some way that man was not meant to know.

Then, the Hounds would either show themselves or they would move off. They didn't always attack, sometimes they would pass through, riding through a village as though they were on the heels of something or, indeed, as if something else was on their heels and _they_ were the ones being hunted. Sometimes they had been seen chasing people. Regularly this was an elf of some kind but it was always someone young and attractive which was when we found something else out.

Whether or not the scarring of the children was effective, it did not make the person completely immune to the attentions of the Hounds. I spoke to a couple of families that told me that they had scarred their children only for those self-same children to be taken.

All it seemed to have done was to make the children part of some kind of pool that the Hounds took from at random.

Sometimes the hounds wouldn't bee seen. Just letting the populace know that they were there with the howling and the signalling.

But the fear was constant.

The Hounds would ride into the village, cause some havoc, sometimes setting fire to some out building before riding off. Sometimes torturing and killing someone who had been caught out and away from safety when the hounds attacked. In those times, when some one was caught, they would only pray that they were old and ugly so that the Hounds would take their enjoyment in other ways.

There was a reason that the villagers kept the more "comely" members of the populace at home.

"They are training the populace." Kerrass commented one day. The day after the conference he was still tied up with just finishing off the spirits still up at the castle, just making sure that it was safe. The day after that he was still fairly exhausted and didn't want to use up his relatively small number of remaining potions and so he spent that day asleep, gently relaxing his body and resting after the exertions of the previous few days.

After that, he joined me when I went out and about on my research.

It was interesting to see how people changed when there was a Witcher present. Suddenly I was leant with that little bit more authority. They had no reason to know what kind of authority or knowledge that a random Scholar might have while he worked, spoke and wandered round but a Witcher, with both swords on his back. They knew what that was. They knew that and they respected that. I managed to keep my... disappointment out of my face when there were people that I struggled to talk to, opened up to Kerrass and suddenly he seemed overwhelmed by information tot he point that he had to tell people to slow down so that he could properly take it all in. One of the slightly, dangerous points was that I could see hope beginning to build up in their attitude.

Yes hope can be dangerous. It can carry you through dangerous times but it can also cripple you when it is taken away.

But the villagers started to have hope creeping across their eyes. They began to look relaxed and started to plan for the future. I overheard one family tell their child that they might not have to be scarred and then I had to walk away because the child promptly responded, telling their parents that they _wanted_ to be scarred, just like their elder brother.

I would have laughed if it hadn't been so tragic.

It was late on the fourth day and we were just getting ready to mount up and head home. Sam had instituted firm commands that we all needed to be back at the castle by nightfall and we were heading in that direction. Kerrass had been out with me for a couple of days, listening to what people had been telling them, asking them a few questions of his own and examining a couple of areas that he had been pointed to. He did all of the normal Witcher tricks, sniffing the air, holding his pendant out and seeing if it shook or vibrated in the presence of anything before shaking his head and moving off.

"What do you think?" I asked as we drank some water and waited for Sir Rickard to get his people together from where they had been doing some of the odd chores that needed doing around the place, come back from hunting, fixing roofs that kind of thing.

"Honestly?" He rubbed his chin. "Freddie, if it was just me I would have turned my horse away and ridden off by now having decided that this isn't Witchers work. I would have told the villagers to either contact their local Lord about the bandits that were attacking them or to pack their belongings onto the back of a wagon and leave."

I nodded, it was pretty much the same conclusion that I had come to.

"These people are being conditioned and educated in fear. They stay here now, they don't leave or go elsewhere they are just here. Working the land and living the same lives that they ever have. They are isolated, backwards, ignorant and very, very afraid." Kerrass went on. "Not something I can do about that though. If the people here were a person then they would be a person who has been beaten by their spouse until she has forgotten how to live. That is what has happened here and I'm not entirely convinced that we can do anything about that."

"What about these Hounds?" I asked him.

"It is an interesting puzzle," he said. "But the only reason that we're still here is because they might be some kind of remnants of the cult. Otherwise we would have moved on by now."

"What do you mean? Might be remnants."

"Well," he scratched his chin in thought. "It's like this. These people are afraid and they have been kept like that for a long time, several generations in fact. Why would that happen? Oh, and just for the record. There are no such things as "Hounds of Kreve," or anything that would wear the skull of a wolf on their heads. Pure distraction that. Pure mind games."

He took an apple from his pouch and bit into it.

"So this is what I think is happening. These hounds have been around for a long time really. Easily for as long as your Maternal Grandfather or Great Grandfather came here. We _know_ or are fairly confident that they were active in the cult of the Inverted Ankh..."

As a note, that was what we were referring to the cult as. Calling them "The cult of Crom Cruarch" was an insult to the local religion and woefully inadequate. As was referring to them as being part of the Lion-headed spider cult so we called them "The Inverted Ankh" which summed up a lot about them. They were the "Inverse of Life" so the title was very fitting really.

"So this is what I think has happened. What the "Hounds" have done is isolate this place. No-one leaves and anyone who comes here to settle is quickly warned about the consequences of leaving. Why is this important? Because it means that no-one leaves to tell anyone on the outside what is happening in this corner of the world. Neither the church of Kreve or the Cult of the Eternal Fire, both of whom would have come here much earlier if they had known what was going on, ever heard a rumour of evil happening in this part of the world.

"The villagers trade amongst themselves but there isn't enough wealth for outside merchants to come here and if there was, I suspect that the Hounds or their agents would see to it that the merchants never left the area. You yourself commented on the presence of Endregas on the outskirts that could easily be blamed for any disappearances."

"You agree then, that the Hounds have agents here amongst the people?"

"Oh yes. Anyone who doesn't follow the rules gets punished, anyone not marking their children will lose them. Anyone who voices derision or tries to rile people up in an effort to get some form of resistance going is soon attacked. That speaks of some kind of organisation.

"So they are keeping the land afraid and isolated, away from prying eyes and poor enough that the royal tax collectors don't really bother with it, or go to the noble class for their taxes rather than wandering around and trying to extract riches that don't exist from the populace. All of this points towards the probability that there were things going on in these parts that someone was trying to keep from the authorities. Either the feudal ones, or the religious ones."

"If this was any other mountainous province I would have assumed that there was some kind of untapped Gold or Silver mine?" I commented.

"Exactly. But what we _do_ know is going on here, or was going on here until the former Lord Kalayn decided that he wasn't quite hot enough and jumped onto a fire, was that there was a cult that liked to practice dark rituals and try to contact a power that they didn't really understand.

"SO that leaves us with two possibilities. The first being that the cult grew up here because they knew that they were being kept safe from prying eyes by the presence of the Hounds of Kreve which would suggest that this entire thing is just some kind of huge coincidence, or that the Hounds are some kind of militant arm of the cult."

I nodded my agreement. All of Kerrass' theories aligned with my own thoughts. "It would be a hell of a coincidence for the two things to grow up separately and independently of each other."

"It would and as you know, in my line of work..."

"There are no such things as coincidences." We said together.

"The other thing is that what the Hounds get up to is similar to what was going on around Oxenfurt." I said. "The beautiful people, in this case mostly elves but there it was young and beautiful people, are hunted. Caught and then tortured to death by physical, psychological and sexual abuse. They emphasise the hunt a bit more here, rather than the climax of things."

"And that's just the ones that we know about." Kerrass said.

"Yes, as you say, many have been taken off never to be seen again."

"That might explain the not inconsiderable number of bones that they're burying up at the castle at the moment," Kerrass added.

"Yes. So I'm inclined to believe that the Hounds are a part of the cult, or at the very least have something to do with them. What do you think about the supernatural effects that people claim to have seen around the Hounds. The flickering, the distortion of the vision, the cramps that people have suffered and other effects."

"Honestly?"

I nodded.

"I think that these people have been living in fear for so long that they have convinced themselves that these things aren't human. Good armour or training would prevent injury from most of the weapons or arrows that these villagers might be capable of sending towards any kind of determined cavalry. You yourself would be more than capable of cutting your way through most of them and are fast enough to dodge one of their little arrows."

"Thank you for the vote of confidence."

"It's not confidence in your abilities, it's more knowledge at the sorry state of their equipment and training."

Then the wind changed.

This description will mean nothing to any of you that don't spend a great deal of your time out of doors.

Given that the vast majority of you that read this will be either scholars or nobility that spend most of their time indoors, either in lectures or having meetings so that you can govern the masses then I am describing this to you.

When you spend a lot of time outdoors, especially if there is a cold night of camping by the side of the road in your imminent future, you begin to get a bit of an instinct for the wind and weather changing. I've spoken to sailors and this is the kind of thing that can literally save lives in their line of work as it can influence the choices between finding some place to shelter from the storm or whether you carry on to make port.

At the time we were in a village in North East Redania and although it was Early summer, the fact that we were relatively high up meant that it wasn't as warm as you might expect from that kind of time and place.

The wind changed and suddenly the air smelled of rain. Unless you know what I'm talking about, I'm not sure I can describe what that smells like, a cross between freshness, damp vegetation and a sharp scent that, to this day I can't really identify.

It wasn't as though the wind picked up either. It was still relatively tame but it gained a strange kind of echoey quality as though it was blowing through your ears. Kerrass, who was watching the soldiers finish off their chores as we talked turned his face to look at the mountaintop.

My weather sense is not as finely tuned as Kerrass' is but I had spent a fair amount of time on the road as well as spending a lot of time with those people who know what this kind of thing means. I also turned to look up at the mountains.

The two of us stood there for a moment before Kerrass turned to me.

"Tell Sir Rickard to get a move on."

I looked up at the mountain for a bit longer.

"Yeah," I heard myself say, as if from a distance, "Yeah I think you're right." I turned and started moving towards the soldiers who were faffing about, only to discover that Sir Rickard had had the same thought that we had and was now standing in front of the area where his men were getting ready with a frown on his face and his arms folded.

Apparently this is the height of his emotional range when dealing with his men and roughly translates as

"Get a fucking move on. I am becoming cross." I know this because that was what his Sergeant was bellowing.

We got moving, maybe ten minutes later, hurried out of the way by that villages head man who was watching the sky nervously. "Best get home," he told us. "They're on the prowl, I can feel them."

"Why?" I asked him, "How do you...?" but the man had ignored me, shouting at another of the locals in an effort to get them indoors.

Kerrass clapped me on the shoulder. "Ask him next time." I was told as he pushed me towards my horse.

The Bastards were alert. Normally as we travelled with them they would laugh and joke, trading insults and exhortations. Sometimes they would sing a song of dubious origins which they would eventually stop when they realised that I was with them. Now they were quiet.

We did not ride fast. Taking it slow. The men loosened their swords in the scabbards, giving them a little shake to make sure that they weren't stuck for whatever reason. Don't laugh, when you oil or grease a blade, sometimes the contact between the blade and the scabbard can cause a suction effect which means that the sword gets stuck. This delay as the blade is pulled free can make all the difference between life and death and it is this that is meant when you hear someone say that they loosened their sword in the scabbard.

We rode carefully and Sir Rickard set outriders. Two men, Jenkins the killer and Dan the Poacher as advanced scouts, while the twins rode behind to check as to our being followed.

As we rode, the wind echoing in my ears I watched the mist form on the mountainside. At first, it looked as though it was just a wisp of cloud that had been caught by the peak, but gradually and oh so slowly, it grew and expanded before beginning to flow down the mountainside like a waterfall. It looked quite beautiful and amazingly ominous.

The vagaries of weather sometimes interest me. I sometimes think that I could spend a lot of time studying it if I had the time amongst all of my other interests and duties. But it sometimes seems so complex and chaotic that I could probably spend a life time studying it and not really getting anywhere. What happened was that this was not a true "Blood Mist" as the locals call it. Rather it coalesced into a slow kind of drizzle. The kind of rain where you suddenly realise that you are getting soaked through rather than being able to feel it bouncing off your head.

I pulled my oilskin hood out of one of my saddlebags and slung it over my head in an effort to keep the rain off. You have to be careful though, it can be deceptively peaceful with your hood up and the rain falling down, you can easily delude yourself into thinking that the world is quiet and subdued, that you and your companions are the only people in the world.

The rain came in a little heavier then as we rode.

There was a low whistle from further up the path. The Sergeant signalled and we halted, the horses standing in the wet which was when I began to realise that I was getting cold from all of the water in the air. Squinting through the water, I could just about see the form of Jenkins further up the trail waving and making some arm signals that I didn't understand.

I rode up to hear Sir Rickard muttering something to the Sergeant.

"Dismount," was the call, softly. "Treeline."

The bastards dismounted, leading the horses to the treeline. They worked in pairs. One man took the bridles of both horses and led them to the shelter while the other strung their bow and looked around for targets, moving with their partner and covering their back. I followed their example, taking Kerrass' bridle and walked towards the trees.

"Lord." A man called Dickon. A large, heavily bearded man tapped me on the shoulder and pointed to where Sir Rickard was gesturing, beckoning me on to go and join him. I nodded, taking my spear from my saddle and jogging up with Kerrass beside me.

Jenkins was looking pale, paler than usual which was my first sign that something was going on. Sir Rickard gestured without speaking and Jenkins led us into the undergrowth where we jumped over a ditch and up an embankment, forcing our way through the line of trees and the detritus that un-kept woods often leave behind until we were standing next to a tree at the bottom large slope. The ground of the slope looked a lot rockier than some of the land that we'd been passing as it sloped up towards a ridge, one of the many slopes and peaks that led up the mountains themselves. I don't know how far away the ridge was although it was a good way up. I could probably have climbed it but I would have needed to use my hands and climb in a couple of paces. I certainly wouldn't have made it easily and would have needed to catch my breath when I got to the top. But with the rain, the failing light and the accompanying mist, I found judging the distance quite hard.

We found Dan, hunkered down against the tree, His recurved bow cradled in his arms. He'd strung it at some point and had an arrow knocked which was a mark of his mood. Although he looked unflappable as though nothing in the world frightened him, he had risked one of his precious bow-strings in the wet air.

He was chewing tobacco again.

"Dan?" Rickard greeted him.

"Just beneath the ridge sir. Not showing themselves on the skyline but enough so that we can see them."

We scanned the slope through the driving flurries of rain.

Kerrass drew his medallion from his tunic and examined it closely.

"I can't see..."

But then I did. A line of horsemen riding along the edge of the ridge. There must have been some kind of shepherds path just beneath the top of the ridge where the horses could walk in relative security. With the rain driving down the slopes and into our eyes it was sometimes difficult to see them. My first instinct was to raise my hand to shelter my eyes but Jenkins caught my hand and pushed it back down, shaking his head.

Apparently, that kind of thing can give you away. I don't know why or what he was afraid of. The riders were not being particularly stealthy and we were sheltered by the trees but...

I think there were four of them. From this distance their helmets looked as though they were kind of yellowy white. They wore long dark hooded cloaks that appeared as though they were sewn together from ragged strips of material. They certainly weren't uniforms. Try as I might though I couldn't see any metal or any shapes that I might associate with weapons despite that their long cloaks flapped gently in the wind, moving with the currents of air.

It seemed almost unreal, looking at them from that distance. As though I was watching creatures from another world that had decided to cross over into ours.

Kerrass was still frowning at his medallion.

"What do you think?" Rickard asked quietly. "Have they seen us?"

"Dunno sir. If they have, they've not acted any different.

"They're not gonna try and attack down that slope." Taylor, one of the men who had come with us commented. He was drumming his fingers against his sword pommel in a nervous gesture in time with the rhythm of the horses movements.

"How many?" Rickard asked.

"Not many, hard to tell in the rain, four I think."

Rickard looked to the left and right, "How far away are we from the castle?" he asked no-one in particular.

"An hour hard," Taylor answered promptly. "Maybe three normal and five cautious."

The Bastard's had three speeds of march. The first which they called Hard was the full on Gallop that we had used to get me back to my father's castle when we had heard about his injury. Normal was a gentle pace, generally along roads where we were relatively secure. Cautious was going from cover to cover, not being in the open too much, weapons ready, eyes everywhere. These could then be broken down further if the bastards moved on foot or on horseback.

Rickard looked a little disappointed as he scanned left and right before a slight hope crossed his face.

"Dan?" he said. "Fancy a go?"

Dan looked at the small line of horsemen in the distance, rubbing his palm across his unshaven chin before shaking his head.

"Sorry sir. In good weather, with Theresa..." That was the name of his warbow. He named all of his bows and loved them like his own children. "...then I might fancy my chances. But here and now?"

He shook his head.

We watched as the horsemen, the Hounds of Kreve rode out of sight.

"Right," Rickard said. "Back to the horses. Cautious for a bit then we'll pick up the pace. Dan, you and Jenkins to the read if you would."

"Sir,"

"Tell the twins to move up." The Sergeant nodded. "Taylor, you and Fletcher, take Dickon and Pendleton up front."

They all nodded.

"Back to the horses then."

The soldiers started moving back. Kerrass sat for a moment longer gazing at his medallion before shaking his head and following.

We moved back to the castle, taking our time, moving from patch of cover to patch of cover. Moving in groups, taking our time and watching carefully for signs of movement. When we hadn't seen anything for an hour and neither the front or the rear guard could report any signs of movement, the order was given and we headed along the road at a spritely trot.

We saw nothing more of the hounds that day or the next. Kerrass and I, along with a small group of Sir Kristoff's soldiers went out to have a look at the site where we had seen the strange horsemen. We spent a good period of time there, Kerrass lying flat on the ground with his eye inches away from the loose scree and tufts of grass, his medallion out and swaying in front of him. We found the track that must have been used and went both ways along it, into the trees on one side of the slope of grass and into the others to see if we could find a start or an end point, a destination or a home base but we couldn't find anything other than some good views.

That's not to say that we didn't find signs of the horsemen. The wet air had moistened the ground up so that we could see tracks. The occasional open sign of a horseshoe was plainly visible as well as other areas where the wait of the horses had pushed some of the looser undergrowth down and away. We got to one of the vantage points where there were sign that the horses had stood and milled around a little, tugging at some of the grass and Kerrass looked out over Sam's realm for a long time, forehead creased with thought before we turned for home.

"We are being scouted." He told Sam's little war council. "They are looking at us and watching us. Trying to decide what to make of us."

Kristoff nodded along with Sam and Sir Rickard.

"In Kreve's name why?" Inquisitor Hacha wanted to know.

"Standard military tactics." Sir Rickard told him. "They want to know what they're dealing with. By now they will know that Lord Samuel has arrived to take up his position and responsibilities and they want to know what they're dealing with. Do they have an enemy here? A friend? An indifferent person? What kind of Lord is he going to be. Is this essentially going to be some kind of winter residence where Lord Samuel comes to sleep when royal society calms down or is he going to spend the majority of his time here."

Father Danzig was nodding as Rickard said this. "Right now, somewhere, these things are having a conversation about what to do. Do they withdraw their activities from Lord Samuel's lands. Do they wait? Do they reduce their presence or do they need to come back and be more aggressive?"

Sam listened carefully. He has this unfortunate habit of not looking at people when he's listening to a group of people. He tends to stare at the table in front of him. On the one hand, this is a bit of a mistake as it can come across as being a bit rude towards the people that you are listening to but he counters this with saying that it means that he's listening to the words spoken rather than what people are trying to convey.

"So they're definitely men?" He asked after a long while. "We're not dealing with anything supernatural?"

"I'm as certain as you can be." Kerrass said.

"That doesn't sound very definitive," Inquisitor Hacha accused but Kerrass ignored his tone.

"That's because it isn't. Just to be clear as to what's going on here." He said "There is a magical aura in this area. I don't know why and to find out we would need the presence of a properly trained professional."

"Have a care," snarled Inquisitor Hacha while Inquisitor Dempsey and Father Danzig looked uncomfortable. "You are talking the blackest Heresy," Hacha went on in dire tones.

"Not really," Kerrass voice never changed in tone or pitch, speaking as if he was just having a fairly normal conversation. "The fact of the matter is that the currents of magic are particularly strong here. To properly map them would need a trained magic user."

"Couldn't you do it?" Inquisitor Dempsey asked.

"No." Kerrass said flatly. "I'm a Witcher. I kill monsters. You are an Inquisitor, you hunt out heresy and cultists. Be careful that you don't end up looking at the entire world like it's a nail."

Someone sniggered. I thought it was Rickard but I couldn't tell. For those who don't know or for whom the joke might have missed you. The saying goes like this.

"If you are a hammer and all you do is hammer in nails, then the entire world's problems look like nails that need to be hit on the head. It is a problem with the Inquisition. They spend all their time hunting cults so that before too long, everything looks like evil cultists hiding in shadows.

"You would be angry, Inquisitor Hacha, if I started going around hunting cults in the same way that Sirs Kristoff and Rickard gets cross if you started telling them about military tactics. I wouldn't know what I was doing," Kerrass went on. "I get angry when soldiers and churchmen try and hunt monsters because they _always_ , and I do mean always, make the situation worse because they don't know what they're doing. So I wouldn't try and map the flows of magic because I wouldn't know where to begin, or more importantly, what it all meant. Is there a source? What causes it? What is it being used for...?"

"We get the point Kerrass," Sam put in.

"Is it going anywhere? What is happening?" Kerrass finally finished. "In short, if you have a monster or a supernatural creature? Send for me. If you have a political problem, send for an assassin or the army. If you have a cult problem then you send for the church. This is a magical situation. Send for a professional."

"You finished?" Sam asked with a raised eyebrow and more than a little amusement in his eyes.

"For now," Kerrass nodded an apology. "This is a subject that seems to come up an awful lot and, as you can imagine, it is something a little close to my heart. I also can't help but notice that the honourable gentlemen are much more accepting of Witchers now that the Empress has declared that she likes us."

"Have a care..."

A couple of chairs were pushed back as the churchmen climbed to their feet in indignation.

Sam slammed his fist on the table before waiting for silence.

"Honestly," he said after a moment. "It's like talking to children."

He spent a bit of time glaring at everyone. I did my best to look aggrieved and give an atmosphere of "Why are you angry with me?" expression. I thought I saw his eyes twinkle in appreciation.

"You were making a point, Kerrass, before you got sidelined."

"Yes," Kerrass was pouring himself a cup of the watered wine from one of the jugs that were around the table. "The point was that there is a background magical aura in the area and I don't know what the cause is. It might be the presence of the cult, as was. It might have caused the presence of the Hounds or there might be something else going on. I don't know what. But what I do know is that there was that same aura when I was trying to investigate the hounds. Was that because of the hounds? Or the background aura?"

He shrugged.

"It's impossible to tell. But as there weren't any changes when they were suddenly in the area, nor did they leave any residual magical trace in the path of their passage, I think we can assume that we are dealing with normal people."

I winced. "You know how I feel about assuming things Kerrass." I commented.

He smirked at me.

"So, we're dealing with men." Sam said. "What next?"

"Wait?" Inquisitor Dempsey raised his hand. Dempsey was a quiet man generally, he liked to speak his piece only rarely, often to gently mock and tease Inquisitor Hacha but it was clear that no matter how different the two Inquisitors might be in character and method, they had a lot of respect for each other's skills and experience. He smiled at us all apologetically. "I want to know more about the...apparently magical effects that these hounds exhibit. I will admit to struggling to believe that they ride fire-breathing, flying horses and likewise I struggle with the accounts that part of their clothing is made up of leathery wings but at the same time... "

He smiled again, doing his best to disarm us but I was wondering how much supersititious fear there was underneath the charming smiles.

"From Lord Fredericks accounts, they are described to put out an aura of fear and distortion. People fly from them and become frozen to the spot, unable to fight back or act properly when they come. I'm as eager to face this evil as much as the next person but...what could be causing that?"

"Have faith brother," Inquisitor Hacha had his best "benevolent priest" face on. That particular expression that leads me to want to punch it. "Let faith be your shield and you will be protected."

"That's nice in theory," said Sir Kristoff, "but I am also a little concerned by this. It's all well and good to think that faith will provide but faith is often reinforced by a stout shield and a good blade in my experience."

"I don't think you need to worry." Father Danzig said. "I think, what we're dealing with here is a little more societal than that. I agree that these things are men. I think that they wear outlandish costumes and move in strange ways. Their weapons are forged to look more wicked and unpleasant than the next persons weapons so that they can inspire fear and terror in the hearts of their victims. With all due respect to your subjects Lord Samuel but common folk, especially isolated common folk, are a superstitious and cowardly lot. I suspect that they have been told about the strange magics of the Hounds of Kreve and that the other commoners are seeing what they want to see."

"That's an awfully blasé way of thinking about it." Father Trent was frowning.

"Maybe." Danzig's own brow furrowed in thought. "But look. I loved Knight Father Gardan like a father. In many ways he was more my father than the man that raised me and got me on my mother. He taught me about the world, about the Sky-Father and about combat and I owe him a significant amount of what I am today. However, by his own admission, he wasn't of his right mind. He was just as much a victim of these suggestions as the common folk are."

"I will admit to struggling to believe the prospect of mass hallucinations however," Sam said, jumping into the discussion with both feet. "That's not to say that what you are telling me is incorrect, but if that were the case then surely, by now, Freddie would have found someone who would have told him that it's all nonsense and that he doesn't need to worry about it. Someone who isn't affected, isn't _imaginative_ enough to be affected by mass suggestion and hallucination."

"Maybe," Father Danzig sighed unhappily.

Inquisitor Dempsey spoke up. "Such suggestion would speak for part of what was happening here but not all of it. There would need to be some kind of "triggering effect" something that could be seen and pointed to as evidence for it to work which is why I am concerned."

"What do you mean?" Sam wanted to move on, he was shifting in his seat and fiddling with his cup, trying really hard to stay interested and invested in what was happening but couldn't hide his dissatisfaction. He wanted to be doing something.

"This kind of thing comes up occasionally and I am sure that Inquisitor Hacha will agree as he will almost certainly have experience with similar circumstances." I liked that. A little sop to his fellow Inquisitor's vanity to keep him onside. "Suggestion is a technique, they especially use it in cults where people are so desperate to see a thing, or to start to believe in a thing that they actually start seeing the thing. They convince themselves that there must be a thing there because everyone else is seeing the thing so there must be something there. Then they _want_ to see something because they don't want to be left out.

"All of that is true but there still needs to be a cultist number one if that makes sense. Someone who _actually_ sees or experiences the thing and that's why I'm making my concerns known. In this kind of situation, there are three possibilities. The first, which is the most common is that there is someone there that is actually delusional that is seeing something due to some form of sickness or weakness of the brain. However someone else is taking advantage of this and spreading the story around. I should say that I don't think that this is what's happening here because these circumstances say that these "Hounds" have been doing their thing for many years now. So that would be a lot of delusional people all seeing the same thing because such delusions and suggestions need maintenance."

"Which is unlikely," I heard myself comment. I didn't mean it to carry but Inquisitor Dempsey nodded.

"Precisely, you can't just leave them to it. Such things need shepherding and maintaining."

"That's how the church do it after all." Sir Rickard joked. Dempsey had the good grace to smile, as did Danzig. Father Trent Frowned while Hacha glared. I noticed that Kerrass had to hide a smirk behind his cup though.

"The second possibility is that there is someone in place to feed these delusions. An agent of the Hounds if you like. Someone in the villages that is there to feed the paranoia. To sell the illusion to the populace and to be as terrified and scared as the next person. They are the people suggesting sacrifices and telling people to hide. If this is the thing that is happening here then it will have been one of these people that suggested spreading salt across the threshold and across the windowsills."

"It would also explain why these "Hounds" are so aware of strangers, pretty young people and traders coming to visit. That's how they know who to attack and why they knew that Father Gardan, Sky-Father accept him with grace, was speaking to us and needed to be disposed of." Danzig mused.

"That is a most feasible option." Sir Kristoff rumbled. Like Sam, Sir Kristoff seemed to be getting bored with the entire affair.

"Then how do we find such men?" Sir Rickard asked. "It would be a lot of trouble to march into town and start accusing people of being in league with their enemy. At best that would start a witch-hunt against the potential traitors, or at worst it would cause the countryside, such as it is, to turn on us."

"Peasants against soldiers in our defensible positions?" Sir Kristoff bridled. "With no leader and habitually cowed as they are?" He seemed outraged at the possibility.

"I'm not saying I don't like our chances," Rickard commented. "But have you ever seen a swarm of insects take on a..."

"You had a third possibility Dempsey?" Sam's voice overrode the muttering and raised voices.

"The third point," Dempsey said after the voices died down. "The third point is the dangerous one. That's the possibility that there is something genuinely going on. That the cult really has found an item or place of power, that there really is a demon possessing someone or that there really is a magical user out there. In this case, that these "Hounds" really do have some kind of magical ability to a certain degree."

"I don't believe it," Inquisitor Hacha shook his head. "I have seen some of the things that you speak of, even though my areas of expertise are primarily to do with the physical evidence of what has happened rather than the way that people think, but in this case...?" He shook his head. "I have to disagree. I would put my thinking towards defending ourselves, and these people from the Hounds the next time they come to attack."

Danzig was shaking his head though.

"How do we determine whether it's one thing or the other? If there are agents, how do we expose them? If it is some small magical power? How do we counter it?"

Dempsey shrugged. "Time and careful investigation."

Danzzig was unhappy with this though. "That's lovely and everything but we have neither the time, nor the resources to start a full on Inquisition here. We would need to use some other method."

There was a slight pause. I was only half paying attention and felt that Sam's impatience was becoming contagious. We were talking round in circles and we needed to stop talking, get out there and do something.

So it took me a couple of minutes to realise that everyone had stopped talking. As I looked up everyone was looking at Kerrass. He realised it a moment later.

"You are joking." He said. "I refer you to the answer I gave you no less than twenty minutes ago. This is not something that falls within my skills. If you want to see if there are traitors or agents either in the castle or in the villages then you need a professional investigator. If you want to see if there are some people here with some kind of magical ability then you need to consult a proper magic user. A Sorceress or a Wizard of some kind."

"If they are magical creatures..." someone, I think it was Danzig, began.

"They are not." Kerrass said firmly. "There is no such creature that answers to what we saw. There are things that exhibit those powers but believe me, we would know the difference if we were dealing with them, but they only tend to live in swamps and in warmer climates apart from anything else, so this isn't even a mutation of something established before someone gets _that_ idea into their head. This is not Witcher's work anymore. I am here as a free citizen helping my friend and as a friend I would advise Lord Samuel to get himself a professional."

"So you are just going to stand by and..."

"Be careful, I..."

"Not that I'm happy with the prospect but." Father Trent lowered his voice when Kerrass and Danzig subsided. "Could we lay our hands on a Wizard, or a Sorceress?"

"There are none in the area." Sam said. "My understanding is that Magic users like solitude but they also like to have access to the creature comforts of polite society and we are far too remote for that kind of thing. I did invite Lady Laurelen to see if she could help, back when I was planning this expedition but she declined on the grounds that she wanted to spend as little time as possible around the Inquisition."

"Not an unfair sentiment," Rickard commented unhelpfully, only to be glared at by the churchmen present.

"Besides which, to get a message to her is a quick weeks ride at full gallop and with replacement horses waiting. Even at best time, we still need to be doing something about this before then."

"What about Lord Frederick's paramour?" Kristoff asked. "Surely she would help as she has a family tie here."

"No she doesn't." I said, "For we are not yet married." I sighed. "I would love to help. But people round this table have called Ariadne a "vampiric, magic using harlot"."

"In jest Lord Frederick. In jest." Danzig winced at the memory.

"Yes." I said sourly. "In jest. Even in jest though, it was a poor joke and I remember not being very happy with it at the time. She would be outraged and rightly so. What do you do when you're outraged Father Danzig?"

He looked at the table.

"What do any of you do when you are outraged? You react. The lady Countess Ariadne of Angral would do the same. She is an Elder Vampire, a Sorceress and a member of the Lodge of Sorceresses and would be considered a prize capture by the Inquisition."

Kerrass snorted at the thought.

"Not that you could capture her. But that itself would cause more problems wouldn't it? If she is forced to defend herself from church knights and church soldiers?"

"My men are disciplined and would never..."

"Wouldn't they?" I asked. "Not all that long ago I had a reminder about what so called "Knights of the Eternal Fire do, if you remember. Bishop Sansum's troops were disciplined as well."

"Do not equate me with that..." Danzig began, his own temper rising to meet mine.

"I will not call the Countess," I said. "I will not ask her to risk herself in such a fashion."

"You mean you won't help?" Inquisitor Hacha was aghast and furious. "You won't even ask her? You have a duty here, sir, and you should be mindful of it for your souls sake."

"I have a duty sir?" I snarled. "I have a duty to my fiancee, to protect her and..."

"That's enough." Sam said again in his battlefield voice. "That's quite enough." He glared at us in turn before sighing.

"We're nowhere," he said after a while. "For the record, I agree with my brother. Countess Ariadne has other duties and even if she didn't, she is not yet married to Lord Frederick and he has no hold over her. If they were married then he would be quite correct to protect her from harm as would be his duty as a husband. This is _our_ problem and _we_ will fix it."

He took a breath. "Let's take a break, stretch our legs, get something to eat and calm down. When we come back, I want to discuss deployment and how we gain more information about our enemies. The villagers need protecting and it is our duty to do so. Now get out of my sight, all of you." He sat back down in a thump.

I waited until it was just the two of us sat in the room. Kerrass caught my eye but I winked at him and waved him off.

"Sorry Sam," I said when it was just the two of us, "But I have visions of Hacha opening his stupid mouth and saying something insulting. Ariadne has admirable self-control but I would imagine that it has limits."

He looked up. "Don't fret Freddie." He said. "You are right, which is why I didn't push the matter with Laurelen. Sooner or later someone would say something, one of the church knights with too much "honour" than sense and then you, or I, would have to fight a duel to avenge the ladies honour and then it would be a whole other mess."

He chuckled. "Although it's quite a mess as it is. What the fuck do you think we should do Freddie? Gotta admit, I obviously won't, but I've been a little tempted to sack the whole thing off and go and live on that little parcel of land that I got with my knighthood on the coast."

"Is it nice there?" I asked sitting back down.

"It's on the coast." He told me. "I understand that it's remote and windswept. Pretty, but not worth very much. I understand that they built a warehouse there when I gave the lands over to Father."

I nodded.

"We need more information." I said to him. "We need to know more."

Sam nodded. "I thought you would say that but it's not going to go easily. They know where we are and we haven't got the first clue about them."

I nodded glumly.

"Now piss off." Sam told me. "I need to think."

I did as I was told.

As it happens, despite my bluster from earlier. I did talk to Ariadne about the problem because I thought that she might want something of a say in the matter. She told me that, attractive though the prospect of annoying a bunch of church officials might be, that she wasn't available at the moment. She was working on something and couldn't get away at the moment despite any desire to see me. No she didn't tell me what it was although she did tell me that she was working on something that might get us some more information.

She also told me that she agreed with Kerrass. That the "Hounds" were not any kind of magical creature and that if anyone was performing magic on the kind of scale that would cause the effects that I described, then Kerrass would have been able to tell. I passed this information on to both Kerrass and Sam when we all reconvened.

"So Ariadne won't come?" Sam asked. I couldn't tell if he was pleased or disappointed.

"Not now at any rate. She told me that she couldn't get away."

"Pleased to see that your sense of duty is not completely wasted although I cannot speak for hers." Hacha sniffed. I would have reacted but Kerrass had changed his seat so that he was sat next to me and held on to my arm.

"Lady Ariadne is currently performing her duties according tot he Empress' dictates Inquisitor Hacha and it is not our place to counter that." Sam said coolly. "My brother's sense of duty is not in question here, nor would it have been if he had chosen not speak to the lady and I would thank you not to bring the matter up again."

Inquisitor Hacha sniffed hugely. I got the impression that he could give a shit about the Empress' orders and wanted to make it abundantly clear to everyone sat around the table what he thought of the entire affair.

"So it's not magic." Inquisitor Dempsey said. "But we know that there is a magical aura in the nearby vicinity. Is it possible that the magic is a greater thing that makes there suggestions and theatrics take on a greater scale?"

"That is possible," said Kerrass. "If the magic in question was cast a long time ago. Magic degrades over time but a skilled person could render such a spell. But a counter argument would be that there would be more magical effect when the Hounds were present. My medallion is moving no more or less when we saw the riders than at any other time."

"What about the mist?" Sir Kristoff asked. "Surely it can't be a coincidence that they only appear in the mist or when the world is obscured in some way."

"No, I don't think it's a coincidence," Father Danzig said, "but there is another possibility. The "Hounds" only appear when there is a mist but that doesn't mean that they are not there. It's just that when the mist comes, they put their outfits on and ride out."

"We can wear ourselves out speculating" Sam finally said. "We've already been talking ourselves around in circles for what has been hours but feels like days. The simple fact of the matter is that we still don't have enough information. We need to know more about our enemies and I think that we're already on a back foot here. We ride openly whereas they conceal themselves.

"I don't think it can be argued that there are people out there that are feeding information to the Hounds. So now we need some information to come back the other way. We also need to see if we can put some thought into where the Hounds might be hiding."

We were all nodding.

"Just to be clear. I still think that this is something to do with the cult that was based here in the castle." Kerrass spoke up. "I think there is enough of a similarity between what we saw down in Oxenfurt and what has been reported here."

There was more nodding.

"Right, so here's what I want." Sam leant forward. "I want there to be some patrols set up to search and to be seen to search around my lands. I want each patrol to be made up of a mixture of Redanian soldiers, Church knights and Bastards."

Sir Rickard shifted in his seat unhappily. "I would rather not split my men up." He said, "Unit cohesion and all that."

"I know and I understand. I also know that you are assigned to Lord Frederick and not to me but I hope that you will see the sense of the matter."

"Oh I see the sense. I will insist on a couple of things though."

"Such as."

"I have trained my men to think and work differently to standard military units and as such they are not held down to standard military discipline. If anyone has a problem with the way my men behave they will see my Sergeant or myself before punishment is meted out as they may be acting under my orders."

"Agreed."

Rickard threw his hands up in surrender, "Then you have my men. But I work with Lord Frederick and I want at least three of them to help with that."

"Done."

"Do you always argue with your superiors about the disposition of your men?" Sir Kristoff was unhappy.

"I do when I think people want to use them improperly." Sir Rickard answered properly. "Also, as Lord Samuel points out. Technically I answer to Lord Frederick, not to Lord Samuel."

""Technically," you sound like a barrack room lawyer." Kristoff sneered.

"When I have to be to protect my men, I am. My men are a dozen of the best scouts, bowmen and skirmishers on the continent and I will not see them wasted."

"Gentlemen." Sam snapped. "Let's not."

Sir Kristoff subsided. Sir Rickard couldn't give a damn.

"So, patrols, looking for trails and roads and things. Any sign of bandit dens or camps that we haven't heard of. Caves...anything that might hide an armed force like the hounds. I want information gentlemen. Not heroes. In the meantime, I would ask the priests to continue their investigation into what happened at the castle. We're still looking for more members of the staff that might be able to give us something more. As well as that we need to keep talking to Aunt Kalayn and her servant and see what they can remember. But be gentle. Do not go to far or you will answer to me."

There was more nodding although the priests were plainly unhappy.

"Ooh, and also. We've heard about there being the presence of some Elves in the local area. I would like to hear more about that. See if you can find them, or be found by them which is probably more likely if they don't want to be found.

"Freddie, if you could take Kerrass and Sir Rickard and keep talking to villagers. And I still want everyone back here by nightfall unless you tell me in advance. I don't want to be fretting about people that have been left out there and wondering. I want to _know_.

"Right now, the Hounds and there masters are having a discussion, a lot like this one, about what they are going to do about us. They are trying to decide what to do next. There are two options to my mind. The first is that they will decide that we are not a threat, or at best are a minimal threat. This will mean that they will continue with all of their established patterns. This will not be allowed by us and we will have to take steps to protect our people.

"But I think that the far more likely option is that they will decide that we are a real threat and they will come after us. They will depend on their tricks, and the fact that they know the land and the people better than us and they will start to attack.

"So we must remove those advantages. We must learn about this land. We must learn how it works. The safe option would be to retreat to our own holdings and hide behind these walls. But I refuse to be reactive. We must find out where they are and we must take the fight to them.

"So let's get to it."

We all nodded and got to work.

It didn't take them long to find us, nor us them. It seemed as though there had been some kind of signal given and now the scouting began.

The next time there was a fog we saw them. Often in the distance, watching us. There was a vantage point above the tree line and at the top of a cliff above the castle. One of Sir Rickard's men who was standing on look out spotted the man and pointed. By the time that men got out there though, there was no sign of him. The ground too rocky for tracks but it would have been a struggle for someone to get there. I couldn't have done it and the men that did it had to use rope and pitons.

Several of the men commented that they felt as though there were eyes on them as they travelled. A cold feeling on the back of the neck. You might scoff in your safe havens in built up cities, but when the hardened soldiers start stringing bows, knocking arrows and start walking cautiously, you would do well to listen to them and do what you're told.

One morning we woke to find a wolf's head, stuck on the end of a spear in the pathway leading up to the castle, it had been left there in the middle of the night during a mist. No lookout saw anything.

And then we started to hear the sounds of howling.

The villagers also felt as though something was beginning, as though they were under attack and were increasingly getting worried. We tried to be calm and confident in the face of the villagers fear but the truth is that we were getting just as nervous as they were. Despite Sam's best efforts and intentions, we were becoming reactive.

Our maps improved, we became skilled in moving through that particular part of the countryside at speed and without having to resort to the roads too much.

We even found what we thought might have been old camp-sites that might have been used. There wasn't much, dug out patches on the ground where people could have lit fires that wouldn't have been visible at a distance, as well as a couple of places that were probably the burial of people's bodily waste.

But nothing concrete. We didn't even know whether the old camp-sites were human in origin or were the remnants of some of the elven camps that we had heard so much about.

Kerrass declared that the camps were human but that made little difference to the theorising. In short, it wasn't the most frustrating period in my recent life, but it was close.

It was maybe a couple of weeks later that something happened. We'd had a few good mists, even one or two that the locals described as being "proper" blood mists but if the Hounds attacked anyone then it wasn't us or any of the other villages.

Again, there were more theories that were tried to try and explain this but it still didn't amount to much. Inquisitor Hacha wanted to suggest that this meant that the actual physical number of Hounds was relatively small and that they had quiet a large amount of land to cover. But that was quickly countered by Dempsey who argued that the suspense and the waiting was just as powerful.

But in the end, it was when the two Inquisitors had been making one of their many visits to the Dower house to speak to Aunt Kalayn and her maid. They were still working on some of the chemical compounds that had been discovered in the castle and Inquisitor Dempsey with Father Trent was still trying to get information out of Aunt Kalayn's frazzled brain. Poor woman. Normally Sam went with them but he had injured himself after getting too frustrated in a training session with Sir Rickard and the Temerian had schooled him to much hilarity and a slight improvement in castle morale.

I remember wondering whether or not he'd done it deliberately for that reason but I never got round to checking with him whether or not that was the case.

Certainly his relationship with Aunt Kalayn did not improve to the point that the Inquisition had to ask him to leave the room for fear that she would physically attack him or that his presence would taint what they were being told.

Which was not very much.

I was stood on the corner tower of the castle watching the countryside. I had formed a habit of going up there to sit and have a conversation with Ariadne through the medallion that she had given me. We talked, on average, once every couple of days, sometimes we would talk for upwards of an hour, sometimes one or other of us would only have enough time for a small message of affection and to complain about whatever was annoying us at the time.

Very occasionally she had questions about how I wanted the wedding to take place, what I wanted from the ceremony and things but more often than not, she was telling me what was going to happen as part of, now, a four or five way organised wedding. The people that were getting involved were obviously my family to begin with who wanted to show off the Coulthard trading name, throw a bit of class and weight around to show off how wealthy, benevolent and wonderful we were.

Then there was the political aspect of the thing, that I was marrying into the noble families of Angral, and area of land that had been argued over by Kaedwen, Aedirn and Redania for a long time so there was also a certain amount of politics happening there. The Duke and Duchess of Angral (formerly the King and Queen of Angral for those people who like to pay attention to the complicated nature of the dynastic excitement that happens, had happened and will probably continue to happen in that corner of the world) wanted to be involved and have their own say about where things were, what flags would be flown and things of that nature.

Then there was the fact that the Empress had semi-formally adopted me into her family along with Emma, Mark and Sam. Therefore she had decided that, as another big sister of mine, she should have a say in what happened and when. Not that I think anyone, least of all me, was going to argue with her on that matter.

When the Empress decides that she wanted to do something, then generally the Empress gets to do what she likes. This is because, as she is fond of saying, "The Seventh and Light Vrihedd division works for her." This didn't bother me too much, she wanted some semblance of normal family life and given that her "parental figures" were a Witcher and a Sorceress as well as the former Emperor and his bride who is arguable younger than Empress Cirilla, she really struggled with that. If it makes her happy to stick her nose into my wedding arrangements so that she can feel like a big sister, then so be it. As it happens, Emma had forged the beginnings of a friendship with the Empress and was teaching her about Economics, much to the consternation of some of the older Nilfgaardian courtiers.

But that led us onto the Lodge of Sorceresses. Ariadne was an open and public member of the Lodge of Sorceresses, was also working openly on helping the Empire with some of the magical problems that have cropped up in the Empire over the last few years and now she was marrying a nobleman openly. This was causing some head shaking but the Lodge were determined to make a point of this, as if to say that the Lodge were people too and as the Lodge were also heavily involved in and with Kovir and Poviss, there might end up being some other formidable people sitting in on our ceremony.

There might be nothing more emasculating than the sights of Madame Yennefer, Madame Eilhart, Lady Vigo and Lady Maleficant sat in a row, glaring at anyone who might think differently of them.

That's if the honoured Lady Findabair doesn't turn up. She's being invited as she's a member of the Lodge although Ariadne promises me that it's unlikely that she will actually show up.

Also, Ariadne tells me that she's still working on who will be in her bridal party. With no-one to walk her down the aisle, she will almost certainly be accompanied by Maleficant. Imagine that if you like. Lady Maleficant carrying flowers in a pretty bridesmaids dress.

You can thank Kerrass for that mental image as he was the one that gave it to me.

But I've gone off topic. I was stood on the top of the tower watching the sun set. I'd had some hard training with Kerrass earlier as he had been moaning about not getting enough proper training in and I was feeling sore. I was also trying to enjoy the undeniable beauty of the countryside. Because it was, honestly, beautiful despite all the darkness and misery that had taken place within the walls that I had stood on and in the surrounding landscape.

Kerrass was with me, still working his sword forms, well away from where I was perched on the walls and Sir Rickard was watching him. Sir Rickard was struggling a bit with having his men split over the different patrol groups he complained about it bitterly whenever he could get anyone to sit still long enough to listen. He'd nearly gotten into a fight about it with Sir Kristoff as Kristoff demanded to know whether or not Rickard was questioning his competence to which Rickard replied that he wasn't questioning his overall competence, more his ability to command specialists like his men.

His temper was not improved. Not helped by the fact that he had been soundly drubbed by everyone there on the practice field today, other than me. Partially because he was worried about his men, but also because, in Kerrass' words, "He's not a fencer, he's a duelist. If any of the others fought him on a battlefield, I think that they would be in for a shock."

He was pacing.

"They're late." He told me.

"Who's late?" I asked as I looked up from the small book of notes that I was working on.

"You know damn well who I'm talking about." he snarled. "The noble Inquisition is late getting back."

"So?"

"So? They're supposed to be back before night fall."

"And they will be. Night hasn't fallen yet."

"The sun is sinking." He protested. Pointing indignantly.

"It does that." Kerrass commented drily.

"Fuck you and all."

"What's all this commotion?" Sam grinned as limped up the stairs to where we were all standing. "As if I don't know."

"They're late." Rickard snapped at him.

"I know, and believe me, I will have words with the noble Inquisitors when they get back about time keeping, but in the mean time there isn't really much we can do."

"Something might have happened."

"Something might have." Sam was being reasonable. In that way that is almost designed to wind people up even further than they had already been wound. Especially when the person in question wants something to get angry at. "But what should we do about it. There are men here and they need to stay here to secure the castle. Father Danzig's group are staying out at the other village tonight"

Rickard subsided a little but not much. "They're late." He said again.

"And there is a mist growing on the mountainside." Said Kerrass walking up to the wall having stopped his practice, "and the sun is setting red." He started to reach inside his tunic to get his medallion out.

I turned to watch the mist form. As before, it seemed to slither down the mountainside, it felt as though it was less like water this time, there was an added dryness to the air which left it feeling odd. A strange kind of static feeling like what you get when you rub your hands over course sheeps wool.

The sun was still shining though and it shone on the fog with a strange red glow which only made the fog seem more solid but at the same time as though it was glowing.

We watched it for a long time. Kerrass had his medallion out and was watching carefully. "No more or less magic than there ever is in this part of the world." He declared before tucking the medallion back into his shirt and starting to pull his leather coat back on.

"Your men to the walls I think Sir Rickard." Sam commented. "Bows strung and ready."

"There are only eight of us here." But Sir Rickard was moving despite the complaint. "Not that they'll be much use in the fog."

"But better shots than the crossbowmen I have with me." Sam countered "Now snap to it if you please."

I was rubbing some life back into tired muscles. I suddenly had the premonition that I was about to need to move very quickly.

Sam gave a few more orders. He ordered the remaining horses saddled and that the gate should remain open for as long as possible. A bugler joined us on the tower as well as a signal man with the flags ready. The trees and the fog might deaden one or the other but the hope was that at least one of the two messages would get through. Other soldiers and knights formed up next to the gates, ready to sally forth.

The bastards took up their positions, War-bows strung and leaning on the walls. They had a bag of arrows per man, easily containing a hundred arrows each. Each of the men flicked through the bag, choosing out a couple of favourites to be kept on the wall next to them.

"This is going to be fucking messy." Sam muttered to himself. "We're not going to see a fucking thing."

True to his word and with surprising speed, the fog rolled over us. At one point it was a bank of solid, red, rolling cloud moving towards us and then suddenly it was as though we had been wrapped in a blanket.

It was much darker in the fog. Colder too.

It was not as heavy as we thought it might be either. You could make things out enough to move around without falling off the walls but that's not the point, the same as when you try and move around to fight in the darkness, it's not what you see, it's what you _might_ see. Or that you _imagine_ seeing that cause you the problems. I knew I was useless up on the wall. If I was going to be any help at all I would have been better down in the courtyard with the horses or getting ready to help receive wounded. Sam had brought a field surgeon with him but if there was anyone else then I might be able to help with stitching up wounds and setting bones, leaving the more serious injuries to the professional.

Heh, there's that word again.

But I wanted to see what was happening.

Time passed slowly in the mist. There was no way that we could mark time, we couldn't see the sun other than the fact that a particular quarter of the sky was markedly brighter than the other.

Then we heard the thunder.

But that wasn't what it was. It wasn't a storm at all. There was no lightening, nor was there that feeling of imminence that there is when you have a serious thunder storm. It was also a constant, rolling sound. There was a rhythm to it but I couldn't quite tell what it was.

Because then the howling started.

I looked at Kerrass who, once again was standing with his medallion out in front of his eyes. He didn't react otherwise. Sam was frowning in concentration.

The howls weren't those of dogs or wolves as far as I could tell. Dogs less so but I have found, when I have heard a pack of wolves howling, there is an odd sense of harmony about it. As though they have agreed something. With dogs it's a lot more chaotic, a lot more lacking in organisation. There are peaks and troughs to the sounds of dogs howling. Like valleys and hills of sound. This was a constant thing. Like a blanket that covered us all like the fog that really was. Mixing it in with the sound of thunder, it felt like it was going on for years.

I took to pacing, I couldn't see anything, so I would walk from one end of the parapet to another and then back again. I knew that I was out of bow-shot range. The tower had seemingly been placed here for precisely that purpose. It was a long way down to the valley and causeway below. The only way to shoot at a place like where we were would be to be above us but that wasn't going to happen.

I should explain something about the terrain that we were facing. Down from the castle gates there is a roadway that circles the rocky hill that the castle is built on. On one side of the road is the rock face that would, eventually, lead up to the castle and on the other side there was either a steep drop off or another, equally steep rock wall. Anyone attacking the castle in force would need to make their way up the causeway to get to the gate house which would not be a pleasant climb with the castle defenders raining arrows, rocks and any other generally unpleasant things on to your heads. It would be up this road that the returning men would be coming and peer as I might, I couldn't see the road. Or I might be able to, but the distance and the fog was distorting things.

It's at times like this when we realise how much we see depends on movement.

So I paced while I waited, not very constructive but it made me feel better

"We need fires," Sam commented to himself. "Fire baskets on poles down there so that they can be lit in times like this. It would help burn the fog away and give archers more light to shoot by."

"It might also obstruct the view by distorting things." Kerrass commented without looking up.

"It might," Sam admitted. "But right now I want to do something, there isn't anything to do other than to wait, so all I can think about is how I might make the situation better."

Kerrass said nothing.

I continued to pace, unconsciously counting off the time as I went.

Have I mentioned before how much I fucking hate waiting?

"How many men with the two Inquisitors?" I asked Sam.

"Two of the bastards. Half a dozen of the flame soldiers, a couple of the Redanian footmen and a Church knight from Danzig."

"Not a small number of men," I commented.

"No, but." He grinned suddenly. "It suddenly doesn't feel like enough.

Rickard rejoined us on the tower after having organised his men. His own warbow carried easily in his left hand with three arrows carried in his right. Another arrow was already knocked. His bow was a huge thing, easily longer than he was tall and Rickard is not a short man, while at it's thickest I couldn't fit my entire hand round it. Sir Rickard is an officer and a knight now. He once told me that he rarely fires a shot in battle or when his men are fighting. There was a change that happened when he was elevated from the ranks to the nobility and although it is a change that he sometimes resents, he has become incredibly good at it. He says that the difference is that no, his men are his weapons. I had never really seen them fight but I guessed that he used them very well. He still carried his bow though and he trained with it obsessively.

"Who's still out there?" I asked him as he walked up.

"Pendleton." He said before taking a deep breath. "Pendleton and Shepherd."

"I don't know Shepherd." I commented.

"You won't. Quiet man, likes to stay at the back of things, quiet like. I once managed to get him to admit to being a trained killer for someone in Temeria until he got burnt and joined the army to hide away. Truth be told, since the war ended I keep waiting for him to desert but he never has."

Rickard looked me in the eye.

"I've got a bad feeling about this Freddie."

"You and me both."

"I should be down there with them. I should..."

Then we head a scream from deep down in the valley. A cross between a bellow of rage and a scream of pain.

No sooner had my brain registered the sound than I realised that Rickard was running back to his position on the wall.

"Eye's up," he called. "Eye's on. Look to."

The Bastard's drew their arrows to half-draw. Not so that they were straining their bows but so that there was that small amount of time cut out for them to be drawn to full. I could see soldiers getting on their horses down in the courtyard.

The screaming didn't stop, but it seemed to be getting closer.

Something moved on the causeway. As it turned out, with the movement I could see more than I thought I would be able to. A lone riderless horse, stirrups banging it's side as it ran headlong up the causeway.

"Steady," Sam's voice rang out. Maybe because I knew him so well but I thought I could hear strain in his voice. It wouldn't have surprised me if it was.

Somebody caught the horse and brought it into the courtyard. Sam clapped me on the shoulder. "Go and find out." He told me, ordered me really but I wasn't about to complain as I ran down into the courtyard and ran up to the groom who was bringing the horse further into the courtyard. "Well?" I demanded.

"Redanian sir." It was one of Sam's squires who answered. The lad was physically shaking. "Our shoes and gear. Standard issue." I nodded and turned back to get Sam the news.

"Sir," the lad called turning me round. "Sir, there's blood on the saddle."

I nodded.

The screaming was getting closer, it felt as though it was almost on top of us by the point that I climbed back up to the tower and gave the information over to Sam who said nothing, he barely even reacted as I told him, just nodding slightly. I left him to his brooding and went to stand next to Kerrass. He'd put his medallion back under his short and was leaning against the parapet, peering down into the smoky darkness.

"There," he said after a moment. "On the edge of the clearing at the base of the causeway. Coming up the road."

"Where?" Sam and I said at the same time.

But then I saw. Seven Horsemen riding back for the castle. Riding hard. They had been riding in formation along the road but that dissolved when they got to the clearing. A couple of them broke forward, the horses leaping into the gallop as the sped towards the base of the causeway.

Then a swirl of the mist carried them from view.

"Flame curse this mist," Sam snarled, pounding his fist on the castle walls.

Then the flames leapt up. The old huts that we had slept in while the castle had been made safe along with Sam's temporary hall. They were suddenly engulfed in flame. So suddenly that there must have been oil or something in the mix because fire simply doesn't spread that fast. Especially in the cold chill of altitude and thick fog.

But it did mean that we could see. Three horsemen were still riding for the castle but it looked like the rest had either dismounted or had fallen from their horses. They were turning and waving at things in the tree line. I thought I could see one of the figures on the ground shooting a bow but it was a distant thing, seen through strands of mist. It looked like a scene from a nightmare. The flames and the jerking figures. One man was waving his sword around as though he was fighting but we couldn't see what he was fighting against. I saw another man throw his hands up into the air as though he had been shot before falling to the ground. Another horseman came out of the trees, the man in the saddle was slumped down.

"What are they fighting?" Sam wondered aloud.

But then we saw them too. They didn't attack like we would. They weren't organised, they didn't move in ranks or move together. One would dart forward, come within weapon range of the fighters before veering off and fleeing.

But the effect that this had on the defenders was profound. We could hear them screaming. Even as they fought, swinging swords blindly and wildly. Those were not screams of anger or the normal battle cries.

Those men were terrified

Sam spat over the wall before turning and bellowing down into the courtyard. "Kristoff, take men down there and see what's going on. I want everyone back inside the castle walls right, fucking, now."

He span without waiting for a response.

"Kerrass, go with them. If anyone can make sense of all of this it's you. Those men are free and clear so why aren't they retreating?"

Kerrass nodded and turned to go and I followed.

"Freddie," Sam called. I turned ready with an excuse of comment on my lips. "Be careful Freddie," Sam said softly. "I would tell you to stay but you'd ignore me. I don't want to explain your absence to an angry vampire."

He turned away before I could respond and stepped out of sight, presumably back to the edge of the parapet. I ran on, Kerrass had already pulled my horse over and I climbed into the saddle.

"Hard and Fast lads." Sir Kristoff was saying. "Hard and fast. Get them out, pull them onto the horses bodily if you have to and then get them back up to the castle so Lord Samuel can do his thing. Hit hard, hit fast."

His horse was in front of the group of men and it reared for effect. I always wonder when I see this kind of thing whether or not the horse rider was doing that on purpose.

Redania." He yelled.

The men cheered.

"Redania." He yelled again.

"We cheered louder.

Redania." He didn't wait for the counter call instead signalling the bugler who sounded the charge as we surged forward. I had time to glance over at Kerrass who's eyes were gleaming in the firelight.

The horses surged forward and we thundered through the gate and down the hill.

You have no way of knowing this but I have just paused in the writing of this account. I needed to think about how to describe what it was like. It's taken me a not small amount of time so the only way that I can think of to describe it is like this.

It was like descending into hell.

I know that that's going to cause some confusion. Mostly because to, as far as I know, the vast majority of my readership, their idea of hell is based on the version of hell as described by the cult of the eternal flame.

For followers of the eternal flame, hell is a cold place. A place of ice and snow, of darkness and quiet. I haven't really looked into it and I imagine that there are others that are much more knowledgable about this kind of thing than I am but I believe that it's because if the eternal flame represents warmth, guidance, shelter and security then "hell" must represent the opposite of that. Hence the cold, darkness and so on. But in that, the Eternal Flame is actually the rarity in most modern religions.

By these I'm referring to Kreve, and the cult of the Divine Sun in Nilfgaard.

I don't know about Melitele but I did hear one priestess say that Melitele is a woman's religion. They have no need of a concept of hell because women are living through hell everyday and Melitele represents shelter from that and an ease of suffering. Therefore, for them, hell is living through every day.

But I was talking about the other version of hell.

For Kreve and the cult of the Divine Sun, Hell is described as a hot place. A place of fire and smoke. Of pain and heat where the air is poisonous and the ground is fire.

I could speculate as to why this is and again it's because of opposites. Kreve is referred to as "The Sky-Father", the important part of that sentence is "Sky". The Divine Sun is a worship of the Sun itself which is a thing of the sky. Therefore the opposite of both of those things is what is going on underneath the ground.

We know, from the volcanic eruptions that have sometimes occurred in Skellige and up in the mountains down South that under the earth is a lot of lava and molten rock. Therefore...

I'm sure you get the point.

But that is what it was like. Riding down that causeway and into the valley.

It was like descending into hell.

I've talked about the fog and the mist aspects of things but I don't think I've properly got the idea across of how thick it was and what it was doing to the landscape. It had this strange effect where it was causing rocks and trees to seem as though they were jumping out at me. Small movements in the undergrowth seemed massively amplified and overwhelming to the point where I didn't know what to do with it. I felt like ducking all the time and had to fight not to jink to one side or another to avoid obstacles that I was absolutely sure were going to lead to my being unhorsed.

This was ridiculous because I was riding towards the back of the column. In the middle of the column so if there was anything there then it would have struck the other soldiers in front of me.

It was cloying as well, it sounds ridiculous as I write it but I could feel it at the back of my throat, this odd kind of rasping sensation in the same way that you get when you've had a particularly sweet, creamy desert and it sticks to the roof of your mouth and to the back of your throat, or when you have a cold and you get that cloying feeling of sickness in your lungs.

It had a smell as well. I knew that it shouldn't smell, that mist smells of nothing but damp...leaves or grass or whatever else you are riding through at the time. But there was a smell that you could taste. It was an awful kind of vinigary smell. The closest thing that it reminded me of was of bad eggs. A soldier a couple of rows ahead of me had to lean over the side of his horse and vomited.

As we followed the causeway round, it bent to the left as we came round the hill that the castle was built on. There was a ripple in the troop as we narrowed our profile to let a trio of horsemen past. I thought I could see the red tabbard of a church soldier as well as the robes of a priest of the Eternal fire but I couldn't be sure as they sped up the hill towards safety and the castle gates.

I found that I was struggling to breathe, each breath hissed in my throat and I began to feel light-headed. The men that we were riding with had begun to shout at each other now. Prayers and curses, battle-cries and small whimpers of fear. Some of those sounds might even have come from my own mouth. My spear was strapped to my saddle, already linked together. I had wanted to ride down with it couched under my arm-pit the same way that a knight might carry a lance in the jousting field but, rather prudently I had thought at the time, I had decided that I would need both hands to steer and control the horse that I was riding. It wasn't that I was incorrect. But I found the distance between me and the spear increased as I thought about it. I desperately wanted to unstrap it and have it in my hand as though it would comfort me by it's sheer presence. I began to want it, to need it.

I shook my head to try and clear it and I could see the same gesture being reflected in the other men riding up and down the column.

Then, we started to get the smell of smoke, burning straw, wood and grass. Filthy from the rain and the mud but still hot and even more so we were being choked and blinded by the stinging smoke. At one point I had been worried that I might become afraid of fire after the adventures with Sansum but I drove my horse on.

A man in front of me leant over and fell of his horse. Just leant over as far as he could go and simply fell off in the same way that a tree might fall in the woods after a wood-cutter has been working at it for hours. At first I flinched as I supposed that some kind of weapon or spell had caught hold of him and that he was dead but then I saw him push himself to his knees and begin to pray.

Not far now. Not far to the battlefield.

Kerrass caught hold of my arm as he rode next to me.

"Turn back." He yelled. "Go back Freddie." But I ignored him. I flinched away from him as though his touch burned me, his eyes blazing in the animal skull of his face. I yanked my arm from his grip as we rode on. He seemed furious but he didn't have time to grab me again as we had arrived.

I could see the burning buildings off to one side, ahead and a little to the right as we came to the clearing I could see a small knot of men, our men, who looked as though they were fighting for their lives. There were men all over the place.

I've never been on a battlefield or in a battle really but I'm told that it's generally not as chaotic as this. I'm told that experienced men can tell you what happened on any given field of battle just by looking at the lay of the land and the way that the corpses are arranged. Walls of dead horsemen, crowds of men in the same uniform with arrows sticking out of them. Corpses like unmoving waves as though an artist has taken a still picture of the sea from above, only instead of water, there are bodies and they are everywhere. They can tell you where the shield wall broke and where the cavalry hit the infantry line.

Or so I'm told.

This wasn't like that. This was chaos. I saw one man staggering through the grass with the skin off the side of his face missing. He was reaching up to the sky, begging for help from some kind of unseen thing. Another man was lying on the ground clutching at his belly even though there was nothing wrong with it. Individual men wandering about, screaming at nothing, gibbering and yelling at apparitions that only they could see.

Then there were the horsemen. The Hounds themselves that would come riding out of the smoke and the fog with eye-hurting lack of speed as they almost leisurely reached down and out to the side with long, claw-like hands as they killed their chosen target before they would scream to the heavens and ride off.

These weren't men. I don't know what they were but they weren't men. They looked to be made out of bone and metal. You could see the spurs of bone sticking out from their leather cloaks as they raised their arms. That makes no sense I know and I've struggled to try and define what I saw that night.

Try and imagine a man, this will be more useful to those of you that might be more medically minded. So Imagine a man, keep the same proportions so, the same height and build, but then start to increase the size of the bones in the man's skeletons. Not just thickness but the length of the bones as well so that they get to the point where they can't fit inside the skin and muscle of the man and it breaks free. The skin breaks along with the blood and other liquids that run freely along the bones.

But the muscle remains behind so that all the limbs keep working. The limbs and the other organs.

But then start to think about the cartilage and other things that hold the bones together and help them move. Imagine that those things are made from metal that has been oiled and moves around like the clockwork of the gnomes and the dwarves. Then wrap the entire thing in a dark leather hooded cloak and cowl. I don't know why but I thought that the leather was blue in colour and I remember thinking that it was strange to think of it as being blue but that was what I remembered.

They would ride out of the surrounding trees at a gallop and dash up to their target whether this was a man by themselves or whether it was the small knot of men that were still trying to fight together as some kind of unit. They would ride up, swing their claws or their weapons. Some of those men carried swords, others carried spears but by far the most just had these strange claws that seemed to extend out of their arms that when they would brush, even just near, their target, then there would be a fountain of blood as the claw would unerringly strike at an artery or some other vital area and the man would go down.

The knot of men were still fighting. There was someone there, although I couldn't tell who it was that was holding everyone together but they wouldn't last much longer. Those men were already puking and screaming, weeping and shaking with their fear and their utter abject horror. I watched and another man died.

The group of men that I was with just shattered. What little unit cohesion that we had from the ride down into the valley just exploded under the onslaught to our senses in the same way that a hammer would break glass. A good half of the men just turned their horses and fled or, if they fell off their horses, just turned and fled back up the causeway. The other half let out their own howl and charged towards the knot of men. A couple of them had managed to keep their heads and started forcing wounded or otherwise incapacitated men onto horseback and herding them back towards the keep.

I would later learn that Sir Kristoff was one of the men that managed to keep his head. He would later claim that it was one of the benefits of superior Redanian training but I personally came to think that it was just his utter lack of imagination. The credit for salvaging what could be salvaged from that action lies with him. I don't like the man as he is a stickler, the kind of man that looks down on others if they haven't served in some kind of armed conflict or another and treats those of lesser ranks as being lower than himself. His conversation is full of rules, regulations and military history which, to be fair, in the right hands of a skilled teacher can be fascinating. In the hands of Sir Kristoff it can be mind numbingly tedious.

But he held the men together that day and if anyone can claim to have saved lives, it would be him and Kerrass who also, unsurprisingly really, kept his head and was able to fend off those horsemen that attacked the group of men while Kristoff got them organised.

I saw none of this at the time. I was too busy looking at one of the hounds.

I had seen a man staggering towards me. He was clutching his belly and he had a quiver of arrows on his back so, on some level I must have realised that he was one of Sir Rickard's bastards. He was weaving this way and that, obviously wounded. I might not have reacted but one of the hounds was charging towards him. Sword outstretched in the typical pose that has been immortalised in paintings, plays and tales all over the continent of what happened when a horseman is chasing down a fleeing footman. Sword out, held up and high over their shoulder ready to sweep down in a huge blow to the back of the fleeing man. The archer hadn't seen him and I screamed something.

The horseman looked at me and it's own mouth opened. A horrible sickly grey, pink kind of light came from it's eyes and it's mouth. Fire seemed to emanate from that gaping maw and then it screamed itself with an ear shattering sound that made my teeth hurt.

Something snapped inside my head as various conscious parts of me just shut down and I started to act without thinking.

I jumped off my horse, tearing the spear from the saddle as I went and sprinted forwards so that I was between the chasing horseman and the staggering archer. I was howling, saying something but I couldn't for the life of me tell you whether I was screaming for help from the Eternal flame or calling for my mother. I planted my feet and lunged forwards with my spear. The rider's sword came down and hammered into the spear with force enough to cause sparks to fly from where the two weapons impacted with each other.

I staggered, he drew back and struck down again at the same angle, this time I managed to turn the blade to one side ready for a strike of my own. I howled in triumph as I plunged the spear forward into the place where I knew, I _knew_ that my enemies body would be. So much so that I staggered as I overbalanced when my spear didn't reach the resistance that I was expecting.

The horseman had vanished.

I felt, rather than heard myself scream in frustration as I looked around for my enemy, for my quarry and in the end it was a flash out of the corner of my eye that saved me. I ducked and spun round, bent to one knee as the Hound's sword whistled over the top of my head.

I used the fact that I was down on a knee to use the extra leverage of climbing to my feet to strike out with everything I had.

I saw it this time.

As the spear connected with where his body should be, he disappeared into a puff of smoke.

I howled at the moon, slashing out at the open air.

I heard a shout and I turned before I felt as though a horse had kicked me in the stomach. The breath whooshed out of me and I fell hard. Kerrass had grabbed me round the waist and had pulled me down. He was screaming at me but I couldn't hear the words.

I quailed before his face. His eyes were huge in his face, glowing yellow, stark against the white skin. There were flames in those eyes but that wasn't the thing that drew my eye. I have often commented that I have thought that I could see fangs in Kerrass' mouth. This time there could be no doubt. As he snarled his teeth grew and as his mouth opened saliva and bile dripped from his maw.

He was screaming, bellowing at me but I couldn't hear him.

His arm raised and I tried to pull away but his hand came crashing down and got me across the face. A huge, open handed slap, the sound of which echoed in my ears.

I snarled my own response and tried to close my hands round his throat. I had no idea where my spear was and suddenly it didn't seem as though it was that important. All I could think was that I wanted to kill, to slaughter.

Kerrass threw me aside, rolling away himself as another horseman came thundering towards us. I rolled to my feet. Somewhere I was aware that I was aching, that I had hurt myself as part of the fall and the impact, maybe a bruised or even a cracked rib but I ignored it. The need to kill was still a strong one.

I could no longer see Kerrass but the horseman was coming back. This time I remembered the knife, tucked into the belt in the small of my back.

I drew my weapon and decided that it was unfair that only horsemen could properly charge an enemy. So I ran at the horseman and leapt into the open air. I should have landed on him perfectly.

But he wasn't there, because of course he wasn't there.

Again, his body turned to smoke before my eyes and I flew through the fumes. The red haze over my vision deepened and started to take on a deeper texture, a thicker feeling to it. I landed awkwardly and collapsed forward into a roll, not quite making it to my feet in the process. I was on my knees and I looked around, panting for breath.

The red smoke was in my eyes and in my head and I couldn't shake it free. A wave of nausea came on me then and I had to turn my head to one side, sucking down deep breaths of air into my lungs. Spectres of horsemen rode through the clearing. Hundreds of them. Thousands of them and I lashed out with my dagger, no longer caring if I lived or about the fact that the prospect of taking on armed horsemen with a short dagger was utterly ludicrous.

I could see lines on the edge of my vision like the webs of the spiders that Ariadne loves so much. I couldn't tell if they were on the surfaces of my eyes or if I was seeing them in the clearing.

The horsemen had become phantoms now, phantoms made of smoke and they would vanish as I struck out at them. Sometimes the smoke would swirl but sometimes they would change into figures of blood that that shattered with a pop, drenching my feet and the land around me.

I saw other things as well. I saw a Dragon flying over head. Not the majestic, awful magnificence that Maleficent had possessed. This beast was fury and decay.

I saw Arch-Bishop Sansum's face drifting out of the smoke as well as Lord Dorme of Angral riding with the Hounds. I could see the pail corpse face of Ariadne from back when she was still a skeleton looking at me with disdain and disgust.

I could hear Jack laughing through the screams of the suffering.

All the while, my fury rose in my chest until it became a tangible thing, a ball in my chest that tried to drive me onto greater feats of energy while at the same time weighing my steps so that I could barely move. It was formless at the same time, lashing out at anything

I saw a red reflection on the ground and recognised my spear for what it was.

I limped over and pulled the spear up before turning and looking for another enemy, another target to strike out at. Someone to kill.

I saw that the member of the Bastards that I had first tried to rescue had slumped down to his knees. He had his hands clutched over his belly and was looking down at his hands in horror and fascination. A Horseman came out of the mist and smoke. For all I know it might have been the same horseman but there was no way to tell. He was aiming for the fallen man.

"No, you bastard." I remember thinking. For all I know I might have screamed it aloud. I was up and running towards it, aiming for the horse.

But I wasn't going to make it.

Kerrass was there for me though. Spinning out of the smoke. Flames spitting from his eyes he ran at the horse and gestured. I saw the horse rear up and shy away. Kerrass picked up the fallen man, draping one of the man's arms over his shoulders before half carrying him off into the mist.

I blinked and my vision swam as another wave of nausea and dizziness struck me.

I staggered.

I would have fallen but Kerrass caught me.

He spun me around to face him.

His face was worse than before and I could feel my mind shying off what I saw. Trying to shut down. I screamed as his mouth split wide open and his fanged maw gaped wider and wider and wider until something struck me in the gut.

Hard.

And again.

A strong grip of my tunic and light armour held me to one side as the nausea raced over me again and I vomited. Hard.

I realised that my head was pounding as though someone had wrapped a red hot iron vice around it and was tightening the screws.

I was hauled upright again and saw that Kerrass' face was approaching normal despite being a little wild eyed and covered in soot. I could still see fangs though.

"Come on," he bellowed through the din. I could still hear Jack laughing and Ariadne screaming. I tried to shake my head clear of the sound.

"Come on," Kerrass said again. I almost walked into a horse that he was holding the bridle of. Another man, the injured Bastard who was groaning with an awful agony was slumped in the saddle.

"Get him back to the keep Freddie." Kerrass snarled. "And whatever happens up there. Whatever you see, do not come back."

"But..."

"Don't argue with me. Just go." He was screaming. The flames were back in his eyes again while his fangs grew in his mouth. He turned the horse's head and slapped it across the arse with the flat of his sword.

Fortunately for me, the horse knew what that meant and leapt forward. I didn't steer so much as just hold on for dear life, half onto the reins and half onto the injured man that I kept in front of me.

The injured man that turned out to be the young thief from Vizima. Pendleton.

The sound of the ground under the hooves turned from the packed earth of the Grassy meadow where the huts were to the loose, stone of the causeway up to the castle. Cold air hit me in the face and I had to lean aside before vomiting again.

Although the headache got worse, I almost instantly felt better but I was weak as a kitten.

Again I thank the Holy Flame that Kerrass knew what he was doing and chose the right horse to carry me back. I still have no idea if it was my horse or just some random horse that he picked out of the crowd but it served me well.

Pendleton was similarly affected and was vomiting hard which took him out of whatever reaction had over come him and was weeping with the pain.

"Hold on lad," I whimpered. I had meant it to be reassuring but it came our like the raspy pleading that it was.

We got to the castle gate. Other men of the Bastards were there. Pendleton's pain was getting worse. Rickard, Dan and I think Taylor helped me out of the saddle as by now I was shaking like a leaf and vomiting up a kind of yellow, greenish goop. The Giant Skelligan Sergeant cradled young Pendleton as though he was a child. A child groaning with agony.

"I'm sorry Sarge," He moaned. "I'm sorry."

"You don't need to be sorry lad. You don't need to be sorry." The Skelligan's accent became thicker with emotion. The faces of the other bastards were white with shapeless anger and sorrow.

"Mother," he pleaded as he was carried to a blanket in the corner. "Mother?"

I was lowered down into the courtyard where I was propped against the cool stone that made up part of the gate-house. I wasn't wounded. Other than the physical reaction, I was unwounded. Someone handed me a skin of watered wine and I drank greedily.

No wine, or nectar of the Gods has ever tasted so wonderful.

As it turned out, I was one of the lucky ones.

Pendleton was dying. Stabbed through the stomach which he was clutching at with both hands. I hauled myself over. It took focus to keep my limbs from shaking. There were still tremors that would seize me every so often. But I felt that it was important somehow.

Sir Rickard was there. Standing over the small knot of men. The pain seemed to be ebbing and falling for the lad. When I had first met the Bastards, Pendleton had put me in mind of someone in his late teens. I thought he might have been sixteen or seventeen. Young, but still old enough to be a soldier. Now I was left to wonder if he'd lied about his age.

He looked as though he was twelve. Sweat standing out on his head, beading up and running down his face and onto the blanket that he'd been laid out on. Black blood smeared across his head where he'd wiped the sweat from his fore-head with the back of his hand and I winced at the sight. My training was not great, but it was enough to know that if the blood is black then you should call for someone who knows what they're doing.

He looked awful, pale and shivering.

Any man that ever tries to tell me that war is glorious will be punched.

In the throat.

By me.

"Captain?" The lad called. "Captain?"

Rickard knelt on the other side of the boy from the Sergeant and took the boys hand. "I'm here son. I'm here."

"I'm sorry sir." The lad whimpered. "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to fuck up."

"You didn't Pendleton. You didn't. You did your job and I'm proud of you."

"Am I a good soldier?"

"A better soldier than I deserve."

The Bastards could have been carved from stone, despite those men who had tears running down their cheeks. Jenkins, the pale-eyed killer was weeping openly. It took me a moment but I realised that they were stood to attention.

"I'm sorry sir."

"What do I say about being sorry?" Rickard forced the words past a plainly dry throat.

But Pendleton didn't answer. He had died. Gone from shuddering to utter stillness.

Corpses get so still. It becomes so odd. All of the energy that had animated the young man had vanished and suddenly it was just a shell.

Rickard placed the hand that he was holding onto the lad's chest. The Skelligan Sergeant placed a sword in the lads right hand. It looked wildly oversized in his young hands.

It all felt deathly quiet as though a strange peace had settled like a blanket over the world. I think it was the lack of noise, more than anything, that got to me. Things weren't being drowned out by the blood pounding in my ears, the screams of terror and the distinctive sound of metal striking metal or flesh.

It all seemed so peaceful.

It wasn't, but that's what it felt like.

There were people dying in the castle courtyard. It seemed that the hounds had taken a number of people from us and they were moaning as they died, more people were retching and whimpering. Pendleton was not alone in crying for his mother and other men wandered from body to body bringing water and comfort where they could.

An unhurt looking Father Trent was walking through it all. Weeping openly, trying to offer blessings but too often his tears were overwhelmed by his sobs.

The one question that seemed to be on everyone's lips was "What had happened?" Walking wounded sat together while their injuries were cleaned and stitched together and tried to talk it through, putting the pieces together.

There was another noise though. A noise that I had forgotten about. In the distance. That distant scream of a man in agony and fear drifting over the night sky.

Sir Rickard got up and abruptly walked away. The Sergeant managed to catch my eye and jerked his head in the direction of his knight. "For you to do sir." he said simply. It suddenly struck me as odd that I had forgotten his name if I had ever known it. "Sergeant" seemed such a fitting name for him and I thought to see if I could remember him being called anything other than by his title, or maybe "Sarge" when the men were being cheeky.

I nodded and did as I was told, wandering after Rickard.

I found him on the other wall. The one facing away from where the fight had happened staring out into the darkness. This was the wall that faced away from the approaches to the castle. The approach that would be all but impossible without climbing equipment and a man on the inside to lower rope. He was staring out into the darkness.

"Sent you after me did he?" I didn't need to ask who he was talking about and said nothing. "I should call him Sergeant nurse-maid." Rickard sighed and kicked the wall before turning back to me.

"Shepherd didn't come back either. He's out there somewhere, probably with a sword through him."

"Are you ok?" I asked, rather redundantly. Of course he wasn't ok. Neither was I and I hadn't lost someone. I've said it before and I'll say it again. The ridiculous things that we say to each other when we're going through grief.

"Yeah," he said after a moment. "Or I will be in a minute." He scrubbed his face with his hands, trying to hide the fact that he was brushing away the water that had formed in the corner of his eyes.

"It's just," he began before turning away, trying to keep his voice from cracking. "It's just I haven't lost a man since the end of the war. A war that Pendleton survived, Shepherd too, only for them to die out here."

"How old was Pendleton when he joined?" I found that I suddenly had to ask.

Rickard chuckled. "He was seventeen when he died and I caught him stealing our rations when he was twelve. Took him a while to get the strength to use a bow properly but he could move through the undergrowth and no-one would know that he was there. He could hide in an empty field. Fast as a hare as well, jumping out at an enemy in a blur of his daggers until he eventually realised that his target was dead. Bless him."

He sighed. "Go on, I'll be with you in a minute." He waved me off.

My strength was coming back to me and I realised that I was famished. Someone was bringing around some fruit and I snagged an apple as I went off to find Kerrass and Sam. That screaming was still there. There was a plaintive quality to it. Like the sound of a dog mourning the loss of it's master. It was ebbing and flowing. Sometimes it would become silent whereas other times it seemed as though the air throbbed with the sound.

Kerrass was waiting for me at the bottom of the steps that would lead up to the tower that Sam had chosen for his look out.

He stepped out to meet me. "You ok?" He asked. He looked a little wild eyed and pale so I guessed that he was a couple of potions down. I tried to be subtle about looking to see if there were fangs in his mouth but if they had been there at all, I couldn't say.

"Tired," I said. "And sick to my stomach." I took another breath. "Thank you Kerrass. I'm self-aware enough to realise that you saved my life...Again."

He smiled a little. "No thanks this time. I should have seen what was happening and guessed how it would affect you."

"Affect me?" 

"You always react violently when people terrify you."

He turned and we started to walk up the walls to where Sam was.

"No I don't," I protested.

"You really do."

"But..."

"Think about it. All of the times that you've killed people and gotten really, really violent. Not fighting to defend yourself or something. You've been utterly terrified haven't you."

I should stress that this was not a new conversation between the two of us.

"Yeah but..."

"That time with Lord Fuck-face and his men?" he went on. "Where you drove your dagger into the man's skull. Or that time I used the Axii sign on you and you went berzerk. How about that time with the bandits, or the golem when you thought you were dying. Or Jack for that matter. Or when you were being tortured by Sansum which is, by far, the most violent thing you've ever done to my mind."

"Ah," I said in triumph. "Ah, but I was absolutely terrified when I met Ariadne as well and I didn't attack her."

"No, but you did take leave of your senses."

"Now hang on."

"Hey, you have to be a bit mad to stand up to an ancient vampire."

"Yeah but she still terrifies me."

"You and I both know that there is a big difference between erotic fear and physical fear."

"Not much of one." I muttered.

Another thing that always astonishes me. How quickly we return to humour after intense action.

The lone voice, screaming on the wind took that opportunity to start up again as we got to the summit. I don't mind admitting that, although I'm a lot fitter physically than I was in my student days, I had to stop and catch my breath as we reached the top of the stairs.

Sam was still looking out over the burning buildings. It was now properly dark and the night had fallen and the mist became silvery rather than the red soup that it had been. Sam came to meet us as we got to the top of the stairs and shook Kerrass' hand firmly. Inquisitor Dempsey was there, his arm in a sling and looking pale as he and Sam talked before Sam gestured him to silence as we got to the top of the stairs and approached the pair of us.

"Well Freddie," he said with a slight smile. "Of all people, I did not expect you to be the one that was a berzerker."

"Oh for crying out loud, I am NOT a berzerker."

"Sshh, sshh, don't get angry, we don't want you to get angry."

"Fuck off."

Neither of us had much energy for extended banter though.

"Seriously though. You ok?" he asked.

"As well as I ever am. Do we know what happened yet?"

"Not yet." Sam answered. "Lot's of people still getting their story straight."

"Don't be hard on them Sam." I told him. "I was there and _I,_ the trained observer of events and people, could barely tell you what was going on."

Sam grinned.

Another scream rang out.

"What the fuck is that?" I snapped, surprising myself.

Inquisitor Dempsey turned away and I was shocked to see an Inquisitor's shoulders shaking in sobs.

Sam sighed. "Come see."

The three of us, Sam, Kerrass and I walked to the edge of the wall where we could look out and down on the valley. There was more smoke now than anything as the fog was beginning to lift. It still gace the air a dreamlike quality and things occasionally drifted in and out of view.

Down at the edge of the clearing where I had so recently fought against phantoms, a new fire had been set on the far edge. Or rather it was a series of fires that had been built up to give out illumination. In the middle of the flames and tied, spread eagled to a pair of posts that had been driven in the ground, was Inquisitor Hacha. Recognisable by his stature and his bald head. We couldn't see the details but we could see from some of the injuries that, certainly his eyes had been put out.

They were skinning him alive. Some people call this being flayed alive but somehow I feel as though that doesn't properly convey the horror of what that act entails.

Skinning him alive and it was his cries that echoed around the castle walls.

"It was set up like that just as the last of our people came up the causeway to get away." Sam said, his voice flat and dead. "They lit the fires and brought him out so that we could see him. He'd already had his eyes taken out when they tied him up."

I had not liked Inquisitor Hacha when I met him but I had been impressed by his competence and his working method. Some people might say that as an Inquisitor he got what he deserved. That he had been responsible for far worse during the Witch hunts. That I can't answer for. I never got the chance to talk to him about his role during those times but I fancy that this would not be justice.

What I do know was that no-one deserves that.

Standing in front of the torture tableau was another man. It was in the distance, in the dark and the firelight so I didn't get all the details as fog and mist still absorbed some of it and did, indeed, often obscure the sight of Inquisitor Hacha's torture to us. But there was another man. He seemed larger than the other hounds. He moved as though he was in charge and he towered over the others. As well as the normal skull outfit that the others wore, he had a huge pair of antlers on top of his head. They looked as though they were spiked and vicious as though they were dripping in blood in the same way that a Fiend's horns seem dirty and weaponised.

Periodically, the horned man would walk up to the struggling form of Inquisitor Hacha and bend closer to him. Each time, Hacha would become more animated, straining at his bonds and screaming again.

"We're going to destroy these people gentlemen." Sam snarled at the sight. "We're going to figure this out and we're going to destroy these people."

I said nothing.

(A/N: This is the last update before I board a plane and fly off to New Zealand. This is not to say that I'm stopping writing but there may be a delay between this update and the next one due to flights, jet-lag and general settling in.

For those people who claim that I plan the cliff-hangers deliberately, although I planned on ending this chapter here. I did not plan the delay around the cliffhanger as the VISA and things all came together very quickly, actually happening most of the way through the chapter's write up.

As always, thanks for reading)


	70. Chapter 70

(Warning: Described scenes of injuries)

It took us a long time to figure out what had happened.

A very long time. Tracking back the attack from when they first made contact with the group of soldiers and churchmen on the way back from visiting Dowager Countess Kalayn and her elven maid Ella. Then we had to follow the track of destruction back to the castle, to the field at the base of the hill that the castle rested on and then up the causeway to the castle itself.

Kerrass had disappeared in the early hours of the morning, declaring to no-one in particular that he had some "things to check out," before taking his horse as well as some supplies and riding off. He had also left orders that one of the smaller cellars should be left free and empty for his use when he came back but as he had told a soldier to do this, the soldier hadn't thought to ask why and as such, we had no idea what he was doing.

He was seen though, out and about riding this way and that. He was spotted filling a water flask from the puddles in the ground that had been left by an overnight shower of rain. He could also be seen picking the leaves from trees as well as climbing over the leftover ruins from the remains of the buildings that we had slept in when we first arrived in this Flame-forsaken place. Apparently, he wrapped his finds carefully in small pieces of cloth before stowing them equally as carefully in his pack and riding off, peering at the undergrowth as he went.

As for the rest of us? There was work to be done. We had to figure out what happened and it was not easy.

No two men could agree on what they had seen or what had happened. The stories varied from the group being attacked by a wing of Nilfgaardian heavy cavalry. Someone else claimed to see the wild hunt coming for them, complete with the heavily segmented plate mail for which the hunt are known, as well as the hounds that left frozen ground in their wake.

One man even claimed that he thought he was being attacked by a platoon made up completely of his old teachers and drill sergeants. He tried to laugh as he told us this, obviously realising how ridiculous it sounded when he said the words aloud but then he couldn't hold it in any more and burst into tears.

There was a lot of that kind of thing as I walked around. Walking and talking. Asking questions. The only thing that could be agreed on by everyone that had survived the group coming back from the visit to the dower house was that the person that needed to be blamed for the matter was Father Trent. The hate against the man was palpable, so much so that Sam had to place him into protective custody so that the man couldn't be lynched. By Sir Rickard, not least.

We found Sir Rickard's other man, Shepherd, fairly early on. He was lying in a ditch, his bow and quiver of arrows nearby. Thoroughly ruined by the damp in the air as well as being soaked by his own blood. It was hard to tell what had happened to him but we did what we could. The best that we could do was to guess that he had been running down the road towards the castle when a rider had ridden past him before cutting at him with a back-handed blow across the face. Someone told me that this was actually a stroke done by an experienced cavalry man.

Apparently, the way that it works is this. The image of a Cavalryman cutting down a fleeing soldier is that they ride up behind them, sword held high over their shoulder before bringing the weapon down, hard across the soldiers back or neck. However, when the infantry man is carrying a quiver full of arrows or a pack with his belongings on his back, then this stroke can be relatively harmless as the impact is absorbed by the pack or the arrows accordingly. This is one of the reasons why a lot of mounted cavalry prefer to use a heavy mace or the point of a sword or spear rather than using this kind of stroke. This requires a lot of training however.

Another method is for a horseman to ride past the fleeing man before, as I say, using a back-handed stroke to strike at the face and chest. It doesn't always kill the target but the injuries that this leaves behind are horrible.

What had happened to Shepherd was indeed horrible. His cheek and lower jaw had been flensed from the rest of his body and hung loose by a piece of skin. The strike had cut something important though in the neck area and the poor man had either bled to death or had choked to death on his own blood. Neither prospect was encouraging.

He was not the only man with horrible wounds though.

Other men had been cut down. A variety of sword wounds and several shattered bodies that looked as though they had been ridden down by the huge horses. One of the soldiers had been stood on by a horse. His pelvis had been shattered although there was no other injury. It must have been ghastly.

All told that night, we lost fourteen men outright with another half a dozen badly injured. Two of those died in the following days. That might not sound like a lot when it comes to such battles as Brenna, Sodden and the field of the Poppies in Kaedwen but the assault on our numbers was not the only factor here, even if that fact was considerable. One of the major factors here was the massive, huge blow to our morale.

We had made contact with our enemies and we had been found wanting. We had been destroyed so utterly that it was impossible to see how we would ever be able to stand in the face of them again.

For those of us with a more religious way of thinking, there was another problem. That problem being that faith was clearly not our shield.

Again, you may scoff and say things like "Faith and a copper piece will get you a 1 copper loaf of bread" and you would be right. But it's one of the things that you get told, over and over again when you go to church. That your faith will protect you against magic and evil. But in this case, it so clearly hadn't worked.

Inquisitor Hacha had lasted a long time but had succumbed to his wounds in the cold light of morning. At that point when the sky is mostly still a dark blue and grey before the reds and the yellows start to surface. It was clear that the reason that he had died was that he had been left alone. The people torturing him had gone out of their way to avoid the particularly dangerous areas such as major arteries and the like. They had used healing salves and things on his worst injuries to keep him alive but that wasn't the issue. We didn't autopsy him but my working guess was that his body had just given up. When he had been allowed to slump in pain then that was just it.

The things that had been done to him were horrific. Horrific enough that I won't repeat them all here, suffice to say that the things that I am willing to talk about include having his eyes, tongue, teeth, genitals and ears removed. His knee-caps had been shattered with a hammer. His finger and toe-nails had been removed before the fingers and toes themselves had been removed and stacked neatly to one side.

And those are the things that I am willing to talk about.

If we hadn't known who he was, having seen him from the walls and from his height and build and a general feeling of "who else could it have been?" then he would have been unrecognisable.

It took us a long time to gather him up for proper funeral rites.

As I say. It took us a long time to figure out what had happened. It would seem that the party had been on their way back from the Dower-house when the mist had descended. For whatever reason, they had been hit by the mist a lot sooner than we had at the castle, but they were riding along, minding their own business when they had been enveloped in the stuff quite suddenly and without any real warning. They had been late setting off to come back because they had been caught up in a conversation with Ella the maid about something before turning to come back.

When they were done they set off and were making fairly good time until the mist descended which was when the first of several mistakes were made. The priests, who were ostensibly in charge, froze. The soldiers, without any other guidance, formed a defensive ring in an area that was utterly indefensible and waited to see what would happen. Apparently the logic was that they would wait to see if the fog cleared as they stood there, peering out into the mist to see what would happen. But the hounds came at them instead.

As best as we could tell from the things that we were told. There were no blows struck at this point, but the psychological effects were pronounced. The things that the men started see rattled them, Pendleton and Shepherd couldn't see well to shoot properly and so the group of soldiers just sat there while the "Hounds" would ride up to the formation and threaten them.

I'm told by Sir Rickard and by Sam that in any other circumstances, if the formation had held, then there wouldn't have been any further problems and if the entire formation had been made out of military men then that is almost certainly what would have happened. Especially if the military people would have been allowed to find a more defensible position to stand on. But these were not normal circumstances.

The effect of the Hounds' presence was such that it wore away at the nerves of the men to the point of breaking but also there were other people in that formation other than soldiers. A priest and two Inquisitors with associated hangers on. People were trying to advise them, the soldiers had sergeants that tried to make suggestions but at the end of the day, the priests had the authority over the men's souls which is a powerful tool in the right hands. The priests were giving the orders and the habit of obedience under fire runs deep. And soldiers are a superstitious bunch.

It started to go wrong when Shepherd and Pendleton were ordered to scout the way out. To scout along the road towards the castle. Apparently, Shepherd tried to refuse the order on the grounds that harriers like him and Pendleton fall back from mounted troops which was how the Hounds were behaving. Again, this advice was backed up by the experienced men in the formation but Trent, who had seniority over the two Inquisitors was in the process of losing his mind to the visions that the Hounds evoked and threatened the assembled soldiers with the loss of their immortal souls declaring that "The eternal frost itself was coming to claim them."

What was a common soldier to do in the face of that kind of thing?

The two men left the formation and Shepherd was killed almost immediately, Pendleton retreating back to the formation.

Which broke. Dashing for home with all speed under the orders of Father Trent. This is where things get more confused. The fear and the visions were overwhelming them by now. At some point, Inquisitor Hacha and a couple of soldiers got lost. A couple of people had said that he wasn't a good horseman and the two men with him were his personal guards.

It became a rout, the soldiers running headlong for the castle, falling off or getting picked off by the Hounds accordingly. When they did get to the castle, Inquisitor Dempsey, although not immune to the effects that the Hounds were having on everyone there, realised that the rout was becoming headlong and uncontrolled and exerted some of his authority ordering a man to render the panicking Father Trent unconscious. He then ordered the reformation of the defensive ring until relief could arrive from the castle.

This was a good idea and the same men that condemn Father Trent, praise Inquisitor Dempsey for realising that the churchmen needed to get out of the way and let the soldiers do their jobs. It would have worked too. At this point, those of us at the castle had seen that relief was needed and were mounting up. But then, Father Trent regained consciousness and, raving mad, he broke through the formation and fled for the safety of the castle. Thus breaching the formation which created the hole that the Hounds could exploit. It also meant that that fragile discipline that was being held inside the formation broke as people saw the priest fleeing for his life and if the priest was fleeing then why should they stay behind?

As I say, the formation broke and this is where the vast majority of the deaths occurred.

Sir Rickard led a number of men out to see if they could read the tracks and try to figure out how many of our enemies that there were. He did report that it was hard to get firm numbers as the Hounds clearly knew their ground and were well skilled at hiding their numbers but that what probably happened was that the group were ambushed by only a small number of men. Estimates ranged from as few as four Hounds up to around a dozen although Sir Rickard did admit that the higher estimates were taken from those men that were trying to protect themselves from accusations of incompetence. He thought that it was more likely that there were around six hounds.

These six harried the group back to the castle where they linked up with a much larger group of Hounds that were watching the castle. Numbers were impossible to guess at from there but all told, it was generally thought that we didn't fight any more than twenty hounds.

Twenty hounds. We outnumbered them, four or five to one and they trounced us. Whether we injured or killed any of them, it was impossible to say as there weren't any bodies left behind but even so...

That fact was terrifying.

We all spent a bit of time walking round in a daze. Father Danzig came back with his group, his normally cheerful face and loud jokes turning to ash before his eyes as he surveyed the bloody ruin that had been done to us. He shook his head before ordering his men to relieve the guards so that the assaulted could get some rest.

It astonished me that no-one really wanted to talk about the entire thing. Everyone was wandering round in a daze, not weeping although I suspect that more than one man snuck off behind the stables or into a cellar or something for a quiet weep away from prying eyes. Kerrass was nowhere to be found so in the end I went off to find Sam.

I found him on top of the tower where he had watched the small battle from. I don't honestly know whether he had come down from that perch all night, even to sleep. Somehow he had managed to stay awake and looked relatively healthy and refreshed. There must be some kind of military trick to it, to be able to get rest where you can and at a moments notice so that you can rub everyone else's face in it and make yourself look superior.

He was being yelled at by a couple of people, notably Sir Kristoff and Sir Rickard, Father Danzig was trying to play mediator though, standing in the way and trying to keep everyone calm. He wasn't doing very well to be honest. This was largely because out of everyone he had had the most sleep and had not seen what had happened. He was shocked by the outcome to be sure but at the end of the day he hadn't been here and hadn't had anything to do with it. Rickard especially was trying to exclude Danzig's opinions from consideration on the grounds that he didn't know what he was talking about. A little unfair of him but I can see why he thought that.

The subject of discussion was Father Trent.

"He should be hanged for negligence and that's the end of the matter." Sir Kristoff was in full flow. "The chain of command exists for a reason. It was a military matter, he is not military but he took command of Redanian troops, against all sense, and got them killed. How many men would now be alive and better able to serve, had Trent not gone off and lost his nerve."

"Now there's no way to know that," Danzig tried. "There's no possible way you can know that that would be the case."

"With respect Father," Rickard was pale with grief and rage although he spoke quietly. "You can shove it up your arse. You didn't lose men, you weren't here. I don't blame you for that and I'm not angry with you but at the end of the day you weren't here and you don't get to decide what happens."

"But I..."

"Even rank amateurs know that light troops fall back from cavalry." Rickard thundered. It was strange sometimes. In most ways, Sir Rickard was a genial man, self deprecating, funny and charming. Well aware of his social failings and not really caring about them one way or the other. I had yet to see him in a fight but I had been told by a couple of his men that it was a sight to behold. That a towering rage would possess the man and there weren't many people that could stand in the face of that anger. I had laughed and assumed that I was being messed with by the military men, not an unusual thing to happen while I spent time with those men but at the same time I would look at the man who was rapidly becoming one of my closest friends and I found myself being skeptical. But now I saw the first signs of that sudden and explosive rage and I wondered if I might have misjudged him.

"It's one of the most basic rules. Light troops snipe at heavy troops and disrupt the formations of enemy infantry. They are good at hunting down fugitives and fighting in rough terrain where horses are useless but their advantage is speed. Horses remove that advantage. He ordered my men to break formation which put a gap in the ranks that the Hounds exploited. At best that's negligence that led to the loss of men. At worst, that's the kind of bullshit that gets called cowardice in the face of the enemy. I've seen men executed for even being suspected of that kind of thing."

"As have I," Kristoff rumbled. "And that leaves aside the question of what he thought he was doing, a churchman taking command of a military formation."

"Some of those soldiers were church soldiers." Father Danzig tried to remind them.

"Even more of the problem," Rickard responded with heat. "Church soldiers," he sneered, "Church soldiers. When was the last time that _church soldiers_ fought in a proper battle or was the last time they "fought" against people that could actually fight back."

Sam stirred himself as the colour left Danzig's face. "That'll do." He said simply.

There must be some kind of trick to commanding military men although damned if I can figure it out. Some kind of quiet voice that means that people listen to you even when their blood is up and the need for violence is in their hands and hearts. Sam used two words. Just two words but Sir Rickard backed off and turned away, taking a couple of steps off to regain his composure.

"I am sympathetic to your thoughts Kristoff, yours also Rickard and there is no doubt that your men bore the brunt of Father Trent's obvious incompetence."

All three of the men facing Sam opened their mouths to speak but Sam simply held his hand up. "However," he went on and again I was amazed at the fact that they all subsided. "However there remains a factor here that we do not understand. Something was happening there that we need to figure out and come to terms with. Father Trent, like many of the people down there, lost his mind. He says this and admits this. If he was under magical influence then we can't punish him for that." Again people started to protest and again, Sam raised his hands to forestall the objections. "We don't know what it was that caused the madness. It is being investigated. But I will not condemn a man for not being in control of his own thoughts."

He took a moment to make sure that the others had taken on what he said. He nodded when he was satisfied.

"That being said, there are some things that we need to adjust, some changes that need to be made so that we don't come across this kind of problem again. This begins with unit cohesion. Sir Rickard, I have no command over you so you and your men will be reunited and can work with Freddie to your hearts content."

Sir Kristoff opened his mouth to object but Sam overrode him.

"The same with your men Kristoff as well as Danzig's knights of Kreve and the soldiers of the Holy Flame. All will serve under their own officers who will, in turn, answer to me. That is final." He looked at all three men. "Any questions?"

"Yeah, I have a question." Sir Rickard snarled. "What's to stop me from rapping Lord Frederick over the head with a billy-club and making a run for it with him tied to a saddle?"

Sam was very calm. "No reason at all." He said after a moment. "Although I wouldn't be in your place for all the world. Freddie will wake up sooner or later." There was a slight smile on his face as he said that. It was well done, the slight hint of humour doing much to disarm the angry soldier.

"Kerrass is working on figuring out what happened down there, what they did to affect our people so strongly." Sam went on. "When we know that we can strike back and break the bastards. I also would have thought you might want to be in on that Sir Rickard?"

Rickard pretended to consider. "That might be nice." He admitted. "Some good hard vengeancing might do us all a bit of good."

"My thoughts precisely gentlemen. So let's crack on shall we. I can see that my brother is positively vibrating with the need to speak to me."

He turned away, dismissing them. I suddenly had a vision of what kind of Lord the new Baron von Coulthard was going to be.

I shivered.

"You ok?" Sam asked as I approached. He produced a small hip flask from a pocket, took a swig and offered it to me. I took it and the fumes that curled up and into my nostrils from the opening made my head swim. I took a swig before I lost my nerve.

"Flame no," I said after having a small coughing fit. "Flame, but I'm not ok."

Sam nodded as he took the flask and turned out to look out over the treetops that covered his lands. I spent a moment or two trying to think of something to say, thinking about how to properly articulate the way that I was feeling.

"Why do I feel this way Sam?" I said after a while. "I've fought before. Although I can't be sure about all of what happened down there I can say that I have been subject to supernatural happenings before. I've seen things that man was not really meant to see. I have fought those things and destroyed them."

I moved to stand next to him and leant on the parapet.

"In more mundane circumstances I have fought and killed men. I have fought and killed monsters. I have been injured and nearly killed. I have faced creatures of unimaginable power and I have also faced men and women over whom I have no authority and could extinguish me with a thought. I have lost people too, Sir Thomas died in my arms. I lost Father and I lost Francesca and I was the one who sent our mother away.

"But this. This seems different somehow and I can't put my finger on why. Why do I feel so utterly dreadful?"

At first, I couldn't tell whether Sam had heard me or not. He just stood there and stared into space. Truth be told, I was about to turn and walk away when he started to speak.

"It's defeat Freddie. That's what you are feeling. It's the feeling of being defeated."

He sighed and scratched his head before looking at me sadly and a little ruefully and I was reminded of the younger man that I had once had to help with his maths and calligraphy homework.

"You're turning into a warrior Frederick." He said with a smile. "Who would have thought it but that's what's going on. But defeat is the ultimate insult to a warrior's pride."

"I don't follow."

He laughed. "Bless you. Even _I_ think of you as a warrior. It goes like this. At the end of the day, when you strip a fighter down to his bare components, all that is left is his pride. We are taught to believe that we are the baddest motherfuckers on the continent and that all the other soldiers are evil, ass-sucking cowardly flakes who barely know which end of the sword to hold. The reason for this is that we need the confidence that this gives us so that we will stand in line and do as we're damn well told on the battlefield without quaking in fear. Every time we fight, every time we kill someone it re-empahsises that pride, that confidence is reinforced until we come to believe in our own invincibility. We _have_ to have that otherwise we would just flee, or fold up and cry.

"As we become more experienced and we start to realise that we are not immortal and that the swords and arrows are sharp and deadly. When we have seen the horror that those things can inflict on a man we begin to feel the fear. The way that we overcome that fear is pride. Pride in ourselves. Pride in our skills and pride in our nation and what we are fighting for.

"Defeat hurts that. Defeat proves that we aren't as good as we thought that we were. It shows us that we are mortal, that we can, and will, die."

He turned away from me and went back to staring into space.

"I'm probably not explaining this very well." He said, bending his head and looking at something on top of the wall.

"So defeat is an injury to our pride. The ultimate injury to our pride. It calls into question everything that we had believed and held dear."

"But this feels worse somehow." I said. "We were defeated when Francesca was taken as well and although my rage was, and still is, a towering raging inferno over that... This feels worse somehow. I want to run away and cry. I was more than half way tempted to take Sir Rickard up on his threat to carry me off. I won't say that it's worse than with Francesca but it is different. But why does it feel like that?"

"Because Francesca's disappearance was out of your hands. That issue was decided before we even knew that it was a problem. You weren't defeated there, you were side-stepped. You were tricked and everyone else was tricked with you. There was absolutely nothing you could have done there. You didn't see an enemy there, there was no-one for you to hit.

"Here, there were enemies and you couldn't beat them. You couldn't defeat them. I don't know, but I think that that's the difference. But also, it was a defeat of your ideals, a defeat of your responsibilities. You are a nobleman through and through. You felt sympathy for the people here, same as I do. You want to protect them and save them from what's happening to them and were utterly confident in your ability to do so. Then these Hounds showed you how wrong you were and how utterly misguided you were being. That's another difference. Frannie's disappearance was a personal attack on you, on our family but you were not responsible for her safety. You would have felt much worse if you have been."

"Does it always feel like this?"

"I remember asking you the same question."

"Yes, but as I recall, that was about waiting to go and fight the monsters."

"True."

Sam sighed again.

"Honestly?" He blew out a huge sigh. "Don't think badly of me for this Freddie."

"I won't,"

"Don't make promises that you might not be able to keep." He told me. "I fought in the Redanian armies under King Radovid and we were unbeatable." His eyes shone. "We fought the Nilfgaardian invasion to a standstill. Some argue, nor incorrectly, that we did so with the help of the Pontar and some other clever use of the terrain. Still others will talk about how we took advantage of Kaedwen's weakness in a rather underhanded manoeuvre and I wouldn't disagree with you. But we kept Nilfgaard out of the north and out of our lands. It was hard fought and cost us a lot of men but we kept the bastards in check."

He rubbed his eyes and I thought I could see water standing in his eyes.

"We fought so hard Freddie, so very hard to get to that point. Then some poxy group of malcontents go and assassinate the King."

The rage and hatred in his voice was horrifying.

"It was the King that held us together and with him gone, the entire thing shattered. We watched as the politicians moved in. Djikstra and his cronies went in and did paperwork and ignored the sacrifices that our people had made in order to get them to that point. They sold us out, sold out the good men that lay, still rotting in the mud of velen and gave away the land that we had fought for. That we had bled and died for.

"That was my defeat Freddie. That was the moment where I stopped...enjoying this as much. When I realised that no matter how good a knight, no matter how good a soldier I would ever be...Everything that I did would, and could, be undone by a politicians quill. We had been defeated by Nilfgaardians politicians. They couldn't beat us on the field so they beat us on the treaty table."

He shook his head, his eyes shining.

"Bastards."

He wiped his eyes again.

"Flame but it still hurts." He shook his head. "Sorry, sorry. But this reminds me of how I felt back then."

"I'm sorry for bringing it up." I told him.

"Don't be, we've never really talked about this stuff have we?"

I shook my head.

We stood in silence for a little while.

"That was the day I was defeated Freddie and I will never forget it. In comparison, this is just a setback. But to just put it in perspective for you..."

He turned back to me. His eyes were dark and bleak and I didn't recognise him.

"I am aware of how powerful our family has become in the new world order." He said. "I know that we are stronger and richer and more influential than we ever would have been under King Radovid. I know," he tapped the side of his head for emphasis "that King Radovid was a bastard that would have run his country into the ground by pursuing his paranoia and persecuting anyone he didn't like the look of. Which would have included the Coulthards in the long run, while he was carrying out his genocide of the non-humans. I am also aware that Imperial rule has benefited the North as a whole and in the long run, the world will know a firmer and more lasting peace as a result.

"I know all of those things."

He paused.

"But I would give anything. Anything at all for another swing at the bastards. Just once more. To prove to them who the better fighters are, who the better _men_ are. Just once." He said it with a grimace on his face, half way through a grin and a snarl.

"That's why it feels this way Freddie. We were defeated. Our pride was damaged and we were hurt. Wait for another few hours, a day or two at the most and that denial, pain and fear will be replaced by rage. We will harness that and take the fight to the bastards. We just need Kerrass to figure out something that we can use."

He stopped talking then. I turned and left him there so that he could be alone with his thoughts and so that I could think about what he said.

Not for the first time in my life, I found myself with nothing to do. There were lots of people bustling around, running this way and that way but I just wandered between them with absolutely nothing to do. I attended the memorial service of the fallen. Both the larger one for the church and Redanian soldiers as well as the smaller one for Shpeherd and Pendleton. Both were filled with grim faced and sullen eyed men and after Sam's words I found myself wondering about the emotions that I saw there.

I did manage to collar Sir Rickard about Sam's thoughts on defeat and wondered if he felt the same way. Whether he would like another crack at the Nilfgaardian's but he shook his head.

"Nah," he told me after thinking about it for a moment. "I hold the rank of knight, same as he does but I'm not one of them. I'm a foot soldier at heart and I hold the same opinions as all foot soldiers which is that so long as I've got food in my belly and I don't have to march too far or work too hard then this is the good life. Pride has it's place on the battlefield but if you give into it too much then it can become a rod for your back, driving you on to increasingly impossible places.

"The war with Nilfgaard was one such. Think about it. They invaded three times in one lifetime. Even after the first two failed they kept coming on. What does that tell you about their people? Their will to suceed and conquer?"

He shook his head.

"We should count ourselves lucky to not be some kind of slave race to our Southern neighbours."

"But we were defeated last night."

He nodded. "We were. Don't get me wrong. I'm just as pissed as you are and I'm looking forward to handing out some bloody vengeance as well." He drew his lips back into a savage grin. "But that defeat was because we were incompetent and overconfident which is deadly. We deserved that defeat. I'm just angry that it was my men that had to suffer because of that stupidity."

He wouldn't be drawn further. He was drilling his men at the time and working them hard. I guessed that this was so that he could take their mind off the fact that there was now two of them missing.

He was not alone either. Kristoff was marching the Redanian contingent up and down and inspecting his men's equipment. The church knights and soldiers were praying under the authority of Inquistor Dempsey. Father Danzig's troops were responsible for the security of the keep on the grounds that they were the least injured.

But I had nothing to do. I tried to see if I could join in on the training but everyone had retreated to their units and as such didn't want to train with some upstart noble who didn't wield the weapons that they were used to. Kerrass was busy, off doing whatever it was that he was doing and so I was left to my own devices. Which meant that I was bored.

All the injured were now beyond my capabilities. I had helped stitch wounds and set broken bones but now it was a case of bringing water to the injured as well as cleaning and reapplying dressings wherever needed which didn't take long really and there were far more qualified battlefield medics there to do those tasks than I was.

I found myself an office and tried to get on with some work. Expanding some of my notes on the early part of our excursions into Sam's territories and considering what I wanted to do next. What was worth talking about and what could be done to expand on some of the ideas that I had considered when things were carrying on regardless.

But the truth was that my heart was not in it. The conversation with Sam had reminded me of my feelings regarding the disappearance of Francesca. It seemed a long time ago now, that she had disappeared but it wasn't even six months that had passed since she had been taken from us. The feelings of guilt were still there, the suspicion that I might have been responsible for her disappearance was still there and above all, the rage against the people that had taken her. That was still there as well. I still wanted a target. Something that I could punch. Something that I could rail against.

I spent a bit of time wondering whether I still wanted to pursue the kidnappers. I felt as though I had been distracted since her disappearance. The adventure with Bishop Sansum as well as the legal fallout from that had diverted me from my main purpose. Kerrass had been right to tell me that any kind of single-minded pursuit of our enemies was destructive and dangerous. That I had to remember who I was, was an important lesson that I had had to learn. But now I wondered if I had gone too far the other way. Would it actually be better for me to leave these things to the professionals, the same way that Kerrass is always trying to tell people to do.

The only way I can describe the way I was thinking was that it was like...You know when you have a tooth-ache but it's still in that early part of being in pain. That part of the sensation where you're not entirely sure whether or not you are actually in discomfort so you spend a bit of time poking around in your mouth with your fingers or your tongue in order to see if you can figure out which part of your mouth is hurting.

Then you find the source of the pain and it flares up and you retreat from it.

But then curiosity brings you back and you start poking at it again.

It was like that. I had been distracted but the things that had distracted me were still important things. They were still there and needed pursuing. The fact remained that someone had taken Francesca from us and we needed to know why. Even if it was no longer entirely plausible to take her back.

But I wanted to. I remembered what Rickard had said, about handing out some bloody vengeance and that was still the case for me.

I wanted to find the people that took her and I wanted to gain some measure of satisfaction from it. I couldn't have told you whether I wanted Justice or vengeance at that point and truth be told I could not have told you the difference in this case.

That was why I was here after all and these Hounds presented a thread that I could pull on to see if the entire thing might unravel.

I grinned at the thought.

Kerrass was gone for the majority of the day. When he did come back he ignored all efforts to try and get him to tell us what the hell was going on and marched past us, snagging a piece of bread and cheese as he went while carrying a large pack over his shoulder as he disappeared into the direction of his commandeered new laboratory.

Which is where he spent the vast majority of the night.

I finally fell into a doze at some point in the early hours of the following morning, maybe a couple of hours before dawn. That night had been clear and crisp, as though nothing had happened the previous day but I was woken by the vigorous application of the toe of Kerrass' boot.

"Bastard." I greeted him as he stood over me, putting his foot back onto the floor after raising it for another kick.

"Come on Freddie, time's a wasting."

"What time? It's barely morning yet."

"Yes, and while some people have spent their time asleep, others of us have been up and running around actually doing something with our time."

He was giddy and I took that to mean that he had found something. I climbed to my feet, splashed some icy water from the castle well over my face and the back of my neck before following him, bleary eyed, off to Sam's council chamber.

Where an argument was already in full flow.

"What's he doing here?" Sir Kristoff demanded, pointing an indignant finger at Father Trent. "He has no place at this meeting. He is a coward and a fool and has no place..."

"He is here, because I say he is to be here Sir Kristoff." Sam declared. "I will thank you to remember to whom you are beholden."

"This man," Kristoff leant on the table by way of his gauntleted fist. "Got some of my men killed."

"They were my men too Sir Kristoff and don't forget it." Sam put some teeth into his words and Kristoff backed down before my brother's authority but I noticed that Kristoff was less than entirely pleased. Nor was Sir Rickard for that matter.

"Father Trent is here at my request," Sam told the group, "and here he will remain until I say so. Am I understood gentlemen?"

There was some rumbling of assent.

"Good. Now then Master Kerrass, you say that you have something for us."

"I do."

Kerrass had his "Witcher face" on meaning that he was being aggressively stoic but I could tell that he was enjoying himself.

"I can tell you all with some degree of certainty that we were poisoned last night." He said to the room. The results were interesting, lots of darting glances this way and that, accusing looks. Only Sam seemed unsurprised.

"Poisoned?" he asked. "How, and in what way? Are we in immediate danger?"

"Not in immediate danger, No." Kerrass told us. "In short, that is how the Hounds were able to debilitate us. We were poisoned. This is why I was able to escape the majority of the effects as my natural immunities came into effect. But it was that poisoning that meant that our people were hallucinating and reacting catastrophically. We were poisoned."

"How?" Inquisitor Dempsey was shifting uncomfortably. I got the impression that he had rather enjoyed the prospect of the lot of us being attacked by sinister and evil forces. A lot of the surviving soldiers credited Dempsey with being able to keep his cool under the onslaught from the Hounds and it was he that hat kept the remaining men together after Father Trent had broken the formation to flee.

"I don't know for sure," Kerrass told him, "because I would need to get hold of one of the Hounds to be properly certain but I think that it goes something like this. I think it's a gas, an air-borne toxin that we breathe when we are around the Hounds themselves. I don't know how that is delivered. My working theories vary from the possibility that agents of the Hounds come around and set the stuff billowing through the air in advance so that when the hounds do actually attack then we are already poisoned. Another theory is that the Hounds have something on them. Some kind of Censor like priests carry the burning incense inside during church services. They carry that and that takes the poisonous gas to their targets. As I say, I can't be sure.

"What I do know is that massive amounts of the stuff was fed into those buildings before they were set alight. I think it was this that caused the most problems.

"But I am certain that it's a gas of some kind. It's in the smoke that seems to accompany them."

"You mean the mist that billows up." Someone asked, I though it was Sir Rickard but I couldn't be sure.

"No, that is a coincidence, or a natural shield that the Hounds are taking advantage of. They can hide in the mists and take advantage of the fact that the mist obscures them, using the it to camouflage the smoke that they are using to spread their hallucinogens.

"Here's the silly question," I said. "And I know it's a silly question but I'm going to ask it anyway. Do they cause the mist?"

"Not that silly," muttered Sir Rickard.

"No." Kerrass kept his face admirably still. "No, the mist is naturally occurring. As is the phenomenon of the red tinge to the mist. In those cases I think that must be the result of a natural, local weather pattern. Or maybe, at the outside chance, it might be a result of the strong magical aura that is in the local area. I can't be sure on that regard but I don't think it's that important to what's happening here. At most, the poison that the Hounds are spreading might make the mist that little bit more opaque to look at."

"So," Sam leant forward. "Time for the Million Crown question. Is there an antidote?"

"I don't think so." Kerrass admitted to a chorus of disappointed sighs around the room. "The poison itself is extraordinarily complex. Well above my alchemical skills to create and is so specific as to what it needs to do that it boggles my mind. If there is an antidote then it would have to be something incredibly specific. Something that would be built into the stuff at the basic level by whoever designed the poison."

"It is definitely artificial then." Inquisitor Dempsey spoke up, fascinated despite himself. "Poor Hacha, he would have been fascinated by this."

"Oh yes. It's far too complex a system to be naturally occurring. The stuff needs to be breathed in. You can't drink it or eat it. Introducing it to the blood stream would do sweet fuck all."

"Astonishing." Dempsey leant back into his chair, deep in thought.

"So how do we fight it? Can we fight it?"

"The pessimistic answer is that I don't know." Kerrass said. "I have some ideas but I can't be certain that it will work."

"Which is?"

"It's carried in the air like smoke." Kerrass said. "What do you do to help yourself breathe when you're in amongst the fire?"

"Stay low to the ground," Sir Rickard said.

"True but we can't fight like that." Sir Kristoff was frowning in thought.

Sam was smiling though. I watched him as he waited for a moment to see if anyone else had an answer to the riddle before opening his mouth. "You wrap a scarf round your face." He said. "Preferably after dipping it in water."

Kerrass nodded. "It's not a perfect solution." He said. "I would add that we should add some mint, lavender, Cloves, Eucalyptus and some Juniper berries to the water if we can. Also some Sage should be worn about the person to help to ward off the fumes."

Sam had gone a little paler. "I'm not sure we have any of that."

"As much, or as little as we can manage. My hope is that just wrapping our faces in a wet scarf will have a beneficial effect but those other things will definitely help when it comes to warding off fumes."

Sam nodded. "Well it's a chance then."

"Not much of one." Sir Kristoff sneered, looking unhappy.

"I'll take what I can get." Sam told him. "Especially as the Hounds are almost certainly going to attack again soon."

"Why do you say that?" Inquisitor Dempsey asked.

"It's what I would do." Sam replied. I could see a couple of the other more militarily minded men around the room nodding their heads.

"What?"

"Think about it. You've just faced the unknown quantity in your lands. The new military presence that you know nothing about. You've tested them out and found that you can walk all over them with ease. What would _you_ do next?"

"Wipe them out?" Inquisitor Dempsey said.

"No," It took us all a while to realise who had spoken but it was Father Trent. When we had first met him, his voice had been melodious and harmonic. It was the voice of a trained speaker. Someone who knew how to hold a room and speak to all of them. This voice was cold and raspy. Dry and remote. "No you wouldn't. You would dominate the area."

We all took a moment to look at each other. Saying that Father Trent looked dreadful would be an understatement. It was clear that he hadn't slept and was, pretty understandably, feeling awful for his role in the military disaster that had taken place earlier. Guilt, grief and a certain sense of "not being good enough were bound to be warring for space in his mind. He took our silence as a desire for more information.

"This has consistently been a battle for hearts and minds." He went on. "They're not conquering the area they are terrorising it. They want to control it and subdue it. If you left them alone and agreed to stay out of their way and let them get on with things in the same way that the Former Lords Kalayn probably used to do,"

"That's if the former Lords Kalayn weren't involved in the Hound's activities." Father Danzig put in.

"Quite so." Trent went on. "Then I think they would have been happy to leave you alone. You are right. Last night was a test. To see how you would react. Well they know how you're going to react now, how we're going to react. So the next stage is to remind everyone that they are in charge. Not just us, but everyone."

I found myself nodding. "The villagers".

"Precisely. The people in the villages that had just been beginning to feel hope for their survival. Hope for their continued existence. _They_ are the ones that need to be reminded that the real rulers of this small part of the world are The Hounds.

"If they destroy us. If they kill every soldier here and hang us from the castle walls then the villagers will panic and will migrate to friendlier locales. Not to say that such an action will call attention to the area. What would happen if Lord Samuel or Lord Frederick suddenly vanished?"

"I know one Vampiric Sorceress who would get quite cross." Kerrass muttered.

"And that's not including Emma, Mark and their other friends at court." Sam was pulling at his lip in thought. "Like the Empress for example."

"Precisely." Father Trent said. "They will come. I don't think there will be anything that stops that now. But they won't come against you. They've made their point in that case in what they did to Inquisitor Hacha and the rest of us. That was the equivalent of a hound pissing up against a fence post to let the others know who's territory they are in. Now they will want to re-exert their authority."

Sam was nodding in agreement. "I agree," he said after a long while. "Anyone else wanting to disagree?"

There was a lot of shaking heads.

"Right then. In which case, here is what we are going to do. Someone pass me that map."

We talked for hours. Talked and planned and strategised. At some point, Kerrass left to get a bit of sleep and to rest up after his exertions. He simply said that he would go to wherever I went and left it at that.

I won't bore you with the details as to what happened in the next couple of hours worth of discussion. We talked around the points rather a few times and I remember thinking, several times in fact, that there were occasionally merits to the military chain of command where one person decides what to do in a crisis and then that's what happens.

But, as Sam told me later, even the best generals listen to advice and opinions from everyone that they can before they make decisions. Politicians do the same thing, or at least they should, and so Sam wanted to hear what everyone had to say.

Over and over and over again.

But we got there in the end. That's not to say that there weren't some problems involved.

What was decided was based on the opinion posited by Sir Kristoff that ten well trained men would be able to hold the castle. This combined with the common opinion that the Hounds wouldn't attack the castle itself meant that we left those proverbial ten men at the castle and the rest of the fighting men that were still under Sam's control would split up to defend the four major areas of population. The long term goal was to use Kerrass' methods of protecting ourselves and to give the Hounds a bit of a drubbing. To make _them_ afraid of _us_.

The hope was that this would all but break the back of the assaults from the enemy which would mean that we could then send messages out of the lands to bring help in to properly turf these bastards out.

As a secondary goal, we wanted to try and capture one of these people. There was still more than a little bit of superstition flying around about the so-called "Hounds" and that they might not be people and were, on some level, monsters. It was one of those strange sentiments that crop up occasionally in my instinctual self.

For example, I knew that magpies are just birds and that it didn't matter whether or not there were one, two or fifteen of them flying in a row, but I still tug my forelock when I see one. I know that black cats are just black cats in that they are still utterly evil and absolutely adorable but at the end of the day, they're just animals. But I still avoid them.

In the same way that I avoid walking under levels, take care to spit and throw salt over my shoulder when I hear people talking about evil ghosts and monsters.

Yes, despite the fact that I travel with a Witcher and I know, in some detail, what that all means.

I know that all of these things are simple superstitions born out of childish fear and the amusement of my elder siblings and nurses...

But I still obey them.

It was like that. I _knew_ that the Hounds were just malicious humans that were taking advantages of the people that happened to live on their "supposed" territory and their fears and history. But I also feared what might be under the hood, under the mask so to speak.

And I was not alone in that. So we were going to aim to capture one. The reason that we gave for this was so that we could interrogate the person in question and see if we could find anything out. But I know the truth and I guess that Sam knew it as well along with, I think, Father Trent.

There was an argument about who would go where. After the previous debacle, Sir Rickard insisted that his men went together as a unit.

Sir Kristoff argued that trained archers and scouts would be useful at all sites but Sir Rickard put his foot down and, once again, played the card of saying that he would be quite willing to properly fulfil his duty of protecting me in Novigrad, or Oxenfurt or even "Fucking Vizima" which were his words. He said that he and his men could be ready to go in minutes and that I would be tied over my saddle in considerably less time, which he had the authority to do.

Sir Kristoff threatened that he could be prevented from doing so.

Sir Rickard told him that he would be interested to see Sir Kristoff try.

I said nothing and just allowed the two men to get on with it. Once again thinking about what Sam had said earlier about the pride of soldiers.

In the end though. It was decided that Sir Rickard, Kerrass (who also refused to go anywhere other than with me) and the rest of the bastards would be coming with me to protect the first village that we had visited near the church of the unfortunate Father Gardan. Sir Rickard had given the opinion that he and his men could defend that place against a much superior force and as such he was told to prove that boast.

Sir Kristoff would take the Redanians off to protect another village. The soldiers of the eternal flame would follow Sam's commands and protect a third while Father Danzig who had military training would take the knights of Kreve to protect the last village.

There was a brief argument that Father Danzig shouldn't be leading a group because churchmen were being removed from the command chain. This was countered by the fact that Danzig also held military rank and had an understanding of the proper strategy which was considerably more than Trent or Dempsey had.

For those people wondering. It was Kristoff that had made that objection.

Another point was made that the locals thought of the Hounds as being "The Hounds of Kreve" so they might be a little bit afraid of being protected by "soldiers of Kreve".

It was Dempsey that made this point. A much more reasonable point than the first but Danzig told him not to worry about it. That dealing with the fear of the common man was not a new problem that he had had to overcome in the past.

So the matter was decided. We all took our supplies, made some preperations and headed off to our assigned positions.

I slept badly that night. Dreams that kept me restless that meant that I couldn't sleep for more than a few hours at a time. To the point that I don't remember actually sleeping. I must have done though as there is no way at all that I actually saw the entirety of the night. I seem to have some kind of recollection of running through a forest of some kind. Maybe a flashback to the visions that Jack had sent me but I can't answer for that. All I know for certain is that when I was shaken awake and told that it was time to move, I felt as though I had been hung out on a line before being beaten with a stick like village women do to clean rugs.

It was the early hours of the morning that we set out, packing things into our saddle bags and setting out into the cool and crisp morning air. The sky was clear and a deep, burnished blue with just a hint of the orange of the sunrise climbing over the mountains to the east, glinting off the snow that still crested the tops of them despite the growing warmth of the seasons.

It was going to be a beautiful day and I felt strangely sad as we set out. Not a sense of foreboding but almost the sense of saying goodbye to something. The same feeling that you get when you are leaving home for an extended period.

We rode gently as well. Not too fast, and I noticed that the bastards had their horse-bows out and strung with other weapons easily to hand. These were not the laughing, joking and singing men that I had travelled north with. These were the veterans of several battles and more quiet skirmishes in the dead of night and the quiet of the roadside than could easily be counted.

There were ten of them now, with Rickard and his Sergeant making a total of twelve. Kerrass was with us as well which meant that, to my mind, we made a formidable looking group of men.

Which might have contributed towards the fact that the reaction we got from the village when we arrived was absolutely not the one that we were expecting.

To be fair, I couldn't tell you what it was that I _was_ expecting. All I know for certain was that it wasn't this.

We were met by a line of men with pitchforks, one or two with hunting bows and one man had a rake. The display was laughable really if it hadn't been so tragic as there was also a line of women behind them men who looked as though they were cowering. Notable by his absence was Edward the headman or Alderman if you prefer, that I had come to know from my previous visit. We weren't really in any danger except from the archers but from this distance, even I could tell that the aim and the grip of the men holding the bows was very shaky indeed.

We walked our horses down the hill and out of the woods until we were facing the line of men. We were about ten metres away at best.

"Go back." Someone shouted but I couldn't tell who it was that had called. Having travelled with Kerrass for some time I had seen versions of this story several times before. Indeed, our very first interaction, the village with the Nekkers had had a group of belligerent men who had tried to prevent Kerrass from doing his job and I had a sneaking suspicion that if this situation was pushed too far then it would end in exactly the same way.

I looked at Sir Rickard who shrugged and turned to give some orders to his men. Kerrass was staring at the sky, ignoring the entire situation.

"Go back?" I called back, "I've only just got here."

I think I got a bit of a snigger out of one or two of the bastards but that was about it. Sir Rickard was pointing and a couple of his men dismounted, pulling large woodsman's axes from their saddles as they went before trotting off in the direction of the treeline.

I dismounted myself.

"Go back," the voice said again, calling from the meat of the crowd. "You are not welcome here."

"And again, I point out that I've only just got here." I called out, scanning the faces in front of me to see if I could tell who it was I was addressing. I stepped forwards again.

"Go back to your castle." The voice called.

I sighed theatrically. I was tired and grumpy and I could possibly have handled it better. Certainly, looking back I can think of several other ways that I could have done things without upsetting people but at the time...?

"Ok, first of all," I said. "Who is it that's speaking? It's incredibly rude to give orders without showing your face. I notice that, as is so often the case, that the person doing the speaking and saying the dangerous things to the heavily armed men, is stood at the back, well out of harms way. Pushing braver men to the front so that they can face whatever problem that it might be leaving the speaker, better able to run away. But let me ask a question in turn?"

I waited for a response. "Go away, or what?" I said into the silence.

The intellectual that I was speaking to was clearly ready for this. "Go away or else."

"Or else what?"

"Or we'll stop you."

I laughed at him. As I said, I could have...I should have handed things better.

"What, you lot? You could stop us coming into your village if we really wanted to?" I said.

It was an odd feeling that stole over me, the same kind of feeling that I got when I confronted Ariadne all that time ago and laid out the political situation of the world. The kind of feeling of...head down, just go for it.

"Oh for fucks sake," Kerrass called out. "Let's just move past these idiots anyway. It's not like they can stop us." I couldn't tell without looking at him whether his anger was real or not. It certainly sounded real but Kerrass is good at that kind of thing.

"We would stop you." Said the man with the spear. He stepped forward to bar my way. "We will stop you." He declared.

Poor man, he deserved better than what I did to him.

"Not holding your spear like that you won't," I commented. My hand shot forward with all the speed that Kerrass had spent hours training into me. I took hold of the haft of the spear and simply tugged, not even that hard. The poor man simply let go and fell over, seemingly in shock.

I felt disgust then, so much that I wanted to vomit and go bathe. Not at the fallen man, the village or even the man standing behind them all, goading them all on. I was disgusted with myself. I felt like a bully and the worse kind of man who used his strength over those men weaker than himself. I sighed and tried to spit out the horrible taste that was in the back of my mouth.

I held my hand out to the fallen man who took it out of reflex before allowing himself to be helped to his feet.

"Here's the thing." I said to the assembly. "We are here to help. We are here to help you protect your village so that no-one ever needs to be carried off again. No-one needs to be tortured in the streets or abused in the forests. You want to live your lives the way you want? Well we're here to make that happen."

"You can't help us." The initial speaker stepped forward. Presumably because he felt that the threat of violence was passing and as such it was becoming safer to step forward and to remind everyone that he was in charge. "No-one can help us. This scourge was brought down on us by our own wicked and sinful ways. We brought this on ourselves."

"No," I said. "No that's not the case. These things are men, they are tricking you into doing what they want. That we can help you with."

"Help us? you can't even help yourselves." He howled into my face. I would like to give him the benefit of the doubt and grant him the belief that he actually believed what he was saying, but I couldn't help but look at him and see everyone in every village, town and city that I have ever travelled through who profit and benefit from the status quo. Every time that change might be positive for the future there is always one man, sometimes more than one man who benefits from the hardships that others are under.

There is always someone who has to sell weapons to the army. There is always someone who is benefiting from the victimisation of others. The best example was always the sword-smith in Novigrad who shouted loudest against non-humans because his competition was made up of elves and dwarves. Suddenly, the church soldiers were good and decent men who were doing the work of the Eternal Fire.

There is always someone who profits.

This man, for all I know, was just someone who was afraid, but I couldn't help but think that he was someone who was taking advantage of the way that things had always been.

But then again, he might have been an agent of the Hounds. One of those men and women who had secreted themselves amongst the people of the land in order to feed intelligence off to whoever commanded the hounds in return for their protection. It was one of the things that we would have to be careful of when we worked.

I didn't like him.

Can you tell?

"The hounds came for you didn't they." He spat at me. "They came for you and attacked you on the road. Couldn't protect yourselves then so why should we believe that you can protect _us_?"

He was playing to the crowd and he knew it.

"The mist descended. The same as it always does. The mist descended and these fools were on the roads. Unprotected and alone. The Hounds fell on them for the unclean heathens that they were."

Say what you like about the man but he was a gifted speaker.

"The Hounds fell on them and crushed them. Taking one of their vaunted churchmen. One of their holiest men, their holiest heretics and torturing him until the ground ran red with his blood. The Hounds killed them, slaughtering them in their dozens and leaving their broken bodies on the field. Which of you want to lose your lives, or the lives of your sons, brothers and husbands to the wrath of the Hounds. Because that wrath is coming. It is and there's nothing that we, or these fools can do to stop it."

He looked around the people and far too many of them couldn't meet his gaze.

"The only way, the _only_ way to prevent the Hounds from taking us. From taking our loved ones in the night and into the mist. The only way is to mark their faces and surround yourselves with salt as you sleep. That is the only way that you can protect yourselves from these demons. The only way that you can protect yourselves. That's what I'm going to do tonight and I would tell you all that that's what you need to do to. Salt, around the windows and doorways with an extra circle around your bed.

"It's the only way."

I lost my temper.

So many ways that I could have handled this entire situation better.

"Listen friend." I stepped in close to him and grabbed him by the front of his shirt. "You can surround yourself with salt, soot or fucking sausages for all I care. Men or Demons, they have to be dealt with. You see that man?"

I spun and pointed at Kerrass.

"That man there. That's a Witcher. You know what Witchers do?"

There was some mumbling.

"Witchers destroy monsters. He's decided that these things are monsters, whether they're human or not. You say that we were attacked? You are right. We were attacked but you wanna know what else? He was immune to the effects of the Hound's presence and he has taught us how to protect ourselves from them. So we're going to fight them. We're going to fight them and we're going to kill them and make _them_ afraid of _us_. So that they will never come back.

"How many of you want to fight. How many of you want to live your lives in peace. How many of you want to take back your land and control it and say what you want to say and do what you want to do. How many of you have looked at things and found away to take the fight back to the bastards that make you scar your children. How many of you want to do that?

"I would. I would want to fight."

"We have fought before. We always lose." someone said.

"Before, you didn't know _how_ to fight back." I said, a little quieter but with as much force as I could muster. "But I can show you."

(A/N: Beginning to get over jet lag now but I'm still going to blame any spelling mistakes on that. Hoping to get back to a more regular updating routine now that I'm on the ground and things are beginning to settle down. Thanks for the patience folks and, as always, thanks for reading.)


	71. Chapter 71

What followed was a couple of days of the hardest physical work of my life.

I will hold my hand up now and admit something. I have talked about this before so I'm sorry if I'm going over old ground. When I was growing up, indeed until I met Kerrass, I was not very... I was not physically conditioned. I had spent time in the practice yards training with sword, horse and lance but I was never talented enough with those things for the conditioning to take with me. I fell off, injured myself, got tired and otherwise struggled with everything that I was asked or told to do.

Many of you know this.

This was largely because I was uninterested in these pass-times. All I wanted to do was to get back to my books, to read, to study and find things out. To get better at something you have to _want_ to get better at it and I didn't want to get better at it so I remained thin, stoop shouldered and gangly which was a body pattern that I kept until I met Kerrass.

Kerrass took me in hand and although, at first, he didn't care enough about me to worry about my physical well-being, he did want to make sure that I wasn't going to get _him_ killed, so he started training me. At first I put up with these drills because it was the only way that I could stay with my subject, the only way that I could continue my research. But then I met the Nekkers and something in my mind shifted. I was no longer training just to become better at something. I was training for my very survival. It had been made clear to me that I needed to know how to fight and how to kill so that I could survive life on the road.

And I wanted to survive, therefore I trained hard.

I developed muscle mass and my posture and stature changed. Although I didn't feel any different in and of myself, the differences became known in the way that people treated me. Suddenly discovering that girls were looking at me with considering expressions or that regular people would move out of my way when I was walking down the street. I hadn't noticed either of those things until someone pointed them out to me though.

I also remember the day at the family castle when I returned home for the first time in years to be with my family as my father died. I remember climbing the towers and not being out of breath when I got to the top. Not something that I had been able to do before.

So I had come to enjoy my new-found physical capabilities. I had strength, stamina, skill and speed that I was unused to. That I had never had before and I liked it.

But I found, in the village that day, as I had learned before but I had forgotten until that point, that there is a difference between being fit enough to ride a horse, to train with your weapons and fight for your life and then being able to put in the hard physical labour that is involved working on the farm or in the villages.

I had learned this lesson before but I had forgotten it.

The other lesson that I found that I had to remember was that there is a technique to everything. Not just spear work. But also the proper use of a wood axe and a shovel.

My hands are well callused now. Toughened skin covers the ball of my thumbs and across my fingers where Kerrass has me fighting day in and day out.

But I had blisters on blisters on blisters at the end of those few days work and one of the village women had to make me a cream that I was forced, on pain of feminine disapproval, to rub into the injuries on a daily basis.

Humiliation is not the word for it.

So here's a little story, a parable if you prefer the term and it will possibly illustrate my attitude a little better.

All of this is by way of my learning a lesson that my father had tried to teach me many years before. Back before the distance had grown too vast between mother and him and when he still took something of an interest in my schooling and activities. We were riding somewhere, I can't remember where now, but we were on our way. I must have been seven or eight or so, around that time and for whatever reason I was riding with my father. As I say, I can't remember the circumstances of this particular journey so bear with me.

We were riding along and I was trying to impress my father with some kind of insight. I had no idea whether what I was thinking was correct. I think I was more trying to say something that he would agree with.

We were riding along a track with some fields on one side and with a wooded area on the other. There were a team of lumberjacks in the area and I remember looking forward to seeing the heavily muscled men in action, swinging their axes and moving their saws backwards and forwards. I was still full of the romantic stories that my nanny had been telling me about "heroic woodcutters" and how they would come to the rescue of young princesses and general folk that need rescuing in those kinds of stories.

We were riding along and we came to the open area and I remember a crushing disappointment to discover that the men were sat down having a rest, smoking some tobacco, having something to eat and passing a large skin of some kind of drink backwards and forwards amongst each other. I remember craning my neck to look at my father's face, fully expecting him to apoplectic with rage and rather looking forward to an opportunity to seeing someone else be the recipient of my father's ire.

Instead father looked over towards the men, shouted a greeting of some kind and made a joke. The woodsmen waved and raised their wineskin in some kind of a salute before we rode on and out of sight.

I began to find the tension unbearable as the waited for and expected explosion failed to materialise.

"Aren't you going to yell at them Father?" I asked.

"What for?" I remember that he didn't look at me. I don't know if he was scanning the road ahead or checking the horse or watching the farmers as we rode but I remember that he didn't look at me and I remember feeling as though that was off-putting somehow.

"For not getting on with the work." I said. "For lazing around."

"Those men weren't lazing around." He told me. There was no anger in his voice, nor disappointment which is why I remember this moment so clearly. Either of those things would have sent me off into tears at that point in my life although I wonder if he kept himself calm precisely so that he could avoid a, to use his words, "an emotional and childish outburst."

"What do you mean?" Looking back I am surprised that I had the temerity to ask such a question.

I remember that he sighed and rubbed his head, a gesture that would later become a sign that he was becoming exasperated. "They were resting. Cutting down trees is hard work. Hard physical labour and you should be grateful that that kind of labour is not something that you have ever had to do, or _will_ ever have to do if I can manage it."

He reached for his own water bottle and took a long drink.

"Never mistake laziness for an honest need to take a moment's rest. One is a decision whereas the other is a necessity for a person's health."

He said no more on the subject although I will mention that when I tried the same line on my weapon-master the next time I wanted to take a break from all the sword play I was thrashed for my trouble.

That's the long way round of telling you that Sir Rickard's bastards threw themselves into a frenzy of work that I would not have been able to keep up with.

They chopped down trees before using smaller hatchets to chop the wood into smaller chunks of varying length. I later saw that they automatically cut the wood into similar lengths so that the lengths of the posts were almost uniform. I asked how that was managed and Rickard told me that the lengths of wood were bow length.

They dug trenches as well. Moving an astonishing amount of Earth in a relatively small amount of time with the equally as small entrenching tools that the men had strapped to their travelling gear. All the while they had their personal arms on, their knives and swords still strapped to their waists, quivers on their backs and their bows close to hand.

I ached just watching them after I had been told that I needed to calm my shit down.

I remember thinking that it was almost rehearsed. That no-one had given any orders but that everyone had just kind of gotten on with it without needing instruction.

I have no intentions of taking up another subject when Kerrass and I part ways as I strongly suspect that marriage to an elder vampire along with the responsibilities that come with that, will take up a significant amount of my time, but I imagine that a man could write a considerable amount regarding the mindsets and the training of soldiers rather than the knights that lead them which is what the majority of texts cover.

While that industry was going on under the direction of the Sergeant of the bastards, Kerrass and Sir Rickard were walking around the village with a piece of paper, a bit of charcoal and Edward the headman who had been found under the village equivalent of house arrest. It seemed that he had argued against the group of men that had tried to keep us from entering the village and doing what needed to be done and although the majority of people were on his side, they were the kind of people that were primarily after a quiet life. It was the loud, belligerent and vocal minority that had met us at the entrance to the village with pitchforks and rakes.

Edward had taken his temporary confinement in good grace and had reminded everyone that he had been chosen as the Alderman for a good reason which was that his instincts were good and that he could normally be depended upon to make the right decisions.

It was soon decided and with the support of the village women, that the vast majority of the non-combatants would take shelter in what they called "The cave of the God". That place that Edward had described as being a sacred site of Crom Cruarch. The term non-combatant was being defined as women, children and old-folk although I had seen more than one woman protesting at the prospect of being described as a "non-combatant".

The three men were planning the defences, drawing where the houses were and where the defensive lines were going to be drawn. Where the water barrels going to be located as well as the barrels of the liquid that Kerrass had ordered mixed for us all to dip our scarves into in an effort to keep the Hounds poison out of our lungs. The first time a couple of my blisters had burst, which was uncomfortably early in the process of starting work, I remember looking at their little diagram and being mystified at what I saw there.

What I had expected was some kind of defensive circle. Walls of wood and earth inter connecting the houses with stakes and things to keep the Hounds out but instead what I saw was a kind of maze, a tangled web of lines that I didn't understand or recognise.

Kerrass noticed my confusion. "You alright?" he asked, nodding at the bandages that were wrapped around my hands.

"Flame no." I told him. "The next time I say that I should pick up a shovel or a wood axe then you have my permission to remind me of this moment and slap me across the face. I should have left this to the professionals, as with so much in life."

My declaration was met with a smirk from Sir Rickard and Edward.

Kerrass' expression didn't change before abruptly he shook himself as though suddenly being startled. "Sorry what was that? You lost me after saying that I could slap you across the face."

"Very funny."

"I thought so." His hand lashed forward and I had to duck out the way.

"You said I could slap you across the face." Kerrass protested.

"Why do I hang around with you again?"

"I have often asked myself the same question. Feel free to leave at any time." He looked down at the paper before his voice turned serious for a moment. "Although, if you could leave off for a day or two please. I have the burning desire to insert my sword in some monsters."

A confused look came over Edward's face. "I thought you said that the Hounds were human."

" _Probably_ human," Kerrass told him, "But that wouldn't stop them from being monsters though."

"What's the plan?" I asked, gesturing at the map.

"It's about firing lines." Kerrass told me, beckoning Sir Rickard over who had been drinking from a heavy water skin that one of the villagers had brought over. Sir Rickard passed the skin over to Kerrass who also drank deeply.

"I still don't understand it." Edward told me. "To me, it looks like we're leaving a hole in the defences for the Hounds to ride into and burn the village down."

"The village might lose a few houses." Edward told us. "That's not in dispute here. But you don't build an unbreakable wall around the village as that will negate the one significant advantage that we have."

"Which is?" I asked.

"That my men are among the best shots in the Kingdom." He said simply. "I train them hard every day so that they become so. Look..."

He turned the paper over so that he could show me another picture that he had drawn. From the sight of it, he had drawn it, precisely to illustrate this point again to someone else.

"If we just build a barricade around the village." He pointed to a circle, "Then the Horsemen will use _their_ advantage which is mobility. They will ride around the village at speed, possibly shooting their own bows at our much more stable and unmoving targets and throwing lit brands into the village until either a building collapses and they can come into the enclosure, or, if this was a military installation that we were defending, we try to sally out to attack them. They know that we're made up of civilians and that our food and water is limited, therefore time is on their side."

"They would leave though, when the fog lifts." I pointed out.

"That's if they stick with the established pattern." Kerrass pointed out. "Non-sapient monsters are creatures of habit and can be expected to stick to the pattern. People can change, try something new. It is a mistake to assume that just because something always has been the case, that it always will be the case."

"Ah." I said happily, "You're talking about assuming things aren't you." I nodded sagely. "A valid point."

Kerrass glared at me.

"For us to use our bows properly against the highly mobile targets we need to confine them into as tight a space as possible and get them to move in a straight line directly towards or away from us." Rickard went on, ignoring the pair of us. "So that's what we're going to do. We're leaving two openings in the perimeter. Here and here." he pointed. "That will give them targets to home in on. We're actually going to start some stuff there so that it looks like we ran out of time to properly build walls or ditches there so that they will be even more tempted. Then they will be forced to ride down these gullies."

Again he pointed.

"During that time Kerrass and yourself will be holding the smaller of the two openings and the Sergeant and myself will be holding the others. Those villagers that are willing to fight will be on the rooftops above those gullies throwing rocks, dirt, human waste, children's underclothes, offal and whatever other unpleasant things that we can think of down onto them. Some of the villagers have hunting bows as well and although they won't bother anyone with armour, that's if the man with armour knows that it's only a village hunting bow rather than a proper war-bow or recurved killing bow."

"What about the other men?" I asked.

"They will be divided between these killing steps. A couple on the roof-tops to shoot at them while they do surround the village, you never know but Dan might be able to hit something if they move round at pace or something."

"You're creating a killing ground," I commented. "I see, but what about what Edward told us about the riders appearing on the ridge top and then "flying" down amongst the village." I saw a sense of relief in Edward's face and guessed that he had been wanting to bring this up himself but had lacked the nerve to do so. "I'm not saying that we need to guard against flying horses as I don't believe in those either but these folks see something when that happens."

"A good point." Rickard commented and turned and bellowed for Taylor who drove his shovel into the pile of earth that he was working with and came running over where Rickard told him about the "flying horses".

To Taylor's credit, he didn't even blink.

"You're amongst the best horsemen that we have. Presumably due to all that training that you were getting when you were being trained as a dandy. How would you do that?"

Taylor nodded and stood, looking up at the small cliff-face. He nodded to himself again and went to collect his horse.

"This might be good." Rickard told the rest of us.

As I've described before, but it bears repeating. The small cliff wall that the village was nestled against was not very big. If you jumped off it, I suspect it would not even manage to kill you but would be much more likely to break a limb. I would put it at twenty five to thirty feet high at most, maybe a little higher. The cliff wall was part of the local rock formations as the foothills started to climb up into the mountains that they would eventually become and this was one of the first breaks in the ground where the rock started to show through.

Why a village was here is beyond my understanding. My guess is that it was founded around the holy site that is there. At the base of the cliff is the door that, once opened, leads down a flight of steps and into an underground cavern wherein lies a lake which had been identified by the villagers forebears as a holy site of Crom Cruarch. The village also had a well which sunk down into this same cavern and underground water reservoir.

Taylor rode his horse out of the village and around so that he was sat on the horse on top of the cliff looking down at the village. He rode this way and that for a few moments craning over the side of the cliff, oblivious to the height or the danger, utterly assured in his safety on the back of his horse.

Then he stopped, reaching into the bags that were still tied onto the horse he produced a large blanket which he proceeded to tie around the horses head and covered the animals eyes. Then he steered the horse back from the cliff face for a moment so that we couldn't see him.

I didn't know why he wanted any kind of a run up but I felt sick just watching him.

Then he appeared and rode his horse over the edge of the cliff.

One of the possible reasons for the village to be built there was that the cliff provided a certain amount of shelter from the ferocious winds, as well as the mist that came from the mountain top. I imagined that in the countryside, snow, wind and frozen air currents off the mountain could be sheltered from against the cliff and indeed, many of the older buildings in the settlement were nestled against it. This included the small building that disguised the entrance down to the lake and the holy area but it also protected the communal gathering building where the cooking, and village business was conducted but it was also where the blacksmith worked and where the village goods were stored, not just the food that was set aside for the winter and whatever other circumstances that you might keep things back for but also blankets, firewood, grain and other such things. Some of those buildings were large enough to house livestock against particularly dangerous mountain storms or blizzards.

Some of these buildings were quite tall and towered almost as high, but not quite as high as the cliff-face.

I'm sure that you can guess what he was doing having read it from the safety of your own home. But for me, watching Taylor as his horse leapt out into open air, my heart was in my mouth.

For a perfect moment, it seemed as though the horse hung in the air, perfectly still before it began to fall, front feet first... Directly onto the roof of the largest of the barns and warehouses.

Taylor brought the horse to a halt before turning it and steering it down the slope of the roof, presumably across some of the cross framing must have been visible through the thatch. Then the horse jumped again and landed on the village gathering building. Then again onto the blacksmiths shop, then again onto a pile of wood before touching down on the ground. Taylor rode the horse to stand in front of us and dismounted.

He wasn't even breathing that hard.

"Flying horses." He said evenly.

"Who are you?" I asked him.

"No-one of consequence," he told me with a slight smile.

"I must know who you are."

"Get used to disappointment."

"Yes, well." Rickard was grinning at my discomfort. "Deal with the problem would you. Otherwise we could be having Hounds crashing down around us."

"Or on our heads." Taylor was already moving off calling for a couple of wood saws.

"Who is that man?" I asked.

"Buggered if I know," Sir Rickard told me, not for the first time, "and so long as he does his job, right now, I don't much care. Edward can you set a group of men to spear to death any Hound that falls through the roof?"

"I think that that can be managed."

Edward said that, but the villagers were very slow to commit towards helping us. It wasn't until well into the second day before a large man came out with a shovel and a pick slung easily over his shoulder strode over to where a group of the bastards were toiling hard and offered to help.

Shortly after that, another group of men went over with wood cutting materials to help build the walls then a couple of the women shyly came round to offer us food and water.

This caused me a little hilarity as I heard the Sergeant delivering a little speech to a couple of the men about "keeping their base desires firmly buttoned up or Sir Rickard would likely be extremely cross." to much groaning and complaining from the other men.

I remember grinning and thinking that there wouldn't be much trouble. The bastards were kept too busy for those kinds of shenanigans despite the best efforts of one or two of the eligible females. Apparently it nearly became a whole thing as the women wanted to use that as an excuse to escape the local area, marriage to a soldier is attractive towards that kind of woman. The chance to see new lands, to travel with her man and such as well as, or so I'm told, the aphrodisiac of being married to a warrior man.

But as I say, the boys were a little too busy to be able to spend too much time to devote towards pursuing some of the members of the fairer sex.

So gradually, as the hours and days wore on, the villagers began to warm up to the idea of fighting for their future. I found myself in charge of a group of men who needed to be taught how to hold a spear properly and had just enough of a clue to be teaching them basic spear drills. Don't get too excited. It didn't go much beyond the stereotypical instructions of "hold the spear here and here and stick the pointy bit in the bad guy."

Such sentences are often said in jest in an effort to make fun of a persons capabilities and talents when it comes to using their weapons but when it comes down to it. When you've only got a limited amount of time to be able to teach people these things, then you take what you can get.

We did have one problem though which was that we still didn't know how the Hounds were getting their information. They had to be getting that intelligence from somewhere and so we had assumed that there were agents that were working for the hounds amongst the villagers and the people that we were staying with. For this reason it had been decided that anyone that was in the village, stayed in the village unless they were supervised by one, or preferably more, of the soldiers.

When we arrived in the village we were very careful to point out to Edward that this was a necessary evil and that it was unavoidable. That we didn't want to start some kind of massive witch-hunt and nor did we want to turn villagers against other villages or their fellows. Edward agreed and when it was put to the gathering, we pointed out that these agents could be anybody so the important thing was that we intercept anyone and anything that might be carrying messages off to other parts.

Most, if not all of the people that lived inside the village itself were agreeable to this and were supportive and those people that were not were quickly shouted down under the threat of being perceived to be the agents that we were trying to protect against.

I thought that this was a bit harsh myself but there you go.

We also stationed Dan on the highest building to shoot down any birds that might be messenger pigeons. We can't speak for whether or not he was successful in curtailing the spread of intelligence but we certainly got enough birds for a pie.

The problem with all of this was that we weren't just here to protect the people in the village itself. We were also there to protect the people from the surrounding farms. Many of whom were reluctant to drop what they were doing and run off at a moments notice to a central village. They, not incorrectly, argued that they had things to do. Chores to fulfil and a home to protect. They asked how we intended to protect their homes, not unreasonably, and were understandably upset and angry when we told them that we had no intention of trying to protect their little farms in out of the way places. That our priorities were to protect the people that lived inside the buildings as the buildings themselves could be rebuilt.

Some saw the sense and loaded as much as they could onto carts and carried it into town, prioritising food and other goods that could not be replaced.

Many did not which was where the entire thing clashed of course. You see, how could we tell which farmers were just genuinely angry and upset at the prospect of losing everything that they owned against those people that might actually be _pretending_ to be angry and upset in an effort to remain behind and send messages off to their masters?

We never found an answer to this riddle.

Nor could we, upon giving them the news that we intended to protect the village and the people living in it, leave them behind if they refused which led to several occasions where the occupants of the farms had to be restrained and carried away from their homes with the very real possibility of never returning there again.

The growing good feeling between the village folk and ourselves began to fall off a little from that point.

Fortunately, help came from a surprising place as the head woman, Edward's wife who doubled as the chief Priestess of Crom Cruarch declared that it was time for an offering to the God. Supplies were gathered, more firewood was cut and we all were invited down into the cavern to leave our offerings.

A couple of the more superstitious soldiers complained a little but Sir Rickard glared at them until they subsided. We were told that we didn't need to make an offering if we didn't want to. That the God understood that we were there to help and to, possibly, lay down our lives in the protection of the village and the God's people and as such our "unbelieving ways" would be tolerated. For myself, I took a pragmatic view of the situation. We were guests here. I couldn't prove that the beliefs of the God's existence were false. I didn't know what he was although I will admit that at the time, I thought that he was little more than a local spirit. A more powerful version of those wood and farmland spirits that occasionally adopt patches of land and the people that live on them and give their power to help the people that live there.

So I determined that I wasn't that concerned for the health of my eternal soul and that I wouldn't bother the priests with it. I determined that I would mention it to Mark the next time I saw him and if _he_ felt it was important then I would unburden myself at my next confession.

Kerrass agreed with my course of action and determined to take an offering of a selection of the herbs that he was using to mix up the potion that we would be using to mask the effects of the Hound's poison.

I've never entirely been sure as to what Kerrass' religious beliefs are. I have asked him and when he does answer on the matter, which is not often, he will say that he believes in his own capabilities. He believes in the swords on his back, the signs in his fingers, the skill in his hands and the knowledge in his brain. I can't speak for that. He certainly spends enough time working on all of these things that you might consider that a religion. But I also think that he might be putting me off the true answer.

I've never seen him leave an offering at a shrine, enter a temple or give much more than lip service to religious ritual. However when he swears he blasphemes in the name of a Goddess. Which one? I used to think it was Melitele when I first met him but more recently I have become less sure. When he spoke about the Princess Dorn while she was asleep, he did so with the reverence of a man talking about his Goddess and I have since come to wonder if that was a thing.

But I don't know. As I say, he avoids the subject wherever he can and flat out refuses to answer when he can't.

But regardless, we gathered our offerings. Each of the soldiers offered up a single arrow from the dozens of new ones that they had been making. It seemed that when they ran out of things to do, it was almost automatic that their hands would turn to the craft of fletching. Either straightening and fixing spent arrows or by constructing others.

As I say, Kerrass offered some herbs and berries, Sir Rickard joined his men in offering an arrow. I thought long and hard about what I should offer. It was supposed to be the first fruits of the harvest but as I didn't really harvest anything from my work other than wealth, most of which went to the university as it was with their permission that I was able to use their name, or to our families estate to be disposed of as my father, at first and later Emma, saw fit. I was given a stipend for life on the road but that meant that I had little actual money on me.

The other major things that I had received were a woman that I loved and a friendship that I had not believed possible, neither of whom would be agreeable to be sacrificed on the alter to a local God. Some might argue that I had gained fame and notoriety from this as well, but again, how do you make an offering of that?

In the end I decided that all of these things were the "results" of my harvest. My real crop was in the knowledge that I had gained over the course of my journeys and as such, that would be what I would offer, in the guise of some of my preliminary notes that I had jotted down. Everything that I gave I had already written up and handed off to people, I keep the notes to remind myself of past events and to what I was thinking at the time as well as my reasons for behaving in such a way.

Like reading a diary, it is sometimes interesting reading to go back and read through what had happened all that time ago.

So I was carrying a small folder full of loose leaf paper as we walked through the open building and down the trap door. The building that disguised the trap door was little more than a basic wooden framework that had only the loosest wooden planks nailed to it with a very light covering of thatch over the rooftop. The objective was to disguise the entrance into the cave from outside eyes and it was largely successful. From the outside, the small building looked like little more than a large outhouse for the use of relieving yourself.

It took us a while to get everyone down there. The doors over the cave were large and well made. Edward later told me that they were the third set of doors that had been constructed by the village to guard the place. As they gained more knowledge and experience in how to build larger and more sturdy doors, the old ones would be taken down and the new ones would be put up.

As I say, these ones were extremely large and very heavy to look at. I did struggle to understand how they might keep people out but there was a large cross-beam propped against the wall as you went through and examining the back of the door showed that there was an area where this could be fitted into place.

It took us a long time to climb down the stairs to get into the cavern, filing down the slick stone steps, presumably worn away by many years of people climbing down them and although I tried to be sturdy and steady on my feet, I found that I had to clutch onto the guiding rope with one hand as I moved down.

I remember being surprised by how far down into the ground we ended up going until the walls, almost abruptly, vanished on either side opening out into a wide cavern with a large bonfire in the middle where people were already dancing around and having fun.

Food was also being passed around along with many bottles of the fermented apple drink that they liked so much and it showed the promise of a heady gathering. Sir Rickard was telling the men that, although they were free to enjoy themselves that they should refrain from getting drunk as "The Hounds" could come at any time. He promised them that when victory was assured then they could get as drunk as they like but until then they were to remain sober. He also told them that providing the lady gave explicit consent then they should feel free to enjoy themselves providing that they were ready for duty later on that night.

Such a declaration was met by a somewhat half-hearted cheer but they were soon drawn off by various people into the dancing circle and I didn't see too many unhappy faces.

I found myself on the edges of the gathering, clutching my folder of notes and looking on, watching the people dancing and laughing until I found myself wondering how many of them would soon be dead when the Hounds themselves finally did attack.

I missed Ariadne deeply. I didn't know why but I felt sure that she would have been fascinated by this gathering.

After everyone was down in the cavern and had taken a bit of time to see everyone, shake everyone's hand and hug loved ones or close friends then the priestess stood up. I knew it was her from the red scarf that had not been taken off from round her head but her entire attitude and body language was different. She seemed to hobble into an open area with the aid of a long walking stick as she was bent over, almost bent double with the effects of extreme age and the signs of a long and physically taxing life. If I hadn't known who she was, I wouldn't have recognised her. I looked around for Edward who was standing nearby, watching his wife perform. He hid it well but his eyes were shining with pride as he watched her work.

She came forward and threw her arm up in the air and brought her staff crashing down onto the floor. The sound was deafening, a metallic crash that echoed throughout the cave. I wondered about that for a while until Kerrass pointed out a small group of women who had some crude cymbals in the darkness. I grinned to myself, enjoying the theatricalities of the entire thing.

"Welcome, my children." She said, her voice disguised and sounding old and decrepit. "Welcome strangers from distant lands as we stand here at this time of offering. Where once again we offer the first fruits of our labours for the crooked man. The man of the mound. The ancient one. We offer these things and then we ask for his blessings upon us all so that we might better survive the struggles ahead."

She scanned the assembly and there was real power flashing behind her eyes but I sensed that it was benevolent.

"Bring forth your offerings."

With a sweep of her arm she gestured towards the wide flat table nearby. As Edward had first described to me it was dark wood, almost black in colour and it had a feeling of being old. Very old, to the point where I wondered how old it was.

I should explain a little bit of context here. The cave that we were in was wet from the lake that we were on the shore of. The cold and damp was banished by the large and open roaring fire that was there but it was inconceivable to me that that blaze was a constant fixture here. The amount of wood that would need to be consumed alone made it almost impossible to picture. Also, although the smoke was being taken off somewhere it was impossible to tell where, but if the fire was constantly burning we would run the risk of suffocating in all the smoke. But without that fire I could not help but think that the cave would be cold and clammy and anything made out of wood would be given to rot away in relatively short order. It was inconceivable to me that the table could have survived so long down here without rotting away but it was not a small thing and I also struggled to conceive how anyone could have got it through the relatively small entranceway.

One of life's little mysteries and another that I don't think I will ever have the opportunity to solve.

We all lined up and moved forward to lay our offerings on the table. I was surprised by how lively the gathering was. I am used to religious ceremonies being calm and staid affairs that take their time and are done in reverent silence with maybe a bit of light chanting or singing to accompany prayers. But here, people were laughing and joking, trading insults and compliments with cheer and relish.

When it was my turn I found a part of the table that hadn't been covered in goods. There was already a stack of arrows in one corner as well as numerous stacks of firewood, straw and several carcasses of meat. I found a place and tucked my small folder of paper somewhere out of sight next to a small bunch of flowers that looked to have been offered by a child. I took the moment to place my hand on the table itself. As Edward had warned me, it was indeed slightly warm to the touch and the feeling of age increased. The grain was deep and pitted by time and hardship. If the surface of the wood had been the skin of a human then that human would have been an aged warrior, tired and old now but still standing and prepared to weather the storm, standing upright before his enemies.

That might sound like a strange thing to say but it was the image that leapt into my mind as I lay my hand down on the surface.

I realised that I was holding up the line and moved on, going to stand with Sir Rickard who looked as though he was feeling just as out of place as I was.

Kerrass, on the other hand, was laughing and joking with the rest of them. The very life and soul of the party exchanging words and all kinds of comments with the other villagers, offering advice and analysis while accepting the same in return. Not that I suspected he would ever need to know exactly how to grow the perfect apple but then again, what do I know about such things.

When all had placed their offerings the Priestess came out again and with another expansive gesture of her arms we were ordered to form a circle. She stood in place as part of the circle with her husband on her right hand side. More women were bringing bottles forward, one of the older women who bore enough of a family resemblance to the Priestess that I guessed that she was either an elder daughter or a sister of some kind, emptied a bottle of some kind of amber liquid into a large drinking horn. I remember thinking that the symbology of this was a little odd as the "Crooked man of the mound," Crom Cruarch was a god of the harvest whereas a horn is more often a symbol of the hunt.

Another little mystery that I didn't expect to get the answer to.

The priestess stood in the circle and lifted the horn aloft.

"Thank you Crom Cruarch for everything that you have given us and everything that you have helped us to bring forth from your lands. All I ask, at this time of offering is that you help us bring an end to this torment so that we can live our lives without suffering at the hands of our enemies."

She took a drink from the horn which was then passed to her left away from her husband. The horn came around the circle and as it went each person would give thanks for something from their immediate past, most commonly for good food, the companionship or the love of a friend, the food and produce that had been grown and the signs of a better than average harvest. But they all asked for the same thing which was a happy resolution to the issue with the Hounds of Kreve.

I also noticed that they had all been carefully coached in what to say. They were very careful in precisely what to ask for in that, they all agreed that they wanted an ending to their torment but they also specified, carefully that they wished to survive the experience. A very prudent gesture in my mind. We've all grown up with stories about having to be careful of what you wish for and it would be all too easy for a wish for "an end to our troubles" to be answered with the flash of a blade or choking on a fish bone.

The horn was topped up occasionally by ever present attendants who followed it round with more bottles of the mysterious amber liquid under each arm. When the horn was getting towards empty one of the women would reach round and add some more until they themselves had run out of the stuff when they would leave to join the circle themselves a bit further round, standing with people that, again, I guessed to be their families.

Some made silent toasts, including Sir Rickard. I noticed that the bastards all wished for the same thing which was for "Good yew, a spare bowstring, a quiver full of arrows and a worthwhile target." Sir Rickard later told me that this was, essentially, the harriers prayer. He also said that they were missing a couple of sentiments which included, "a belly full of rum and an enthusiastic woman"

The Skelligan Sergeant said something in his own tongue that I didn't follow, knowing only a few words of that strange and musical language but Kerrass was the one that I was waiting for.

He thanked the God for the return of something that he had lost without knowing it and asked for the strength to fulfil his promises.

Then he passed the horn to me. I hadn't planned on saying anything in particular, not thinking in advance that I might want anything special, I found that I wanted to live in the moment and say the first things that came into my head, but when I had the horn in my hand my mind went blank.

"Thank you." I said, startling at my own words. "Thank you for a love that I didn't look for, friendship that I didn't know I needed and the knowledge that showed me a better way."

I thought for a moment longer.

"I would ask for a road forwards. I would ask that I be shown a way to find the answers that I need. That is all, just a branch to cling onto for I feel as though I am lost."

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that Kerrass turned away from me.

I took a sip from the horn, no more than that and believe me, I am glad that all I took was a sip for I am not sure that I could have handled much more.

Holy flame that was strong stuff.

I watched the horn go further and further round the circle, more and more people asking for a safe deliverance from the trials that beset them. But rather than feel some kind of catharsis at this, I found that I was feeling more and more guilty. Guilty at the fact that we hadn't offered these people any more securities or really any kind of promise that we could actually fix things.

The circle broke apart once everyone had had their little drink and said their little prayers and made their requests. It seemed that that was when the party started as a small band of musicians struck up a tune and the dancing started. Sir Rickard led a small group of Bastards up the steps and back out into the night air to guard against any attacks that might come but I was moderately confident that this wouldn't be the case. These people lived here and seemed to have some kind of "Sense" as to when a mist, or an attack would come and they were confidently predicting that everything was find for now.

I tried, I really tried to be the life and soul of the party. I had a little dance, I drank more than was possibly prudent of the potent apple brandy that the village seemed to produce and I joined in with some of the story telling and the gentle teasing that seemed to be going on between people. But at the end of the day, my heart just wasn't in it and I found myself retreating from the assembly and off into my private little cocoon of solitude, sitting on the edge of things and watching.

I was sat playing with my medallion for the majority of the night.

"You should have fun," I sensed Ariadne telling me. "We are not married yet and I am not jealous."

"No, we are not married," I told her. "But we are betrothed. And to me, that's as good as for that kind of thing."

"Silly man." She laughed but I could sense that she was examining what I said to see if there was some kind of hidden meaning behind it. "Why so sad?" She asked after a while.

"I don't know,"

"Is there anything I can do?"

"I don't know that either. I miss you."

"And I miss you too." There was a warmth to her, for want of a better word, voice that brought a lump to my throat. "But is that all that's wrong?"

"I don't know," I said again. "And I'm sick of not knowing. I feel a bit like I'm being distracted from things. Like something is holding me back or trying to distract me from what's going on but I can't see a way out."

She didn't say anything but I had no sense that she had withdrawn from the contact.

We sat in silence for a long time. I would say that we were enjoying each other's company but that seems a bit ludicrous given that we were at different ends of the continent. I retreated to my sleeping area as soon as I started to see people leaving and got my head down for a restless and uncomfortable nights sleep.

As a result though, I did gain some measure of amusement from watching everyone doing the work in the morning nursing their hangovers, no matter how slight that hangover was. Apart from Kerrass' insufferable smugness at being able to dismiss those things with the consumption of a potion, the other bastards were all suffering a bit, much to the amusement of the villagers as, I suspect, it showed the villagers that the soldiers were human too.

But that didn't make the work any the less hard or urgent and to be fair to everyone involved. We bent to the work with determination and gusto.

All told it took us five days to get the village into a state that Sir Rickard was happy with it. Another two days after that and he declared that he could hold this place through anything.

Then came the boring bit.

Regular readers of mine will be well aware that if there is a running theme throughout all of my writing, that theme is the one of waiting. Waiting for the inevitable action and when I sit and think about it or go over old notes over and over again, it is easy to spot this pattern. That I spend far too much of my time talking about what it's like to wait before some kind of intense and terrifying activity and I've spent a bit of time wondering about this.

I suspect that part of the reason for this is that it's during these periods of waiting that I get to make up my notes. When there's nothing else to do other than to sit and wait, that's when I reach for my journals to note things down and to comment on various observations and things. So later, when I'm sat in an inn for a day or two, or in one of those other forced periods of laziness or recovery after our various adventures, I go back to these notes to write up the things that I have found or that I want to talk about and I find that lot of what I have made notes on is the subject of waiting for things.

Was this time different?

Yes and no.

I am well aware that that is no real answer to speak of.

On the one hand it was exactly like every other period of waiting that I've ever had the misfortune to be part of, where I was waiting for action of the hard and physical variety. Where my life would be on the line and only the speed of my spear and the quickness of my feet stood between me and a horrible death. I did all the routines that many of my regular readers will be aware of. I did some brief maintenance on my armour such as it was. I ensured that the edges of my spear and various knives were honed to a razor's edge and I ensured that those same blades were as well oiled and cared for as the could be. I was already obsessive over those details as I was well aware that I could have to make use of those weapons at a moments notice. I made sure that I was always well fed but not to the point of bloating myself up which meant that I spent a good amount of my day snacking rather than having some kind of large meal. I also made sure to drank plenty of water with only enough alcohol in it to make sure that I would catch no disease from it.

But there were differences too.

This was an enemy that I had faced before, and lost, and I was surprised how much it had made a difference in my own mind.

I had done things that were similar of course while travelling with Kerrass. I have faced similar monsters, Griffins, Ghosts, Necrophages and so on but in each case we had found the creature in question before defeating it and all the circumstances were slightly different meaning that the fight and the wait themselves were slightly different.

This time, we knew what we were facing and had faced them before which meant that I knew precisely what I had to be afraid of. I remembered the visions that I had seen at the foot of Sam's castle, the things that I had heard. I remembered the smell and the choking sense of raw terror as well as raw...wrongness is the right word. To know, somewhere that you can no longer depend on your sense of sight, hearing or smell. I found that I was terrified of this and as a result there was more of a sense that I had to keep myself busy in an effort to banish these fears.

There was plenty of things for me to do. I was still involved in helping to prepare the villagers. The village itself was as prepared as it was going to be but the villagers still needed work. Like me, they were feeling the fear in the coming situation and coming to dread what was going to happen. It was different for them and far more difficult because they had been trained to back down. Trained to be afraid of what was coming for us all and as a result they were attempting to overcome years, and indeed, generations of terror and trained cowardice.

They say that bravery cannot exist without fear. If that is true, and I believe that it is, then those villagers were amongst the bravest people I have ever met.

So we kept on training but it was also important occasionally to set the villagers down and get them to take a break. Like me they longed to do things, to move stuff to straighten things out. To rearrange defences that had been in place for days and had already been rearranged multiple times and now, could not possibly be in a more efficient way.

Sir Rickard did come up with a partial solution in that he came up with an odd version of tag. The children's game where the objective is to touch a person without being touched yourself except that in this version a tag is delivered by grabbing the person and forcing them down to the ground. It was a good way to alleviate some stress and certainly got the blood pumping.

It might have been my imagination but I noticed that the game got particularly brutal whenever Sir Rickard or myself joined in and I ended up nursing more than one bruise.

Got my revenge though.

Kerrass, just so you know... I hope it hurt.

The other thing that we had to do was to continue to train. Why? Try fighting. Now try tying a scarf over your mouth and nose. Now make sure that that same scarf is wet.

There is an old saying by the fencing masters which is that "If you cannot see, you cannot fight. If you cannot hear, you cannot fight and if you cannot breathe, you cannot fight." This scarf over the air-ways didn't mean that you couldn't breathe but it did make things more difficult. I won't deny that most of that difficulty was in my head but at the same time that was something that needed to be overcome in order for us to continue.

Also there was a smell that came with the solution that Kerrass gave us to use. A knife edge kind of smell. Not entirely unpleasant but at the same time, it took some getting used to. It was a distraction that we didn't need but that we couldn't possibly do without.

So we trained, we fiddled with our defensive layout and deployment, arguing things out until there was nothing new to be said and nothing new to be done. But we argued anyway.

Every evening, after the evening meal had been served and people were beginning to settle down. Kerrass, myself, Sir Rickard and Edward the headman would get together on the lookout platform that was up on one of the roofs of the larger buildings. The idea being that the really good archers which were Dan and a man called Harris, would be able to lay in some shots wherever needed. In the meantime we kept a lookout there to let us know the first signs of a mist, or whether there was anything else that was strange going on in the undergrowth. Dan, the old poacher, was particularly skilled at this. There were multiple times where he would send a small group of hunters off into the undergrowth to go looking for a stag, some boar or some game birds that his old eyes had managed to spot, deep in the undergrowth. All other times, he would just stand there, cradling his War-bow and alternating between singing softly to himself and chewing a large supply of tobacco.

Harris was a good man, quiet and dependable. He was utterly unremarkable in his manner or his outfit. Polite to a fault unless he'd been drinking. He didn't do this often but when he did, he had a thirst that was all consuming and would, or so I'm told, be found having blacked out on his way to wherever he was due to spend the night. Rickard described him as the best "killer" in the unit. When I asked him what he meant he looked me in the eye.

"There are some people in this world who are just good at killing. That is their talent and they are good at it. The rest of us need to be taught how to kill. We have an instinct to _not_ kill and then we have a tendency to pull our blows at the last moment."

"Kerrass has told me something similar."

"And he would be right. That man," Rickard pointed at Harris who was chatting amiably with a villager. "Is a killer. He's not a bad man, he's relatively moral. He likes his women willing or he would rather do without. He doesn't steal, he only argues with people if he _knows_ that he is correct or if he doesn't understand something. He is the most open to new knowledge person that I've ever met, including yourself, and if he'd been born in a slightly higher social position in life then he could have been your peer in the scholarly art. He's always asking questions and shuts up when what is really needed is his obedience. But there is not a better killer in the unit. He goes from quiet to man of violence with a speed that is bewildering and there is no man that is better at it in the squad."

"I don't get it."

Sir Rickard considered for a moment. "Dan is a better shot. But if I really want someone dead and the shot isn't _that_ difficult, I would rather get Harris to do it. Jenkins is a better knife man and has a thirst for the killing but if I need a sentry taken out quickly and quietly then I send Harris. I can't explain it better than that. Taylor is a better swordsman and teaches all of us how to be better with the sword but if it came to a straight fight then I would put my money on Harris. I can't say fairer than that. It's not a talent for violence, it's a talent for killing.

"Most soldiers have this kind of explosive reaction to a battle or a fight." He went on. "The release of all that fear, doubt and anger can leave a person feeling fairly light-headed and it's this that leads to the stereotype of a soldier getting drunk and hitting the brothels hard after a battle. That confirmation of life. But one of the things that they do is to tell each other stories, bragging up their capabilities and telling each other how many men they killed and how many they fought off. Most of this is bragging and the proper maths to figure out what each man accomplished is to take that number, halve it and then make adjustments according to the soldiers experience and character. The scary ones. The ones that you need to keep an eye on and avoid, are the men who walk back into camp. Clean their weapons and gear carefully before walking off and being carefully quiet for a few moments. They're the scary ones."

I still didn't get it but I didn't push it any further.

But the four of us, Kerrass, Rickard Edward and myself would gather, giving Harris and/or Dan the opportunity to go to the Jacks or to get themselves something to eat while we discussed the state of the situation. We were as ready as we were ever going to be but I think that _we_ needed to get together to discuss matters as much as anything else. For our own piece of mind.

By this point we were onto discussing contingencies.

There are several great military minds that have put their thoughts down on paper over the years but our thinking reminded me of one piece of advice from a book that Father had given me when he was still trying to turn me into a military man. "Be wary of making your plans too complicated." The general said, I wish I could remember his name now as I would like to give him the credit that he deserves. It goes on to say that "No plan ever survives first contact with the enemy and this is the reason that plans should not be too complicated. Keep your plans simple and to the point but then spend all your time on contingencies for when your plan inevitably goes wrong."

So that's what we did. Dreaming up more and more creative ideas as to what we were going to do if and when things did go wrong. It wasn't all pointless. We had filled barrels full of water and had stacked more buckets for the carrying of said water for if the Hounds brought fire. Then Rickard had asked what would happen if the Hounds used burning pitch which isn't put out by fire so we also had boxes of dirt ready for the smothering of the flames as well.

We actually got quite creative, up to and including what we were going to do if the Hounds turned up with some kind of battering ram to knock down the walls (we deepened the ditch, added stakes of wood and loose rock and built a slope of earth up to our palisade.) and had even wasted far too much of our lives discussing what we were going to do if the enemy turned up with siege towers.

Note the plural there.

But generally we would all agree that nothing was going to happen tonight before retiring to our beds letting Dan or Harris resume their watch.

I remember that I was the first one up there on the platform that day. I was in my shirtsleeves, sat, watching the sun go down while reminding myself, not for the first time, that this really was a beautiful patch of countryside.

"Penny for your thoughts?" Kerrass asked as he perched next to me.

"You wouldn't get your moneys worth." I told him. I offered him the water bottle which he took taking a long swig. "They're taking their bloody time to get here." I said. "I thought that we would have been attacked days ago."

"Give them time." Kerrass said, passing the bottle back. It was not a new conversation and this was one of the things that was adding to my general sense of depression. "Give them time," he said again. "It's only been a little over a week and we're heading into summer now, the mists are going to get fewer and fewer and they are probably waiting for the next real one."

"Not a nice thought." I said. "I want to move on Kerrass."

"Where to?"

I shrugged. "That's the problem though. I want to move on. I want to feel the road between my feet and to have a lead to follow but I honestly cant think of a single thing to do or to say or to get on with. I can think of no new questions and no places to go and the pursuit of the remnants of this cult are the best chance I have towards finding out what happened to Francesca which means that I have to stay here. But I don't have to like it."

This was still not a new conversation. We went over these points on an almost daily basis where I would suggest new things to do and Kerrass would shoot them down, or he would suggest other ideas and I would shoot them down. This was a relatively tame version of this argument.

This time though, Kerrass chose to sit in silence.

"Any other news?" I asked him.

"Nah, Sir Rickard is pleased with the progress of a couple of the villagers and their shooting and even dared to suggest that he could make decent archers out of them in another week or so. It put the fear into a couple of the mothers hereabouts as they thought that the lads would run off and join the Bastards on some kind of adventure."

I nodded. "Will they?"

"Nah, I think Rickard was buttering them up to be honest." He scratched his chin. "Oh and _he_ made a run for it again."

"Again?"

Kerrass nodded.

 _He_ was a farmer from one of the outlying farms. He was relatively new to the area and was, as far as anyone was in this area of the world, relatively well to do. He had brought in a number of fairly new farming innovations and as a result was better able to work the land that he had been given and so was better off than many of his neighbours. He would still be looked down on by many of the gentlemen farmers around Novigrad and Oxenfurt as well as Temeria and Aedirn but in this case, wealth is relative. His farm buildings were extensive and he was able to employ a dozen young men to work his fields which made him something of an important man. Most of the local farms were entirely family run by the father and maybe an uncle or two with their wives sons and daughters. This man had _employees_.

He was the man who had complained the loudest and with the most venom when the orders had been given that people needed to move out of their homes to come to the village. He had tried to sneak off with his sons on several different occasions to see to the farm rather than to help protect the village. He was a little stymied by the fact that his wife, who was equally well-to-do in the local area was good friends with Edward's wife and heavily involved with the worship of Crom Cruarch, was on our side. His first escape attempt had been thwarted by an argument with his wife on the subject, she had told Edward's wife who had passed it onto Edward who had, in turn, passed it on to Rickard.

He had tried three times since then. On average once every other night. We were still fairly suspicious about this kind of thing on the grounds that it could be some kind of attempt to make contact with the Hounds or some of their other agents so Kerrass and a couple of the bastards had arranged to let him go and follow him. He made it back to his farm and spent a bit of time moaning about non-existent attacks and beginning to nail wood over the windows before and the other bastards scared the crap out of him and all but carried him back to the village.

We were pretty confident that he was as innocent as a man can be about this kind of thing but at the same time.

"Does he not realise that we're doing this for his own protection?" I wondered aloud, not for the first time either.

"Believe me when I say Freddie, that they never realise that kind of thing."

We sat together in silence watching the sun go down and passing the water bottle between us. It was oddly peaceful.

"Where is Rickard?" I said suddenly turning around to look around the village. "I'm beginning to get the feeling that nothing's going to..." happen today was what I was going to say. Another of our little traditions that we had picked up over the last few days. We knew that we weren't going to be attacked after the sun had gone down and so the next point of danger was going to be when the sun was coming up. I normally said this infamous phrase just as it was becoming clear that there wasn't going to be anything happening that night and so I was getting ready to get my head down and get some rest to get ready for the early morning wake-up call that was normally administered by the toe of Kerrass' boot.

This time though, this was not going to be the case.

Like it had last time, I felt the wind change and smelled dampness on the air. It was almost exactly the same as the previous time that I described it so I won't go over it again here. The difference? This time I knew what was going to happen and I felt a surge of adrenaline.

I spun, Kerrass just a split second ahead of me and we stared at the mountainside above us, looking for that first telltale wisp of cloud that told us that things were beginning to happen.

I turned back to look at the setting sun to check the colour. If the sun was yellow then the conventional wisdom was that we had nothing to fear.

It wasn't though was it. It was reddening almost visibly as I watched.

I spun back to stare at the mountainside and as I did so I had the sense that the entire village, almost the entire world was watching with me to see what was going to happen.

Then we saw it. It didn't form on the side of the mountain like it had the last time I had been in this place and watched the mist begin to form. This time it seemed to rise out of the ground. Like a slowly rising water level, lifting itself up and up until it swallows the stone, stone sand and bits of shell on the shore.

It looked oddly peaceful and reminded me of the way that a thick blanket would lie across the body of a naked woman on a cold day.

I smirked. If ever there was a time to _not_ be thinking of things like that then this was it.

Then the edges of the mist began to take on that kind of silvery red hue that we had been waiting for with almost a sense of dread and excitement.

It was finally here. We would finally have the chance to try out Kerrass' remedy and, if it worked, get some catharsis.

If it worked.

I wanted to scream and shout. I wanted to ring the alarm bell and scream a warning at the top of my lungs. "BLOOD MIST" I wanted to yell, my voice cracking as I tried to project those words as far as they would go.

But that wouldn't work. Indeed, we had deliberately not installed an alarm bell for precisely that reason, a suggestion of mine even. An alarm, or the sound of one of the outsiders that had come here to keep them all safe running around like a chicken with his head cut off would be just the kind of thing that would cause a panic resulting in our doing half the hounds job for them. The Bastards could run about and shout orders but it was imperative that Kerrass, Rickard and myself appear calm and unruffled.

With a stark grin Kerrass clapped me on the shoulder and climbed down from the platform. He was on his way to take on a, probably, dangerous number of Witcher potions. If his remedy didn't work, it was only Kerrass who could be depended on to fight with any kind of effectiveness.

I watched the mist for a suitable amount of time so that it would appear that Kerrass was all but taking a nonchalant stroll before descending from the platform myself. Dan climbed up the ladder after I got to the ground before Harris and he hauled up a couple of bags of arrows up to the platform. I nodded at Jenkins who had been hanging around, practically dancing from foot to foot with excitement at the prospect of finally getting some action. He was pale and sweating, reminding me of a man who was starving for something to eat.

I managed to keep myself from shuddering.

"Combatants to their posts please Jenkins." I told him. He nodded and carefully marched off. Keeping to the calm military cadence that I guessed these soldiers learned on the parade ground. Arms swinging, Legs marching.

He whistled as he went and I shook my head.

Harris chuckled at me. "He'll be alright once he gets a couple of scalps." he said as he tied a rope onto another bag of arrows for Dan to haul up to the platform.

"Scalps?" I swallowed.

"Yeah, not literally though." He seemed to consider this. "Although he has been known to take other souvenirs."

This time I did shudder.

"Wait a second." I commented after a moments thought. "You think you could tell me anything and I'll believe you don't you?"

Harris shrugged. "It's worked before."

I told him to fuck off and left at my own carefully moderate pace to the sound of Harris' laughter. Another thing that the villagers could do with seeing and hearing. Laughter is the enemy of fear after all. Or so I'm told.

I went to the small area of the communal hut that I shared with Kerrass. He was knelt on his sleeping mat, legs tucked under him. His swords were laying flat on the ground behind him and he had four potion bottles within easy reach of his right hand. Two were green although one of those had silver flecks in while the other was cloudy. There was a purple one and one where the bottle was made out of some kind of pottery. He was already wearing another harness which had several other potions in. I recognised the bottle he used for what he called "White Honey," that almost magical substance that could remove all poisons and intoxicants from the body.

Contrary to popular belief, it isn't that Witchers are immune to poison and toxic substance, it's just that their tolerance is far higher than that of normal people. Put enough in their bodies and they will still be overwhelmed so Kerrass was taking proportions.

I chose not to disturb him. He was pale, sweating profusely and was absolutely rigid. So much so that I honestly believe that if a couple of men came and picked him up then he would keep his current kneeling shape without his other limbs falling out of his current stance.

I noticed that he had a towel near by as well as a large bottle of water.

For many of you, I have no doubt that you have been reading my journals since they first began being published but there is a point here that bears repeating. Look at what we made of the Witchers. Look at what we expect of them and look at what we made them expect of themselves. Look at what we made them do. How would you feel if you had to take a bunch of drugs, both relaxants and stimulants before going to work?

Actually that doesn't sound too unpleasant now that I write it down but then imagine that those self-same drugs are also poisoning you _and_ you still have to function well enough to do your job well otherwise you would be killed. Doesn't sound as pleasant now does it.

For my part. I needed to dress in my own armour and strap my equipment about myself. I had carefully prepared everything only that morning, ensuring that my weapons were sharp and oiled and that I had everything that I wanted. But I always want to check. Apparently this is a soldier's habit and a soldiers anxiety. The sure knowledge that your equipment being in a properly working and maintained order will save your life is a bulwark of confidence that you badly need when you know that you are about to put your body in the way of extreme danger.

There are times when I look at the sort of man that I am becoming and wonder if those self-same changes are not necessarily for the better and there and then, I resolved that once the matter of Francesca's disappearance is resolved, I will prop my spear up in the corner. Hang my dagger above the hearth and have my armour converted into something useful. I will settle down with Ariadne and help to run our estates while devoting myself to scholarly work and to the happiness of my wife.

As I say that though, I know it for the falsehood that it is. I will no longer trust that I will be safe and I will, except in those circumstances where I will be unable to carry personal arms with me, always have my dagger in my belt and I will always, always know where my spear is.

I will even take steps to ensure that it is never too far from me any given time.

Part of me registers that this change is quite a sad thing.

But not now. Now I had enemies to kill and answers to find. I felt my lips draw back into a snarl of readiness and a hunger for action that I had to ruthlessly quell before it threatened to become overwhelming. I wondered if we were already being gassed and whether or not it was affecting me.

But now wasn't the time to worry about that.

I stepped out into the evening air to find that the mist was already beginning to creep into the village surroundings. I marched over to one of the water buckets and took the scarf from around my neck. Gave it a thorough soaking in the barrel before tying it around my neck in a way that would make it easy to lift up into position with relatively little notice or warning.

The smell was overpowering. Not a bad thing, not by any means but it was still strong enough to make my eyes water and I found myself wondering if the local smell would be enough to deter whatever fumes that the Hounds would be putting out.

Probably not. No such luck and all that.

The village was gathering beneath the look-out platform. Sir Rickard was on the top of it. The bastards milled about in amongst the crowd. I had expected them to be taking up positions already but then I noticed the pattern. They were standing next to the more opinionated villagers. Those men and women that thought that they were right and that things were going wrong.

Rickard was protecting himself from troublemakers.

I saw out of the corner of my eyes that Kerrass had emerged from the house that we all used. He did so furtively before slipping off into the deepening gloom. I can't say that he was wrong to do so. His face had taken on the chalk white, black-veined palour that was familiar to me but I couldn't imagine any of the villagers taking the sight of Kerrass' visage too well when they were already expecting eldritch creatures from hell to come and get them. I thought I saw him slink off in the direction of his post before I turned back to watch Rickard.

Edward had climbed the ladder to join him and was talking in his ear.

Rickard nodded before looking up and seeming almost startled at the presence of so many people. He nodded and stepped towards the edge of the platform looking out at the assembly and waited until everyone was quiet.

It didn't take long and I again I thought that the reason that he had been lifted from the ranks of "common" (not my words. Such men are anything but common) soldiery and knighted was because it was impossible for such a man to stay in the ranks. He dominated the area.

He looked like he was going to make a speech. If this was one of the bard's sagas then that would be what happened. A rousing speech to stir the hearts of the watching villagers and soldiers and prepare them for the coming battle. A few last minute instructions maybe but no... Rickard looked out over everyone and simply nodded his satisfaction as if to suggest that he was pleased with what he saw.

"Good hunting," he said simply. Then the bastards themselves along with their huge sergeant were the ones that started to give the instructions. Chasing the non-combatants to safety and pushing those villagers who had chosen to fight into their places.

A thought struck me and I have no way to back it up or to prove it. I have heard that many generals give a speech before battle, some crack jokes and lead by knowing the names of every man under their command. Still others are cold and remote, expecting the highest of standards before leading their men to victory. I know this but at the time I remember thinking that "Leaders know when to make a speech. Good leaders know what to say. Great leaders know when to say nothing at all."

I reminded myself to write it down later.

I wasn't alone in being surprised at the lack of speech though. I heard more than one villager comment that they had expected more when it came to this kind of thing as they allowed themselves to be ushered towards the cave of the God and relative safety. I rewarded myself with a quick smile before turning towards my post where Kerrass would be waiting for me.

I could feel the beginning of combat readiness wash over me. That strange state of mind that is driven by the fear of what is about to happen coupled with the body's reaction to it. Since beginning these journeys, and something that I may have mentioned before, I have acquainted myself with the science of what is happening to the body at times like this. I know the names of the hormones and chemicals that are flooding my system. I know the emotions that I am reacting too, fear, anger and a certain amount of...no I will say it...lust for the release of it. I realised that I was beginning to enjoy this feeling and look forward to it.

Another sign that I needed to begin thinking about setting aside my spear.

All of these thoughts and feelings were being amplified by the chemicals that were in the air of course. It was slightly different from last time at the castle. I don't know why, a couple of people have suggested that the reason for this would be my own state of mind and combat readiness. My bodies reaction to the knowledge of _knowing_ what was about to happen.

I can't answer for that. All I can tell you is what it felt like.

I had a strange feeling that time was becoming elongated, almost stretched. Sounds began to feel as though they were coming to me from a long way off and they echoed inside my head in an odd way. I realised what was happening when I began to see the edges of my sight begin to quiver and the strange smells started to assail my nostrils as well. The odd scent of rotten eggs combined with wood smoke and something that made me think of hot metal and boiling vinegar as well as chewing nuts. The kind that they serve in Toussaint as part of their every day hospitality.

I got my still damp scarf up and around my face fairly quickly then. The smells were quickly masked by the perfume of the stuff that Kerrass had mixed together but I could still taste those odd smells on my tongue. I had a brief and ridiculous urge to suck some of the moisture out of my scarf and gargle with it in an effort to clean these poisons out of my throat but I settled for quickly lowering the scarf to hawk and spit by the side of the path.

Kerrass was crouched on our little step, still as a statue. He was hiding below the parapet so that he could see what was going on but, hopefully, remain unseen by any of the people who were doubtlessly approaching the village even as I watched. Hidden to allow our foes to enter the village before we would close the way behind them to cut off their retreat. He was poised on the balls of his feet, unmoving, barely breathing and utterly still and calm. Nothing that I could ever imagine being able to do, both swords on his back and ready for anything.

I felt myself grimace in anticipation of finally seeing some action. A facial expression somewhere between a grin and a snarl with a little bit of a sneer thrown in there for good measure. I took a deep breath, through the scarf, taking in the herbal smell in the hope that this would allow me to know the difference between what _I_ was feeling and what the Hound's poisons were making me feel.

I climbed up onto the step behind Kerrass so that he could leap forward without being hindered by me and settled in to wait.

"After all this preparation," I began, more of a way to hear myself speak than anything else. Like all other sound, my voice seemed to echo and come from a long way off. "They'd better actually be coming."

At first I didn't think that Kerrass was going to say anything but then his voice came, grating out like steel scraping across flint and showering the ground with sparks. The best kind of sound he can make when full of potions.

"They are coming."

I waited to see if anything else was going to come forth but nothing did.

But then they did come. Three Hounds walked their horses from the treeline and approached the village slowly.

They looked...different. So different that I wanted to laugh aloud. How I could ever have mistaken these...these things for anything other than human beings wearing elaborate costumes was suddenly a mystery to me.

Bipedal and blatantly riding horses they visibly had two arms and two legs and a head. All limbs present and accounted for in their proper configuration. I guessed that their sense of "otherness" came from their clothing and their weapons. They were wearing odd, leather coats with voluminous sleeves and hoods. So much so that I wondered how they could possibly do anything without the hoods falling over their eyes. The coats were sewn and riveted together from an almost patchwork of different cloths and skins. Some were obviously leather but I could also see fur patches and cloth patches. The fur seemed to be across the shoulders mostly where there were also fringes of long, hair that hung down the backs of the coats.

There were, to be fair, odd shapes as part of the cloaks which pronounced their limbs oddly. They had elbow spikes for instance and long, rounded shoulders much higher than the sides of their heads. There were similar spikes on their knees and the ends of their shoes were pointed on both ends which inspired me to get one of the Hounds off his horse and see how he fought with those ludicrous things on his feet.

Their horses were strange as well, there was something dripping from the horses hair and their coats which seemed to burn as though fire was rippling across their bodies. They wore odd shaped barding and strange plates and a hodge podge of armour that added to their otherworldliness. Looking back I find that I felt sorry for those horses. That stuff can't have been pleasant to wear.

As I say, in my heightened emotional state along with the herbs that the Kerrass was using on us all and the poisons that the Hounds were pumping into the atmosphere. I was almost giddy and found the sight comical.

"Well," I commented to Kerrass with a smirk. "Your herbs are working then."

Kerrass said nothing.

The three horsemen stopped a short distance from the village with one horseman coming a little closer.

As it transpired, I was still not entirely immune to the effects of the Hounds. His voice seemed to come from all around us, as though he was speaking to me directly. It sounded as though he was calm, almost quiet and collected and utterly without rage.

"Children," he said. "Poor children, playing without your parents permission."

He let the words hang in the air as though he had sent them out into the air that they might bury themselves into our ears and our brains.

"Children, all of you, just children. Not realising that your hands are getting closer and closer to the flames. Not realising that you are about to feel the utter agony of being burnt."

The voice became harsh towards the end of that little speech and I felt a shiver of the promised agony rippled down my spine.

"Children," he said. "Just children," scorn now but not a small amount of pity. "But do not fear. We are here to save you from harm. Just as we always have, shielding you from the outside world. You have forgotten the terms of our agreement and we have taken our just dues to protect us all. But now you have turned from the light of Kreve and you must be punished."

It was this moment that took me out of the moment of theatre. I dimly felt a tickle at the back of my brain and reached for that thought. The thought turned out to be a dim wondering of how Father Danzig was going to deal with being told that these... people represented the light of Kreve.

I found a smile on my lips again.

"But there is still hope for a reprieve," he said. The kindness in the voice was like a balm that settled and calmed the nerves so that I was no longer afraid. "All you must do is step aside. Give us these dogs, these vermin that have come and disrupted the careful balance that we have kept for so long. Give them to us and we will remove them for you. We will destroy them so that you never have to worry about them ever again."

He paused, again for the words to take root and for people to discuss them.

"Give us the soldiers. They cannot protect you. They can barely protect themselves. They pissed their trousers when we came to them. Shivering and sweating in fear as they rejected the teachings of the Sky-Father." The voice had taken on a lordly tone. Remote, regal, cold and utterly hard. Unyielding like Granite. "They, like you are sinners. But unlike you, they are beyond redemption and are only fit to be thrown into the fires of the underworld. Give them to us, I beg you, and you will be allowed to return to your former lives without further interference from us."

Another pause.

"Give us the soldiers. Give us the strangers and the people that tell you how you should be living your lives. Give them to us and we will remove them from here. Give them to us and we will kill them for you so that you may return to your homes and families without fear of reprisal."

He was convincing. Very convincing. Enough so that I felt a new fear and started to look around. What if the villagers actually listened and did throw us to the Hounds.

In the cold light of day and with suitable distance from these events, I know this to be as stupid as it sounds. We were, all told, a dozen highly trained fighters and me. The villagers could no more throw us out than they could prevent the moon from rising if we put our mind to it. Even if they were that way inclined. To be fair, that wasn't the risk. The risk came that if the villagers _tried_ to throw us out and that combat made us vulnerable to the Hounds attack.

But that wasn't what I was worried about. What I was worried about was that the villagers would throw us our and I was looking around to see where the first stone would be hurled from. I was suddenly convinced, the thought was there even that Edward would walk out into the ground between the village and the Hound sitting on his horse. "He will go," I thought although I have sometimes wondered if I said it aloud. "He will go and we will be lost."

As it turned out though, I needn't have worried as Sir Rickard had a simple and elegant response to this little speech. So simple that I kind of wish that I'd thought of it myself.

His voice rang out across the village. It sounded much harsher than the relaxed, elegant and tutored tones that the "Hound" had used. It must have been the same voice that he used when he was shouting orders on the battlefield because I heard it despite the distance and the strange echoey feeling in my ears.

He shouted two words.

"Dan, Harris."

Two little words followed by a sound like a plucked, out of tune harp. A strange buzzing noise and then a wet thumping noise as two arrows buried themselves into the Hounds body. One taking him in the rough area of where a man's heart should be, the other taking him in the throat.

I'm not an archer. I don't know how good those shots were but from a man, looking at them from the outside? They were pretty impressive looking.

As responses go, it was lacking something in eloquence but at the same time I felt as though it said everything that we needed it to say.

The Hound struck with those two arrows sat on his horse for a long moment, he had jerked when the arrows struck but after that he sat there for a moment, his head tilted forward as though he was looking at the arrows sticking out of his chest in astonishment and disbelief. One hand rose to the arrow in his neck before he slowly just, toppled off his horse to one side with a thump.

Silence reigned for a moment until someone, and I never found out who it was, yelled in triumph. It was a pure sound of utter joy and exaltation.

The other two horsemen could also not believe what was happening. I've seen shows where jesters and clowns do a routine where something surprising happens and those professional performers couldn't have acted the scene out better. They looked at each other. Then down to the fallen man. Then back up at each other. They began to look as though they might retreat into the treeline, but then they looked back down at the fallen man whose life was slowly leaking out into the grass.

It was at some point here that the dangerous facts of where they were must have hit home as they were suddenly hauling at their reins, forcing their protesting horses to turn away before kicking them into motion.

Another arrow flew and took one of them between the shoulder blades as he rode off. He went some distance into the mist and smoke but from where I stood there was no way that he could have survived an injury like that.

Cheering broke out among the villagers. I can't blame them, no matter how premature that cheering might be. I tightened my grip on my spear and counted.

I heard the Sergeant shouting for people to be quiet and to be ready. I know his name, he has told me himself many times but I can't think of his name being anything other than Sergeant.

I had time to wonder how he made his voice carry like that. How he managed to get it to just the right pitch and volume.

But then came the thunder. But again, with the benefit of being protected by Kerrass' herbs, I knew what this was now. It wasn't some ominous and unknowable thing off in the distance. It was the hooves of horses drumming against the ground.

Out of the woods they came in a stream, I didn't get a chance to see how many there were as I had to duck my head below the wooden palisade although Kerrass kept his post, unmoving in the hail of things that they threw and fired at us. Even though Kerrass had found a way to protect us from the worst of the Hounds poisons I would be lying if I said that they were not formidable. The tassels that I had seen before streamed out behind them and now that I was looking for it I could see the smoke billowing behind them making them look as though they were on fire and I wondered how much of that was designed to intimidate and how much of it was for the utility of spreading their poison.

But as I say, then I had to duck back down below the wall as they started throwing and firing things into the village.

I got very little sight of them but they threw these flaming balls of clay, not unlike the kinds of hand held bombs that Kerrass uses in his alchemy, but before we knew it, bits of the village were bursting into flame. One very brave villager ran out with a bucket of water and threw it over one of the pools of burning liquid which then exploded.

His scream was horrible, if mercifully cut short. The bows of Sir Rickard's men started to sing their answers, spitting their pointed death at the riding horsemen, but I didn't know that as the horsemen had found the gap in the wall that we had left for them and were beginning to stream into the village.

The smoke was choking now and I had lost the scent of Kerrass' herbs. All I could smell was the smoke and that awful scent of rotten eggs that I remembered from before. I grabbed at my scarf and twisted round, hoping that some of the rest of the scarf might have retained it's dampness and therefore would be better able to protect me from the worst of the effects of the Hounds toxic fumes.

I can't answer for how successful it was as I began to feel my grip on reality lessening.

I have wondered. When a man goes mad is it a benefit or a hindrance to know that you are going mad? Is it helpful to know why these things are happening to you or not?

I have no answers for you here. Nothing quick, insightful or otherwise glib. Just some food for thought there.

In this instance though, I will admit to finding it useful. I _knew_ that the Hounds weren't on fire. I _knew_ that the light emanating from their eyes and their mouths were not hellfire and I _knew_ that they were not winds of torment, but rather that they were perfectly normal horses painted in some kind of alchemical mixture that made them look as though they were.

Their swords would not steal my soul. I was not surrounded by the tormented screams of damned souls. Instead, they were the perfectly normal, fear filled shouts and bellows of men in combat.

As well as the burning clay balls, they threw knives and other darts. More than one javelin was thrown as well although, as far as I could tell, they didn't hit anything with any of these missiles and I felt my smile broadening.

These fools were far too used to the advantages that their potions and poisons gave them. They were not used to enemies that had the will and the drive to actually fight back. The first feelings of confidence flooded my system and I felt energy flood my being.

We were going to win.

The Hounds found the gaps that we had deliberately left in our defensive perimeter and started flooding into the village. Kerrass held his hand out to prevent me from leaping into the fray as I surged forward to the fight. How he knew to do that I'll never know but we had our place in the plan and this was not it. The object of the exercise was to let the bastards in, to confine them and remove the advantage of their horses.

I let him restrain me and crouched next to him as though I was a sprinter getting ready to start the race. Six riders past us, hooves sending up small tufts of grass and dirt. Billows of their poisonous smoke wafting towards my waiting nose. I wanted to gag and vomit. My brain felt as though it was being squeezed in a vice. Seven, Eight. I wondered how many there were and found myself hoping that there would be more. Nine, a pause.

I felt a small mewl of disappointment in my throat.

Ten horsemen.

I was behind Kerrass so I don't know if he could see something that I couldn't but he turned to me and nodded. I was prepared for the sight of his face, but it still sent a shiver down my spine. Pale with the black veins under the skin. I could tell that I was being affected by the gas. I could see the fangs distorting his mouth as well as the slight elongation of the nose to form a snout. His eyes were glowing.

We leapt to work though. Pulling the cart out of the side alley so that it blocked the entranceway. Kerrass pulled the sides down so that the wooden stakes poked out into the village while I put the blocks of stone into place so that they wedged the wheels to prevent them from moving the barricade easily. There had been some talk about whether it might be easier to simply knock the wheels off but Kerrass had quite calmly asked how it was intended to move the cart after we had won.

Also, it didn't look as though we would have time. What Sir Rickard had called the "Fire alleys" were proving mercilessly effective. The sound of bow-strings twanging along with the constant buzzing of the arrows flying and the rhythm of the arrows striking flesh was a constant musical accompaniment to the screams of the dying. It was overwhelming and I had to fight to overcome the urge to stuff something in my ears. I was already struggling to see through the smoke, mist and hallucinations.

Kerrass grabbed me, taking hold of the scarf and moved it round my face which provided some relief. I hadn't realised that the patch of cloth immediately covering my mouth had gone dry but the "fresh" part of the scarf let me feel a little bit better.

The rearmost horsemen had realised that they were charging into a killing ground now and were straining to get their horses to slow down and to turn around. I don't know how many had already fallen to the horrifyingly accurate and magically fast arrows of The Bastards but it can't have been a small number. But I gripped my spear and danced from one foot to the other, eager for combat and the kill.

I didn't have long to wait, although in all honesty, calling it a "combat" was a little bit of an exaggeration.

You see, the thing about plans, when they're carefully made by people who know what they're doing, especially against an unsuspecting enemy, work.

This was particularly true in this case.

We were up against a relatively small force. At best estimates there were twenty of them, certainly no more than that. Up against the best that the Temerian army had had to offer back when there was a war being fought, led my a man who knew how to use the men under his command. Our foes were used to having the run of the land and having people flee from them when they came calling. The prospect of having someone, anyone, actually standing up to them was laughable. They had spent literal generations teaching these people to be afraid of them, to cower when they approach.

Couple this with the fact that they relied on their poisons and theatrics. Furthermore they thought that they had faced us in battle before and had used these tools effectively to see us off. It was unfeasible that we would stand against them.

We had a Witcher that showed us how to neutralize this advantage.

So what we were facing was twenty schoolyard bullies who barely knew what they were doing. They could probably fight on the practice grounds and could lay in extremely accurate sword strokes against static targets and, to be fair to them although I don't really like being "fair" to these unspeakable fucks, that was all that they had been required to do up until that point.

Now they were up against highly trained, skilled and experienced killers.

Oh, and me of course as I don't really count.

They were also up against the awful, awful rage of the villagers.

So we come back to me. A half crazed lunatic, drunk on the combination of the "Hounds" hallucinogens and Kerrass' herbal concoction, my own sense of rage, grief, fear and relief. Those riders charged towards us.

There were four of them, at most, facing us. They never stood a chance.

Kerrass was in front of me. This was among the drills that he had started learning almost as soon as he had started training me. First it was all about giving me the skills to make sure that he could be comfortable believing that I wasn't as much of a danger to him as I was to myself and then he started to train me to compliment _his_ fighting style.

While I had been placing the wedges to keep the cart in place, he had been painting some of his purple magical signs on the floor. This is the one that I always forget the name of but what they are are essentially magical traps. They don't do very much but they are absolutely devastating. What they do is to slow you down. Not by much, maybe a third to a half as slow as you would normally be. Having had it used on me I can tell you that it doesn't feel as though you are moving slower, to you it looks as though the rest of the world has suddenly sped up.

He had placed two of these traps across the way and the two of us stood beyond them. Kerrass in front and myself behind.

The first horseman hit the trap and started to slow down. The second one, not realising the danger and still trying to flee the murderous storm of arrows from behind, charged into his back, the third and fourth saw what was happening and were pulling on their reins to bring their horses to a halt.

Which was precisely when Kerrass attacked.

He surged forwards to the edge of where the traps lay and gestured. A huge shower of sparks leapt from his outstretched hands. I've seem him use this trick as a stream of burning...stuff towards an enemy or, as in this case, as a wave emanating out from himself.

The front two horses, the ones ensnared in the trap, reared. In exactly the same way as they always do whenever Kerrass uses this trick. Kerrass charged forwards, going between these two riders. He lashed out at one enemy, his steel sword flashing on the grounds that you never move past an enemy without taking at least a swing at them and I saw a spray of blood. But then he was past them and engaging the third and fourth man. My job was to follow him in and dispose of the two men who were being thrown from their horses.

Luckily for me, they were still crashing to the ground under the influence of the trap. One man, clearly the better horseman, rolled free uninjured, but the other fell with his horse.

I ran over to him and stabbed down in his throat, making sure that I saw the required fountain of blood before I allowed myself to move on.

Don't think I was too far gone though. I made sure that I could still see the man who was waddling towards me and righting his clothing and equipment about himself making sure that all his pouches and things wouldn't get in his way.

He would be better off taking the time to remove his boots.

The biggest thing that I remember about that short fight is how disappointed I was by it.

Kerrass might be right. I might be becoming a little bloodthirsty in all of my dealings. Something to think about there. But I remember wanting something more from this man. Something more than the few exchanges of blows. The one parry and a lazy riposte.

It was the first time that I ever remember realising that I was better than someone in a fight. I mean actually _better_ than someone.

Don't worry, I can hear you thinking it already. "But Freddie. Your kill score is in double figures, many of who were experienced swordsmen and fighters. Men in armour who have been trained to the killing."

This is correct but I have a counter argument. Both points that I have been over before.

I am not that skilled. I have trained with men who are "skilled" and they leave me panting and outclassed. What I _do_ have are a number of advantages over all the opponents that you might be thinking of.

The first was a deliberate choice on Kerrass' part which was that he taught me to fight with a spear. Not many people know how to deal with that as _most_ people fight with swords and maces on a skirmishing basis and as such, they only train to fight against people with swords, maces and axes. Spears tend to only be deployed in military formations where the object of the exercise to defeat the spearman is to get past the point of the spear.

But what if you face a spearman who knows how to counter that?

Men who have faced me have found this out to their cost.

The second point is the one I have talked about the most and it is not a small thing which is why I am not shy of talking about it again and again. I was taught to fight by a trained killer. Not a fighter or a fencer, not a soldier or a mercenary. I was taught to fight by a killer and over and over again, this has been shown to make a difference. What this means is that, in a very real sense, I wasn't taught how to fight. I was taught how to kill.

Those people that you are thinking of. The knight in the throne-room of Angral, Cousin Kalayn and the rest. All of those men simply underestimated me and so I could kill them with impunity.

For those people who might argue that I fought Jack and survived I would tell you that he was toying with me. Also, if you go back and read that sequence again I think you will see that he could have killed me at any time he wanted to.

But here?

I wanted a fight. I wanted to prove that I was better than these fucks. I talked to Sam about this later and he reminded me about the earlier conversation about defeat. These people had beaten me before, they had fed me hallucinations and craziness. They had forced me to retreat because of trickery and as a result I had that "Warriors need" to prove that it was a fluke. To prove that I was better than that.

Again I can't answer for that but all of these things were things that I need to start thinking about. Now and in the future.

But at the time, I advanced on my target. He held his sword out in front of him in a rough approximation of a "ready" position.

I already knew how to beat him. He was a horesman, his ludicrous boots meant that he would overbalance, his blade was a curved thing designed for hacking down at people from horseback. His entire outfit was manifestly unsuitable to fighting on foot.

So I advanced on him. Jabbing forward to see how he would react. The correct thing to do in his place would be to parry, sidestep and advance pushing the point of the spear past your body and closing with the spearman. That I had a counter to this trick is unimportant.

This man retreated.

I was astonished.

I tried again. He ducked and moved backwards. Shuffling his feet to maintain his balance.

There was a genuine moment there where I thought it was a trick. That he knew something that I didn't, so I backed off, well out of reach and so that I could hear him if he chose to advance or attack, so that I could have a good look around to assess the terrain.

Nope, nothing there. Kerrass was in the process of dealing with his own opponents. One of who was retreating from him while the other was unleashing a blistering flurry of attacks. I won't say that they were threatening to Kerrass but he was having to defend, clearly waiting for the man to tire himself out.

I checked the roof-tops. No, no-one was in the process of sneaking up on me.

I checked up and down the street but the only activity was that a couple of the horses were struggling to their feet.

The man was refusing to attack me.

"What are you?" I jeered at him. "Cowardly in the face of a man that can fight back?"

His mouth opened, the poisons in my brain telling me that spectral light escaped from them. I heard a snarl.

I sighed and ran up towards him. I darted left, then right followed by a feint back to the left before jumping high and hammering the point of my spear home into his chest.

The pressure across my skull was beginning to lessen now as I looked down at the man I killed.

Kerrass came up behind me. "You alright?" he asked.

I jerked away from him reflexively and blinked furiously for a second.

"You're not hurt?" he clarified his question.

"No," I managed. I had to focus to get the words out. His face was truly looking demonic now. As well as all of the normal features that his face took on when he was potioned up to the eyeballs, I found that I was imagining horns on top of his head. "No," I said again clearing my throat. "It's not my blood."

I shut my eyes for a moment which turned out to be a mistake as a wave of dizziness and nausea swept over me. Feeling around my neck, I discovered that the patch of scarf over my mouth and nose had gone dry again.

"Remember that we want one alive to question." Kerrass told me.

"I wish you'd reminded me of that sooner." I laughed bitterly.

The expression on Kerrass' demonic visage shifted into a grimace that might have been concern but he beckoned me on and I followed him into the village.

"Give me your spear." He ordered.

Part of me wanted to argue, part of me wanted to ask how I was supposed to defend myself but another part of me wanted him to just take the damn thing away from me.

I felt dirty and badly in need of an opportunity to go and bathe, or find a dark and quiet place to weep for about a week.

Kerrass had realised that I was crumbling under the pressures of everything that was going on because he physically took control. Grabbing me by the shoulders he shuffled me into the middle of the path, turning me around until he was satisfied.

"Wait there," he ordered. "Don't move." Then he grabbed the scarf around my face and yanked it off. "Trust me Freddie," he said as he vanished from sight.

The protection of the scarf and it's fumes had obviously already been vastly reduced since the beginning of the fight but now that even that small layer of armour was removed... It was like a curtain was torn away from my sight and the full horror of what lies behind conscious thought was exposed to me. I tried to stagger away, to flinch and to flee but Kerrass' voice came to me as though it was drifting on the wind.

"Wait here," I heard. "Trust me."

What else was I to do but to stand there and go insane.

Everything around me was on fire. As well as the buildings I could see people moving amongst them, melting and bubbling in the flame and the heat. I could hear people calling to me. The voices of everyone that I had killed or maimed, including the voices of the two hounds whose lives I had just ended. I saw Francesca writhing in torment over the flames on a Witches pyre.

Even closing my eyes against the sights didn't help as the visions played themselves out against the back of my eyelids.

Then I heard the thunder.

It might sound strange to you, reading this in the comfort of your own home, maybe in a chair next to a cheerful flame with a glass or cup of your favourite comforting drink at your elbow. It might seem strange that an educated and, dare I say it, intelligent man such as myself might be taken in by all of these sights. These visions, let alone to be taken in by the sound of thunder.

It's easy to say, here, sitting in my own relative comfort writing up notes that I took at the time, that what I was seeing and hearing was the product of emotional context, and the conflict between the poisons that the Hounds were putting out and the protective herbs that Kerrass had given us. I know now that the thunder that I heard was the sound of a galloping horse. I know that the flames and the screaming and the voices of the tormented were all in my head. I _know_ that now.

But at the time?

I felt like I was finally seeing these things for the first time. That I was seeing the souls of those that I had killed. I believed that they were following me around, waiting for me to die so that they could punish me for ending their lives. I _believed_ it.

The following line is a direct quote from my own notes. I wrote this line in something of a feverish flurry of writing in the night after these events as my body still worked to expel everything that I had taken in.

"It was like I finally saw, with astonishing clarity, all of the things that we convince ourselves could not possibly exist. We do this collectively and as a species so that we can function and survive in a world that claws at our minds. It was like I finally _saw_ the truest version of the world."

At some point, when I get back to "civilisation" and by that I mean Oxenfurt I intend to hunt down the next quote as I suspect I'm getting it wrong.

"To know whether or not a person is going insane is easy. The truly insane believe that they are getting saner and that it's the rest of us that are insane."

That was what it was like.

Anyone who might argue that I should have known that I was drugged and poisoned would be correct. But that's not how it worked.

I heard the sound of thunder and I staggered backwards. I turned and I saw the Demon coming towards me. A being of flaming blue cold, (yes I know that that makes no sense but that's what it looked like to me) his hand raised with a blade of steaming ice ready to cut me down. The ground shook with the thunder of the hoofbeats.

I shut my eyes and turned away.

There was a crash.

A horrible scream split the air and I clapped my hands over my ears. I felt hands on me and I struggled, something wet on my face and I fought to breathe.

"Just breathe Freddie, nice deep breaths."

In the back of my throat, the cool scent of the lavender seemed to trickle down my throat.

"Don't try to open your eyes yet Freddie, just breathe it in. In and out that's it. In through the nose, hold it and then blow it out through your mouth."

The recovery was fast as I came crashing back into my body with a thump.

I tried opening my eyes to see a relatively normal looking Kerrass standing over me. Just a hint of Fang about the face but I could tell that he had taken one of his detoxing potions. He always complained that those things took it out of him and that he would pay for it later but he was self-aware enough to know that sometimes you need the ability to think.

"You alright?" He asked again, looking down at me.

"I've been happier," I told him. "Did we win?"

"Yes we won, all told the fighting lasted about five minutes."

"Flame," I swore, heaving myself into an upright position. "It felt like years."

"Mmm. Intoxicants can do that to you."

"Did you take a captive?"

"I did."

I nodded again, holding out an arm which Kerrass took to help me to my feet and we staggered towards the main meeting house.

"Kerrass?"

"Mmm?"

"Did you have to take the scarf off my face?"

"Yes, I'm sorry. He needed to think that you were helpless. If we'd taken someone alive in the early stages of the entire thing then we might have been ok but he was getting desperate and fleeing from the other soldiers. And he was the only one left. We needed to give him an easy target or he would have fled from us."

I nodded. I didn't like it but he was probably right. I was certainly in no position to give tactical appraisal.

"Did we lose anyone?"

"A couple of villagers who lost their minds and left safety to be cut down. Also the man in the fire. Jenkins has a scrape and we're worried that the injury might be poisoned. The women are looking after him but we'll know more in an hour or so."

"It's getting dark."

"It's late."

"It feels like we were fighting for years."

Kerrass paused.

"Are you sure you're up to this Freddie? You always react badly to these kinds of mind altering things, whether gas or magical, no-one would think any less of you if you go and lie-down somewhere."

"No, I need to see this through."

Kerrass nodded and helped me through the door.

The noise washed over me like a wave.

Every single person that could speak and stand upright in the village was there and all of them, every single one of them was shouting. Some of them were shouting at the soldiers who were standing shoulder to shoulder in a line blocking off one corner of the room. The couple of them that knew how to fight with shields had strapped them to their arms and were using them to push back the more irate villagers. I should say that most of the women and children were still down in the cavern below us but somehow that felt as though it gave those people that were still here, more permission to just scream and shout.

Some other people were shouting with each other. Still more were trying for peace and calm amongst the gathered people.

After the poison and the battlefield reaction it was just too much for me and I lost my temper.

There's a proper technique to projecting your voice. I had been trained in such a technique in order to help my voice carry when I was presenting papers back at the university. Also in proper enunciation and elocution lessons that my father paid for while my family was trying to see if I might have some kind of musical talent or be able to use proper oratory skills and thus be useful to the family on a political basis.

I've no doubt that The Sergeant could tell you much more than I could but I suspect that he wouldn't know what words to use.

The proper way to do it is to breathe from the belly, support with your stomach muscles and then speak from there. Don't try and use your throat to amplify things because all that that will achieve is to hurt your throat.

"SILENCE," I bellowed although seeing it written down doesn't really do it justice. It was more like:

"SIIIIIIIILLLEEEEEEEnce,"

Or at least that's how it sounded in my head.

The effort sent my head spinning and I had to support myself on the side of the door.

"Honestly," I said, "What with one thing or another it's difficult to hear myself think." I had gone into one of those states that I sometimes achieve. Kerrass has talked about it before, the most prominent times that I can think of getting there is the moment when I first stood up to Ariadne but there are other times as well. It comes when fatigue, fear and anger combine to a place where my mouth and body decide that my brain has had enough and isn't doing what it's told, so they just start talking and all I can do is go along for the ride.

I stalked forward and Kerrass came with me. I don't know for certain but I suspect that Kerrass was grinning from ear to ear as I stomped up to Edward.

"Right," I said, leaning heavily on my still bloody spear. I had forgotten in all truth, certainly didn't mean it to be so and whatever else anyone might say, I wasn't trying to intimidate the man but then he couldn't seem to take his eyes off it. All I could think was that I was tired and needed something to lean on. "What's going on?"

"Uuuhhhh."

"Edward, I'm really tired."

"They have the captured Hound."

I looked over and sure enough, the Hound was sat, his hands being tied behind his back. It was obvious to us now that he was wearing a leather hooded, sleeved robe. He had a mask over his face. Sir Rickard was searching him for hidden weapons and so far there was a stack of knives piling up next to him as well as several pouches.

"So they have." Apparently my voice almost sounded surprised. "So what's going on?"

"uuuhhhh."

"Okay. You." I pointed at one of the redder faced men that was standing nearby. As it turned out it was the same man that had tried to bar our entry to the village. Or more accurately it was the guy that had led matters from the back of things, hiding behind his fellows. "What's going on?"

"Those bastards won't let us have the Hound that you captured."

"Right?"

He looked at me as though I was being particularly stupid. "Right." He agreed.

"I'm sorry," I said pinching the bridge of my nose. "Your point being?"

"We want him."

"And?"

"And what? We want him."

"I'm too tired for this. What do you want him for?"

"Justice."

"Ah." I felt the light come on in my head.

"Quite right. So you order your men to hand him over."

"Ummmm." I honestly had to think about this for a moment. "No."

"What?"

"No." I repeated. "Nope. Definitely not. Not going to happen. Not in the slightest."

"But...what have you got him for then? We demand that you..."

"You demand?" I hissed. Suddenly the situation was no longer as funny. There was a general sense of people moving away from us. "You demand?" I asked again. I could feel myself struggling to remain calm in the face of this arrogant stupidity. The bastards reacted and I heard the sounds of weapons being reached for. It all had the potential of boiling over into a situation that we wouldn't be able to control.

I felt Kerrass' hand on my shoulder.

It was like a bucket of cold water being poured over my head. I closed my eyes and tipped my head backwards.

"Edward." I whispered,

"My Lord?" I shouldn't have been surprised that he heard me. Nor that he was so clever. Two little words that reminded everyone listening, including me, of my position. I suddenly had an inkling of what it had been like for Sir Rickard being knighted and elevated into a position much higher than he had ever known before. I could get on with these people. I could talk to them and even be "friendly" with them. But I was not one of them. We would never be friends and I needed to remember that. I was "My Lord" to them and I needed to act like it.

"Edward, I have every respect for everything that you and the rest of your village has been through. It can't have been easy. But this captive is required so that he can be questioned so that we might end this threat once and for all."

"But..." The other man began.

"But nothing." I snarled. "This is bigger than your village and it needs dealing with accordingly."

"I agree." Edward said loudly, overwhelming the other man. Showing the leader that he was. "The next election is at midwinter. Seven months away. Until then you _will_ respect my authority."

He faced down his rival who finally retreated.

"Good," I said and turned to Sir Rickard. "Sir Rickard?"

"My Lord?" He saluted smartly. His eyes were twinkling though and I got the feeling that he had enjoyed that little confrontation.

"Seal the building please?"

"My lord." He gestured and Taylor moved to stand next to the door.

"What?" Edward paled.

"One of the first questions that we are going to ask is how the riders always know what's going on in the villages." I told him. "There is a distinct possibility that one of the people in this room will be implicated, whether by conscious choice or something more sinister and I don't want anyone escaping to let others know that we have a captive."

Edward nodded his acceptance of this argument.

"Right then." I stepped through the line of soldiers to face the man who was tied up and slumped against the wall of the building. "Hello," I told him. "You little demon."

A soldier who was standing nearby, obviously ready to intervene in case the man still had some kind of trickery up his sleeve, sniggered.

"He has no weapons?" I asked him.

"None, no."

I nodded. "Right then,Let's see what you look like then." I stepped forward and pulled the Cowl down and tore the mask from his face.

"Huh," I said after a shocked moment. "Wouldn't you know it. Human after all."

Of course he was human. Of course he was. Felled by perfectly normal swords, axes and arrows. Kerrass had even been using his steel sword. Dwarves aren't that tall and elves wouldn't fight wearing all of that leather and foolishly misshapen boots.

Of course he was human but until that mask had been removed, I had been afraid.

Not that he looked like much of a human. Unshaven, greasy, dirty and an incredible body odour that could have cut through metal. His eyes were wild and staring, extremely bloodshot and a pupil so small that I had difficulty seeing it. He licked his lips and stared about, sweat pouring from his head, breathing heavily.

Someone in the crowd shouted in astonishment while a woman was weeping.

"Does...Does." I licked my lips again as I found myself recalculating. The man was so wretched that I found the first flutterings of pity stirring in my chest. "Does anyone know this man?"

Of all people, it was Edward that stepped forward. "This man is James." He said, his voice quiet with horror. "My brother that the Hounds took from us, what? Ten years ago. In the God's name, I recognise him still."

He took another step forwards and crouched next to my brother. Rickard stepped close, ready to restrain either of them.

"James?" Edward tried. "James? What happened?"

A sudden rage took Edward and he seized his brother by the shoulders and shook him violently. "James, Look at me. Why have you done this?"

I nodded to Rickard who stepped forward and with surprising gentleness, pried Edward back. "He doesn't even know me?" Edward wailed.

I turned, "Kerrass?"

Kerrass shook his head. "High as an eagle." he said. "It's going to be hours before we can ask him questions. If then."

I nodded and looked around at the villagers. Shock was written on every face. So much so that I decided, right or wrong, that the agents of the enemy were not in this room.

"Let them go." I said, turning back to our captive. "Look at him," I breathed in astonishment. "He's terrified."

(A/N: Sorry, not sorry for the Princess Bride reference)


	72. Chapter 72

(Part of this chapter was inspired by a visit to Londonderry Rock on the South Island of New Zealand. I needed a place to set a camp-site and it seemed fitting. It really is a place that made me feel very small, very young and incredibly insignificant. Fortunately I found it inspiring rather than intimidating.)

(WARNING: The following contains scenes of extreme mental anguish)

I remember it distinctly. A moment that...that changed who I was into who I am now or rather, who I am becoming. In sagas and books of history, people often talk about a character's defining moment. Those points of life, those occurrences that shape who we are and how we are going to behave moving forward. Those moments in plays and sagas are often large and epic in scale. The hero defeats the villain by standing on his chest and plunging his spear or sword down into his enemies body. Often accompanied by some kind of speech from both of them. The villain telling the hero that the two of them are not really all that different followed by the hero's vehement denial.

You also hear about the speeches before powerful people or a piece of oratory in the crowd and people look back and say that _that_ was the defining moment. The defining moment for the man, the moment that he will be remembered for for the rest of his life.

But that has not been my experience. For me, those moments that have defined me have been quiet moments. Sometimes a conversation between two people or a moment of sitting somewhere and thinking quietly to myself. These are the moments that define me, that have made me change my mind about something or have shifted my understanding from one thing over to a completely different direction. Not the events themselves but what comes afterwards.

I have been lucky really in that I can look back and remember those times when I have made decisions and deliberately adjusted my own thinking or have made suitable changes to myself or decided when there were things that I needed to work on in order to become...in order to become a better man in my own eyes. This harks back to a piece of advice that was given to Kerrass by the Wolven Witcher Vesemir in his past history.

That advice being that you need to be able to look yourself in the eye when you gaze into a mirror. If you can do that then you are coming out ahead in the world.

But I can remember those moments.

The first was when I decided to leave home and go to University. To those people who do not know me or did not know my family dynamic at the time, you may find this quite surprising. The Status of the university has improved over time and I am well aware that it is now considered quite a prestigious thing to have a son or a daughter educated, at least in part and depending on the subject, at the university. Some people have even done me the kindness of suggesting that I may hold some of the responsibility for this increase in the University's status.

I can't answer for that but I can well remember the night that I made my decision. Sat quietly in the dark after my sixth betrothal offer had been turned down followed by an hour's lecture from my father about how I needed to buck my ideas up in order to attract a proper lady. I remember being extraordinarily bitter that it had taken an hour of my life for my father to tell me that I was not good enough and at the fact that Father didn't really care enough to get angry about it. That he hadn't cared enough to yell.

I had gone to my room having been ordered to pack up my notes on various topics that I was interested in at the time as well as my books and to have the servants remove them. Where to? I have no idea and I always strongly suspected that my Father didn't care so long as they were no longer his problem. I remember vividly, starting the chore as I had been ordered like that dutiful son that I was before I came to a book on the genealogy of the Kings of Redania.

I still have it somewhere.

But I got to that book and before placing it in a box as I had been bidden, I sat on my bed and opened it, at random and started to read the page there. Before I realised what was happening I had read several pages and when I did realise what was going through my mind, I felt a horrible kind of pressure behind my eyes as though a thing was trying to push it's way out of the front of my skull. I started breathing heavily and became dizzy. I lay back onto my bed and started sobbing as quietly as I could so as to not wake the other members of my family.

I spent the rest of that night in deep thought. Running through options as to what I was going to do and how I was going to do it. I remember thinking about how I could make myself more attractive and what I was going to do to fill my time if I wasn't busy studying. In short, I was working out ways to make myself a more attractive prospect for marriage.

The central unfairness was that this time I had been rejected because of an accident of birth. The boy that the girl had chosen, a nice lad a little younger than me, had been of an old noble family and stood to inherit a much larger chunk of his father's estates that I did mine and could thus provide for the comforts that the lady in question was looking for.

So I kept coming back to this point. That I could do nothing about how handsome I was, nor could I do anything about the fact that I was a younger son, literally a spare son in case one of the older ones died, so my inheritance was not going to be large. So how could I improve on any of the things that (in my somewhat naïve experience) seemed to be the reasons that I was consistently being rejected for marriage.

I remember lying there, my face still wet with tears when I felt the first tickling of the idea in the back of my mind, so I sat up and lit the candle next to the bed. I had some kind of half made up decision to go and get something to eat from the kitchen but then I realised that I still had that book in my hand. I remember sitting and staring at it for a long time, far too long really before I looked at the half packed boxes and bags and said "No".

I lay back and fell instantly asleep.

Don't think that this was too much of a major moment for me. It still took me a good couple of weeks to pluck up the courage to tell my father what I intended to do. I talked about it with Emma first and then targeted Mark on one of his few visits home as he was always encouraging me into scholarly pursuits. After that I spoke to Mother, made sure that my tutors would support me and sponsor my entrance to the academy. Then I tackled Father and dealt with the shouting match that resulted from that.

But I will never forget that moment, sat in my bedroom. Late at night and making my decision as to who I wanted to be.

Another one occurred on the boat north after Kerrass had spent a night talking about his past. It was maybe two nights after that conversation when I was sat with the horses and watching the night sky. I was still suffering the after echoes of some of the things that I had seen with the Beast of Amber's crossing which meant that nightmares were still a thing that I had to deal with on a semi-regular basis. I remember looking out from my make-shift tent on the ship's deck along with the horses, wrapped in my winter's cloak against the cold air and I saw Kerrass standing at the rail, looking out to see. Something about the way that he stood there, his profile silhouetted against the night sky made me realise that he was not so different than I was and that I needed to stop treating him as a "subject" but as more of a friend. Treating him like a person. I buried this piece of information as deep as I could in order to not alienate him.

Small moments where we make a decision that takes our lives and our thinking down completely new pathways.

Sometimes we change without making a decision, at least not consciously. My realisations about monsters. My shifting thoughts about those people who toil in a different social class than myself. The moment when I realised that I loved Ariadne and that I intended to marry her, a decision that I am still trying to track down as to when I made that choice.

Small decisions as the result of small moments of quiet or a small discussion with someone that opens your eyes to a different point of view.

So it should come as no surprise that the most recent of these moments came as part of a conversation that I had with Kerrass around a camp-fire.

In many ways, this is only fitting as it has been Kerrass that has driven a lot of my changes over the recent years. It was travelling with him that I got my first real look at what life is like for those people that I depend on for my food and for the greater share of my families income. It was he that opened my eyes to my inbuilt and trained racism regarding non-humans and what society, in general, refers to as "Monsters". Without him, I wouldn't even have begun to contemplate any kind of romantic relationship with Ariadne, and I dread to think how I might have reacted to Emma's sexual preferences without Kerrass' exposing me to more of the world. I would like to think that I would have been equally as tolerant and understanding but... So it was only fitting that I have this conversation with him.

We had left Sam's castle behind us maybe five days before hand and were heading North which meant that, all told, it was roughly eight days since we had taken part in the fight for the defence of the village. I heartily wish that the village had a name of some kind but the people that lived there simply referred to it as "The village" and when asked about any of the other villages and what they were called, it turned out that they were, "That village up in the mountains," and "That village further away to the North."

Now that I am a little distant from the place I find myself thinking of it as being "The village with the Cave" referring to the cave of the God.

Our first priority after the end of the battle was to see to the wounded. There weren't many as our casualties were fairly light. All told we lost five villagers to the attack and in each case we could justifiably tell ourselves that the reason that person had died was because they had done something foolish or something that we had outright instructed them not to do.

Such as dump a load of water on an oil fire.

The most serious injury turned out to be the cut that Jenkins had taken, pulling one of said foolish villagers out of the way. As we had feared, the cut turned out to be poisoned. We did what we could, washing as much of the poison out of the wound as we could with the strong Apple Brandy that the village had supplied us with and bound it up. But already there was fierce red lines tracking up and into the rest of his body.

Our other problem was the problem of our captive who was clearly mad and out of his face on whatever drugs and herbs that his former cohorts had been feeding him. But his presence was upsetting the rest of the villagers and so the decision was made that Kerrass, myself and the man who doubled as the Bastard's surgeon, took the captive and Jenkins off to Father Gardan's chapel so that they could be better looked after. Sir Rickard and the other Bastards would remain back at the battle-site to search the bodies and to protect the village in case of another attack but we were confident, now, that the danger had passed.

A couple of villagers volunteered to go and fetch Ella, the Elven Alchemist who was normally responsible for dealing with illnesses in the local area and so they ran off into the night with Perkins as an escort. Not a bad idea as Kerrass quickly confessed that he was out of his element when it came to curing poisons, let alone being able to get a man down from whatever drugs high that our captive was on on the grounds that he was all but immune to both and so, had never learned to bother with that area of Alchemical knowledge. He told Sir Rickard very firmly that although he could devise a blade oil that would do the same kind of damage that was killing Jenkins, as for curing it? He could cure himself but for the dying man, his cure (I'm assuming he was talking about White Honey here) would likely be more deadly than the poison. The same for our captive.

Jenkins died in the night and it took him a long time too.

Poor bastard.

With cold detachment I could force myself to sit with him while he suffered, remembering my own poisoning all that time ago. My own poisoning that had rendered me all but helpless in a couple of hours and morbid curiosity had always made me wonder what would have happened to me if Ariadne had not chosen to cure me, or if Kerrass had _not_ managed to find an antidote.

I suspect, looking back, that I would have taken the White Honey if the pain had got much worse, but Jenkins refused, outright, to have anything to do with that particular form of "cure".

Especially after we had already taken his arm off.

The unit's medic was a man that they referred to as "Bones" short for "Sawbones." He liked the nickname claiming that it was much better than his own name and any other nickname that he had been given and so introduced himself as that to anyone that needed to know who he was. Similar to the Sergeant, he didn't seem to have a name beyond his profession. But after cutting the sleeve of the tunic away so that we could look at the injury and he saw the red lines climbing up towards the shoulder, he told Jenkins that if the first aid that we had given him didn't work then we would have to take the arm off. He warned him that the damage was probably already done but...

I was honestly surprised when Jenkins fought us, hard, in order to keep his arm. I suppose that this is one of those things that I will never understand as I would have thought that the loss of a limb is a small price to pay in return for continued survival but I registered the fact that I didn't understand and that Jenkins comes, or rather came, from a different place than I do. As a result, his attitude and understanding was different. He complained that he wouldn't be a whole man if we took his arm off. He said that it wouldn't be right and that he would rather die than to have this happen. He asked what he would do as a cripple and told us that he didn't want to be left out in the cold as a reject of society.

I tried to tell him, over and over again, that I would see to it that, not only would he have a place to live but that we would find him work at the Coulthard estates or with the Kalayn estates or if that didn't work then I would damn well make sure that he would be found employment in Angral when I eventually moved down there after my marriage.

But he spat at me, told me to fuck off and that he didn't want my charity or my pity.

I recognised his pain, fear and anger for what it was though and didn't hold it against him.

What I did do was to assist with the amputation. Helping to tie off the blood vessels and the tourniquets while Bones actually did most of the work. Beyond that, it took another six men to hold Jenkins down immobile and even then he nearly shook free.

I have never heard a sound like it. Not the shrieking that Jenkins made, unfortunately I have heard that before in the various combats that I have been a part of and their aftermaths, but the close quarters sound of a saw cutting through bone is a sound that I will take to my grave.

It did him no good though and two hours after we arrived at the chapel, he took a serious turn for the worst and Bones shook his head and told him that the poison had reached his heart.

Jenkins told him to fuck off and die in a fire.

But I sat with him while he died. Talking to him, giving him water when he wanted it and some of the Apple Brandy when he wanted that too.

Holy Fire but that man had a life. He had been a killer on the streets of Temeria before the war, and a good one. A man who enjoyed his craft and his trade and took pleasure from it. He had killed for the underworld, for the crown and for anyone in between being able to charge extortionate rates. He admitted that he got into it so that he could get medicine for his sick wife but she had quickly realised what was going on after she had been cured as she "wasn't a stupid woman" and had sensed the change in her husband's character. He even admitted that he could have lived in a palace if he had saved his money properly but that he had always wanted to spend the money on wine, women and generally having a good time which was, coincidentally, how he came to the attention of the crown's intelligence services. Never wanting to waste good talent, the crown had used his homicidal streak and had him murder more and more people on their behalf. But his greed got the better of him and he ended up murdering on behalf of the underworld as well.

If he had one virtue it was that he was a patriot and joined the army when Nilfgaard invaded for a third time after the death of King Foltest. His loyalty to Rickard was absolute as he was a "Proper bastard, a real killer" whatever that means but I got the impression that Jenkins had liked him because Rickard had recognised Jenkins skills and given him a proper outlet for his urges.

This meant a lot to a man like Jenkins.

As I say, I could force myself to sit next to him and watch his symptoms develop after my own poisoning. I even tried to contact Ariadne to see if she could help but I got no response which normally meant that she was either resting or in some kind of magically shielded area. Her lab or library were the most common ones although she did the same when meeting with the other Sorceresses or when, in general she wanted some privacy. I don't want the reader to think that this kind of thing was malicious on her part or that I could call her at any moment in order to get aid.

So I sat with him.

He died an hour before Ella came through the door to the chapel. A little wide-eyed herself. Perkins wept when he learned of Jenkins' death but insisted on running back to the village to inform Sir Rickard himself.

It is sometimes easy to forget how young some of these soldiers are.

Ella briefly examined Jenkins corpse before telling us that, without the specific anti-venom, he would have been dead two hours after he had been poisoned and that there was nothing that she could have done. I was not relieved but at the same time, I suppose, it is nice to hear these kind of things.

Then she went to work with our captive. She gave some orders about fetching her things like water and some specific herbs which we brought her, shortly before she told us to stop fussing over her and to leave her the hell alone.

I got some sleep then, having been awake for a full turn of night until day but I was woken by the bad news.

That news being that our captive had died.

According to Ella, his heart was unable to cope with the strain of everything that he had been put through being under the influence of the narcotics that he had been given and so it had just given up. She theorised that there must be some kind of tonic that they take after a raid which brings their symptoms under control but because we hadn't known this, or what to give him, then the long term exposure to the substances had killed him. She asked if she could perform an autopsy to see if she could figure out what had been used in an effort to make sure that next time, we could prevent this from happening. But she didn't look too hopeful.

Edward's permission to do this to his brother's body was asked for and received with him telling us that to him, his brother had died when he first got taken by the hounds and that the shell that wore his face was just that. A shell and none of his concern.

The village was suffering from a generalised sense of anti-climax. They had spent so long under the shadow of the threat of the Hounds, that the relief of knowing that they could be killed and fought off, was suddenly more than many of them could bear. There were many tears and recriminations but most of the folk were just walking around in a daze. Edward was having to force them to work and reminding them of the rest of their responsibilities.

I asked him about it later and he told me that they had expected something more than that. More than what had happened. He asked why things were the way they were and I had no answer for him.

Of far more interest were the remains of those men that we killed. We lay them all together, stripped them of all of their equipment for examination and searched them properly as well as corralling up what horses we could find. The equipment was generally of shoddy quality. The swords and the knives were of typical, mass-produced kind of quality that would almost certainly break if given sustained, hard use and would have been useless under battlefield conditions. It was the kind of steel that would have been given to the PFI during the war although, arguably, these weapons were not as well made as the swords and spears handed out to the "Poor Fucking Infantry."

They were built for show and for their edge rather than for anything remotely useful but we piled them together for removal anyway. The village blacksmith told us that such steel could have been made out of Iron from any number of small deposits that littered the sides of the mountains before informing me that if my brother wanted to really make some money out of the local area, then he should get some dwarves in and go looking for mineral deposits further up in the hills. The villagers themselves had never dared do anything of the kind.

The same for their equipment and armour. Their leather coats were made from any old scrap of hide that could be found. Again, some of the villagers were able to tell us a bit more. Saying that there was horse hide, Cow leather and deer leather that had gone into making the coats. One person gave the opinion that the work was particularly shoddy and a disgrace.

I didn't comment on that.

Likewise the horses that we did find were cheap, poor nags that were obviously not that well cared for. Many showing signs of malnutrition to my eyes and still more showing signs of other diseases meaning that they were probably only worth butchering for meat or other utility purposes.

There was one exception to all of this though and that was the man who had come up tot he village wall to do the talking.

Even when we had taken the clothes off all of the men. Removed all the clothes and the equipment and put them all into a row neatly, I would have been able to tell who was in charge of the group of riders.

I don't mean to be disparaging to the village folk or to anyone whose life is harder than mine. I don't. As I say, I have every respect for those people who spend their days toiling in fields or workshops or warehouses.

Flame but now that I read that back to myself, that sounds awfully condescending doesn't it. I am so sorry but I don't know how else to put the point across that I am trying to make.

But this man looked different. He just did.

He was... He was prettier than the men that were lying next to him.

Again, I feel like I want to qualify this point. I have met and have known many beautiful men and women of all different classes. Without being indiscreet I can say that I have _known_ many as, as I say, the aphrodisiac of gratitude in them meets the need for life affirmation in myself. I make no apologies for that. But you can always tell someone coming from the noble-classes from someone from the...

Flame but I hate this term.

...than someone from the commonfolk.

Higher cheekbones, better maintained hair, paler skin, hands and bodies without blemish, darker hair for that matter.

I have often found, especially in remoter parts of the country where it's not just the common-folk (I really hate that term but here it's used with love I promise) that are forced to interbreed, then you meet other such signs. Pronounced teeth line that has the unfortunate effect of making people look like horses or that they look at the entire world through their teeth. While at the same time, often suffering from a receding chin. Large jowels manifest themselves and the men, certainly are often clean shaven on their chins.

I certainly am.

But what this shows is a person who has time to care for their own appearance. Who has access to proper medical treatment, decent food and clean water. Someone who has the luxury of time to spend on things like personal grooming.

As was the case here. He had long hair, pulled back harshly into a tight queue that hung down the nape of his neck. As I say, high cheekbones and clean, almost bleached teeth. A body free of disease which is more than can be said for some of the other bodies that we laid out, lean and well muscled. Someone who rode his horse often and energetically while also having swordsman's calluses.

The differences were also pronounced in the equipment that he had on him which would have set him apart from the rest. He had an, objectively beautiful light cavalry sabre, gently curved for the slashing. Heavy hilted with a piece across the knuckles to protect the hands. To someone with strong wrists it would feel as though you weren't wielding anything at all. It was also razor sharp and unblemished by any of the oils or poisons that we found on the weapons of the other men.

Kerrass and Rickard agreed that this was not a man who had any intention of actually fighting but the other implements that he had on his person suggested that he might get heavily involved _afterwards_.

His clothes were of good quality and his boots held the makers mark of the cobbler in Novigrad where Father had _his_ riding boots made. Getting them sent this far out must have cost a fortune.

Apparently, his other clothing beneath the long leather coat had been tailored to fit him. Stitched riding trousers, fitted doublet and waistcoat. All well made and must have kept him warm in the colder weather, bless his little silken socks.

Upon going through his gear and comparing it to the equipment of the other riders, I was struck with the suspicion that I would have intensely disliked this man and everything to do with him. It wasn't a feeling that went away over time either.

He was wearing mail. Lighter and less protective than the heavier and denser chainmail that professional soldiers wear and certainly less well made than the stuff that knights wear under their full plate harness but it was there. This, coupled with the leather coat would have been more than enough to protect the man from any errant hunting arrows or thrown objects that might have been sent his way though. It was certainly no match to the cloth-yard arrows sent forth by the highly skilled arms and war-bows of Sir Rickard's bastards.

Luckily or unluckily, depending on who you ask.

But beyond that, we couldn't tell anything about him. Obviously noble-born but beyond that, he didn't remind me of anyone that I might have known. I guessed his race to be Redanian but as that was both where we were and a fairly general combination of colours for the northern parts of the continent. Even people from Kovir and Poviss could be mistaken for men from Redania so it wasn't really that much of a deduction to say that the man came from Redania.

He didn't remind me of anyone who I might have met during my brief attendances at court although I was forced to admit that my time at the Imperial court in Toussaint was mostly spent worrying about other things. Nor was he wearing any kind of heraldry. In normal circumstances I might have suspected some kind of illegitimate son, that had been provided for but was unable to use his proper coat of arms or anything similar. But in this case I suspected that this was a either a younger son, or a son of some vassal family that owed their fealty to one of the other lords of the lands further north.

Kerrass, Dan and one of the men from the village went off to see if they could track any of the horses back to the Hounds' lair or if any of those horses from the men who had been shot out of the saddle might have automatically retreated to a place which could tell us more.

For a while we got all excited when they returned to tell us that they had found a hollow, deep in the woods to the North west. Some kind of sink-hole or an accident of the terrain formed by the rock formations and then hidden by the thick forestry. According to Kerrass there were a couple of tracks leading into the place and that it was ultimately defensible so that the three men advanced cautiously but it had clearly been abandoned.

Kerrass described cook fires and the acrid smell of chemicals being mixed together in toxic combinations but that the place also showed signs of abandonment. He found sacks of horsefeed and mounds of sack-cloth. Several empty leather bags and a derelict weapon stand as well as the remains of some food. Chicken bones and a heel of tough way-bread. That kind of thing.

They had tried to see if they could track anything else but the tracks leading away from the place were obscured by the tracks leading towards the place that had churned the ground into something unreadable. The entrances had presumably been chosen for precisely this reason.

Sir Kristoff didn't take our reports very well.

"Why couldn't you have taken the wretch alive?" He demanded when we all met up again in Sam's castle, bruised, battered and battle-weary. "You claim to have the best archers within a hundred miles..."

"The best archers in the Kingdom." Sir Rickard clarified dryly. "I have the best archers in the Kingdom Sir Kristoff and I will thank you not to forget it."

"So why couldn't you have taken him alive then?"

Sir Rickard sighed and sat back. Ignoring the older man and pouring himself a drink while Sir Kristoff's face turned red.

"Settle down." Sam looked as tired as the rest of us. "Settle down. To be fair Sir Kristoff. None of the rest of us managed to do any better so lets not start throwing stones hmmm?"

"None of the rest of us claimed to have the best archers in the Kingdom." Sir Kristoff retorted, showing just how angry he was as well as how...stressed isn't the right word.

There was a sense of anti-climax in the air for us as well as the villagers. We had met our enemy, defeated him on the field of battle and yet, the victory was not decisive. Our enemy was not destroyed and we did not know what to do next.

Militarily the answer was simple. The next thing to do was to find the home base of the Hounds and destroy them there but we had no more information on this subject than the last time that we had all sat round this table discussing useless and pointless things.

The other teams had done about as well as we had with similar results. The differences being that they had all followed the plans that I would have designed for the villages. They had erected walls and barricades to keep the enemy out before sallying forth and therefore driving off the invaders. But in all cases the suspected leader of each individual group of Hounds had escaped, being the kind of "Lead from the back" general that was almost custom designed to annoy fighting men.

Our kill count was highest but then again, the others had managed to capture more of the enemy. But like our own captive, they weren't expected to survive either. They had all been brought back to the castle and Ella was treating them for their injuries and the poisons that were running through their veins. She was frantically working to try and identify what had been done to those poor men in order to come up with some kind of counter agent, but never looked optimistic on those occasions when one or other of us would go downstairs to enquire as to their progress.

Sure enough, over time, those captives simply died. Similar symptoms to our own captive. Apparently, according to Ella, their hearts just gave up and stopped working without warning.

But at the time of this particular conference, she was still downstairs working hard. Which was when Father Trent asked the question that everyone had on their minds.

"So, what do we do now?" He asked.

Father Trent had been working ceaselessly since I had last seen him and according to some of the gossip going round the castle, he hadn't slept for more than a couple of hours a night. Working with the soldiers and the villagers and everyone else. He had worked on the barricades, fetched and cooked as well as doing whatever chores that he could. The soldier's resentment of him had begun to lessen in the face of his charm offensive...

That's unfair. He was feeling immensely guilty and was struggling to keep himself going. I didn't talk to him about it which is on me...I should have spent some time talking about his problems and I don't know why I didn't. I remember almost wanting to feel cynical about what he was doing. As though I _wanted_ to believe that he was trying to manipulate his way back into everyone's good graces.

But I think that says more about me and where my head was at that period of time than it does about him. I would like to give him the credit and suggest that he was being genuine in his efforts to make amends.

But he was not looking good when he asked that question. Pale faced, huge dark circles under his eyes with blood shot eyes and a slight tremor in his hands. But his voice was steady and even as he spoke.

There were a lot of exchanged glances around the table.

"I think," Knight Father Danzig spoke up after a long moment. "I think that we have been successful but that our success is a two edged sword and in the long run we will come to look at this whole thing as a mistake."

"Mistake?" Sam asked.

Danzig leant forward.

"The mistake was an easy one to make and there was no way that we could have predicted it and now the mistake has been made we must learn to live with it."

"What was this mistake?" Sir Kristoff again, bridling. I sometimes feel that I'm being harsh on poor old Kristoff. He was a good man really and a fine leader of troops but at the same time, he struggled to articulate himself well at these meetings. He was good at...If you gave him a problem and told him to solve it then he would do that. For example, if you told him to defend a village he would look at it for a while before telling you exactly what resources that he needed to do the job. If you gave him those resources then he would perform his task to the best of his abilities.

I suppose that what I'm saying is that he was a good tactical mind but that his overall strategic thinking was less than ideal and I suddenly had an insight as to why he might not have attained as high a rank as his experience might warrant.

He also had a habit at bridling at any, even hinted at, criticisms.

"We turned up. In the open and announced ourselves." Father Danzig answered. "What we should have done was come in secret. Scouted the lands out and find out what's going on. We should have infiltrated and employed cunning towards the solution of these problems. Now, we run the risk of having driven these "Hounds" underground."

There were more exchanged glances. I remember thinking that this might all make a lot more sense if we all took a couple of days off to just rest up and sleep.

"Explain please." Sam said eventually. The most tired looking out of the lot of us.

"We have beaten the enemy." Danzig was clearly prepared for the question and had his answer ready. "But what happens now? Our success was not total, meaning that it would be foolish to suppose that we have accounted for every target that we aimed our bows and swords against. Some of those men will have fled and been able to report to their superiors.

"So what would I do in their shoes?"

Danzig shook his head.

"I cannot deny the possibility that the people doing this are simply mad and outright crackpots and therefore my guess at their strategy is completely wrong, but I do not think that this is the case. Up to this point they have acted cleverly."

"You admire these men?" Inquisitor Dempsey. The most energetic of the lot of us, fires of righteousness stoking his energy.

"Of course. While hating them and what they represent. They have done this all very well indeed. They have kept this corner of the continent under their heel with relatively little effort and they have done so for years. Maybe even generations without giving themselves away to the rest of the continent. Either to Kreve or the Eternal Flame, either of those organisations would have gone mad trying to hunt down this entire situation."

He paused to see if anyone was going to argue the point. I'm not sure that people didn't want to, I'm more convinced that folks were simply too tired to bother.

"Your point, Father?" Sam's words seemed as though he bought them with great effort.

"My point is...That they will not give up their grip on the countryside without a fight. They _had_ to know that something like this might happen and they _had_ to have contingency plans in place for when it did."

"So what do you think will happen?" 

"I think that they will, essentially, go to ground but then, when our vigilance has started to sag whether due to other crisis or overconfidence in our final success then they will start to creep back into Lord Samuel's domain. There will be sightings off in the distance, then the old stories will start to be told again. Then there will be isolated attacks against remote farms and travelling peddlers and so on until the countryside is, once again, living in fear of them."

"They have to know that I would respond." Sam seemed dissatisfied.

"They do, but now they know what you're capable of. They will come up with a way to get round your defences, stronger poisons and the like. They weaken you, get some agents amongst your guardsmen or your staff, slip something into your drink or food and suddenly you're a drivelling lunatic who has neither the strength or the influence to take them on."

"Are we in danger now?" 

"No," Danzig shook his head. "Or at least I doubt it. I think it's much more likely to start in six months to a year and it will be a slow and careful thing, depending on their patience of course."

Sam nodded but I could tell that he wasn't happy. His frown lines tightened and he stared off into space. It was a long moment of silence before he clenched his fist and shook his head.

"No," he said. "No, that's unacceptable. No, I will not simply fortify myself against future attacks. This scourge needs to be rooted out and destroyed now while we've put them on the back foot. I absolutely refuse to be passive on this subject."

"So what would you have us do?" Someone asked.  
"This is heresy isn't it?"

"Oh yes." Inquisitor Dempsey asserted while Father Danzig nodded. "Of the blackest sort. It might be that this heresy is the tool of political and economic ambition but heresy is heresy."

"So the churches of the Eternal Flame and The Sky-father Kreve will help us?"

"Most certainly."

Sam turned back to Sir Rickard. "Is there any chance that these Hounds are still on my lands? Or otherwise based here?"

Rickard thought about it before shaking his head.

"I don't think so. I can't see any of the established places providing the amount of equipment that these people carry. They would need a Forge, a Farrier, a stable, food, alchemy supplies and tannery works. Not to mention a barracks for all of their fighters to sleep when they're not terrorising the countryside. There is nothing like that left in your lands other than at the castle and I'm pretty sure that they're not here."

"But not totally sure?" I teased him. I thought that the meeting could do with a bit of levity and was rewarded by a slight smile in Rickard's and Trent's face.

"I'm as sure as I can be." Rickard told us.

"So the truth of the matter is that the Hounds are elsewhere?" Sam asked after giving me a slight, big brotherly glare.

"I'm as sure as I can be." Rickard repeated.

"Right, combining this with what Freddie discovered I think it's easy to say that these fuckers have some kind of noble backing. Which means that one of my northern neighbours is behind all of this."

"Or more than one." I said.

"Why do you say that?"

"Well, if this is part of what the Former Lords Kalayn were part of, and there is more of them out there, why suppose that there were only two noble families that were involved in all of this bullshit? One or more and we have to be paranoid and assume that there are more than just one castle full of these fucks. They've got an entire countryside to push beneath their heels."

"True, but how do find this out?"

"We send scouts."

"Careful." Trent spoke up. "I don't mean to shit on this idea but those scouts can't be yours or under your authority Lord Kalayn. I use that title deliberately. Your authority extends to your borders but you can't take it any further than that. If you send anyone further across the borders into other people's territories then you are committing a crime against the law. Not that that won't solve the problems as it will bring proper soldiers here to investigate but all the same, it could mean your life."

"What about church troops?" Sam asked looking a little despondent.

"I can't speak for Kreve but certainly the Holy Fire can't go into a place until we've either been invited or until there is creditable proof or testimony that something is going on there. The Empress has been very...exacting in drawing up new laws to govern the role of the church in this kind of situation."

Danzig nodded his agreement.

We all looked at each other a bit more until I realised that Sam was looking at me.

"Crap." I said as I realised where this was going. Sam can be a devious bastard when he wants to be and I couldn't get rid of the suspicion that Sam had known that this was the required solution back before the conversation had even started. "I can go, can't I." I said. "Kerrass can go, searching for these "Hounds" as if they are monsters or go looking for legitimate Witcher's work."

"Of which there is plenty in these parts." Kerrass said, speaking for the first time in a while.

"And we see what we can turn up." I finished. "Everyone knows that where he goes, I go and it's perfectly plausible that I would pay my respects towards any noble house that I pass. The risk comes from the possibility that people will connect me together with Sam but at the same time, I am famous and removing me from the field will bring down just as much attention from people that they don't want to attract and so will be resisted."

Sam nodded although, looking back, I suspect that he was quite surprised by how quickly I agreed to the whole scheme.

"In the mean time. We can fortify here." He went on. "Fathers Trent and Danzig. I am officially asking for aid to get to the bottom of the matter of the Hounds of Kreve. I will also need to expand my garrison and get some messages out to my family in order to pay for some of the ideas that I have. However, I will not stand for the persecution of the village folk and their devotion to this old "Crom Cruarch", or whoever it is that they worship. That will not be tolerated."

Trent and Danzig nodded.

"I, for one, intend to see this matter through." Trent commented. "I think I owe that much at least."

"Pleased to have you Father Trent." Sam added. "So let's get to work. When do you think you can set off by Freddie?"

And that, Ladies and Gentlemen is how one settles themselves down and walks into a trap. A trap that I should have seen coming really as an elder brother sets out to stitch you up into a design of his own making.

Bastard.

But still, what did I expect really. I can't say that I wasn't eager either. The reason that I had volunteered Kerrass' and my services was that I had a burning need for solitude. To get away from Rickard and his men. From Kristoff and his military born arrogance. To get away from Father Trent and his guilt, From Danzig and Dempsey for their growing Fervour.

I wanted to get away from people in general and just feel that sense of quiet that only comes when you're by yourself or, at most, with a good friend who knows when to keep their mouth shut.

A skill that Kerrass has in mountainous quantities.

It was an odd experience and, like so many things in these writings, I struggle to describe them adequately. I've been told by various people that what I say or have said has resonated with them on some level despite my own conviction that I was talking utter nonsense. But for other people, even though I thought I was being quite clear and concise, they have struggled to understand what I was talking about.

But I will try.

It was like the walls were pushing in on me. As though I was being pressed down upon by the sky and the ceilings of the rooms that I found myself in. People were loud and jarring so that when they spoke to me, I found myself wincing as their voices echoed in the back of my skull. I felt like I was swimming against a current and that I was hopelessly lost. My heart would hammer in my chest. I felt short of breath and on the verge of panicking. My chest hurt and when I could breathe, the cold air brought pain to the back of my throat and into my lungs. I got tired quicker. My legs felt as though they wanted to stretch out and be still while also being incredibly nervous as though I wanted to get up and go for a run through the trees. At the same time. I was struggling. I can't pretend otherwise.

I felt like I wanted a really good weep without being able to summon the emotion necessary.

All I knew was that I wanted to get away. Away from the responsibility of being Sam's younger brother. Away from the expectations and the stories and the arguments and having to argue my opinion.

I remembered talking to the Empress when she told me that she missed the simplicity of the Witcher life. Where there is a clear cut right and wrong and on those rare occasions where there was a monster to be slain and children to protect, having an enemy to fight and overcome.

I missed that. I missed Kerrass and I having that hunt and the ability to work according to our own rhythm rather than the orders and time keeping of others.

Don't get me wrong. There was an enemy here and he was undoubtedly a bad guy that needed to be destroyed for the protection of innocents but the pressures of finding him while at the same time arguing with everyone else as to the best way to go about that was getting to be too much.

So I leaped at the chanced to leave with a pair of horses and a weeks worth of supplies. Father Trent gave me a blessing although I declined his invitation to hear my confession and we set out a couple of days after the end of the battle.

We stayed for the funerals of those few men that we had lost during the engagements at the various villages. We also attended the more private ceremony that The Bastards held for Jenkins. The men had a simmering anger amongst them. A formless, impotent thing and I did not envy Sir Rickard maintaining discipline over the next few days.

So Kerrass and I snuck out early one morning. I say that we "snuck" because I was trying to avoid any undue ceremony and I also wanted to leave Sir Rickard behind. He was still under orders from Emma that he wasn't allowed to let me out of his sight but I felt, in my opinion, correctly, that a troop of soldiers following us around would draw too much attention to us. The other side of things was that Sir Rickard was one of the people that I was wanting to avoid.

So we snuck out. Kerrass was agreeable. We didn't really talk about it but I got the impression that he was just as glad as I was to get out from under the thumb of all of that nobility. Another similarity between him and his namesake animal was that he has something of a wanderlust. The way he describes it is that when he's out in the wilderness, he longs for the comforts and uniformity of society. But then when he's in a city, he wants to be out amongst the trees and mountains.

Have you ever picked up a cat? Picture that moment when you are holding them against your chest and they can't decide whether they are comfortable there, against you being all snug and warm, against the possibility that there might be mice to chase nearby.

Kerrass is like this far more than he would care to admit.

We headed North and slightly West along the ridges of the foothills. We would take on some more supplies at the last village on Kalayn lands before crossing the border into areas that we weren't familiar with. It would hardly be the frontier but there was no way of knowing what was there. I had not studied any maps of the area before coming to help Sam as we had believed that we would be investigating purely in the area of Kalayn castle. And Kerrass habitually didn't work in this area for reasons of his own.

I suspected, and this was borne out by various comments from the man himself, that this was roughly in the area where his home village had been when he had been born. Although he had told me that the original site had changed beyond recognition, there was something about the lay of the land that had made him uncomfortable for years, so he just got out of the habit. He also hinted that this area was quite thoroughly worked by other Feline Witchers before the decline of the Witcher class. And he had never felt the need to explore in this area.

But still.

We got some supplies and some information from the last village. They were generous and giving of their time which I remembered finding surprising. Normally when I have been involved in saving a village, the villagers tend to want to put the entire thing behind them as soon as possible which includes forgetting their previous offers of generosity, but these people hadn't. They tried to keep us for a day and throw us a feast but we were having none of it, still wanting to push on. This had been the village that Sam and Sir Kristoff had been defending and they were still fortifying the place against future attacks. Reinforcing the barricades and putting things by. They had taken up archery practice and, apparently, a man was expected to practice with his bow for at least an hour a day.

I remembered wondering what Sir Rickard would make of their efforts and whether or not Sam would actually approve of their efforts.

But who am I to comment.

As I say, they were generous with their food and their gossip and we moved on. Taking the high roads out of Kalayn lands.

We took the high roads, the ones just below the tree line before the foot hills became the mountains. The idea was that we wanted to look down at the countryside so that we could see what we were getting in to. Trails of smoke and clearings of the trees.

Things came to a head with my problems when we came to a local landmark that was called Baleberry Rock. I don't know why it was called that, I really don't, although I did ask around at the time. But what it is is this huge boulder that has come off the mountain due to some kind of storm or melting ice. Flame only knows how long ago. It fell with a thump and formed a small dip where it embedded itself info the ground. It's a huge misshapen thing with moss and small plants covering it with lots of loose stone and earth around it. In the time since it came to rest, the forest has grown up to surround it so that it forms this little clearing amongst the trees.

It was raining I remember. Coming down hard as it often seemed to in that neck of the world, Kerrass and I were cold, wet and although we weren't really regretting the decision to make our own way off into the world, the weather was awful and we were looking for a place to find some shelter, build a fire and make something warming to go with the last of the fresh bread that the last village had given us two days ago and we found what we were looking for in that large boulder.

You have to understand just how large this thing was. It took me ten minutes of scrambling to walk round the thing. It was far too slick from the rain to climb but had we wanted to, there were no immediately obvious hand-holds to provide leverage and Kerrass would have had to stand on my shoulders to get anywhere near the top of it. But I suspect that even then, we might have struggled to get someone on top of it. We certainly saw nowhere to attach a rope or a grappling hook.

It was the kind of place that makes you feel really young and insignificant against the age and turning of the world. I don't know if that had any effect on what happened or not, I'll leave you to be the judge.

What it did have was a small area where the water had eroded it over the centuries that it had been there so that there was a small overhang. I say small, but it was only small in comparison to the entire boulder itself.

We were able to fit both bedrolls in as well as both horses.

We stopped early so that we could properly enjoy our shelter. I spent some time building a fire which took quite a long time despite the dry wood that we had stored in our saddlebags, so it took a lot of attention and work to get it going. When it was, I went out looking for dry wood which was, at the same time, easier than it might have been, but rather time consuming.

In the mean time, Kerrass had made a shelter with one of the oilskins that we kept for when we had to camp out in weather like this and was in the process of digging a rain channel so that the waters running off the mountains would be kept out of our little shelter. Moving back to the fire I lay out the bedrolls so that we could take proper advantage of the warmth and erected the cast iron tripod over the fire from which I hung the small pot that would contain our meal as well as the grating on which I rested our kettle. I, for one wanted to clean myself up with some hot water a bit after the day we'd had.

Kerrass came in and started working on the horses. Rubbing them down and draping them with a blanket, making sure that they had food and water nearby before sitting next to the fire with the horse tack and going over it to make sure that the rain hadn't damaged it too much. I had mulled one of the bottles of cider over the fire while he worked and handed him a cup. It was growing quite warm in our little shelter now and I changed into clean and dry clothing, leaving the wet clothing to dry near the fire. The steam that came off them did much to warm up the air.

While the food warmed up we took our time to maintain our own equipment. Oiling and sharpening is vitally important, then as always.

There was a sense of something building in the air. A moment of crisis.

We took our time about the tasks. I can't speak for Kerrass but I was enjoying the simplicity of them. The need to concentrate on what I was doing without having to worry about what else was going on in the world. Without having to be concerned about other factors, while doing so in the fresh air.

My mental state had not really improved over the course of our five day journey.

The problem was that, and again this is another thing that I find hard to describe, even though I was enjoying the simplicity of the tasks of making camp. This simplicity and the steady sound of the rain against the oilskin was sending my mind down a spiral of dark thoughts that I was finding it increasingly difficult to pull myself out of.

Three times, while working on my equipment, I realised that I was sat, just staring into space. Now, at the time of writing, I couldn't even tell you what I was thinking. What the thoughts were that were going round my head. All I can say is that I felt myself getting worse and worse.

My eyes felt hot, like I hadn't slept for several days and again my legs were feeling like they were wanting to run, sprint really, frantically for several hours. My entire body seemed as though it was fighting me. My muscles clenching and unclenching leaving me shivering. I felt like I had a fever, that feeling of being cold but also sweating freely in the air. I gritted my teeth

A thought has just occurred to me as to what I looked like.

You know how you boil a kettle of water, whether for tea, cleaning, purification or any of the other reasons that you might boil water for. It was like that. At first I was still and then gradually, as things built up, the steam started to come. Just a trickle of steam at first until it came out in an almost steady stream.

But then things started to get violent.

At some point I had closed my eyes.

Kerrass said my name. I must have done something to prompt this but I have no idea what that was, something that I had done or said had alerted him to the fact that I was struggling. Or maybe he had been watching for this kind of thing for days. I don't know.

What I do know is that he said my name and it was like somebody had driven a cold metal spike up my arse.

I shot off my seat and ran out into the rain. I didn't go very far, I certainly didn't pick a direction. It was more that I just wanted to be in the general direction of "away".

I was shaking, trembling violently as I sprinted through the trees, slipping on the loose rocks that had tumbled off the mountainside and careening from tree to tree.

I stopped abruptly in the space between a few trees. I paced for a minute or two, my breath whistling between my teeth as I tried to contain and tamp down the overwhelming...things that I was feeling. I felt like a boat on the rapids being bounced from rock to rock with the occupants of the boats having no choice but to hold on for dear life and just pray that they find safe harbour.

I felt hot. So hot that I honestly believed that steam was rising from my now sodden shirt and from my hair that was plastered to the side of my skull.

There was a small rock pool nearby. I saw it and suddenly it seemed like the best idea in the world to go over to it and plunge my head into the water in an effort to cool off. I know, I know that this isn't really the best idea but some part of me thought that it was. I would tell anyone who is reading this that I wasn't thinking rationally.

I plunged my head in. The relief was instant, but as was the pain. Mountain wash off water is no joke and it must have been freezing cold, but I forced myself to keep my head under water for as long as I could bear it before lifting my head out. I stood there trembling for a moment or two before I plunged my head back into the water.

The violent motion had all but emptied the small pool now, so I tried the next best thing of throwing what was left down my back and across my face, rubbing the back of my neck with my, now, cold wet hands. My legs buckled under me and I slumped, sliding down the rock until I was in a kind of crouched ball.

I took a deep breath and screamed my lungs out. I screamed and screamed until I could no longer manage anything and my throat was sore. But no sound emerged, just a quiet kind of tortured rasp.

The pressure in my head was indescribable. It felt like my head was trying to explode or for my brain to forcefully pull itself from the body that encapsulated. My hands clutched to my ears in an effort to try and contain everything as though bits of my brain were trying to escape.

I felt like I was watching all of this happen, calmly from inside my own skull. I was certainly not in conscious control of things but I felt as though I was watching and taking note of everything that was happening.

I was still breathing heavily and despite the water in the air, I was sweating profusely. Rivers of it running from my scalp and down my spine and stinging in cuts and scratches that I hadn't registered previously.

I don't know how long I lay, or crouched there for. I imagine that it wasn't as long as I felt as though it was but I suspect that it was longer than was entirely healthy, either mentally or physically but I remember being surprised as it stopped just as suddenly as it started.

Abruptly I stopped sweating, the trembling stopped and I felt my mind return to my body. I was suddenly in control of my actions and could move, think and act rationally again. I climbed to my feet with some difficulty as all of my muscles had seized up and I felt stiff. As though I had been training hard for several days.

I still felt ungainly though and it took me some time to walk back to the camp where Kerrass was waiting for me. I noticed that he had set the stew aside and was stirring a pot of something else on the fire. He looked up on my arrival and taking a dipper and poured a liquid into a cup before handing it too me.

"Strong and sweet." he said, gesturing towards my stool as I took the drink from his hand. I peeled my wet shirt off and hung it from the drying set up next to the fire before carefully lowering myself back down to a seated position. Kerrass passed me a towel which I used to wipe the worst of the water from myself.

"You stink." He commented, not unkindly.

"Cold sweat'll do that to you." I told him. "I'll dunk my head in the next river that we pass."

He grunted, taking the towel off me and draping the blanket roughly around my shoulders. I would have commented something about being mothered but I doubt that that would have ended in my favour. Instead I placed the blanket around my shoulders a little more securely and drank my drink.

It was indeed, strong and sweet.

I realised that I was still shivering. It felt a lot like battle fatigue or battle reaction whatever you want to call it and it took me a long time to come back down to earth. It was odd. As I say, I was completely in command of my faculties, thinking clearly and everything but sudden bursts of shivering and trembling would take hold of my body and I would be absolutely helpless before them.

Kerrass went on about his camp-site tasks. He had put the pot of stew back over the fire, added a little water and some wild garlic that he had found before adding a bit more salt and pepper. He prefers his food with a bit more seasoning than I do. Then he settled back with a knife to work on some part of the horses tack that needed some kind of superficial repairs.

It was a long time before either of us spoke.

"Do you mind if I talk to you about something?" I asked him after a long while

"Do you want to talk about it?" He said calmly while examining a hole that he had just pushed through the leather strap.

"Flame no." I told him. "But I think that I need to. In much the same way as sometimes, I _need_ to train."

Kerrass said nothing. Just blew through the small hole in the leather strap.

It took me a long time to start talking. A very long time.

"Right." I said. Then I hesitated and leant forward. "Right, here it is."

I took another deep breath. This was hard, much harder than I thought it should be.

"Here's the thing. If it wasn't for Francesca's disappearance. If it wasn't for that. Then I think that it would be time for me to go home."

Kerrass' eyes seemed to flicker in the firelight but otherwise his face didn't change expression.

"It's a thought I've had, on and off, since we left Nilfgaard and started coming north." I told him. "In fact, I've actually made my mind up to leave for home, or Angral three times now.

"The first time was about a week after we did that hunt after we left Toussaint. You remember?"

"I remember knocking you off your feet."

I grinned at the thought.

"Yes, I remember." I sub-consciously rubbed my jaw. "It was about a week later. I was tired and we were travelling north. We had taken the contract for you to deal with that Wyvern. You had told me to remain behind and keep that farming family indoors. I remember looking over at the old couple and their eldest daughter who was shepherding the younger children, presumably her children, under the table. I remember looking at that elder daughter and thinking of Emma. I was just beginning to lose that element of righteous anger that had kept me going through the pass out of Toussaint and I was beginning to get tired as my anger at the situation with Francesca was burning itself out. I found myself thinking that I was running around after a ghost when I should be at home looking after those siblings that I still have

"The second time was when we stood in the ashes of Pula, Saffron and Sally's home. I decided then that I was done and that I needed to head for home. I promised myself, and you, that I would help you do what needed to be done in the immediate aftermath of that. I remember looking at the ashes of the woman that I had loved, however briefly and the corpse of the man and child like creature that I had liked and respected and thought to myself that I couldn't do this any more.

"I remember it clearly as we laid out their bodies for their funeral rites and I remembered the moonlight in Saffron's smile and the strange lop-sided smile that Pula gave me when I got confused at his marriage arrangements. I remembered how much I had liked Sally and felt both, nurturing and in awe of the power of the being that just wanted to sit and read a book. I saw what the world had done to the three of them and I felt sick to my very stomach. I remembered thinking that I would see this hunt through and then I would turn for home.

"The third time was just before we set off to come north and meet up with Sam. I remember standing on the walls of my families castle and thinking that I didn't want to leave. I made my mind up not to go."

I sighed.

"But every time. _Every_ time, I change my mind, or I almost forget that I had promised myself to stop and I saddle up my horse, strap my weapons to my side and I head out."

Kerrass continued to say nothing.

"Partially, it's this thing with Francesca that's got me freaking out. That's not what's got to me but it's built off that. It's certainly the reason that I'm still here, traipsing around after you."

"OR having me traipse around after _you._ " Kerrass gave me one of his lopsided smiles. 

I acknowledged his point with a nod. "But it sometimes worries me how much of my...of my thinking, how much of my brain, thinking about Francesca takes up and it doesn't seem to leave room for anything else.

"I spend my days going over the circumstances that led up to her disappearance. I remember the social fuck-up that Ariadne and I made of our engagement." I smiled at the memory, "And although, at the time it was one of the happiest moments of my life, I criticise myself because I worry that, being so self-involved, that I missed some important clue. Some sign that I should have seen and would have seen if I had had my wits about my."

Kerrass opened his mouth to object to this and I held my hands up to forestall him.

"I know, I know," I groaned. "I know that it's foolish to think that and that I couldn't possibly have known, especially after the teleport lag..."

As a note for those people that don't know what I'm talking about when I say "time lag." Teleport lag is a thing that occurs when you teleport around the continent a bit. When you go from one place with it's own distinct time of day and climate, to another. You can, sometimes find the change jarring in ways that you don't always understand. It can lead to you being sub-consciously confused or unaware. Changes in diet, weather as well as exposure to the local people in general can be jarring if you haven't gone through the intervening landscape which allows you to become accustomed to the changes as you go. Apparently, this is one of the reasons that Kerrass doesn't like to teleport anywhere.

But anyway. Back to my breakdown.

"But I recriminate myself about this. I look at all the steps we took during the investigation. I think about our last exchanged conversation before she went off to sleep that night. I think of all the things that we did and about how I charged off in the pursuit of Jack both literally and figuratively, so obsessed about the idea that he _must_ be to blame rather than it be something else. I think of all of these things and I get angry at myself for not looking at the other options. For _not_ seeing that Jack was just a smokescreen designed to lead us, to lead _me_ off the scent of where I should be looking."

I reached into my bags and pulled out a sheaf of papers.

"These are my notes. The ones I didn't offer up to the God. Not just from the time spent at Toussaint. I've got copies of all my journals with me. I had to go out and buy a copy of my own books and my own travel journals, therefore paying royalties to myself and to the university publishing press. I read through them all, over and over and over again. Trying to relive the moments from _before_ the coronation to see if I can remember some kind of sign. Some kind of clue that might lead to the proper identification of what happened. Of suspects who might have conspired to take my sister away.

"Again, I know that there was no way to know. I'm also well aware that the odds are good that this is a thing targeted at her, separate from me. I know that it's probably due to her actions at court or her deeds on behalf of the Empress. I'm even aware of how arrogant it makes me to think of her disappearance as being connected to me over all of these factors.

"But that doesn't stop me for looking for clues that probably aren't there. We have, after all, killed a lot of the enemies that we have left behind us..."

"Sir Robart?" Kerrass suggested.

I shook my head. "I don't think he has the capability, the resources or the intelligence to pull off something like this. If it was him he would have taken credit for it or rubbed her disappearance into my face a bit more when we saw him last. Besides, he is someone that I _know_ the Imperial investigators are going after."

"The former vassals of the former Lord Angral?" Kerrass tried again. "People who resent being ruled over by a vampire. They can't attack her but they might come after you."

"Possible, but again, it seems a little far fetched. There are easier targets and they were nationalists. Wouldn't they go after the King of Angraal? (Note for the reader: The Duke of Angraal. Calling him the King of Angraal is a local tradition that the Empire tolerates). It's possible, I suppose but again I understand that both Ariadne and the Empire are pursuing that line of enquiry. The same goes for the brothers of that "William the Ram" knight that you killed and then I mocked in prose."

"What about that guy, you know the one..."

"I really don't."

Kerrass glared at me. "The one that nearly made me kill him. The one on the docks just before we sailed north and I told you my life story, bits of it anyway. You certainly did a number on him in your writing."

"Oh him. Didn't I tell you. He got his throat slit in a Vizima back alley. Emma looked into it for me. He took one too many debts which didn't return enough of his investment in time and he got murdered for his trouble, is the common theory. Another suggestion was that he wasn't local to the area and went out drinking in the wrong part of town. Either theory was perfectly valid but they didn't prove it one way or another."

Kerrass grunted. "Shame. I would dearly have liked to murder him myself."

I decided to diplomatically ignore that comment.

"There is also something about our freeing of the Princess Dorn and the way that it upset the local power balance in the area. But again, the Empress is all over that.

"But even despite knowing that far more capable, experienced and influential people are on the case. I am going over the details, over and over again to see if I can see something.

"I resent that I don't know what I'm doing. We've talked about this before. We're here, because we have no other ideas as to where to look. That the conspiracy that killed my father were the people with the most magical capabilities that would have a motive. We haven't found them yet though and we're walking forward into what may very well be a trap. We have no choice other than to turn aside and send someone else that might be fobbed off or ignored. Or we continue to walk forward and wait for the jaws of the trap to close around our necks. And I _know_ that that's what I'm doing. It's that thing with Jack in Toussaint all over again, rushing into a situation without knowing what's about to come down.

"Any way that I look at, this is a stupid thing to do. I'm honestly angry at Sam for putting me in this position, for exploiting my desire to help him and my desire, my...my need to find these people and ask them questions in order to help him deal with this problem and yet, despite knowing how _stupid_ it is, I can't turn aside."

"It's not that stupid." Kerrass argued before reconsidering. "It's a little stupid, but one way or another, someone has to go out there and scout out the area. We are, by far, the best qualified to do that. The church either of them, will announce their presence as church soldiers and church officials are absolutely incapable of travelling incognito without giving themselves away by being so aggressively holy and self righteous that it would drive everyone away. The military guys might be able to go incognito but at the same time, they wouldn't really know what they're looking for. It's not, strictly speaking, Witcher's work but I do feel as though I'm hunting down monsters. The fact that I'm also helping you is an extra bonus."

"Ok." I said after listening to that little speech. "I feel a little better but you won't be able to convince me that you wouldn't do better by yourself."

"I can argue that point, but we're not talking about that at the moment." Kerrass told me.

I let him have that.

"I'm so obsessed with it Kerrass, so obsessed that I can't think of anything else. I just can't. You were right when we left Toussaint. I need to think of other things. I need to continue working, writing, thinking, learning and educating. But I can't bring myself to care. I've tried, I really have. I've tried to write things. I talked about the thing with Bishop Fuck-face and I wrote about the child beneath the Watchtower. But I feel as though I'm just going through the motions. Marking time until we find the next clue, the next step forward.

"So that's the second thing that's got me so...so fucking..."

"Tied up?" Kerrass suggested. "Wrung out."

"I was thinking "fucked off" to be honest but your things would be true too."

I sighed and rubbed my head with a hand that trembled. Kerrass passed me another cup of liquid and told me to drink.

"I've..." I clutched the cup in my hand, staring deep into the liquid in an effort to try and find inspiration at the bottom of the cup. In the dark, swirling liquid that was there before lifting my gaze to stare out of the opening and into the woods. I noticed that the rain was beginning to lessen. Bleeding typical. The rain stops shortly _after_ I have a breakdown and run out into the weather.

"I've lost the joy of all of this."

"All of what?"

"All of _this,_ ". I said, waving my arms round at the little, make-shift cave. "I remember during the roughly two years that we travelled together. I loved every minute of our time on the road. Every. Last. Minute. Every new creature that you showed me was fascinating to me. The people were interesting, the food was inspiring, the women were beautiful. The culture, architecture and...and "life" was fascinating to me. From everything to the way that villages were built to the way that they were the same. From Southern Imperial lands, all the way up to Northern Redania and Kaedwen. The differences in diet. The different way the different whore houses worked. How in some places you pay up front and some places you pay afterwards. The way merchants work. It was all so interesting to me.

"That wasn't to mention the main reason that I was out there. I remember _hounding_ you with questions. Waking you up with questions, distracting you with questions and sending you to sleep with questions. I remember you having to tell me to shut the fuck up or you'd knife me, to stop me asking you questions."

"Which lasted all of five minutes as I recall."

"But that's my point. When was the last time I asked you a question about Witcher's work? When was the last time I talked to you about potions, techniques or Witcher philosophy? I can't remember but it was certainly before Toussaint. I just don't care any more Kerrass."

Somewhere in the back of my head I realised that I was getting upset again and I forced myself to take a deep breath in an effort to calm down.

"I hope I didn't insult you there." I told him. "That's not to say that you aren't interesting it's just..."

"I know what you meant Freddie. I'm not insulted."

"That stuff was so important to me. So important and now I just can't bring myself to care. I've worked really hard to keep going with that kind of stuff since we left Toussaint. Don't get me wrong, you were right when you told me that it was important and that I should continue working on it. You were right and you are still right...

"Heh." I chuckled. "I didn't tell you this but I got a letter from a friend when we were back at Coulthard Castle."

"You mean that you got a letter from a fan don't you?" Another one of Kerrass' smirks.

"I do, so help me I do. But he complained that I wasn't talking about you as much anymore. He said that he still enjoyed the stories and spent time learning from them but that he missed hearing about you and your history."

"Nice to know I'm popular."

"You are. But what to tell him? I just haven't learned anything new about you in ages."

I sank into silence. Staring down into my cup and swirling the liquid about.

"But that's not the real reason that you're upset is it." Kerrass prompted. It was not a question and he was not wrong.

"No," I admitted. "No it's not."

Kerrass said nothing. I couldn't look at him any more and I felt the shame that I had been feeling for a while start to climb up my throat like Bile.

"I'm..." I began but it caught in my throat. "Dammit it all to hell."

I took another deep breath as though I was taking a run up against a tricky jump.

"I'm angry all the time Kerrass. All the Flame cursed time. You used to mock me for it. You'd tease me and tell jokes to other people about how violent I could get. I used to get really upset and really offended about it but you're right."

I turned away as I felt hot wetness behind my eyes.

"Remember that Hound that I fought in the village?"

I didn't wait for an answer.

"I was disappointed in that fight. There wasn't enough of it for me. I wanted more. I wanted the blood of those assholes that were victimising those people. I wanted to fight. I wanted to show them just how wrong they are and how they should run from people like me. I was so angry then that I scared myself and it's not the first time either.

"I murdered Bishop Sansum. I snuck up behind him and I choked the life out of him. I could feel his life dribbling past my fingers and still I squeezed. That guy is the closest I've ever come to hating someone. Anyone really although I wonder whether I'm going to feel worse when I...when we actually find the bastards that took Francesca. I hated Sansum and I squeezed the life out of him. I remember his tongue lolling out of mouth and slobbering everywhere. I couldn't see his eyes but I could feel the desperation in his movements. The way that his arms and legs were jerking and frantically tearing at me. Grinding and scrabbling for air but still I squeezed until the last vestiges of life came out of him and there was nothing left. And I was disappointed that I couldn't do more to him.

"When did I start doing this Kerrass?" I looked at him for the first time in a while. He was sat, unmoving, the firelight reflected in his eyes.

"When did I start enjoying fighting. When did I start looking forward to it and only feeling alive in the middle of a battle. I've tried, Flame knows that I've tried, but all I can think about is how _angry_ I am at everything. I'm angry at myself for feeling this way. I'm angry at you for not magically and amazingly being able to conjure up an answer to the mystery of Francesca's disappearance. I'm angry at Sam and Emma and Mark for returning to their lives as though everything is normal when it's not fucking normal. We've lost our sister, flame damn them and they're doing nothing about it.

"I know that that's not true and I know that I'm being unrealistic, I know that but that just makes me angrier.

"I'm angry at Mother for not telling everyone about this cult which might have solved this problem in the first place, furious really despite absolutely understanding why she didn't. I'm angry at Edmund for being weak enough to fall for their schemes. I'm angry at Father for being _stupid_ enough to die in the first place. Not just for his dying at Edmund's hands but also for being a stubborn, ignorant prick that drove me away from the family in the first place.

"I'm angry at Mark for not sorting himself out and seeing to his illness in time. I'm angry at all the Sorceresses, including Ariadne, for not being able to figure all of this out. I'm angry at the Empress for giving up. I'm angry at Toussaint and the Imperial guard as a whole for not properly protecting my sister. Literally, I blame an entire people for that and would not shed a tear if dragons came and set the place ablaze.

"I'm angry at the Princess Dorn for being upset with me before we departed. And I'm really angry, so fucking furious with Francesca for being foolish enough to let herself get taken."

I felt a bitter chuckle escape me.

"And that's just the people that don't really deserve my anger.

"I would cheerfully murder Lord Voorhis for not knowing who took my sister and why. I would take great delight in fighting Sir Robard de Radford until he bled to death from a thousand tiny little wounds that I would inflict. Slowly, over time.

"I'm angry at these, so-called Hounds of Kreve and the people that are behind them. I'm angry at Sam for preying on my general desire to be a "good person" and harness that desire in order to get me to do what he wants. Manipulative bastard that he can sometimes be. I would have told him to shove it up his arse if it wasn't for the fact that this is one of the best chances that we might have of finding out what happened to Francesca. As it was I was honestly tempted but I'm a sucker for someone asking me for help. Back home I have to deliberately leave money at home so that I don't buy drinks for all my mates rather than having a drink myself. I was so angry with Sam for getting me to do what he wanted. But I was so tempted to tell him to stuff it. If it wasn't for Francesca..."

"No." Kerrass told me. "No you wouldn't. You would have done it anyway, regardless of Francesca. You would have helped him if he'd asked. I once preyed on that same instinct to help people of yours."

I sighed.

"I know."

I brushed some tears from my eyes.

"Flame Kerrass. I'm so angry that I am genuinely frightened."

"Of what?" Kerrass asked softly.

"Of what I might do." I answered swiftly. "I used to pride myself on being a calm man. A man who thought things through and took proper care of what the consequences of my actions might be. But I don't do that any more. I rush in, spear flashing depending on you and luck and my own idiotic sense of self worth to carry the day and even worse than that...

"So far it has. What happens when it's not enough, or you're not there to save my ass but I don't notice or forget. Or my running into the fire means that you come in with me and then I get you killed. What happens then?"

I laughed again, bitterly and I could hear the edge of hysteria in it. Which of course made me angrier.

"Princess Dorn was right to be afraid for you." I said after a while. "She was right to warn me and she will deserve her vengeance if I get you killed."

Kerrass continued to say nothing.

"When did I start getting so angry?" I asked, somewhat pointlessly. "When did I start looking at the world like this. I considered...I _consider_ myself as a man of learning. A man of respect and...and peace. But I look out at the world looking for people to fight. People to start things with. I look for ways to start violence. I would prefer that to be against people that deserve to get a ballistic spear to the face but if I'm honest with myself, any poor fucker will do. Any one, if they pick a fight with me then they deserve it.

"I worry that I wanted to come with you to help you destroy Bishop Sansum. Not because of the injustice or to help you or to right a genuine wrong. Not because I wanted to clean a human stain off the face of the continent or to combat the appalling acts that are done using "Religion and faith" as a shield as though the Holy Flame tells people to torture children and burn law abiding citizens. I worry that I didn't do that, I didn't walk into that compound and set fire to the place because I was right and they were wrong, or that I was worried that the "proper authorities" wouldn't deal with the matter properly.

"I went with you because I wanted to feel something. I wanted to fight something, and get angry with someone. To _kill_ someone. I was just grateful that there was no moral quandaries. There were _evil_ people that I could kill and then defend my own actions with vigour and right being on my side.

"I don't know their names any more Kerrass." I wailed. "When did I stop caring? I remember when I've walked past them and it's days later and they're already ash on the wind or buried in the ground and the chances of identifying them is getting remoter and further away with every passing second. When did I stop caring?

"When Did I start looking forward to this? When did I start _wanting_ to fight? When did I stop caring? When did I stop worrying about the outcome of my actions? How many people have I killed, either with my own hands or as a result of what I've done and said? And why don't I care?

"Flame but what have I become? Why am I angry all the time?"

It took a long time but I realised that I had run out of words.

The rain had stopped. The only sound was the occasional glooping sound from the stew and the occasional crack from the wood in the fire.

I felt empty. Drained of energy and spark, I felt exhausted and I was trembling slightly. Caught between tears and the absolute and utter exhaustion that prevented that from happening.

Then Kerrass moved, breaking the spell. What he did was scratch the side of his head.

"Yeah," he said, as though he was answering a question that he'd asked himself. "Yeah, if it wasn't for the fact that we were hunting for Francesca...If it wasn't for the fact that you would look for her anyway, regardless of what I said. If it wasn't for those things. I would agree with you. It is time for you to go home."

He paused for a moment to let those words sink into my ears. I suspect he was telling himself that same truth.

"There might even be a case to be argued _for_ you to go home. You _should_ go home. Regardless of Francesca or what's going on at the moment with your brother and his lands and his enemies. You _should_ go home. You should start preparing for your wedding and getting ready for your new life over in Angral. You _should_ go home and start rebuilding your life. It is the first step towards you moving on from everything that's happened.

"But let's be honest with each other here Freddie. Would we even be keeping each other company at all if Francesca hadn't been kidnapped? Or would we both have been moving on with our lives.

"I would still be following Princess Dorn around like some kind of lap cat while at the same time doing my best to reject her romantic advances and not hurt her too badly, at the same time as gently pining away for her. You would very likely already be married. To be honest I'm surprised that you're not already. My understanding of the noble classes is that they like to get on with things. But that's by the by. You should either be getting ready for your wedding or learning what married life is like with the added little spicy nugget that you're married to an insanely powerful, ridiculously strong and equally ridiculously beautiful immortal inhuman being.

"By now we would be friends who say hello when we bump into each other. We would have made plans for me to winter with you occasionally and at the same time, you would meet me for some drunken debauchery whenever I was in the near vicinity where I would get you drunk, you would get me drunk and I would try and convince you to come to the whore house with me."

"Which you would fail". I commented.

"You say that now but wait until you've been married for a few years." A thought occurred to him. "On the other hand though, she can conjure an illusion so that she can look like anything she wants. Or that you want for that matter."

He smirked.

"Lucky bastard."

He sat staring into the fire for a moment. Poking it with a stick and thus showing that universal truth that when you sit a man in front of a fire, then he must play with it.

"But I'm not going to send you home or insist that you return there. I think that that would be cruel in your current state. I recognise your longing for your sister and as well as there being a "need" for you to go home for your health and well being but I also think that you are not yet ready to do so. You walk along a sword edge, very possibly the sword edge of destiny where the edge you walk on is you and the other edge is death. Where one way is your need to carry on and find your sister and the other is your need to go home and rest.

"Both needs are jealous spectres on your shoulder that threaten to tear you apart if you listen too deeply to one or the other. So instead I will say a couple of things to you. You may not like some of them but I think that we're getting to the point where they need to be said.

"The first thing that needs to be said. Something that you need to hear and that you need to come to terms with is this. Anger is not new to you. You have always been angry. Always, from the moment that I first met you. I saw it flashing in your eyes when we sat down for our first breakfast where you gave me your proposition. I saw it before that when you were angry at how I spoke to you when I ordered you around to give me the right potions and before that when you were getting worried that the innkeeper would send me away before you had the chance to talk to me."

I shifted uncomfortably on my stool. It is not pleasant to have your best friend talk to you about your character flaws.

"You have always had a deep-seated rage in you Freddie." Kerrass went on. "i recognised that in you, it's part of the reason that I liked you so much because a lot of that rage was directed against the flaws of the world. You were angry when you heard those bandits raping that girl and you were angry again when she fled from _you_ after you had helped rescue her. There are even several cases in your own stories where your anger overwhelmed you and you went off and did something stupid. The time you chased into a villagers cottage when the Nekkers were climbing up through the floor. The time where you made jokes and attacked the men who had blades at your throat in the same village.

"I can go on and on.

"Pulling a knife on that merchant by the docks after he belittled you. The rage that you had against Lord Dorme of Angral was terrifying, even to me, despite the obvious provocation and that he deserved your anger and your hate. It was that anger and a healthy dose of fear that made you stand up to Ariadne. Your raging at your father's death bed and your anger at the fact that the rest of your family didn't want to investigate. All of these examples. You've always been angry Freddie. Always. Since long before your sister disappeared.

"I've joked about this before, mocking and teasing you about your anger and I've suggested to you that you are a berzerker. I may have mocked you in the past but sometimes the truest words are said in jest. You are a Berzerker Freddie. I don't know how much of one you are and I have no particular desire to find out. I've said it before in jest, well now I say it with certainty. If you were born on any of the islands of Skellige you would have been taken off and trained how to use that aspect of yourself in battle for the good of your people. You would have been given mushrooms and herbs to bring that out of you until you could do it at will rather than with herbal aid.

"Given your intelligence there is also a good chance that you would have survived and they would have ended up training you as a druid, either after, during or instead of training you as a berzerker.

"Again, I have always known this about you Freddie. As I say, it is this anger that spurs you on. It causes you to act. On the doorstep of the inn where you were angry at the innkeepers treatment of me. In your account of that episode you claim that you offered to take me in without thinking but it wasn't that. It was that your anger spurred you to action.

"It is this quality that makes you a berzerker. For some people, even most people, anger is a paralytic before it is a goad to action. They freeze until the situation makes it impossible to stay still. You don't. You get angry and then you act.

"I saw it again when I cast the Axii sign at you that first time. For many, if not most people, the effects of that confuse the mind. For you, it sent you into a killing Frenzy. I had already decided that I knew what you were and this confirmed it."

He paused in his little speech. My gaze had sunk to the floor and I was staring at my feet. As I say, this was not an easy thing to listen to and I was feeling absolutely dreadful.

"Look at me Freddie."

I didn't respond at first.

"Freddie, look at me."

I lifted my head. I had expected judgement in Kerrass' eyes, some kind of scorn, condemnation or even worse, pity. But instead I saw nothing. Absolutely nothing. No pity, concern, nothing. Just Kerrass' blank emotionless face. The fire dancing in his eyes. When he finally spoke again he did so in a calm, methodical voice.

"The fact that you get angry is not a bad thing. Anger is not bad and it certainly does not make you a bad person. You have every right to feel the way that you feel and at all the things that you get angry about. Every right in the world."

"My parents and tutors would tend to disagree." I commented. I don't know why but I suspect that I was trying to divert the conversation away onto something else.

"Yes," he said. "Parents do that, but that's because the people that we are angry with when we are young is often out parents and teachers." His mouth twitched towards a smile. I guessed that a memory was occurring to him.

"But anger is not bad. I'm not going to tell you that anger is not dangerous because it is, especially when you hold it in and can't let go of it as you have been unable to do recently, which is again, not your fault. Or when it rages like an out of control fire, consuming everything in it's path. But it certainly isn't evil and it doesn't make you a bad person.

"It's what you do with that anger that makes a person evil."

He shifted his own weight again. "Goddess but don't I know that."

He sighed and rubbed his brow again. Making him appear more human at a stroke.

"It's what you do when you get angry that makes you a bad person. That's not aimed at you as much as it's aimed at myself and at the world, just to be clear. You can get angry at babies for shitting themselves. But yelling at, or striking the baby is wrong. You can get angry at the wild animal for biting you, or the starving man for stealing your food, or at the man who attacks you when he mistakes you for an enemy. But it's how you use that anger and how you react that makes you bad.

"As is how you deal with that Anger and how you express that anger. Which brings us back to you Freddie." He said that last part with a slight smirk.

"For me, as an observer, your problem is not that you are getting angry all the time, it's that you are getting increasingly violent with that anger. You go from normal, withdrawn, calm and snarky to full on Firestorm of death and violence within seconds. _That_ is the thing that worries me."

He sighed.

"And partially, if not mainly, that it is my fault not yours."

"What? Why? Errrrr. What?" That moment when you feel your own chain of thought breaking apart and shattering.

"Because I gave you that extra tool. That extra outlet. That extra way to express your anger."

He sighed again. "Can I ask you a question here Freddie? and I want an honest answer."

"Uhhhhh." I mean honestly, what are you supposed to say when someone asks you something like that.

"Before you met me." Kerrass carried on regardless. "Had you ever really been in a fight?"

He paused for an answer and I felt my mouth open as I searcher around for something to say.

"And I don't mean one of those staged practice duels that they do in the training yards at the university where fencing is taught alongside ethics, poetry and philosophy. Have you ever been in a fight? Where a punch was thrown and then another punch was thrown and then more punches or weapons were drawn or thrown. Has that ever happened to you?"

"I..."

"I also don't mean where someone just hit you and you went down. That's not a fight, that's an attack. A fight requires someone to fight back and to be _able_ to fight back. If you're on the floor already then you can't fight back and it's not a fight. Also, it doesn't count if a fight starts around you and you flee. That's not being in a fight if you escape. You can be in a war like that but not a fight like that."

I stared at him for a while. "I...I don't know. Maybe with Sam when we were growing up."

He nodded his satisfaction. "That means no then. Don't be ashamed. The world would be a better place if more people could answer no to that question or say that the only fights that they've been in involve family. Even if you had been in a fight, I would bet money that you would never have started one. This is because you _are_ an angry man but you are not a violent one. Before you protest, you aren't. I know the difference believe me. If you were a violent man then you would have promptly and simply answered that you had been in a fight. Many, many times.

"You would also not be feeling the way that you do now. You would not see your current feelings as being anything that you need to be ashamed about but that is something that we will come back to. We are talking about my culpability here."

"Or rather, you are talking." I tried to lighten the mood.

"Precisely so sit there and stop talking." He told me sternly.

"You've always been angry Freddie, but before you met me and I started training you, you dealt with that anger in different ways. You might go somewhere private and weep private tears of rage. You might get into a _really_ fierce debate with a rival. You might grab some friends and go down the tavern to have a good bitch and moan about all the things that have pissed you off lately. You might go off to the brothel and get laid. But now I've not only taken a lot of those things off you by walking through the wilderness with just the two of us and it's hard to bitch about me, to me. But I've also shown you that there is something else you can do.

"You can fight a fool.

"You can stab an idiot.

"You can kill the person that is pissing you off."

He sighed.

"And I was the one that taught you how to do that and I feel awful about it. When I look at the man you are now and see your anguish over the things that you have done and the things that you have seen. I see that as my fault and I mourn the loss of your sheltered innocence as it was me that killed it. Even as I hated that part of you when I recognised it all that time ago.

"I made you a killer. I didn't teach you to defend yourself, I taught you how to kill the other person because I don't know any other way to fight. I don't know any other way to teach.

"I do read your works, I do and I notice how much you underplay your own combat skills. You count yourself down because you cannot beat me in a straight fight. I've told you this before as well but perhaps you have forgotten. There are maybe half a dozen fighters on the continent that could be confident of beating me in a straight fight if all other factors are equal. Most of those are Witchers. Geralt, Eskel and the Empress amongst them which is why I take every opportunity to train with them when I get the chance. There are maybe a score of others where it could go either way.

"Before you think I'm being arrogant, there are always ways that a man can fall, he can be overwhelmed by numbers, be under prepared or taken off guard. He can be sick, tired or not looking in the right direction. All of these things are true and anyone of them could end me which is why I do my best not to get overconfident. There are also ways to supernaturally increase a persons speed and skill which could end me if I have not taken them into account. A Witcher's potions for example.

"I tell you this so that you do not give yourself a negative view because you feel outclassed by me.

"You are not a fencer or a stage fighter or a...a practice ground fighter. These are the times that you hold yourself back because you are always thinking. You are always working the angle but in a fight...in a real fight? then you are deadly. When the fear and, yes, the rage are upon you which means that you either stop thinking about it, you skip the part of your brain that makes you over think and you just act which is when you become deadly."

He stared into the fire for a moment or two before scratching his chin.

"Do you remember back at Castle Kalayn when we were all training and Sir Rickard got cross because he was outclassed by everyone else there with a sword. You two didn't face each other because I engineered it that way as neither of you needed that at that moment. But you asked about it and I told you that he would be a much more fearsome opponent on the battlefield."

"I remember."

"Then let me say this. If Kristoff, Danzig or...or even Sam who is a better fencer on the practice field than Rickard, took offence at Rickard's attitude and called him out for a duel. Then Rickard would kick their ass. The only one who would give him pause is your brother who is younger than either of the other men and has the benefit of the finest weaponmasters that money could buy. Rickard would eat them alive if his life was on the line and _that's_ the difference. Rickard would no longer be fencing, he would be fighting and he learned his fighting in the gutters of Vizima.

"You are the same as he. I didn't teach you how to fence with your spear, I taught you to fight. I taught you to kill and if your life was on the line then I'm pretty sure that you could take Sir Kristoff, Danzig would be at a disadvantage and only Sam would be able to face you."

I was appalled at this assessment but Kerrass was relentless.

"The problem, or rather the benefit for killers like us, is that you hold back on the practice yard. It's even more perfect because you don't know that you're doing it which is why people aren't as wary around you and challenging you on the practice yard.

"Don't get me wrong. You are not so advanced that you can walk around and expect to take on all comers. You will never beat someone like Sir Rickard who is a lot like you in this respect except that he was fighting for his survival since the day that he was born.

"The perfect fighter has three things. The first is a talent for combat, a talent for violence. They can pick up any weapon and be reasonably skilled with it in a short while. But this is by far the least important quality of the perfect fighter as it promotes overconfidence and as a quality, it perishes with age. Sooner or later, it can be defeated by the man that knows the counters to your favourite move if you depend on the talent for violence. Or the person that is clever enough to avoid your blows which leads me on to the second thing.

"The second thing is that they have the right kind of mind for it. Weaponscraft is an easy thing to learn, for example, the pointy end goes in the other man, but try that against a master and you would struggle. That's where the thing about people saying that high level fights are a contest of mind and will rather than skill comes from.

"The last thing is that they have a thirst for it. Not a thirst for violence but a desire to be better. A desire to train and learn how to use these weapons.

"After everything else, the rest of it is experience.

"What _you_ have." He jabbed a finger at me. "Is the second and third parts of that. Most people have one or two parts of it. You have the analytical mind for it. For example, when you fought that knight in the throne-room of Angral, you saw the gap in the man's guard and armour and simply stabbed forward. You even wrote it yourself when you fought your cousin in the woods near Oxenfurt, you wrote "That you were already planning his death," until we diverted you from that plan. You have the brain.

"You also have the thirst. That thirst is that you have needed those skills to survive. It wasn't natural to you and we had to instil that...that _need_ into your character. But you have it now. You are the one that reminds me to train and you're always hunting out new people to train against and to learn new tricks with your spear. You stood up to Letho until you properly understood what he was teaching you. How many people would have had the balls to do that? Not many."

He shook his head.

"Your brother has all three of those things although, by his own admission, he is losing his desire to learn. He resents the constant need to train. I will tell you what I told him. If he stops training to better himself as he desires then he will start to see an erosion of his skill in about a year, eighteen months at most.

"Rickard has all three. Kristoff has the first only and depends on his armour and his experience to carry the day. Danzig has the first two but his mind is often on other things."

He shook his head, as though dislodging a thought from his brain.

"But I'm going off on one.

"You have the last two, but after those three things. It comes down to experience and you already have more experience of fighting than most people."

"Oh come on Kerrass. There have been three wars in living memory."

"Yes, but those weren't fights. Those were battles where it's often decided in the deployment, the training, the equipment and the morale of the thing. I'm talking about fighting. Down, in the dirt, fighting for survival."

He sighed.

"And I gave you that. I made you do that.

"Now you have an extra option when you are confronted with a...heh...when you're confronted with a confrontation." He started counting off his fingers. "You used to have, tell a joke to diffuse the situation, make a reasoned argument to sway the other person to your point of view, leave the site of the confrontation, admit defeat." His hand lowered. "But now you have a fifth which is to begin violence. This is made worse by the fact that in travelling with me you have seen, over and over again that violence gets the best results and is, often, the best choice.

"So now, you default to violence as your first response. You get angry, you're in a confrontation, and then...violence.

"I did that to you and for that I am eternally sorry. I am so sorry."

I had nothing to say to that. What does one say?"

"You remember when we were coming out of Toussaint?" he asked. "That conversation that we had on the tower when I explained why I was so angry at you. I told you that you were responsible for the best part of me. You had taught me that we _needed_ to help people. Well, as it turns out, I, in turn, am responsible for the worst part of you. I have taught you to be violent. But you would not have survived without it."

I had nothing to say to that either.

"But what I _can_ say," he said after a while. "Is that I recognise the rest of what you're going through."

"Oh?" I felt the first flutterings of hope, somewhere deep in my chest.

"Yes. I once told you about the trial of Death?"

I struggled to remember for a moment before it came to me.

"We were in a brothel when you told me about that."

"Yes, and I was drunk and you were in a sexual daze. On balance, I probably shouldn't have told you about it as it really is one of the Witcher's secrets that we don't talk to other people about. But still... You are going through your own version of the trial of death."

"You said that it was something that only Witchers go through."

"Which is correct. I'm not telling you that you are a Witcher, far from it. I think it's more likely that this has come about because of the accident of your circumstances."

He grinned at my confusion. To my credit, I was tired and grumpy. "Don't worry," he told me, "I will explain.

"You have surrounded yourself with death. When you first joined me on the path, that death was the means to an end. You were using the death and the hunts to gain knowledge which you then published. It was a means to an end and you could leave the journey at any time that you wanted to.

"But now?

"You are surrounded by death and it is now the point of the exercise rather than being the means to an end. Your desired end, at the moment, is to find your sister or the people that took her. That end will also be violent, or more precisely, you intend it to be violent and result in the death of your enemies. The pursuit of the knowledge is no longer the desired goal but is now a by-product of what you are doing.

"So you are going for death. You have become deadly, your friends are equally, if not more, deadly. You leave death behind you and in front of you there is only death. And by your own admission, you cannot leave this path. The desire to find out what happened to your sister is your stick that drives you and your carrot that draws you on and you cannot ignore it.

"All around you there is death and you are becoming fascinated with it. But you are also human and do not have the benefit...heh...or curse of Witcher training which means that this is all coming to a head sooner than you are strictly comfortable with as you don't have the defences against it.

"You are becoming addicted to the adrenaline of combat. You glory in being deadlier than your opponent. This is all signs of the Trial of Death. Before long you will start to become fascinated by your own death. When it will come, how it will come and what will that lead to. Have you started imagining what your funeral will look like yet?"

I said nothing.

"As I thought." Kerrass said softly. "You are beginning your dance with death which ends in deaths final embrace."

"You make it sound so hopeful." I tried for a joke.

"Don't cheapen this Freddie." He almost snapped.

"I thought you said that only Witchers go through this."

"In most cases that would be true, and when I told you about the trial of death, I thought it was true, but what you describe is so close to the things that I was feeling when I went through the trial of death that it may as well be the thing. The reason that I thought that only Witchers can go through the trial of death is that, at the end of the day, everyone else can lead the paths that they are on.

"But now you can't. Can you?"

It was not a question so much as a statement but I thought I detected that he was hoping that I could answer in the positive.

I thought about it for a moment. Moving the idea around in my head. The trial of Death. I remember being appalled at what Kerrass was talking about. Appalled at the prospect that he described, that a person would have to go through that.

Was he right?

Some of the things that he had talked about were far closer to the bone than I had previously thought possible. I was becoming addicted to that feeling that occurs in combat. That moment where the fear melts away and it's between me and the person that I'm facing. The impact of weapon on weapon and that glorious exultation when I realise that I would live for another day.

That I would live to _fight_ another day.

I was living for the fight now. Kerrass was right. I was living, to find the people that had taken Francesca from us and to slay them. I was familiar with the philosophical danger of that though which was the question of what would happen if I didn't find Francesca, or what would happen if I _did_ find Francesca. Would I be satisfied with that or would I look for the next fight and the next fight?

I could see the slippery slope stretch out ahead of me and I wondered if it was already too late for me. Then I thought about Ariadne and wondered if she would still love me despite all that. I had time enough to register that thought before I felt panic flutter in my chest and the first tendrils of fear beginning to claw at my throat. I didn't want to die like that. I wanted to live. I wanted to marry Ariadne and live with her. I wanted to watch the sunrise with her and make love to her and with her. I wanted to see if it was true what she said about her "erogenous zones being similar enough to humanities to give and receive pleasure." I was looking forward to that. I wanted to see what sounds she would make when she lost control. If I could make her lose control.

But I couldn't do that if I went down this path. Would she even love me if I was as self-destructive as all of that.

But I couldn't leave the path that I had set for myself. I had tried this before. I had tried thinking about turning aside from my mission and returning home and the very thought had made me physically ill.

"What did you say?" Kerrass asked me.

"What?"

"You said something."

"Did I?"

"You said. "Halp me." Or I think that's what you said."

It was so ridiculous that I laughed and that laughter brought the tears again. But for some reason these tears felt healthier than the others. I wept for myself and I wept for Francesca and the loss of innocence. I had realised that I was looking at the world differently now. I wasn't looking for new things that might surprise me or educate me into some new kind of insight into the way the world works. I was looking for things that might kill me or that I might have to kill. And I wept for that lost sense of wonder.

"Help me." I said after a while. "What do I do?"

"If I were you?"

I nodded.

"Are you kidding." He grinned nastily. "If I were you I would drop everything and run, probably without thinking about it enough to get my horse. I would run to the nearest bar and drink it. Then I would go to the local alchemist where I would show them a sack and tell them to fill it with all kinds of recreational herbs including several aphrodisiacs and ways to make a man last longer before I would march into a local brothel and make use of as many of the women as could handle me."

He mused for a moment.

"Possible a bit different in your case. You would head off to pick up Ariadne and show that woman how much you love her. You know, if our situations were reversed."

His smile faded a little, "But I'm not am I."

He sighed again and reached into his own bag and brought out another of those bottles of strong apple brandy that he likes so much.

"I can't advise you on this Freddie, I'm sorry but I just can't. I can tell you how I did it and you can form your own determinations from that."

I nodded. "That's better than nothing."

"I found a small piece. Just a small thing that I could build on. A foundation stone that I could take forward. A small thing to look forward to. In my case it was the bite of a fresh apple. You know the kind that makes your mouth twist with the almost sour sweetness of it. So juicy that it almost spits in your eye when you bite into it. I became obsessed with finding an apple like that until I finally bought one off a merchant who looked at me in bemusement as I stood in front of his stall and ate the thing in several mouthfuls. I remember him laughing as I asked him in a small voice as to whether or not he had another one and overcharged me for that one which I took my time over.

"Why do you think I insist that we go out and get drunk after several days worth of work and sleeping in ditches and eating shit food and wallowing in filth where people talk down to us and we're surrounded by rudeness and lies. I take us to a place where we can get clean, enjoy good food and be surrounded by beauty. So, I need to pay for the privilege of being loved but, I tell you, that I don't begrudge that money for the way that they make me feel."

I carefully did not point out to him that there was a person out there that would love him without being paid for it. I decided that Kerrass was not receptive to that right now. He was trying to help me and I thought it was rude if I had tried to distract him from that.

"So that's what you need to do Freddie." Kerrass went on. Seemingly oblivious to the direction that my thoughts had taken. "Find the small things that make you smile away from the combat. The things that are different from your job, or your self imposed task. You have something long term to look forward to which is to marry a woman that loves you. But now you need something small that has nothing to do with combat, fighting, righting wrongs or educating the masses. You used to get excited about the small pieces of trivia that you would learn on the road. Can you pick that up again?

"I don't need an answer for now Freddie, Just think about it.

"Pick a drink, pick an item of food. Look at the scenery that we travel through. Enjoy the companionship of friends. Feed your horse an apple, watch the sunrise or the sunset and smell the summer rains and the crisp mountain air.

"This is not easy. I won't lie to you and tell you that it is. I struggled with it for a long time but that's how I climbed out of that hole the first time I found myself in it. You also need to vary your techniques, but it can be done.

"But I have one more thing to say."

I felt drained. Enormously tired and wrung out. "What's that?"

"You were worried by this Freddie. You were concerned by your shifting attitude and you didn't like your hunger for violence or revel in your rage. If you had, this conversation would have been very different and would have happened a long time ago whether you were ready for it or not. You can be proud of yourself Freddie and if you can't do that, then you should know that you don't need to be ashamed."

I nodded and the two of us sat there, staring alternately into the fire and out into the deepening gloom while passing the bottle of apple brandy between us. We put the pot back on the fire and ate.

"Wow Kerrass," I said after a while. "Why so wise?"

He smirked. "Don't get too impressed. That's not a long way away from the conversation that I had with an elder Witcher when I was in a similar state. I've been thinking about some of that for a while."

I nodded.

"So," Kerrass said after we had stacked the dirty pots and leant back against the stone, "Speaking of the small pleasures in life. Is it time to call them in?"

I chuckled a bit. "Don't you want to do it?"

"Nah," Kerrass smirked. "It'll be funnier if you do it."

"Well, as you insist." I got up and leaned out into the night.

"COME OUT YOU NOISY BASTARDS." I yelled into the night. "I can hear you breathing."

There was a delay of a couple of minutes before Sir Rickard stepped out from behind a large tree a short distance away looking sheepish. He put his hands to his mouth and blew making a bird call.

"You can't blame me for following you." He told us as the other Bastards came out from behind the trees. "Your sister ordered us to escort you everywhere you went and I'm more scared of her than I am of you."

He walked into our little enclosure and sat on the stool that Kerrass vacated for him before accepting the bottle of apple brandy from me.

"You heard us?" A combination of shame and scepticism in his voice.

"To be fair," I said. "Kerrass saw you the day we departed. It took me until the day after."

Rickard nodded muttering something about getting soft.

"So," he said after a while as I could hear the Skelligan Sergeant ordering a new deployment of sentries. "What were you talking about?

He looked really cross when Kerrass and I started laughing.

(A/N: And to think I worried that that conversation wouldn't take up an entire chapter.)

(Further A/N: In comparison to the chapter regarding Father Gardan, this chapter regarding Freddie's mental state has been coming for a while. Having said a lot about this kind of thing after Gardan's chapter, I'm not going to go over old ground here. Just to say that if you need to talk to someone about any of the stuff discussed in this chapter, them please feel free to get in touch.)


	73. Chapter 73

(Warning: Discussion of domestic abuse)

As some of you may know, I am doing my best to shift the way I'm thinking back to an earlier version of myself. This isn't being done maliciously but I've realised that I've changed over the years that I've been following Kerrass around, and now he follows me, and I don't like all of the changes that this has brought about. So I have decided that I need to go back to that earlier form of myself.

Don't get me wrong. Many of the changes that have been brought about are for the positive. I like to think that I have lost a lot of my trained and learned arrogance that being a nobleman's son teaches. I like to think that I understand the villagers, merchants, townsfolk and craftsmen that much better than I did when I set out. I look back on interactions that I had with some of the castle staff and the locals of Oxenfurt town and I wince in memory of my naivete.

Obviously there is the thing that I am most grateful for which is the opportunity to meet and fall in love with a wonderful woman who challenges me to improve in every way. So that I can be the best version of myself in order to reward her trust and decision to choose me over the other decisions that she could make.

Also there is the thoughts of the knowledge that I have gained. The prestige that I have attained as well as the skills and experience of the world that has helped me, in my own small way, to make the world a better place. Both on the micro scale with helping my family to root out a years old evil in our midst, but also on a world wide scale. Everything that I can do to help lift the load on the Empress' shoulders is a good deed. I can also be proud of waking up the Sleeping Beauty of legend as well as waking up the young lady that that legend refers to.

In my own way, I can be proud of the fact that I have informed, even a little bit, the people in the world around me as to how it all really works.

I am pleased and proud about these two things.

What I am not pleased about is my worsening worlds view. The increasing bitterness that I have felt that the world is the way that it is. My anger and growing disdain for the world. Whereas before, when I came across ignorance I would try to argue my point. To shift that person's understanding of the world, even a little bit and I could feel that I had left the world a little brighter than the one that I had found.

Now, I simply decide that the person cannot be helped. That they are ignorant or stupid and that they will always be that way. There are some cases where this is true. An old person is going to struggle to get over prejudices that they have held for decades, that were taught to them when they were children. But the same can't be said for all.

I must relearn this behaviour. I must relearn how to change people's minds by both showing them a better way, but also by giving them a better way. It is not enough to write something down in my own travel journals and hope that they will reach the people there. I must show them the better way, in my acts and deeds as well as in my written word.

To that end, I am reminding myself about my original mission statement. That statement being that I intended to teach the world about the life of a Witcher so that they wouldn't be lost. The reasons that they do things, even if they won't tell me the actual methods. I wanted to show people what it was like to be a Witcher. To walk the path of a Witcher and to live in the world as a Witcher. To make their living as a Witcher and to behave like a Witcher. Things did shift, early on, into also talking about some of the things that Witchers have to deal with on a daily basis. But I didn't feel as though that was too far a diversion as I was still talking about Witchers and so I felt that this was allowed. The way that this used to work was that I would pick out stories from our travels that would address different aspects of what it was like to be a Witcher and how that worked out in the real world.

I have lost sight of that somewhere. Although I have still been teaching people about the world in which they live in, I have drifted off topic and have ended up simply recording what is going on around my person.

What _I_ have been doing and although my readers tell me that this is also something that they want to hear about. To hear about how _I_ survive on the road. It is not my mission statement.

So, I have decided that I need to go back to talking about the Witcher a little bit more. To that end. I offer this first in a series of brief discussions. I promise that I will return to our travels and the results of Kerrass' and my search for the cultists that created the so-called Hounds of Kreve later in this piece. I offer it as more a talking point at the beginning of each chapter.

What is the most important tool in a Witcher's arsenal?

I also promise that this topic of conversation will also be relevant.

This is a question that I've been thinking about recently. Think about a Witcher. I've described Kerrass and his various tools in some detail now along with the way that he uses them on the various hunts and activities that he gets up to and I've been thinking about which ones are most important to him. Thinking about which one is the most important. Without which Kerrass and the rest of his people, the rest of his fellows, would be utterly useless. Which one is the most important and the most useful? The one that he uses the most above all other tools.

It is not an easy question to answer. If you can imagine a Witcher in your mind, they almost seem to be a collection of tricks, of techniques and equipment that makes them uniquely suitable to being able to do their jobs. They were created this way of course and in more recent times, they have been trained in these pieces of equipment and skills. These _tools_ of their trade.

To clarify, while thinking about my question, I shall compare a Witcher to a blacksmith. What tools does a blacksmith have that he uses. And which one is indispensable. The one thing that without which, you can't really call yourself a blacksmith. Is it the anvil? The hammer? The fire? The buckets of liquid, clean water, salt water and oil respectively for the purposes of quenching. Is it the expertise, the ability to trade with the people that might require your services? Some people might argue that the most important part of the blacksmith's trade is the strength of arm so that they can bring the proper application of force onto the metal in question.

Now compare this list of qualities to the Witcher and the list of things that he carries with him. I will start with the most obvious pieces of equipment. The things that probably leap into mind the first time that you consider this question. I will start with his swords.

A steel sword, made from iron. Some stories claim that the steel sword is forged from star iron, the kinds of things that fall from the sky but I've spoken to Kerrass about that and he laughed at the prospect.

"A sword forged from star-Iron?" He chuckled. "Preposterous. The sheer amounts required to forge such a weapon would render it absolutely impossible. For a start, it would take a man a lifetime to be able to track all of it down to properly forge a sword out of it and secondly, should the iron be found, then it would be almost impossibly heavy to lift."

"But the legends say..."

"Why do people write the legends Freddie? Consider that."

I remember he sighed. This conversation happened relatively early in our acquaintanceship.

"You have to remember that Witcher's are in it to earn the money that is required for their own keep. Food and drink is more important then most other considerations. So what you have to do is to ask yourself, how do we get the villagers or the nobles to hire us. Why us over some kind of wandering band of mercenaries? Why us and not trying to get your own soldiers to do the job, or getting a group of townsfolk together to poison a sheep in the hope that the monster falls for the trap and gets sick enough that a rake will be able to pierce the things hide?"

"Because a professional like you is more likely to get the job done."

"True, but the argument is flawed from their perspective. First you have to get the noble to hire you. Many of the mercenary companies that are hired to kill the monsters are much cheaper than a Witcher and much easier to understand. Alsom their own soldiers and the mercenaries could also be considered professionals as well, regardless of their competence. So what we have to do is we have to _sell_ ourselves to the people that we deal with. We have to put across the idea that we know more than our competitors do."

"Which you do."

"Naturally. But you also have to give the client a sense that they are getting what they are paying for. For the vast majority of the villages that we have dealt with together, you don't need to bother that much on the grounds that those self-same villagers are far too grateful for any kind of help that they will take what they can get. Witcher's are less likely to rape all the women and steal all the food than a wandering band of mercenaries after all. But to the discerning nobleman. They have to feel as though they are getting something special. Something...otherworldly."

"Oh...I see."

"Really?"

"I think so. A story is spread about the mysticism of the swords of a Witcher. Meaning that the noble thinks he's hiring something special."

"While also providing a suitable story to make people less keen to stealing the swords and making off with them if they think that they are enchanted and therefore cursed."

"So what are they made out of?"

"Steel and silver." He answered quickly and with scorn. "How would I know? Do I look like a blacksmith? I spent all of my early years learning how to be a Witcher. I didn't have time to learn about sword smithing."

He did give me some more information over time. Everyone knows about the two swords of a Witcher. The works of Dandelion the bard have made this famous. One sword is steel and the other of silver. The first for men and the second for monsters with the response of every Witcher ever on the subject resulting in being told that both swords are for monsters.

When a Witcher needs to have a sword replaced from the original one that he is given, he goes to the best smith that he can find and has one made to his requirements. The length, grip, weight, width and everything are made to the Witcher's exacting specifications. If the smith claims to be unable to do this then the Witcher thanks him for his time and moves on. Mostly this is only to do with the steel sword as for reasons of the world at large, it is the steel sword that see the most use.

That says something about the world I suspect but I leave it to the reader to theorise as to what that actually says.

Contrary to what Kerrass said. Meteorite Iron is occasionally used as _part_ of the forging process but nearly always as an alloy forming part of the greater sword. This _does_ occasionally provide the sword with strange, almost supernatural qualities but this is just as likely to be that the sword holds an edge a bit better than normal swords or that it is always slightly warm to the touch in spite of local climate rather than it glowing in the dark when monsters are near. A catastrophically useless benefit if you ask me. What if you're trying to sneak up on the monster in question and they spy this glowing sword in the darkness?

The silver sword is much harder to make but this is very rarely a problem. Generally ,the only time it comes up is when a Witcher is unlucky enough to have his sword stolen whether by nefarious or under the auspices of so called "Law and order". From there it is actually easier to find a replacement for a Witcher's silver sword than it is to have a new one made.

Apparently this is because there is an occasional fashion to carry silver swords. Normally occurring whenever The bard publishes a new epic on the subject of the White Wolf of Rivia. Also those noble orders of knights that take it upon themselves to try and tackle the monsters of the continent will sometimes equip themselves with silver blades in order to help them to this purpose.

The quality of these blades, for obvious reasons, is rather variable and although it might be expedient to simply get a replacement blade, it is often better to make the effort to hunt down a dwarven or gnomish smith to have a proper one made according to your specifications.

So we're talking about the weapons of a Witcher. Those things that he uses to directly slay the monsters that he is hired to destroy.

But are they indispensable?

Ooh, I should also say that I'm counting the crossbow that some Witchers carry as part of this category of our discussion. As Kerrass has told me, traditionally it's only been the Cat and the Bear schools of Witchers that have trained their students in the study of the crossbow but since then, many of the other Witchers have started to see the practical things that a crossbow can provide. They all, including the feline Witchers and the bear Witcher that I have met, agree that a crossbow is not something that can be depended on but people are increasingly beginning to insist that it is an important tool.

But let's return to the central question. Are they indispensable. Is a Witcher, still able to be a Witcher if you take his weapons off him? I'm using the use of the term "Witcher" to mean the profession of being a Witcher for the purposes of this debate.

My argument here is that the weapons are not indispensable. That a Witcher can still do his job without his weapons. Without those weapons, a Witcher can still use the signs of which I have spoken. A monster can still be blasted with Air, onto a spike or out of the air. The creature can still be burnt at the hands of a shower of sparks while an assailant can be confused or escaped from while the blows of the enemy, no matter the form of that enemy, can be turned aside with the golden shield that those signs can generate. I have also seen Witchers being consulted on the proper methods of dealing with infestations. I've seen advice given. I've seen Kerrass aid in criminal investigations when there has been the suspicions of monster or magical effects there and I've also seen Kerrass dismiss spectres and other ghostly figures by the use of rituals. Curses broken where possible as well, all without swords (or crossbows) being used.

If anything, in certain situations, Kerrass has expressed a conviction that the used of swords would actually be a failure in certain situations. That they are the last possible recourse for what was happening and only used in the last resort when it made the difference between saving his own life or the lives of others or lifting the curse.

So I will argue that the weapons of a Witcher are not essential to the being of being a Witcher.

I will come back to this subject at a future date, I promise.

We actually spent a couple of days around the rock, camping in that little enclosure. I woke up the morning after that first night with my body being as stiff as a plank of wood and I doubt that I could have gone much further that day anyway. I made another decision then which was to stop dancing round the subject and to start thinking of Sir Rickard as a friend. He had been moving that way in my mind anyway but I had just been a little hesitant to take that leap into trusting him with my deeper inner workings of my mind.

But I needed to take into account what Kerrass and I had discussed about my growing isolation and I decided that one of the things that I needed to start changing was that I needed to make more friends. He was obviously extremely curious anyway about what Kerrass and I had been talking about for so long the previous evening and so I ran the entire thing past him.

He clapped me on the shoulder and squeezed my arm firmly in support and an expression that I took for sympathy. His eyes searched my face for a moment before he turned away.

"Well, what I think we should do," he began. "Is to get you laid. A good hard shag, that's what you need. Or alternatively. To get so utterly, perplexingly drunk that crawling is too much like hard work. Where all you can do is locate the ground and hold on for dear life unless you might fall off. That's what you need to do."

"To get drunk."

"Abso-fucking-lutely. Alcoholism. It's good for what ails you." He grinned at me as though he had just given me the most divine wisdom. The type that is given to you by a hermit that sits on top of the mountain.

You know the one. The one that was chosen by the previous hermit to be his successor. That one.

"But still, it sucks." He said after a while.

"What do you think I should do?"

"Seriously?"

"Seriously."

He stared ou at the trees for a moment before answering.

"I'm the wrong person to ask." He said. "I never knew my father but for a while my mother took up with a man that I decided _might_ have been my father. I was four so you have to understand that the reason I liked this guy was because he was a tough man who wouldn't take any shit from anyone without punching them in the face. He would come round to visit mother and she was always, always happy to see him. I mean that genuinely. She would be _happy_ to see him which meant that he wasn't one of her normal marks which she would always greet with this kind of fixed expression of forced delight. It was all in the eyes you see. She liked this man. I suspect that she even loved him."

He scratched at his stubble.

"She would always send me into another room of course. Can't have the baby watching while you got your brains fucked out by a stranger can we? That would be immoral."

There was a certain savagery to his voice.

"I remember looking up to that man. I taught myself to walk like him, to talk like him and to act like him. I even got him to teach me to fight and show me some tricks with the knife that he always carried. I still use some of them on the battlefield and you can still see echoes of him in my character if you know where to look."

He hawked and spat, an impressive line of sputum that splattered on a nearby rock.

"Turns out that the bastard had a violent temper. His method of getting rid of _his_ temper tantrums was to beat on my mother. It got worse and worse over the years as he realised that my mother loved him like the fool that she was and so she put up with him rather than taking one of her, many, knives that she would have readily used on any other punter that might have tried such a thing."

"What happened?"

"I found out." He shrugged. "I was getting bigger and meaner myself by that point and had learnt how to lift a latch. I was, eight I think when I had a dagger of my own. Given to my by that splatter of diseased Prick Dribble as it happens. One day when it happened and I could hear the sounds of blows landing I lifted the latch and saw what he was doing. So I stabbed him with my dagger."

He grinned briefly at the memory.

"I didn't know what I was doing though, not really and all I did was to hurt him badly. Then my beloved mother came after _me_ with a knife. He'd rebroken her nose, her body was covered in bruises and her eye was blackening and she came at _me_ with a kitchen knife."

"Fucking hell Rickard."

He shrugged. "I ran away and never went back. Still furious with both of them. My mother and that bastard. I did hear that he'd finally gone too far and choked the life out of the stupid bitch at one point."

He chose that moment to pick his nose a bit and flick whatever he found out into the shrubbery.

"This was a couple of years later. There was a while there after that, where I saw his face in the face of every belligerent drunk that I fought, every watchman, every guard and every arrogant, superior bastard that thought he could tell me what to do and force me to do something that I didn't want. I still see that face sometimes."

For a moment, looking at him as his voice turned savage while he described his mother and his fury at the way that she had behaved. The savagery with which he spoke was more eloquent than the actual words that he said and I thought, just for a moment, that I could see the horribly wounded child that lurked just beneath the surface.

For that moment, my trials and problems seemed to be so insignificant next to what this man had gone through that I felt guilty for having brought them up and made a huge deal out of it all.

"How did you deal with it?"

He grinned, all signs of hurt and anger left him and he was back to being the genial, charming and funny man that I had travelled with.

"I joined the army."

He laughed at his own joke and I suspected that it was an often used punchline that he used when talking with his friends.

"Seriously though." He said after his own mirth had died down a little. "I've taken out my anger on a lot of bastards over the years. Small people out on the battlefield that utterly deserve it mostly. But also...why do you think I hate rapists so much?"

I didn't say anything. Thinking it better that I just let him speak.

"The truth of the matter is that when I see a woman raped, I see my mother in the face of the woman and the bastard that killed her in the face of the rapist. When I can, I find the families of the woman and offer them, or the woman if she is able, the chance to take their revenge. If I can't then I take their revenge for them. I figure that it's the least I could do on their behalf."

He grinned at me again. "Not for nothing. But I suggest that you find a different way to express your rage than the one that I found."

"I don't think I would do well in the army." I said after some thought.

"Oh, I don't know, we could always use a decent quartermaster." He grinned and seemed disappointed that I didn't rise to the bait. As it turns out, being referred to as a Quartermanster is considered an insult in certain parts of the armed forces.

We were quiet for a while.

"Also, not for nothing." He said suddenly. "But have you talked to your intended about this?"

"No." I shuddered. "I don't want to trouble her with it."

He stared at me for a long time.

"I read your accounts too you know." He said. "You know that the biggest problem that the two of you had, according to your own accounts, is when you didn't talk to her. Just a thought."

He was right, and I knew it.

"I...I'm ashamed." I admitted. It took a great deal of effort to say those two words.

"Don't be." He said, more kindly than I deserved. "It's what you do with your feelings that have the grounds to make you ashamed."

He left shortly after that to go and see to the disposition of the sentries. He was taking the opportunity to run some drills including having the Sergeant take a group of men up the mountain for some "High altitude training" whatever that means. Kerrass was off doing whatever it was that Kerrass does when he's not hanging around making my life more awkward and so I returned to the cave and sat for a small while staring at the fire. I don't think that I was there for too long before I shook myself, pulled a blanket around my shoulders and pulled the cloak on on top of that. I was only wearing my shirt and trews and still had my boots on. The problem was that I was feeling the cold rather keenly.

But I pushed back out into the cool air. Not unusually there was the feeling of dampness in the air and I suspected that it would rain in a not short amount of time.

But Rickard was right. I chose a direction and I walked for a while until I found a small patch of ground under the spreading eaves of one of the larger trees in the local area. The ground was nice and dry and a cushion of woodland detritus provided a softish cushion that was still uncomfortable enough that I wouldn't fall asleep but soft enough that I could sit there for a while and be undisturbed. I leant back against the tree and took out the flame amulet that Ariadne had given me, not even a year ago. It felt as though it was part of my body by this point that I almost had to think about it to remember that it was there.

But I took it out and held it out before my eyes sot that the weak sun light could shine through it. Beams of red light shot through the red jewel and I stared into the brightness.

I wasn't looking forward to this bit. I took a deep breath and called out.

"Ariadne?"

I had a feeling, the sense of heavy paper and leather bound volumes as well as the very distinct odour of the chemical that they treat old manuscripts with in order to preserve them and the sharp, nose-stabbing scent of ink. There was something missing though and I decided that it was the smell of dust and unwashed student that was missing from the overall scent.

She was in a library.

Communicating through my pendant was always a little odd. I always had the strangest feeling that she was right next to me or just behind me, as though I could reach out and touch her. I could almost smell her, but at the same time there is this sense of incredible distance which leaves you with the overall impression that she is both nearby and at the same time, incredibly far away. At first, the sensation left me feeling nauseous and dizzy and we could only communicate in short bursts. It was another one of those instances where I always tried my best to keep my eyes open. When I had first used the thing I had taken it into my brain to close my eyes as though that might be better in the long run.

It was not.

"Betrothed?" She answered. She was trying out various different terms of address in an effort to try and decide what she wanted to call me. She had admitted that she was looking for a term of endearment that made her feel warm and fuzzy inside. Something that she could say, a small name that was between the two of us. Like so many things though, she had set about the task of finding this endearment with the focus and method of a scientist.

Being called "Betrothed" wasn't too bad on the list of things that she had called me. "Future sex partner," and the variations on that term were a little excruciating while being referred to as "Pet," was a little worrying.

Fortunately she herself decided that she didn't like that particular term and moved on quickly.

"You know that soon that name will be redundant." I commented, absently putting off the moment of conversation for as long as possible.

"I know," she answered primly. I got the sense that she was writing something down and had marked her place in another book. "But I thought I would get as much use out of the term as possible while it is still accurate."

"I don't know," I commented. "It's a bit...clinical don't you think?"

"Why? It's a statement of fact along with the fact that only _I_ can call you that. Doesn't that lend it a little bit more...Ooomph?"

"I'm not sure I like it."

"I see."

Again that sense of movement as she pulled over a notepad and crossed something out. "I shall endeavour to find something else to call you."

"Why not just call me Freddie?"

"You don't like it." she stated matter of factly.

"That's true, but everyone calls me that."

"That's kind of the point though is it not? Something that _I_ call you that no-one else can."

"That doesn't mean that you can't call me Freddie."

I could almost hear her thinking. "Yes, but I want to call you something that you like. I don't want you squirming with embarrassment every time I call your name over a crowded banquet hall or over a drawing room when I'm calling for your attention. I've also been experimenting and I'm not sure I can make "Freddie" sound erotic or sexual in any way."

I swallowed. "I see."

"And "Frederick" sounds so formal all the time. I suspect that..." she consulted her notebook. "Yes, I have it down here for those times when I'm feeling irate with you or to attract your attention to something that I find displeasing."

"Wait, are you looking for a different name for all occasions?"

"Isn't that how it's done?" It was always endearing how much confusion there was in her voice when she was trying to get to grips with a concept. "Anyway. What did you want to talk about." She made a small note on the piece of paper immediately beneath her fingers before pushing it away and producing yet another notebook.

"I ummm. Saying that I "want" to talk about this is a bit of an exaggeration."

"I see." There was no emotion in her voice at all.

"But Kerrass and Sir Rickard both tell me that I should talk to you about it."

"Go on."

In slow words, I started to talk to her about the things that had happened since we last spoke. Which I was astonished had been long enough ago that I had to tell her about the defence of the village of the cave.

"Fascinating," she said with a small amount of relish.

"Wait." I said, "Are you making notes?"

"No," I got a feeling of sheepish guilt from the link between us. As though she was a young child that had been caught looking at erotic illustrations in their parents bed chamber or having been caught watching a couple fornicating. I got the sense ( I know that this is a repeated phrase but that's how this works. I don't see what she's doing, or hear it. I get the "sense" of the thing. Of her surroundings and her body language. A bit of her mood and I can hear her speaking. But what I'm actually doing is "getting the sense" of these things that she is doing.) that she was hurriedly pulling other books and sheaves of notes over the book that was in front of her.

"Ariadne," I did my best to make my voice sound dire and portentous.

"Well, mayyyybeeeee." She was trying to make me laugh and if I had been in a better mood, she would have succeeded. Certainly it makes me laugh now whenever I hear someone else saying the word so if we see each other in a social context and I suddenly come out in fits of giggles then this is why.

There was a long pause.

"Uh...hello?"

"Hello fiance?"

I breathed out a sigh of relief. "I thought you'd gone."

"Why would I?" She sounded surprised.

"I don't know." I answered. I felt the tears at the back of my throat again. They were a constant presence now, never far from my mind and it felt like a constant effort to keep them down or to keep them from showing in my voice.

I could almost sense her surprise followed by her almost exasperation."

"Have I made you angry?" I asked her in a small voice, feeling as though I was about twelve.

"Angry?" She swore for a little while in a language that I didn't recognise and doubted that, even if I knew it, I would struggle to form the words. "Why would I be angry?"

"For the weakness of humans."

She sighed again. "No. I'm not angry with you. You are human. Anger is one of the most basic human emotions and, let's be fair to you, you have every right to be angry. You should also consider the possibility that the way you are feeling at the moment is due to the leftover toxins in your blood from when these "Hound creatures" attacked you.

"Such mind altering substances affect different people in different ways and it might be possible that it has upset your brain chemistry in such a way as to make you more susceptible to depression." She took a moment to take herself in hand. "Sorry, I went a bit clinical there didn't I."

"A little," I admitted, "But it's not an unfair comment. I would counter with saying both that the others weren't affected in this way. But also that these feelings are not new to me. They certainly existed before these attacks and, I suspect and Kerrass confirms, that they have been around for a lot longer."

"Yes, but it may be that these toxins have brought these feelings forward much further than you were used to and before you were entirely ready for them. On the other hand, it is also possible that this gives you an opportunity to head these feelings off and learn how to deal with them before they become too destructive."

"They're pretty destructive now. They've rendered me useless. A shaking mewling thing that shivers under the blanket like a jellied eel."

"Ah, but it hasn't sent you into murderous rage though has it?"

"That's true,"

"You may even see this as a positive thing."

I shuddered.

"I'm not sure that I'm entirely ready to call this a positive experience."

"But now you know that it's a problem, you can take them into account and make sure that they don't overwhelm you in the future. It will take work, I have no doubt and you should be aware of that."

"I am, but why were you frustrated?"

"I was more frustrated because I didn't know what to say."

"You're doing fine." I told her.

"Really? How marvellous." She said happily. "It does take some practice though, comforting humans and I need to put the work in otherwise it's a skill that I worry that I will lose."

"Also," I commented. "You won't be able to play the part of clueless vampire for too long. It's going to get repetitive sooner or later."

"I know, but if it works for now then I intend to use it for as long as I can manage." I could sense a toothy grin before she subsided. "Do you want me to come to you?"

"Flame yes." She was already out of her seat and gathering things up. "But, I kind of need to start building myself back up. If I see you, I might just go to pieces."

She had settled back down. "You know that going to pieces is not necessarily a bad thing."

"I do. But right now I feel that that's not what I need to do."

"Then I shall stay here. But you are aware that I am here should you need to talk."

"I know. So I haven't driven you away?"

"Whatever for?" She demanded. "For admitting that you are human? Don't be ridiculous, I am made of sterner stuff than that." She subsided a little. "I am pleased that you talked to me about it. I do think that it's something that we need to talk about and something that we will work on for the future but you will get through this. We will help you."

"Ok." I said after a long while. That small fear that I had known to be ridiculous even as I thought about it began to subside. "Maybe talk to you later?"

"I would like that." I could feel her smiling nastily. "I have wedding details to discuss with you."

"Oh goody."

She laughed before the contact broke.

I sat with my back up against the tree. I felt better. Speaking to Ariadne always managed to cheer me up although I was never quite sure how much of what she was telling me was due to her vampiric nature, the fact that she is so much more knowledgeable in certain areas than humanity is but in other ways, so much more naïve.

That riddle used to frighten me but increasingly now, I find this interesting. Like a puzzle that I am looking forward to untangling. But at the same time, I had the strangest feeling that I wanted to defer that pleasure. To wait for it and enjoy it at a later date. In the same way that you save your favourite morsel of food for the last bite on the plate. Or put off finishing a favourite book because you know that you will then need to put it down.

I was, and am, looking forward to my wedding day and the prospect of spending the rest of my life with Ariadne. I am still scared of her but I can no longer deny the way that I am drawn to her and how much I cherish those times that we spend talking. Now, I feel as though the fear that flutters in the centre of my chest is the same kind of fear just before you are about to kiss a woman for the first time. That fear and nervousness that you feel at the beginning of falling in love.

But right now, I felt that I needed to keep that feeling separate from where I was at the moment. I needed to focus on what I was doing and to think about what I was going to be doing over the next few weeks and months.

I sat there for a while, letting my thoughts drift and settle wherever they wanted to. The only concern was that I might fall asleep. A strange kind of peace was settling over me. The outside air was cool and damp but I was wrapped in a soft and dry blanket and my warm and waterproof winter cloak. As though I was a small bubble of warmth and softness that I could use to defend myself against encroaching cold. It was peaceful there in that small area and I found that I was enjoying the sensation of letting my brain become still.

It was a long time before I moved. In the end, the thing that got me out of my chair was the sight of one of the bastards hiding up in the branches of a nearby tree watching me. I don't know which one it was and it took me a long time to see him. What it did do though, was to remind me that my friends were worried about me. I was still feeling incredibly stiff in the legs though and it took me some time to lever myself to my feet and I stretched before picking my way through the undergrowth to get back to the rock where Kerrass was waiting for me.

I spent the rest of the day resting. I don't know why all of this had affected me so much but I was absolutely exhausted and I could feel my eyes wanting to close. When I sat and tried to talk with Kerrass, or with Sir Rickard then I found that I struggled to follow the track of the conversation. In the end though Kerrass told me that it was alright and that I should just admit defeat before I fell into the fire. He gestured towards my bedroll and I took the hint.

I spent the rest of the day alternating between gossiping with Rickard and Kerrasss. Rickard had a little more to say about what had actually been done back at Kalayn castle. He told me that he had possibly upset Sam quite a bit but that he _had_ taken the time to inform him that he would be taking the vast majority of his men to come and follow Kerrass and myself. Which meant that he, the Sergeant and another seven men had come with us including Dan and Harris.

Bones had been left behind to continue to help care for the sick and the wounded as a castle Surgeon although there had, apparently, nearly been another fight between Rickard and Kristoff when Rickard had questioned the competence of a group of soldiers who had ridden to a combat zone without a surgeon. He had also lost Perkins who had acted as a guide to get some of the messengers out and through to the relevent authorities which had caused _another_ fight when Rickard had asked how all of the armed men had found their way to the castle in the first place.

The excuse he had been given was that Perkins was needed to guide them out because they were concerned that there might still be agents of the Hounds in the undergrowth that might be watching everything. Rickard retorted that, of course there were still people watching everything, that we knew this, so surely speed was the best option. But Sam had put his foot down, therefore providing the moment when Sir Rickard saw his duty clearly and had left to come and follow us.

He claimed to have been a little bit conflicted before this on the grounds that he still wanted to help out at the castle but he was still under orders to help protect me. He had sent a few men to follow Kerrass and I who had left trail markers behind so that others could catch up.

He also told us that the last of the captives had died. The one that we had all held out hope for that he might have survived whatever it was that was being flushed out of his system but, either through his chemically induced madness or because of his convulsions, he had dashed his brains out against a wall.

Lovely

Father Trent had begun his missionary work in the local area, all but moving into Father Gardan's old chapel. They had left him a set of guards to keep him safe while Inquisitor Dempsey had travelled out to make contact with the church authorities being able to provide an eye-witness account as to what had happened. Not a bad idea really as the word of an Inquisitor is better on the grounds that people might take that into account a little bit more than the "simple superstitions of peasants."

Both Kerrass and I snorted at Rickard's saying of this comment. Just because the villagers and country-folk are being superstitious does not meant that there is nothing there worth investigating. The worrying trend of the church and the civil authorities only really caring about the things that go on in the big cities and more cosmopolitan areas is a worrying trend that I hope turns around fairly soon.

I came back to myself a bit later that day and took out one of my blank notebooks and scribbled some notes. Nothing that I particularly want to share, just some observations on my own mental state and some things that I mean to look into when all of this is over. I was in the process of deciding that I needed something else to look forward to when I finally left Kerrass to pursue the path by himself and return home to be married and move on to the next stage of my life.

Ongoing self-education is a process but it's not really something that would achieve much beyond my own sphere. True, educating ones' self can be a means to an end and I certainly looked forward to doing a lot of that, especially if what Ariadne had said turned out to be true and that I would end up living for a lot longer than my previously expected lifespan. But I wanted something else. Another way that I could impact the world, or help other people to impact the world in my stead.

I jotted down a few ideas about things that I intended to pursue. The list didn't include exploring marriage with Ariadne either as I took that as read.

But I wanted some things to think about. Some _other_ things to get excited about. Something else to look forward to that wasn't so tied up with finding the bastards responsible and killing them.

Then I sat with Kerrass and Rickard and we chatted. Small things, pointless things, going over things that the three of us already knew about our current enemies. Kerrass and I used Rickard as a sounding board for things that we remembered from Francesca's disappearance to see if he had any insight, which he didn't. He did do some positive reinforcement though, reminding us both of just how incompetent the Knights Errant had been and how he couldn't blame us for everything that had happened. That we had fallen for the distraction was not something that we could blame ourselves for and so that we could give ourselves the benefit of the doubt.

We also talked about the Hounds of Kreve, we bitched about Sir Kristoff and the other people back at the castle including a period of time where Rickard made me feel supremely uncomfortable by having a good old moan about Sam. It was a bit of a strange feeling for me that Sir Rickard, a man that I respect and admire for his skills, experience and the fact that he has come out as well as he has, despite his history, seems to dislike my brother. Another man that I respect and admire. Fortunately, Sir Rickard had the good grace to spot that he was making me uncomfortable and changed the subject rather abruptly.

Kerrass went out to train for a while and Rickard kept me company by playing gwent. Which he won, repeatedly.

In the end, I went to bed early with a belly full of soldiers stew. The difference being that it's full of salty meat and wild vegetables and a thick gravy and served over a weird kind of pancake that they made from a mixture of flour and water which I insisted on trying. The best that could be said for it was that it filled the belly although the stew was, indeed tasty. Then I was brought a tin mug of a soldier's evening "tea". It wasn't tea but that's what they called it. I can say that it was indeed herbal, there was too much honey in it for my taste and it was so potent that I strongly suspected that it could double as the stuff that you use to clean chain-mail.

I spent a bit more time talking with Ariadne, a sight that Sir Rickard laughingly informed me made me look as though I was utterly insane. We spent time discussing the wedding service and what was going to be expected. She told me that she had discussed the matter of a dress and that she intended to go and visit Emma in order to have something called a "fitting" which is what I understand happens when women get together to try on dresses. She also had some questions about the Cult of the Eternal fire as she was getting closer to her baptism date. The questions made me squirm uncomfortably which, I have a strong suspicion, was the intention.

I woke the following morning, stiff but with the soft feeling that my brain was starting to work again. I rose, splashed some water over my face, collected my spear and went outside where I found Kerrass already up and working his own sword exercises. He said nothing, just gesturing me into place and we got back to work.

It felt good to be doing that and I felt a little bit as though a weight had been lifted from my shoulders, or that a shadow had departed a little. I could still feel it though, hovering above me or darkening the horizon but for right now, my brain was working and I could enjoy the physical sensation of working with my spear.

I was unsurprised that my skills had slipped a little and resolved to redouble my efforts. I also worked a little to make peace with the fact that I would be training in martial skills for the rest of my life. Even should I be a noble man and surrounded by guards. I have now seen and done too much to be able to rest on my laurels and trust that other people will guarantee my safety. I begun to get to grips with the fact that I would be uncomfortable without having my dagger to hand and would always want to know where my spear was. That was a difficult moment and a thing that I am still, at the time of writing, coming to terms with. We worked for the majority of that day, joined by Sir Rickard and Taylor. Watching Taylor and Kerrass fight was a spectacle that I won't soon forget.

That moment of surprise when Kerrass realised that he needed to raise his game a little in order to beat Taylor but also that moment of surprised delight in Taylor's face when he realised by just how much he was out-classed were absolutely priceless.

I asked him about it later and he told me that it is rare that he is challenged and that the only way a fencer can test his worth is by facing a man who is better than he is.

We set out the following day. Following the track that Kerrass and I had been following previously. Sir Rickard rode with us along with Taylor. There were two other men assigned to each of the points of the compass relative to ourselves with the Sergeant being part of the advance scouts. The plan was that Taylor and Rickard would be more of my "companions" on the road to aid with our general cover of my having paid Kerrass to allow me to follow him around. But now that I was more important, it had become necessary for me to have "bodyguards" as well as "companions" who would keep me company on the road with the suggestion that Taylor was some kind of servant or squire.

A thing that he seemed to find endless amusement with and took great delight in being extra subservient towards me whenever he got the chance in an effort to wind me up.

Which worked.

The feeling of the weight having been lifted from my mind was still there, as was the same feeling that the clouds on the horizon were a long way off, however they were still there and I was aware of them. So, I had decided that I already needed to take some steps about changing my attitude towards the world in general. I realised that I had formed a habit of relaxing in the saddle which meant that my head slumped forward slightly. That might not sound like much but what it meant was that my posture had suffered and that I spend most of my time staring at my Horse's neck.

So this was the first thing that I endeavoured to change and I rode, back straight in the saddle and trusted that my horse knew what it was doing in order to find the path or to, at least, follow Kerrass. I looked around and tried my best to take notice of the world. TO look around rather than letting myself be closed off from it. I deliberately engaged Rickard in conversation and failed to engage Taylor in the same way.

I also chose to take some increased care over my own appearance. As I had promised Kerrass, as soon as we came to a deep enough pool of water, I jumped in and bathed properly with some of the lavender plants used as both soap and so that I could have a better scent than cold sweat. I was already going to have to dress up and look all "noble" should we meet anyone after all.

So doing, we rode north and a little west, following the line of the mountain range. The land descended a little to a flatter and lower land table and we could see roads and more stable paths and increased signs of civilisation. We were still out on the edges of civilisation but there was...more of a sense of people here. That the local area was more settled. And so we continued our mission.

The first place we came to was a small village and mining town that mined salt. The people there were hardened by long years of mining the gritty, dry stuff and I didn't envy them their lives. We asked them about the God and they expressed surprise and scepticism that we were open to the idea, but they weren't overly hostile until I began asking questions about the Hounds of Kreve whereupon they clammed up and steadfastly refused to talk to us any further. Politely and calmly asking us to leave.

The next village was a farming village. A lot like the village of the cave. More a collection of buildings that serviced the local farms with a blacksmith, a mill and a tannery as well as a small thatched tavern where the farm workers would gather to drown their sorrows and complain about their masters. These men and women were a little closer to the border so they were rather firm in their denial of Crom Cruarch for fear of being called heretic, but we all had the feeling that they were a little too vehement in their denial. As though they suspected us of being spies for the eternal flame and didn't want to give the game away. They too refused to talk about the Hounds although some of our scouts told us that one of the women we talked to had been seen in the village's small graveyard, weeping at the side of a fresh grave after we had left.

This was pretty much the pattern for that time as we talked to the various villages. The nobility that we met, or at least, what passes for the nobility in that part of the world were a little different. Here, instead of Kerrass doing the majority of the talking it fell to me instead. I would approach, begging leave to talk to the noble, introduce myself which would often be enough to gain me entry whereupon I would spend a day, maybe two days "resting" in their care. I would tell them that Kerrass was hunting the creatures described as the "Hounds of Kreve" often laughing with them on the grounds that such creatures so obviously didn't exist and that he was wasting his time. But then, he was being paid to do the job and so...

I was forced to admit that the increased power of the Coulthard name as well as my own prestige was occasionally useful as without which I suspect that we would have been thrown out for the vagabonds that we were.

The first place that we came across was a small manor house which turned out to be the summer residence of quite an elderly couple. I hadn't met either of them before but I was welcomed with open arms and the enthusiasm of people who are starved for any kind of social contact. Walking through the gardens with the Lord of the manor, an old man well into his seventies who I occasionally had to help along through the more overgrown parts of his own garden, I slowly learned his story which was an exceedingly sad one. They had once been relatively important nobles in the court of King Vizimir II, Radovid's father. They had lulled themselves into a false sense of security as they had several sons and a couple of daughters who they had married off being able, at the time, to provide considerable dowry's for those daughters.

Their second son had died on the field at Sodden during the first Nilfgaardian invasion. A tragic accident that they couldn't prove was anything _but_ an accident. The eldest son was killed in a duel over some woman which _was_ the result of some political manoeuvring by some of their political opponents. The third son died as part of the Second invasion but it was the fourth son who had really brought about the family's downfall.

In that he was a drunk, a lecher, gambler and late in his life had turned out to be a drug addict. But now that he was the only heir to the family name it had become essential that he survive and that the good name of the family be preserved. Gradually the family wealth was eaten up to pay off his gambling debts and to hush up the scandals that this had led t before, in the end, the family had been reduced to this relatively tiny manor house on what had once been the outskirts of a considerable, royal grant of land. The youngest son had died, relatively recently on a religious bonfire outside of Oxenfurt.

I stared at the old man for along moment as he gave me this piece of information.

"Yes, I know who you are Lord Frederick." He was a heavily bearded man although it was fairly well groomed and although his voice was weak and his body was failing him. There was still more than a little bit of a brain lurking behind the slightly cloudy eyes. "I know that you and your Witcher companion found him in the woods doing horrible things to innocent children in the woods down there. I know that it was by your action that he was killed."

I took a deep breath. This was not the first time that I had been confronted by family members of people that I had killed. Not even was it the first time that I had met people who were family of the people who we had caught outside Oxenfurt. Those people tended to be a lot angrier though. There tended to be a lot more shouting.

"Do you hate me for that?" I asked him as politely as I could manage.

He stroked his beard for a moment or two.

"A little," he admitted. "I would be lying if I tried to claim that I was not. Your actions have left me without an heir of my name. My eldest daughter will inherit my lands and my titles now which means that her husband will have them. Odious piece of snot that he is. Preventing her from visiting us when she wants and refusing to help out his father in law, even though it was his wife's dowry that provided the foundation of his fortune. At least they will pass on to my grandson after him but it is of small comfort to me as I head into frailty. Yes, I hate you a little."

I took a moment to think about what to say next.

"I wish," I began. "I wish I could tell you that I am sorry that your son died and that it was my hand that made it so. But I am not sorry. You did not see what we saw."

"Oh I know. I know all of that. I read your account of the matter later when my grief had begun to play itself out a little." His eyes took on a vacant kind of look. "I have gotten so damnably good at grief over the years."

I did feel sorry then. But only for a moment.

"I am not so far gone that I don't know the truth of the matter." He told me. "I am well aware that I lost my son years before he died. That his actions were heading towards real evil and that he was lucky to survive for as long as he did before some angry husband or brother ran him through on the duelling grounds, or in some back alley somewhere. But he didn't die at their hands. He died at yours."

"Technically, he died at the hands of religious fanatics and local moralists who declared that he and his fellows did not deserve to live after everything that they had done."

"Do not quibble with me Lord Frederick, it is unbecoming."

I said nothing to that.

"I know all of these things. I know that he was already a marked man and I know that his time was limited and, indeed, I hated him myself a little. But he was my son and I loved him."

I nodded my acceptance of the point.

We stayed for dinner which was relatively good in the form of roast pheasant with a red berry sauce. If they were going to murder me, I decided that they would already have done so and ate with relish. It was very pleasant and our hosts were gracious and good company despite their feelings towards us.

As we left the Lord came to me again.

"What are you doing here Lord Frederick?"

"My Lord?"

He smiled. "Do not act so naïve young man. I may be old but I was once a player at court. I know your brother has taken over at Kalayn castle, the scion of which was the ringleader of the Oxenfurt cult. So why are you here?"

I looked into his face for a long time. "I am here to hunt down the remains of that cult and destroy them." I told him.

He returned my gaze for a long time before nodding. "Good," he said. "Make them bleed Lord Frederick and you will have my forgiveness." There was teeth in the old man's voice. And hate.

An hour later as we rode along the track, Kerrass turned to me and raised an eyebrow in question.

"We're on the right track." I told him.

He nodded and stared ahead of himself, looking down the path.

We also had the moderate entertainment of finding several, similar sized manor houses or small castles that would probably be better described as "forts" rather than castles, or even "towers" for that matter, that were almost utterly deserted. We were able to stop and get some water from the castle well by grace of the one or two older folk that still lived there as caretakers that looked after the places while their masters were away. What it seemed was that at some stage, royalty of some sort or another had spotted that this area of Redania was relatively unsettled. So they had parcelled off the land into small chunks and started giving it out as rewards to various people that had pleased them.

Or in some cases had _not_ pleased them in the case of courtiers who needed to be shuttled off into another part of the world and away from the public eye. Or old courtiers that had served their use and needed to be "rewarded" for their service. The most famous example of which that I can think of in recent times was the old man who had helped Queen Meve of Lyria and Rivia. When her husband had died and she did her best to exert her control over the countryside there were many people who helped her including the erstwhile Lord Burleigh. He helped her secure her throne and advised her well in military and political matters.

But by all accounts, he was an old-fashioned soldier and kept on reminding the queen that the best thing that she could do in order to secure her throne was to marry, as soon as possible. Eventually, the Queen got fed up with this enough that she declared in a proud voice that it was time for Lord Burleigh to retire to his new country estates well away from the capital that had _just_ been awarded to him in return for his long and faithful service.

As I recall from reading about the incident, he was displeased.

Sam has a similar parcel of land on the coast of Redania to the North West of our home that he received as part of his knighthood. As far as I know, he has still never been to the place but it means that as well as calling himself Sir Samuel von Coulthard, Baron Kalayn. He can also add the title of "Lord of the chalk cliffs" or something similar. Apparently it depends on his mood and the mood of the relevant herald as to whether this kind of thing actually gets announced when he enters rooms and formal areas.

But that's the kind of countryside that we were riding through. Small castles that ruled over small domains. The largest of which contained a small staff of civil servants that made sure that the taxes were paid on time and ran administration. They were generally fairly welcoming and we were allowed to use spare rooms for the night on the grounds that such people are often left without a job when their distant masters suffer some kind of mishap at court. You know the kind, where people lose their lands or heads and so they like to make friends with whoever is passing. So we were able to eat well and maintain ourselves.

More interesting were those places where the Lord of the manor was actually at home. They seemed to fall into two camps. The first camp were those people who didn't really care about where they were. Where they really wanted to be was back in the capital. They wanted to be closer to where that elusive thing called "polite society" exists and as such were here under sufferance. Maybe because of some kind of scandal or because their enemies were in ascendency at court and they were staying out of sight until some other factor at court could begin to gain traction. These were their ancestral estates but they didn't care for them. They came back occasionally on a kind of restful holiday over the summer which is when the royals or, in more modern times, the more important folk were off hunting.

Again a thing for those people who don't know. Court tends to break for the height of summer. The public excuse for this is so that the royal personages can get away and rest up for a while. Maybe visit friends and go and make private deals and attend parties. But more often than not, the real reason that the larger cities empty of the upper, noble classes is so that they can avoid the stench and disease that almost crops up in the middle of summer. There were a great number of _these_ kinds of families lurking around in the places that we were travelling through.

That's not to say that they were bad people you understand. Nor is it true to say that they were utterly uncaring about their people. It was more that they were neglectful. That they had other things on their mind rather than worrying about what their peasants feared in the night. Almost universally in these cases I was told that I was welcome to interrogate (their words) all the peasants (their words again) that I liked and that should I find out that this is some kind of monster rather than a group of bandits then I should get in touch with some kind of chancellor for a reward. If it was bandits then I was to ascertain whether the miscreants (I'm not making this up. They really do use words like this) were on their lands and if so I should send word and leave it to the professionals.

Most gave the opinion that these "Hounds of Kreve" were just a small group of bandits that had hit upon the cowardly nature of the lower classes (again) and were using that against them. We were told that we had already broken the backs of them during our actions against them and that they would now be in the wind, or would have cannibalised themselves in an effort to get away from us. Furthermore we were instructed to treat any story from the peasants with skepticism on the grounds that they were probably using stories of these "Hounds" for an excuse to do less work. Whether on grounds of fear or laziness.

I swear that the majority of that was not written using my words.

But nor would I say that these Lords and ladies were evil, nor particularly noteworthy in their apathy towards the trials and tribulations of the lower classes. They would simply argue that they were playing on a higher level. That they were seeking to further their own standing in an effort to provide for their lands all the better. Arguing that their wealth and prestige was the wealth and prestige of their lands and people. It is a common attitude amongst the nobility and I should also point out that using this thinking has made sure that the noble classes have remained the noble classes since our particular branch of humanity landed in the Pontar delta.

My point being that they weren't being cruel, but rather they were being...I suppose that neglectful is the best word to describe them.

I was highly amused, though, on a personal level. One of _this_ type of Lord that we came across was known to me. He was the father of one of the many daughters that I had been sent to court for their hands in marriage before I left for university. The poor man had fallen on hard times since I had known him. When I had met him he had been living in his town house in Novigrad and my suit for his daughter's hand had been turned down on the grounds of "not rich enough for his liking, not noble enough for his wife's liking and not handsome enough to turn his daughter's head."

That was a quote from himself by the way. He admitted as much to me when we saw each other. He also admitted that he had made a mistake on the matter. He was a more middle class nobleman who had made a lot of his money on the trading circuit but had fallen on hard times before I met him which was why money was such an important consideration in considering the suits for his daughters hand. But those self-same creditors had been angry with him in turning down my hand, given my later rise to prominence and the increased riches of the Coulthard trading company.

He was bitter that this was a development that his creditors hadn't known about either and that, originally, he had been praised for giving his daughter to someone else. But those self same nobles and merchants needed someone to get cross at for the rise of the Coulthard family and they had chosen him amongst others.

He was gracious enough to admit that he had been wrong and magnanimous in defeat to host us well. I offered him an introductory letter to Emma and took an hour and much more flowery words to say, essentially, "if you can't beat us, join us."

I remembered his daughter as being a generally kind girl but a little too besotted with herself for my tastes. She was pretty, knew it and didn't see the need to do anything other than to look in the mirror, try on dresses and attend balls. As far as I could tell, since she had learned to read she had not read a book or written a letter since. Although I was a little disappointed at being turned down at the time, I was far from heartbroken and looking back, I strongly suspect that we might have killed each other had we married. She would certainly have run off with someone fairly quickly.

Or I might have no matter how much I would like to believe that I would remain faithful.

Human nature can be an ugly thing sometimes and I have recently been educated in the fact that there are aspects of my own character that I dislike and have avoided thinking about for a long time. That and loneliness can be a powerful aphrodisiac sometimes.

Lucky escape for both of us I suspect. In the end she had married a knight of a fairly decent family, a little older than me and had been just old enough to die in the fighting in Velen. According to my host, she presided over her household as a widow and seemed to be enjoying herself playing host to all of her suitors. He would recommend her to me again, if he had not heard that I was already betrothed and if he had any influence over his daughter at all.

I thanked him for the thought and pointed out that Sam was still without a woman in his life. The old man's face took on a predatory gleam.

This recommendation along with my letter to Emma on his behalf as well as information on what kind of flowers and sweet-meats that she likes, meant that we had a base to operate from in a few days as well as introductions to his nearest neighbours. So we were able to sleep in real beds and eat hot food every evening for a week or so before we had to bed our farewells.

So that was one kind of noble.

The other kind of noble was the kind of noble that was almost certainly involved in the "Kalayn" cult but that we couldn't prove it. In almost every way they were identical to the first kind of noble but there was something in the way that they talked when we brought up the "Hounds" that just set us all on edge. They were perhaps a little _too_ dismissive of the concerns of their people. A little _too_ vehement in their denials of any knowledge. There seemed to be rather more sidelong glances between the people sat at dinner and it just triggered our instincts. Both Kerrass' instinct that he was being lied as honed by the many years living on the road as well as my courtly instincts from my training and the time spent at court.

It was also prominent as to how they would try to trap us all in some kind of scandal. Sir Rickard and I, both had to work at it in order to not get drunk or to get into some kind of duel. Numerous women, including the lady of the castle in one case, tried to come to our chambers in the dead of night and I strongly suspect that if either of us had agreed to such assignations then people would have burst into our rooms and all kinds of unpleasantness would have come from it.

Sir Rickard was the best barometer. He has an instinct for battle similar to Kerrass'. Where Kerrass is aware when a monster is nearby, Sir Rickard is aware of it when people are getting aggressive towards him and spoiling for a fight. He would stiffen, his walk would change from the kind of bowlegged walk of a cavalry man crossed with the bounce that marks a man that spend a lot of his time walking through the undergrowth, to the march of a soldier. He would hold his sword stiffly and behave a bit more like the common soldier that he used to be. He would take to using monosyllabic words in conversation and start calling me "sir" rather than "My Lord" and wouldn't meet anyone's eyes, staring at a point just above their shoulders.

That's when he came with us at all. You see, one of the things that I like about Sir Rickard is that he has a habit of speaking his mind. He has a character trait, or defect depending on your point of view, that he always spoke truth to the people ahead of him. We have talked about it and he claims that it was trained into him, indeed it was flogged into him at one point, that he should always, always speak truth to superiors. What this meant in his case was that when a Sergeant ordered him to do something but he saw something that might threaten the order, then he was expected to tell his sergeant this. The sergeant needed as much information as possible in order to make the decisions.

I am well aware that this is unusual in the army but for the Harriers it is essential. Vital to their very survival. As I think I've described before, these men fight in pairs, pointing out threats and risks to each other while picking off these threats and sniping at the enemy battle line. So it was his _job_ to point out problems to the Sergeants and the officers that were in charge of their units and to never just assume that they knew what was going on.

When he became a Sergeant himself he carried on with this. He absolutely expected that his men would tell him that he was being stupid providing that when he gave the order that his men would jump to the task assigned to them.

This carried on when he was knighted but he still spoke the truth and gave his opinion to his superiors.

Unfortunately for him, this sometimes meant that he was giving his honest and frank opinion to people who were much more powerful than him. More powerful and much, much more influential. Especially when he was assigned young knights to his command who he ordered around without caring for their personal whims and needs. If they had a military opinion then he would listen but after his orders had been given then he would expect them to be carried out.

As a result of these things it meant that he made a lot of enemies, both in the army and at court as younger sons wrote home to their parents about this jumped up ragamuffin from the ranks who had the temerity to give them orders and who then issued punishments to those people who disobeyed his orders.

Remember I told you that Sir Rickard doesn't like rapists. It would seem that some of the younger men under his command had forgotten. Long story short but there was a reason that Sir Rickard and his men, although being among the most highly trained and deadly soldiers that I have seen, were shuffled off into Redania to "aid the locals" with policing their roads.

What this meant to us was that he would periodically recognise a flag or a pennant and quietly advise us that it would be better if he stayed with his men to met us on the road after I had done my business at the castle and he would meet us on the road where we could continue our search.

But, as I say, we couldn't prove anything.

Until, one day, we could.

We came to a castle. One of several that we had seen in the area by this point that followed this particular pattern. It was the same kind of place as Sam's castle Kalayn was in that it was built primarily as a defensive fortification before anyone had chosen to make it their permanent domicile. So you could see the old walls, massive and thick, looking as though they would be impervious to any but the most sustained attack of modern Temerian artillery but then you look at the surrounding area and you start to wonder as to where such artillery would be placed. Then you find yourself starting to look at the surrounding hills and forests, noticing their uniformity and how they are all carefully set out to take advantage of things and to properly aid in the defence of the huge stone edifice and you start to wonder whether the hills and the woods were artificial. As though some kind of giant hand had shaped the land in order for this, impregnable monstrosity to be built.

"Nasty little brute," was Sir Rickard's assessment of the structure. "You'd lose a lot of men trying to assault that place."

Kerrass grunted in his agreement. I've seen worse on our travels. Nastier castles that could give this place a run for it's money in the unpleasantly unassailable stakes. Kaer Morhen being one, I won't count Castle Coulthard as I am by no means unbiased on that but Castle Coulthard was renovated with the most modern advances in military engineering that my father could find when he agreed to take over the place which is what adds to it's danger as a defensive fortification. It's also designed so that the locals can seek shelter there should an enemy force choose to try and invade and that's what it was designed for.

This place was different. This was a place where a garrison lived and policed the surrounding area. Looking at it, I couldn't imagine how you would fit the local populace into it at all.

As we got a bit closer we could also begin to see signs that defence was no longer at the front of the castle keepers mind. The wooden archer's steps were either falling apart or missing completely. The portcullis was raised and even from that distance we could see that the iron had a red dusting that would suggest rust and the moat was all but non existent. Instead you could see a slight dip in the ground where the moat had used to be before people, whoever that might be, had filled in the land with earth for pasture or whatever else that you might do that kind of thing for. We could see soldiers using it to drill.

There was also a small town or large village beginning to spread out from the castle's walls. You often see that kind of thing around the larger cities where the walls were built but then, as the years pass, more and more people come to the city but can't find the room inside the walls. So they build a hut outside the walls. Then a merchant decides to set up a stand there to feed the people that queue up before the main gate is opened. Then someone opens a beer tent which later turns into a tavern before slowly, the city starts to creep beyond the initial defensive walls. It takes a stern ruler to keep this from happening but it can be dangerous from a tactical standpoint. Often it's these areas that house the cities livestock and industry so that if an invading army _were_ to turn up then it would mean that all the food supplies would be outside the wall.

Human nature at it's finest.

There was not a lot of wind that day and as a result, the banner was slumped, loose as a rag, next to the wall and so it wasn't until we were starting to pass workers in the field and we saw a guard that we saw any kind of heraldry. The heraldry in question was that of a black crown of antlers. The field behind the crown was gold on the top and dark blue on the bottom and the two were separated by a thin red line.

"I know that flag," I muttered, searching through my memory. Heraldry is a required subject for someone in my position. "The Lord's Cavill" I declared with some satisfaction. It's always slightly gratifying when you remember something important and get to prove your learning to your fellows. "Currently led by Lord Alain Cavill. Really old nobility. Surprised that they're out here to be honest although I never heard of them going to court. One of that particular clique that condemned my family for being "jumped up merchants"

"And that's a nasty little brute too." Sir Rickard muttered.

"Do you know him?" I asked.

"I knew his son."

" Knew?" Kerrass asked. "Past tense?"

"Yeah. Stupid little sod tried for glory didn't he, leading a group of men off into the opposing ranks. Had some damn fool idea of going after the enemy standard." Rickard shifted in his saddle. "Had all kinds of ideas that chivalry is a shield on the battlefield and that the only people that would fight him were of similar or greater rank to himself. I think he was honestly astonished that some lowly little peasant had the balls to stick his horse with a pike before he was beaten to death while still demanding quarter and offering ransom. When we recovered his body, he had been stripped. Everything of value had been taken off him including several gifts that had been given to him by his father. He looked very surprised as I recall when we discovered the body."

"I sense there's more to this story."

Rickard sighed before nodding. "There is unfortunately. I was the nearest knight at the time and I didn't go to his rescue or follow his directive to follow him. It was one of those situation to be honest with you. I would have gotten myself and all of my men killed and the stupid little snot would still have been trampled to death. But I was a "jolly jump up" and a Temerian which meant that I didn't have the friends at court to protect myself from the bastards when they came after me later. One of those situations. My superiors agreed with me but the courtiers at the capital agreed with Lord Cavill. It was a mess and if we hadn't been at war I would probably have been in some rather hot water."

He looked at the soldier with a sour twist to his mouth.

"Probably better for everyone if I go around." He commented. "We're leaving here by the east road after this right?"

"We are," Kerrass confirmed. "We need to start heading back towards the mountains. Getting too far into civilisation for my comfort. Our enemies need ignorance and isolation to thrive."

Rickard nodded. "Then the lads and I will meet you a little way down the east road."

"Careful," I told him. "If these people are as pleasant as you suggest then we might be coming in a bit of a hurry."

"We'll be ready." Rickard rode off.

"Alone at last." I commented.

"Save the romance for your wedding night." Kerrass commented.

"Kerrass," I began as we turned out horses back towards the castle. "I've been to weddings. By the time we've had the ceremony, the presentation, the reception, the party, the portraits and everything else. Are we going to have time for any romance?"

Kerrass smirked.

"Are you honestly going to tell me, honestly going to look me in the face and tell me that after all this waiting and all this time of self imposed celibacy since you've been betrothed. Are you honestly telling me that the two of you are going to wait one second longer than you possibly have to to tear each other's clothes off and get down to the serious business of seeing if a vampire can produce offspring with a human."

"You make it sound so loving." 

"All I'm suggesting is that by that point, you in your best suit, her in her best dress. You might want to escape early and get down to some good hard shagging and...what was it you said?...Seeing If her erogenous zones really do line up with what you are used to."

"Mmmm." I commented, my mind going blank for a second before giving myself a little shake. "But that doesn't change the fact that by the time that she's done organising things, Emma..."

"And the Empress," Kerrass put in. 

"Oh, holy flame. I had forgotten that she might want to get involved. But by the time all is said and done, will we have time to get down to business. We might both of us be absolutely gagging for it but, although the mind might be willing. I might just pass out due to alcohol poisoning and exhaustion."

"Not an invalid concern." Kerrass admitted. "So we shall start working on raising your tolerances. We have been lax on this matter for some time and it is my duty as a best man to start training you up."

"You take your duty very seriously do you?"

"I do. Certainly seriously enough that I'm sure I can find some kind of potion to ensure your stamina on the night in question."

I would be lying if I said that I didn't muse on this idea for a little while.

"I would remind you that Witcher potions are probably fatal to me." I told him.

"Who says anything about a Witcher potion?"

I nearly fell of my horse as he out and out grinned at me. After a moment the grin subsided into a more genuine smile. "You seem better." He decided.

"I feel better to tell you the truth." I told him.

"Good."

(A/N: Chapter got away from me a bit so I've decided to cut it off there for now before I leap into the next chunk of story with both feet. A bit shorter than the last few."

(A/N:Also, it has been brought to my attention that I have recently passed the two year anniversary of writing this. Whoop Whoop. *throws confetti and pulls party poppers* I completely forgot about it and so I didn't say anything. Also coming up on the next milestone of a million words written. The story is planned too far in advance to change anything for that but any ideas for how we can celebrate?

But seriously folks. Thank you so much for all the support to get me this far. I appreciate it more than I can adequately say. Not sure what else I can do other than to keep adding to the word count. But thank you. It means a lot.

Thank you for reading)


	74. Chapter 74

(Disclaimer: Freddie expresses some views about politics and politicians in this chapter. Just for the record, I don't agree with a lot of what he says and what he says does not reflect my personal politics. However I would remind people that Freddie lives in an Imperial absolute monarchy, where he gets on with said monarch on a personal level, which has severely influenced his thinking)

So, next on our list of tools that a Witcher uses along with the follow up question as to whether or not they are the thing that makes a Witcher.

Let's talk about the signs.

I promise, I swear that all of this has a point and that I will get to it eventually. I swear that this is true.

Although a small part of me can't help but entertain himself at the prospect of the Magazine editor over at the Oxenfurt gazette quietly tearing his hair out at all the comments and letters of complaint that he must be getting about this. "How dare this Professor of Oxenfurt try and teach us something about Witchers?"

Heh, You brought this on yourself Mikael and you know it too.

But seriously though. I Promise that there's a point to this.

So let's talk about signs. All six of them.

Yes, you read that right. There are actually six signs although most people only know about the five most common ones.

So what are the signs?

In broad and simple terms the signs are very basic spells that can be cast with the aid of a gesture, or series of gestures performed with at least one hand, although it can be amplified if you use both hands during the casting. I'm not sure as to the magical science of this and there are much better academic works on the subject should you want to pursue things but my understanding is that it works like this.

Magic exists all around us in a flow, a lot like the flow of water or the movement of air. What Magic users do is to tame this force, indeed, "force" is what they call it, and shape it to their own will. Most people are unable to do this although my understanding is that anyone, with sufficient training and practice could probably light a candle in return for the discomfort of a substantial nosebleed. Before you all rush off and try to learn this I would say that you need to be _taught_ this skill and that prolonged use of it, even if you have been taught will result in you dying of a stroke.

What a "talent" for magic use is is the ability to channel, shape and control this force without dying. It sounds simple but that really is the basis of it. The talent does tend to run in bloodlines but that, in and of itself, is problematic as the long term use of magic will render a person sterile. Yes, I know that there are proven exceptions to this rule but in this case, the exception proves the rule.

The way that these magic users shape the magic is with gestures, words and rituals. I have heard it said that these gestures and things are merely aids to help the mind and body work in the right way in order to shape the magic in the require way. I cannot answer for that, all I know is that those people that have used magic in my presence, Kerrass, Ariadne and the rest, have spoken or gestured and the effect happens and certainly the lady Yennefer of Vengerberg was scornful when I mentioned this theory to her.

So what are Witcher's signs? In short, they are the most basic of basic spells. Stripped down to their barest components and adapted for fast casting, single handed casting and combat applications. How do Witcher's do it? My understanding is that, as part of the mutation process, the Young Witchers are mutated in order for their bodies to be able to tolerate the force moving through them. A Witcher can be as magically talented as I am when they go to the school and I am as talented as a brick. But, after mutation and suitable training, they will all be able to use the signs.

So what are they?

The famous five first, in alphabetical order:

The Aard sign: A blast of air, either in the form of a wave in front of a Witcher, or in a circular pattern spreading out from the Witcher itself. If you want to see what it looks like, find a pond or pool of still water. The first is like placing your hand gently in the water before violently and quickly pushing the palm of your hand forwards causing a wave to form. The other way is that if you drop a stone into the water and you see the ripples spreading out from where the stone fell. Those waves are the effects of the Aard sign and believe me when I say that it's like being buffeted by the strongest gale, amplified by a factor of ten. It's designed to knock a man from his feet and daze even large creatures. I've seen it send a troll staggering.

The Axii sign: A charm that you place on your opponent. It comes in two forms and practice means that you can cast it on multiple people or even convince the target to do what you want. The first and most basic form of the sign dazes the target for a short while. The second and more powerful type causes the person to become a friend or ally for a period. Kerrass dislikes using this sign as he says that everyone is different and therefore the time that the person spends under the influence of the sign is variable from as little as a second or two up to several minutes. Either way, it is a mistake to depend on it. According to Kerrass that is.

The Igni sign: By far the most famous sign. Probably because it is the most striking visually. After all, what are the most famous spells? Even the most utilitarian and studious mages know how to throw fire and call lightening because without which, how can they call themselves magic users. Put simply the Igni signs either conjures a steady stream of burning sparks that cause the target to catch a light. Or it is a wave of flame, not unlike that wave of air caused by the Aard sign.

The Quen sign: A golden shield that protects the caster from the first strike that the shield sustains. Either protecting the caster himself (not herself. Witchers are only male and females who could cast such things would never stop at so basic a level of effect. Sorceresses, according to my experience, are like that. Yes, including you Ariadne) or forming a globe around the caster although this form requires constant concentration.

The Yrden sign. This is the sign drawn on the floor that creates a magical trap that can make time move slower for the target. To my mind, although it requires careful preparation, this sign is by far the most powerful.

So those are the five signs. Yes there is a sixth and I haven't mentioned it before because like many, or so I understand, I got it confused with the Quen sign. This is called the Heliotrope sign. Kerrass tells me that this is the most advanced sign of the lot which is why it is so rarely used. It requires the use of both arms which you cross in front of you which will cushion whatever blow that you are about to receive. It was designed out of the occasional need to protect yourself from sudden and unexpected magical attack when all other tricks have failed or have been made redundant. For example, when you have given up your swords and you only see the blow coming at the last second. In theory you can throw up your arms and protect yourself from the incoming attack.

It is not a perfect defence as it only _cushions_ the blow rather than stopping the blow completely as the Quen sign would. It is the last shield of the last resort.

Kerrass does not approve as he would claim that if you are going into a situation where such a trick might be required then you should have your sword drawn and your Quen sign cast. You should have your exit routes prepared and your traps and bombs ready. He claims to have only used it on a handful of occasions during his long career and tells me that it is a weakness to rely on it. That it is not an adequate replacement for good and proper preparation and scouting.

There is also the rumour of another sign called "Somne" sign. I don't know what this is and other than what it's called I haven't been able to find any other reference to it. Kerrass claims to know nothing about it and I've certainly never heard him talk about it or use it in any way. From the philological aspect of things, the name of the sign would suggest that this is something to do with sleeping but this seems to be too powerful an effect for a simple sign so maybe it's a modification. Possibly something that the Griffin school played with as a variation on the Axii sign.

So those are the signs. Are they indispensable? If you take them away, is a Witcher still a Witcher?

I would argue that the signs hold a similar status in a Witcher's arsenal of tricks and tools as his swords. Again, they are weapons. You use different ones in different situations. Some monsters would ignore them completely, some would be devastated by their effects. But a good Witcher would still be able to take down their targets if you took away their signs.

So no, I don't think of the signs as being indispensable. Important? Yes, but no more so than anything else that we've talked about or are going to talk about.

First, before we go further, a word about politics and the skills required to survive in the courts of the land.

There are several things that I need to be grateful for. Things in my life that I never really got the chance to sit the person down and give them the gratitude and thanks that they deserve. I would like to take this opportunity to thank one person that I might have mentioned in the past but at the same time, I know that I've never really talked about here. In this case, the person that I want to talk about is a man called Professor Laurence Tidesdale. What he was a Professor of, I'm not quite sure. I know for a fact that he was never accredited at the university of Oxenfurt and I have, in the past, wondered if this was one of those things that people do to make themselves seem more attractive to prospective clients.

Not unlike the Witchers with their "magical" swords.

But I owe this man a lot and it would be fair to say that I owe him my life. That is not an exaggeration either. He didn't teach me how to fight, nor did he teach me how to think. He had nothing to do with my education on history or geography.

What he taught me was the skills that one needs to be able to survive in court.

These skills have many names, heraldry being a surprisingly useful one. The coat of arms the banners and a couple of small facts about the person that those flags and colours are attached to. Etiquette is another. It is important to know when it is acceptable to blow your nose and wipe your mouth on the table cloth or a napkin. Whether to throw your left-over meat bones over your left shoulder or your right shoulder for the dogs. These are the important things and it's not really an exaggeration to say that these are the things that can save your life.

The art of negotiation is another important skill, sometimes called the art of compromising and the art of diplomacy. When I talked to Kerrass about this kind of thing he told me that he thought of such things as haggling. That's not the entirety of the truth but it's close enough to cause confusion as that's what you're doing. Finding the different red lines that no-one wants to cross while at the same time finding compromises that would make every body happy.

This is not easy.

Now...

The world is full of people that employ these skills on a daily basis. They are the courtiers, the diplomats and the courtiers of the land. They are the scribes, the merchants, the civil servants and the politicians. They are the people that work behind the scenes that make sure that everything runs as smoothly as possible. I will be the first to admit that they are not entirely successful at this but for the most part, these people do incredible work in circumstances that are often less than entirely ideal. Think about it. The Monarch of your local area, no matter what title that monarch holds, lets call them the feudal lord, suddenly gives an order or makes a declaration. That declaration might be something small such as the possibility that there is going to be some kind of festival at the end of the week, or that they intend to make a small pilgrimage to a local shrine where St Thingamy took a shit or something. It is then the task of these people to make that happen with a minimum of fuss.

Now that's a relatively small thing but imagine if someone declares that he wants to host a jousting tournament on their lands and that he wants to put up _significant_ sums of money as prizes. The courtier can't say no. They can advise as best they can but they can't say no. So now they have to organise the thing and find the money for it from _somewhere_.

Now picture it being from a lord with a royal title. A King or Queen who is a little eccentric who declares in a loud voice that they object to onions and as such, they never want to see an onion ever again. Anyone who produces an onion in their presence will be punished, _severely_.

But what about all of the farmers in your country that are no longer allowed to grow onions. What about that entire crop that they are about to harvest that they now have no market for. Let's make it worse, if the land that you work for doesn't grow onions then they must have been getting those onions from somewhere. Somewhere who, possibly, is a little cross at the fact that they are no longer selling you onions and now has their own economic problems as they have grown all these extra onions that they don't know what to do with and can't sell. So how are they going to get that money?

And you, as a courtier, have to make all that happen with the minimum of possible fuss.

Now throw into the mix the fact that you are surrounded by other courtiers who are also trying to do _their_ jobs at the same time. Jobs which are often in direct contradiction of yours. _You_ are still trying to convince the Lord that onions have all of these extra health benefits and are actually really good for you. That, although he might not like them personally, you think it would be unfair on all of his subjects, that make their living off onions, for him to make the growing or possession of onions illegal as well as potentially damaging for the local economy.

Meanwhile, the man in the next office over is grinning from ear to ear as he has another idea. He has found a supply of beets from a different place and is trying to get your Lord to agree to a substitution. He argues that the onions could all be swapped for the beets relatively easily. That they have just as many health benefits of onions and that the economy could therefore be saved while at the same time making friends with your local, beet growing, neighbour. For all you know, he may be right but you also have a sneaking suspicion that he is being paid off by the beet growers to get this agenda into your Lord's hands. Also, if he manages this then there is a good chance that he might become more powerful than you and then...

I hope you can see where you are going.

The thing here is that Lords need to be advised by lots of different people in order to make the proper decisions. Which means surrounding yourself with lots of different Lords who often don't agree with each other in order to make a better decision.

But for the guys that are there, in the depths of things, trying to make the world a better place by willpower.

Those guys? Those guys are the unsung heroes of the modern age.

You want to know why the world is at peace at the moment? Tales tell of the actions of those conspirators that arranged matters for Radovid the Stern to be assassinated on the bridge. But the real hero of that story is whichever diplomat and courtier got into the ear of the Emperor and convinced him that it would be a good idea. Convinced him that the continued warfare was damaging to his own economy and would render the North useless to him should his inevitable victory actually succeed.

But in modern society there is a bit of an unfair tendency to look down on the men and women that perform this task. Courtiers tend to be treated like the lowest form of parasite. Cowards who would do anything to whore themselves out for a bit more influence or possibly just a touch more wealth. Men in armour sit around army camp-fires and wish the worst kinds of death on courtiers telling each other the things that they would do to any such person if they managed to get their hands on them. People with their rapiers and sabres strapped to their sides while wearing fashionable fencing doublets sneer as a civil servant runs past on some kind of vital errand. Women scoff when they receive marriage invitations and promise their parents that they would sooner end their own lives or elope with some peasant than they would marry a courtier.

As I say, I've heard courtiers and politicians belittled as cowards and snakes. As worms and parasites that aren't worth the effort that it would take to tread on.

To be fair, I can understand why as well. This is because all of the work that a knight or a soldier might do. All the fighting, all the blood and sweat and tears that they have poured into fighting their battles. All of it can be undone by a courtier who decides to. Which, again, is what happened at the end of the most recent war.

Let's not take anything away from the achievements of the Redanian led forces of the North. They had an impossible task that they achieved with bravery, skill, cunning and grim determination. Historians are beginning to be scornful of these achievements, pointing out the geography of the matter. About how Radovid snuck over the mountains into Kaedwen in order to absorb those forces into his own. About how he hid behind the Pontar and drew the enemy forces into a stalemate battle. I strongly suspect that these historians are missing the point, or that they are trying to butter up the Nilfgaardians by saying that they deserved a better victory over the north.

None of these points are incorrect. For all his faults though, Radovid _was_ a military genius and he fought Nilfgaard to a standstill. Yes he used the river and the marshes and the fact that Kaedwen was vulnerable and the fact that my father was a patriot and wanted to help equip his troops. But if he was foolish or cowardly as some have claimed then he would have done all of those things before fleeing north to ask for sanctuary from Kovir and Poviss.

The armies of the North fought damn hard. DAMN hard and I, among others, think that it's a bit of a shame that their efforts are being papered over by historians who want to be nice to the Nilfgaardians. Would those soldiers and knights have won in the long run? I am not a military specialist, neither a general nor a tactician of any level although, personally I doubt it. I think that, in the long run, Radovid would have retreated, burning everything behind him to make the conquering of the North a poison pill that Nilfgaard would have been unable to swallow.

But that's just my opinion. If you want to read an in depth discussion of the matter then I can recommend the text by Sir Johann Rottinger who once served in the Temerian forces as a commander of the infantry. He didn't fight in the third war due to the fact that he had lost an arm and his jaw in the second one but he acted in an advisory category. He analyses the war from both sides and it makes for fascinating reading. I recommend him because he is definitely _not_ an armchair general. He knows what he's talking about and as such, I think that his opinion is more reliable.

But I'm getting sidetracked.

Remembering what Sam said about a soldier's pride. They absolutely believed that they were going to beat Nilfgaard. They had to, that was their job and if they lost confidence then they would definitely have lost the war. They were all ready for a fight, for some decisive battle in exactly the same way that it had at Sodden and Brenna and then...it was all over. Redania had surrendered and when they found out what had happened, that they had been "betrayed" by a few conspirators and courtiers, spies and assassins...

Of course they hate courtiers. They look at the courtier and see an ambitious man, pushing their own agenda in an effort to get rich and to get their friends and family rich. That they would rather hide at court than pursue the proper manly arts of fighting and jousting and hunting. They would rather learn etiquette and such like, and how to be two-faced and lie to another man's face while thinking of something else.

I once overheard a hypothetical debate at university between a "courtier" and a "warrior". These debates were really staged conversations. Two people would be given opposing points of view and told to argue their case as part of a competition. The audience would then vote on who won with the winner gaining a prize. I remember this one being particularly hard fought and quite bitter even though the warrior side won by a considerable majority.

The warrior said, and I'm paraphrasing as I didn't really note the conversation down as I was too busy trying to chat up a girl at the time,

"My job is honest. I am a warrior. I say what I mean and I mean what I say. I do not hide behind flowery words. I am honest, upfront and dependable. You would say one thing and mean another, you talk behind your hand to other people and lie at every turn in order to get what you want. You have a hidden agenda and gobble up everything you can and flee behind people like me when you have been caught out in your lies. Your entire job is to serve up horse shit and tell everyone that it's the most gloriously sweet honey-cake that you've ever seen. You would even eat the horse shit cake to prove your point."

The courtier thought about it for a moment and said.

"Yes I would. Yes I would eat the cake but that is my job and it is by my job that you have food in your belly. It is by my job that you can afford the steel to go into your sword and the metal to go into your armour. It is by my hand that your children are fed and your parents are protected. You stand and defend us from our foes it is true but I defend you from everything else. It is I that ensures that the money is spent to irrigate your fields and repair your roads. You fight your wars to the south but it is by my hand that Temeria doesn't turn on us, that Kaedwen does not come over the mountain and that Kovir and Poviss remain quiet behind their border. All the while I have to deal with people who say one thing, mean another and who can never, ever be trusted. Let us return to your horse-shit cakes. It is my job, my task in life to eat those cakes and compliment the baker on their scent, texture and flavour. I must wax lyrical on the virtues of horse-shit cakes and tell everyone that I wonder why no-one has ever put horse-shit in a cake before."

I, like just about everyone, voted with the warrior as his morals were simple and uncomplicated. As I have matured out on the road since then though I have had occasion to change my mind on occasion. It's not as cut and dried as that though. Both sides have virtues and considerable problems.

Returning to my tutor, I remember asking him why I was learning these "courtly" skills when I would be better served out on the practice fields with Sam, trying to improve my sword work.

In a moment of rare honesty Professor Laurence told me that "Being a courtier is like being a fencer. You are always thinking about where to stand and trying to get everything from your opponent while at the same time trying to get everything from him. You are always looking for an opening, trying to guess his intentions and read what he is about to do or say and how you can turn that to your advantage ready for a killing stroke. And all the time, you are looking for more and more opportunities to make the bastard bleed."

He was right. I never took to the class at the time as, like with so many other things, I lacked the context that was needed in order to make the lessons stick.

But out on the road with Kerrass I have had need to fall back on the skills that Sir Laurence taught me and they have saved my life when I've listened to those instincts and threatened me when I have not.

For those people interested. I'm told that Edmund ignored these skills, Mark didn't need them, Emma was a master at it although she pretended to not be very good which kind of meant that she took the lessons to heart a little too much. Sam didn't see the point as he was always going to be a soldier and I suspect that Francesca would have outstripped us all.

They have certainly came to my aid many, many times on the road with Kerrass where I have been able to talk some noble or other into giving us a contract when he would have otherwise given the job to his men or some passing knight Errant who would do the job for free. I have also negotiated beds from innkeepers who wanted to turn us aside because of the colour and shape of Kerrass' eyes. I have also been able, on many occasions, to translate the various parts of "noble speak" that we occasionally get subjected to meaning that Kerrass has been able to stay calm when he would have otherwise lost his temper and murdered some people, or get angry when he would not normally have realised that he was being mocked.

But back to the matter at hand.

The first thing we did when we saw the castle and realised the kind of nobles that we were going to be up against when we went down into the town and castle, was to turn aside into a small copse of trees so that we could be hidden from view. Taylor and I then got changed into what Kerrass called our "glad rags", me to look more like a young nobleman and Taylor to look more like the young servant that he was pretending to be.

The idea that we were going for with Taylor was that he was a lesser noble to myself. Either a bastard cousin of some kind or possibly a younger son of some knight that lived on my father's lands. He wore a simple doublet and boots and carried his sabre at his side. He looked odd without his uniform or his bow near to hand. He had entrusted both to Rickard before he left.

We rode slowly on the grounds of the suggestion that I was far too important to have to rush around. I sat straighter in my saddle and turned my nose up at everything ever so slightly. The precise tilt of the nose raise is a careful consideration. It is far too easy to go too far up and descend into parody.

And so, what some courtiers refer to as "The Game" had begun. From this point on it would be a mistake to assume that we weren't being watched, weighed and measured. I put it to Kerrass that he should think of this as like being behind enemy lines, or walking through the monster's den.

We rode our horses slowly down the road as if we didn't have a care in the world. Right down the middle as well, expecting other people to get out of _our_ way except in one case when a farmer was manipulating a wagon of some kind with the aid of a particularly stubborn looking donkey. He humbly begged our pardon and asked if we would allow him to use the road and I allowed it with my best condescendingly gracious expression and a small, negligent wave.

I had the almost overwhelming urge to punch myself in the mouth.

As we got closer to the buildings we came across our first guardsmem in the uniform of the Cavills who had formed a checkpoint across the road. It wasn't much, just a building with a weapons rack outside. A table and some chairs at which a pair of guardsmen were playing dice and drinking. One of the guardsmen stood up and swaggered over to, presumably, enquire as to our business. He had a smile and a sneer for me as I took out a handkerchief to guard myself against the obvious stench that was permeating the air. I gestured with a grimace and Taylor rode forward to politely enquire if Lord Cavill was home and whether or not he was receiving guests.

The guard did his best to be rude and exert some authority so Taylor slapped him.

"HOW DARE YOU SIR?" He demanded loudly causing everyone to look at us in surprise. His words fell to a hiss as he snarled continued things into the plainly astonished and angry guard. They were exactly the kind of thing that a young noble who is rather too full of himself would say to some upstart guard who thinks that he's more important than he is.

You might be wondering what the point of this little pantomime is. Well, it's all part of "The Game". What we were putting across was the fact that we felt as though we were _better_ than the average guardsman. I have no doubt that the guardsman was trying to put us in our place and had been chosen for his belligerent and unpleasant nature. From the perspective of the guards, this was an effort to see how we would react. If we had allowed ourselves to be cowed by this lowly guardsman then we weren't that important. If we were merchants then they would have wanted to see how desperate we were to sell our goods.

This is what it is to be a courtier. To discern meanings within meanings within meanings. To put your point across without giving too much away. I will admit to the fact that it is, occasionally, fun to utilise these skills to get one over on people and to puncture the pumped up self importance of ignorant pricks. But it is no way to live. After a while, I find it exhausting to always be suspecting that there are ulterior motives behind every action and that every word spoken, every gesture and movement is carefully planned and refined.

Taylor kept up a constant barrage of abuse and insults at this poor unsuspecting guardsman who was getting angrier and angrier than ever until, at exactly the right moment, Taylor released the poor bastard with a well timed "I demand to speak to your superior."

The guard stalked off, clearly wishing some kind of gruesome and horrible death on Taylor and the pox on Kerrass and I.

Poor lamb.

The guards corporal came out and introduced himself which is when Taylor kicked it up a notch.

"A corporal, A CORPORAL? I DEMANDED TO SPEAK TO YOUR SUPERIOR NOT SOME JUMPED UP..."

He went on from there and I'm not going to waste the paper on saying, in detail what he said next. Not least because I wasn't really listening. The best way to pretend that you aren't listening is to not be actually listening. Instead, I sat quietly on my horse giving it some commands through my knees to make it seem as though it was shifting restlessly while I took out my dagger and started cleaning and trimming my nails with it.

This is actually a lot more difficult than it looks so I was actually doing nothing of the sort but from a distance, that's what it looks like what I'm doing.

Why clean, or trim your nails with a dagger when you've got perfectly good scissors and clippers to do that kind of thing for you? It's utterly impractical, just showing off and an intimidation trick and I will hold my hand up to that. Because that was precisely what I was doing.

Eventually the corporal beat a red-faced and strategic retreat in the face of Taylor's arrogant verbal assault and produced a Sergeant.

Taylor changed tack.

For the record, Taylor was being at least as good at this politics lark as I am.

"Ah Sergeant, at last. A man that I can deal with on a more equal footing..."

You see what he did there. He complimented the Sergeant, put across his (Taylor's and therefore my) impatience but still managed to suggest arrogance and that the Sergeant was still beneath him and that Taylor was absolutely justified in talking down to him, and the corporal and the guard before him.

The Sergeant said something. Probably insisting on the formality of following some kind of rule which caused Taylor to erupt into fury again.

"What? WHAT? I demand that you..."

Which was my cue. I sighed, put my dagger away and urged my horse forwards.

"That's enough," I snapped at Taylor. "Sergeant." The man who was getting increasingly red faced turned to look at me. I was using my best, educated and trained melodious "Charming" voice.

"Please forgive me for the rudeness of my man," I made my voice harsh and violently gestured that Taylor should fall in behind me. "Have no doubt on the matter but he _will_ be punished for his insolence in the face of men who are just trying to do their duties." I made my voice melodious and charming again. "I humbly ask that you forgive any insult that you feel that you have been dealt and that you leave it in my hands."

"Yes...well..."

"Rest assured," I carried on, arrogantly ignoring the fact that the Sergeant had started to speak. "That I will apologise to your master, Lord Cavill, in person and arrange for some kind of compensation for you and your men."

I bowed, as if that was the matter fulfilled and made to urge my horse past the check point as though everything had been sorted out. Kerrass' face was impassive which normally meant that he was struggling not to laugh.

I'm much better at reading his facial expressions now than I was when we first met.

Taylor scrambled his horse into line behind me as I rode slowly and steadily towards the main gate of the castle.

"Sir...SIR," The Sergeant ran to catch up. "Sir, we haven't..."

"Haven't what?" I asked, all arrogant courtesy.

"We need to...I mean to say..."

"Is Lord Cavill not at home?" I enquired before turning back to look up at the castle parapet where the flag was high, if limp, and thus signalled the Lord's presence.

"No, it's not that it's just..."

Now here's the Sergeant's problem. He could not let me past unchallenged and he still needed to exert his authority over us. If he just let us past then it showed his men, the watching villagers (if any) and his superiors that he could not be trusted with the duty that he had been given. But I was already past his check point. But I was, very probably, someone important. Remember that I hadn't yet given my name and for all this poor Sergeant knew, I was a powerful somebody of influence who could have him killed or bring down his master's displeasure on the poor man's head.

"I need you to state your name and business." He finally managed to get out.

"What?" I demanded looking offended and the Sergeant made a manful effort towards _not_ flinching. He almost managed as well.

"Did my man not inform you as to our business?" I asked after a suitably dramatic pause, turning a baleful eye on Taylor who did a good impression of flinching from my gaze.

I heard a small and stifled mewl from Kerrass. He was doing his best to wear his guise of bored and stoic Witcher, Impassive observer of the world but he always enjoyed these small displays. Especially when they took on the form of a pantomime the way that this one had.

"Uh, no he didn't" The man visibly deflated in relief.

"Very well then," I drew myself up. "My name is Lord Frederick Von Coulthard, Count of Angral." Yes I was taking a title that I didn't yet have the rights for, but the betrothal deal was done and we were going to be married. I also didn't think that Ariadne would mind if I used the title to get my way into things that might help people. "With me," I went on, "Is Master Witcher Kerrass of Maecht of the Feline school. And Young Master Taylor, my squire."

It should be pointed out, again, that Taylor actually has a few years on me.

"We are here to discuss matters of the security and safety of the common folk with my cousin, Lord Cavill." I said in my grandest and most self-important voice.

Note the use of "Cousin" when talking about Lord Cavill. It is true that most of the nobility of the North are related to each other but as far as I know, I am unrelated to that particular branch of the nobility. But the term of "Cousin" suggests kinship amongst us all and implies a closeness and common ground that we have with each other that is not shared by all of our subjects.

Having declared my business, I turned my horse and continued on my progress towards the castle.

We had gone several steps before the Sergeant stopped us again.

"Uh, we need to examine your goods."

"We have no goods." I pointed out reasonably. "As I am not a merchant."

"Your belongings then. Lord Cavill's orders."

I frowned. Time to exert my authority. "You're not going through my personal things." I declared in outrage. "I am visiting my cousin and have nothing to hide from him. You may take the matter up with him if you like?" And I haughtily turned away.

"Lord Cavill isn't receiving visitors." was the last gambit that the Sergeant tried. "He has suffered a recent tragedy and as such, he has isolated himself."

"Ah," I said. "In which case I should offer my condolences."

"He is not..."

"Outrageous." I exclaimed. There is really no other way that you can describe the way that I was talking. "I come to warn Lord Cavill of a danger that hangs over his people and you try to turn me aside." Time to put the poor man on the spot. "Are you suggesting that Lord Cavill would rather be kept in the dark about the state of his subjects? Are you suggesting that he would not put aside his grief in order to see to the security of his realm and the well-being of his people? Are you saying that he isn't fit to carry out the duties of his rank?"

The Sergeant's eyes edged towards the corporal and the other men who studiously avoided his eyes. The corporal just shook his head and shrugged.

You see, what I had done was this. If the Sergeant insisted on keeping me at the checkpoint then he was agreeing with my suggestion that Lord Cavill wasn't fit for office and was neglectful and lazy. But if he let me through then he was disobeying his obvious orders to keep all visitors away and to inspect their goods before confiscating a few items to show their, and therefore Lord Cavill's dominance over the area. If we had played according to our role then we would have probably gotten through after a nice small bribe of some kind which would have provided beer money for the guards while also giving them the feeling that they were superior to us and us, the feeling that everyone wearing a Cavill uniform was more important than we were.

But in turning it back on him, it meant that he was now trapped into either letting me past or implying that Lord Cavill was a dangerous and neglectful buffoon who deserved to be stripped of land and title.

For those people who would like to know. The correct counter to my move is to politely inform the upstart facing you that the Lord is indisposed with his council at the moment, that he "is not currently holding court" at the moment and that the guards do not know where he currently is, or that the Lord is unwell. But that if we wished, we could wait in the local inn or tavern until a message could be got to Lord Cavill notifying him of our arrival.

If he had been trained a bit better or, as I suspect is more likely, had more experience with dick-heads like me, then this is what he might have done. Instead he withered under my question and waved us through.

That is how "The Game" is played. I will admit to enjoying it in small doses and when there is a legitimate reason for it such as deflating a self-important prick or belittling an ass-hole. In this case, we were pursuing the evil fucks that liked to victimise the common folk and maybe took Francesca from us and so I felt that the skills deserved to be used.

If you feel disgusted by all of this then do not be dismayed. Yours is the reaction of the "good and straightforward" person. Any uneasiness would come from a secret suspicion that such skills are sometimes necessary in making the world go round. If it sounds fascinating or exciting then you might want to consider a career in the civil service. Just make sure that you pursue such a career for the right reasons.

I won't go into every interaction that we had as we rode into the Cavill's castle.

Heh, accidental alliteration.

If I did go into everything that happened, you would still be reading this in a month's time. And then, only if you did nothing else other than to sit and read what I'm talking about. It was constant as we walked our horses, not dismounting because the road was muddy and walking through such things is for _lesser_ people than us, past the people and the various astonished guards and up to the castle.

The castle, as I said was a former military outpost. We were heading towards that part of Northern Redania where the paths through the mountains mean that we were on the border with Kaedwen. King Henselt was not alone in being an aggressive King of Kaedwen and there were regular sorties and raids into Redania from the eastern Kingdom. The method of dealing with this was the creation of "The Marcher Lords". These were a series of Northern Barons who were given charge of a military outpost type of a castle as well as a garrison and almost complete autonomy to run their lands the way they wanted. That way, the Northern border was protected so that the regular army could concentrate on protecting the Pontar valley from Temerian, Aedirn and Kaedwen again's various ambitions.

I don't know why Kaedwen has always reared militarily ambitious kings. Perhaps it was something to do with the desire for better arable land and being close to the trading centres of Novigrad, Tretogor and the rest. I don't know and I will leave that question to wiser heads than mine.

As I say, it was a military building first and you could still see the original layout of the fortress in the separate courtyards and the firing steps. That even on the walls, archers could still shoot down into the press of the men if the courtyards themselves were breached and that wasn't counting the keep itself.

The keep was originally quite small, short, squat, grey and drab. The kind of place where you could only imagine that you would spend your entire life being cold and damp. But since then, the keep had been modified. You could see the places on the walls and some of the original out buildings where they had been taken down to rebuild some new buildings and to expand the keep. The roof of the keep had been rebuilt completely using sandstone rather than the dull grey granite and slate and you could also see the more modern red fired tiles that made up the rooftops.

I don't want you to think that this was a sign of neglect. Rather it was the sign of an old-fashioned fortification being changed into something else when it was no longer required for it's original purpose. There was also a small chapel that had been built that took up a part of what would once have been a killing ground inside the walls.

We pushed our horses past the constant stream of common folk that were carrying goods in and out of the castle. I was reminded of Kerrass' story about infiltrating a castle by simple virtue of carrying a bundle of firewood and having his hood up. The people looked tired with empty eyes, far too many of them looking just a little bit too thin. Baggy, old clothes.

We were well above the famine line that the last war had created. The local area was well able to look after itself with crops and the like and although they may have felt the pinch from army foraging parties when the regiments were marching to the front as well as the royal foragers who stripped the countryside of grain and other goods, there wasn't the rampant loss of life here. The fields had still been planted and the livestock was still relatively cared for. Especially as the countryside had now had several years to get over the famines and recover.

But there should no way have been enough of a problem that would contribute to the...to the listlessness that we saw. These people were beaten down, tired and resigned to a life of hardship. It had not even crossed their mind that there might be a better life over the horizon. Normally you see this kind of thing in places where there is heavy banditry, which we had seen no evidence of, or a feudal lord who is ruling the place with an iron fist, charging high taxes and brutalising his people

I found myself beginning to dislike Lord Cavill. It wasn't just the state of the castle that was increasingly covered in greenery that invading forces could use to climb up. Nor was it the remodelling of a grand old fortress, nor was it the arrogance of the guards who had tried to shake us down on the castle gate as well, or the treatment of the common folk. It was the greenery _and_ the state of the castle _and_ the attitude of the guards _and_ the treatment of the common folk.

Again, I don't want you to think that this is unusual. To varying degrees, this kind of thing can be seen wherever you go on the continent. I have seen these signs in the southern parts of the Empire as well as up in Northern Redania and Kaedwen and everywhere in between. Sometimes the blame can be laid at the feet of the church or overzealous churchmen. Sometimes it's because the local lord has been forced to raise taxes for some kind of local works such as irrigation channels for the fields.

But when you put these things together it is nearly always because the Lord likes his comfort and doesn't want to be bothered with the everyday business of running his lands. He wants to keep his hands clean. This wasn't the worst I've seen. I have seen far, far worse closer to my families estates because there, the Lords and Ladies are much closer to Novigrad and Oxenfurt so the same amount of land is often, also, supporting a town house and the extravagant parties that are expected of them. But instead of investing in commerce or investing in the improvement of their lands and people like Father did, they just squeeze the common folk for that little bit extra which is why it doesn't work.

The subtle and not so subtle powerplays were still at work. We were kept waiting for someone to come and take our horses away to the stable and we still had to carry our own goods into the castle. I know that Kerrass actually prefers to do it that way and I would certainly have no objection, in most cases, to carrying my own gear on the grounds that the average servant has approximately seventy three more important things more important to do than to look after uninvited guests. There is also the ever present danger that a light fingered servant might rifle through your belongings.

But that wasn't the point. Busy servants I can understand but we were deliberately kept waiting. I know this because the liveried servants, the groom and such like, were lounging around, playing dice and smoking. It was the common folk that were under fed. The liveried men were slovenly, unwashed and unmaintained. A sneaking suspicion, later proven to be false, began to form in my head that somewhere there would be some other kind of servant. A more, _elite_ kind of servant that only attends on the Lord himself and his most favoured guests. These servants would be almost exclusively female, beautiful and would either be wearing not very much or would be almost completely see through.

I firmly admonished myself to keep a tight grip on my temper.

We were again kept waiting before someone arrived out of a side door to offer us the formal hospitality of the house. The hospitality of bread and salt was duly offered, the proper words were exchanged and we washed our hands and face before being shown to our rooms. The man who came to see us in this way did have the grace to apologise for Lord Cavill's absence but that "certain matters" were keeping his attention elsewhere. I commiserated of course and told him that I was at Lord Cavill's disposal if there was anything I could do to help with whatever problems were weighing on his mind. The servant took this with as good a grace as he could manage before handing us over to some more servants.

We were shown to our rooms which involved another power play as we were shown to rooms far to small for my station. A legitimate insult to me as even if I wasn't pretending to be a more uptight nobleman than I actually was, this was still little more than a servants room. I won't deny that I've slept in worse and been happy with it, but not when I've been travelling so openly as the son of a Baron and _especially_ not as a Count. Future Count or not. I let Taylor argue the toss for a while and eventually he brow-beat the poor servant into obedience. The servant in question seemed to be of a lower status than the groom and the men-at-arms and I suspect that he had been ordered as to exactly how to treat us.

We moved to better quarters and settled in. Taylor sleeping against the door, at his own insistence despite my suggestions to take another room or at least sleep in the chair, Kerrass in another room and I settled down to make some notes and change for dinner. It's also another common trick for people to try and interrupt you while you're still changing for something and then pretend to be insulted when we weren't ready to receive the person in question. I sent Taylor out to see what could be seen and to see if he could make any friends. I doubted it as he had been throwing his weight around with giddy abandon but these are the things that you need to try.

Sure enough, we ended up being kept waiting for several hours before a servant came to enquire if Lord Frederick (notice the lack of titles) would care to attend upon Baron Cavill at his earliest convenience. It is the very height of bad manners to turn down such an invitation and as I was already waiting for them I declared, in a loud voice, that the sooner I could speak to Cousin Cavill then the sooner we could put an end to this threat that promised to swallow the entirety of the north.

It was probably a faint hope that such declarations would do any good other than to cause some gossip in the servants halls but even that kind of thing can have it's uses.

We collected Kerrass on our way down to the main hall, at my insistence I might add so that I could "have my professional consultant on hand so that the right honourable Lord Cavill would be able to hear about the threat from a suitably learned source," and we were shown to the hall entrance.

There we were told, in excruciating and condescending detail, about the protocol that was expected at these kinds of things before the doors were opened and we were shown into what passed for the court of Lord Cavill.

The first thing that hit me in the face was that there were no women there. That says something. Both about the company of people that I was going into but also about me. That the first thing I notice is that there weren't any women.

I suppose that I've been lucky in that I've been surrounded by some amazing women in my life which is why this stood out so much to me.

But here's another thing. I'm told that, even in the older version of Nilfgaardian court, where women were expected to be seen and not heard. Where they dressed, deliberately, in drab colours in order to fade into the background in order to escape notice, the women still played an important role. Their job was to remember everything that their husband had forgotten. It wasn't a formal thing, nor was it a skill that was trained into them from a young age where their tutors and nannies told them that they would, one day, be a walking diary and notepad for their husbands, but that's what they were.

In the north, women are, or rather were since the various wars have done a considerable amount to cull the male population meaning that there is actually a much larger number of women fulfilling the courtly roles, the ornaments that hung off their husband's arms. Where the Northern Lords were expected to be masculine and wear martial clothing or hunting attire beneath their expensive robes and badges of office, the women became a way of showing off their wealth, wearing the jewels and the expensive dresses as well as looking as young and beautiful as possible which was another way of exhibiting the man's wealth and prestige.

But here there was none of that.

I felt like I was twelve again. The first time that I had been invited to join the "men" after dinner rather than having to go with the women as was proper for my childhood. Lots of _men_ standing around smoking and drinking and eating food. Talking about self-important little things with their self-important little smirks and talking down to everyone and about everyone.

It was a courtroom as well. A large hall, obviously converted from something else into it's current form. Lord Cavill stood before a chair that I might as well call a throne. It wasn't as richly carved or decorated as any of the thrones that I have seen but at the same time, that was clearly what it was.

I'm struggling to describe the place.

Ok, here's a thing.

There are two major, socially acceptable pastimes for gentlemen of leisure in the north. By "Gentlemen of Leisure" I mean those men who have enough money provided for them by their beloved families and their domains, so that they don't really need to work particularly hard for it. But also that they don't really have a need to go to court. Your find these kind of people are generally in their middle age, already married having provided for the succession with a number of children. Have a wife that they are fond of and a mistress that keeps them happy and they are either before the period where they have to arrange marriages for their children, or after it and their children are betrothed, or married already. Then, after they have done their tasks for the day they go on to their hobbies.

These hobbies are either War, or Hunting.

These two things can be broken down of course. The hobby of war might be to collect paintings of battlefields or collect armour and weapons from various places. They might put all their efforts into training and equipping their personal men at arms or they might collect books and accounts of battles long past before getting their friends round to argue about how _they_ would have done it differently if they had been commanding the forced of Blah in battle against Thingy on the field of Doo-dah. I've seen some men who collect wooden carvings of soldiers where they put them on tables that have been carved into the shapes of famous battlefields to aid in these discussions.

Notice that I haven't said that they spend their time actually training in the yard. Such men tend to be of the school of thought where they learned to fight in their youth and either consider themselves to have learnt everything that they need to know, or have admitted that age has rendered them unable to carry out any but the most basic of martial manoeuvres and would be forced to send their sons should the Crown actually call for aid.

The other hobby is that of hunting in whatever form it takes. My father was a good example of this. I would flatter him to say that he did more work before he would start the pursuit of his hobby than others and I would also suggest that he had more taste, but I may be a little biased there. He would certainly do things like getting out of bed before dawn so that he could "exercise the dogs" if there was an important visitor coming or taking the hawks out last thing at night. He used to say that he would often receive an insight while out on his hunts, a solution to a problem that he had been puzzling over in the same way that I used to get the answer to a question while down the pub or had woken up with an essay solution in the early hours of the morning.

Such men tend to have stuffed animal heads on the walls along with racks of antlers and maybe the hide of a particularly rare animal. There would be bear skins on the floor and trophies displayed prominently in various places.

I am struggling not to be too condescending here. This is all perfectly normal and is only two of the more acceptable ways for a noble _man_ to spend his time. I would remind you that learning or "Bettering one's mind" is not as socially acceptable in the upper tiers of "polite society" although that is certainly what I hope to be doing with my time when not seeing to feudal duties or lecturing at Oxenfurt.

But, as I say, hunting and war.

What I'm going to call Lord Cavill's throne room, was buried in both. It was as though there were two separate and much larger rooms worth of furnishings and decorations in this place. A hunting room and a War room but someone, presumably Lord Cavill, had taken both rooms, thrown everything in them into this room and then shaken it before hanging the pictures and setting up the weapons displays as close as they could to wherever they had been left.

The effect was more than a little overwhelming, an assault on the senses as the smells of metal polish combined with the smell of those chemicals that they use to preserve stuffed animals combined into a heady and potent brew.

I saw bears heads, deer heads, a Griffon head and a Wyvern head alongside suits of armour, spears and swords strapped to the walls that also obscure paintings and tapestries that overlapped and obscured each other, the colours often clashing and causing the beginning of a headache to cross through my skull. The effort that it must have taken to get everything in there must have been extraordinary but it also meant that the room seemed a little off centre. That the effort to get them all in meant that the biggest and grandest things had to be shoved aside to squeeze in a couple of smaller ornaments.

If Lord Cavill had been intending to throw me off balance then he did his job well.

The men were of a similar kind of mish-mash of styles and outfits. Some looked as though they had just walked in from the practice yards, complete with sabres and Long swords at their waist while others looked as thought hey had just jumped off their horses after a hunt, mud splatter still covering the side of their trousers and boots although the cynical part of me noticed that the mud wasn't all pervasive enough to still be caked on or to stink, more a kind of artistic smear.

But, again, it was those people that were trying to do both at the same time that were making my eyes ache. The man who was wearing an arming jacked but also wearing a hawking glove stood out. The man leaning against a boar spear while wearing a stripped down version of plate harness.

And over all of this there was also the sound, smell and sight of rambunctious hunting dogs around the place, one of which was sleeping, sprawled out, next to the fire as well as a pair of hooded hunting birds on a stand near the "throne".

In a move that must have surely been rehearsed, the entire room turned to face me, looking down their long nose at my courtly attire that wouldn't have been out of place at a more "dressed down" kind of affair in Novigrad but it left me feeling rather overdressed here. I found myself wondering whether or not someone had told the assembly whether this was my preferred form of dress and as such they had deliberately dressed like "men of action" in order to intimidate me.

I don't know. I doubt it though on the grounds that these people looked as though they meant it.

In these cases when you find yourself over, or under, or inappropriately dressed for the occasion, the correct response is to ignore everyone's attire and attitude and pretend that everyone is just dressed normally. Tell yourself something like "It is a man's words and deeds that are important, not what he looks like" and stride forward, head held high, shoulders back and meet your opponent.

Notice that I didn't say enemy.

So I strode forward, Kerrass behind me and slightly too my left. I wore my eating knife as well as my dagger at my waist but compared to some of the others, I was woefully under-armed. I spotted the man that I had been told would be Lord Cavill at the far end of the room and started towards him with the long, purposeful stride that I hoped would convey that I was a man of means and purpose.

Lord Cavill was an oldish man. I would put him at being maybe a decade older than father was when he died which means that he was around sixty. Despite this he still looked hale, hearty and healthy although I thought he looked a little pale with black shadows under his eyes which suggested that he hadn't been sleeping well recently. He had a small shock of white hair which he kept reasonably short but he had somehow managed to avoid going bald. He seemed to be a little on the edge of things, watching the room and I certainly felt myself being appraised as I approached. He was wearing hunting garb and had a sword strapped to his side with a smaller dagger on the other side. The handles were worn and he looked as though he knew how to use them. Certainly the calluses that covered his hand suggested that he had some skill with them. He was wearing a tunic in his own colours trimmed with Gold and silver thread which was the thing that made him stand out more than anyone else.

It was another jarring effect. In every way that everyone else seemed gaudy and overdressed, Lord Cavill seemed almost underdressed but there was no doubt as to who he was.

That's another skill that they teach you when you're learning to be a courtier. It is vital to be able to read a room when you enter it in order to be able to tell who is in charge and who the important people were.

I was intercepted by one of those people as I walked across the floor.

This man, who I took to be Lord Cavill's younger son was around my age, maybe a year or two in either direction and he was huge. Heavily muscled and he moved like he knew how to use it. He was wearing his family colours but he was also one of those men that was wearing an approximation of plate mail. By which I mean that he wore a breastplate, arm and leg guards as well as pauldrons. But he was lacking in certain areas meaning that it wasn't quite full harness. He wasn't wearing a gorget for instance to protect the neck and his boots were not armoured, nor was he wearing gauntlets.

Also, normally when you can't have full harness on you certainly have a second layer of protection, commonly chainmail underneath the bits of plate that you can afford. He was not wearing such things so I guessed that the armour was more for show than for utility.

Unlike his father he wore a broadsword at his hip despite it being bigger and heavier. He was tall, just short of six foot by my estimate, reddish blonde hair that I'm told is generally called "Strawberry blonde" and blue eyed with a square, handsome face, a large chin with a cleft down the middle and high cheekbones. He had a way of looking at me that made me dislike him instantly. I was working really hard to keep an open mind about his father and the rest of the castle but I decided that I was safe to dislike this man regardless of what was going on.

He reminded me of Sir William the Ram from the incident with Tom the troll. Strong, handsome and although he might not be completely without intelligence, he had that confidence that meant that few men could stand up to his skill with weapons and he knew it, that he was pretty and he knew it. But also that he was rich and he knew that too.

I could just tell that he thought he was better than I was and I felt myself bridle as he took on the aspect of every bully that I had ever known.

For bullying was exactly what he had in mind.

Now.

I'm going to sink back into courtier style commentary here as I talk about the way that this works.

What he did was stand in front of me so that I would have to walk round him to get to Lord Cavill. So that was precisely what I did. Without missing a beat, I just adjusted my line of march so that I moved round this tall wall of muscle.

So then he moved into my path again.

So I went back and moved back towards the line that I had first been walking down. So of course he moved back into my path again.

Now, to the vast majority of people, whether you are a merchant, farmer, noble, student, chef, servant or the proverbial butcher, baker, candlestick maker. You know that what he was doing was trying to pick a fight. From his perspective he was this huge, musclebound man with a large sword strapped to his side, breastplate polished enough so that I could see myself in it and now some little lickspittle courtier was walking through his domain to try and say important things to important people as if he was more important than I was.

But from a _courtier's_ perspective, you have to take into account the very real possibility that there was something else going on here.

This play is actually quite common. You see it a lot in the more Northern and frontier bound Kaedwen castles or, so I'm told, out in the Skelligan isles where the entire ritual is a way for the stranger to prove themselves worthy of the assembled men's time. It's a way of testing the interlopers mettle and to see exactly how he is going to behave. In short, it's a way to assess the new man's behaviour and reason for being there.

It's also quite a dangerous play, not for the observers but for the man sent to pick the fight as there are any number of ways that this could go wrong.

As we shall see.

But for this reason, in circles of courtier training, this gambit is sometimes referred to as "pawn's sacrifice" named after the chess piece.

I looked up to see what kind of man that I was dealing with and smiled my best, polite but kind of insincere smile. I also put as much world weariness into it as possible in an effort to put across the idea that such things were beneath me.

Which they are.

The man looked down at me and literally, puffed out his chest. You could hear the leather straps of his armour creaking under the strain.

I smirked, looking to either side and then moved to go past him again.

There was absolutely no expectation that he would do anything other than move to step in my way again. I knew this but the movement gave me a chance to look past him at the face of Lord Cavill so that I could see what his expression was. Was he even watching this display? How was he standing? Things like that. I had looked to the side to gauge the feel of the room. Were people smiling? If so were they smiling at me, at the man standing over me or were they smiling at the situation as a whole.

All of these things told me something.

The other people in the room were watching the entire thing in the same way that you or I might watch a piece of particularly entertaining street theatre. Whether that be an absurdly incorrect street corner philosopher, a sleight of hand magician or a puppet show. There was one small group of young men, maybe three or four of them to my left who were smirking at me and clearly anticipating my discomfort while looking forward to watching their friend smash my face in which was clearly the expected outcome.

Lord Cavill's face was interesting. The most dangerous possibility for me was that he wasn't watching and wasn't interested. This would mean that the man in front of me was either acting alone or had been put up to it by someone else. If Lord Cavill was not involved then it would have been essential that I play it cool and not react with anything that might have me thrown out of the castle. The advantage to this would be that if things went too far then I would have been able to appeal to Lord Cavill to extricate myself from the situation.

Fortunately for me. This was not the case. Lord Cavill was indeed watching proceedings with interest, his eyes glittering in what I took for wicked amusement and a small amount of malice although I couldn't tell whether or not it was directed at me, Kerrass or the giant standing in front of me.

I decided that Lord Cavill had put this person up to this in order to test my character.

The entirety of that exchange and my thinking process had taken maybe four seconds. Lord Cavill had made the first move in our little game and it was time for me to make my answering move.

I looked up at the man in front of me and smiled.

From my end the problem was that I had an objective. I needed to speak to Lord Cavill. But this person was in my way and was attempting to provoke me into some kind of aggressive gesture. Ideally he wanted me to either insult him, physically attack him, to challenge him to a duel or to give _him_ an excuse to challenge _me_ to a duel.

The problem with any of these things was that I was under hospitality and so, if I did any of these things then I would have been the one to break hospitality and the guard could, at best, throw me out or, at worst, have me executed for committing a crime.

In Skellige, I'm told, the correct thing to do would be to punch the man in the face and deal with the consequences later. I'm told, having never gone to Skellige that the men out there, and indeed the women, respect that kind of thing and I would be welcomed with open arms. Here though, things were a bit trickier.

Fortunately for me, hospitality is a shield that protected us both, so I could use that to defend myself.

"Forgive me," I said. The opening words are all important. By saying this I was putting him into an artificial sense of superiority. My tone of voice was chosen to let him know that I was anything but sincere in my apology. "Forgive me," I said, "But I need to get past you to the other end of the room."

"Oh, of course." The giant said slapping himself on the forehead. "Silly me. Then you should go ahead."

I nodded as though that was the end of the matter and went to move past him.

Neither Kerrass, nor I, nor anyone else in the room was surprised when he moved to block my path again.

I sighed, trying to sound exasperated and put upon. I didn't need to try very hard.

"Would you excuse me please sir?" I asked him as politely as I could manage.

"Why? What have you done?"

There was some scattered tittering of laughter. I decided to smile along with the joke while promising myself that vengeance would be as swift as I could manage.

"I meant," I began, "I meant, rather that you were in the way."

"Oh, I see." He drew it out. "Again, how silly of me."

I tried to go past him again. Again he stepped in front of me. Time to bring things to a head.

"Will you let me past?" I asked.

"No."

"May I ask why not?"

"You may ask." A child's response, punishing me for my civility and again I smiled as everyone laughed at my discomfort.

"Very well," I put just a hint of the fact that I was beginning to feel bored by the entire thing now. Mostly in an effort to move things along to the next step. "Why may I not move past you?"

You may notice that I have not yet told the brute that I need to get past him to talk to Lord Cavill. This was entirely deliberate on my part as that is the trump card in my hand.

"Because I don't like your face." He sneered down at me.

"Well that's a shame." I responded. "It is the only face I have." I wanted to look around to see if my joke had landed with anyone that was watching but it would be a mistake to take my eyes off the man in front of me.

"It might be the only face you have, but I still don't like it." He told me, he was frowning slightly, a little annoyed at something.

"That's a shame for you. But I don't see why that should prevent me from moving past you."

"You can't move past me because I say so." He snapped. "Your face is ugly and I will not abide it travelling any further into this room where you will pollute the air with your appearance."

I nodded to myself. The idiot had made his mistake.

"Because _you_ say so?" I asked. I put a hint of warning into my voice while also doing my best to leave out the threat.

"I do. The room will be markedly improved by your absence. You are a weak man sir, weak and foolish and stink far too much like a woman. We are real men out here and have no time for your courtly slights and fanciful ways. Men like you are more woman than man and we want no part of it. Be off with you," he told me, waving imperiously as he did so. He almost leaned forward expecting a slap, or some other formal declaration of a duel.

I suspect I disappointed him. "Very well," I said before turning. But then I stopped, and tilted my head to one side as if I was thinking. I wasn't, the play had already been set in motion. What I was doing was assessing the mood of the room and, as I hoped, the mood had shifted a little in my favour. Not because they like me more than the buffoon but because it had been taken that little bit too far.

"Because _you_ say so," I mused turning back to the oaf. "Because _you_ say so. Not Lord Cavill?"

"Well I..."

I pulled myself up to my full height. "You dare speak for Lord Cavill?" I snarled.

It was a courtier snarl though. It was still measured and enunciated properly but now there was a little more teeth to it.

"Well I..." He began again.

"My name is Count Frederick von Coulthard of Angral." I said in my best oratory voice. "I came here to inform Lord Cavill of matters regarding the security of his realm and the safety of his people. I was summoned to this room by himself on this matter." I paused to let these words sink into the waiting ears of the room. No-one was even _pretending_ to ignore us now. "Who are _you_ to stand between Lord Cavill and his royal, no, his divinely appointed duty?"

The moron bristled. I still wonder whether or not he realised that he had been set up for this fall. Because this is the threat of being the pawn in this sacrifice. If it turns out that the man that you're bullying has more influence, rank or pull than you do then you run the risk of being, at best, embarrassed in front of everyone.

Or, at worst, you can look forward to your public disgrace followed by exile before the man that you bullied spends a certain amount of time destroying you. There is also the threat that the person that you are bullying is actually a wolf in sheep's clothing and could kick your ass. He hadn't got it though and opened his mouth to retort.

"That's enough." Lord Cavill spoke finally. "I believe that this jest has gone on too far."

The giant closed his mouth with a snap. Thus proving that the habit of obedience runs deep. Then he opened his mouth again as though it had decided, all by itself that the brain was out for some reason. That it's last orders were to continue to insult me. Then he frowned.

I had to fight, really hard to suppress a smile as you could almost see the thoughts crossing his mind. 'But, but you told me to insult the shit out of this man.' You could see him wanting to complain. Followed by a 'And I haven't even gotten to the really good insults yet, such as questioning his manhood or calling him a silly sycophantic lick-spittle,' followed by a 'No, you know what? Fuck it. I'm in it now.'

During this thought process his mouth opened and closed several times, his brows furrowed and you could see these thoughts thundering across his brow.

Here is another tip. If you know that you're not a courtly person, if you know that you're a fighter, soldier or knight and that you value honesty, truth and plain speech. Then ensure that you only travel to courts where you will be surrounded by friends. If you are forced into a situation where this is not the case then take a friend with you. A translator if you will, who will be able to help you through the more nerve-wracking feats of etiquette and protocol.

Also, ask questions. The herald who stands by the door is there for precisely this reason along with the master of ceremonies who will tell you where to stand, who to speak to and where to look. But above all, be polite, always look a person in the eye, shake hands firmly and do not presume. The secret of the matter is that those of us who have been trained in how to do it and how to think all twisty like courtiers are. We secretly admire you for your forthright speech and honest approach. So wear that attitude like a shield. Laugh at yourself, grow a thick skin and point out to a person that you are slightly insulted by what they've just said. But otherwise get out when you can.

Kerrass claims that I am a fighter. Rickard agrees, as do several other fighters such as Sam and Father Danzig of recent memory but that doesn't mean that I could be a general of a battle, nor could I fight in the battle line or march solidly into enemy fire. I would be cut down and rightly so. So acknowledge your skills. This is not your battlefield, it is ours and it is easily as deadly as yours is.

Depending where you go of course. King Radovid's court was famously very small and absolutely deadly, as was Emperor Emhyr's court. King Foltest liked a large and bawdy court providing that they didn't speak ill of his daughter or his sister/wife or any of the other subjects that he got testy on. For which he employed people to inform strangers to the court what these things were.

But I'm getting off topic.

I had just begun to feel sorry for the brute in front of me. Just for a split second as he had been thrown to the wolves, but he didn't _know_ that he had been thrown to the wolves and genuinely thought that he was in the right. And he was getting angry now.

"This...this _thing_ isn't worthy to..." he began.

I laughed.

Things had come to a point in our courtly battle now. I had taken a beating in the early stages of the matter, despite the fact that that had been my gambit, before I had turned the matter around and scored a significant point. The judge had ruled the fight in my favour but my opponent was not yet done and felt that the judge's decision was unfair and intended to kill me. So now, I had to kill him first and I had to do it brutally and utterly without compromise.

If I hid behind Lord Cavill then I would be seen as weak. Not just to my opponent, but to the assembled people as well as Lord Cavill himself. This is another difference between courtly combat and fighting in the field. In the field, mercy is seen as a virtue whereas in court, mercy is a weakness to be exploited and is nearly always a mistake. It's one of the reasons that I don't like to employ these skills and why I didn't want to follow one of Father's many plans for my future, that of being a courtier. I found that I always wanted to let the opponents off easily and my tutor told both me, and my father which resulted in him being fired, that I lacked the heart for the work.

At the time, I was heartbroken as father was angry for a long time, but, looking back, I think that that was the nicest thing that any of my tutors ever said to me.

But now, I needed to destroy this man. It wasn't that hard. I was already quite angry at the way that we had been treated as I had a job to do and these people were doing there best to delay us. I reached down into my chest to find the molten core of rage that had taken up residence there. I had only recently discovered that it was a thing, over the last couple of days but it was there now and nothing that I could do could dislodge it. So I determined to use it. I reached down towards it and...

I laughed.

"Forgive me." I said, smiling through the chuckling. "I had not realised that we were talking in jest." I turned towards Lord Cavill. "The fault is entirely mine, Lord, as I was unaware as to the local humour, customs and matters of protocol."

Was there a flicker of emotion in his eyes? I couldn't tell. I was too far away and I didn't know him well enough to guess as to what might be going on in his mind. I didn't have time to spend though and I turned back to my immediate opponent. Lord Cavill was a future problem.

My opponent still had his mouth open as if to say something so I jumped in. There was absolutely no way that I could allow him to get the upper hand. I had the floor now and I needed to keep it.

"Where I come from, a bit further south in Redania, it is customary to refrain from playing pranks on new members, or visitors to the court until their immediate business is concluded and the person is a bit more known to the people assembled. The reason for this is that it is considered extremely rude to interrupt someone on serious business. Also, there is a risk of offending someone so the jokes, jests, pranks and japes are generally left until later in the acquaintanceship.

"So I entered with proper deference and humility towards the Lord of the domain," I spun on my feet, also displaying a small martial movement as the technique that I used was one that Kerrass had taught me. I thought it was time to show the watchers that I was possibly a little more dangerous than I looked. I bowed deeply to Lord Cavill, who hadn't moved and continued my speech, "with an aim to concluding my business as quickly as possible so that I could move on to meeting some of the excellent and noble people here assembled."

I had moved a little way away during this speech, moving around to attract people's eyes and become the centre of attention. When you are destroying someone you need to do it as publicly as possible. It also meant that I could survey the room and begin to gauge how I stood. They were certainly enjoying the spectacle, other than the small group of my opponents companions who were staring daggers at me. One of them was looking thoughtful.

"Had I known," I went on, "that here, the jests are offered first, before business then I might have stepped forward a little more brashly," time to turn up the heat a little, "maybe with a little more discourtesy and I would have told the idiotic fool in front of me that he smelled like something that I would scrape out of my horse's hoof in order to prevent it from spreading some kind of infection."

There was a little bit of laughter. Now the technique becomes knowing when to switch from the angry jester back to the courteous courtier.

"I would have pointed out that he was so ugly that when he was born, everyone was concerned that the baby must have come out backwards."

A little more laughter.

"So ugly in fact that the servants used to hang a steak around his neck so that the dogs would play with him. I would have told him that he didn't need to work so hard at his weaponscraft, that all he needed to do would be to show his face and that the enemy would run away screaming. I would have told him that he needs to pay the whore's that he frequents at least ten times their usual rate. Both for agreeing to be in the same room as him, but to try and do anything with the shrivelled manhood that is displayed before them. Then they have to _not_ laugh at what they are shown before agreeing to never speak of it to anyone else."

He was becoming an agreeable shade of pink now, time to move in for the kill. Again that flare of pity and I forced myself to squash it.

"A man so repulsive, of appearance, prowess and intelligence that his own father is forced to pay a dowry for him, rather than expecting one in return."

There was no doubt about it. The room was cackling quietly now. He was about to explode in apoplectic rage when I changed my tone back to that of genial, calm and courteous courtier.

"But of course, all of these things are jests and I hope that I have not offered insult or offence, either to you, sir, or to this house by offering my own personal little attempts at humour." I bowed.

There was a little more laughter and a few comments of "Well done, well done. Good show,"

My opponent looked around in shock at the people watching before storming from the room in a cloud of black rage. I bowed to Lord Cavill in exactly the same way that Fighters at a wrestling tournament bow towards the judge and waited for him to nod before I continued my approach.

I felt dirty. The gambit that I had used was an old one, there is no denying that and it has been used all over the continent many many times, both in reality but also in fiction and I was more than a little astonished that it worked. But then again, the set up to the situation was equally as old and the player so obviously out of his depth that I felt secure in my counter. I already had the excuse of "just jesting" and they couldn't argue against that because to do so they would have needed to point out that the person who had had a go at me would also have been at fault.

The correct counter to my gambit depends on where you are. In Skellige you would just offer insult upon insult to each other, even resulting in blows if necessary as the drawing of weapons in the mead-halls are forbidden on pain of a painful death. Then the hosting party will break in and the two insult throwers will embrace, often in genuine eternal friendship.

In most courts, experienced players of the game will realise that they have been thrown to the wolves and will withdraw gracefully with some form of public apology and a pretence of ignorance at the visitor's status, an excuse of fatigue or excessive alcohol as well as a lack of understanding regarding the Lord's instructions.

Thus telling both the Lord and the visitor who it was that was responsible. Then there is often a more private assignation for a more extensive and heartfelt apology at a later date in order to sore up the lost face and esteem. This is done, even if you intend to destroy your former opponent at a later date. It's just the cost of doing business.

This man had simply stormed off. Possibly in thwarted rage. I guessed that he had been promised violence and the opportunity to punish an upstart little courtier and he had been thwarted, not just by me but by the man who he owed fealty to.

He was the very image of a man who was playing to rules that he didn't understand, so, he shouldn't have been playing.

I felt sick and wondered if I could persuade Lord Cavill's servants to run me a bath in order to get the skuzzy feeling off my skin.

But, a courtier's battle is never done. Time for my next opponent.

I turned and walked towards Lord Cavill, bowing again.

"I take it that the honoured gentleman has duties elsewhere Lord Cavill."

Lord Cavill raised his eyebrows. "I certainly hope so Lord Frederick. I hope that he has found some kind of duty that takes him far away so that he can think about what he has done and how he can do better next time."

He gestured and a chair was brought so that we could sit close to each other.

"Having said that, Lord Frederick, I do hope that you will not think too harshly of my son. We..."

"Your son?" I sputtered in shock.

"Yes. You are surprised?"

I looked into the eyes of the man I was sat next to. "May I speak frankly sir?"

His eyes glittered oddly.

"Please do."

"Then I hope that you won't find this too insulting but, I am a trained courtier since a fairly young age and although I do not use these skills often... I have seen that happen in several courts over the years..." an exaggeration. I have seen it happen twice. Once was in a provincial Nilfgaardian court when a knight took it upon himself to challenge a Skelligan visitor and the other time was when someone pulled the same trick when I was accompanying father on a business trip. The Skelligan broke the Nilfgaardian's nose, cheekbones and several ribs before he was pulled away by his own chieftain. Father accepted being the butt of everyone's joke and then spent a not small fortune on ruining the life and fortune of the man that insulted him. "... and such a thing _never_ ends well for the person in your son's position."

Lord Cavill stroked his chin in thought. "True, but my son needs to learn some humility and also to know when he is beaten."

"May I say that it is a harsh lesson and one that he might struggle to learn given his advanced age. I was taught such things when I was younger than ten and your son..."

"Is in his late teens. I am aware of the problem but my son needs to learn quickly as there are several lacks in his education." He sighed and wiped his hands across his eyes and I wondered if the fatigue that I saw there was a pretense or genuine. "We have suffered something of a disaster you see. My heir died recently."

My response was instant and well trained.

"I am so sorry Lord Cavill, I was completely unaware of the circumstances and were things less urgent then I would excuse myself to leave you with your grief."

He waved his hand in dismissal.

"My house has not been lucky with my sons. The young man that you just schooled was my fourth son, his mother long dead unfortunately. The elder sons were lost to the War with Nilfgaard and a disagreement with King Radovid at court which meant that he was sent to Temeria when the plague was ravaging the countryside. Now my third son is dead on the road with only a couple of my guardsmen returning to bring me the news in the last couple of days and so... all my hopes for the continuation of my line rest on the remaining son. The son who was allowed to study chivalry and weapons. Not that he took all of the lessons to heart of course. Specifically the one's about honesty and humility"

"Would my Lord take it amiss if I said that this was a common fault amongst those men who follow, or claim to follow the code of chivalry?"

He smiled a little.

"He would not. Indeed I took some heart from your recent works on the subject Lord Frederick. Yes, I know who you are and I know your recent activities in Toussaint. Might I say that your actions did you credit on the road regarding the holy sect that existed in Lyira and Rivia?"

I felt myself stiffen and admonished myself to pay better attention. I had caught myself beginning to relax and I needed to be on top of my game.

"Thank you." I stuttered a little. "You are one of the few that feels that way."

"Yes, well. People have a knee-jerk reaction to offending the church in any way and it is making the holy men of the continent over confident in their affairs. Someone needs to remind them that they are still subject to royal and feudal law as well as the laws of common decency."

"Not a fan of religion then my Lord?"

He raised his eyebrows in surprise. I was fascinated by his eyebrows. Large bushy things that seemed to move independently of the rest of his face. By far the most expressive part of him.

"I think that the world would be a much better place if they all followed their own rules." He said. "The reason that the nobility can buy our way into favour with the churches is so that we can have time to get on with our other duties whereas those others that cannot afford such considerations must worship and work to achieve the passage into an agreeable afterlife. I didn't make those rules, the church did. If I get to an afterlife and it turns out that the priests lied to me then I shall be angry indeed."

He sniffed hugely in an eloquent expression of disdain and an adequate demonstration of the fact that he was coming down with a cold.

"So yes. There are a good number of problems in the world that could be solved if the various religions of our lands confined their attentions to the care of our immortal souls and leave the rest of us to get on with the important jobs of running the rest of the world. Things like your Bishop Sansum happen when those religious people decide that they know better about the rest of the world than the rightful rulers of it."

I was fighting to not like the man. He was charming and his way of speaking drew you along with him.

"Still," he said suddenly jerking himself out of his thoughtful gaze into nowhere. "You didn't come here to talk to me about my spirituality. You told everyone that you have come here to discuss a possible threat to my people and my lands. If so then it's best that we begin talking about although I warn you that if you were just lying in an effort to get in here and gossip then things may go badly for you." He smiled as he said this to take the sting out of the words but I felt the threat all the same.

"Have no fear Lord Cavill. The threat is genuine and I have brought my Witcher comrade who can tell you some more about this."

"The inestimable Witcher Kerrass I presume," Lord Cavill held out his hand to be shaken which Kerrass dutifully took. "Of the Cat Witcher school no less. Tell me, how are your psychosis faring?"

"Tolerably Lord Cavill." Kerrass showed his teeth. "I have not felt the overwhelming urge to murder anyone since earlier this morning."

"Good good. Please forgive my lack of humour. As you may have overheard, things are not entirely well with my household at the moment."

"You are forgiven."

I managed to avoid looking at Kerrass although in comparison to my many acts of exertion, including asking Ariadne to marry me and standing and fighting a dragon...avoiding looking at Kerrass given the grating tone of voice that he used as he said that, ranks right up there.

Lord Cavill looked up at Kerrass for a long moment before turning back to me.

"Do you mind if I call over one of my advisors Lord Frederick? If this is something that involves the two of you then I think it only prudent that we get his opinion?"

"Of course."

Lord Cavill looked over into the corner of the room and beckoned. I looked and a man disentangled himself from where he had been leaning against the wall and watching the room.

My first thought was that he looked like a priest.

The second thought was that I started to admonish myself for not noticing the man earlier. One of the tricks of being a courtier is to spot the dangerous men in the room when you first enter it. They are the "wall-flowers" that are standing, leaning up against the walls and surveying the room. Just watching and listening.

As an exercise while I was being educated in this kind of thing I was told to just stand up against the wall and to say and do nothing and to find out what I could see and hear. It was educational. Not one person came and introduced themselves to me and I heard so much gossip then that I was entertaining Emma on the various topics for months afterwards.

They might not be important people in and of themselves but they are the people that are called over, as had just happened with lord Cavill and are asked for their report. They are, quite literally, like spies that are set against the rest of the court and report to their masters.

He walked through the crowd and I watched how people, almost without paying attention, seemed to just melt out of his way. As though people just felt a shiver down their spines and as such just edged sideways until they were no longer going to be an obstacle for this man.

He wasn't tall, or particularly imposing. Short, well groomed grey hair sat atop a pale face. He didn't look particularly old, I think I would place him in his forties although I am well aware that when it comes to magic users, an attempt to guess at a person's age is largely futile.

I, for instance, am engaged to be married to a nine-hundred year old woman.

I occasionally tease her for being a cradle snatcher.

But I digress.

He had a lined face and I saw frown lines as well as smile marks in the corner of his eyes. He also had a long, almost hooked nose as well as the high cheek-bones of one of the noble-houses although I couldn't tell you which one to look at him. He wore a black robe that looked, as I say, like the cassock of a priest with the accompanying cowl that, fortunately, he had the hood down.

I saw that his fingers were stained with ink.

I shivered when he approached.

"May I introduce you to Phineas Torlane. My friendly local mage."

I rose to my feet and bowed before offering my hand to be shaken. The mage smiled and I will admit that the smile seemed genuine and charming. Where I had expected a cold and clammy handshake, his grip was warm, dry and firm.

"Lord Frederick, it is an honour to meet you." He told me. Another surprise as his voice seemed to be a little higher in pitch than I had been expecting. "Might I trouble you for your autograph when our business is concluded? I will admit to being a bit of a fan, as well as rather in awe of your bravery."

"Certainly. My bravery?"

"Of course. Marrying an elder vampire. And one with such a history as well. I have followed your work with interest since it's inception and did some side-reading on the topic of the Spider-Queen of Angraal."

I noticed that he pronounced the name of the place correctly. Actually surprisingly rare.

"A brave man indeed." He finished.

"Phineas came to us seeking refuge during the Witch Hunts" Lord Cavill told us. "I had already fallen into disfavour with Radovid regarding his dependence on the eternal fire and as such Phineas had seen my lands as a potential refuge. Not incorrectly as it happens. Pull up a chair Phineas."

As we shuffled around I managed to sneak a quick look at Kerrass.

Kerrass was fiddling with his medallion. And staring at a point directly above the mage's head.

"Now," Lord Cavill leant forward before abruptly leaning back. "Sorry, sorry, I'm forgetting my manners, have you eaten, had anything to drink?"

"I'm fine thank you." I answered quickly. The mage was staring at my chest, just below my collarbone.

"Very well. Then shall we take it from there. What brings you to my castle?"

"Well. Are you aware that my brother Samuel von Coulthard is now Lord Kalayn and has taken over stewardship of Castle Kalayn?"

The mage didn't twitch but Lord Cavill shifted a little in his seat. Suspicious? Too early to say.

"We were aware." Cavill answered. "I had intended to offer an invitation for him to come and stay after he had had time to settle in a bit. I am well aware that he must have a lot of work to do to set that particular corner of the country to rights."

"Indeed and it's part of that action that brings me to your door."

"Oh?"

I glanced sidelong at the Mage who had barely moved since sitting down. It was oddly offputting which may have been the point after all. I shifted in my own seat and resolved to put all my efforts into concentrating on Lord Cavill. Kerrass would have his eye on the other man.

"Indeed." I told him. "You told me that you have read my travel journals?"

"Oh yes."

"Then you will know about the cult that Uncle Kalayn was involved with?"

"Yes, dreadful business."

"And you will also know about the disappearance of my sister, Lady Francesca von Coulthard."

"Yes. My condolences."

I felt my body move in discomfort despite my determination to give nothing away. "You will forgive me my lord if I do not accept your condolences until it is certain that there is absolutely no hope left."

"Of course, of course. My sympathies then?"

I bowed from the waist. "Those I will take with my gratitude." I cleared my throat. The universal signal of a man who wants to move on from the current topic of conversation and start to discuss something else. "Kerrass and I were always going to travel to Kalayn lands to help him with the investigation into the cult as well as to help him with any supernatural side effects to the cult's activities that might have sprung up in the mean time."

"Were there any?" The mage moved suddenly and started to speak.

There is a particular kind of street performer that likes to stand perfectly still in an outlandish costume. You can walk up to them, shout, wave, jump up and down until they feel that it is appropriately amusing and they reach down and tickle you or knock your hat off or something. They were extremely trendy in Oxenfurt when I was younger and I have never jumped so high as when I was jabbed in the ribs by one of these people. My mood was not lifted by the fact that Emma and Sam, who were with me at the time, found the whole thing absolutely hilarious.

You know those people? Living statues they call them. This was exactly like that. Fortunately Kerrass was there to protect me from my own startlement.

"Oh yes." He said. Spectres and Wraiths of many kinds. Ghosts, poltergeists, disembodied souls, weeping corpses as well as good old fashioned hauntings by unhappy dead people before they choose which particular kind of angry spirit that they become. As it was, we were cutting it fine before the situation became worse, but it is not unusual when dealing with places of that kind. The human sacrifices are never happy at being sacrificed and get angry at the slightest provocation." He sniffed, a mimic of the way that Lord Cavill had sniffed earlier. The word is derisively. He sniffed derisively. "Can't think why."

Lord Cavil smirked but the mage returned to his impression of a carving.

I then gave a fairly short account of what had happened since then, our actions to protect ourselves (although leaving out specifics of _how_ we protected ourselves. I'm not that stupid. Fairly stupid but not _that_ stupid.) I told them that we had hurt the enemy but that we had not completely destroyed the enemy and that now, we were hunting for them to do our best to ensure that they would not grow again somewhere else or terrorize any more people.

Lord Cavill listened carefully. His eyes had taken on a strange kind of, unfocused look as he stared into space, not paying attention enough to take anything else on. When I had finished he continued like this for a little while before there was a large inrush of breath and he seemed to stretch as though he had just woken up from a nap.

"Fascinating," he said. Something about the way he said it made my heart sink. He was already dismissing out concerns. "Fascinating situation."

He furrowed his brow for a moment before shaking his head. "Phineas, do you have anything to add?"

The mage did his trick again, of suddenly coming to life despite all other evidence saying that he was just some kind of Golem or automaton. "No, I don't think so. A fascinating case though, certainly some magical curiosity about the spells or the alchemy mixture that must have been used to compel these men to attack and terrorize their own homes. Also those effects that the garrison suffered. Fascinating stuff."

He literally stroked his chin when he said this.

"Fascinating." The mage said again. I don't know whether he was echoing Lord Cavill or whether it was the other way round when it came to the use of this particular piece of language. It could have been pure coincidence of course but I don't think so. The intonation and tone that was being used was a little to close to each other to be entirely coincidental.

But I doubt it.

"But unfortunately for me, my area of expertise is not in the direction of alchemical effects or perception altering. If your brother is interested I can contact a couple of my former colleagues in Kovir and see if I can find an expert for him?"

"He may be interested but if you cannot help me then my intention is to head further North and inquire as to whether or not anyone else might be able to give me any information."

"I see. Well, I shall write to your brother and see if our services might be useful to him."

"What is your area of expertise?" Kerrass asked.

He said so sharply. This would not be the first time that Kerrass' lack of courtly training has been so highlighted in my mind. His sudden suspicion was pronounced and, not for the first time, I had to force myself to not glance in his direction reproachfully.

The Mage didn't even flinch. "It's technical." He told us.

"I am no laymen on the subject." Kerrass insisted.

"It is also confidential." Lord Cavill cut him off. "I hope you understand but one of the few things that we have that we might be able to use to turn the fortunes of our house around is the skills and knowledge that our friend Phineas here might be able to provide. I hope you will forgive our refusal to comment. It is not malicious I assure you."

I nodded my acceptance of the point. Of course I didn't accept it, as I say, not _that_ stupid. By some margin it was the most suspicious thing that we had encountered and you can bet your ass that I was itching to find out what our friend Phineas the mage was up to. I would have liked to be a little less blunt however.

Most mages in modern times are either involved with the Lodge's efforts to integrate themselves into life under the Empress or are living in the North under Kovir and Poviss. Not quite trusting that the Empire, or the countryside in general is yet at the stage where they will have gotten over their anti-magic prejudices.

So to find a mage being openly used as a court mage is unusual. I am aware that my sister is all but married to one but I would point out that Laurelen lived in secret for many years and it is only because of circumstances that that situation has become public knowledge.

Laurelen is very much the exception that proves the rule nowadays and, almost because of this, I find that it highlights their attendance when I find them in other places.

"So that's our situation, Lord Cavill. That these things, these men are somewhere in the countryside is, unfortuantely, the case. We have scouted out the area and we know that their central base is not on Kalayn lands."

"They would need some kind of a base?" Cavill asked.

"Oh yes." Kerrass responded. Again taking the lead when I would have preferred to be a bit more...circumspect. "Their equipment and belongings would be impossible to house or maintain without some kind of substantial base to operate out of."

"What are you thinking?"

Kerrass opened his mouth to answer but I jumped in with both feet before he could answer.

"It's impossible to say." I said. "We know that the base would need some kind of extensive alchemical lab as well as a forge and stabling. We were thinking of some kind of cavern system or a derelict castle of some kind. Maybe a substantial camp out in the wilderness or even several such bases. We have heard that there is an elven community somewhere in the area..."

"Pah," Lord Cavill sneered. "Runaways and fugitives mostly. Certainly nothing as large as a Scoia'tael commando and support."

I laughed at his suggestion, trying to show that I shared his scorn. "I agree. Certainly nothing that would support this kind of enterprise but, even if they have moved on by now, their leftover camps might be enough to house something on the scale that we fear."

Lord Cavill nodded before scratching his chin.

"Well, I can absolutely understand your concern Lord Frederick, and indeed I share it..."

Here it comes. The dismissal that we had heard so often over the last few days. "Not our problem" was the response of so many of the lords and ladies that we had spoken to and that was when they were able to receive us or comment at all. Of course they used much more flowery words than that however.

I won't bore you with the full write-out about how things went from there. I asked questions and Lord Cavill parried every attempt that I made to try and probe his business to see if there really was anything else going on. He did so in exactly the same way that I deflected every attempt he made to try and discern what the motives and attempts that the Coulthard trading company would be making over the coming year. Along with what I knew about the comings and goings at court as well as Sam's intentions regarding his land and whether or not Sam was betrothed or not yet.

If there is one thing that I have inherited from my father when it comes to matters of commerce it is the ability to know someone that my family would be interested in trading with. Normally I would offer a letter of introduction to anyone who I thought might be able to offer our enterprises something but in this case there was something here that I didn't like. The ham fisted attempts at courtiership that I had seen despite the keen mind that I saw lurking behind Lord Cavill's eyes. The bullying as well as the willingness to humiliate his son in public. I didn't like this man and there was something about his mage advisor that made my skin crawl. It was a hard won lesson that I need to learn to listen to these instincts, back in the beginnings of my journeys. But I never failed to listen to them now that I was used to them.

"So, really." Lord Cavill was speaking. "Thank you for bringing this situation to my attention Lord Frederick but I will admit that I don't really think that we have anything to worry about. The men that I have here, as led by my son, are more than capable of dealing with any threat that might arrive short of a foreign army." He laughed and leant forward in an effort to include me in the gag. "If the third Nilfgaardian guard came to take over the province then I think we might struggle with that. But from what you're saying, I don't think we would need to worry about a group of bandits with some magical or chemical support."

He smiled.

"Failing all else, Phineas here will be able to help us should anything come of it."

I sighed. I was pretty sure that I had the place now. That if I wasn't sitting in the middle of the enemy camp then I was certainly dealing with a significant figure in the enemy ranks. But I had no proof. Maybe, Kerrass had seen something that I hadn't but it was just as likely that he felt the same way. What I needed was an excuse to look around and see if there is anything else that I could unearth. I was trying to work my way around to something that would give me a way to express my fatigue, or some kind of desire to bathe, or have a decent meal or something that would let us stay in the castle for a night or two, but then Lord Cavill gave me a gift.

"Perhaps." He said, seeming to think about it although I guessed that he had already made a decision about this a little while ago. "Perhaps you might want to spend the night with us Lord Frederick and then you can inspect the guards in the morning."

I was elated. "Are you sure," I heard my mouth saying without input from my brain. Automatically running through the niceties. "I wouldn't want to be an inconvenience."

"No, indeed. It might do my son some good to see how a _real_ lord behaves."

"Thank you. I won't lie but I could do with a bath."

Lord Cavill laughed and we started to make arrangements. As it turned out, the Younger Lord Cavill was the Captain of his Father's guard. Previously this had been a more ceremonial appointment but now that he had been thrust to the point of being his father's heir. He had had to take over some more responsibility and step up to learn governing. A task that he wasn't taking to. I agreed that we would stay for two nights. In the morning we would watch the guard train for a while before making a more formal inspection. Then, in the afternoon we were invited to join Lord Cavill on a hawk hunt to provide some pigeons for dinner that evening.

I didn't sound entirely unpleasant and I begged leave to return to our rooms to clean myself up ready for the feast that we were promised for that evening.

Truth be told, the food wasn't that bad. Some of the politics that were discussed were a little close to the bone though. There was a strong anti-Nilfgaard sentiment in what was being talked about which left me with the overall impression that I was being mocked. There was also an overwhelming feeling that if King Radovid had survived then he would have eventually defeated the Nilfgaardians (who were referred to as "The Black Ones" throughout the evening and other derogatory terms that would go with this. Crows, devils, that kind of thing) But the food was good, plenty of game meat which is not unusual but I was left having to work at not thinking about all of the farmers and common-folk that had suffered to make this meal possible. There was certainly no indication that this was a special occasion so it was reasonable to assume that they ate like this every evening.

We retired to a separate room where, again, I was struck by the absence of any women amongst the assembled folk. This was a _man's_ castle it would seem. We talked about nonsense and pointless things. I listened to people telling me that "if only Radovid had listened when we..." and "If Radovid had actually had the courage to..." and "If only the north had fallen in line behind us when..."

It was a little dispiriting to have to listen to it over and over again. I was reminded of listening to the rebels in Angraal. These people had no idea about the logisitics of the thing. They assumed that if the banners were raised then it was the duty of everyone to drop what they were doing and march to war. What those self same knights and soldiers were going to eat, wear and carry, let alone how their injuries would be cared for, was simply not accounted for.

I was forced to admit that if the countryside _had_ been stripped of everyone then yes, we could have fielded enough raw manpower to turn aside the Nilfgaardian offensive although I managed to avoid agreeing to the suggestion that we would have been able to hold our own against any Nilfgaardian offensives.

The problem there being that the Nilfgaardian army would have been properly supplied and maintained.

I'm not a military strategist but I often wonder if, despite his madness, Radovid was aware that he was merely biding his time until the other Nilfgaardian armies could come north and that he, himself was working towards some kind of truce so that he could rebuild and take the fight to Nilfgaard at a later date. I don't know but I do know that what these people were suggesting was all but impossible and that even if we had done what they were suggesting and, by some miracle, defeated the Nilfgaardian armies on the field. Even if we had managed all of those things then the country would have been decimated by famine and disease afterwards. Then the Nilfgaardians would have simply walked over the Yaruga and the Pontar without pausing to notice whatever it was that they walked over.

I pleaded fatigue and went to bed early. I was amused when a young maid turned up at my door to see if "there was anything that she could do for me," the suggestion being rather blatant given that she was barely wearing anything. The poor girl was plainly terrified, as well as being far too young, and I turned her down as gently as I could with the insistence that I was promised to another and would not betray my betrothed.

Also, something about the way that she stood shivering in the hallway made my stomach turn. Taylor told me that he would take care of the matter and draped a blanket around the poor girls shoulder and escorted her back to the kitchens where, he told us later, she was accepted back into the pack by the head cook.

The following morning we rose late. It would have been against our established character to get up and train as would normally be our desire so I took the opportunity to sleep late and eat a large breakfast before dressing and wandering out to the practice yards.

It took me ten minutes. Ten minutes to find the proof that I was looking for. Ten minutes and then, everything that I had, all of my focus and concentration was taken up simply making sure that I didn't give away what I had seen.

Lord Cavill came out to meet us. Taylor was behaving like my shadow, following from a short distance, arms behind his back and walking up and down like a slightly disapproving servant, Kerrass looked bored and I was left with the task of maintaining a stream of conversation with Lord Cavill.

It was intensely dull and banal. Talk of which merchants provided the armour and how his castle blacksmiths worked night and day to properly be able to turn out enough weapons. I was invited to examine some of the weapons that they had and dutifully picked out a couple of samples in order to give them a bit of a wave around.

They were alright I suppose. But I've walked through a dwarven smithy.

Then there were some of the private weapons. That we saw before we were invited to see some drills. Some one on one fighting, some two on one fighting and some small scale skirmishing.

Which was when I saw it.

It took everything I had not to yell out. Everything I had not to charge across the field and grab the offending article and wave it around for everyone to see. Instead I had to nod and smile and let my eyes slide on to the next detail so as not to give everything away.

Then we watched the parade.

Where Lord Cavill the younger. The prize bullying fucker walked at the head of his men with armour and sword at his side along with Father Gardan's axe resting on his shoulder. That axe, looted from the body of a good and holy man, even if I don't follow his religion. Looted from a fallen veteran of the war against evil, I saw it. The butterfly pattern blades distinctive and glittering in the sunlight. The rage that I had spent some time fighting down crystallised into a point. A bright and glittering jewel in my head so that it washed everything else clean. I felt an awful calm settle down over me as everything else went away and it seemed to me that the axe floated in front of me.

Mercifully, the garrison was not that large and I didn't have to pretend that I hadn't seen it for long as they left on their various patrols.

I joined Lord Cavil for a small luncheon before we departed on our hunt. Kerrass looked at me oddly as I spend some time scrupulously checking my horse equipment to make sure that it hadn't been sabotaged like father's had been. It seemed important to me that I checked for some reason.

It was a fairly successful hunt and we came back with enough for the evening meal where we talked about the same things that we had the previous day.

Over and over again.

Thank The Holy Fire that Father had seen to my training. Thank you Proffessor Tidesdale for teaching me the skills that I needed and thank you Emma for insisting that I continue with my lessons rather than sacking them off for something more interesting. Without these things, I'm not sure I would have made it through the night without committing murder. As it was, I was certainly far too quiet and, of all people, if became Kerrass that stepped to the fore, turning on the charm and telling many small and amusing stories about his life on the road. I laughed in all the right places and winced, suitably comically, when the story was embarrassing to me personally, much tot he amusement of the assembled.

Lord Cavill tried to persuade us to stay another day. I felt that he wasn't entirely sincere and was giving the invitation for the appearance of the thing rather than due to any real sentiment. But I could genuinely plead that we needed to move on and to follow our duties elsewhere.

We slept and rose early. There was no attempt to send me a girl that night.

We were two hours on the road before Kerrass turned to me.

"So that was the place." It wasn't a question.

"It was," I answered. "The axe."

Kerrass' eyebrows rose in question which was when I remembered that he hadn't met Father Gardan. He nodded when I finished my explanation.

"What did you see?" I asked him.

"The sword play. Those men in the courtyard were either the riders themselves or trained the riders. I don't think that they house the hounds in that castle, but Lord Cavill's in this deep.

"It's here." Taylor added. "The kitchen staff told me that they send castle supplies off to a place to the south east. An abandoned mine apparently."

I nodded. "Then there we have it."

"We should leave the road." Kerrass said. "The axe might have been a foolish mistake, or it might have been a deliberate trap. Either way we should leave the road and head off before looping back to Sam and friendlier terrain."

I nodded. My crystallised hate and fury was still there, the day after it had formed. It had buried itself deep in my chest.

It felt good.

(Disclaimer: During the writing of this chapter, the Witcher TRPG was released which has established a couple of things in canon that I was unprepared for. The majority of it doesn't really effect these stories but the writers have established that although the TRPG is possibly unconnected to the books, they were written in partnership with CDPR and as such, they are canon within the games. The vast majority of this has no effect on these stories. They certainly haven't specified what happened to Ciri or anything, indeed they seem to have gone out of their way to provide alternatives for how the world changes depending on what you did during the first two games.

For the uninitiated, the Tabe-top game is set between Games 2 and 3.

But there is one thing which is that the Cat keep of Witchers is now defined as having been a roving caravan of no fixed abode. For the record. I think that this is quite an interesting idea and if I had known then I think that I may have run with this, but my mental image of the Cat keep as being a series of fortified caves is too entrenched in my own mind now, to change it so I will be sticking with that idea despite whatever may come up in future supplements/games.

I suppose that this technically makes these stories "AU" but...I care not.

As always. Thanks for taking the time to read

Spike)


	75. Chapter 75

(Warning: Scenes of torture and violence against women. Shown to exhibit the sickness of the people involved. Also, "The God" referred to by some characters doesn't describe or have any relation with any Earth based religions. That's just how these characters refer to their religion. Also, some discussion about sex.

I hope that it goes without saying that the views expressed by some of the characters in here are not shared by me or by anyone that I am friends with.

In short, there's a lot going on in this chapter.)

So let's talk about Alchemy.

Believe it or not, dear reader, there is a not insignificant part of my audience that does nothing but scour my works to try and find out the formulae for Witcher decoctions and Witcher potions. So I just want to make it clear, for the record, as well as for all the people that may or may not be reading these words.

Ahem

I do not know any of the Witcher formulae. Neither for their potions, nor their mutagens. I know nothing about the methods that Kerrass uses to brew these things. I've watched him do it, many times even, but could I tell you what it was that he was doing? Or why?

These things remain a mystery to me.

Partly because I once made a promise to never divulge the Witcher secrets and the formula of these things is one of those secrets but also because, as it turns out, I simply don't have the mind for such studies. I study people and history. Occasionally some politics, not alchemy, art or crafting.

So here's what I do know.

I know a few names of several different potions. I know about the Swallow potion which is a substance that aids in healing. I know about something called White Rafferd's decoction which does the same thing but I couldn't tell you the difference between the two if you held a knife to my throat. I know about White Honey which is a substance that is neither White, nor is it honey. What that stuff does is to violently purge the body of all toxins and alchemical effects.

But beyond that, I know nothing. I've seen Kerrass peer into a darkened cave and take a deep sniff of the air before carefully oiling his blade with a dark blue jelly like substance. I've also seen him do the same thing with a light green grease. The difference? Damned if I know as both times we ended up dealing with Arachnomorphs.

I also know that he buys potion bottles by the dozen from a well known herbalist in Novigrad or a similar equivalent when he can't get to the halfling in question. Having said that, one of his satchels is absolutely rammed full of the things and he very rarely has to go anywhere else.

So how does he make these potions?

I've seen him use a mortar and pestle. I also know that he has a collapsible drying rack for fresh herbs. I also know that he has several other small tools in his satchels that help with these things but again, the problem here is that I intentionally look away when he's doing this stuff. The better to be able to keep the trust of these extraordinary groups of people who have granted me their trust. So I'm afraid I can't answer your questions.

Here is some layman's knowledge though. The kind of thing that I would have been able to pick up just from hanging round with the man. First, even if I _could_ tell you how the potions are made, then it wouldn't do you any good on the grounds that those self-same potions are nearly always deadly to non-Witchers. Apparently they are easily able to kill rock trolls and dwarves. I mention these two races because of their legendary stamina and resistance to toxins.

Also, these are not new things. Remember that there hasn't been any new innovation on the subject of Witchers for hundreds and hundreds of years. If you look hard enough you can normally find a formula for the more common Witcher potions. People have been able to make them for centuries but then they have to consider what possible use they might be to them.

Simply diluting them doesn't work. Kerrass once told me that, famously, in some situations adding water to them can even make them more potent which is why some Skelligan whiskeys are best drunk with a touch of water in them. Something happens during the mixing process that makes them this way.

This is where I have to consult notes to make sure that I get this right. As an aside, you shouldn't worry. I have been given permission to publish all of this information and Kerrass will be reading it before it goes off to my editor.

I spoke to Dr Shani, Professor of medicine at the Oxenfurt academy on the subject. Although she would say that she isn't an alchemist either and doesn't understand how this all works, she theorises that this is because the Witcher toxins (that's what she called them. Not potions or elixers. She called them toxins) also effect the nervous system, the pulmonary system as well as the lungs and brain and metabolic system. It is often not simply a case of the potion being digested through the normal process. As soon as it enters a Witcher's system it is being absorbed through the internal walls of the throat and stomach. That is when it isn't being diverted into the lungs by virtue of a Witcher's phenomenal self-control as the imbibing of the liquid turns it into a gas.

These things are absorbed through the gums, the tongue, they go up into the nasal cavity as well as down the throat.

Think about that the next time you are considering trying to brew one of these things and psyche yourself up into drinking it.

One of the _many_ modifications that Witchers go through when they are being mutated is that their immune system as well as all of the above bodily functions gets adjusted. Part of this was done so that Witchers would be able to withstand the various horrible and deadly bodily functions of the beasts that they would end up facing and it would be interesting to know as to whether or not Witcher potions and elixirs were designed afterwards when it became clear that Witchers could withstand this kind of thing.

"Ooh, our wonderful new test subjects are immune to just about everything. Let's see what else we can give them and really see how far we can push the envelope."

But that's a theory for another day.

But, although Witchers are immune to most of the problems that come with drinking these potions on a regular basis, there is one harmful result of these things that very rarely gets talked about.

That is the risk of dependency.

Kerrass takes these potions at a rate of, on average, one a day. Regardless of how you shake it, that's a lot of potions. Bearing in mind that to the average person that is a lot of poison. The equivalent of drinking raw alchohest crossed with Basilisk venom and the adrenal glands of a greater Wyvern.

On a daily basis. Sometimes more than once a day.

With their heightened immune, nervous and respitory system, it is a very real problem that the Witcher's body gets used to all of this extra stimulus and from what Kerrass has said, as well as what he can tend to look like and the way that he behaves after a potion binge...There are comedown effects as well which look and feel a lot like someone having a hangover.

But they take them so often that their bodies start to crave them, craving the support that these potions and things give. It starts to get used to the increased healing effects of the Swallow potion as well as the increased reflexes and strength. So it starts to crave those self same effects.

Sounds a lot like addiction doesn't it.

I asked Kerrass about this and what he says, is that being on a potion come down is like walking through fog while all of your limbs are tied down by weights. He was told that this was a risk and one of the ways that Kerrass copes with this is that he takes what he describes as "holidays" from the elixirs. That's when he goes into town for some debauchery or when he's travelling by sea or we're travelling with a Caravan. It's also why Witcher's retreat to their keeps over Winter. It's not that the world is shorter of monsters during the winter than they are at any other stage, or because of the climate, although that is probably a factor, but it's so that they can flush all the contaminants out of their system and...kind of reset.

Shani called it "a cleanse" although Kerrass took this opportunity to mention that one of the things that he likes to cleanse his body with during the winter, was strong Rye Vodka and she glared at him.

So Witcher potions are also addictive and need to be taken at regular intervals. Kerrass calls these things his "elixirs" which are different from his potions. If you took them away, Kerrass would still be a deadly opponent and that the only loss of any edge is really in the eyes of the man that has lost that edge but even so, it is apparent. Certainly I have seen the post potion comedown myself on many separate occasions.

These elixirs are often mixed with tea or with strong alcohol. Often just a small potion in the morning every other day the same way that some people take their own medicine in an effort to stay fit and healthy. It's just that in this way, Kerrass gets to stay deadly.

It has been suggested that these potions are also responsible, at least in part, for the Witcher's perceived emotionlessness. That I can't answer for. All I will say on the matter is that, from my understanding, Kerrass and his fellows have plenty of other reasons to be a little bit emotionless.

So why are people so obsessed with the idea of Witcher potions?

I don't know but I can guess.

I think it's to do with the very reason that Witchers don't want to share their secrets. You see, I think that they're right. I think that if the mutations, elixirs and potions got out into the general public then, sooner or later, someone would figure them out. Some Baron like Lord Cavil or Lord Dorme of Angral will get hold of someone and he will forge himself an army of Witchers. Men who are utterly loyal to them and who will follow their orders to the letter. Then, there they are. An Army of men, dependent on potions that only I can give them and now they are the dominant military force on the continent.

I think it's that.

I think that the potions represent power, even if the person who is asking for these formula have the best intentions in the world. Even if they want to heal the sick or something, does their assistant? Does the guy who fetches and carries for the doctor in question. The stuff would fetch a high cost in the hands of the right person...

Just the thought of that insight is exciting to us.

Does that effect the potential development of new Witchers?

I think that we're getting off topic now as well as it still being a little early in proceedings to answer that question. We're still working on the question of whether or not we _can_ make more Witchers, or people that will be close enough to what the Witchers could do to be called Witchers.

But it's also about the excitement of a secret. The unknown. And who doesn't want to be a bit faster, a bit stronger, or to live a bit longer, free from the worries of old age, sickness and poisoning. Who wouldn't want to see in the dark and be able to smell and discern the smallest scents around. Who wouldn't want to hear someone sneaking up behind them or to be able to fight off the bully that was born just just that little bit stronger than us? A Witcher's potion is the latent promise of these things.

But that's just my opinion.

Are they vital to being a Witcher?

No.

Important? Definitely. They help to keep the Witchers at the top of their game. Keeping them strong and giving them that edge over their enemies and their opponents. Letting them take on the nightmares that live out in the darkness on the edge of town. But if you take them away from the Witcher then what do you have.

The person is still a mutant. Still that bit stronger, faster and more physically capable than the next man. Still able to stand up to the monsters and cut them down with blade and sign. What do the potions do? The bombs, elixirs and weapon oils? They let them do all of these things that little bit more efficiently. They provide the Witcher with an edge that they might not necessarily have otherwise.

But vital?

No.

They came for us that night.

It was one of those things that if we had all been realistic, thinking people, then we should have seen this coming. Without being too modest, I am an intelligent and highly educated man. I have travelled a great deal and my experience of life is not what someone might call...standard. I have seen and done things that I would never previously have expected to see and do while every single experience along these lines has expanded my horizon to awe-inspiring degrees.

Kerrass is a Witcher. Somewhere around a century in age where he has been travelling, fighting, killing monsters and people all over the continent and beyond. He's seen so many things that if we actually started to transcribe the entirety of his life then it would take the entirety of _my_ life to get that done. He is also, to be fair to him, far from stupid.

Taylor is one of the more frightening people I know. He has skills that I do not understand and cannot fathom where he has come by the expertise and life experience that he has. He's only, at best, a couple of years older than me but he can speak with a Temerian, Redanian, Kaedweni and Aedirni accent. He can speak the Elder speech of the Nilfgaardians with little to no discernible accent and also knows the ins and outs of polite society. He's also a skilled horseman, an accomplished shot with a bow and the best swordsman I've ever met barring Witchers and the Empress.

But none of us saw this coming.

I once had the opportunity to speak to a thief. It was Perkins, one of the younger members of Sir Rickard's bastards who had been a thief on the streets of Temeria and he told me something interesting. He said that the most dangerous part of making off with a score (His words. Apparently this is a single word that refers to the goods that have been taken) is the part when the goods are in hand and you're in the process of escaping.

You might be out the door, through the window and down the street but, he said, that's when the vast majority of theft's go wrong. Just when you think you've gotten away with it, you will turn around and there's a guardsman watching you. Or, more often, there's the other criminal gang that are waiting for you to beat you up and take you score off you so that they have the easy part.

Apparently, that was how the kid ended up joining the army. He got "nicked" by a guardsman back when the Temerians were marching against the La Valettes and he was offered the choice of serving prison time or joining the army. He's told me seven different versions of how he came to join the army, every single one of them has been different so far and I'm beginning to think that the bastard's as a whole have maybe a couple of dozen stories as to how they joined the army and they just swap whenever someone is foolish enough to ask them how they came to join up.

But the point to his story was that it's at the point of feeling safest that you become most vulnerable. It's when you let your guard down, when you relax that people come and get you.

And that's kind of what happened. We were so taken by surprise by it as well which, even now, is a little galling. We should have seen it coming. We _should_ have protected ourselves against what happened.

Could've, should've, would've done something different.

But hindsight is a wonderful thing and it's easy to see this in all things. So easy to look back at what you've done and thought to yourself that you should have done it differently.

But we didn't.

We left the road, maybe an hour or two's ride out from the castle, certainly making sure that we weren't in sight of the castle itself, or any guardsmen. We didn't see any farmers or other travellers but I suppose it could have been possible that there was someone there. The best training in the world is no match for knowing the land and having played hide and seek since you were a child.

But we left the road and started to head east by Southeast. We knew that Sir Rickard and the rest of the bastards were out there in this kind of general area and that, even though we would probably miss our assigned rendezvous, he would double back, find the sign that we left, small though it was, and be able to pick up the trail.

We headed into a group of trees in an effort to hide us from prying eyes before we were again moving through open fields and pasture land. We took the time to make sure that we spent some time walking through a stream to throw off any scent that we might have and Taylor took a small packet of pepper out of his bags and sprinkled the stuff over that small patch of ground where we entered the water.

I raised my eyebrows at him.

"Hunting dogs," he told me.

Kerrass grinned and I laughed.

"You sick bastard." I told him. "Seriously though, who are you?"

He just smirked as we moved off upstream towards the mountains.. Deliberately leaving sign that we had left the stream in several places as we got further and further and further away.

We were in good spirits and to be fair, looking back, I can understand why. We had found the enemy, we knew where they were and we could start moving towards destroying them. The dead would be avenged, the wronged would have their justice and all the sick fucks that might be tempted to pull the kind of bullshit that these people would do would have their warnings.

I also intended to place Gardan's axe on his grave. Just for a while though. It seemed wrong that a weapon like that would not be used by someone aiming to make the world a better place.

There was also that small hope fluttering in the depths of my chest. That we would find Francesca. Taylor had explored the castle quite thoroughly and told us that he hadn't been able to find any sight or sound of any captives, let alone my sister. Lord Cavil did indeed have a dungeon but it had long been converted into a wine cellar and storage room but that didn't deter me. We knew that there had to be another base elsewhere to house the equipment and the horses and, very possible, the men themselves as well as alchemy labs and whatever else was going on.

So there was hope. I tried to limit myself, I tried to monitor my own hopes and not to raise my own expectations too high. I felt like the child on the verge of a Yule celebration, being able to see the gifts laid out and looking at the particularly big boxes and hoping that those things would be for them and that they would enjoy the contents. That they weren't some kind of clothes or some kind of gift that would "aid in their education". They want to be excited, but at the same time they don't want to disappoint themselves. That was me. But at the same time, you can't help but entertain that hope. Even in a small way. Just a tiny way, deep down somewhere.

We moved up stream as far as we could before backtracking a little way and rode our horses clear. Taylor and Kerrass dismounted and walked back to the stream where they spend a bit of time arranging matters to do their best to hide our tracks and...I understand...leave another secret trail marker so that Sir Rickard could find us.

It was about mid-afternoon by this point and our good mood and elation at the prospect of having found our enemy began to die down. Now we had to make it back to safety. We did discuss trying to get to any of the friendlier Lords that we had met on our journey since we had left Castle Kalayn but, in truth, it wasn't that practical. Our enemies would know who was on their side and who might be persuaded to be on our side and so the approaches and routes would be watched. Or we would turn up to find that Lord Cavill had beaten us to it and turned a previously friendly lord against us.

Or, even worse, it would turn out that the friendly lord that we had gone to was in on the conspiracy themselves.

So we had resolved to head back to Kalayn lands and link up with Sam. It was going to be a tough march. We had supplies but they weren't bottomless and so we would need to live off the land. That wouldn't be difficult given that we were heading into summer but that kind of thing takes time. Time that we didn't really have as we needed to get back before Lord Cavill realised his mistake.

Kerrass chose us a camp-site just as we were getting towards dark. He chose us a small clearing where we could sleep with only two gaps in the thick undergrowth meaning that attackers couldn't get to us easily There wasn't a lot of cover but people would struggle to get to us and we were well off the beaten track. At the end of the day, there is just no way of completely protecting yourself. If they surrounded the clearing with Archers then they could just pepper us with arrows, especially as Taylor was without his bow, or his arrows but Kerrass set some traps around the place so that it would, at least, be difficult for them to sneak up on us.

We lit no fire and ate some cold meats and a hunk of bread each. Kerrass did something alchemical with a rock and a flask of water which meant that we at least went to sleep with something hot in our bellies. It was summer though and the skies were mostly clear, not yet up towards the mountains either so it was mostly warm and I was able to stretch out in relative comfort.

I volunteered for the middle watch which is universally acknowledged as the hardest watch on the grounds that I would be struggling to sleep anyway and Kerrass took first, wanting to watch our back trail given that he could see in the dark, leaving Taylor to wake us both up with the dawn.

It felt good to be out of that persona of _Lord_ Frederick and to just be Freddie again. Traveller and scholar. I spent a bit of time trying to contact Ariadne in the hope that we could get a message out to the right people to let them know where we were and what was happening but also because I wanted to speak to her. Not unusual, I had avoided contacting her while inside the castle as I didn't want the servants thinking that I was mad. I couldn't get through to her though. I remember reassuring myself that this wasn't unusual, being a vampire comes with some benefits and one of those is not needing anywhere near as much rest as those of us that are human and she is often off meeting people or working at all hours of the night in a place where she can't be reached.

What I'm trying to say is that we did everything right, _everything_ right. But they caught us because we had forgotten something very important.

I had forgotten that Lord Cavill employed a mage.

I woke up to the sounds of metal striking metal. Long trained reflexes sprang into action, the dagger grasped in my hand leapt into life as I jumped to my feet.

Although I couldn't. I couldn't move. I could barely even breathe, but my body tried. It really did to the point of feeling pain as I hurled myself against invisible bonds bruising body and straining muscles. I even opened my mouth to scream and although, to me, it felt as though I was bellowing with all of my might, nothing came out. I was just staring at the night sky.

The sounds of combat were becoming sporadic but I couldn't turn my head to see what was going on, all I could do was strain and pull and...

I didn't give up. I never gave up as the pain lanced down my spine, along my arms and legs and seemed to pool like molten metal in the base of my skull.

The sounds of fighting ceased and I heard the mage Phineas' voice in my head.

"Shhh," it said, almost softly in the same way that you calm an upset animal. "Shhh, rest now." They seemed to be the most reasonable words in the world as I felt my willpower just drain away. My eyelids drooped and I returned to sleep.

I was conscious for maybe four seconds.

But I dreamed for much longer.

I still mean to consult an Oneiromancer about this at some point as these dreams were...uncomfortable in the extreme.

Along with a lot of the normal kind of recurring dreams. You know the type, imagined confrontations with people that never happened. Alternative universe versions of events. Along with the ever popular flying dreams, falling dreams and that dream that all students or graduates get where they find out that they've got a sudden exam and they haven't studied, or have an essay due in and they have forgotten. Or they have to deliver a presentation, they stand up in front of everyone, only to find out that they are completely naked.

This last one is an increasingly regular dream of mine only for me it's that I turn up to my wedding, half dressed and covered in mud before the assembled congregation starts to laugh.

The worst part of this is the scorn that Ariadne shows me in that dream.

I also have a recurring nightmare about Francesca screaming. Sometimes she screams that I let her down, sometimes she's calling for help, but most times she just screams in terror and agony.

Pleasant stuff.

But during this period of dreaming, I had several recurring dreams. Neither pleasant, sad, pleasurable or frightening. One was where I was floating through a field of stars. I could see giant balls of flaming light in the distance that kept me surprisingly warm. The thing that I found so surprising was about how peaceful it was. It was so very quiet there as I floated, like taking a midnight swim in a still lake while staring up at the stars. I turned in place and saw a giant crystalline structure. It was absolutely huge, so vast that I could kind of feel my brain kind of sliding off the entire concept.

Then I realised that there was something moving around inside the crystal. Moving around in confinement, not uncomfortable but kind of squashed in.

Then it blinked at me.

There was another dream where I stood on top of a mountain. I couldn't tell where but I was completely naked. There was a storm and the wind and the rain tore at my flesh but I didn't feel cold. Lightening flashed in the sky and it highlighted a shadow. As though there was a huge, hooded giant standing above me, blotting out the sky and all of existence.

Another dream that I was still "working" for Jack. That he was coming for me, that he was following me round and killing everything and everyone that surrounded me in a series of grizzly murders. Everyone that I have met, shaken hands with, touched, bought things from or even brushed against in the street. Just calmly and methodically working through them all as though it was some kind of list that he had to strike the names off. I caught him and confronted him with what he was doing. He laughed and said. "It is a kindness really, what you are doing to them is so, so much worse."

I woke up in a cage. I primarily remember that it took a long time and that it hurt like the devil. It was not the first time that I've ever had the very special feeling of realising that I've shit myself.

I groaned. I was trying for words but nothing came out. I felt two pairs of hands lifting me into the sitting position and the opening of a wineskin at my mouth.

"Drink Freddie," Kerrass said. "You're badly dehydrated."

I groaned something more at him. Equally as inaudible.

I could hear Taylor's voice chuckling.

"Just drink Freddie. You need it."

I did as I was told before taking a bit of time to work myself towards waking up properly. When I did finally manage to open my eyes I groaned again. We were in a cage, covered with some kind of tarpaulin and the reason that I felt sick was that we were moving. I had a good look round, had time to realise just how much I stank and how much the cage stank before I just shook my head.

"Fuck" I said with as much feeling as possible.

"Truly," Taylor was grinning, "You are an elegant man with a masterful command of language."

"Fucking Fuck off." I told him but he just grinned at me, retreating to another corner of the cage. Kerrass pushed the waterskin at me.

"Drink." He told me.

Silence reigned for a while as I did what I was told. I was thirsty, and hungry now that I came to think about it. We were on a wagon, a cheap one as I could hear the axels grinding against each other. I could also hear the jangling of traces and the beat of horses hooves against the dirt. I thought I could hear the rustling metal sound of moving armour.

"How long have I been unconscious?" I asked.

"Nine days as best as I can tell." Kerrass said.

I spluttered a load of water about the place. "Nine fucking days?"

"Near as I can tell."

Taylor was chuckling.

"What have I been doing for nine fucking days?"

"Sleeping," Kerrass told me. "Also, vomiting and generally carrying on."

I thought about this for a while. "Hold on, don't you starve to death with no food in that time."

"You do." Taylor answered. "It can be done if you're careful and conditioned for it, but you've been fed."

"How?" I demanded.

Taylor raised his eyebrow. "Do you really want to know?"

I considered this for a moment. Working my jaw around as I sloshed the last of the water down my throat.

"Tube in the throat?" I asked.

"You've done this before then?" Taylor asked.

"He's actually getting quite good at it." Kerrass responded with a smirk.

Taylor looked thoughtful. "There's a joke here about gag reflexes isn't there. Something about travelling around, and having things forced down your throat but for the life of me I can't think what it is."

"Fuck off." I told him again as he crouched there, braced against the corner of the cage, radiating innocence.

"I don't know what you mean." He protested.

"QUIET IN THERE." A voice that I didn't recognise from outside the cage. Something metallic crashed against the cloth covered cage, making it ring under the impact. The headache that had begun to lessen, kicked back up a notch.

"And he can go fuck himself an all." Taylor muttered darkly.

We sat in silence for a while before another question floated to the top of my brain as I moved around with the movement of the cart.

"Kerrass?" I said,

"Yes Freddie." He said it with the same tone of voice as a long suffering wife.

"Why is it always me that has to shit themselves?"

"An interesting question." Kerrass said after some time. "Something that I hadn't given much thought to if I'm honest."

"Loose bowels." Taylor said. "A man with loose bowels shouldn't be let anywhere near the battlefield for it is well known that they are apt to pee themselves in terror when the enemy comes marching over the hill."

"Shut your face." I told him.

"Or when a pretty woman looks at him for the first time." He continued unabashed.

"Taylor, I swear to the Holy Flame itself that if you don't shut up, right fucking now, I'm going to remove my trousers and under-garments and push them into your face."

"Why not just throw a nice wet handful at him?" Kerrass asked.

"Because," I said, tilting my head to one side to consider. "I think it's more of a smear situation than a solid one."

"Hey, you know what though?" Taylor said looking excited. "I think we might be on to something here. What we do is, when they open the cage we throw Freddie's trousers at our captors and make a run for it while they're still gagging and trying not to throw up."

"It's not a bad plan as plans go," Kerrass mused. "The problem with it is that I would then be subjected to Freddie's nakedness and that would be a fate worse than whatever they have in mind for us."

"And you can fuck off and all." I told him.

You see all of that. That is what we in the trade call "Gallows humour". There was no getting away from the fact that we were very probably in a lot of trouble. We were all wearing out clothes but all of our equipment was taken, including our armour, belts, laces and any straps that we might have so we were basically in loose fitting garments as well as being barefoot.

I'd also had my amulet removed. On the one hand that meant that Ariadne would know that something had happened and even now might be mobilising things in order to facilitate a rescue.

Kerrass could still fight, even without his swords, he was still deadly but he was just one man versus an unknown number.

"Nine days?" I asked him. "How are you doing?"

He shook his head and pushed his hands through his hair. "Not great Freddie. Not great." The hand was trembling.

"You should have saved some of the water for yourself." I told him but he shook his head.

"Nah, I'll be ok."

"What's wrong?" Taylor asked.

"Elixir withdrawal." I told him. "He's still a Witcher but...a little...less himself."

"Is that bad?"

"Not really," Kerrass said. "Just means that I'm going to need to east, sleep and rest a bit more than I normally would."

"Nine days." I mused. "Have we been moving all that time?"

"No, we stayed in one place for a while." Kerrass said. "Somewhere cold and damp so I think a cave of some kind. They took you off at the time and you were somewhere else for an hour or two before they brought you back. You were incredibly weak for a while."

"You're much more verbose when you're off your elixirs." Taylor commented.

"Nah."

"What was wrong with me?" I asked.

"I don't know but I think that they bled you." Kerrass told me.

"Bled me, why?" I asked before I could catch myself. Never ask a question if you already know that a person doesn't know what's happening.

"I don't know. But people like this never do it for a good reason."

There was a halt called before an armoured man lifted up the side of the tarpaulin and threw a loaf of bread, a wheel of hard cheese and a few apples at us. We had to scramble to catch them so that they didn't land in all of the human filth on the floor of the cage. The man was wearing Cavill colours.

We ate for a while and I realised that I was famished.

"What do you reckon?" I asked after a while. "Taking us somewhere to kill us?"

"Nope," Said Taylor. "If they were going to kills us, why not just get it over with and dump us in a ditch. At most they could take us off for a day, two at most before giving us the old Temerian smile." He grinned savagely.

"A Temerian smile?" I asked.

"Yeah, Jenkins taught me it. It's when you cut a man's throat from ear to ear. Looks like a smile from the right angle."

"Or the wrong angle." Kerrass commented, taking a huge bite out of an apple.

"But I reckon that they'll sell us as slaves. Still a roaring slave trade in Nilfgaard or they could send us across the sea. The Ofieri still use slaves don't they?"

"They do." I said. "But they're a lot more tolerant of their slaves than Nilfgaard is. Also, how does someone like you know about the Ofieri?"

"You learn a thing or two in the army sir." He said with a grin.

"Lying toe-rag."

"It's not slaves." Kerrass said as he finished off the apple. Core and all. "If we were being sold as slaves we would have gone down the hills towards the river or the sea so that we can be transported properly. We've actually been taken up, towards a higher altitude."

"They could be taking us over the mountains towards Kaedwen to bring us down to the south that way." Taylor argued but he wasn't convinced.

"Nah, It would be Ofier." Kerrass said. "To get to Zerrikania they would have to get us across Kaedwen, Aedirn and Some of Nilfgaard. They would never make it as Kerrass and I are too well known in those parts. No, if it was slaves it would be down towards the sea. Something else is going on here."

We started moving again shortly after that.

We started to play a game as we moved. The object of the game was to get as close as we could to the guards yelling at us to keep the noise down and shouting at us or striking the cage, without actually getting them to do that. The person who caused that final tip over the edge towards an outcry from the guards was considered to have lost a point and we would jeer at each other and crack jokes at each other's expense. It was clear by now that the guards threats were mostly empty and that we were being kept for something else at the end of our path. So we had decided, without discussing it or talking about it, that we would enjoy each other's company for a while.

The sun kept us well lit under the canopy although it was tricky to tell which way we were going, the tarpaulin wasn't so thin that we could see the shape of the sun and I gather from the temperature that it was a fairly overcast day. It was dim and we could see to move around and things. The road that we were following climbed up a slope, meaning that we had to hold on to the bars of the cage in order to keep ourselves standing upright before we reached some kind of plateau. It was getting colder and the light was beginning to dim and I assumed that it was getting late in the day. We had reached some kind of track and it felt as though we were picking up speed. The wagon wheels would occasionally jar up as they crashed against the walls or well worn ruts.

All told we had been travelling for a few hours before we came to a halt. Abruptly, the sky outside the wagon went dark and the temperature dropped noticeably. We were sloping downhill now. The light seemed to grow again and I could smell burning oil as well as wood smoke and damp. The wagon leant to one side as the thing was steered into a corner.

I had felt the fear during the journey but then it began to flicker again, scrabbling at the base of my throat like some kind of wild and untamed monster.

Anger, that was the answer. I had been given this anger, as a gift, or as a curse and now I had to use it, to harness it in some way.

The tarpaulin was pulled off and even though the light was still dim, I blinked in the firelight.

We were in a cave, although that word doesn't quite do it justice. More like a cavern. There were many torches, fire bowls and baskets all around the place and every man there seemed to be carrying another flaming brand.

For men there were. Lots of them. So many that I couldn't count them. Someone hit the cage near where I was standing and I flinched, both from the impact and the noise that it generated.

People started shouting, loud, dissonant voices clamouring for my attention. I still had a bit of a headache despite the food and water that I had eaten earlier and I winced, the light seeming to stab at my eyes.

There was another loud crash and it was a moment before I realised that one of the walls of the cage had opened. The volume of the shouting only seemed to increase though as long poles, the butts of spears started to be pushed through the bars of the cage jabbing us in the backs, necks and legs. I had no idea what they were shouting at us but one word seemed more and more fitting.

"Out," and it seemed that that was the general sense of the order that they wanted us to follow.

Taylor went first. What he had doubtless intended to be a quiet and controlled dismount from the side of the wagon ended up turning into a stumble and eventual fall to his knees given the extra little push that he was given by a helpful thrust of a pole.

Kerrass went next. Grabbing at the pole that pushed at him and yanking at it causing the volume of all of the shouting to increase. He seemed satisfied though as a horrible grin crossed his face. It was the kind of grin that normally promised that violence would soon be committed.

"THAT'S ENOUGH," bellowed someone. The noise seemed to abate a little and certainly the poking and prodding from the various people abated abruptly but the owner of the voice was dissatisfied. "I said that THAT'S ENOUGH."

A Large man approached. The voice was educated, trained and he seemed to dominate the area through force of personality. He was wearing a long, cowled robe although for now his hood was down. He had enough of a family likeness to Lord Cavill for me to assume that he must be some kind of nephew.

"Show some respect." He hissed at the gathered guards who were abusing us before abruptly stepped backwards. I was under no illusions that we were being rescued though. The robe was of a similar cut to the ones that the "Hounds of Kreve" wore, although it struck me as being of richer cut with better fabric. Certainly the carriage of the man that we were dealing with was much more commanding.

Also, the fact that behind him was a row of eight crossbowmen with levelled weapons pointing at us made things very clear.

"Gentlemen." the figure said. "Please," he gestured for us to come out of the wagon. Kerrass grimaced before stepping down. I was a little more wobbly.

"Yes, they told us that you might be a bit weaker Lord Frederick." The figure said. "I would offer you my hand to help you rise but I suspect that you would scorn the offer."

I ignored him. I should probably have been more polite, or made some kind of statement by allowing him to help me. Some kind of way of tying myself to him but it didn't occur to me at the time. In the end though, it was Kerrass that helped me to my feet.

"You men have work?" He snapped at the guards. They didn't stay to answer. He merely scowled at them as they fled.

The crossbowmen didn't waiver though.

"Now then," the man turned to us. "I know you feel nothing but anger and hate towards me and mine. I will even go so far as to suggest that I even understand it."

"How can you understand it?" Taylor began.

"Never the less." The man went on, ignoring the question. "I want to thank you for your sacrifice, and know that I will always remember you."

"Wait, what?"

"Now if you'll follow me please?"

"Hang on." I said, "what's this about a sacrifice?"

"Just that." He told us, "it's just that I don't often get to talk to the sacrifices. Now please, this way."

The three of us looked at each other, I can't speak for Kerrass or Taylor but I was feeling utterly lost. There are many questions that I could have asked then I suppose, quite a few questions, in fact, that might have given us more of a clue as to what was happening. Maybe we could have done something then but instead I said...

"Who are you?"

"Ah," he bowed in a style that wouldn't have been out of place in the Imperial court. He used the Redanian form of a bow, I noticed. "My name is Arthur. Son of Lord Cavill."

"We met his son." Taylor began. Kerrass was just watching.

"Yes, look, do you mind if we talk while we walk. You see, Father won't punish me, rather he'll punish one of the other slaves and..." he shrugged.

"Who are you?" I asked again. My brain didn't seem to be able to get past the question. But Kerrass had another one.

"And what do you mean by "other slaves."

He smiled, honestly apologetically, and gestured for us to follow him.

"What's to stop us not following you?" Taylor asked. "What's to stop us making a break for it?"

He turned and for a moment I saw something hard in his face. "Please believe me when I tell you that I hold none of you in any kind of ill will. However, I would have thought that the threat in the presence of the crossbowmen was rather implicit."

I felt my eyebrows rise in surprise at the vocabulary.

Kerrass shrugged. "I'm a Witcher. It is well known that Witchers can parry bolts in flight."

"Interesting." Said Arthur. "I had heard such stories, however, in the stories that I have heard, they need swords to do so and it is generally only against one bowman. Can you parry six?"

"There are eight men here."

"Yes, I thought that one each would be sufficient for the soldier and the nobleman's son."

Kerrass shrugged and stepped forward.

It seemed that we were following Arthur then.

Is it odd to find that you like your enemy? Even to feel pity for him. He was all but wearing the outfit of the men that had tormented the villages in Kalayn lands. He was obviously strong and moved with balance and poise. He was wearing gloves but they were worn away in exactly the right areas for a trained swordsman. He was charming, well-spoken and articulate. Apologetic for our hurts and discomforts and answered our questions politely.

He was also, utterly, utterly insane. Perhaps damaged might have been the better word to use for this but there was some kind of problem with the mechanism that existed behind his eyes.

"So... Who are you?" I insisted as we walked. He laughed at me although it didn't seem particularly cruel.

"Normally I would enjoy some kind of philosophical debate about the nature of labels with someone of your obvious intelligence and education My Lord," he told me with a smile, "But as we're here now, I suspect that the more pertinent information that you require is that my name is Arthur. That's it. Not surname, no "of" somewhere. Just Arthur. I am the eldest living of Lord Cavill's sons although I will never inherit on the grounds that I am illegitimate having been born of one of the sacrifices and therefore am fit only for a life of service towards the God."

"Which God?"

He frowned as though I had asked a stupid question. But then he laughed. "Yes, of course, I forget. I had been told that you people from outside the blessed sanctuary follow different powers. I serve _the_ God, the ultimate God. The unknowable one, the unnamable, the Master."

I glanced at Kerrass who was looking around carefully, probably trying to remember the way out. Taylor shrugged at me.

"Sorry," I said. "I've never heard of it."

"Would that I could take the time to induct you into the mysteries." He told me, clapping me on the shoulder companionably. I honestly think that the gesture was genuine. "But, alas you are to be the sacrificed which means that you will meet the God long before I will."

I stared at him,

"So you are Lord Cavill's eldest living son?" I asked.

"Eldest illegitimate son." He corrected. "I would never presume on my brother's rank or status. He is far, far above me in the ranks of both the worship and the world. He is better than me in every way and I will be honoured to serve him, just as I am honoured to serve our father."

I stared at him for a long time, trying to detect any hint of irony or mocking. But his large, handsome face seemed entirely innocent.

"He is the only remaining legitimate son now." He went on. "Long may he survive."

"Would your father not adopt you, should he die. Such things happen you know."

His mouth twisted in distaste. "Ooh no. I am aware that you were born in unholy lands but such things would be wrong. I am illegitimate, child of a sacrifice, my blood is not pure. How could I rule? Anyway." He smiled happily. "I am content to serve."

"But...But your brother's a moron."

You ever have one of those things that you're just so desperate to say that you can't possibly hold it in any more. You know that it won't solve anything and that it might possibly make the problem worse, but at the same time, it's so true that the person that's going to hear it needs to hear it. This despite the fact that you know you're being rude and offensive and you _know_ that the person may never forgive you.

But you've just gotta say it.

It's like telling your best friend that the man that's courting her, that she's falling in love with is an ass-hole. It's something that just needs saying and then it just bursts out of you one time when you're not really prepared for it.

This was like that.

The poor man was caught in some kind of existential crisis as I said it though. As though I had confronted him with a truth. He knew that truth and he had always known that truth but at the same time, he couldn't possibly admit that truth.

He was also a painfully honest man. If it hadn't been due to the circumstances I would have even assessed him as a good man and he didn't want to admit fault in even the worst of cases.

"My brother..." He began as though it was causing him actual physical pain to speak. "My brother has a lot on his mind." He began to feel as though he was on safer ground. "He is now the sole heir to our Father's seat and as such he is under a lot of pressure."

"You...you pity him?" I was appalled.

The man winced.

"So what's going to happen to us?" Kerrass had decided that I had asked enough stupid questions now and wanted to ask some important ones.

"You are the sacrifices." He said as though that explained everything. "I know that that is not something that is generally greeted with a great deal of relish and I know that you are not pleased at being chosen for such a thing but you should know that it is an extremely high honour to be chosen."

"Really?" Kerrass' voice was bone dry.

"Oh yes. I for one am incredibly grateful to you."

"What's involved in this sacrifice?"

There was a pause as Arthur rolled this question around in his mind. "You mean you haven't been informed?"

"No,"

"Well, I'm sure that Father will explain everything."

"Is that where we're going?"

"Yes, he is waiting for you. It's quite unusual to be truthful. You must be very important sacrifices. Father doesn't normally attend the rites until the very ending of them. That point when the sacrifices have been caught and only then, he attends but rarely. The last time he was involved in the hunt, there were a group of heretics on the outskirts of our territories that needed to be cleansed."

We were heading deeper into the cave which turned out to be the old remains of an abandoned mine. Shafts, sunk deep into the rock at steep gradients with ropes and pulleys for the use of hauling things about. We saw mine carts and pickaxes still stacked neatly by the side of the tunnel. I, for one, looked at them longingly and wondered if I could make it to one before the bolts from the crossbowmen would rip through my flesh.

It was an intricate place and beyond my previous understandings as to how large it was

We passed a large chamber which was full of horses. The stench was incredible and I suspected that there were some animals in there that wouldn't be horses for very long. The only natural light in the place was from a hole that had been cut in the ceiling which the horses seemed to fight over the privilege of standing in.

Here's a tip, for those people that don't know anything about horses and I should also say that I know very little. Horses are outdoor creatures. They need to move and run and exercise otherwise you run the risk of having the horse waste away, which was what was happening here.

We passed other store-rooms and several...I'm going to call them barracks which were full of men lounging around in a state that reminded me of drunkenness. A sharp smell stabbed into my brain through my nasal passages.

"You smell it don't you." Arthur asked me when I staggered. "The smell of the God." He beamed happily.

"He gives us the herb and the powder so that we can know his face. So that we can spend time in his presence and feel his glory. Try to enjoy it if you can. It can take some time to get used to and it can be overwhelming."

"I smell narcotics." Kerrass said. "Opiates and hallucinogens."

"Dangerous?" I asked him.

"You'll live," Kerrass told me.

"I have heard that the herbs can be harmful to those people that aren't used to it or have spent so much time in the heathen lands outside the caverns." Arthur said at the same time. "Although I haven't heard the "presence of the God" being described as "narcotics" before. What are they?" His large and honest face creased in confusion.

"Do you often get given this...presence of the God."

"I honoured to say that I do." He said proudly, pushing out his chest. In doing so I saw the family resemblance with his brother.

"Then it is doubtful that you will understand. Let me just ask one thing though. Do you feel ill if you go without access to this "presence" for extended periods of time?"

"Oh yes. I mean, it makes sense doesn't it. It's like a kind of longing for that wonder. A desperation to feel that glory again and again."

"And you can only get that stuff here, am I correct?"

"Of course. This place is the closest to the God so the presence can only be felt here."

"Naturally." There was a subtle hint of rage in Kerrass' voice. "You poor bastard."

Again, that oh so eloquent wince. "There is no need to pity me Master Witcher. I have a fairly grand life all told. I command many of the raiding parties out into the Godless wasteland to rescue many innocent men and women from their heathen state. I partake in more than my strictly fair share of Holy Rites. I have my choice of the women, or the men too if the taste should take me that way. All in all I am content."

"Raiding parties?"

"Oh yes. We need to survive after all as well as further our message of hope."

The depth of this man's delusion was phenomenal although I was left a bit wondering how much of that delusion was self inflicted and how much of it had been inflicted upon him by others.

"Also," he went on. "We need to rescue the heathen from his irreligious practices."

"Rescue." I said, without inflection but Arthur took it as a question.

"Why yes. Otherwise, how would we be able to save their souls and properly worship."

The three of us exchanged glances. Taylor looked sick.

"So you lead those parties?"

"Sometimes. Sometimes it's my brothers. The legitimate sons of my father always lead parties and I am content to follow when that is the case. But when they are unavailable and a hunt is ordered then I am glad to step in to fill the gaps."

I sighed.

"How did your brother die?"

The poor fucker looked genuinely saddened. "It would seem that some of the heathens protected themselves against us. The false and heretical worships occasionally provide some measure of protection and he died trying to save a village from the evil that had overtaken it."

"Was this recent?"

"I believe so. I was in a different party. It is a shame that we cannot save everyone and it would further seem that we have lost an area of our territory to heathen practices." He sighed sadly. "It is a shame but we cannot expect to save everyone and it is a sign that we must redouble our efforts to appease the God. I would suspect that this is why the three of you were called to be sacrificed."

Again, there was another exchange of glances. We had been there when Lord Cavill's son had died. Shot out of the saddle at Sir Rickard's orders.

We came into a large cavern. The atmosphere was thick with smoke from the many candles, torches and fires that were set around the place. There was some kind of through draft so it wasn't completely stifling. We were on a walkway, well above the floor of the cavern.

"There," said our escort. "Our efforts to feed the God so that he might be better able to protect us."

I looked over the edge. Where previously my anger had begun to gutter under the weight of the fear that had been scrabbling at my throat. Now it was a full and roaring flame, as though an extra gallon of oil had been thrown onto the blaze.

It reminded me of a church.

Rows upon rows of men, dressed in the leathery robes of the Hounds...I don't think that I can reasonably call them the Hounds of Kreve any more and they were swaying in time to the beat. They were obviously in some kind of stupor, whether that was caused by some kind of religious ecstasy or something chemically induced, I could not tell. At the front of the cavern, the point of worship for all of the swaying and the moaning, there were six poles in front of six tables. There were women tied to those poles and they were being flogged.

One of them was clearly already dead.

As I watched, one of the women was taken down from the pole and tied across the table. She didn't seem to struggle that much so I hoped that she was either in a drug induced state of her own, for her sake, or that she was already unconscious. Then another man took the whip from his fellow and began raping her.

I turned away as the bile rose in my throat and I had to vomit against the tunnel wall.

"You bastards." I think it was Taylor's voice. "I've seen some sick shit in my time but..."

He didn't say anything else.

Arthur was almost apologetic. "It's the best way of feeding the God. Of giving him strength. The agony of the women feeds his hunger so that he doesn't turn away from us completely.

"You would have been better off if he had." Kerrass grated. He stepped close to me and helped me to my feet. "We've seen enough now Arthur. I still pity you, but I hate you as well."

"Perfectly understandable." Arthur agreed. Come this way."

"How can you do that? What did they do to you to deserve such a fate?"

Arthur shrugged. "They are women. What possible good could they serve?"

That was the moment that my mind shut down. The mental equivalent of throwing it's hands up in the air and walking away.

"Women are only good for three things." Arthur continued. "The giving of pleasure, the production of children and the feeding to the God."

"Be silent." Kerrass told him. "You sully the air with your words. That these things are not said by you and that you were taught them along with the poison that you put into your system is to blame for the sickness of your mind. If I had a weapon I would put you down like the sick dog you are and with pity in my heart. But you will not defile the air further with your illness and the evil that you have been taught."

Kerrass can wax poetic when he puts his mind to it.

Arthur nodded and did as he was told.

After some more time, we actually started to climb back up. The passages increasingly seemed to be sloping upwards until, for want of a better word, we came to a hallway. The same as you would find in any castle. There were flagstones on the floor and torches in the brackets on the walls. I had to guess that there would be another entrance somewhere that you would let you get here easier.

Arthur led us to one room. Knocked on the door. I didn't hear what it was but he heard something before nodding to himself and opening the door. Half the crossbowmen preceded us in while the other four waited to shepherd us.

It all seemed a little pointless to me if I'm honest. I had absolutely no intention of running anywhere. I was still too tired, too weak from what I assumed was a lack of food and the stench of the rooms that we had come through and I still had too many questions. From the expression on Kerrass' face, he was similarly afflicted.

I was utterly unsurprised to find Lord Cavill sat behind a table. We were in a guest bedroom of some kind. There were several windows high up in the walls that let in some natural light as well as some fresh air but in the main, the room was lit by several oil lamps, candles and the roaring fire that had been set in the fireplace. There was a large, opulent and exceedingly soft looking bed, a trunk and a dressing table.

Lord Cavill's riding boots were next to the door, caked in mud. Left for the servants to come and clean, the same way that I do it when I'm at home. The way Father taught us to do it.

I already felt sick.

But that wasn't the only detail that caught my eye. As well as blankets and pillows, the bed was a four posted bed and there were ropes and shackles attacked to the post and at varying heights. An inventive mind could put those bonds to all kinds of shapes.

There was also a rack in the corner and the table that Lord Cavill was sat at was no desk.

There were also several rich looking chairs that Lord Cavill failed to invite us to sit in. He was wearing a robe, similar in colouring to Arthur's robe but this had a gold thread sewn in around the hem.

He looked up and almost smiled as he greeted us.

"Ah, Lord Frederick and company. So good of you to join us."

"Go fuck yourself." I would flatter myself that if I was feeling a little better then I might have been able to come up with something a little more eloquent than that.

It seemed that Cavill agreed with me as he tutted and shook his head. "Not the most polite language Lord Frederick. I would have you punished for such insolence but there is actually some traditions that we are following here and as such it would be unseemly to strike you."

"Then what are we doing here?" Kerrass demanded.

"And so, we come to the real leader of your little triumverate." Lord Cavill was almost rubbing his hands with glee. "You are here so that I can take my revenge you filthy little yellowed eyed snake."

"Technically, he's a cat." I told him but I was ignored.

"But also," He went on. "It is tradition. I am the High Priest of the God after all and it is my duty to inform the sacrifices as to what is going to happen to them."

"Ooh, ooh. Is it cake? I would like some cake." Taylor's turn to be flippant. "Maybe some beer to and I like my steak cooked well done. So well done in fact that it's black."

This tirade got through Lord Cavill's facade for long enough that he earned himself a withering look and a sneer of disgust. For the uninitiated, In hunting circles, Steak is supposed to be cooked rare. The bloodier the better.

"Preferably," Taylor went on. "I like it so that if someone dropped it on the floor then it would shatter." He grinned.

For those who are wondering. I like my steak rare but not blue. That's one step too far for my tastes. I know, I know that this is the "ultimate" steak flavour but I...I just can't. Call it a character flaw if you like.

"Shhh." I told Taylor. "You're putting him off his dinner with your heathen ways." Taylor did his best to look sorrowful and failed utterly.

Kerrass waited for the children to subside

"So, we are to be sacrificed." He said after a while where he manfully managed to avoid glaring at either Taylor or myself.

"Yes, you will be taken from here to another room where you will be fed and you may rest so that you can properly regain your strength. You may even have a woman brought to you if you wish although I might go so far as to suggest that you should possibly avoid such distractions and concentrate on eating and sleeping with your time."

Kerrass nodded to show that he understood.

"Then, shortly after dawn you will be taken to a holy place where you will be consecrated."

"Consecrated."

"Yes, It's a kind of blessing. A lot like your heretical Baptisms. And then you will be released."

Kerrass shook his head. "What?"

"Oh yes. We release you. You see, that was the thing that your brother and cousin could never understand Lord Frederick. It's supposed to be a hunt. We hunt our victims down before we feed the God with their pain and suffering. We give them strength and something to live for in that we feed them, allow them to rest and allow them to partake in carnal pleasure. And then we release them. We give them a night and a day and then we chase them."

"So you are going to hunt us?"

"Yes. Then, when we catch you. We feed you to the God."

"That's where the torture and the raping and the other stuff comes in yes?"

"Correct. We look forward to that bit. Again, your brother and cousin misunderstood the entire thing. They were only in it for the climax. For the pleasure that the proper worship of the God can give, they did not understand that proper worship of the God involves, patience and anticipation. You need to _work_ for your rewards and the more you work for things, the better the gift that the God returns to us. You understand the principle well do you not Lord Frederick? After all, you have boasted many times regarding your skills regarding the pleasure of others. The orgasm is always the more powerful the longer you are kept waiting for it are you not?"

"So you have read my works then?" I commented.

"Extensively." He told me. "Researching the behaviours of your enemies is an important factor."

"Normally I just assume that people are just saying that they read things in order to make me feel better." I commented to no-one in particular. "I would say though, that the principle that you are referring to is regarding the giving of pleasure to your lover. Not for the taking of pleasure for yourself. Let alone in torturing someone."

"It works both ways."

"I wouldn't know." I told him. "Fortunately." I sniffed derisively. It was a new expression that I was taking to with some verve. A disdainful sniff can be awfully eloquent. "But hold on though, can I ask a question? I mean, this would seem to be the sort of time that I could ask a question right?"

"You're right," said Taylor, ever my comedic partner.

"I thought so. Can I ask a question?"

"Please do. That's the point about this conversation after all. It's so that the sacrifices can ask questions of the Hight Priest and so that they can finally learn what the rites entail and as to whether or not..."

"Yes yes. I heard what you are saying but if I'm honest, I stopped listening after you said that you would answer all my questions. But...Isn't it a bit stupid to talk to us in advance with some kind of promise that you can answer all of our questions and then you're going to let us go in some kind of staged hunt. What if we escape?"

I waited for him to open his mouth to answer before I jumped in again with both feet.

"I mean, it's exactly the same as those stories or plays that you see where the bad guy." I gestured at Lord Cavill to make sure that he got the point. "Tells the good guys," I gestured at the three of us, "the plan before putting us into some long and drawn out death sequence which we can blatantly escape from. What's it called?"

"Monologuing," Taylor supplied.

"That's it," I said. Have I ever mentioned that my mouth sometimes goes off on one without consulting me. It's always rather annoying when it does this. "Monologuing. What if we escape? What if you never find us?"

"No-one has ever escaped before."

"There's always a first time." I told him with as much certainty as I could manage.

"Where will you go? I can tell you all of this because it's part of the rites. You have been travelling for about six days. In what direction? Where are we? Hmmm? You stopped in the middle of the nine days total that you were in that cage. So let me tell you. You are miles, days away from anyone that would take your word for what has happened here. From someone would believe that I, Lord Cavill, well known to be a holy man of the heathen faith of the Holy Fire, worship some other deity. Then it would be even further still until you could find anyone that can actually help you. Who could marshal troops and come back here to help you look. That's if you can prove that you are who you say you are after all."

He showed me that he was the true master of the derisive snort.

"What are you? Two Vagabond's and a Witcher. A Cat Witcher at that, against the word of an established nobleman. So then you have to find someone who knows who you are."

"We made plenty of friends on our way here."

"Did you now." It was not a question, "Or did you, in fact, meet people who are actually my friends. They might not be true believers but there are always people who want to experience what we can offer. There's always someone willing to pay to torture a pretty girl, or a pretty boy to death. We reap the benefit in that we receive the power from The God, and they get their dick's sucked. Who's to complain?"

He laughed.

"That's not including the people who hate you for what and who you are. A jumped up little nobody, son of a jumped up little nobody who has lucked their way into having the ear of important people. You don't think that you've made lots of friends with your sister and your father before her, building a merchant empire like the one they have do you? How many people have you bankrupted? How many people have you displaced from their rightful position at the head of their households. You and that whore deviant of a sister."

"Calling my sister deviant." I said. "This from the man who worships dark and evil Gods.

"The things that I do are my Gods given right." He raged suddenly. "I am the Lord Cavill. First born son of my father. That gives me the right to do as I please with my lands and my people. They exist on my sufferance and they give thanks to me for every breath that they suck down into their filthy little lungs."

The three of us just stood there for a moment. I had heard that there really are Lords that are like this. That think of the people that live on their land as their rights. As belonging to them in some way. I had heard that this was a thing and indeed, I have met many of those self-same Lords who probably think this. It's just that the majority of them are also far too self-aware to admit this in public. It is becoming increasingly fashionable in the world to be working towards the betterment of your people.

There are many reasons for this but the main one is actually pragmatism. We've had three, large, continent sized wars in living memory. There is not a family in the north that hasn't been affected by this in some way, either having had someone lose their lives during one of the three conflicts or the aftermath, or having had their livelihood affected by economic realities in the wake of retreating and disbanded armies.

For a study on the subject of these effects I can recommend the book "The aftermath of war: The results of Imperial ambition," by Lord Conton de Prait. He's a Nilfgaardian who retired from the Imperial treasury after the second war as he was one of a few people that were scape-goated for the failure of the second invasion. Fortunately, The Emperor was well aware that the problems that were _actually_ to blame had nothing to do with Lord de Prait and merely exiled him. The book took on extra effect in the wake of the third Northern invasion by Nilfgaard forces. It's a fascinating read. Dispiriting, but fascinating nonetheless.

But I digress.

People have had to invest in their lands and in their people because otherwise, everyone starves. From the Lord down to the lowliest farmer. This is a completely separate issue from the problem of being able to pay taxes. The other problem is that, in the main, if you mistreat peasants then they will simply leave. Pack all their belongings onto the back of a wagon and head somewhere else where the Lords of the domain are more tolerant and understanding of the problems facing the lower classes. Or they could go somewhere which has been completely decimated by the wars to the point that there is no working infrastructure at all.

I understand that Aedirn is very nice this time of year in the wake of their invasion.

So Lord Cavill's words were astonishing to me. Kerrass and Taylor must have felt the same as me though as neither of them spoke in the wake of Lord Cavill's extraordinary statement.

"So shocking to you, _Lord_ Frederick. You know what it is to be better than someone. You are educated, intelligent and driven. You have looked down on the people next to you and thought that you are better than them."

"I might have done." I told him. "I might have done once, I might still do it occasionally from time to time. Now, for instance as I look at you. But just because I think it, doesn't mean that it is so, I'm often just better educated than they are. I know more, but that doesn't make me better...Other than now of course. Now, I'm definitely better than you. But you, and I in the past, confuse being born differently as making us better."

"Doesn't it though?" Doesn't it? I was the first born son of my house. I was the first to be born from my Mother who gave me life. Not them, not the person down the street, not you or this Witcher or this soldier. _I_ was born first. Doesn't that say something. Doesn't that make me better? If we assume that The God, or the gods if you prefer, are powerful entities that control our lives. If this is the case, as you must agree that it is given how much of a spiritual man that I know you to be, then surely we must have been put into our own particular walks of life on purpose as part of some overarching plan. Therefore I was put here as part of the God's plans and given all the rights that I have."

"Who are you trying to convince?" I asked him. "Us, or yourself. You also miss out an important part of that sentence. We are Lords of our lands by the power of the crown monarch with all the rights, Privileges and _responsibilities_ that that position requires. You talk as though the people are there for your amusement rather than acknowledging that you have a responsibility to take care of them, to nurture them and to make their lives better."

"Ah but Lord Frederick." He smiled as though he had won the point. "That's precisely what I _am_ doing."

"What?" I demanded. "Telling them lies. Feeding them drugs to keep them compliant so that they fulfil your sick and twisted perversions?"

"What I am doing, is feeding the God." He told me. "I am saving them. I am worshipping his holy radiance. He feeds on our suffering and gives back bliss. It is my place to feed that as I have the power to provide that suffering."

"If that were the case, then why not have them torture yourself?" I demanded. "Why not take a knife to your own innards and burn off your own testicles with a flaming brand? If the objective is to "feed the God" then why is your suffering any the less...Oh what's the point." I abruptly realised that I was trying to debate with a fanatic. You just can't do that as you will never win. Every argument that you make, everything that you say will just go further and further towards proving that they are correct in their eyes.

"I give up." I told him throwing my arms in the air. "You are absolutely insane. No, that's not right. I've known some perfectly gentle and genuine people that could be called insane. I've skirted on the edge of that abyss myself on more than one occasion. What you are is a sick puppy that needs to be put down."

Cavill laughed. I have no doubt that he simply thought of this as winning.

For all I know, he did.

But I was chastising myself. I thought that I should have seen that madness in his eyes the first time that I met him. That I should have been more careful and that we should have found some way to escape and bring back help for all the poor souls that were labouring under this utter lunatic.

He laughed for a long time.

"Which God?" Kerrass asked after a while.

"What?"

"I said, Which God?" Kerrass repeated. "You tell us that this is all in service to which God. If not the service of your own ego, which God is it. The Holy Fire? Although I think that even some of their more militant followers would look at some of the things that you do here and go "steady on." After all, it was some adherents to the teachings of the Holy Fire that had the followers in your more Southern Sects burned around Oxenfurt after we found them and had them arrested."

Lord Cavill said nothing.

"Then is it the sky-father Kreve? Did you know that the locals around Castle Kalayn refer to your riders as "The Hounds of Kreve?" I would have almost found that amusing other than the fact that it's so fucking tragic. If one of those people had told the right authorities that this was happening,, the followers of Kreve would have declared a crusade and wiped you out. Was it Kreve? They would have found this place even more disgusting than the followers of the Eternal Fire would."

Lord Cavill said nothing. He was smiling a smug and self-satisfied little smile that I was beginning to get the burning desire to wipe off his face.

"It can't be Melitele or Freya," Kerrass went on. "No priestess, or priest if you prefer although I've never heard of a Priest of either Goddess, would have ever allowed the things that you do here. Or is it the Lionheaded Spider that you worship? If so, it's not like any cult of the Lionhead that I've ever come across."

"No," Cavill finally moved. "It's possible that we were once an offshoot of Coran Agh Tera but if so, that time is long past. That misguided cult is about a longing for death, we long for life. We heighten it. The most intense feelings that a person can feel are pain and pleasure. Pain, much more so than pleasure but the line between the two is a thin one."

"So this is a sexual thing. You're just...addicted to the feelings that this all produces." Kerrass just put a hint of a sneer into his words. He once told me about the trick that he was using. If you deny a person or call them a liar then they will just clam up and you won't get any information out of them at all. Whereas if you deliberately get the information wrong, especially in the face of an arrogant fanatic like Lord Cavill, then they will do anything they can to try and prove you wrong. They will literally trip over themselves in an effort to try and prove to you, and to themselves actually, that you don't know what you're doing.

Lord Cavill jumped into the trap. Not that he was in that much danger to be fair.

"No, it all feeds the God. All of it. But the agony that people feel, the pain and the suffering of those lesser creatures, the anticipation of the hunters and the hunted that builds into the extreme explosion of pleasure and pain. That is what feeds the God and makes him more powerful.

"He is here. Can you not feel him? Feel him in the air around you. He is here, deep in the bowels of the earth. Buried under the centuries of compacted earth. He was old when this world was young and he shook the mountainside with his wrath. He spoke and the Gnomes that lived here scurried under ground. He was here and as he was, he reached out with his hand and caused the stars themselves to tremble."

"What is his name?" Kerrass' voice was harsh against the the melodious and trained voice of Lord Cavill.

"There is no name." Cavill almost whispered it. "We have no name for him. He is the nameless one, the root of everything and the basis for all of our drives and our ambitions. He is the source of power and the basis of all magic. He is chaos, he is force, he is...impossible. Everywhere and nowhere, everything and nothing. He …..He is."

Kerrass nodded. "So he isn't Crom Cruarch then?"

"That petty little peasant God. Heh. No, no he isn't."

"Then why did Kalayn tell us that it was?"

"How should I know? Kalayn was a fool, trying to form a splinter faction of worship down in more civilised areas without proper understanding of the thing. He was trying to break away from my authority and gather his own followers. We supported him of course. The more we worship him, the stronger he gets, the more pain that we cause, the more power that he gives us. In giving him a name then it mean that he becomes more real to a certain kind of person but then they don't understand that his mystery is his power and..."

"So you are the High priest then?" I thought I could sense a small amount of impatience in Kerrass' voice.

"I have that honour."

"How does that work?"

"I was chosen. You have to be a first born son. You have to have the power and influence to properly spread the work of the God. Money, political power, skill and the like. You also have to be able to go further in the worship than anyone else." He turned to me and smiled horribly. "I had high hopes that your brother Edmund would be able to follow me when I die and finally go to join the God. High hopes. His appetites were...wondrously extreme. But Kalayn got his claws in. If only your father hadn't got in the way and then I would have been able to see to Edmund's proper education."

I ignored him. My feelings about Edmund remain complicated but I would rather he died than he become, well, this.

"I've heard enough." I said to the room at large. "There was some kind of discussion about food and a bed. If you want to rant at me some more, you can do it in the morning but right now, I'm feeling a little dead on my feet if you'll excuse the expression."

"I have another question before we go," Kerrass said before turning back to Lord Cavill. "I take it that you found us by virtue of a mage's skills?"

"Of course. How else did you think we were going to find you? Or subdue you so easily for that matter?"

"Did you really take him in so that he could avoid the Witch hunts?"

"Partially. He really would have fallen prey to the Witch hunters but in this particular case, it was more the fact that he found us. He had been having these dreams you see..."

"I see. You say this is supposed to be a hunt. Is it not a little unfair for you to have something like that at your disposal?"

"A little unfair I suppose but not catastrophically so. We don't use him for that though. It kind of defeats the object of the exercise."

Kerrass nodded. "I'm done. Take us to our "Guest quarters" or whatever you want to call them."

Arthur moved from his position to open the door, the crossbowmen that were still standing behind us started to move but Lord Cavill was holding his hand up.

"Wait. If you don't mind, I have a question of my own to ask before you go."

"What's the enticement for us to answer you?"

"Absolutely none at all. Courtesy maybe?"

Kerrass grinned and glanced at me. I just shrugged. Taylor rolled his eyes. "Ask your question." Kerrass said.

"We were going to take you anyway. We knew that you were coming as our agents in other areas, including your brothers lands told us that you were on your way. You have proven yourself our enemies too many times for you to be allowed to live. A large number of our first born sons died in that conflagration outside of Oxenfurt and as such, you deserve to die. The only reason that we haven't come after you up until this point is that we were waiting until we could arrange matters so that suspicion wouldn't fall on us. "

"Your point?"

"We couldn't take you in the castle as that would give us away. So what was it that tipped you off. How did you know that we, that I, was involved in the attacks on your brothers people."

Again Kerrass looked at the two of us. Kerrass raised his eyebrows at me. It would seem that this bit was up to me.

"There were lots of things." I told him. Lots of small clues that gave you away and gave us clues as to what was going on. The absence of women anywhere around you. Yours was a court of men and in the modern world, that is increasingly rare. It was in the attitude of your guards and your...for want of a better word...courtiers." I sucked my teeth in thought. "Your mage made my skin crawl." I found myself smiling at the thought.

"Yes," Lord Cavill's mirth was warm suddenly and I was reminded of his charm. I tried to force myself to play on that but I didn't really get the chance. "Yes, he does that to people. I normally try to keep him out of such circumstances for precisely that reason but in this instance he was too useful. He needed to get a good look at you so that he could find you again." His eyes narrowed a little. "But I sense that this isn't the entire thing?"

"No." I smirked again. "It was your son's axe that he was training with out in the yard."

"His axe?"

"Yes. He got it recently didn't he?"

"He did. He claimed that he bought it from one of the dwarven merchants that came through here. A brutal, disgusting weapon, I thought. Far too big. A weapon for the slaying rather than any kind of finesses."

"He didn't get it from a merchant." I told him. "He stole it from the body of a dead priest of Kreve. A knight Father Gardan who you might have heard of?"

A spasm of anger flashed across Lord Cavill's face. "His efforts towards some kind of vengeance against you, to throw his murder of the priest into your face after you humiliated him in court, I have no doubt."

"Possibly."

"Did he know that you would recognise it I wonder?"

"Did he care?"

Cavill grunted. "I'm going to knock the fuck out of him for this. So elementary a mistake. Our entire existence depends on our being hidden from the outside world. If he wasn't my only remaining heir then I would give him to the rack or the flogging post for a mistake like that That axe should have been left with the body or it should have been melted down or re-shaped into something more useful. Still...The axe of the Silver slayer."

He shook his head.

"Still. Thank you for your time. I shall be there to see you off in the morning."

This time Arthur did indeed open the door. In a practised manoeuvre we were preceded by half the crossbowmen while the remaining ones followed us out, keeping us at bay as we went.

"Wait." It was Taylor who suddenly turned in place. "My turn for a question There was a look of genuine puzzlement on his face. Taylor is a fascinating man and I wish that I get the chance to find out more about him, but he had this trick of using his face to be so utterly eloquent in his delivery and body language.

Sometimes he was as difficult to read as a statue but other times you could tell what he was thinking from across a wide open field.

Now he was standing there in abject amazed and amused horror.

"Wait." He said. "Before we go, I just have a question."

There was a pause as we all stood there and stared at him. Kerrass was out in the hallway and almost came back in. Arthur looked on.

Cavill was in the process of taking out a paper to read on the desk in the universal signal from everyone that they were done with this bullshit and moving on to the next item of business but he was looking up at Taylor now.

"Do you actually believe in all of this Horse shit?" Taylor began, "or is this just some jumped up excuse to be horrible to your fellow man?"

Cavill just stared at him.

Arthur's armour clinked as he shifted in discomfort.

"I mean seriously. I wanna know." Taylor stood and stared the other man down for a minute or two. "Yeah," he said after a while. "I thought so."

He nodded to himself before making a "shooing" gesture to me to usher me out the door. "Pompous prick," he stage muttered to me.

To be fair, I couldn't agree more.

We were led along the corridor and down a flight of stairs. In the same area of the mine or cavern or wherever the hell it was that we found ourself but there was no doubt in our mind that we had come into a prison. The doors were heavier and the walls were lined with guards. Men in the hooded cowls of the Hounds. This time they were not wearing the ridiculous armoured shapes hidden underneath and their weapons were good, well made things.

We were shown into a room. Several large and comfortable beds were there as well as rich rugs and tapestries on the walls. There were several comfortable chairs and a large table in the middle of the room upon which was a flower arrangement as well as a jug and three cups.

"Food will be brought shortly." Arthur told us. His loosening up that had happened while we were travelling towards Lord Cavill's office seemed to have been undone. He was still polite but there had been a distance that had grown up between us as well. He was no longer trying to be friends. "After that, if you require the use of a woman then one will be brought."

"What about privacy?" Kerrass asked. "Should a woman be brought, I don't really want to look at Freddie's pimpled backside while he goes at it."

Taylor laughed. Arthur did not.

"There are bedded alcoves behind the curtains at the end of the room." He pointed. "The curtains are heavy and are certainly opaque but I can do nothing about the noise should anyone be particularly...ah...vocal."

He seemed to run out of things to say for a second or two there before turning round and starting again. "We will bring you some more food at dawn and come for you two hours after that for the beginning of the hunt. I suggest that you get some rest as well as make use of the food."

"Wait." I said as he turned to go. "You seem like a good man. Why are you doing this?"

"It is the God's will." He told me promptly and a little stiffly. I gathered that he had heard something that he didn't quite approve of. "How else am I guaranteed my place in paradise?"

I nodded. I was dealing with another fanatic here. Arguing was pointless at best and, given what we could look forward to in the morning, at worst it was just a waste of energy.

"Then where do we go if we need to relieve ourselves?" I asked.

"The curtain on the other end leads to a garderobe."

"A hole in the floor."

"As you say."

I nodded again. "What's to stop us from just...Refusing to be hunted. What happens if we just sit there and let you all take us. That defeats the le point of the exercise doesn't it?"

Arthur sighed and scratched his head. "That is one of the mysteries that I am not party to. Before being released I have seen Father talk to the sacrifices before hand but I have never heard what he says. But whatever it is that he says, it provides the necessary goading and the sacrifices often leap to their feet to begin the chase."

"Do we get a head start?"

"A period of one day. Now I really have told you much more than I should have. You will learn the rest tomorrow."

He closed the door on us.

Kerrass moved over to the table and poured a small cup of the liquid, sniffed and tasted it.

"It's clean." He said and poured me a cup. "Get it down you Freddie, you will need your strength."

I took the cup and found that he was right. I was tired, thirsty and hungry.

"What is wrong with me?" I asked.

"You were bled." Kerrass told me. He and Taylor were prowling round the room. I suspect they were looking for anything that might be used as a weapon or looking for some way of escape. At one point I saw Kerrass looking at the holes in the walls that were far above us that, presumably, provided us with air to breathe. I saw him look at the holes and measure the distance before examining Taylor and I before dismissing the idea with a shake of his head.

"We were only asleep for a couple of days and woke up in the cage." Taylor went on. He was moving along the walls, waving his hands around before the stones to see if he could feel a draft anywhere. "Then one day we went indoors and they came and dragged you out of the cage. We would have fought them but we were unarmed and all but naked at the time and they had crossbows."

"Where did they take me?"

"They didn't say. But when you came back you had scars and needle marks in the crooks of your elbows. You were pale and your pulse was shallow. Normally after that kind of thing you would need to be fed and watered."

"Good red meat and green vegetables" Taylor nodded. "Best thing to get you back on your feet."

"But they didn't. They fed you so that you wouldn't starve."

"The ever popular tube down the throat?" I asked

"The very thing." Kerrass grinned.

"It's always me isn't it."

"You deserve it though." The grin vanished. "But you've also been lying in your own filth. They cared enough to keep you fed, not to keep you clean. Speaking of which, let's see if we can get you a bath.

A bath was provided, food was brought. It was simple but tasty fare. Bread, meat, cheese and some vegetables. Well cooked with what tasted like wild garlic and onions. A bath was brought as well as some clean clothes and I cannot deny that the feeling of cleanliness was wonderful. Not the first time that I have felt the undeniable ecstasy of being clean after having been so filthy but every single time it happens, it feels wonderful.

We ate, I cleaned myself up and then we gathered around the table for a small conference.

"So what are we going to do?" Taylor asked. "It seems a little...foolish to just head down and run for it when they let us go in the morning. We need some kind of plan."

"We do. We're not in so bad a state as all that though." Kerrass told him. "We're not some frightened villagers or one of the elves that it seems that they have used for this purpose in the past."

"No, but I'm going to slow you both down." I told them. I took a deep breath. "It might be better if you let them take me. We run for it for as long as we can, I don't know if we get any weapons or anything as part of the hunt but we run for as long as we can. When it's clear that I can't go any further then I will turn and attack them. Hopefully I can survive whatever they've got in mind for long enough so that you two can get help."

"Brave of you Freddie, but a little foolish. Don't be too keen to jump on your sword just yet." Kerrass smiled softly.

"Why?" Taylor asked. "I agree that we should fight as much as we can but Lord Frederick's right. Not because he isn't physically capable but he's weak from the blood loss and it takes time to recover from that kind of thing, not to mention any illness that that's going to leave him vulnerable to."

"True, but at the same time, which of the two of us is going to be able to convince Lord whatever or whoever we bump into that we're not the fugitives that Lord Cavill claims us to be. I'm a Witcher and without Freddie's company, which lends me a certain amount of credibility and respect, people run from me and attack me. And all of those Lords that we will go to will see, at worst, a common soldier in you or Lord Frederick's manservant at best. Villagers will be afraid of both of us as again," Kerrass gestured at himself "Witcher and you're a soldier. They're going to run a mile when they see either of us. We have to plan beyond immediate survival which, I agree, is going to need the two of us to carry Freddie a bit but later on...we're going to need him so..." He wagged his finger in my face. "No heroic self-sacrificing."

"Yes Kerrass." I tried to look contrite and failed.

"But honestly though," Kerrass went on. "We're not in too bad shape here. A Witcher, a soldier and a fighter. We're already much more than these bastards are used to and we can counter their herbal poisons. Also, we have help out there."

"You mean Sir Rickard." I said quietly. I couldn't see how we were being listened to but they did have a mage on the payroll.

"Yes. Sir Rickard with more than half a dozen of the most highly trained and deadly woodsmen that I've ever seen and I'm nearly a hundred years old."

"Will they find us though?" I asked.

"Dan'll find us." Taylor said nodding, a strange, prideful glint in his eye. "That man could track a bird in flight before shooting it down."

"By now, Rickard knows that we're missing. He's a sensible man. He will tell people what's happened and by now, people are looking for us. And we, especially Freddie, have powerful friends. Another reason why it is vital that Freddie stay alive and in our company."

"I can't contact them though."

"Oh Freddie, a little naïve there." Kerrass chuckled. "Your fiancée was called the Spider Queen of Angraal and that was not a cute nickname that they gave her. We both know that she can literally talk to spiders and that she once told you that spiders have a web of communication that covers the continent. The only way that she hasn't already found you yet is due to a magical null field or something that is hiding you from her. But that kind of thing would have to be finite, so all we have to do is to get out from that area and she'll snatch you up in a heart-beat."

Taylor smirked. "Not sure how I would feel about a wife who could literally see me wherever I went and know what I was up to. But in this instance, I'll take it."

"That's not including the amount of fuss that Sam will make along with the Church of the Holy Fire and the rest. We should still head somewhere but our main objective is going to have to be to survive. The longer that we survive, the better for us all."

I felt myself nodding along with Kerrass' words and I saw that Taylor was being drawn in in the same way.

"The main problem." Kerrass went on. "Is that mage of theirs. We only have their word for it that he won't get himself involved in this "most sacred of rites". The danger is that if they come at us in a group, that we get overwhelmed. I would flatter the three of us that we can take on three or four of them. Even unarmed as we are and then we start to become equipped we become all the more dangerous but if that mage find us, tells them where we are and then they come after us in force..." He sucked some air in between his teeth. "Then that is the most dangerous thing."

We nodded and looked at each other for a bit.

"I'm going to get some rest." I declared. "I think I'm going to need it if I'm replenishing lost blood. Someone wake me in a few hours so I can get something else to eat." Kerrass nodded.

"And I'm going to see about a woman." Taylor said, heading towards the door.

"Is now the time?" I asked him, but I was smiling as I said it. I was under no illusions. Kerrass' talk not withstanding, things were fairly dire. There were a lot of them against three of us. I was sick, Kerrass had lost the edge that his Elixirs gave him so the only one operating on full strength was Taylor. So if he wanted to spend his last comfortable night with a woman, then who was I to argue.

I did though. Because that's what friends are for.

"Probably not." He told me with a smile. "But if I can convince her then she might be able to smuggle us a weapon or show us a way out." He shrugged. "Unlikely given how much control the bastards seem to have over this lot but," he shrugged again. "Worth a go."

He spoke to the guard at the door. The discussion seemed to go along the lines of "What flavour would you like," and he chose a blonde.

I dozed to be woken, as requested, some time later by Kerrass.

"Taylor?" I asked him.

"If you listen," Kerrass said quietly. "You can hear him snoring the gentle sound of the disappointed."

"Oh?"

"Apparently, she was less than entirely enthusiastic in her...lovemaking and so he tried to send her away. He, like you and I, likes them willing and enthusiastic but it would seem that that's not what they go for round here. Instead she was meek, resistant and absolutely expecting him to rape her. But she protested and said that she would be punished if something didn't happen so..."

"So..." I made the universal hand gesture of wanting to know more. The one where you rotate your hands in the air as if beckoning more noise to come out of Kerrass' mouth.

"So, I didn't ask any further. She left willingly some time later and he didn't rape her so I didn't enquire any further. She was unreceptive to the idea of helping us though."

I shrugged and gave a little sigh. "We kind of knew that it was a long shot though didn't we."

"We did. Eat something."

I did and Kerrass sat watching me.

"Shouldn't you also be getting some rest?" I prompted.

"I will but I wanted to ask you a question."

"Go on,"

"Why didn't you ask about your sister. He would have answered you, as it was my understanding that that was the deal after all. We would ask questions and he would answer them."

"Would he though?" I washed down my current mouthful with some water and thought about what to say. "Since the night by the rock, I've been trying to be a bit more careful about my emotions and about how I do things regarding them. If I had asked about what was going on with Francesca and he told me that she had long since been fed to their dark God of Pleasure and torture. What would I have done?"

Kerrass said nothing.

"I don't know either." I told him. "But there's a very real possibility that I would have got all three of us killed. If I had gone for him, which I might have, then you would have felt obliged to join in. Taylor would have as well because it would have been our last and best chance to make anything happen. But then eight crossbow bolts would have thundered across the room and the three of us would be dead. Francesca, would still be unsaved or unavenged."

"But that's not the real reason is it?"

"No, no it isn't. If I had asked him. He would have something else to hold over me. Another string, another arrow that he could sent at me to put me off or upset me. Another means of upsetting me. It might be petty but I didn't want to give him the satisfaction."

Kerrass nodded. He watched me eat for a little while longer before he went to his own bed.

As promised, we were woken at dawn by a number of servants who brought us food and plenty of it. As he had the previous day, Kerrass checked it all to make sure that it was safe to eat before tucking in himself. It was only moderately disconcerting to see that Taylor shared his habit of eating huge breakfasts before action. I always struggle with this as I often struggle in the morning and if I try and force too much food down my throat too quickly then I end up feeling sick.

But that morning, I forced myself, despite the nausea and light-headedness that greeted me that morning. Fortunately, I knew what the cure was and I ate the food and drank the water until I could almost hear the water sloshing around in my belly.

Then we had a couple of hours before they would come for us. We spent a bit of time resting and allowing the food to digest so as to get the proper benefit from it before limbering up a bit. Doing some gentle warm-up exercises to prepare us for whatever lay ahead.

Again, Arthur was assigned as our escort and came with a smile and the general kind of aura of anticipation that you imagine in athletes before the contest, or students before an exam that they know that they are well prepared for.

Or a man about to embark on a date with a pretty girl where he _knows_ that he's going to get lucky. I shuddered when that thought occurred to me.

"I have not brought the men with the crossbows this time." He told us. "On the grounds that we're taking you to a place where you will be released anyway. Do I need them?"

The three of us looked at each other a bit before shaking our collective heads.

"Good." Arthur nodded as though he was satisfied in some way. "As I said before, this is hard and I am completely understanding and full of sympathy when it comes to your plight. I will not ask for your forgiveness as I know that what you are going to go through is horrible and after the horn signals the start of the hunt, I will be among the first to leap to the chase. But here and now, I want you to know that I respect you and that I bear you no ill will. You should also know that your reward will be in paradise."

I looked at him for a long time.

"Tell me," I said. "Do you believe all of that? Do you believe that all of this is necessary?"

"Of course." He seemed surprised at the question.

"Then do not pity me. I pity you. This was not your fault and this was done to you. I forgive you for your part in it. You are a weapon and a sick animal that has been turned against us. But I do hate the man that did this to us and who did this to you. You, I will kill quickly and cleanly when it comes to it. Him? I want to see that bastard suffer."

Arthur listened to my little speech gravely before shaking his head. "Your hatred is unfounded but I understand it. Follow me now."

He led us off, although there weren't any crossbow men, it would seem that Arthur wasn't entirely stupid. We did have an "honour guard" of four armed men in their hooded cloaks and there were other men who lined our way, holding torches aloft. It all looked ceremonial but I had no doubt that our end would come quickly if we made a break for it.

We were led down a ramp and along some corridors. The air smelled almost clean and the noise of toil and torture was almost completely missing from the air.

Eventually we came into a large cave. The guards who had lined the walls had followed us from our cells and there were more people feeding into the cave. They stood in rank upon rank. I don't know how many of them there were.

"Lebioda's hairy ballsack." Taylor swore. "They've got a fucking army here."

"A small one," Kerrass muttered in response.

At one end of the cave we were led up some steps and onto a raised platform so that everyone could see us. There, stood twelve men. Their robes much richer than the rest, the gold patterning standing out and glittering in the firelight. They were all armed with a variety of weapons, most had swords although one or two people carried spears and large war hammers. One had a large axe, Father Gardan's axe.

Another of them was wearing a large pair of sharpened fiend antlers that must have been enormously heavy, the shape that I recognised from the night that Father Hacha was tortured to death outside of Kalayn castle. The twelve figures stood utterly still and the three of us were left wondering what was happening.

From further in the hall there came a drum beat which seemed to be some kind of signal. I presume that it was something to do with telling the assembly that everyone was there now because Lord Cavill took the huge crown of horns from his head and lowered his hood.

"Well here we are." He said. He was grinning from ear to ear and I wondered if he was drunk. He didn't weave in place or anything and his words weren't slurred but he seemed a little delirious, as though he was enjoying himself far too much for what I assumed was quite a solemn occasion.

Maybe he was high on something. That is much more likely.

"Children," he called as he walked to the front of the stage and addressed the assembly. "The time has come for another hunt." The crowd seemed to sway in place and groan. It seemed oddly sexual and I felt myself shift in discomfort.

"Soon," Lord Cavill went on. "We will be unleashed to the hunt, just as it always has been and always will be. We will chase our quarry in the form of the ancient rites of the God in order for them to be hunted and taken. They shall flee and fight as they always do and we shall chase and conquer as we always do."

Another groan from the crowd.

"This trial shall be hard though." He warned them in dire tones, it was the first time that he actually reminded me of a priest. Warning his congregation against the coming hardship. "Our quarry is a clever one. Indeed he is one known to us for he is brother of the treacherous house Kalayn."

I felt myself grin as the crowd erupted into jeers and boos.

"You all know about how the new Lord Kalayn has turned his lands and his people against us. How he helped slay the last of the good and noble members of his family. How his older brother died in the service of The God. Indeed, it was this creature," he spun and pointed at me with a trembling hand. I rather thought that the trembling was more theatrical than was entirely called for, "who saw to it that so many of our Brothers were fed to the fires of heresy and treason. Now the new Lord Kalayn scorns us and lessens us. He attacks us and showers us with scorn. One day, some day soon, _he_ will be subject to our justice. But now we have his younger brother and he shall be fed to the God by your hand in our most sacred rites in order to appease the great and mighty one."

I could feel the crowd almost vibrating in their hatred of me.

Lord Cavill turned back towards me and smiled.

"A bit much wasn't it?" I asked him. "Sam was never on your side, neither was I and by your own admission, Cousin Kalayn was trying to splinter off from your influence."

"True," he admitted, "But of all people Lord Frederick, you should know that when it comes to religion, we say what we need to say to whip our congregation into a fervour. Now... the rules. In a short while we will release you and you head in that direction." He gestured towards the end of the cave. "Just round the bend you will find the exit that turns you out into the countryside whereupon you can make your own way in whatever direction that you desire to do whatever you see fit. One day from now, we will come after you. Exactly twenty four hours from when you are released. We will not attack you in the meantime nor take any action that might result in your capture. You can run, walk, hide or have sex with each other if you prefer."

Taylor opened his mouth to ask a question but Lord Cavill held his hand up to forestall and answered the question in advance.

"If you attack us at any point then we will defend ourselves accordingly and the rite will be over. We will reserve our most special tortures for you should you decide to take this route."

"Still," muttered Taylor, "A few dead cultists..."

"Now for the good news." Lord Cavill continued, ignoring Taylor's comments. He gestured and a couple of men came forward with _some_ of our belongings. I noticed that Kerrass' alchemy gear was missing for instance but our clothes, Kerrass' and my armour was present as well as Kerrass' and my weapons.

For a moment I saw Taylor look confused before he remembered that his fighting gear was with Sir Rickard.

"Feel free to dress and arm yourselves." Cavill told us. "Also, here is food and water for the twenty four hours before we come after you." More bags were deposited in front of us. I checked inside them while strapping my armour around myself. Sure enough, loaves of bread, some cheese and fruit as well as some dried meats. Trail rations to be sure but it was light and we would be moving fast. The water skins were of the kind that you could wrap around yourself.

"I can also tell you that Phineas will not be involved in your hunt as that would be cheating."

"Not something that you seem to have cared about previously," I commented quietly. Cavill's face didn't react.

"He is doing something else for me which leads us on to the bad news."

He grinned again and for the first time, I began to see the madness and the hate that lived behind the eyes. He had seemed so rational before in his castle and even in his study the previous day.

"We are well aware of the presence of Sir Rickard and his gaggle of idiots." he said.

I managed to keep my face still and fixed on his, I have no doubt that Kerrass also managed to keep his face still but Taylor must have given some clue.

"Yes, I am well aware of who you are...Taylor. Believe me, nothing would make me happier than if I had that jumped up bastard Rickard in front of me now. I would enjoy his death immensely but he and his band were last seen travelling the side-roads of my lands looking for you. We were watching through Phineas' divin..ackion... mirror..."

"It's pronounced "divination" idiot." Kerrass sneered.

"Quite," Cavill's smile didn't waver. "But we saw you leave the road and leave your trail signs and as such we were able to erase those and lead him off in completely the wrong direction. We also had three of my guards who were tolerably close to your heights and builds dress up in clothes similar to yours and depart my castle in all the directions of the compass. Rickard is now hopelessly confused and is wandering this way and that way talking to people who are all giving him misleading information as they are just as confused by the decoys as he is. I intend to hunt him down and destroy him at my leisure at a later date."

He laughed. I tried to keep my spirits up. It was a blow, to be sure but not a catastrophic one.

"Also," Lord Cavill went on. "You should really reconsider avoiding writing everything down in those absurd journals of yours Lord Frederick. And then publishing them, of all things, so that even your enemies can read them." He laughed and was joined by the other men on the platform. "It gives me access to all your strengths and weaknesses, for example," He leant in close. "I know all about your medallion."

He laughed.

This time I wasn't as successful in keeping my face still.

"Bastard," I told him.

"On the contrary, I was born quite legitimately and as the eldest son of my house. Unlike you of course, but I was talking about your travel journals."

He cleared his throat.

"They made for fascinating reading and I have read them many times, in minute detail. I was already aware that we had you to blame for the loss of so many of our sons and we had every intention of hunting you down and killing you. At some point in the future, maybe a year or three after your wedding had meant that you would no longer be publishing as much taking you out of the public eye. Then we had a quiet little murder planned after we had found away of countering your wife but then you just walked into our territory with no more protection than one man and your tame Witcher."

"He is far from tame."

"Yes, yes. Posture all you like. Would you like to know about your medallion?"

What hope that I had was dwindling in my chest now. I had come to depend on my pendant and the connection that it gave me to Ariadne. I had been trying not to think about it on the grounds that it would be a distraction and that I needed to maintain a front before my enemies. Now, I missed that connection keenly and felt on the edge of tears.

I often feel alone on the road. Yes I have Kerrass as the best friend that a man could wish for but sometimes, when he's off doing Witcher things like gathering herbs or training or working on keeping his own demons at bay. I am left by myself and I have been able to talk to Ariadne. The medallion had kept me from feeling isolated and now it was gone.

I also didn't know how I felt about Lord Cavill having read my journals. It was so... I felt oddly naked, almost violated. I pour my heart and soul into these journals that you, dear reader, are good enough to purchase and read. It had honestly never occurred to me that my enemies might get hold of them, read them and use them against me. It was like...I don't know what it was like to be honest and I felt as though I was being stripped of my dignity, of my shield.

"You're going to anyway so why not get it over with."

"You're right, I am." Another grin. "Because, really? You only have yourself to blame on this one."

He laughed and I dearly wanted, dearly, dearly wanted to wipe that grin off his face. But now was not the time for anger or rage. Now I needed to be cold. I needed to remain calm so that I could think clearly. We were not going to get out of this by my losing my temper and getting the three of us killed.

"To be honest, the problem of your medallion has actually been one of the biggest riddles that we've had to overcome in planning our destruction of you. We knew it existed and we knew that your vampiric lover could track you and contact you through it. We also knew that you could contact her which is, apparently, a separate issue. So Phineas took the matter in hand. First of all we took the relatively easy step of ensuring that you would not be able to contact her. But then...We needed to put you in harms way without her knowing about it so what to do, what to do."

He tapped his index finger against his lips in a pantomime of a man trying to think his way through a problem.

"So Phineas got close to you so that he could have a look at it which is when we discovered how it worked. Would you like to know?"

I just stared at him.

"It's connected to your blood." He told me, as I knew he would. "It's activated by proximity to your blood and that same blood pumping through your veins. A little obvious really once we started to think about it. Of course a vampire would think of linking it to a person's blood. So then the question became about how we were going to lead her off on a merry chase in the wrong direction when she inevitably started to look for you."

I sighed as the answer occurred to me. I tried not to but, as I've said before, Lord Cavill was actually quite a compelling speaker and he drew me along with his chain of reasoning.

"I see you follow our reasoning." Cavill told us. "The difficulty was that the blood doesn't stay "alive" for very long when it leaves the body. It starts to coagulate so we hit on the idea of injecting it into the body of one of my men."

"Which will then climb onto a horse and ride off in a random direction, yes I see where this is going."

"Not quite. It was a wagon as steered by another two guards. Unfortunately the process made the poor man rather ill and although we tried to keep him alive for a good length of time, the odds were that, at best, he wasn't going to live for very long. Apart from anything else, Phineas tells me that if we put your blood into him, then after a while it will become "his" blood and will no longer work to deceive the amulet."

He took the time to grin again.

"Just to check." I said suddenly. The day and a night head start that we've been promised. That starts from when we're released right? Because you're doing an awful lot of talking and..."

Taylor chuckled. I would like to think that I got a smile out of Kerrass but I couldn't see him.

Cavill smiled at the humour.

"So the men that are with him were under orders. When the recipient of your blood dies, or after two days of hard riding. They will take a hammer and smash the amulet apart."

That hurt. Not gonna lie but that really hurt. Despite my best efforts I felt my lips peel back from my teeth in a snarl

"They promised to bring me the shards of whatever was left though. I had Phineas enchant a hammer for the purpose although he promised that a normal sledgehammer would do the job. But I wanted to make sure that the amulet would be good and shattered by the time that they were done. I thought that one of the things that I would do would be to make you eat the crystal dust and the gold elements of the remains to see what they would do to your insides."

"I would spit them back at you." I told him.

He laughed though. He was the one with all of the power and he knew it.

"So, where does that leave us then? Let's see, we've distracted and removed the hope of reinforcement from Rickard and his troop of reprobates and murderers. We've removed any hope of rescue from your monstrous vampiric lover."

I just glared at him.

"So what can we do next to make your hunt worthwhile. To stack the hardships and trials against you."

Again the pantomime of thinking about things.

"Ooh, I know." He gestured and men leapt out of the shadows wrestling me to the ground.

I would like to think that I might have made more of an impact but I was still weak. I know that Kerrass had spun to defend himself but he was carried down under the weight of a good half a dozen men. As he himself would say, the greatest swordsman in the world can be overwhelmed by superior numbers when he has his sword still in the scabbard.

Taylor, like me, had been lulled into a false sense of security by the extended speeches and had as much chance as I had.

"Just to be clear Frederick." Cavill hissed into my face. "You are the sacrifice. You are the man who I want to destroy. You are the warning that I will send to my enemies, people like your brother, who stand against me and defy me. They will know what is coming for all of them."

He gestured again and Taylor was dragged to his knees by the hair. There were men holding him by the arms. Strong hands grabbed me by the side of my head so that I couldn't move.

"I know," Cavill grated on. "I know that you are, by far, the most dangerous quarry that we've ever hunted. We are aware that you know how to counter our skills, our poisons and our magic and moreover, you know them for what they are. I know, exactly how stupid it would be to release you and your Witcher, and your trained soldier. Believe me I know. Of all the people that we've ever hunted out of this cavern. You are the one most likely to escape.

"But I want to hunt you. I want to hunt you down so bad. I want to feel that satisfaction of grinding you into the ground beneath my feet. I want to see your face when you realise that there is no hope and that there is no-one coming for you. I want to be there when they tie you into the rack for the first time and we start to peel the skin from your bones.

"I wish I could be there, when your Sainted brother Mark hears that you were taken by so-called heretics and that your body and soul was corrupted. I would like to have seen your whore sisters face and hear her anguished cries when she learns that she will never see you again. I wish I could witness the rage of your vampire as she succumbs to her nature and becomes the monster that she is and needs to be put down.

"I wish I could be there and see your brother. Samuel Kalayn when he realises the folly of standing against me."

I tried to spit at him but I couldn't. I couldn't turn my head.

"So now, I must take away your advantages."

He must have signalled again as someone leaned across and cut Taylor's throat from ear to ear.

Cutting someone's throat is not easy. Even if your blade is razor sharp, it's actually much easier to stab someone in the throat and then wiggle the blade around. So I had to watch as the Hound, or whatever the fuck he was, dragged the blade across Taylors neck. It was a practised gesture though.

It also never ceases to surprise me that a man who has had his throat slit can't scream or cry out. I know why, but it's always surprising to me.

They let Taylor go then and he went berzerk. Charging after the people that had been holding him down but the sudden burst of strength didn't last long. He was already losing his balance as he slipped and fell on his own spilled blood. He tried to climb to his feet after that but it was already too late.

They held my head so that I was forced to watch. I made eye contact with him and I saw the panic that was in his eyes, his lips moving as the blood flow slacked off and eventually stopped.

"I'm sorry," I tried to tell him but I think he was past the point by then although he calmed just before he went still.

Cavill spat on the corpse. "Bastard," he said.

Then Kerrass was dragged round until he was facing me.

"Not your fault Freddie," he told me. "Not your fault."

He was prone on the floor. Unlike Taylor he was lying flat on the ground, limbs stretched out.

"Oh, I'm not going to kill you." Cavill told him. "I did consider it but we need to hobble Freddie even further. You see, if I killed you, he could move at his own speed which will be fast when fuelled by his rage and pain. So we need to hobble him and tie a weight around his neck. We considered making that," he gestured at the corpse that some men were carrying off, "be this weight but _he_ might have been able to convince Freddie to leave him behind. You though? But what to do."

Again, that same fucking pantomime. One of the men with Warhammers stepped forward. Took aim over Kerrass' left arm, drew back.

"Oh no," I groaned.

The hammer whistled as it split the air. The sound of it striking Kerrass' arm was sickening. I thought that I could hear the bone shattering.

Another strike took care of the right arm. Kerrass groaned with the pain.

The rage came then. Like a warm and comfortable blanket.

"So now we can let you go." Cavill told me but I wasn't listening. I just stared at him, imagining his violent death. But then the rage turned cold as I forced myself to look at the big picture. Cavill must have seen my calm descend as he signalled and then they let me go. I stood up. Straightened my clothing. My spear was on the floor where it had been knocked from my grip when I had been bundled to the floor but the dagger was still in my belt.

"Remember," Cavill told me. "If you attack me now, not only will you not make it, but you will be taken off to the chambers of sacrifice and your death will be...imaginative."

I nodded as I accepted this point.

"Tell me," I asked. "I was promised an answer to this yesterday. What would happen if I turned this dagger on Kerrass and myself. Let's say that we leave the cavern and I spoil these, your holy rites by simply giving us both a quick and clean death. What's to stop us from doing that."

There was some laughter, led by Lord Cavill. "You would be surprised Freddie, by how many people have asked me that. They always wonder about what I will do and the truth is that I will do nothing. Because there is a goad that will keep you running. Something that will make you carry your Witcher companion when the pain means that he can no longer walk."

"And what is that?"

"For the majority of people, the answer is "Hope." The hope that you will be the one that finally manages to escape from us and our hunt. That you will find somewhere to hide and be kept safe from me snares. But that is too simple for you isn't it Lord Frederick?"

I didn't answer him.

"So, instead I have something different for you. Something that only I can give you. Something that, if you attack me now, I will never surrender to you before my companions drag you from my body. The only way that you will get this is if you flee, make it to safety and then return to take me alive to be interrogated. Would you like to know what that one thing is?"

I said nothing.

I continued to say nothing as he walked towards me.

I even said nothing as he bent and whispered in my ear.

"I won't be able to tell you what I did to your sister Francesca."

He cackled as he stepped back.

"The only way, Lord Frederick, to find the answers that you seek is to take me alive and you won't be able to do that unless you return at the head of an army to get me out of these mountains."

He gestured. Kerrass was helped to his feet, hissing and sweating with the pain. Someone handed Cavill a huge hourglass.

"Your time starts now." Cavill said as he turned the glass over.

I nodded. My brain was working furiously.

"Just to be clear though." I said. "If I attack any of you then you will defend yourselves...chamber of torture...yadda yadda."

"Yes."

I nodded. The rage was still there. A lump of solid, flaming hot ice in the pit of my chest.

"Can I say something to your son?" I said.

Cavill shrugged.

I walked over to the axeman.

"Take off that damn fool hood." I told him.

He looked over my shoulder, presumably checking with his father before pushing the hood back. I was left looking into the same handsome, brutal and bullying face that I had stood against in Cavill's court.

"Just so we're clear." I told him. "You should give that axe up."

He opened his mouth to speak.

"No, no." I told him holding his hand up. "Don't taint the air with your stupidity. This is a friendly warning. That axe was the weapon of a good and holy man. He fought and slew so much evil with that axe that that kind of thing is bound to rub off on it and now you carry it. You, a heretic."

I tried to put as much as I could into my voice.

"I don't know much about curses." I said. "And I know even less about how magic works...But there is magic in that axe and it will be the death of you. You should bury it where we buried the man you took it from. Or you should leave it with a church of Kreve or the Holy Fire."

He began to sneer.

"If you don't." I told him. "You are cursed and it will be the end of you. It might even be the end of everything that you hold dear. That axe will be your undoing and one day, some day soon, I am going to pluck that axe from your cold dead hand. Whether I be alive or dead, corporeal or spirit. I will come for that axe."

I stepped back. "Just thought you should know."

The room was silent and my foot steps seemed to echo. I walked to Kerrass and picked up the supplies.

"You ready?" I asked him with as much calm as I could manage. He nodded, his teeth gritted. He looked awful, grey and sweating.

We left in the indicated direction, round a bend and down a slope which led us to a cave mouth. Out of which flowed a stream.

It was, maybe, mid-morning.

(A/N: I think, although I haven't checked, that this might be the longest chapter ever. Certainly I would have chopped it in half another time and split it over two chapters but I already get enough grief off people about my use of cliffhangers.

I am also aware that the end of this chapter is not going to help in that regard.

Which leads me to my question. Do people prefer the longer chapters delivered less frequently or do they prefer the more regular shorter chapters?

Thank you for reading

Spike)


	76. Chapter 76

(A/N: For those people wondering. With the reviews and the PM's that I have received. The split between who prefers longer chapters and who prefers shorter chapters is roughly equal. *sigh* So, at the moment, I'm just going to carry on the way that I have. When I feel it needs a longer chapter then I will use a longer chapter, but when the story gets told that bit quicker then I will use shorter chapters.

Thanks for the input though.

Warning: Some spoilers for Witcher 1 if there is anyone out there who intends to play it and hasn't yet)

So, what are we on to?

I think that the next thing that we need to talk about are a Witcher's mutations.

We have discussed, in broad terms, the tools that a Witcher uses. Their weapons, their magic and their potions and elixirs. I mean, yes, we could talk about armour, horses and traps and bombs and trophy hooks and skinning knives and things that might contribute to a Witcher's state of being but I think that I would just be filling a word count there.

It's a skinning knife. Kerrass uses it to take valuable alchemical items from the bodies of the monsters that he slays. It's a skinning knife. Hunters, butchers and tanners throughout the land use knives just like it and so, no, taking it away from a Witcher doesn't make him any the less a Witcher. He would simply march to a blacksmith and and order a new Skinning knife, or use his sword, or do without for a while.

It's a skinning knife.

So, now we move on to the Witcher themselves rather than the stuff that the Witcher carries with them. It is common knowledge that a Witcher is heavily mutated. We know this because our fathers taught us this. It's common knowledge on just about every street corner. You mention the word "Witcher" to just about any uneducated or ignorant (there is a difference) person on the street and normally the first words that come out of their lips are some kind of variety on "Filthy mutant." There are often other words mixed in there at various stages but I shall leave those words and terms to your imagination.

But what does this mean? What does it mean to be a mutant? How are they mutated and how does that work within the format of the rest of their lives.

As some of you may remember, early on in our travels together, I asked Kerrass this question and I remember his response. I asked him "What's it like being a mutant?" and he responded promptly. Quickly enough that I strongly suspected that this was a question that he was asked on regular basis. Regularly enough that he had a quick, kind of funny response to the question.

"I dunno," he said. "What's it like being human?"

A quick response. A glib response but also, rather a true one. It has been said by people much wiser than me that the there is often truth in jest and I suspect that there is truth here as well.

What I took this to mean was that Kerrass is so used to his...being that he no longer thinks of it as being unusual. He doesn't question it any more and as such, he can no longer distinguish from being anything else. He is simply a Witcher. Calling him a mutant is a little bit misleading in fact. Mutation describes the process that turned him into a Witcher but calling him a mutant suggests that he is something else. Something different. In all reality, he is not. He is a Witcher. Not a mutated one.

I suspect that this distinction would be more usual back when there were more than a score of Witchers on the road.

They are not mutants. They are Witchers and for me that is a distinction that needs to be made.

So to become a Witcher you need to be mutated from humanity.

I suppose that I must admit that a Witcher is a mutated human. But if we're going to go down that route then we need to use more...accurate terminology.

These are the mutations that I know about.

The most obvious one is the cat's eyes that they are given. Some people describe them as being snake's eyes and although some Witchers might not be too offended by that, I always find that term a little bit insulting.

The purpose of the Cat's eyes is so that the Witcher can adjust the amount of light that the eye takes in at will but also so that they can see in even the darkest of caves or monster lairs. Apparently, this mutation was derived from the cat's (as in the animal) natural ability to do this when the mutation was initially designed,

which is why the eyes look like they do.

After that Witchers have had their metabolism adjusted. What does this mean? In practical terms not a lot. It means that Witchers heal that little bit faster than humans do. That their bones are that little bit harder and that their heads are a little bit more able to withstand concussion. This also helps with the imbibing of the potions and the elixirs that Witchers use all the time, as well as helping to make the Witcher's be immune to poisons and various diseases.

I also know that Witchers can adjust their metabolism at will. That they can increase their heart rate and air intake as well as slowing them down to the point that they have almost stopped completely.

An early joke that Kerrass used to play on me was that he would pretend to be dead. He would be lying there, eyes open and staring at the canopy of tree branches above him, not really breathing, pale of face and cold to the touch before he would jerk into sudden movement scaring the life out of me.

Bastard.

A Witcher's sense of humour for you.

My understanding is that this was something that they aimed for both to help with the ingestion and the use of potions but also so that Witchers would be better able to sneak up on certain kinds of monsters that might be able to see body heat or heat beats or the sound of air being breathed in and out.

Then there are a series of other mutations. Things that I don't really know what they are and have relatively understanding of. I know that the nervous systems have been adjusted as well as the pulminary, pulminery, poolmin...You know what, forget it. Some of the bodily systems have been adjusted. This is to make Witchers immune to all of the disgusting bullshit that comes out of monster's bodies. Venoms, gasses and the like, while also making them immune to the side effects of the various Witcher potions that they take on a daily basis.

This has the side effect that they have an amazing tolerance for alcohol and as such, can rarely get drunk unless they _really_ go for it. According to Kerrass, one of the other benefits to this is that he can have sex with anyone he likes and never catch any kind of pox.

His words, not mine.

Some of these mutations mean that a Witcher's body has been adjusted in other ways as well. Ways that I sometimes find myself wondering as to whether or not the initial creators of the Witchers intended. For example, they are sterile.

I sometimes wonder if those mages that created the Witchers foresaw the possibility that the Witchers would become their own race and deliberately did this to stop them from taking over the continent as some kind of superior race. They are, after all, faster, stronger and more resilient than the average Human, Elf and dwarf. So was the sterilisation process part of that original plan? Or was it a natural by-product of the use of magic? I think it is all but impossible that we will receive answers to these questions now, but I just think that it's interesting that this come up.

We also know that, should they survive, Witcher's have vastly increased lifespans. The oldest Witchers, that I have heard of, lived somewhere in the region of a couple of hundred years but no-one has ever had the opportunity to find out exactly how long a Witcher can live because, as has been pointed out. Witchers never die in their beds, almost always in combat at the hands of some monster or another.

So what else is it about Witchers that have mutated. They are, of course, faster and stronger than the average person. They find building body mass a little easier although they prefer their musculature to be leaner rather than bulky.

Here's a thing that needs to be talked about.

The mutations _may_ have something to do with their emotional state.

Now, I'm not entirely convinced by this as, in my opinion, Witchers have plenty of reasons to be emotionally stunted but ok, we're talking about Witcher mutations so lets talk about Witcher mutations. Witchers are traditionally seen as being less emotional than the average person on the street. It's one of the things that goes towards their negative reputation in the world. That they will kill anyone, that they will do anything without remorse to achieve their goals. That they are inhuman and cannot be trusted. That they are cold-blooded and murderous people who kill for the sport of things because it is the only way that they can feel any kind of emotion.

To be fair, most of the people that accuse them of this kind of thing are aware that this is the fault of others. That this is something that was done to the Witchers rather than a fault of the Witchers themselves.

Kerrass also takes great pains to point out that the majority of these rumours can be placed squarely on the shoulders of his own Witcher school. That the Cats were the ones that go insane and kill people for fun. That it was the Cat Witchers that dealt with dwindling monster populations by expanding the definition of "monster" to include humans and non-humans and that it was the Cat's that decided that "Monsterhood" was in the eye of the beholder, the beholder being whoever could pay for the death.

He admits this freely but the other argument about it being as a result of the genetic modifications that were performed on the Witchers is a valid one. I can also see the reasoning behind why someone would cause this to happen as well.

If a person is going into hellish places, the lairs of monsters or climbing up mountains to get to griffins or descending into sewers to tackled drowners and zeugls then the average person is going to take one look at that situation and declare in a loud voice that their employer can go fuck themselves before running a mile and throwing their swords in the nearest cesspit.

I mean would you?

So the Witchers were denied that choice. Their brains and their various adrenal glands and other brain chemical things were adjusted so that this wouldn't come up. If there is one thing that is discussed as a possibility as to what was done to the Witchers that makes me angry. This is that one thing.

We had no right to do that to anyone in return for our safety.

Now to be clear. There is no proof that any of the mutations have affected the Witchers in this way. None at all. There is plenty of evidence that suggests that Witchers are well able to be emotional. That they are on regular basis. Kerrass regularly cracks jokes, gets angry or sad. For my money he is in love with someone as well as going above and beyond in the name of friendship on a regular basis.

Kerrass cares. So my writing is one source as to the fact that Witchers can feel emotion. If you want another one then I refer you to the works of Dandelion the bard. And I won't analyse them any further here.

There is one other thing that I want to say about Witchers and the mutations that have happened to them and that is about what a Witcher looks like.

If you remove all of the Witcher's equipment, take the swords off their backs, the potion bottles from their belts and the armour off their backs. If you hide the medallion somewhere and prevent them from wearing any of their trophy straps or hooks, then the only reason, the _only_ reason that you would be able to tell them apart from the man sat next to them is because of their eyes. If Witchers carried their swords at their sides, wore their medallions under their shirts and wore those glasses with darkened lenses as is becoming a fashion in certain parts of Oxenfurt and Novigrad, then you wouldn't be able to tell who they were.

They are declaring themselves to you. Openly.

Why?

I suspect it's part of the process of advertising their services. The side effect though would be that if they took off all of those acoutremants then they would, essentially be in disguise.

Why do I make this point?

It is sometimes fashionable to decry Witchers as the unclean abominations that people like Radovid and the former head of the Church of the Holy Flame like to term them as. But other than some, beneath the skin adjustments, there is absolutely nothing about them that would tell them apart from being human.

The Witcher you're thinking about is Geralt of Rivia who was subjected to extra mutations and tests which ended up giving him a minor case of albinism with his white hair and slightly paler skin.

"But Freddie. Witchers are always so scarred."

"And after three intercontinental wars, you show me a swordsman or a soldier that doesn't have multiple scars and I'll show you a braggart who didn't actually end up facing the enemy."

But I digress.

So, then we come to the big question. The reason that I'm here talking about this. If a man is not mutated in these ways, then is he a Witcher?

Or,

Are these mutations absolutely necessary for a person to be a Witcher?

I'm afraid that the answer is the Professor's answer. One of those annoying answers that is designed to make you think that little bit further.

The answer is "Yes and No."

The reason for that is that the term "Witcher" can actually be broken down into three separate uses. You can be a Witcher, the racial form of the term. Or you can be a Witcher, the type of profession that they follow in order to put food on the table and a roof over their heads.. You could even argue, as Kerrass has in the past, that if you perform an act of monster slaying then you are a Witcher. Even if only in that moment.

So what is a Witcher? I have asked this question in these pages many times. Is a Witcher the race, the profession or the act?

I suspect that the truth actually lies somewhere in the middle of all three answers.

You cannot be a racial Witcher without having been mutated into a Witcher.

However you can be a Witcher without having been mutated.

Let me tell you of a man called Leo.

Leo was a war orphan of the second Nilfgaardian war. The Elder Wolf Witcher Vesemir found him wandering the highways and byways of the Northern continent a little after that conflict finished at the Miracle of Brenna.

You have to understand that I'm getting this story several times removed so please bear with me.

Vesemir found him and after spending a bit of time discovering that there was absolutely no-one around that could possibly take the child in he decided to take the child home with him.

Back to Kaer Morhen.

Unfortunately for Leo, or fortunately depending on how you look at things. The Wolves don't really know how to raise a child other than to train them to become Witchers. We also know this from the childhood of the Empress according to the tales of Dandelion the bard (as well as a couple of comments from the Empress herself and evidenced by her astonishing skill with a blade). From all accounts, Leo did fairly well, as far as I can tell, he is described as a natural swordsman and athlete. He was able to perform the signs (until his hand got broken to make the necessary hand twisting impossible) and the other Witchers absolutely intended for him to eventually set out on the path in the long run. Maybe after a Trial of the mountain.

To those people paying attention, he had all but passed the trial of Choice. He had taken the herbs and the mushrooms that are part of the choice although this was, apparently, done to a lesser extent than would normally be pursued.

But there was no way for him to be properly mutated. He would never have the cat's eyes of a Witcher, nor would he be immune to the toxins and the Witcher potions. He was just going to be a skilled swordsman that knew about monsters and how to fight them.

The other Witchers thought of him as one of their own despite not being a "real" Witcher.

Even Lambert, that famously offensive Wolven Witcher told me that "he was a good kid," before telling me to fuck off, as was his wont.

Unfortunately for him and for the world, Leo was killed in a raid on Kaer Morhen by a group of Criminals at the behest of Jacques de Aldersbourg before his rebellion in Temeria.

So Leo was both, not a Witcher while also being a Witcher and who knows what he might have become if history had taken a different turn.

So now it comes time to render a verdict about this. As with all of these kinds of questions which get that very particular "Yes and no" answer then we all have to take a stand and declare where we stand.

I don't think that You need to be mutated to be a Witcher. Or, in other words if you prefer, Mutations are not essential to being a Witcher. In my opinion, if you are a person travelling the highways and byways of the Continent by yourself and you make your living by slaying monsters, then you are a Witcher. Whether you are mutated or not.

I am not just saying this so that I have an excuse to continue with this sequence of small essays.

Think about your arms for a moment. Thank about what they do, what task they perform when you're just walking from A to B. When you're not using them for anything else. When your hands are just swinging by your sides, not holding anything, or securing a pack or reaching out for something.

What are they for?

I learned that day as Kerrass and I left the cave with as much grace and dignity as we could. You use them to balance yourself. I know that because Kerrass was staggering all over the place. He was in agony, yes, multiple fractures of bones will do that to you, but as well as that he had lost his sense of balance. His equilibrium, so much so that I had to support him and help him to a nearby patch of trees.

It was mid-morning and if I didn't have anything else on my mind I would have had to admit that it was quite a nice morning. The sun was out, the sky was clear and the trees were green.

I didn't notice at the time but Kerrass tells me that there were absolutely no signs of animal life so I can't tell you that the birds were singing in the trees. They weren't. Either the smell or the general feeling that came from the cave mouth was too much for nature to absorb as a whole.

The cave mouth was actually rather small so that we had to go single file including an excruciating period where I had to climb over a set of rocks before helping Kerrass to get over the same rocks by virtue of tugging him over by his armpits while he did his best to keep his arms crossed over his chest, before spinning him round so that he could come to his feet and we could get out to the open air. We looked around and without speaking, we ran to the treeline.

I don't think that I even noticed that there was a clearing there and that the ground was dead. All I could think of was how bright the sun was in the sky and about how I had to fight the urge to shield my eyes and that the air smelled oh so very sweet.

We got to the trees and there was no way I could hide it any longer. The rage and anger that had kept me going throughout our imprisonment was draining out of me with every step and now it was being replaced with fear and that fear was overwhelming.

I would like to think that the sudden shock of going into open air as well as sudden exertion after enormous physical and mental stimulus also had an effect on me but the simple truth of the matter is that I could feel it welling up inside me until I had to lean on a tree and vomit.

The enormity of what we had to do was suddenly so massive that it loomed in my mind like a giant, or a golem that there was no getting around. The gargoyle hiding the cave entrance. I tried reaching for the anger again in an attempt to force those feelings down and to recover my poise while at the same time feeling as though I was doing myself a disservice for using that emotion as a tool like that.

All I can say is that I felt god-damned awful. I wanted to vomit, I could taste acid at the back of my throat, my head was pounding and my hands were shaking.

Flame dammit, poor Taylor. Poor Kerrass and poor fucking me.

As it turned out, Kerrass had been calling my name for a bit. He claimed that he hadn't been doing it for too long but there's honestly no way of telling.

I turned to him and found myself staring into his eyes.

"You should consider leaving me Freddie." He said. It was like a shock of cold water being thrown into my face and just like that. The anger was back, warm and comforting. To this day I don't know whether or not Kerrass was saying this genuinely or whether or not he was manipulating me, saying what I needed to hear in order to keep going.

"Fuck off." I told him walking over to where I had dumped the packs. I took a swallow of the water to clean my mouth out. Spat it out before taking another large swallow to clear the back of my throat. "Not a day ago," I began as I looked around for stout lengths of wood that would stand up to a beating. "You were yelling at me for my desire to throw myself on my sword so you don't get off the hook that easily." I selected a couple that looked to be about the right length and dumped them next to where Kerrass was leaning against a fallen log.

"So the first thing we're going to do," I said after staring at him for a moment, he was expressionless. "Is to see how well my medicine training holds up. Let's take a look at the damage."

Kerrass has several belts and straps that he has round himself. Some for potions, some for weapons, one for monster trophies and his alchemy kit. Many of these were empty at the moment so I commandeered a couple of them and laid them on the log net to him. I selected one narrow one and folded it up a couple of times.

"Now," I began as I worked. "I don't know what it's like for you poxy mutants when you get hurt, but for us low life regular filthy humans... It fucking hurts when we get our bones set so, open wide."

He did as he was told and I jammed the folded belt between his teeth.

"Now feel free to scream your bloody face off while I have a look."

I stole one of his smaller daggers and cut his sleeves away. On balance, in my time with Kerrass, I've seen worse. Mostly done to other people but still.

"How is it?" He mumbled round the belt.

"It's fucking awful." I told him. "I honestly can't understand how your limbs are still attached."

"Freddie," His tone was a warning one. I should also specify that he was still talking around the belt but I've heard Kerrass say that word in that particular tone of voice so many times that I knew what he was saying.

"What do you want me to say Kerrass? Your Fore-arms are broken, both bones, in multiple places and in multiple ways. That's what you get when you're stupid enough to get hit by a warhammer."

He snarled something past his improvised Gag.

"Yeah?" I said. "And your mother too. Just count yourself lucky that no bones have broken through the skin and that I don't know how to amputate as that is almost certainly the correct thing to do with injuries like this."

I did the things that you do when you're triaging someone with those kinds of breaks. Which is not a lot really. I straightened the limb and strapped several bandages to it and hung them in a sling across his chest. All the while trading banter about how he was probably going to get gangrene and die horribly.

"Your bedside manner is terrible." He told me when we finally took the gag out.

"There was a reason why I quit medicine," I told him.

"Fortunately," He said climbing to his feet, hissing at the pain. "I am a Witcher, infection and the like is not going to happen to me."

"Well bully for you." I said with a s much Sarcasm as I could muster. "So what do we do now?"

He was taking some small steps up and down to test his balance. He was pale with pain.

"I was just going to ask you the same question."

"What? Er...Wait What?"

Kerrass sighed. He was still getting used to his splints and slings. Wincing occasionally as each slight movement in the new bindings jarred the injury.

"Freddie, this changes things. I am injured. Badly. Even if...and it's a big if...We manage to find the right herbs in the right order and steal some powerful alcohol in order to make a healing draught to give the injuries a boost to begin healing. Even if we manage that, I'm not going to be able to pick up a sword again for weeks. If not months. After that it's going to be months before I'm back up to full strength. Even if we survive and get magical healing to my arms. At the moment, I'm all but useless."

"Kerrass, first of all, don't talk like that and secondly, you must have been on the run before, having to avoid people and run away from things. You're much more capable than..."

"You're right." Kerrass said. He seemed to be obsessively trying to test the extent of his injuries even knowing how much pain he was causing himself. "You're right, I have. I have fled the authorities multiple times and in multiple ways and in multiple countries but I have _always_ been the scariest motherfucker there. There was never any doubt in me that if I ran and I was chased, then I could look to take down two pursuers easily. Three with some care and planning. Any more than that then I would need to isolate and engage with care but I could do it and do it easily. Now though?"

He tried to raise his arms to demonstrate and hissed with the pain. Beads of sweat stood out on his forehead.

"If you're going to insist on the foolishness of taking me with you then you need to be the one that calls the shots."

"But I've never been on the run before."

Kerrass laughed at me. There was some of his own anger in that laughter as well and if it was anyone else, I would have said that he was on the edge of hysteria.

"Freddie. You forget that I read your diaries too. You were on the run in a hallucination for weeks from all the nastiness that Jack sent after you in your dreams were you not?"

"Yes," I admitted. "Yes, but that was, as you say, a hallucination. Far from the real thing."

"The only difference there is the degree to which things were stacked against you. There you were against a supernatural creature that controlled your perception of reality. Here you're up against men. Powerful men with all the advantages to be sure. But still men. You just have to be cleverer than they are. You can do that though right? Be smarter than that oaf Cavill?"

I took a breath followed by another.

"I don't know Kerrass."

Kerrass moved his shoulder. "Goddess damned son of a bitch." He exclaimed as the pain tore through him again. "Freddie?" He asked sheepishly. "Could you wipe my forehead or something?"

The situation was suddenly so absurd that we both laughed.

I tore a small section of the blankets that we had been given and fashioned a crude bandanna around Kerrass' head in an effort to help with the problem.

"Ok," I said after taking a bit of time to breathe in and out for a while. "Which way do we need to go in the long run?"

"I still think," Kerrass told me, levering himself back to his feet from where he had sat back down for me to tie the bandanna. "That our best option is to head towards your brothers lands. Even though I don't trust Cavill as far as I could throw him..."

"Even now..." I teased.

"Especially now. He is right about one thing. We cannot afford to take our safety for granted. Any number of the Lords and Ladies along the way might be our enemies rather than our friends and as such we cannot hope to find friends. Our nearest allies that we know about are your brother and the others on his lands."

I nodded. I was struggling to make my brain think. I was still tired and weak from the blood loss and having seen what I had seen. But I needed to get things working. What Kerrass had said made sense.

I was having to wrench my mind around. TO force it into a new way of thinking and into a new channel.

"Ok." I began. "Ok. So I'm the only combatant."

"Correct."

"We also have to assume that no help is coming."

"Also correct."

"If you were chasing us? Which way would you think we would go?"

"That depends." He said, obviously having thought about the question. The fastest route is either in a direct line, South, south East or..."

I was nodding.

"Or, we head West, flatter easier territory where we can find a road, maybe some horses and a wagon to move easily."

I sucked my teeth.

"Either of those are the wrong answer though." I said, more to hear myself say it aloud.

"Why?" Kerrass eyes were glittering strangely and there were points of colour on his cheeks. Immune to infection and disease he might be but he still feels pain.

"Because they are the fastest and easiest routes. If it was me chasing me," I grinned at the stupidity of the sentence, "I would send my fastest riders in that direction in order to set up road blocks and check points. By this time tomorrow or the day after, not a cart or a horseman will pass that way without being checked thoroughly. He was right about one thing. We are not your average peasant or Elven refugee. We offer, possibly, the worst threat that faces him at the moment. He _has_ to make sure that we are caught or he could be destroyed. IF I'm honest, I'm surprised that he even took _this_ much risk."

"As am I, but we can discuss his motivations and the rather obvious fact that he's crazy in the brain later. So we head in the opposite direction then. Come wide and round his blocks."

I shook my head. "I would be ready for that too. They know that our nearest refuge is Sam, just as much as we do. If we head North, even for a little while to try and draw them off. They will know it and will just wait for us with a small party that will come after us to chivvy us along. To keep us moving and tire us out until we do something stupid, which won't be long. They will assume that we are just trying to draw them off and they would be right. They could also track us."

"False trails in either direction?"

"Do we have time?" I countered. "We don't have that much food and both of us need what we have in the short term to keep our strength up. In his place, I would assume a double back scenario. That we would feint South before going North or that we would feint North before heading South. But also, let's be fair. He has hundreds of men. A small army. He can afford to send men both north and South following every clue and small sign of a track until we are found."

I could feel my brain beginning to work. Oddly like those moments when I was getting back into studying after taking a break to go get drunk. Feeling as though the forge was just beginning to heat up or that the pan was just getting hot enough to boil some water.

"No, this has to be about limiting or removing his advantages." I nodded to myself again. "We go East. Up into the mountains. Or as close as we can get anyway."

"I'm not saying you're wrong Freddie but..."

"He has numbers and cavalry." I said. "He also has supplies, a network of peasantry and other nobles who will inform on us for him. If we steal provisions then he will learn about it. He isn't hunting us yet but is he already getting his people to swing into action? Are horsemen already riding to the checkpoints and castles warning about two fugitives? If we go up, the land gets steeper and wilder so there aren't as many people to watch out for us. At worst there will be a few shepherds which, hopefully, will be too busy watching their sheep or too far removed from the situation to be able to get word out quickly. This will also mean that to find us, they will need to spread their men over a wider area reducing the threat of overwhelming odds.

"They will find it harder to get their horses up the slopes as well." I went on. "Meaning that they have to walk on foot. The paths are overgrown and treacherous so they will struggle to come at us more than one or two at a time. Even if the mage tells them where we are."

"All of these are good ideas Freddie, but I'm hardly in any shape to go mountaineering."

"You will lead." I told him. "You choose the paths. You choose the routes. Also..." I grinned, time to challenge him in return for his challenges of me. "I seem to recall someone once telling me that Cat Witchers have the best sense of balance in the world. Surely you're not telling me that a little thing like a pair of broken arms is going to deter a man trained by the Feline Witchers."

"Harsh Freddie, very very harsh." He climbed to his feet. Shaking his head at my offer of help. "Right then, load me up."

"What?"

"You're going to need your strength to fight because that's definitely going to happen." He said. "So I carry the stuff. Strap it onto me, back, waist, legs wherever you have to."

I managed to keep hold of a Water skin but he insisted on keeping his weapons and just about everything else so that I was left with my spear and dagger only before he set off and I followed him.

Now.

Hunting someone or something is as much about the psychology of the situation as it is the physical act of chasing the prey down or tracking it. This was a saying of my Father that he would repeat over and over again to his children while he did his best to instil a love of the sport into his children. Ironically his biggest pupils in this regard was Emma who couldn't really take part in any of the big hunts because society told her that she wasn't allowed to. I remember very little about the lessons that I was given at the time, although some of it must have sunk in, but I remember that phrase.

Animals are all about shelter, food and water. If you know where the animal in question goes for their food and water, but also where they spend their nights, or days if it's that kind of animal, then the hunt is just about already won for you.

It's exactly the same when you are hunting monsters. And people as well as it turns out.

I will never own a hunting ground the size of that which Father cultivated and that Emma now maintains. It does not hold my interest as a pass-time and I don't think that what land we will have in Angral would be suitable. Also there's a public perception issue which would be that of a vampire and her husband chasing down quarry through the countryside. Not the best image that you want to project before the rest of the world or the people that live on your lands.

Ariadne tells me that she spends a good amount of time sitting out in the sun while wearing summer dresses to combat precisely this public perception of her and her pass-times.

My interests head in other directions apart from anything else but if I did have a hunting reserve then I would also teach this lesson as firmly as I can. I would even insist that new huntsmen should have to be chased. That the hunter should become the hunted for a while, even if it's just in the form of a game. I think that it would give so many people a different insight into how the world works and how their lives might be different if they had gone a different way.

It was easy to think of it like a game. With Lord Cavill as my opponent. I needed to get inside his head, just as he was trying to get inside mine. He was a hunter, just like Father had been and his chosen prey was humanity which made him a sick dog but I needed to get past that. I needed to think like he would.

He had studied me. We knew this. He had read my diaries and had known that my medallion was there and what it did as soon as we arrived. So he knew several things about me. He knew that I was a spear fighter but could also get up close and personal. He would know that I had a bit of a temper problem but he also knew that I was clever.

He would expect me to try and be clever. He would expect ploys and diversions and all the other tricks that a man might play if he was on the run. It would never occur to him that I would just flee in as straight a line as I could.

But he would also know that I would be aware of this.

It's a very easy trap to fall into is that kind of cyclical train of thinking. He would expect me to do one thing therefore I should do the other thing. But he knows that I know that he would expect me to do one thing and that therefore I would do the opposite so he would protect against the opposite so I should do the first thing. And round and round we go. As I say, it's an easy and dangerous trap to fall into.

But he would expect those kinds of games and he had enough men to cover all the lines that we might take. But our decision was made now and we couldn't deviate from it. "He who hesitates is lost" after all.

But we played the game for a little while, up to and including taking him at his word that he wouldn't use the mage. First we headed north for an hour or two making good time and leaving a nice open trail that any tracker, including me, could follow. Then we left a second false trail heading South and south East towards Kalayn lands. Kerrass directed me on how to hide our back trail although he commented that we were still leaving tracks that could be followed by a man with skills.

But we were injured and that couldn't be helped.

Then, shortly after midday on that first morning we came to a rocky area that we had already chosen to begin our climb up towards the mountains, as it would be harder to read our tracks there, and we began to climb.

We were actually a lot further down than I had thought we were and it was relatively easy going. Kerrass set a surprisingly quick pace to my mind. The poor fucker must have been in absolute agony as we went, climbing and scrambling over rocks. I had been right though. His sense of balance was extraordinary and he was able to make jumps, fully laden and with no arms to balance himself, that I struggled to make with just my spear.

But I would be lying if I said that it was easy going.

Kerrass went first to set the pace. I never understood those travelling parties that I have seen where the strongest traveller is the one in front. Forging ahead, leading the way so that others might follow. The more heavily laden, the physically weaker struggling to keep up. I never understood that. I assume that it must be some kind of ego or status thing but you see it over and over again. Often in couples where the man on his huge, prancing warhorse is leading the way, while the lady on the calmer, smaller horse is left to follow and do her best while also being forced to ride side-saddle. A ludicrous method of travel if ever I've seen one, but who am I to argue with years of tradition.

Before anyone starts getting smug, you also see this amongst farmers, villagers and townsfolk as well when they're marching from one place to another.

Kerrass was the weakest and he had to choose the paths that he felt that he could follow. Despite his Mutated strength and his absurd sense of balance, we often found ourselves having to go around when normally we would have gone around or through and it was frustrating. I felt as though our progress was painfully slow and I'm sure that Kerrass felt as frustrated, if not more so.

At first we tried to talk about stuff in an effort to keep our spirits up. I returned to an earlier pattern of teasing him about Princess Dorn and he did the same about the huge, impractical and elaborate plans that he was formulating with respect to my eventual Stag party.

A night that, if even half of what Kerrass was talking about comes to pass, that I am coming to dread.

"Why did you do it?" Kerrass asked me that first night. We both agreed that we would not be able to make a long term run for it if we didn't get some rest and we had settled down early so that I could have another look at his arm and make some more sturdy splints and slings for his arms in some light.

"Do what?"

"You know?"

"Kerrass, I swear to the Holy Flame that I don't know what you're talking about."

"You cursed him. Cavill junior. Cuntface. Why did you do it?"

I leant back on my haunches from where I was crouched over his arm. "I'm not entirely sure if I'm honest. It just seemed like the right thing to do at the time."

Kerrass was gazing at me levelly.

"It was not a magical weapon," he told me. "Being carried by a holy man is not going to imbue it with any kind of power or condemn him to any kind of consequences because you want it to."

"I know that."

"You also know that curses like that have power."

"I do,"

"And that that same power sometimes, if not regularly, bounces back on the person that made the curse in the first place."

"Kerrass. I remember what happened in Dorn with Maleficent and the Princess. I'm not a child it just..." I gritted my teeth as I tied one of the pieces of cloth around Kerrass' arm in an effort to maintain some kind of padding so that the splints wouldn't chafe as much. I was concerned that there would be sores and blisters that could set to bleeding and turn bad.

"I never knew Father Gardan." I said. "I never met him in his heyday. I've heard stories, I mean all of us have. I'm even prepared to admit that the stories were church propaganda with the church of Kreve wanting to play up his holiness to give them an advantage over the increasing popularity of the Holy Flame. I know all of this..."

"Some of those stories are none too pleasant." Kerrass commented, "especially if you're a mutant or some other kind of non-human."

"None of this is news to me Kerrass. But..." I paused for thought. "Do you believe that the intent of an action is important?"

"Yes. I have to, otherwise it could be said that I've done some pretty awful things in my time." He considered this for a moment, "Actually, I've done some pretty awful things anyway but if my intent was taken into account as well then that paints my actions in a more positive light."

"I agree." I told him. "The actions may be evil at worst, or merely wrong if you want to be generous, but does that counter any of the good that he did? Or the fact that he was doing his best to make the world a better place. Admittedly with an incorrect focus or with a moral framework that I don't agree with."

I adjusted myself so that I was sat against a rock, legs stretched out in front of me so that I could massage my aching muscles. They were already stiffening and we would need to move tomorrow.

"I didn't know him then." I continued. "I didn't know him and I suspect that I wouldn't have liked his "swing axe, ask questions later, if ever" attitude but when I saw him he was different. Instead of the bluff, aggressive holy man of the past, he was a tired old man. He was looking back on his life and rethinking things. I wonder if he was looking at the pagans that he was surrounded with. The villagers with their, as he said, relatively harmless little heresy that took care to take care of him and bring him food. Did he learn that lesson at the end of his life and reflect on everything else that he did?"

I switched leg.

"This axe was the axe of _that_ man too. Just as it was the axe of the holy warrior who was smiting his enemies. It was the axe of the man of peace, the axe of a tired old man. A reminder of a who and what he used to be. It might not be a relic the likes of which the church of Kreve would want to keep on some alter in Kaedwen or some shrine that holy warriors make pilgrimages to. I even think that Gardan himself would disapprove if that was what happened to his axe. But both Gardan, and the axe itself, deserve better than for it to be handled by an ass-hole that gets off on torturing and murdering common-folk. Gardan deserves better than for his legacy to be that his axe was stolen from him and turned to evil purposes."

Kerrass grunted at this. I set to work on his muscles. Normally he would be doing some stretching exercises himself after a day on foot such as the one we had just had.

"Magic is a thing." I admitted. "And Kreve is a power. I follow the teachings of the Cult of Eternal Flame, but as both sides admit. Especially early on, the two were all but the same. If I cursed him so that that axe finds it's way into better hands then I'm ok with it. If there are some kind of repercussions that come back to me? Then I will take that too."

"But were those feelings genuine Freddy? That's the difference."

"I don't know. They felt pretty fucking genuine at the time. Taylor's blood was still flesh on the floor and the echo of your bones breaking were still in my ears. I was angry that he stood over us both with his smug self-assured attitude and him showing off the axe that he had stolen from a good man."

"As I recall." Kerrass had leant his head back in an effort to hide his wincing from me while I worked. "He was wearing a cowled hood. How could you tell he was smirking?"

"He just had that look about him." I answered with a grin. "I could just tell that he was smirking. I would have punched him in the face too, but that would have ended badly for everyone."

Kerrass considered this. "It would have felt good though right?"

"So very good." I agreed. "I also know that I'm not even remotely magically talented. That any curse that I tried to cast or send forth is almost certainly not going to work or gain any kind of traction in this universe or the next so, in all honesty? I'm not that worried about consequences. I mean look at where we are and what shape we're in."

"Don't say it." Kerrass said sharply, smiling only slightly, even for him.

"Things could hardly get any worse."

"Dammit Freddie, how many times have I told you not to say things like that. Such thoughts are like a prayer bringing doom down on the person that said them."

"But as I say," I told him, smiling. "I have all the magical talent of a frog. No, powers are watching me."

"Oh, I wouldn't say that. Looking at your life over the last couple of years since you met me. I would say that _something_ is watching us."

I snorted with what I hoped was something approaching a kind of mirth. We sat and lay in silence for a bit of time after that.

"But I really wanted to put the shits up him. Even if it was just for a moment." I said. "Even if it was just for a small, split second. I wanted to put a bit of doubt into that fucker's mind. If it gave him just a moment's pause, the next time he goes after a priest or an innocent. Just a moment's doubt or hesitation as he swings that axe into someone's body. If I did that, then it's totally worth every second that I spent on it."

Kerrass nodded before we sank into silence again.

"Did you believe him?" Kerrass asked suddenly, words evaporating into the night.

"Believe who?"

"Cavill."

"About what?"

"I don't know, anything?"

I considered, sucking on my button before rechecking some of his splints.

Quick survival tip. If you're having to run through the wilderness without easy access to food and water, select a small button from your clothes, clean it if you can and then put it into your mouth and suck. The saliva will help you keep your thirst at bay. You can also use small pebbles or small coins for this trick. It is not a long term fix but it can help take your mind off things.

"I believed some of it." I told him as I carefully strapped his arm splints back together. "I absolutely believe that he knew what he was talking about when it came to my medallion. I don't know, there was an extra gleam of maliciousness in his eyes when he said that."

Kerrass grunted. Probably in pain as much as he was grunting agreement.

"I uh," Another hiss in pain. "I think he might be underestimating Sir Rickard though." He tried.

"I agree." I realised that I needed to be the one that carried the majority of the conversation from here. "Rickard is a sly old fox and although he might have been tricked, briefly, I don't think that he will remain tricked for too long. The danger is that he'll walk into an ambush or head in the wrong direction or something. There's what. Nine of them all together now?"

"Including Rickard, yes. I think so."

"Don't get me wrong. In a man to man fight, I would bet on one of the Bastards versus any three of Cavill's wretches. But there were a lot of men in that cave."

"There were." Kerrass agreed, "But don't lose sight of the fact that Cavill will need all of those men, not just to hunt us but also to keep his presence felt all over the countryside. There are still villages that need terrorising and they will need to redouble that effort." He winces as something fired a pain signal deep in his body. "News of our victories over the Hounds will be spreading now and people will be starting to think that they can take advantage of it. They're going to need to re-exert their authority over the masses."

"True," I said. "But I kind of, don't want to depend on that. I don't want to _depend_ on Rickard finding us before some of the Hounds do, or someone else does."

"Expect the worst, hope for the best." Kerrass said.

"Kind of. But even hoping is dangerous. Let's face it Kerrass, we're pretty fucked."

"But not hopeless."

Conversation stopped for a while.

"What about the rest of it?" Kerrass asked.

"You're talking about Francesca and that religion of his?"

Kerrass said nothing.

"I don't believe in this God of theirs." I said after along while. "I think that it's an excuse for a lot of angry, entitled Lords to indulge their darkest desires and kinks over their people. I think it was invented as an excuse by One of Cavill's ancestors, or Kalayn's ancestors or, I dunno, someone who settled in this area and started to build a cult. Because they _wanted_ to hunt people through the forests and they wanted to do horrific things to women and children, not least because they wanted to keep the women especially from having their say and to keep themselves from realising that the women were more than just baby making machines and that they were people too.

"I think that, over the years, it grew from an excuse, into a real cult, a real religion. I don't think that this "unnameable one" is a power like how Mark described it but I wonder if these cultists constant use of the drugs plus the ritualism and the magic in the area has empowered _something_. I also wonder if it might get angry at being mistreated in this way.

"But no, I don't believe it. I think that years of abuse, drugs and self delusion have taken their toll on their minds. Flame only knows what Cavill's childhood must have been like." I grinned at Kerrass. "That's an explanation, not an excuse for his behaviour."

Kerrass' grin answered my own.

"As for Francesca?" I said after staring into space for a not small amount of time. "That was cunning of him. That was a well-thrown dart that. No, I don't believe him. If she was there, I think she would have been pulled out to torment me. I think he would have been unable to keep that a secret. I think it would have been rubbed in my face for their amusement and to make their dicks feel big."

Kerrass was nodding.

"But," I went on. "It was the exact right thing to say. The _exact_ right thing to say. Because now, I can't help but hope. I don't believe him. My entire logical thought process tells me that it was a lie to goad me into action but..." I shook my head. "If it's a lie, then where do we go next. Where do we look next? And what if she really is down there. In that cavern, mine, whatever the fuck it was."

I sighed.

"I don't believe him. But I have to hope that he was telling the truth. Does that make me sick?"

"No," Kerrass lay down. "I suspect it makes you human."

We didn't see any sign of the enemy for three days. But those days were long and hard. I've had harder I'm sure. Those days when racing south in an effort to see my Father before he died but even those were not quite this frustrating.

It was slow going. Painfully slow going. Mind achingly, head hurtingly slow. We inched forward day by day, hour by hour and mile by mile. We would go forward before discovering that we had to go back. But then we would discover that we couldn't go back because we'd lost the trail, or that the trail was impossible for Kerrass to return down.

The number of times we would climb up something or drop down of a ledge only to realise that we would never, ever make it back the other way became almost like a game. It was...It was awful.

We no longer spoke to each other except in certain circumstances. We communicated in grunts and gestures. I would like to say that we were saving our breath for the march and that is certainly part of it but the other part of it was that all we did when we did talk was to depress each other. We would promise ourselves that we would get up early the following day to get a good start on things, which never happened as we were just too exhausted. We would talk about ways that we could get through to Sam, but nothing ever materialised. We were losing hope. It was a slow, inexorable process but we were beginning to resign ourselves to the inevitable capture at the hands of our enemies and it was utterly soul destroying.

A thousand times a day one or other of us would decide to just give up. That we would just sit and let the bastards overtake us. I had no doubt at all that if Kerrass had use of his arms he would have taken my dagger and used it on himself in order to stop slowing me down. But if he had use of his arms, we would be making better time and be in a stronger position.

But there was another thing.

Kerrass wasn't doing well. Not at all.

Not regarding his injury. That was as good as I could make it. It was well secured and I made sure to re strap it every night so that the days jarring pace and jumps and things would be as mitigated as possible. There were signs of infection, running red lines up and down both arms but Kerrass told me that he was fine and that his Witcher body was fighting it off. He was certainly cool to the touch and showed no other signs of infection from the breaks.

But he was slowly losing his mind. I can't blame him either.

Why?

If you have a friend or a spouse that you trust, the trust in this game is important, then get them to tie your arms to the front of your torso so that you can't move them at all. It's important that you do this while you are fully dressed. Now, try going to take a piss. I can only answer for doing this if you're a male. You need to undo your trews, adjust your clothing until you can take yourself out, aim so that you don't splash yourself, give yourself a little shake in order to get rid of any leftovers before putting yourself back in and redoing up your trews.

And that's just for a relatively simple process. Try to feed yourself, or clean yourself or dress yourself or any of the other various things that you have to do over the course of the day.

All of these things, I had to do with Kerrass.

For as long as we've known each other, Kerrass has been the dominant force in our friendship. He has been the leader except in certain circumstances, most notably when we were in some kind of courtly place and had to be diplomatic at people. He would tell me where to sleep, what to eat and what to do. And in what order.

I never resented this because, in very real terms, he was teaching me how to survive in the real world. When he had surrendered control to me he had done so because it was necessary and, more importantly, he had surrendered control of his own accord and at his own behest. He made the decision to ask me what to do. He made the choice tl let me make the plans.

But now he was utterly dependent on me and he hated it.

It wasn't just the day to day things as well. As it turns out, Kerrass is a very un-trusting man when it comes to elements of his own personal safety. He was constantly telling me to check the back-trail and reminding me to get some training in. When I did manage to get the energy to get some practice in he would sit and criticise my technique. He was hating the forced inactivity.

He hated feeling so helpless.

He hated being so dependent on another person as well as the humiliating procedures of having another man wipe your arse after taking a shit.

Something else I had to do.

For my part, I was exhausted. Not only was I doing all of my own camp chores, I was also doing all of Kerrass' as well. I was still struggling with the after effects of blood loss and the increase in my levels of exertion were huge. Manhandling Kerrass all the time as well as the physical care of the man. So at first, I did my best to be understanding and calm but more and more I found my own temper snapping back at him. More and more we were sniping at each other and making each other feel awful.

And still we climbed. Still we struggled on. As I say, I have no doubt that both of us decided to quit at various stages but, for whatever reason, it didn't happen to us both at the same time and we carried on regardless.

On the second day, Kerrass started pointing out flowers that he wanted me to pick. Mushrooms that he wanted harvesting as well as other plants that he wanted me to uproot before carefully folding up in a piece of cloth and placing in out packs. On more than one occasion he would tell me to take out a sliver of this fungus and to feed it to him before he would chew it slowly before making a face and spitting it out.

Exhausted as I was, I couldn't tell why he was doing this and didn't have the brain power to figure it out. I was fully focused on preserving our back trail. Digging the holes with my dagger so that we could bury our...for want of a better term...leavings. Finding fresh water and picking berries for us to eat.

It was an awful time.

Kerrass, in his words, was useful for one thing though. It was he that finally spotted our enemies while they were pursuing us. They were some distance away and some distance down from where we were. Two of them on horseback. They were walking their horses along a thin deer track some distance further down. They were looking further up but Kerrass was pretty sure that he had them before they had seen us and we hid in a hollow as we watched them, leaning off their saddles and staring at the ground.

I had an overwhelming urge to jump up and down, to wave my arms in the air and to scream at them. Not to attract their attention, not really. It was the same kind of urge that you get sometimes when you're walking along a bridge and you suddenly get the urge to jump over the railing.

But we watched, carefully not moving as they looked around, heads bent together as they talked although we couldn't hear them.

As I watched I felt, rather than saw, Kerrass begin to smile. At first I was surprised but then I began to feel my own mirth at the whole ridiculous situation begin to bubble up itself. I covered my mouth to keep the noises of my own hilarity from bubbling out.

We started talking to each other, putting words in the two hooded men's mouths as we watched them, trying to imagine what they were saying. Making silly voices and making them sound stupid.

I remember one imagined part of that conversation. It went on for a good half an hour because we were waiting to move until we were certain that they were well out of the way and that we wouldn't attract any attention as we moved.

"Why don't we get out off our horses and take a proper look at the ground?" I had decided that my one of the two men had a high, whiny voice.

"Because being on these horses makes us feel like men." Kerrass intoned with a deep, faux-masculine voice. "We don't want to be like one of those prissy little peasants on foot do we now?"

"But then we'll be closer to the ground and we'll be able to actually see whether or not they've passed this way." I responded in my high nasally voice.

"Yes, but we look ridiculous on foot. You get down if you want, but I'm staying up here so that I can see further and look really tall."

"But you're the better tracker."

"But I look better on a horse."

"But you're supposed to be showing me how to track."

"And I am, from up here. On my horse."

Sure enough, the two men below us seemed to be having an argument and one of them, "my" rider dismounted. "Fine," I said. "I'll have a look."

"You do that. I'm going to stay up here and feel important."

"I don't know what to look for though." I admonished.

"You'll know it when you see it." The one on foot walked up and down the tree line examining the ground. I don't know what he saw as we had gone nowhere near that particular patch of ground.

"There's nothing here." I said as the man straightened up.

"There must be," Kerrass said as the one still on his horse waved his arm. "You're just not looking hard enough."

The other man seemed to get angry and waved his arm. "I'm looking pretty hard." I protested in his voice. "How does one actually look harder? Do I get closer to the ground?"

As if to go with my words, the man on foot bent closer to the ground.

The two of us sat in silence for a while and watched as the two hounds bickered a bit before the one got back on his horse and they rode away.

"Well, it's official." Kerrass commented. "That's why they only come out in mist."

"Why's that?" I knew the answer but sensed that Kerrass wanted to deliver the punchline.

"Because they look absolutely ridiculous in daylight."

They did to be fair. It was a standard thing, we both knew it but somehow we both just needed to say that to each other in that time and a place.

We left it a good amount of time before we got up to move on. The air somewhat lightened due to the joint hilarity but it was a short respite. Part of me was left wondering whether people were arguing over the chaotic nature of the back trail. For a while, we made each other giggle with images of people looking at our tracks and trying to work out what we were doing or where we were going before agreeing that they were far too stupid to actually figure it out. We imagined the head-games that they were playing with each other as they tried to figure out what was going through our minds as we made the choices about the various footpaths that we were using.

It kept us amused for another hour.

But then Kerrass needed another toilet break which stopped our rising mood dead.

But seeing our first sight of the enemy kicked our plan into the next stage. Now it was a bit more about speed as it was only a matter of time before we were seen or that we were put into a position where we would have to kill one or two of them.

We had made our way up to the mountain paths and were heading South along, and just below the ridge line to do our best to stay out of sight. We knew that we would be spotted and attacked at some point so the plan was not dependent on not being seen or detected but more about what to do after that had happened. Indeed, my plan was rather dependant on us being found eventually. If we weren't spotted and managed to make our entire way down to Sam without seeing, or being seen by the enemy then obviously, that would be amazing. But that was going to be all but impossible, so why pin hopes on that.

Instead we did something else. We started picking up the pace a bit. To try and get as far as we could before we were actually seen and draw a couple of people into an ambush.

In the same way that the hunter needs to put himself into the shoes of the thing being hunted, so too does the hunted need to put himself into the boots of the hunter.

I thought about the vision of the fox that Jack gave me. I thanked the fox, and indeed I thanked Jack for the lesson.

I had known huntsmen all my life. From Father down to his peers who were friends, not with him or the family, but friends of his money and I thought that I had a good idea how this particular hunt would operate. They knew where we would want to go. They would have found the trail that we left heading North and would have divided their beaters into three parties.

I was thinking in hunting terms. A beater is the guy that goes into the forest before hand with a large stick and a trumpet in order to "beat" at bushes and sound his horn. This flushes the "game" out of the undergrowth so that the important people can hunt it down. Hence the term "beater".

The first party would head North following the tracks. The other party would have headed South in all but the opposite direction. They would have fanned out, assuming that the northern trail was a false trail and that we had laid it in the opposite direction from where we had actually gone. So they would have been looking for any sign of our passage.

In the more pessimistic part of my brain, it was this part of the hunt that we had seen on the tree line. Ideally I had wanted the hunt to have moved onto the next stage.

The third group would have been the people that would have been sent to the choke points. They would be the people watching the roads, watching the castles of friendly lords and watching those passes in the hills or woods that we would need to pass through in order to get to Sam. This group would have stayed in place until they were recalled. I imagine that they would occasionally receive orders to check the grounds to make sure we hadn't passed that way. Even if all they found was our tracks travelling through one of these choke points then that was a victory for them because they would then be able to build the rest of their search off _this_ information.

So those were the three groups. Group 1, the chasers. Group 2, the searchers and Group 3, the Watchers.

To my mind. Group 1 was the dangerous one. They were the group that would be travelling in numbers in an effort to overwhelm us. It would be this group that would have who I thought of as the VIPs amongst them. People like Cavill and his son.

We did have one thing going for us there. Or rather, I was working really hard on _thinking_ that it was an advantage. That being that Kerrass' injuries meant that we had to make lots of unintentional false trails. Paths that we had followed, hoping that there would be a way through before finding that there was indeed a way through but that Kerrass wouldn't make it. Group 1 would have to check each and every one of these small tracks to find out whether we _had_ actually used the path.

Which of course we hadn't. I hoped that this was beginning to play on people's mind.

Group 2 would have spread out. Looking for any sign that we had passed that way. Although Group 1 was the most dangerous group. I expected Group 2 to be the more numerous group. They would be combing the countryside looking for us. Each pair or trio of hunters with a signal horn that they would wind if they had any sight of us. Which meant that if we did come across any then we would have to kill the horn bearer first.

That _I_ would have to kill the horn-bearer first.

From there, one of two things was going to happen. The possibility that we might cross the paths with any of Group 3 didn't even cross my mind. We were moving far too slowly.

The first was that someone from Group 2 would cross our paths and we would have to kill them. The second option was that there would be some kind of signal and the hunters would regroup in order to rethink their strategy. They would do that if neither Groups one or two would find enough sign of us to satisfy themselves. This was my optimistic hope. That what we had seen would be the results of this change in strategy.

I didn't even think about what would happen if Group 1 caught up with us. The answer to that would be simple. We would sell ourselves as dearly as we could while also making sure that they didn't take us alive. I had no desire to spend the last hours of my life being tortured to death for Lord Cavill's amusement.

I don't know which would happen but, some day soon I would have to kill someone, probably several someones.

We kept going though. Stumbling along paths and gullies. Scrambling down scree slopes as we jogged along. Without discussing it we had chosen to pick up the pace. We risked exhaustion but sooner or later we would have to go to ground in an effort to let the net pass over us.

It was at some point here that we ran out of the food that Cavill had given us. We had already rationed it as best we could, living off wild berries and things but now we had got to this point. We buried the bags carefully.

We saw another pair of men two days later. They were riding somewhere at the end of the day as we crouched in the shadowed hollow of a boulder. They weren't looking or examining the ground and we guessed that they were on their way to report to someone.

The day after that we saw another horseman sat on his horse at the bottom of a slope looking up at the mountains. We were safe from him but I was lying flat on the edge of the ridge peering at him. Kerrass was chewing a stick or something, not being able to lie on his front with his arms being the way they were. He was whispering questions up to me that I couldn't then answer. That particular horseman sat his horse, staring at the slope for an hour before turning and riding north slowly. He kept looking over his shoulder with an air of dissatisfaction about something.

"They know which route we took." Was Kerrass' verdict. "Not where we are but they know what this part of our strategy is."

I nodded. "How are you doing?" I asked him.

"Why do you keep asking me that?" He said the same thing every time I asked. There was no anger in him any more but he kept asking that question in the same tone of voice, even if he knew what my answer was going to be."

"Because I'm checking on my patient." I told him. "You're pale, sweating and you have huge black rings under your eyes."

"You should see your own reflection." He told me. "Exhaustion, that's all."

We jogged on for another couple of hours before it went dark.

The hunters seemed to be reluctant to dismount from their horses. Sir Rickard would have said that this is the mark of cavalry. They know, or rather feel, that the presence of their horses gives them a certain amount of status. It gives them a better vantage point, a way of seeing over the heads of the common soldier and as a result it leads to a certain arrogance in the horseman.

This and, according to Sir Rickard, the average cavalryman or knight has less brains than his horse.

On a more practical level, I know that Cavalry and armoured boots are made so that they are better suited to stirrups and the saddle. Kerrass and Sir William the Ram demonstrated this fact most eloquently all that time ago.

Flame but it seems a long time ago now that we stood there with Annie the troll, looking after her sick child before Kerrass dealt with a monster.

But Horsemen will resist the urge to get out of their saddles at all cost. This is not always a good thing and was another reason why we had headed into the hills.

The following day we had to cross a slope covered in small loose pebbles, carried there from the melting snows up amongst the peaks in the new summer sun. Kerrass was going to struggle but it was either that or backtrack for a good chunk of a day and neither of us wanted to do that. All things being equal we actually did quite well, without losing too much height from our line of march. We found our path and continued for a little way before Kerrass, still walking in front turned to look back and gestured that I flatten myself against the slope.

Back where we had begun our slipping and sliding trail across the scree, there was a single horseman. Hooded and cloaked looking at the slope. We couldn't tell whether or not he could see us or what he was thinking but his very presence was eloquent.

Neither of us said anything. Instead we just shouldered our burdens and carried on.

"Soon," was Kerrass' assessment. I just grunted my agreement, saving what little of my strength I had left.

We saw more and more of them the following day. It also seemed that some of them had finally swallowed their pride and had dismounted from their horses as they were searching the countryside more and more in pairs, trios and odd individuals passing messages the one to another.

It got to the point that Kerrass and I stopped pointing them out to each other.

In the end. We nearly ran into them. We almost came round the corner to a small ledge where two men were standing their horses and surveying the area. They had their hoods down, shading their eyes against the afternoon glare and talking to each other. I didn't really listen enough to their conversation to see what they were talking about. That might have been more sensible if I could have listened and learned a bit about what was going on with them all but I felt as though we didn't have time. I was tired, sick from the reduced and limited diet and I felt as weak as a kitten.

Why that's a saying, I'll never know. Kitten's may be weak but in my experience they're also made out of Razor blades.

I had my spear I suppose.

Kerrass waved me forward and I took the covering from the blade of my spear.

They were standing on the edge of a ridge with their backs to me and it still astonishes me that they didn't hear us approach as we were certainly taken by surprise by them. I moved past Kerrass, chose my target as the base of the man on the right's spine and stepped forward with the most basic of lunges that Kerrass had trained in me. Short, sharp and powerful.

He gave a kind of grunt and fell backwards, trapping the spear in his body. The other stared at his fallen comrade before looking at me dawning shock in his eyes.

But I was on him then. I didn't feel as though I had room to move my spear properly even if it hadn't been trapped in my first victims body, so I had already dropped it before drawing my dagger, stepping close and clapped my hand over his mouth so that he couldn't scream. I stabbed him three times. I would have done a fourth but the light in his eyes had gone out.

The first man was still alive, eyes wide and mouth gaping like a beached fish. I put him out of his misery by cutting his throat. Nice and deep.

I often think about those two deaths up in the hills amongst the rocks. Not with guilt. I killed them relatively quickly which was considerably better than what they had in mind for me. But rather about my method. We could have questioned them, we could have asked them things and gained information. But stealth was in my mind and if I had left them with voices to speak then I worried that they could have draw attention down on us.

As it was. Kerrass and I had our first disagreement about whether or not we should take the horses.

Not that it was a bad conversation to have but...

Kerrass wanted to use the horses to put some distance between us and the enemy. I wanted to use them as a distraction.

For the record. I can see his point. The desire to put some distance between us and our enemy was strong and were Kerrass able to swing his swords then that is undoubtedly the course of action that we would have taken. The strategy being that if we fled, then our pursuers would stretch out in a line behind us. Then, at a time of our choosing, we would be able to turn around and bloody the noses of the people chasing us which would mean that our pursuers would be reluctant to take the lead and be the ones closest to us. The chase would falter, enabling us to get further and further away.

It has worked for Kerrass before and he was confident that it would work again.

I, however, am no Kerrass and although I am forced to admit that my skills with a spear are better than that of the average person, I maintain that I would not be able to take on more than one or two people at a time and I strongly suspected that the Hounds would come at us in a group. I was also tired and weak and just didn't believe that it would work out.

I also argued that if we fled on horseback, we would leave tracks. There is no escaping the fact that all that horseflesh has weight and metal horseshoes leave marks when they travel over the land. If we used the horses, our enemies would be drawn to us like flies on shit rather than to what we wanted them to be drawn to which was their two missing men. In the end, I put my foot down and as Kerrass was in no shape to do anything about the bodies and would have needed my help to get into the saddle of whichever horse turned out to be his.

Instead, we searched the bodies and the saddles of the two men for anything useful which turned up some trail rations and some strong alcohol which made Kerrass' eyes gleam when he saw it. For myself I had to really strain not to eat the apples and lumps of cheese on the spot on the ground that it would make me sick, but, withered and wrinkled though they were, they looked so delicious. I then tied the two men across their saddles and slapped the horses hard in the back. I also kicked some loose stones and dirt over the blood stains in an effort to hide the scene of the fight.

It wasn't perfect and they would figure it out eventually but everything that we could do to muddy the waters or to sew confusion into the enemies ranks was a good thing to do.

Because here was my strategy. Kerrass and I were weak, frighteningly so. Kerrass' eyes were sunken in his face, his cheeks were sallow and his eyes bright. Small points of what looked like fever danced in his cheeks and perspiration constantly beaded on his head. I had no reason to suspect that I was doing any better. I had a nigh constant headache and my stomach was roiling with acid and my limbs ached. The more so after the exertions of the violence and moving the bodies.

So I knew that we weren't in good shape. I also knew that it takes a strong hunt-master to keep his men from dashing towards where the most recent sign of the quarry has been seen. That sign being the two dead men. If we were lucky, which was not a thing that I was counting on, the two men would first be missed when they failed to report in. If we were unlucky, that meant that they would be spotted before that, or someone would see the trail of blood that was still dripping from their injuries from the back of the corpse. The men would be tracked back to the point of contact and the scene of the fight would be found. From there, they would assume that we would think that the game was up and had run for it. As fast as we could in a straightish line towards safety, ie south.

So we doubled back on our trail and headed back north, the plan being that we would turn west and hope to come round the back of the main body of hunters. If we pulled that off then I would be able to have a think about what to do next.

It is sometimes a mistake to try and think too far ahead.

But for now, we needed to get undercover. They knew that we were using the mountain and hill paths so now we had to go to the thick woodland paths. For the rest of that day, we went painfully slowly. Darting from cover to cover, not moving until we were sure that there was no-one in sight. A matters after the fight we found what we were looking for. A small, woodland hollow. Formed underneath a thicket of gorse. We had to use my spear as a lever to get underneath it and we couldn't do much more than lie flat but that would have to do while we waited for darkness, burying ourselves under a blanket of leaves for camouflage.

There were things that we needed to do.

I slept a little and woke to the sound of a horn being sounded. I woke with a start and nearly impaled my face on some thorns.

"They found them." Kerrass whispered. "That was quick. I was sure that they would have until nightfall or even tomorrow before they would be found."

I said nothing.

"I was also certain that we would be found before they were with this damn fool plan but...Gotta hand it to you." He shook his head. "Get some more rest Freddie, I'll wake you when it starts getting dark."

I still said nothing and did as I was told.

That night we built a fire. Just a small one but there were two reasons for this. The first was that Kerrass wanted to try brewing a potion. It wasn't that scientific.

We left our refuge, still in the dip but even despite that, we dug a hole for the fire. Painfully small though it was.

We heated the alcohol that we had found in the dead men's belongings in a bowl that Kerrass directed me to make from the bark of one of the trees before adding the various bits of leaves and fungus that we had found. It took a long time before, abruptly, Kerrass shrugged and had me tip the lot into his mouth.

I'm not sure how He did it, but he managed to keep it down. It looked far from appetizing to me.

But the other thing that we needed to do was to clean ourselves up a bit. We stank. The need for stealth over the next few days was paramount, over and above what we had been doing so far. We could camouflage ourselves with leaves, twigs and dirt. We could bury our faeces and urinate into holes that we could kick earth over. But you will be surprised how far the scent of unwashed human can travel over the countryside.

We also treated ourselves to a bit of beef jerky each before, for the first time in our flight, I let Kerrass lead me by night.

I had never wanted to travel by night when we had been travelling through the mountains. Not because I didn't trust Kerrass' eyes but rather because I didn't trust my feet. But now that we were travelling through paths and trees, I felt that it was a lot easier to do so. The moon was waning and we both agreed that the Hounds wouldn't hunt by day.

We still moved slowly, Kerrass in front, carefully placing our feet to minimise tracks and leavings in an effort to keep ourselves from being followed.

But for the first time, it felt as though we were stealing a march on our enemies.

We pushed ourselves hard that night. We had been travelling for most of the day, there had been violence and we, I mean I, had only had a couple of hours sleep under the bush. We stopped just as the sky above the mountains was beginning to turn into a brighter shade of blue. Not red or orange yet, just a slightly lighter shade. So that we could see better by it rather than seeing by the light of the moon. Kerrass led us to a small camp site and we burrowed in for the day.

Not that we were short of camp sites. Now that we were heading into the lower lands we were surrounded by old and abandoned huts. Grain stores which were mostly empty. Shepherd shelters, abandoned cottages, store sheds and Flame only knows what else but...as Kerrass said and I agreed...The first place that the Hunters would look. Even if they didn't and we were stumbled upon by a farmer or one of the shepherds whose flocks we were walking amongst. They would almost certainly talk to the Hunters about us. It was one of the reasons that we were now travelling during those hours of darkness.

It was all about changing our habits. Attempting to become less...predictable.

But as I say, we lay down for the night. We were still quite far away from those areas of the countryside that were more heavily travelled because there was still lots of detritus on the forest floor. Fine by us. It gave us a blanket to sleep under.

But I remember that first period of sleep, half watching the dawn through the branches and leaves of the trees, half falling asleep while all of me was trying to forget about the predicament that we were in. I remember it because that was when Kerrass started to lose his mind.

"I can't do this Freddie," he said in a small voice. Just a small voice, the tiniest of voices, so small and quiet that I kind of assumed that it wasn't Kerrass at all. The same kind of voice that kittens use to let you know that they are hungry.

"I can't do this." he said again.

"Kerrass?"

"It's just all too much. I can't do this. I can't keep going."

We were lying together under another bush having burrowed in to the undergrowth. We weren't lying together to share body heat or anything. The weather was quite pleasant all things considered. I looked over at him to see that he was lying flat on his back. Eyes open and staring up at the sky. The slits of the pupils of his eye were so narrow that they were a simple black line.

I reached over and shook him but he didn't react. I watched as a fly landed on his face and crawled across his open eyeball.

"Kerrass?" I called a little louder and kicked him. Yes I was making nose but at the same time, so was he and if he kept talking like that then we ran a real risk of being discovered.

He blinked, the fly flew away.

"What?" He whispered fiercely and angrily. "Why did you wake me up?"

"You were talking in your sleep." I told him.

He took the news fairly well all considering.

"Fuck sticks," he said.

"I know that this is a stupid question." I told him quietly, "But are you Ok?"

"You're right, it is a stupid question." He lay back with a groan. "I'll be alright Freddie. Just need to get somewhere proper so that I can get some proper Elixirs in me and get myself back on the mend."

I accepted his explanation. What else could I do?

He slept. It took him a while and there were several groans and bouts of muttering. Words that I didn't understand. That I couldn't follow.

He was whimpering.

The rest of the morning became an agony of listening. The noises that he was making were only quiet ones but at the same time, it wouldn't take much to attract someone. Even if the person that we attracted was genuine and friendly then it wouldn't be long before it attracted someone more dangerous.

I was used to Kerrass snoring. This was different and infinitely more dangerous.

When I wasn't listening for the noises that Kerrass made, I was listening for sounds of pursuit. The rhythm of horses hooves against the ground. The sounds of jangling horse reigns and the sounds of men. Kerrass stopped and sank into a deeper sleep at what I would guess to be around mid morning but that was not better. I darted at every noise. If his sleep pattern changed to mean that now he would be heading into a round of thrashing about. Or if the whimpering started up again and got worse.

It was a long time before I got to sleep and I woke up far too late, groggy and irritable.

Kerrass was already up because of course he was. He was sat, cross legged and staring into space. Kerrass' face is unreadable at the best of times. I know him and can read him as well as anyone but this time his face was like a mask.

"Kerrass?" I prompted.

He didn't move. It wasn't until I moved and put my hand on his shoulder that he reacted moving and spinning.

I had made this mistake before. Early on in our travelling together, of waking him up before he was ready and fell on my backside to find a knife to my throat. At the time I remembered thinking that Kerrass was paying some kind of prank on me in order to remind of who was in charge but I now know better. I scrambled backwards and I honestly believe that things might have gone badly for me if Kerrass' arms had been working.

"Kerrass?" I prompted again, scurrying backwards.

He blinked and then he was himself again. Not the automata whose shoulder I had touched.

"Sorry Freddie," he said shaking himself. I was trying to meditate, trying to help that potion that we made and to help with the healing."

"Did it work?" I asked, pulling myself to my feet.

He shook his head. "I...uh...I'm really struggling with this Freddie."

"Struggling with what."

"With this." He shrugged to indicate his injury. It would seem that the pain was getting more bearable as he didn't wince after doing so. "I'm too used to being in control of things. To be able to get at my weapons to be self-sufficient. Even when you were telling me what to do before, I knew that if things went really badly I could cut my way free."

"That's reassuring," I was trying to lighten the mood a little.

"Don't be glib," he snapped. "But now, I'm completely dependent on you. Completely and I don't like it. I hate it and...and it frightens me."

He couldn't look me in the eye when he said this.

"Even being injured before," he went on, "I could still use one arm and I can still fight with my off hand. Even as badly injured as I've been before."

"I know," I tried for reassuring.

"How can you know?" he spat, his eyes suddenly blazing. He regretted the anger instantly though. "I suppose that in every other case where I've been seriously injured, I've had potions to help me and I've been safe."

I sat next to him for a moment. Even though my instincts were screaming at me to get us moving. To get us on our way.

"It may surprise you to learn," Kerrass joked after a while, "that I am a very bad patient."

"No," my sarcasm was boundless. "Really? I would never have guessed. Fuck me sideways with a fork." I finally managed to get the smile that I was looking for. "Although, I think that this is the first time that you've been seriously injured since the day I met you. Cuts and some bruised ribs, but this is the first time it's serious."

Kerrass considered this. "Possibly. But that, plus the lack of agency in me and the lack of safety, security..."

"Decent food," I carried on for him, "clean water and medicine..."

"It's sending me a bit doo-lally." He told me.

I stared at him flatly for a while. "Do I need to be worried Kerrass?" I asked him. "I'm not sure I'm strong enough to stop you if you have a "test of Death" coming on,"

"It might be worse than that." He told me.

"There's worse than that?"

"I...uh...I might..." He stopped talking again. He was chewing his lip. I can honestly say that I've never seen him looking so emotional or confused.

"Kerrass," I prompted when it was clear that he wasn't going to say anything else. "What's going on?"

He shook his head. "I need you to start getting yourself into a place where you can leave me behind." he told me softly. "Don't argue with me. Just, start screwing yourself up for it. I'm not giving up yet," he spun and stared at the sky. "Do you hear me? Bitch? I'm not giving up yet." He hissed at the stars.

But then he shook himself.

"But. I need you to start getting into that mindset."

"Fuck that Kerrass. What's going on?"

But Kerrass shook his head and would say no more.

"Damn you Kerrass." I snarled.

But he was already walking off between the trees and refused to speak to me, ignoring every attempt to talk to him. It was as though his mouth had been sewn shut. We were back to communicating with grunts and gestures.

We slept again through the day time. Plain old exhaustion meant that I fell asleep almost immediately as I lay my head down but as I woke, the following evening. I woke to find Kerrass kneeling over me. I almost didn't recognise him, his face was contorted into a mask of rage and hate such that it became ugly.

I've said it before but it bears saying again. I often exaggerate Kerrass' facial expressions as well as other signs of emotion in order to properly convey where things were and how we stand. In studying a person it's important to know what his mental state was and in order for the reader to understand this, I need to make this clear. If I tell you that the right corner of his lips twitched upwards for a second, that would mean nothing to you, but to me and to others that know him well, that is Kerrass' expression of wry amusement. A wry, quiet chuckle is Kerrass' version of a guffaw while a slight frown is the only sign you will ever see of Kerrass getting towards being angry.

Some people have argued that my exaggerating and simplifying of his expressions is doing my readers, and Kerrass, a disservice as it portrays an individual as being more than he is.

Maybe this is true, but I think it's doing Kerrass a disservice to say otherwise.

So in this case, it bears emphasising just how distorted his face was.

Instinct made my hands move so that I could prepare to leap to my feet at a moments notice.

Then he blinked again and the look of rage was replaced with horror and revulsion. The hate turned inwards and he moved away.

For the first time, in a long time, I was afraid of my travelling companion.

Again we moved through the countryside in silence that day. Kerrass leading, his Witcher eyes leading us through the darkness as we didn't dare light a torch.

At one point Kerrass leaned against a tree and started to shake. If I didn't know better I would say that he was weeping. I was still a little too mindful of the expression that I'd seen on his face when I woke up to get close though but after a minute, maybe two, he shook himself. I heard him growl something to himself although I didn't catch the words before he moved off again.

That night he couldn't eat his share of the rations.

Again, that might not sound like much as you read it. I've seen Kerrass eat raw mushrooms which I know are poisonous. They're the kind of mushrooms that your parents take you into the woods near your home and say, "don't eat that or those because they will kill you." He has also dipped his finger into monster slime and blood before licking his finger and declaring how long the stuff has been there. He once boasted that he had eaten gruel made from rotten meat and had been forced by hunger into eating insects that were still alive enough to skitter and slither down his throat.

Although that was near the beginning of our travelling together and he may just have been trying to intimidate me

But regardless, he is the one that has, in the past, forced _me_ to eat food because I needed my strength. Instead, without speaking he lay down, drank some water although not nearly enough to my eyes before going to sleep. Some time after that, he started to shake.

It was that day that the searching net passed over us. I don't know if that meant that they were desperately incompetent and that it was only now, all this time later, that they had managed to find the dead men, or it was only at that point that the men that went past us managed to receive the necessary message. There were several groups of them though, riding at a relatively quick pace.

Kerrass started whimpering as they did. Not loud, but loud enough to make me nervous. He was getting louder too until I was forced to take steps. Edging closer to him, I first tried to shake him in order to wake him up.

He remained asleep. This never happens.

So then I tried putting my hand over his mouth. He struggled a bit before he subsided. The noises more muffled. It went on and on and on as the riders got closer and closer and closer. It got so that I could hear them talking, could hear the thud of the earth as their horses put their foot down. Then I could see them, the shaggy hair of their mounts as they passed by our hiding place. A snippet of conversation, often about what they planned to do to us after they caught us and on one occasion, a description of just how angry someone was that we hadn't been caught yet.

Or scared, I didn't really catch that bit.

But then they would be passed us and I would slump bat into an exhausted but watchful silence. Kerrass' whimpering continuing unabated. Until the next time the horses could be heard, hooves hammering away on the earth. Sometimes close enough to reach out and touch. Other times far enough away that I only heard them as an echo in the ground.

I don't know how often this happened but by the end of it. I could feel my own sanity threatening to leave through my ears.

At some point I fell into a restless sleep.

This time it was Kerrass who woke me up with forced cheerfulness and a smile filled with gritted teeth. He said nothing but I could smell vomit. He gestured and I followed him.

We were still heading south. Slightly truer south than the south west that we needed to go but I would take what I could get. The shape of the mountains off to our left were beginning to take on a more familiar edge despite our crawling pace. We moved a little faster after that, still taking care but we were doing a bit more. We also switched back to travelling by day.

But Kerrass was getting worse.

At the time, I remember thinking that it was Elixir withdrawal but this was worse than I could imagine. As I've mentioned before, I've had the dubious pleasure of helping someone through Fisstech withdrawal before and I've heard that Alcohol withdrawal can be similar. But Kerrass was approaching incoherence. Then, abruptly he would stop. Look around and blink as though I could see my friend in his eyes again rather than the tired and frantic man that I had been dealing with.

Two days after the net had passed over us, he started to shiver, staggering as he walked and weaving in place. I was still a little too nervous to outright support him as he went. Instead, I watched him carefully as he mumbled incoherently to people and things that I couldn't see. He seemed to be particularly angry at some unseen woman. Negative epithets were snarled into the quiet hollows between the trees and under bushes and those were the words that I could recognise. He would spit and hiss like a cat before insisting in a rage filled voice that "She" had betrayed him. That he was still fighting, still struggling. I could make nothing of it though.

Then one day, his strength fled from him. His legs buckled and he collapsed to the ground. Maybe I should have left him. That might have been the sensible thing to do but I couldn't force myself into that mindset. Even though Kerrass would have insisted, had he been able. I hauled him to his feet and had to all but carry him. His legs still worked and after a while he could move under his own effort. He had gone back to whimpering though.

The hardest part of any kind of evasion was still to come. That part of things when we had to get through the blockades that Lord Cavill would have set up in our way. The groups that would have set off. As soon as the hunt started they would have gone off to watch the passes and the roads. That was going to be the hard part. The unavoidable part. I told myself over and over that I would abandon Kerrass _then_ if I had to.

It was the part I was dreading. It also wouldn't be long before the hunters would be sent out from their place to spread out across the countryside again. We would have to hope that we were far enough out that they would come back at us in one's and twos but it was unlikely that the same trick would work again.

We were still walking through forestry at this point. Skirting round farms and large fields and clearing where, should we be caught, then we would be in the open without cover and no real way to defend ourselves. Without speaking for Kerrass, my mind had become a sharp thing that all other things bounced off. A constant headache that I could no longer dismiss and a buzzing sound that seemed to come from everywhere at the same time that stole all thought from me other than to place one foot in front of the other. Only the fear was constant. The fear that I had made the wrong choices, that we should have run for it with all speed south. That we were going to die out here from starvation and God knows what else. That we should have taken the horses and above all, that I shouldn't have agreed to help Sam with his issues at all. That I should have married Ariadne and retired when I had the chance.

Habitually, the tears would come then. The tears and the recriminations, followed by the anger. The rage at Cavill and his son. The rage at the now, long dead Cousin Kalayn and his parents. Rage at my mother and the Holy Fire and Rage at the world for making this _my_ problem.

Which led into the self-pity. I won't bore you with this one.

But all told, I didn't see the elf until I walked into her. I looked up into the startling beauty of the woman, shining blue eyes in dark hair although a nagging thought told me that she could do with a good meal and a wash. She had a bow and an arrow pointed at me with her lips twisted into a sneer of distaste. She was dressed in a tunic and trousers that looked as though it was made from deer-hide and sack, cloth. A belt of rope completed the ensemble.

For some reason known only to my own brain, it seemed important for me to realise that she was bare foot.

"Peidiwch â symud, d'hoine Filth," She snarled. Telling me not to move before calling me names.

My brain shut down and threw a tantrum.

"Oh for Fuck's sake." I said, throwing my arms in the air and sitting down in exactly the same way that a toddler does when they're tired, angry and have had enough. "What the fuck else?"

Kerrass collapsed after me, legs folding under him before he toppled gently sideways into me. "I told you," he muttered although it seemed to cost him a lot of effort. "Never say that "Things could hardly get any worse."."

(A/N: As it turned out, longer than some, but not as long as others.

I've received some feedback recently from a couple of different people in reviews and PM's that have expressed concern about the "Grim Dark" nature of the current story line and their concern that things are getting a bit oppressive.

To quote Joss Whedon who once got the same feedback about Buffy. "Hehehehehehe. Yeeeeaaaaahhhhhhh. Uh Oooops."

I have been aware of this problem, it was just that I felt that the story needed to go there due to circumstances and character mindsets. That, along with the fact that the current story arc has been going on a lot longer than I had initially planned. All I can say is, please bear with me.)


	77. Chapter 77

(A/N: The discussion regarding racism in this chapter is not meant as a comment on modern society or anything that's going on in the world. This chapter is another long planned chapter and is not the result of any real world events other than it being necessary to the continuation of the story Also, what I didn't plan was that this story arc regarding the cult would turn out to be the arc that talks about mental illness. But it is and we go into it a bit more here.)

So we're getting towards the end of my little series on the different parts of being a Witcher that I've been prefacing these articles with, although we haven't quite got to the end of it.

Yet.

So far we've talked about many of the tools of being a Witcher. We've talked about swords, crossbows, magic, alchemy and the many and varied things that these terms can contain. I skipped over bombs and traps because I rather thought that they would be covered in the section talking about Alchemy and there was a running theme at the time that, the things that I was talking about, all fell in the category of "Yeah but the other tools that a Witcher carries with them are just as useful towards doing the tasks required" and I was beginning to feel as though I was talking mysElf round in circles.

Last time we talked about mutations which is a more nebulous term so now we're going to go a little deeper. Today I want to talk about a Witcher's training.

First a short disclaimer. I have the most experience with the Witcher training of the Cat school of the Witchers. Kerrass' methods have been much tempered by his interactions with the Wolf school of Witchers but his thinking and certainly his fighting styles are based on the Cat school of Witchers. I have also spent two, or was it three, memorable days in the company of Letho of Gulet who showed me what it was like to be trained as a Witcher which will have been adjusted by the Viper school. I have no idea what form the training of the Bear school was, or the Gryphon or the Manticore school.

All Witchers have the same framework applied to them. They are taught to fight with one sword at a time in flexible armour. They are taught some small magical tricks that are quick and relatively easy to cast in a combat situation and their fighting style emphasises dodging and movement over blocking and parrying. They are certainly taught not to depend on their armour to save their lives.

As well as this they are given advanced tutoring on the subjects of various monsters. Kerrass himsElf has a depth and breadth of knowledge that would easily qualify him as a Professor of Monster studies and indeed, knows more on the subject than many of the men who claim that same title with the added bonus that he can prove all of the things that he knows through practical experience. This rather than the theoretical arm-chair variety that most professors of the subject have access to.

I sometimes feel that this is an under-represented part of Witcher training. The years that are spent poring over old books written long ago by people long dead. The dissections of monster corpses. The studying and the field trips to go and see monsters in the wild under the guidance of experienced Witchers. I think that this is often overlooked in the discussion of Witchers.

People look at the man, in the dark leather armour with the sword on his back and the scars on his face and they see a ruffian, a scoundrel, a killer and a thief and although Kerrass would be the first person to admit that Witchers can be, and have been, all of these things in various different definitions of the term. That also hides the fact that Witchers are extremely highly educated. Not just in Monster Lore, but also in languages so that they can talk about the monsters that are plaguing the local area, no matter whether they're in the North, South or with Elves, Dwarves, Halflings or even those few Werebubbs that are still around if you know where to look in the non-human districts.

They learn Philosophy and Psychology as well. Does that surprise you? They need to be able to get into the minds of the people that they talk to in order to better help the people around them. They need to be able to differentiate between lies and truths, they need to be able to deal with people, to be able to tell when a person is lying to them and when that person is hiding an important truth.

They learn history. When they come across a ruined manor then they need to know whether it will have been occupied by a Redanian family, a Temerian family or does this even predate the landing of the exiles? Was it built on a site of religious significance? was it built on top of Elven ruins? All of these questions might be important and give insight into the thing that the Witcher is hunting. Meaning that the importance of this knowledge is impossible to understate. They _have_ to know these things. They _have_ to be able to answer these questions because to them, it might be the difference between life and death.

They are taught to exist outside of society, to be the outsider looking in. Not all of it is due to the fact that they are mutants and as a result their status of "outsider" is a thing that they cannot avoid but it's something that is taught to them from a young age. Almost from the moment that they are picked up and taken to the schools. That the only people that they can rely on are other Witchers, and only then if they come from the same school, although that has been reduced over the last few decades as other Witchers on the path are no longer in a position to be quite so choosy when it comes to their friends on the road.

This is the basic framework. The Foundation, if you like, of the way that the Witcher's are trained. After that, the different schools added different things and adjusted their teachings in different ways. The reason for this is lost to time unfortunately. It might be that the locations of the Witcher keeps were chosen tactically to deal with the different factors that were around at the time. Such as monster migration patterns as well as human population centres that needed to be taken into account. There's no way of knowing but this might be the reason why different Witcher schools were taught with different techniques to everyone else.

The differences are slight though. They might sound like an awful lot but it bears remembering that all Witchers had the same Cat's eyes. All Witchers carried two swords, had their swords on their backs, had a row of the same kinds of potions on their belts and were utterly, utterly neutral in the matter of politics.

From where I sit, I can hear all the people who are aware of current international politics, snorting audibly at the ridiculousness of that last statement. And I get it. No single group of people has had a larger impact on the current state of the world than the Witchers. The only group that might challenge that statement would be the mages with the Thanedd coup before the second Nilfgaardian war and the betrayal of the Lodge of Sorceresses that led to the third.

You can take both of those events any way you want and I'm not going to go into too much detail here.

But consider this. The most important and powerful person in the world, the Empress of Nilfgaard, was brought up by Witchers. She refers to the remaining Wolven Witchers as "Uncles" other than the one that she calls "Dad". That one, the White Wolf of legend was present at the aforementioned Thanedd coup and the summit at Loc Muinne where the Betrayal of the Sorceresses was brought to light.

Geralt of Rivia was also present at several decisive battles during the second war, was there at the destruction of Stygga castle, died during the Pogrom of the non-humans in Rivia, came back in time to get involved in the attempted Coup of the Flaming Rose and save the Life of King Foltest before _also_ being present when Foltest was finally assassinated. He is credited as the man who saved the life of the Empress and brought her back into public life. Rumour has it that he was involved in the death of King Radovid, an instrumental event leading to the end of the third war and also managed to make it south in time to prevent the attacks of the Beast of Toussaint. Events which led to the unearthing of the Duchess' long lost and disinherited sister.

And Geralt is far from alone. Never forget that the Kingslayer, the man who assassinated Kings Foltest and Demavend while also implicating the Lodge of Sorceresses in Treason was also a Witcher. I would also be remiss in pointing out that my own friend and companion, Kerrass of Maecht has often been far from entirely neutral in dealings that I have witnessed. For instance, he is heavily involved with the Kingdom of Dorn, The Cuchy of Angraal and up until he left to come and help me with my search for Francesca, he was acting as personal champion and bodyguard to that same. That's leaving aside the obvious times when he jumps to my defence and his association with my family.

Far from neutral.

This is not a recent phenomenon either. Witcher Gerd of the Bear school is known to have taken one side over the other in a civil war before fleeing from the victor to join forces with a Skelligan Jarl whom he worked for for some time. Slaying monsters, raiding and hunting together.

Those people, including me although I shouldn't be viewed as an unbiased source, would claim that these are the exceptions that prove the rule. How many other Witchers were there? or are there still? Versus how many of them that have had significant impact on the world stage.

But another aspect of their training which I sometimes feel is overlooked is the not inconsiderable training that they have on the subjects of philosophy and religion. Kerrass knows considerably more than I do about many of the other religious sects that populate the world. The only area where he would bow to me is in the case of my knowledge with the church of the Holy Fire. But in every other case, he can see a totem, or a shrine and he will be able to tell me how the thing is worshipped, what kind of offerings you are supposed to leave there and so on. But also the philosophical knowledge, not to argue or to teach despite the fact that these are the natural product of such educations, but so that they are well aware of the possible outcomes should they "get involved". In short, they are trained in what would be the entire point of neutrality in the first place.

I suspect that there is another reason behind this particular branch of the Witcher's curriculum as well which I will go into later.

I feel as though I've gotten off topic again.

There are small differences between each of the schools. The most obvious one is the bear school. The Bears, according to Kerrass, taught their students to fight in heavier armour than their fellows. They pushed their bodies to the extreme lengths of physical conditioning which was helped by their particular forms of mutations. They are, or were, much taller and more heavily muscled than the average Witcher, capable of delivering blows of incredible strength with pinpoint accuracy. I have only met one Bear Witcher and he was challenged by a courtier. The courtier claimed that with a sword the size of the Bear's weapon, it must be huge and ungainly to wield. That a smaller sword, like the courtier's own rapier, would be more manoeuvrable and therefore more suitable.

This was back in Toussaint when I was still enjoying the festivities. Kerrass pointed me in the direction of this particular piece of entertainment.

The Bear Witcher, Uhtred was his name, responded with a proposition towards a Wager. He suggested a challenge to the courtier. Uhtred would set out four items to be thrown into the air before each swordsman. The person who could cut, or destroy the most items would be declared the winner. The courtier agreed and the party was quickly awash with bets as people wagered astonishing sums on the outcome of the contest.

Uhtred wandered off towards the buffet table and selected two apples and two chicken legs. Then he whispered in the ear of a waiting servant who ran off towards the kitchen.

"Very well," said Uhtred. "Are you ready?"

The courtier had changed into an arming jacket loaned to him by a friend. He drew his sword and nodded. A knight errant was chosen to adjudicate the match and to throw the items. As I recall, he swore on the heron that he would be unbiased.

Heh, the things that you remember.

First was the apple. The rapier flickered and his apple split into two halves. Uhtred's blade flashed and his own appled split down the middle although I may say that the cut was less clean.

Then came the chicken legs. Again, the rapier flickered and the chicken leg was cut in two. I remember being impressed that the rapier had cut through the chicken bone rather than glancing off. To my utter lack of surprise, Uhtred's sword mauled the chicken, also cutting clean through the bone.

Then the third item. The servant handed two small logs of firewood to the waiting knight errant. The courtier frowned and I fancy that he paled a little. But gamely he stood up. I noticed that the blow wasn't as quick this time. He was sweating a little as when he swung he wanted to hit the wood so that the impact would be along the grain to help with splitting the wood. He struck and the sword went in before being caught in the wood. The weight of the wood pulled the rapier out of the man's hand.

The Knight errant declared that this was worth half a point.

Uhtred cut the log clean in two with an almost casual strike. The log had been cut across the grain.

The final object turned out to be a piece of rock. I don't know what it was but I suspect it was some kind of light, porous stuff. The courtier took one look at it and declined to strike, no doubt fearing the loss of his sword or to his reputation if he looked quite that silly.

Uhtred nodded at the Knight Errant who threw the rock. It was only a pebble really, about the size of your fist. Uhtred swung. The rock shattered.

To me, that story sums up the Bear Witchers best. Moreso than the story that Kerrass tells about the Witcher and the training dummy.

Bear Witchers are also the only other Witcher school that are taught the use of the crossbow. Other Witchers have taken up the practice in recent years, or so I'm told, but it was only the Cat and the Bear schools that taught the art from the first days of their training.

The Wolven school focused on their swordplay and I don't know many swordsmen, including Kerrass, that would argue with the claim that the remaining Wolven Witchers are among the foremost swordsmen on the continent. They are still skilled in other areas but their training was focused on the blades.

Apparently, The Griffins focused on the magic although I have never met a Griffin Witcher and as a result I can't really comment. The Vipers focused on their alchemy and crafting with the rest of their training being focused according to the personal and bodily configuration of the Witcher being trained. They also focused on the use of weapons in the off hand. They still have the two swords but they also carried the two shorter daggers that they use in enclosed spaces. I have known two Viper Witchers now. The one, Letho, fought like a bull. He would line up his attack before moving forward in an inexorable and unstoppable charge. The other, whose name I never learned, had a similar charge but he fought much lower to the ground, almost crouching. He seemed to be all about the patterns of movement. I wondered at the time if those patterns could be learned and therefore countered. Kerrass laughed at the suggestion.

The Cat school is all about movement. Quick, lightening strikes and acrobatic movements designed to overwhelm their opponents coming in at all angles.

But despite all of this. Unless you knew what to look for, The two daggers on the belt of the Viper, the larger build of the Bear, the shape of the medallion if you can see it, there is no way of telling a Witcher from one school apart from another.

So that's it, the training of a Witcher. Aimed to prepare a Witcher for anything that they might come across while they are on the path. They are not always successful in this. This small essay doesn't talk about the students that they kill or that don't make it through the entirety of the process. Nor does it talk about the dehumanising effect that it can have on the students in question. For that I would refer you to those chapters and articles that I discussed my time spent in Kaer Morhen with Letho of Gulet. I think he said those things far more eloquently than I ever could.

So then we come to my question. The question that drives this entire series of essays. Is the training indispensable to the Witcher. Can you be a Witcher without it?

For the answer, I would have said No. I didn't think you could be a Witcher without the training aspect. Because otherwise how would you _know_ how to kill the monsters that you come across. How would you know which oils to smear your blade with in order to destroy the small nest of nekkers? How would you know how to make a spirit turn corporeal so that you can hit it in the face? These are the questions that only a Witcher's training can answer.

But Kerrass, of all peopl,e disagreed.

His argument was that if you separate the term Witcher into "Witcher the race" and "Witcher the profession," then, theoretically you can be either of those things without having had the formal training of the Witcher schools. Kerrass regards the most important part of his training as being the knowledge that was imparted to him and has expressed gratitude for it many times, but at the same time, he argues that you can be mutated into a Witcher without any of that knowledge being given to you. Without being trained in Alchemy or signs or the use of a sword and you would still be mutated enough for other people, including the other Witchers, to call you a Witcher.

As for the "profession" part of being a Witcher? The definition of the term "Witcher" to the common folk is "someone who makes their living from the slaying of monsters". The fact that they use this term exclusively to describe mutated Witchers is actually unimportant.

He argues that if you see a monster, realise that that monster needs to be killed, and then follow through on that need to actually destroy the monster, then you are a Witcher. Getting paid for that act is a bonus. That is the beginning and end of a Witcher's task. It is what they are about. What they have to do and what they were created for.

He admits that some of this attitude might be due to his training as a cat Witcher rather than anything else but he regularly sees monsters in human shapes as well as the more magical creatures that people call monster in the countryside.

So he has decided that you can be a Witcher without being trained as a Witcher and if he, a Witcher, can decide that, then who am I to argue?

As it turned out. It was the presence of a Witcher that saved my life.

I don't know for sure, I was pretty tired and may have been mildly hallucinating in fear, hunger and exhaustion. But I'm pretty sure that I saw that Elf woman decide that it was time for me to die. There was just a tightening of her fingers, a slight groan from the bow that she was holding and the point of the arrow seemed to glitter in the light.

"Fuck it," I thought. I had time to think those words. I was going to die on my arse. People say that your life flashes before your eyes, but that I can't answer for. As I looked down the shaft of the arrow that I felt sure was about to kill me, all I could think about was the fact that I was sitting on my arse.

I closed my eyes, feeling that I didn't really want to watch the arrow fly from the bow and hear the whispering sound of the bowstring leaving the woman's fingers.

But then there was another voice and I risked opening one eye. This was actually surprisingly difficult as my eyes wanted to stay closed, they were that tired. In the heat of the moment, sitting before the Elf that clearly hated me, I had forgotten just how tired I was. There was another Elf stood there. Long, flowing black hair, held back from his face with a leather band. He wore a green woollen tunic, leather trousers and surprisingly rich looking leather boots. They were well worn but I could tell that they were much loved. It gave him an air of command and relative wealth over the much more ragged woman beside him. He also carried a bow with one arrow nocked to the bow and another handful of arrows carried in his hand by the nocking points. He had a sword on one side, the long, curved sweeping swords that Elves seem to prefer with the elongated handles. He also had a thick, black furred shoulder guard and a leather hood.

"Va'fail Vatt'ghern," he said to Kerrass who was equally as exhausted as I was. Maybe even more so. Kerrass made some kind of flicking gesture towards me and lay backwards. For all I know he was asleep before he hit the ground.

"Va'fail Aen Seidhe." I told him and was absurdly pleased when his eyebrows raised in surprise. The woman's mouth twisted into a sneer.

"You speak the Elven tongue?" The male Elf said in that language.

"I do," I responded in the same. "Enough to know that you call it the Elder tongue and that it is exceedingly rude to welcome one person and not the other even if you're going to kill them. It would have been more courteous if you had simply not welcomed either of us and shot us on sight."

He astonished me then by laughing. He had the same easy grace of all of his kind along with the beautiful features and easy charm. Like the woman though, he was thin underneath his clothing which hung loosely off his frame.

"Bluntly spoken," he said in the Northern common tongue. "For one who criticises the lack of courtesy in another."

"My fatigue steals my manners from me."

He nodded and turned and told the woman to "fetch the others."

"I would like to know more about what is happening here, including questions about why the countryside is boiling with hunters." He told me, "and I think it better if we discuss such things in hiding."

"Is it far?" I asked. "I ask because at the moment, this floor seems awfully comfortable to me."

He laughed again. He seemed to do it easily and frequently. "Not far. We can help your companion and obscure your tracks a little way. A couple of my people will lead a false trail into a nearby stream. That should obscure you from your followers, for a while at least."

"Grateful to you."

I didn't feel like speaking for a while after that as I sunk into a fug. That state of mind and body where you just sit, staring ahead and into space for an indeterminate amount of time before someone, or something shakes you out of it. In this case it was the Elven woman who offered me a hand to help me to my feet before prominently and pointedly wiping her hand on her tunic and spitting at my feet.

"Human filth," she spat.

"Elven lady," I told her with a bow.

She hissed like a cat and went off to join a couple of others who were clearing the back trail.

The male Elf was laughing again.

"I do believe that that woman hates me." I told him.

"She does." He told me.

"Is there a reason for it, beyond my just being a human?"

"Oh yes. She was taken from her mother and used as a mistress for some Lord's pleasure. By human standards her jail cell wasn't uncomfortable, she wasn't particularly mistreated and had servants and luxuries but she saw it as the slavery that it was and cut her master's throat before fleeing to join the Scoia'tael. Unfortunately, Nilfgaard had won by that point and "the cause" is faltering due to the humans being forced to treat Elves more favourably by Nilfgaardian law. It's very hard to be angry when you can walk up to a Nilfgaardian official who will then try your case fairly."

"But she is still angry."

"Wouldn't you be?"

I shrugged at the question. I was too tired at the time for such questions but the truth is that I would still have been angry. Of course I would.

"But anyway, she assumes that all male humans want to fuck her and hates them all for it. She is, as I understand it, extremely beautiful to human eyes." He paused. "Do you want to fuck her?"

He was looking at me oddly. I had the sense that I was being tested in some way s I considered my next words carefully.

"Nah," I said after a while. "Needs more pie."

The Elf laughed aloud and seemed startled by it as though it was the first time that he had laughed genuinely in some time. I had made the joke before or something like it when Ariadne had been particularly skinny but it seemed to be relevant here as well.

"Don't get me wrong." I said. "She is a very a beautiful woman but I am lucky enough to be engaged to marry a woman that I love and now I find that I have relatively little physical desire for someone else."

"But it is also true that you prefer women with a little more meat on their bones?" he suggested. There was a distinct glint of humour in his eye and I decided that I liked this Elf.

"That is also true, as well as the fact that I prefer my women to _want_ me." I considered the next part carefully. Weighing up whether or not the Elf would appreciate the joke. "Or at least, want my money enough to pretend."

He laughed.

"My name is Chireadean." He told me offering his hand.

"Frederick von Coulthard." I told him, taking his hand.

He raised his eyebrows at the name as though he recognised it. "There is a _lot_ to this story it would seem." he told me.

We moved off soon after that. There were maybe half a dozen Elves all told including Chireadean and the Elven woman. Another three men and another woman, and I knew that there were a couple of other people who were guarding the back trail. They fashioned a stretcher using Chireadean's cloak and a pair of unstrung bows that Kerrass was made to lie down in. He seemed to sleep but I think that it might have been closer to passing out. He whimpered and moaned as they moved him.

The Elves moved fast and the world soon dissolved into an agony of aching limbs, nausea and my headache getting worse and worse. The edges of my vision started to blur and go grey and I expect that I was getting into pretty bad shape. I have no idea how long it was before we stopped but Chireadean steered me towards a blanket and a pile of leaves where I collapsed and just lost consciousness.

Like Kerrass, sleep was the wrong word for it.

I woke up, it was dark and I must have stirred. I felt a hand across my mouth. A male voice hissing at me to be quiet in Elven. I noticed that I was once again called Human filth but then my ears were straining to listen. I could hear nothing other than the pounding of my own heartbeat in my ears and the sounds of my own breathing. The rest of the night was still and calm.

Much to my later astonishment, I fell asleep again.

Only to be woken up by my own stomach rumbling as Chireadean waved a slice of bread under my nose that had been drenched in honey.

"Humans." He said in Elven with a slight smile. "You will literally sleep through the end of the world if we let you."

"Not gonna lie," I told him, groaning at my stiffening muscles. "That actually sounds quite pleasant right now."

"Eat," the Elf told me. "You need it."

It was two slices of bread. Objectively they were quite small but it looked like a feast to me and I had to force myself to eat it slowly.

"Where did you get this?" I said looking around. "I can't see any ovens around here."

"We were in a thick cluster of trees. I could only really see sunlight above the trees so I assumed that we were in some kind of Forest. Calling it a camp would be ambitious but at the same time I could see, maybe a couple of dozen Elves wandering around. A couple were poking at tiny, smokeless camp-fires. A few more were working, making arrows by tying feathers to the shafts of wood. A few more were asleep.

"No," The Elf sat next to me and handed me a cup of something hot. It smelled herbal. "We occasionally get given supplies by the local villages. Sometimes it's a bribe to get us to move on. Other times it's a genuine act of sympathy and charity." He smiled often I noticed. Often and easily. "I'll let you guess which one pisses the others off the most."

I grinned. "My guess would be that the most annoying one is whichever one of the two that happened most recently."

"Not far off." Chireadean agreed.

"So you must be the group of Elves that I've heard about so much?" I asked him, forgetting my manners and talking through a mouthful of bread and honey.

"Yes," The ever-present smile turned wistful. "That group. Are you disappointed?"

"Nope. To be disappointed you have to have expectations. Back when we were investigating what's going on in these parts, we wanted to talk to you. But for the last few days, all I've been thinking about is surviving if I'm honest. More recently, the question has been about putting one foot in front of the other,"

"It's good to have goals in life."

"Survival is a simple goal at least." I looked over at him. As I say, I was finding that I liked him. His attitude was easy going and relaxed and his Elven was informal. "Look, I have to ask. Are you my friend or what?"

He scratched his chin. "I will admit that it's a little early to say."

"Do you lead round here?"

"Powers no." His laughter seemed genuine. "There isn't really a formal leader. This isn't a Scoia'Tael Commando with a military format. It's a lot less formal than that. But can I ask you a series of questions before I get too deep into answering your questions?"

I felt a smile creeping across my face.

"You've been sent to talk to me because you hate me the least haven't you?"

"Close." He said with a smile. "I've found over the years that Hating someone takes up so much energy and I would rather devote my energy to more useful things."

"Like survival?" I suggested with a smile.

He just grinned for an answer.

He waited courteously for me to finish my meal. I was somewhat dismayed to find that the two small pieces of bread and honey had filled me up to the point that I was concerned that I may burst.

"So," he began. "What is Professor Frederick von Coulthard of the Oxenfurt academy doing out here being chased by a significant group of cunts?"

"You know my name?"

"Of course I know your name. Which means that I also know who that Witcher of yours is. He's fine by the way."

"I had been meaning to ask."

"But you haven't answered my question."

Something about the way he said that made me look at him sharply. He had a jovial face and manner, easy to smile, easy to laugh but somewhere in the depths of his eyes I could see a flinty hardness that glittered in the shimmering sunlight.

"Exactly how many archers are there in the trees pointing arrows at me right now?" I asked him.

"None," he said. The absence of a smile was eloquent. "But your spear and dagger are over there which is considerably further from you than my dagger is from me." He gave me a moment to let the words sink in. "I know what I look like, I know what I sound like and I will admit to not liking violence. But I am a veteran of three wars as well as continued anti-human bias and I will kill you without mercy if I think you are a threat to these people."

I nodded and took a long drink from the cup. It was refreshing. Neither tea or coffee or any of the various varieties of either that you can find on the road. I guessed that it was some kind of Elven variety.

"Well, that's my name. If you know who I am then you know of the circumstances surrounding my Father's death and the murder of my elder brother?"

"I do. I read about the episode with interest."

"Then you will also know that one of the conspirators was the son of the nearby Count Kalayn and my cousin?"

He nodded.

"As it turns out, because of legal shenanigans, the nearest heir for Kalayn lands after Count Kalayn killed himself, was my brother Sam."

The Elf's eye glittered.

"But there was some, justifiable, concern that Castle Kalayn might be haunted and so Sam asked Kerrass and I to help him in that matter. I also hoped to find some more remnants of the cult that Cousin Kalayn had belonged to in case they had anything to do with the disappearance of my sister, which I also assume you know about."

He nodded again.

I began fairly easily, skipping over the details about what we had done since leaving Toussaint. I began by telling him about the hunting for details of the cult. Of the efforts to purge Castle Kalayn of spirits and the identification of the Hounds of "Kreve". I spoke about the villager religion of "Crom Cruarch" which was the only time that he smiled, rather sadly I thought, before I described our battle against the Hounds followed by our defence of the villages in Kalayn lands.

He was mostly motionless during the entirety of the narrative but I got the impression that he was being particularly attentive during the description of that fight. I don't know, I was still tired, edgy and exhausted so my brain was far from operating at peak efficiency but I thought that it was something about his eyes. They seemed to sharpen in some way. Then I talked about the journey north and our talking to the various Lords of the area before meeting with Lord Cavill and what happened afterwards.

He seemed to have made his mind up by the time that I had finished.

"Fascinating," he said and he started as I laughed.

"Are you teasing me?" I asked him.

"What?"

"My fiancée says the same thing after I've told her a lot of things."

"I would like to think that my reaction is a statement of how I feel following your...I truly hate using grand words when something simple would do but I feel that, in this case, the word "remarkable" is most fitting."

"So," I began after a moment where his eyes seemed almost lidded as he considered the story. "Am I going to make a dash for my spear, you go for your dagger and we try to kill each other like civilised people?"

His eyes snapped open.

"No," He said, "No I don't think so. I think that you need a bit of help. After that though?" He shrugged.

"Who are you people?" I asked. "When I was first told that there was a group of Elves in the countryside I have imagined everyone and everything from a paramilitary group of Scoia'Tael commandos to a croup of runaway servants."

Chireadean mused at the question for a moment.

"You know how offensive that question is don't you?" He asked after a long moment.

"No," I admitted after a moment.

He smiled a little sadly. He truly had a repertoire of smiles that could be as expressive and eloquent as a dozen words.

"That all Elves fall into those two categories? Either human hating commandos or human hating runaway servants and slaves. I notice that you're leaving out the acclimatized Elves that try to join human society and contribute in our own small way."

"True, but in my defence I would argue that those acclimatised Elves would not be hiding out in the woods. I apologise for any offence that I may have given though. That was not my intention."

"I know," he said. "But men like you. Good men who work hard to improve themselves, as I know that you do still make the little mistakes. You think that we are all the stereotypes when the truth is that we are people, same as you and that if we are Elves then we must be one thing without room for being more than one thing.

"For instance. I was a city Elf. I tried to make the peace with humans by helping my cousin run an inn over in Rinde until Good King Radovid stirred up the anti-human sentiment and men came to burn our inn down. Couldn't stand that we had some prime real estate next to the city gates. The first place that travellers would come to for a pint and a bed as they came through the door. My cousin sunk a fortune into that place. Not only the initial investment but also the insurance settlement when a Sorceress and a Witcher destroyed the first building that we had."

He was staring at his feet.

"We had friends on the council, we had friends in the townsfolk. I was even courting a woman for her hand in marriage, being one of those few Elven men lucky enough to find human women attractive. And I was considered a catch at the time as well. But not one of our friends came to help us when the mob came. Not my fiancée's father, nor our friends on the council or our friends in the church. They sat by and watched as the strung my cousin up from the rafters and stretched his neck. They turned their backs when I fled with the clothes that I had on my back."

There was an old and well worn quality to his anger. As though it had been worn out and gone over until the sharp edge had been blunted, until there was only a rough feeling there now. Just a well worn groove in his emotions that his brain couldn't help but go down.

"I joined the Scoia'Tael after that. Because where else do I go? To another town where I start the entire process again? Only to be knocked down when some human decides that I am making too much money. Getting too successful for their comfort and wants to make sure that "I know my proper place." I fought with the commandos during the second war and long after until all that business with the Flaming Rose down in Temeria. I fought hard but I was never one of them. They saw me as tainted you see? I spent time working with humans. I had human friends and a human lover. I had a human job and a human social life. I had contributed to the human economy and added to human society. I was not an Elf to them. I was...something else. All of it wrong."

The sadness was in the smile again.

"And that is the root of the problem here. We have two hardcore Elven commandos with us here. Proper, hardcore, refusing to speak anything other than ancient Elven. They would kill you if you spoke it or even tried to learn it."

"Good to know," I commented. "I had to learn ancient Elven so that I could study some of the older texts."

"Yes," another slight smile. "I imagine that you would." He sighed and rubbed at a spot on the side of his head. "They were born in the valley of the flowers and left to fight against the human filth during the second continental war."

For the first time, he gave an expression of revulsion. It too was a kind of smile crossed with a frown and a shudder.

"You may be aware that Queen Francesca of Dol Blathanna was forced to condemn the actions of the Scoia'Tael as part of the peace process and the second treaty of Cintra."

"I had heard."

"So there own nation sold them out at the insistence of their only allies against their enemies. They can't hate Dol Blathanna but they are unspeakably angry at them and at the Queen."

"To be honest? I can kind of see why."

"Yes, especially as they were ordered to support the Nilfgaardian advance at the time in order for Dol Blathanna to be names a separate entity. At the time, that seemed impossible after the second peace. Both Henselt and Demavend eyed that valley greedily."

"Further Irony now that that land has been declared a Duchy of Nilfgaard with all the military support that they might want. It paid out in the long run."

"Yes, but all that those two Elves can see is that they were sold out, by their Queen, for political expediency and they rage at the entire situation. So they can't go home. But where do they go?"

He shrugged.

"So they stay with us. But they hate us too as the rest of us are mostly runaway servants, slaves or concubines from the north."

"Slavery is illegal in the North." I commented. I knew that it was pointless to say it just as I knew what his answer was going to be.

"Yes, I know." He commented with a sly smile. "Funny that, isn't it. I looked into it once. The statutes _actually_ say about how the term "slave" is defined as a _man_ who works for no wages and has no choice in the matter being considered the "property" of their owner rather than a worker for their employer. Those people that want to, have been side-stepping the law with that clause for years."

I nodded, "Only some people though."

"But those people do fuck all to help. It only takes some people and with respect, neither your father, nor yourself, your sister or your lover have gone out of their way to employ Elves or to free them from their servitude. You say things like "You hire the best people for the job" and local to you, that is always a human."

"It is also because the employment of an Elf would leave us vulnerable to enemies who would use that as an excuse to destroy us."

"Poor little Rich boy," he sneered, "making excuses about not doing the right thing." For a moment, a spasm of what I took to be rage crossed his face before his face went blank and he sighed before standing up. "You will have to excuse me Lord Frederick. I am furious with you at the moment. It will pass and then I will return to continue our conversation."

He gave me a little half bow before walking off. I heard him joke about something with another Elf as they passed each other.

I dozed for a little while, sitting with my back to a tree trunk, head resting backwards. There's no sleep aid quite like the sleep aid of being utterly exhausted and then being fed after you are hungry. Yes, even if you have just had some of your own hypocrisy thrown into your face.

I was woken by the simple virtue of being kicked in the leg. "Here," Chireadean stood over me with another cup. "Drink up. I spat in it as a way to cement our new found friendship."

I sat up and accepted the drink.

"Look." I began. "I just wanted to say that you're right. But..."

He waved the explanations off though. "Don't worry about it." He said. He was smiling again. "I am self-aware enough to know that you are not in charge of your household and that you were taught to look after the people that you _could_ look after over and above those people for whom it's a lost cause. You were taught this from a very young age. I don't hate you, I even quite like you. But it sometimes hurts to hear someone say it, or to be confronted with it you know?"

"I don't." I told him. "I really don't. And I suppose that that's part of the problem."

"That it is."

I drank some of my drink.

"What is this stuff?" I asked him.

"It's herbal."

"I know that but what is it."

"It's a mixture that one of the others knows. We don't have much in the way of supplies but one of the few things that we do have are herbs. Lots of them. They grow in abundance in this corner of the world. If your brother really wants to make some money off the land around here, he doesn't want to mine or farm or any of that kind of nonsense. He wants to hire a bunch of herbalists and a bunch more alchemists and work the land looking for new ingredients for potions. If he goes about it carefully, he could be a major distributor for medicines and other potions."

"I'll tell him if I ever see him again. What does it do?"

"It repairs a body that's suffering from malnutrition. It doesn't do everything, it doesn't give you protein or carbohydrates or any of that kind of thing."

"Huh?"

"Meat and potatoes to ignorant savages like you." He said it with a smile although, to be fair, there weren't many things that he _didn't_ say with a smile.

I decided not to pursue this and to drink my medicine like a good little boy.

"We were talking about the make-up of your people." I told him.

"That's true, we were, although I can't for the life of me think why,"

"I had commented that I had heard there was a group of Elves in the area and I was wondering who you were." I told him.

He snapped his fingers. "That's right, of course you were. You were being an arse as I recall."

"Maybe, but to be fair, are there many things that I can say about Elves which _wouldn't_ make me seem like an arse?"

"Not many I suppose. You also wanted to know if I'm the leader here. I was in the process of explaining to you, in a long, convoluted and roundabout way that I am not. The quality that I have over everyone else here is that I possibly hate you the least."

I laughed, assuming that he was making a joke but this was one of the first times that he seemed to be being deadly serious.

"I understand humans better it is true. I know more of your human languages..."

"Again, I am aware that this is probably a mistake but I thought all the northern Kingdoms speak the same language."

"Really? Do the Skelligans speak the same language as the Temerians then? Also, I point out that Dol Blathanna is now part of the Northern Kingdoms and the Nilfgaardians that now live here all speak the elder tongue."

"I'm a historian," I told him. "Not a linguist."

"True, so I suppose that I'll forgive you that mistake. I also suppose that instead of saying that I know more human language than the next Elf I should say that I know more slang, idiom and dialects than some of my fellows. I used to help run an inn after all."

"You see how easy it is if we all just use the right words?"

He gave me a sidelong look as if he was trying to figure out if I was joking. Fortunately, I was.

"Yes, now define "The right words" for me and we'll all be good."

""A touch," as my old fencing master would say."

Chireadean smiled. The sadness had crept back into it again. "As did mine." He seemed to turn reflective for a moment. If he was entirely human I would have thought that he was lost in old memories.

"So what are you then?" I prompted. "You are neither a group of run-aways, not refugees, not a commando. Who are you?"

"We are Elves." He told me. "That might seem like a simplistic answer to you and you would be right. We are Elves. It's almost as if you told a painter to make a picture of a couple of dozen people that represented the entire Elven race. That is what we are and that is what we look like. We are refugees and runaways and commandos and travellers and poets."

"So why here?" I asked. "Look. I will admit that I know next to nothing about Elven culture other than the stuff that I needed to learn to learn the language and a rough impression of what had happened in history."

I saw his mouth quirk up and his mouth open.

"You can school me later Chireadean and I will be glad to listen but, much though I've enjoyed our conversation and getting my ass handed to me on a verbal battleground rather than the physical one. I have enemies snapping at my heels. I can't just escape from them..."

"But you need to do that too."

"I do. I need to get away really badly. But I can't just do that. I need to destroy these bastards."

His smile, just a slight upturning of his lips, was becoming maddening. "Why?"

"Are you trying to decide whether to help me?" I asked suddenly as the query crossed my mind.

"Yes." He said simply.

So I thought about my answer for a moment.

"If there's one thing that I have learned while on my travels it's that the world is not what I thought it was." I told him. "It's bigger and smaller, darker and more horrible, while at the same time having moments of light and beauty that I couldn't have imagined before I set out. I've learned how utterly wrong I have been and," I gestured at him, "how wrong I continue to be. I've learned that the term "Monster" is just a word and can be applied to humanity as often as it can be applied to other races. Sometimes more so even. I have learned that I am in fact very small compared to the world and that, although I might make a small difference in a few lives, in a few centuries, no-one will even remember my name."

Chireadean said nothing.

"But if there's one _other_ thing that I have learned while on my travels with Kerrass it is that evil doesn't exist. Not real evil. I always knew the words in order to parrot them at my Philosophy professor, that Evil is in the eye of the beholder but until I actually got out here, I didn't _know_ that to be true. It was just words to me. Out here, I learned that bandits are often starving desperate men who do this because going home to the farm is a fate worse than they can imagine. I learned that what society deems as "monsters" are often creatures that society hasn't taken the time to try and learn to understand. I learned that, at the root of the vast majority of crime you will normally find money and jealousy. And for the rest of the crime, the big stuff like wars, the root is politics and economics."

I stopped there for a while.

"The very worst things that I've seen and the very best thing's I've seen were done in the name of religion, my religion at that. You don't know me, even if you've read my journals and my book, you don't know how much it took out of me to admit that. My faith has been a great solace to me in the past but I look at what the church has become and I no longer..." I shook my head. The words escaping me for a moment. They weren't important to what I was trying to say anyway.

"When I was young, like many in my social class, I had a nanny. I had no choice in the matter so please don't hold it against me."

"I don't."

"But she used to tell me story's when I was little. Mostly to distract me, I suspect, and those stories were always about heroes doing the right thing, saving the peasants," I felt my lips curl into a sneer, "saving the Princess and upholding truth and justice. As if both truth and justice were not subjective but that's a digression for another day. The enemy in these stories was always some kind if " _evil_ " thing. A "monster" or a "Mage" which says a lot about my nanny's politics I suppose, but they were always Evil with the appropriate capital letters.

"I was taught that those that might work against Truth and Justice and threaten the lives of my subjects were evil, baby-eating monsters and that good and noble men should hunt them down and destroy them."

I frowned as I realised that my throat was dry.

"Now I realise that evil, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. It was one of the first things that I learned on the road, one of the very first things. I still don't believe in evil."

"But." Chireadean prompted. "I know human speech patterns well enough to know that there's a "but" coming."

There was a brief pause as I considered the challenge that he was making. For some reason though I felt an edge of hilarity scrabbling at my throat

"hehe, you said butt." I giggled like a child suddenly. I suppose it was a form of exhaustion fuelled hysteria that caused the childish outburst

"Do not be childish," he scolded but I saw that he was laughing as well.

"You're right though." I told him after we calmed down. "The closest that I've ever been to seeing true evil was when I looked into the eyes of Lord Cavill and saw the things that he has done and continues to do to the people in this part of the world. My cousin was a sick, entitled fucker, there was something wrong with him. My brother was weak and fell in with the wrong crowd. This bastard though? He has chosen this. He _likes_ this. And now I need to kill him for it."

Chireadean nodded. "Other people could do it instead." He suggested.

"Yes, I admitted. Yes they could, and when it comes down to it, the chances that it will be my spear or dagger that takes his life are remote. It would be much better if he could be tried, openly and prominently, followed by a nice, public execution. But the only way that that happens is if I can get through and let the right people know."

Saying it again reminded me of how...impossible the task ahead of me was and how vitally important it was.

My exhaustion came back in a rush as though I had been hit by a tidal wave. I rested my head on the log behind me.

"We're going to need a fucking army to get him out of the mountains." I carried on. "We're then going to need another army of Inquisitors and investigators to go through the countryside to make sure that this cult of his is dead." I slapped my hand down on my knee for emphasis. I wasn't being theatrical. I was tired, angry, upset and very very frightened. "It has to be dead. We need to pull this thing out by the roots and make sure that this...this "evil", and I do not use the word lightly, can never sprout up again. Whether it was born out of Human privilege as an excuse for a powerful group of people to do whatever the hell they want to people that they saw as beneath them. Or if it was a genuine religion or cult worshipping some power or God that we've never heard of."

I found myself grinning at him sidelong as another sense of odd amusement bubbled up inside me.

"Or at least, that humanity has never heard of. I would like to think that if humanity had heard of it then I would have heard of it. I am, at least that arrogant about my education."

Chireadean said nothing.

"But regardless of that, this needs to be destroyed. Why me and not someone else? Because I know the name of the bastard. I know what he looks like and where his civilian power comes from. No-one else does. It's the first mistake that the cult has made and we need to capitalise on it. We need to make sure that my friend Taylor didn't die in vain. That all the people's deaths that have led us to this point haven't died in vain."

"What was his mistake?" Chireadean asked gently. There was something in his eyes that I didn't recognise.

"That he let _me_ go and take part in his stupid hunting ritual. He should have just cut my throat and left me to bleed out, but instead he lets me run off. Kerrass, Taylor, any of the other humans that he might have hunted through the lands, or, with respect, any of the other Elves that he might have hunted and I would guess that there's a couple of those Elves in your number, am I right?"

Chreadean said nothing but something glimmered in his eyes which told me that my guess was fairly accurate.

"If any of those people got to the authorities. Found the church of the Eternal Flame, or Kreve or whoever the fuck else there might be. Then they won't be believed. But I will be. I just need to get there and I want to get there as quick as possible to save any of the other poor fuckers that that bastard has in his cave that might be tortured in my place to quench his sick thirst. That was his mistake. He doesn't like me, fair enough, maybe he even hates me, but he should have just killed me when he had the chance. Not kept me prisoner because then I could escape or be rescued. Just a nice quick slit throat in a way that would suggest that I was robbed on the road. But instead, he made me angry and left me my weapons."

I sighed, the brief spurt of energy had left me again and I felt drained.

"So that's why it has to be me. I'm the man, because I'm the one here, with the skills, and the knowledge and the status to bring this fucker down. It might not be the first time that that has happened, that all of those factors have come together in the right order to make that happen but they clearly failed. So I must succeed. I _must._ Because otherwise, more innocent farmers and villagers will be hunted down and killed at best or tortured at worst and yes... I include the other Elves that live here, or hide in the other villages amongst the people that I have to save. Because no-one else can."

Chireadean looked at me for a long time. "You should rest. You are still tired and not entirely healthy and you need to spend a bit of time recovering at the least." He told me before another pause. "I try never to rush into a decision based on emotional impact or prejudice so I need to think about what you've told me. I will have someone bring you some food, in a little while."

I nodded and lay back down. He was right. I was, again, asleep shortly after my head was pillowed on the log.

Isn't it odd how soft the ground can be if you haven't slept for a while or when your body doesn't want to wake up in the morning?

This time, it was Kerrass that was kicking me awake before sitting opposite me with his legs crossed. He looked better than I had seen him in ages. He had some colour back, his breathing was steady and he even wore a slight smile. He seemed, comfortable in the world again. A quality of his that I hadn't missed until it had suddenly been taken away. I had become used to the long, almost languid grace of Kerrass which he had lost over our time on the run. But now he had that quality back. The sardonic and occasionally puerile sense of humour was back in his eyes.

"You look better," I commented as I levered myself up into a sitting position.

"I feel better too." He said with a happy little sigh. He still had his arms crossed in a sling in front of his chest. "Goddess Freddie but I do feel better. It's like..." He stared off into the trees for a moment as he thought. "It's like that moment when your hangover begins to recede. There is still pain and discomfort but it is, at the same time, somehow less than it was a moment earlier and you begin to know that it will all be ok soon."

I looked at him for a while. "Not gonna lie Kerrass, but you worried me for a while there."

He nodded. "I know and I'm sorry. I owe you another one.

"Give over," I told him. "How many times have you saved my life?"

I didn't give him time to recover.

"We're friends now aren't we?" I demanded.

Kerrass nodded.

"Then stop acting as though that quality is in jeopardy. I would give my life for you Kerrass, that's how this works. You owe me nothing. You would have done the same for me wouldn't you?"

"Yes." He admitted, "But I am a Witcher. It's my job to do that kind of thing. I'm used to it. Trained to it. If it had been you that had been crippled, however temporary that this will hopefully turn out to be, then I would have carried you away because that's what Witchers do. It's our duty as well as being a factor of friendship. But, you're not a Witcher Freddie. You're a fighter, yes, but the best thing for you to do would have been to leave me there and run for it."

I opened my mouth to protest but he held up a finger to prevent me from speaking. "And before you start, no. Just, our being friends, is not a reason that would motivate the vast majority of people in the world. There is a significant truth to be admitted that if you had left me behind, that you would already be safe in Ariadne's arms and the armies of Nilfgaard and the church would be tearing the countryside apart even now."

"You're assuming that I wouldn't be crippled by guilt or regret."

"Which is the thing that makes you rare Freddie, even now. I am grateful, don't get me wrong but I cannot lie. I think you made the wrong choice." He stared at me for a long time. "That saddens me a little, that I would think that you made the wrong choice and it is something that I need to think about."

I shifted a little in discomfort.

"How're your arms?" I asked, more for something to say rather than anything else.

He brightened instantly. Slowly, he raised his right arm and lifted both arms out of the sling and waved them about for emphasis.

"Better." He said. "Not _better,_ but better." He slid the arms back into the sling. "The Elves had some strong alcohol sitting around the place and they were good enough to let me tell them what to do to brew some potions and elixirs out of it which means that I'm on the mend. Don't get me wrong, The bones are still very weak..."

"Well, that's what happens when you let someone shatter them with a Warhammer. Careless of you Kerrass, very careless."

For a moment, I was worried that I had gone too far and that he wouldn't appreciate the teasing nature of the joke but he chuckled.

"You are not wrong. I should have seen that coming really but still. I've had broken bones before. Just not in such a time of crisis. It's still going to be weeks before I can pick up one of my swords, let alone before I can get my arms back to where they need to be in order to function in the way that I want them to be. But at least I can feed myself and wipe my own arse now."

"Good. Not a memory that I'm going to cherish,"

"No," he shuddered theatrically.

We sat in silence for a bit. I was worried. I felt as though something had come between us and I didn't like it very much.

"Kerrass?" I began. "You know that I have questions. About what was wrong with you towards the end of things before the Elves found us"

"I know." He told me. "And I will tell you everything I promise. When I'm feeling a bit more like myself. As I say, I feel like I'm coming out of a long dark tunnel. I can see the light at the end of it but I'm not quite there yet."

He stared at a point on the ground in front of him.

"I will go into more detail at a future point but the long and short of it is..." He raised his eyes to meet mine. "I was losing my mind. I once told you that Cat Witchers often suffer psychoses and that I was one of the lucky ones. That I only suffered from bouts of depression."

"As I recall you once joked about hearing voices."

"Yes." He chuckled. "Yes I did didn't I. Heh." Again, the staring into space. I was beginning to realise that he still wasn't quite right. As he said, " _better_ , but not better."

"Well," he went on. "I lied. I _wasn't_ one of the lucky ones."

He looked away from me.

"I am not proud of keeping this from you Freddie, you have never betrayed my trust, either in this or in any of the other little things that I have told you. You have put up with me when many people would have cast me aside and no-one, least of all me, would have blamed you for doing so."

I was struggling to think about what to do. It didn't even occur to me to reject him. But I got the feeling that he was telling me something that no-one else knew about him. That no-one else had ever been told. There was a certain amount of solemnity about this and I wanted to treat it with the dignity that it deserved. I decided that silence was the best option here and did my best to keep my face still. I didn't want him to see anything that he might misunderstand in my expression.

"But..." He seemed to grit his teeth. "But, I was losing my mind over those last few days. I was weak. Injured. I felt useless and entirely dependent on you...I was hungry and thirsty because I didn't want you to be feeding me. I was angry with you for not leaving me behind and I disagreed with almost every decision that you made when we were running. You got us here but my brain, even now, is rebelling at the fact that you did that.

"All of this and I was without my elixirs and my...my grip on reality started to slip away."

Reading this you might be left with the impression that he said this quickly. That the words came out of him clearly and with conviction. But you would be wrong. That little speech took a long time. A long time and it cost him. I think it cost him a lot. He was breathing heavily by the time he was done. Gasping for breath.

"As I say Freddie," He told me when he got his breath back. "I will tell you everything. I promise. It's my last secret, the last thing that you don't know and I will tell you. Just...I can't...Not yet anyway, when I'm stronger I will tell you everything in detail. When I'm more sure that it's me speaking and that I'm alone inside my own head. When I'm sure that my thoughts are my own The outline of it was that the mutations that they subjected me to sent me mad. Full on, barking at the moon, howling mad. If I was given the chance, I would have torn at the raw flesh of my victims. With my teeth. I was everything that the common folk say about Cat Witchers. Everything."

He seemed to have stopped.

"But you got better Kerrass."

"I did. By the time we're done. I will tell you how I did it. But not now. Not here."

"Fair enough Kerrass. I'm your friend and I hope that you know that nothing you can tell me will change that."

He looked at me sharply as though he didn't believe me and I felt the need to clarify.

"If this happened to you as the result of the mutations that were done to you then this is not your fault. It was something that was done to you and I can't hate you for that. I won't pressure you either. When you want to talk, then I will listen. I will even keep it to myself and not publish it if you want. But, can I just ask a question?"

He laughed and I could see a bit of his old sElf returning. "You wouldn't be _you_ if you didn't have questions."

I smiled to let him know that I took the joke.

"Why not now?" I asked him. "Is it just your physical strength? If you don't want to answer that's fine but..."

He waved me off.

"It's not that." He considered this for a moment. "It's partly that. I'm also still getting back into the elixirs. They help with it, that's part of the reason that I take them every day. It's only partially to do with being a Witcher. But a lot of Witchers will just start taking them on a build up to a hunt. I do that too but the stuff I take every day. That's to help me keep a grip on my sanity."

"I didn't know you took them every day."

He smiled again. "You've commented in your journals, quite often in fact, that I sometimes go off by myself for training and a bit of solitude. I take the elixirs then and meditate on my mental state. As well as training."

I nodded and went to turn away, I don't know what I was going to do. Crack a joke, adjust my posture or what but Kerrass wasn't done.

"I promised you the truth Freddie. So here's the other reason other than my personal well-being, physical and mental." He waited a moment. "The other reason is that _she_ might hear me. And we have enough going on here without having to worry about _her_ as well."

"Who is _she_?" I asked. The last time I heard you talking like that, you were talking about the Princess Dorn in her sleeping state.

" _She,_ the thing that I'm referring to, ismy Goddess." He said simply. "Yes, I don't worship Melitele or Freyja or anyone else. I don't say her name as to say her name is to summon her gaze and I am not strong enough for that."

"We could do with the help Kerrass."

He laughed. He actually laughed. "You're assuming, of course that _she_ would be on _our_ side."

I didn't know what to say to that. I was rescued by Chireadean walking up. He had two plates with some hard cheeses, a bit more bread and a large pile of greens.

"You two finished kissing and making up?" he asked with one of his slyer smiles.

"Mostly," I told him, winking at Kerrass. "We've still got some stuff to work out but..." I looked off into the distance, gurning my face into an expression of wistful and optimistic hope. "We'll get there."

Chreadean laughed and handed us a plate each.

"So," He said, sitting down at the third point of the triangle between the two of us. "I'm not convinced yet. Nor am I convinced about how we can, or how we _should_ help you beyond feeding you and helping you to recover your strength. All I know is that you can't stay here indefinitely. They might be spread thin but the bastards do have access to a couple of trackers with some real talent. Just not that many. But eventually they will find you which means that they will find us and the fact that we helped you and we cannot afford that."

"What's your relationship with them?" Kerrass was wearing his Witcher persona again. But this time I could see it for a mask and a cloak that he had pulled about himself. It was the difference between an actor playing a tough guy on stage, versus an actual tough guy. Chireadean seemed to buy it though, he grimaced.

"It's complicated. They know we're here and there's some evidence that they allow it, or tolerate it. It seems to amuse them to have us running around the place, relying on the charity of the common-folk like the beggars that we are. I suppose that it plays into their love of torture and belittling people, that the prideful Elves are forced to subsist off human charity."

"Is it that torturous?" I asked. More out of curiosity than anything else.

"It can be," Chreadean admitted. Those of us who know and understand more about humans can see it for the charity and occasional kindness that it often is, whereas those that were taken as slaves and were abused as that same, tend to get angry at it. They tend to see it as a kind of insult and I can't really blame them either." He snorted. "Pride. Pride is the besetting sin of our race and if we're not careful then it will be the death of us as well."

Kerrass and I said nothing. Chireadean was staring into space for a moment before he kind of shook himself and started talking again.

"But the other thing that we're useful for, from their perspective is that they use us for practice."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, when there aren't political prisoners like yourself for them to chase across the countryside, or human transgressors that they don't like the look of ,or who have broken their many and convoluted laws to use for their hunts and so that they can get their rocks off. You know, when there aren't any spare farmers daughters for them to rape to death. They come and get an Elf."

He said that last bitterly.

I struggle with Elves. I have never known many and those that I _have_ known have been of the kind of Elves that have amalgamated with human society, or are no longer pure-blooded. The kinds of men, and women who are basically human in their behaviour but are slighter of build with pointed ears. As such, I've never really thought about what kind of things that they go through on a daily basis. Chreadean's earlier accusations of racism had hurt a little bit as I rather thought that I wasn't too bad on that regard.

I don't hate Elves. I would certainly never call for them to be hung from the nearest tree as some of my fellows and acquaintances have. But then I was brought up to believe that you needed to be polite to everyone and to treat people with respect despite what I might think of them personally.

As I write this, I'm kind of struggling to articulate how I feel on this subject so please bear with me.

There have always been greater problems for me to deal with when it comes to the prejudices that I had trained into me from a young age. The problems that came with being who I am, the family that I was born into and the social class that came with that. Going out into the world I have had to train myself to get over many of these things. The one that comes to mind the most often is my behaviour towards what my father would call "The lower classes," or what the other members of my social strata would refer to as "peasants".

As I have said before I have worked hard to get over this prejudice, to see the people that work the fields and in the warehouses for who they are rather than as a collective of people that I am better than.

Similarly the woeful inadequacy of the word "Monster." Like "peasant" it is pitifully unsuitable to properly describe what is actually out there as well as often being inaccurate. Most people use the word to describe anything that isn't covered by the terms "Human" or "Non-human" which they tend to define as being dwarves, Elves, Halflings and gnomes. But again, I have found some humans that have been more "Monstrous" than some "monsters" that roam the world.

Indeed, I am in love with and marrying someone who, once upon a time, I would have described as a monster.

I appreciate that I may have gone over these topics of conversation before.

But I had never seen the way I treated towards Elves as a problem. Or Dwarves for that matter. I've only met the odd Halfling in passing and have never seen a gnome or a Werebubb. Let alone a Vran.

So when Chireadean confronted me with the sentiment about my family never having hired an Elf for a job, let alone a servant on the grounds that it would endanger our standing and put us at risk from enemies that would use that to turn _those_ elements of the church...that I will admit, still exist, against us. For fear of being labelled "non-human" lovers.

Which I am. I love me my dark, terrifying and endearing non-human fiancée. But I'd somehow got the feeling that this meant that I was ok. That I wasn't prejudiced.

I'm still not entirely convinced that his attitude and his accusations were entirely fair or unfair.

But. The thing that I do not understand and I suppose that I can never understand is what it's actually like to be a non-human. Chireadean would argue that, although I didn't agree with my friends that non-humans are scum and need to be strung up by the side of the road, what I _should_ have done was call them out for being the racist fucks that they undoubtedly are.

But I didn't do that. Because, what would it have achieved?

And I suspect that that is the real evil here. That is the real _wrong_ and I suspect that I am on the wrong side here.

I don't know the answer and it's something that I'm going to continue to think about over time. I _do_ know that I certainly intend to make sure that Ariadne and I allow Elves and Dwarves and Halflings and whoever else wants to come and work on our land will be more than welcome.

For all I know she already has ideas in that direction. For all I know, she's already hiring rock trolls to build some of the out buildings.

"They come and get an Elf." Chireadean was saying. "They always seem to know where we are,"

"The mage," Kerrass muttered to me. "Another man that needs to die."

Chireadean either hadn't heard him or ignored him.

"They ride through camp like the wind and pluck one of us from the ground, slinging them over the back of their horses. Covering us in that awful poison that they throw out so that we can barely see, let alone fight back. I mean, our elder blood means that we can handle that stuff better than how some of the other humans handle it, but it's no joke."

"Do they pick out an Elf at random or do they have a specific target." Kerrass asked.

Chreadean shrugged and raised his hands in the eternal sign of a man who has no clue.

Kerrass and I exchanged glances. "So here's my question and I'm sorry if this is a further insult." I told the Elf. "But why do you stay here? You seem like a rational man," I frowned as I heard myself speak. "Elf...Whatever...So why haven't you and your people taken to your heels and fled." He opened his mouth to speak and I held my hand up to stop him mid-flow "And before you speak, you are not going to convince me that you're not in charge here. You might not have any kind of official title like "War leader" or anything else that might be used in that direction but I bet, I would bet money if I had any, that if you said something, or told them to do something, then they would do it. Wouldn't they?"

Chireadean said nothing.

"They might not like you." I told him. "They might even hate you a little bit, but they follow where you lead." I was watching him carefully. "So why don't you lead them elsewhere?"

"It's not as simple as that." The Elf said. He was looking uncomfortable.

"It never is." Kerrass told him.

"So talk to us." I said. "We might need your help now and it might not seem as though we can do much for you, but give us a chance. What's going on here? Why don't you just tell them all to go somewhere else?"

"Because they won't." Chreadean said after a long while. "That's the difference here. No matter how gently I suggested it. No matter how carefully I word it or how well I speak. They will never leave this place. And I find that I can't just leave them to it. I can't desert them now to the whims of this...your are quite right Lord Frederick. I can't leave them to this evil. I've even tried, several times. Take some human clothes, walk off for a couple of weeks, maybe a month. Even if I can't find a job, it's not that hard to get a living of some kind. But I come back here because I can't stop thinking about what these other Elves are going through and all the different ways that I could be helping them."

"So why don't they leave?"

He laughed. I certainly wasn't expecting that and he stared at me for a long time before he scratched the side of his head in thought.

"Have you ever been to a place in Kaedwen, I think it's called Ard Clairen?"

"No I haven't." I told him.

"I have." Kerrass said, to no-one's surprise. "Small place in Kaedwen, up against the mountains. Large church as I recall."

"It would have to. Have you at least heard of it Lord Frederick?"

"I can't say that I have."

He made a face, "I'm not all _that_ surprised if I'm honest." The Elf told me. "It's fairly remote, up against the mountains as your Witcher companion says and it's importance is played down by the rest of the church of eternal Flame, as the reliquaries are kept in the Cathedral in Novigrad. The great stone coffin that is supposed to contain the earthly remains of the Saint."

I laughed in sudden realisation. "Your talking about the place where St Lebioda was killed by the dragon."

"I am. Although saying that he was killed by the dragon is a little extreme in my opinion. To my mind, it was much closer to a suicide if you walk up to an angry dragon without arms or armour and politely ask it to stop chewing on the sheep of the local shepherds."

For those people who don't know the story, briefly it goes like this. Famous holy man and general wise person St Lebioda the Prophet was travelling through the continent, preaching his good works when he came to Kaedwen.

Please understand that I am generalising for our foreign readership as most people in Novigrad and Oxenfurt already know the story.

But he was in Kaedwe,n trying to get people to be nice to each other, when he was approached by some villagers who asked for his help in getting rid of a dragon that was chewing up their daughters and livestock. Although the more historical version that I read suggested that the farmers were more interested in saving their livestock than their daughters and still another account suggested that the Kaedweni nobility were trying to arrange matters so that what happened, actually happened. This being because, at the time, they didn't like people walking around telling folk how to live their lives according to the will of the Holy Flame rather than the will of their proper societal betters.

But I digress.

Naturally, the Prophet agreed to help and went with the villagers to where the dragon was flying around and doing the general terrorising. Praying to the Holy Flame which he absolutely expected to keep him safe, the Prophet went out to confront the dragon and banish it with the power of prayer and faith.

According to legend, the Dragon demonstrated what it thought of the word of the Flame and ate the prophet whole to the rejoicing of the local nobility.

According to that same legend the Prophet's followers tracked the Dragon for some miles, scooping up the dragon's dropping so that they could properly recover the mortal remains of the Saint. These remains are now kept in the tomb that was built for him in the Novigrad cathedral.

If you turn up on holy days, or pay the priests there enough money, they will take out the reliquaries so that you can kiss them.

For more information on the subject as well as analysis of the history around the subject of the Prophet, who was undoubtedly a good and holy man, if a little naïve about the nature of dragons, then I recommend "The life and death of the Prophet Lebioda. An examination of the history rather than the legend." By Professor Tigismund of Oxenfurt.

"I've been there a couple of times." Chireadean told us. "I actually quite like it there. I see it as a kind of monument to human optimism. You can see that the Kaedweni, and maybe even the church of Kreve tried to turn it into a new religious centre for the veneration of the prophet and the Holy Fire so as to leech off some of the power and influence of Novigrad, but the village is just that little bit too remote, that little bit too far off the beaten track for people to actively be attracted to going there.

"Having said that, there is a small group of worshippers there. Did you meet them when you went there Kerrass?"

"I didn't." The Witcher answered. "I was in the region for another reason and the holy men were not really interested in speaking to a mutant freak and as such, I wasn't well disposed to meeting them either."

Chireadean grinned.

"As Kerrass says. There is a small group of Worshippers. They claim to be descendants of the Prophet himself although every story I ever heard about his was that he was celibate and actually not that fond of women. When I countered them with that, then they claimed all kinds of nonsense but I suspect that some of the Prophet's followers stayed after he died while the..." he cleared his throat. "The remains were carried off to Novigrad. They couldn't bear to be taken away you see. They couldn't bear to leave the place where their master, where their _teacher_ had died. Even when Redania rolled over them in the recent wars, I'm told that they stayed there and that they died there such was their devotion to the memory of that one holy man."

I smiled a little myself. I had been eating while the Elf spoke and so I had to swallow when Chireadean had finished.

"So the point of that little story is?" I prompted.

"You know what the point of the story is Lord Frederick." Chireadean chided gently.

"Yes, but I want to hear it in your words. So many mistakes in the recording of this kind of thing happen because people put words into the mouths of the people that they are talking too."

The Elf considered this. "You are probably right." He admitted. "The others won't leave here. This is place is...holy to them. It's probably as close as any of them will get to a home."

I had a mouthful of greenery so I was grateful that Kerrass asked the obvious question.

"Why?" He asked simply.

Chireadean sighed. He seemed to be doing that a lot. "It's a long story but I can see why it might be useful to you." But then he stopped speaking again.

"Is it to do with this cult that Lord Cavill follows?" I prompted again, trying to keep the conversation going.

"Partially," He seemed to shake himself free. "But it's more to do with...Forgive me. I'm struggling to think of where to begin."

"At the beginning generally." Kerrass tried to joke.

"Ah, but where do things begin? Where do they end? Does anything truly begin." Chireadean said with a slightly mocking version of his regular smile.

"Fuck off." Kerrass told him flatly. "Goddess but talking to you is almost as bad as talking to him." He nodded in my direction.

"Some people in the camp would take that as an insult." Chireadean said. "Not me though. I think...Yes, I think I will take that as a compliment."

"Don't," Kerrass told him flatly.

We sat in silence for a while as Chireadean considered a way to start his story. I took the opportunity to eat the food that he had given me, possibly a little too fast for the fact that I was still recovering from a period of borderline starvation but the scholar's instinct that I was about to be told something important was on me. Something that I would need to remember.

Kerrass seemed to share my opinion but he took a slightly more measured approach to swallowing the food. Partially due to the fragile nature of his arms but I also saw him gingerly taking a swig from one of the bottles at his belt before I carefully looked away. Not that he won't have seen me but I thought he might appreciate knowing that I didn't care about what potions that he was taking.

"How much do you know about Elven history?" Chireadean asked suddenly.

"Not enough," I responded promptly, and I meant it. "Not by choice I should say but, funnily enough, few Elven historians want to come and lecture at Oxenfurt."

Chireadean smiled as I had hoped he would.

"Then I will assume that you know as little about Ancient Elven culture then. That's not a criticism. Despite my current circumstances, I was born and raised as a city Elf so what I know now are things that my parents taught me as bed time stories. As well as the kinds of things that I've picked up from my comrades in arms and others as well."

He stared off into space. I guessed that he was watching some kind of memory from long ago. It is, often, a mistake to interrupt a man when he has that look on him.

"Do you know about the Conjunction of spheres?"

"I do," I said. "It's that method by which the monsters on the continent came here. Also, probably, humanities route to this world if not this particular part of it. That's a simplification of it as well."

Kerrass nodded as I spoke.

"One of the overwhelming ironies of Elven life," Chireadean began, "is that we too, are strangers to this world. One of the things that makes me laugh in my darker, more cynical moments is that every sin that we accuse humanity of, we are guilty of that same.

"I have heard many theories about where the Elves come from." He went on. "Many many theories including the possibility that we are also refugees that came here through the same conjunction of spheres that brought humanity, vampires and the other monstrous people to this place. I have also heard the theory, that is given more weight considering relatively recent events, that there have been many conjunctions over the millennia and that, even if we did not come here through _that_ one, we came here through one of those conjunctions.

"But regardless of how we got here, we know that we are not native to this world. We are colonists, refugees... Invaders. Just as the early humans were and like humanity we came here by boat. Our stories tell of a large fleet of white ships that carried us from heavens know where and we landed on these shores and decided, in our infinite and boundless wisdom, that this place was good and that we could build a home here."

"You sound almost cynical about those early Elves." Kerrass commented. I almost resented the interruption though as I was rather caught up in the story.

"A little," Chireadean admitted. "The course that they lay for the future of the Elven people is part of the reason that we are in so much trouble today."

Again, he went into a kind of trance which, if he were human, I would have thought that he was caught up in his memories or putting his words in the right order.

"The thing that you have to remember about that earliest incarnation of Elven society, all of those centuries ago, was that their overwhelming drive was towards perfection. That was their ideal and everything that they strove towards. They built their cities in the most "perfect" places where "perfect" is defined as being the most practical but also the most beautiful places. Near water, near pastoral land but also in areas of outstanding natural beauty."

"The people that live in Novigrad might disagree about the natural beauty part." Kerrass commented.

For those people that don't know, the majority of the larger cities on the continent were built on the ruins of Elven civilisation. This includes Novigrad, Oxenfurt, Vizima, Ban Ard and many many more. Vengerberg is another example as is the palace in Toussaint. Sorry, but humanity is not _that_ good at architecture.

"And the Elven contingent would argue that that lowering of standards was brought about by human industry and farming methods." Chireadean countered with a smile. "But still, that was what they were about. They would discard, weeks or months of work if it was found to be faulty in some way. Humanity would fix the problem, the Elves would simply destroy the entire thing and start again. Everything was about striving towards that abstract concept of perfection. Even when perfection is subjective as in the case of physical beauty.

"As well as this, they drove away and destroyed anything that did not fit with this ideal of perfection. This is most notable in the case of the Vran and the Werbubbs. Humanity shares the blame for the, all but extinction of the Werebubb race with us but the Vran? That was mostly on us which is why I find myself unable to share my fellows hatred of humanity. Everything that humanity does or did to drive the Elves to the brink of destruction, we did first to the Vran and, looking back, we did it because they are not good to look at. They did not share our aesthetic tastes and resisted the changes that we made to the surroundings in the name of "perfection".

"But there were some areas that we did not go to. Some areas that those ancient Elves simply had nothing to do with, although we were more than capable of going wherever we wished and doing whatever we wished. This area?" He waved his arms expansively to illustrate his point. "This area up against the mountains between the river and the passes was one of the areas that those ancient Elves didn't go into.

"Why?" He asked his own question, pre-empting my follow up. "I'm afraid that I don't know for sure. All I can confirm for certain is the follow up. They put up, almost a warning fence. The same way that humans do when there's a deserted building that will probably fall down in the near future. They put a sign on the door saying something like "condemned" without actually doing anything about it other than watching it rot. Sometimes this is because the place is haunted and they spend weeks, _not_ hiring a Witcher to exorcise the thing which would mean that the building is available to be used again.

"But instead, they just leave it there to moulder, to fall into ruin and, in many cases, to let the problem get worse, to move from a state when the problem could have been easily dealt with to a state where it's almost impossible to find a solution, for instance, the way that they ignored the problem of humanity's expansion until long after anything could have been done about it. If they had sorted the problem out when humans had first landed here, negotiating from a position of strength, then maybe our peoples would have found a better way to coexist rather than attack and hate each other."

"I doubt it," Kerrass interrupted again.

"I agree." Chireadean nodded after a moment. "I think that the Elves were too proud and the humans too determined. It would have meant a war that may have wiped both of us out. But that failure to do anything about things at the beginning, when more and more humans were landing on our shores, is the reason that the Elves are in the state that they're in at the moment. Another reason why I find that I have relatively little sympathy for their, for _our_ , current plight."

He began to go into another one of his trances but then he shook himself. "I am getting off track. You wanted to know the story of what happened here from the Elven perspective, not the failings of the Elven race."

"Even though that topic is quite interesting."

Chireadean grinned nastily. "Quite."

"My point was that this place made those ancient Elves uncomfortable. I don't know why but we know that this happens because, no matter how hard you try, there is absolutely no sign of any kind of Elven influence anywhere in this place. There are signs of Elven culture in the Skelligan islands but not here. Here there is nothing. They didn't like it so they never came here."

"But they came here eventually?" I prompted. "The Elves did come here eventually otherwise you wouldn't be here yourself."

"Correct. I'm just getting to that though, patience Lord Frederick. This is what the Elves of this area believe happened. I emphasise that I am not as convinced as they are. But this is what I was told when I got here. The short version of the story is that someone came here to combat whatever was wrong with the area. I have no idea who this person was or what he was doing here. But this is where he came. This is the story of who the Elves believe that was."

He took a deep breath.

"As I say, the Ancient Elves valued perfection over all things. That was the thing that they valued and they really put their money where their mouths were. People who were physically perfect were the people with power and influence. It seems stupid when you think about it because surely, in a society that values perfection above all others then somewhere there would be a "perfect" ruler. That person would be wise and intelligent in order to implement laws and issue declarations. They would be fair and kind so that Justice and things would be even-handed. But no, the Elves valued physical perfection above all things."

"That sounds..." I began but I shook my head as words failed me.

"It is no accident that Francesca Findabair, the most beautiful and perfect looking woman in the world is also the Queen of the Elves." Chireadean said with a smirk. "A holdover from our oldest traditions I suspect. Although opinions about her perfection have shifted since her being found to be in league with Nilfgaard and her throwing the Elven Commando's to the wolves after the second war. But that's a story for a different day."

"Another one of many," I said.

"As you say.

"But if you think about it for any longer you start to realise that people who are all, universally, hunting down that elusive quality "Perfection" don't need that much ruling. The builders and the architects are looking for perfection and people who want to live in the perfect city are going to want to help them achieve that vision. The perfect thinkers are working away, along with the perfect artists and the perfect philosophers as well as the perfect warriors. We were few enough in number that the land easily provided us with everything that we needed in order to survive so all the King had to do really was make sure that the artists with conflicting views of perfection would chill their shit down and not come to blows.

"But also he, or she to be fair, was also in charge of making sure that those areas of the world that were not perfect would get that way when we wanted them too.

"Hence the problem with the Vran. Calling it a war is a little ambitious, more a series of skirmishes followed by massacres as the Vran, were not particularly war-like. They mostly fled the superior Elven weapons and techniques of war but occasionally they would fight back and things might go badly. In this instance, the King, being the "perfect" King would be leading his troops and it would occasionally transpire that the King would fall in battle. So far so normal.

"But...It would also be true that just because someone "fell" in battle, it didn't necessarily mean that the King was dead. What it would mean was that the King was injured or crippled. The word that those Elves used to use was "Scarred" and to be a King, you had to be perfect. Therefore a scarred, "imperfect" Elf could never be King. This spread so that "scarred and imperfect" Elves could not take part in the Elven "Perfect" society as they would be a blemish to everyone else."

"Seems a bit harsh." I commented.

"And, luckily for many modern Elves, no longer that enforceable. Now our blemishes and our..."scars" take on different forms. It is this that keeps people like us away from the homeland. It is self-imposed as much as it is imposed on us by the will of the people that we would serve.

"But anyway.

"The wounded King would be thanked for his contribution to society and he would then leave. There would be a funeral, a memory, even statues would be crafted but the truth was that the Elf in question was dead and he would be recorded as such.

"What this means is that we have no idea who it really was that came here and started to put his stamp on the world.

"This will have been after the Conjunction but well before the first landing at the mouth of the Pontar. There is no way of knowing why he came here either but there are some indications that he found it a fitting place to be. Here he was, a crippled King, forced into exile and so he went to a place where he would never mar the world that the Elves were trying to build. He would not ruin that perfection so he gathered a lot of those people who had, like him, suffered from mishaps during the various combats with the Vran and went to those parts of the continent that the other Elves didn't want to have anything to do with."

"Like here."

"Indeed. What he found was the primitive humans. I say primitive but that's possibly a bit unfair. They were certainly well capable of crafting menhirs and building standing stones and circles in places of magical significance."

"You're talking about the Dauk," I put in.

"Yes. As you probably know, they settled far to the North shortly after the conjunction but, for whatever reason, they died out relatively quickly. Giving the rest of the Elves the mistaken belief that humanity was just a passing phase that would soon die out when they landed on the Pontar."

"Just because something was always true doesn't meant it will always be true." Kerrass told him.

"As you say." Chireadean said, his smile faltered at the thought before starting up again. "But since I come here I occasionally entertain myself by imagining what those ancient and relatively primitive humans must have thought of the Elven King's arrival."

"Wait a minute." I interrupted. "Wouldn't the King have wanted to stay with his people. Casting someone out for the dubious crime of no longer looking quite as perfect seems a little harsh. He would still have skills and knowledge and experience for his successors to draw on."

"Which is a human way of thinking." Chireadean told me. "You are right of course but the truth is that he probably left without much of a fuss. Perfection and the pursuit of it was the reason that the Elves existed. It was their reason for being, so suddenly _not_ being perfect but still being surrounded by that same perfection was unbearable to him. There is also the rather unfair factor that anything that he said, did or advised would be tarnished. It couldn't be perfect or that good advice because he failed after all. He was now scarred and therefore his rulership couldn't have been perfect because it had resulted in him being scarred. His skills and knowledge and...what was it you said?"

"His experience,"

"That's right, that too, would be ignored as being imperfect and tarnished."

"Despite everything that he might have done?" Kerrass seemed as horrified by the prospect as I was.

Chireadean said nothing for a long time before taking a deep breath. "One of the problems that I have in understanding my own people is that I can see your problems with this philosophy but I can also see why the Elves of Dol Blathanna feel the way that they do and behave the way that they do. That is _my_ flaw, my scar if you will."

"But you could advise them on how humanity works."

"Yes, yes I could. But they would never accept that knowledge"

I just stared at him for a while. He agreed with me. He clearly did but at the same time it wasn't something that he could get past.

"Sorry," I sad after a long while. "I've distracted us all from the point."

"Yes, well. So anyway. As I say, when I want a bit of a smile I like to think about what those, so called, primitive humans thought about the Elven King arriving with his followers. He would still have been beautiful of face, graceful, charming, commanding with followers that were similar. I imagine their faces, trying to reconcile what they were seeing with what their experiences were.

"We _know_ that there weren't any humans here when the Elves first came to this part of the world and found it flawed. We also know that by the time the Elves came back, led by this fallen King, that the humans that _did_ live here were in dire straights. This was because they had caught the eye of...something. What this thing was, we don't know and we still don't know what it was, or is."

He lapsed into thought for a while. This time I had the wit to not interrupt his thought process.

"I don't like using grand words in general so I'm not going to call this, whatever it was, a God. I liked your brother's description of the way that the world works Lord Frederick, when he was describing the patterns of influence by the various powers that influence and shape the world. So let's call this thing a power. What was it? This is where we're starting to get theoretical again.

"There has always been a small collective of Elves here. It is a place of exile, for those people who are flawed. Never many and some are descended from those people that followed the Crippled King into these lands but even more so are attracted to come here when they have failed in other aspects of life or they have been crippled. We never write anything down because we don't want that kind of permanence. We don't want to record our failures..."

He held his hand up to forestall me. "I know, I know, not failures then. More like...We don't want to record our imperfections. So a lot of what happened there has been passed down in a more aural tradition but without the enforced accuracy that the Skelligan bards use to preserve their ancient songs. So here's what I think happened given what we now know of the world with modern and magical science.

"We know, because extremely wise people tell us so, that the Conjunction of spheres opened rifts all over the continent. Out of which spilled various creatures. For instance, the vampire race turned up, mostly in what is now Toussaint. That several versions of humanity turned up all over the place. We also know that these portals came from many different places. So my theory is that a portal opened to somewhere else.

"I stress that this is just a theory. Unless a Wizard or Sorceress actually turned up to study the area, I doubt that we will find out for sure."

He seemed to consider something for a moment, "although that might not be the greatest idea, but still.

"As I say, I think a portal opened in this area and it opened to a place where another "power", as your brother put it, lived. I think that that power looked through the portal and saw our world but for whatever reason it was unable to come through. Maybe size is a factor, maybe there are elements about our world or our version of existence that would make it impossible for it to come here, or to survive here but, it doesn't come through the portal. But it is able to exert an influence over the area. To leave a piece of itself here so that it can still see through from wherever it still is to here so that it can guide people into doing what it wanted.

"I have no idea how intelligent this thing was, maybe this is an instinctual process rather than because of some kind of intelligent plan but regardless of this, the being exerted it's influence and required feeding for some reason.

"What that reason is is a way that I fuel my nightmares and avoid thinking about for any length of time if I can avoid it.

"But the method of feeding this...this being, is by virtue of extreme sensation."

"Fucking hell." I breathed. "Cavill's God is real."

"Oh yes," Chireadean agreed. "Very real. As I say, something primal in me refuses to accept that it's a God but it is certainly very real. It is fed by extremes of pleasure and pain primarily and, humanity being what it is, pain is the thing that humanity is better at causing. They are not alone in that before you leap down my throat."

"No," I said. "It's not an entirely unfair declaration. A little unfair but not entirely so."

Chireadean smiled genuinely.

"So anyway," he continued. "I theorise that it was this presence that the Elves felt when they got here that made them feel uncomfortable. We now know that Conjunctions have happened more than once and will likely happen again at some point in the future, so I think that this portal that allowed this being to get a toe-hold here happened in one of the ancient conjunctions and it was this presence that the ancient Elves felt which made them discard the area. But when humans came here, there was suddenly a food source and it started to gain in strength and influence.

"But then the Elves came, following their wounded King."

"Hold on," I said, laughing suddenly. "Is this a story about how the Elves turned up and saved the day. Is that what's going on here?"

Chireadean stared at me before abruptly seeing the funny side and joining me in laughter. "Pretty much." He agreed.

"Despite being scarred and injured, the King and his followers were still powerful Elves. Still wise, strong and with access to a magic that modern magic users would find bewildering. Including Queen Francesca. Using these powers and these skills, the Elves were able to liberate those early humans from the...well, the slavery that they were under so that they could carry on with their lives. I would like to think that they did this out of hope. I would like to think that they did these things in order to help those early humans and to ensure their survival. Maybe in gratitude for some unnamed service.

"What is more likely though is that those ancient Elves were still in the habit of ruler-ship and arrogant superiority and helped the humans because they were looking for someone to look after. A people to rule. Another likely feeling is that they saw that this power would, if unchecked, become a threat to the greater Elven nation. But for whatever reason the Elves and the humans worked together to push back the influence of the Power into safe background levels. They taught the people how to seal up the holes through which the Power's influence could come through and showed them how to maintain those seals."

"The King's name was Crom Cruarch." Kerrass said with a kind of depressed, dawning understanding. The kind of tone of voice and expression that suggests that he should have seen the thing coming.

"Close," Chireadean said with a smile. "That's a corruption of the Dauk name for him meaning "The Crooked Man of the Mound". The closest to the correct pronunciation that I can get is "Fear Crom a 'Mhùnd" although I don't know where the "Cruarch" part of that comes from. The people round here have certainly adopted him in that spirit though. I wonder what he would think, of being thought of as a God.

"I've never met a person yet," I began, "who would have taken kindly to being referred to as a God."

"Maybe," The Elf said. "But then again, you never met an ancient Elf."

"You don't seem to like your forebears very much." Kerrass face was unreadable. His old Witcher face.

"No," Chireadean agreed. "I don't like their lack of humility. I think that it was this quality of theirs that is going to be the death of us. If they could only have seen the threat for what it was and treated the humans with the respect that they deserved then..."

He shrugged. "But I am treading over old ground here."

We nodded, I felt my brain turning this information over, looking at it from all of the different angles that there could be. Looking at how that information could be used to our advantage. The problem was, that although it provided valuable context to the overall situation. I wasn't sure that it helped us any. I did consider whether the existence, or possible existence of any dark God or power might be usable to turn anyone over to our side but I dismissed that theory almost as soon as it occurred. The people that we were dealing with were already fanatics. They already thought that they were serving some kind of Godhead so it was unreasonable to assume that my simply telling them that the Godhead that they were serving was evil would sway them any.

As it was, this new theory, by Chireadean's own admission was almost impossible to prove.

"So this Elven King..."Kerrass was beginning a question.

"Former king," Chireadean corrected.

"Whatever...He turns up, presumably figures out how to prevent this from happening and teaches the locals how to keep that going?"

"Yes."

"That's what all these symbols are about? The holy places that they've shown us and things like that."

"Yes, I think so."

"Where all the sacrifices were carried out?"

I finally saw where Kerrass was going with this.

"Yes."

There was a long pause as Kerrass worked through the implications of this. I, however, wanted to have some of this take place out in the open. "They were sacrificing children in those places." I said with a certain amount of horror.

Chireadean wouldn't look at me. He nodded.

"Flame above and below me." I swore. "The cure is worse than the disease. They think, they still think that they are making these sacrifices to some kind of God. They think that your Elven King was a God."

"Look..." He sensed my rising outrage, I think, and wanted to head me off before I lost my temper. It was a noble effort.

"Why would they think that?" I ask him. "Did they struggle when he started asking them to sacrifice their children. Did he force them to do it?"

"They were a relatively primitive people..." He protested.

"True or False Chireadean. The Elves still think of us as a primitive people?"

Chireadean said nothing and I took a few deep breaths.

"So he taught them these rituals," I said after forcing mysElf to calm down. "They were designed to keep the influence of this thing at bay?"

"I believe so yes. As I say, I get this from word of mouth. It's legend more than it is fact or recorded history."

"That's not as reassuring as you might think. If you suggest that the solution to the problem is that the rituals need to step up their vehemence in the wake of the cults growing power then..."

"No-one's suggesting that we go back to sacrificing children Freddie." Kerrass jumped in. "No-one's saying that. It was a different time and a different place. They were sacrificing the thing that was most precious to them. Nowadays, children aren't that precious any more. They have to all but cripple them anyway to stop them being taken by the Hounds and who knows when the Hounds are going to come and take them away. So why get emotionally invested in them? But I don't think that that assessment is right. Indeed it actually works against everything that we understand about what's going on here. Sacrificing children would cause pain. Both to the child and to the parent which would surely be just the kind of thing that would feed the darkness that they were fighting."

Kerrass shook his head.

"No. No, if this was a curse that I had been hired to lift, and it sounds like one if I'm honest, then child sacrifice would not be the thing to break the curse. Let's leave aside the suggestion that this is all to do with the Dark God, power or presence or whatever the fuck. It's a curse. Curses are fed and empowered through emotion. In this case the emotions that we are talking about are fear. The intense fear of someone being tortured to death or otherwise debased to death."

I started. "Are we sure that this isn't anything to do with Jack?"

Kerrass thought about it before shaking his head. "This isn't his style. Jack isn't a God, he would never want to be a God or treated as one. He simply is. He doesn't need any of this bullshit. He is simply...Jack."

I nodded, No point in denying it. I was relieved.

"But there's a reverence in what those villagers were doing." Kerrass had carried on talking. "They enjoyed what they were doing they...they were really worshipping. It wasn't something that they did out of a sense of duty, or out of ambition which blemishes the rites of things like the Eternal Fire or Kreve. Nor were they there because it was a societal thing where they had to go because they had to be _seen_ to go which was what the Coram Agh Terra was about as well as the others. Nor was it the transactional faith of Melitele where you go to the shrines and make your offerings so that, in return, you get access to skilled healers and midwives. This was about good, old fashioned worship and faith."

He sat in silence for a while. I had the sense that I was watching what his normal internal monologue would be. As he worked through the problems in what would make up a normal job. This was how he thought things through and I was listening to it straight from the Witcher's mouth.

"There was a certain amount of transaction going on there though." I said quietly, trying to poke some more information loose. "They did believe that they were being protected by Crom Cruarch."

"They did didn't they." Kerrass mused. "What does Cruarch actually mean?"

"Absolutely nothing," Chireadean told him. "Not from Elven or what little of the old Dauk language that we picked up, from the surrounding area."

Kerrass grunted. "We're missing something here." He told us both before staring into space for a long time. Then he looked up at Chireadean. "How much of what you've told us is true versus how much is what you _think_ is true?"

"I did not lie to you."

"I'm not saying that. Please don't be offended. I'm not saying that you're lying I'm suggesting that you're mistaken. There are some problems in your tale and comparing it with what we've seen and heard so far."

"Such as?"

"I'm not buying that an Ancient Elven King. Cast out and crippled though he might have been, would have helped the primitive humans. I just don't... I just don't see that happening. The villagers believe that he still looks after them and there is a considerable magical field over the entire area. It's still here even though I've long since given up on mapping it or talking about it. I would still be talking about it today. I just don't..."

Chireadean and I sat and watched him for a long while

"What happened to the King?" Kerrass asked. "Did he die in battle? What?"

"He went away." Chireadean said. "Or at least, that's how the legend goes. He went away "into darkness, never to return in order to continue the fight". There's also the same legend that tends to follow this kind of man about."

"Let me guess." I spoke up. "That, in an hour of need, he will return to his people."

"Pretty much."

"What classes as an hour of need I wonder?"

"I don't know," Kerrass said, "but I'm feeling pretty needy at the moment." He fell into silence again. "Where did you get this information Chireadean? How did you come by it?"

"Speaking to the others. The Elves that were here before me."

"And where did they get it?"

"Aural tradition."

"So the Elves who see themselves as imperfect. Those Elves that have nowhere else to go. They come here and take up with this band. Kind of like a pilgrimage."

"Pretty much yes."

"Where are the original Elves. Those that came here with the King?"

"I don't know. There are certainly none here now."

"There are a lot of holes in this story here Chireadean."

"I know. I know."

"Why did you come here? You specifically. Out of all the places that you could have gone, why here? The plight of the Elves is lessening, the Nilfgaardians have never disliked the Elves as much as the Northern Kingdoms have. Why not go South? You came here instead, why?"

Kerrass and Chireadean stared at each other for what felt like a long time before it was Chireadean that started to fold in on himself.

"There's no reason." He said. "This is just where I found myself."

Kerrass nodded. "You don't believe in destiny then?"

The Elf snorted. "No. No I don't."

"Then why did you stay?"

"To help. These people are dying. Malnutrition is only part of it. But the despair, the constant driving, back-breaking despair of it all is becoming soul-crushing to them. It's like Elven society in microcosm. Not long now and they'll do something stupid and get themselves killed in a pointless gesture. They deserve better than that."

"And you help them?"

"I get more food out of the villagers. I know how they work, how they think..."

"How to manipulate them."

"Yes."

Kerrass nodded, paused and then nodded again. "This is getting us nowhere." He said. Climbed to his feet and walked off.

Chireadean stared after him for a long time. "Was it something I said?" He wondered aloud.

"He sometimes craves solitude." I told him. "Don't take it to heart. He needs to think."

"Have I helped?"

"I think that you've given us something. We just need to figure out what that something is." I said. "But that isn't all the story. The term Crom Cruarch isn't Elven. Nor is it Dauk and we don't even know where it comes from."

I realised that I was just talking things round again.

"You believe that he was an Elven hero. The villagers believe that he was...that he _is_ a God that can and will protect them. Over and over again I find that the truth is something in between. Why do you believe that he was an Elven Hero? I don't need you to answer that, I'm just thinking aloud."

Chireadean shut his mouth with a snap.

"My experience is that people believe what they want to believe." I said. "People who want to believe that Elves are no better than Ghouls will find evidence to prove them right. The real reason that _you_ believe that he was an Elven hero is because the Elves that you found here told you that this was the case. Just as they were told that this was the case by whoever came before them. What _we_ know is that the nobility of the area have been worshipping this dark thing for a long time. Probably centuries and probably since they arrived here. You tell us that the God that they refer to is real. But is it? Or is that just the folk tale of the area?"

Chireadean said nothing.

"What we know to be true is that there is a strange flow of magic over the area." I said. "We know that there is this cult. We also know that the humans revere this God that they call Crom Cruarch. We also know that you, meaning the Elves that live here, revere him. But in your head, this means an Elven King who came here in exile. Why? Is it because that is true? or is it because that is more comfortable for you to believe than what is actually true? Is it because your ancestors, the first Elves in these parts saw something and told themselves that it was an Elven lord because what else could it be?"

Chireadean said nothing, his mouth twisting in distaste at the thought.

"Crom Cruarch." I said the name aloud. "Who was he? What was he? The humans think he was a God of some kind. The Elves think he was one of their fallen Kings." I shook my head. "My brain is too tired for this. And I'm not sure that it changes the fact that Kerrass and I still need to get back to my brother so that we can get help for you, for us and for everyone that live in this...this reason forsaken part of the world."

I stared into space for a while before I shivered, suddenly realising that I was cold. I looked about myself and was surprised to learn that the sun had set and that Chireadean was still sat there watching me.

"What did you think of my story?" He asked.

"It's a good story." I told him. "Something that I intend to remember and hope to record if I get the chance. It's an interesting piece of folklore or legend, even if it isn't history."

Chireadean didn't react to my accusation.

"It's a story that talks about a flawed Elf, coming to the aid of primitive humanity and that, in and of itself, is an interesting thing, maybe even an important thing. That Elven refugees, like this group are, would come up with a story about their origins that involves one of their number coming to the aid of humanity."

"Why's that interesting?"

I smiled. "This is my area of expertise now," I told him. "I'm sorry if I come across as condescending but, this is what I do now."

"I'll live."

"Will you? I worry that you might have doomed yourself and all your people by taking us in." I told him. I shivered again.

"You are still exhausted." He told me. "Let me get you another hot drink and we can talk about your theories as you drink it."

I dozed while he fetched me a drink as well as a small sandwich made out of something that resembled cheese but was different in many ways. I didn't ask what it was. I had the dim feeling that I wouldn't like the answer. The drink was different and I said so.

"It's to help you sleep." He told me. "So why do you think that my account of local Elven belief is so interesting?"

"You are right." I told him through a mouthful of sandwich. "I know next to nothing about Elves, about the way their...about the way your minds work. I don't know if you have Gods of your own or if you worship some kind of idea of nature. If you worship the "concept" of the world."

"Close." Chireadean told me. His slight smile was back.

"But one thing I _do_ know is that Elves have every right to hate us. Every right in the world." I told him. "So an ancient King, whether he was crippled or not, flawed or not, to come to an area that the rest of his people hated and feared and helped the primitive humans that lived here?"

I took another bite of the sandwich. The flavour of the food was growing on me.

"I don't buy it." I told him. "I'm sorry. I know that the guy is some kind of folk hero to the Elves, especially to your little band of Elves, but I don't buy it."

"Why not?"

"There just isn't enough...The ancient Elves were arrogant right?"

"I would say so, yes."

"So they wouldn't help humans. If there was a threat, then maybe they would confront it but they wouldn't help the humans. And the humans around here that have lived and worked here from time out of hand, revered the figure that they refer to as Crom Cruarch. They love him, they devote their children to him, they fornicate in his name and pray to him for guidance and fertility. That means that they loved him back in the day. I just can't marry what I know of ancient Elves to what happened and is still happening here. It just doesn't fit in my head."

Chireadean grunted.

"Especially," I went on, not wanting to belabour the point. "Especially if he had ordered them to sacrifice children. One of the few things that humanity has going for it is that we love our children dearly. But that's not the point."

"What is the point?"

"That this is a folk story. I'm sorry but it is. It's almost a parable. A noble Elf coming to help the humans? It's an old story as well and somehow, somehow it's managed to survive centuries of my people shitting all over yours. The story of an Elven King coming to save the savage human race. Even your own people have been treated badly by me and mine. So why do they still believe in and revere this Elf. Shouldn't they hate him and villify him?"

I shook my head.

"Maybe the fact that he liked humans and wanted to help them was his flaw. His scar if you will," I suggested.

"Maybe, but that also suggests something ugly, well, uglier about elven society, that compassion would be seen as a flaw. So what do you think happened?" Chireadean asked. He didn't look happy.

"I think that someone came. I don't know who, what, how or why. But someone came here in that time and in that place. I think he brought Elves with him because the original Elven colony here and their stories about that time have to come from somewhere. But I think that someone came here. Amassed some followers and took the fight to the dark power that Cavill worships. I think he looked close enough to what an Elf looks like to be confused for an Elf, or that he had some kind of illusory power to confuse those Elves. Either that or the power of the Elven arrogance at that time was all conquering..."

"How so?"

I made my voice high and snooty. "Someone so powerful can't possibly be anything other than an Elf on this plane of existence. If there was anything that powerful around here then we would have found it. We are the most powerful creatures in this part of the world, the most magical, the most knowledgable, the most skilled and the most strong. Therefore it must be an Elf because what else could it be?"

Chireadean continued to look unhappy but I could tell that he was following my reasoning.

"So the Elves see a creature of immense power that looks tolerably close to their own form and decide that he must be some kind of Elven noble that has fallen from grace. A fiction convenient in the fact that it can't possibly be checked against records with the rest of their society. They don't believe in Gods, so what else could it be?

"The humans on the other hand are still busy inventing Gods and stories in order to help them sleep at night. Without understanding it, they worship the rain, the sun and the lightening in the sky. We now know that many of those things are driven by powers that we still don't comprehend although we give them names like Kreve, Melitele, Veyopatis and the Eternal Flame. But those ancient humans see some beautiful, although I doubt it, person who promises to help them."

"Why do you doubt that he was beautiful?"

"The one thing that is common to both the Elven side of the story and the human side of the story is that the figure was not quite right. The humans call him "The crooked man of the mound." The Elves refer to him as being "scarred" in some way. So to both sides of the story, they admit that he was physically flawed in some way."

"Ok, I'll let you have that one."

"Where was I?"

"Why Humans saw him as a God?" Chireadean said with a smile

"Yes. So they see this figure who displays more than a little bit of magical power and he makes all of their problems go away. He makes it clear that this doesn't come easy however. He teaches them that they need to put the work in themselves. Then he vanishes. What is he going to be to those ancient, primitive humans but a God?"

Chireadean grunted again.

"There's also, not enough history to support the Fallen Elven King theory." I carried on. "Where there's one there's going to be more than one. So where did the rest of them go? If these "Fallen Elves" were good and noble creatures then they would still want to serve the ideal of making the world a better place. We would have heard about that. We would know about that. But this is the first time that I've heard about such things. There's also the factor of, Where is he? Elves live for hundreds of years. If he was injured, he would heal, if he was powerful enough to stop a dark God, and we know he did which is another area that both the human account and the Elven account agree. Then what did he do next? There would be a rash of other evidence that he existed in this part of the world. There would be a reverence for Elves around here that transcends the element of pity that gets you all your food from the local villages. If he died, where is the memorial, where is the monument to his life and his passing?"

I shook my head again.

"Someone came here." I said. "Someone powerful and they set themselves up against this dark power from beyond our world."

"What else could it be, who else could it be?" Chireadean argued. "The Dwarves wouldn't do a thing like this as such things would need considerable magic, and the Gnomes are similar. The Vran had been driven away from this part of the world for a long time. The Higher Vampires don't, or didn't, care enough about this kind of thing and those creatures that could shift enough to use magics were elsewhere."

"You're thinking of the shape-shifters."

"Like your Maleficant, or Geralt's Borch Three Jackdaws."

Something about the way he said Geralt's name made me start. "You know the White Wolf?"

"Oh yes. Nice bloke all things considered. Absolutely no self-control when it comes to women though. Especially Sorceresses."

A haunted look appeared in his eyes and I decided not to push it any further.

"But no. I decided. Both of those people display a flighty nature and if it was a dragon then your people, and mine, would be talking about dragons."

"You're probably right."

"I think it's much more likely that another lone traveller came through the Conjunction. We hear a lot about those creatures that can live and survive on this plane relatively easily. Ghouls, vampires..."

"Humans..." He put in with a smile.

"And Elves," I countered. "But they are almost always the people that came over in bulk. What about those things that came over in ones or twos. This all happened shortly after the last conjunction correct?"

"I think so. That's certainly what feels the closest to being correct."

"Then what if someone else came through. Someone who hated this power of Cavill's for their own reason and was hunting down where the power was getting it's new found strength from?"

I shook my head. "We're theorising now and there's absolutely nothing that can prove that he was an ancient Elven King, an old human God to go along with Veyopatis and that ilk, or my new theory of an inter-dimensional traveller. But above all, unless your legend has some kind of weapon in it that can help us cut through the power's followers with ease, none of this is going to help us."

Chireadean nodded. "You are probably right. You should get some sleep." He told me.

I could feel the energy leaking out of me. "You are probably right." I told him, lying down."

The next thing I knew I was being woken up by the unceremonious method of being booted in the ribs. Again. Maybe it was some kind of local custom that you wake people by putting the boot in. That makes it sound worse than it actually was. It was more a gentle kind of rocking than an actual boot but it certainly felt the same.

Like I said earlier, the ground can feel really soft and welcoming when you're being woken up out of a particularly deep sleep.

It was the Elven woman who was staring at me with a cross between naked hate and curiosity. I found myself hoping that someone, someday, would be able to take her cares away. It was an odd feeling. I haven't felt particularly romantic since I had gotten engaged with Ariadne. I had certainly noticed beautiful women but it was on the more aesthetic end of noticing the fact that a person is beautiful in the same way that you might want to admire a beautiful painting on the wall. But in this case, I saw how much pain the girl was in and I hoped that she would eventually find someone to comfort her.

The reason that this was pronounced to my eyes was because, in past circumstances, I might have wanted to do that protecting myself in an effort to be some kind of romantic hero wanting to ride in on a magnificent white horse and save her from her poverty. I am aware of this weakness in myself and have, in the past, been forced to take certain steps to prevent this urge to be some woman's white knight from causing too many problems. To stop looking for a woman to save, or for someone who would save me. But I would be lying if I said that I no longer feel these urges and I am self-aware enough to know that this woman would have been someone that I would have been attracted to for this reason.

But here, I was able to notice that the woman was beautiful, want to help but it didn't have any of the romantic overtones that such feelings often bring forward in my mind.

It was a good realisation in two ways. The first was that I still, despite everything that had happened to me and the recent changes in my way of thinking, I still had the desire to help people and have romantic feelings. The second was that I had clearly committed myself to loving Ariadne.

A friend had told me about this once when at the university. He had settled down to a particular girl early on in his stay in Oxenfurt and, like men are sometimes wont to do, we had settled down to tease him about this.

We were assholes to be absolutely honest.

We would throw pretty women his way while also laughing at the fact that, despite not being particularly more or less attractive than the rest of us, he seemed to be getting more than his fair share of female attention. He took it all with surprising good taste before buying a round and going off to spend the night with the girl he was in love with.

We drifted apart as the years went on and we are no longer that close. He went South as his family was from Temeria and he wanted to make a difference there during the rebuilding after the war, and his girl friend went with him where they were eventually married. I was on the road when it happened but I'm not too sure that I would have gone even if I had known when and where the ceremony was. He sent me a letter when he heard that I was engaged to Ariadne, it was one of those long distance letters which are basically designed to maintain a friendship with the minimum possible effort in case you might want something from each other at a later date. I do remember one passage from it though.

"You will now discover a phenomenon that no-one understands until it happens to them. None of my friends understood it in Oxenfurt but I hope that you will understand it now that you have fallen in love. Yes Freddie, I know you well enough from our friendship and your writing that you are head over heels in love with this Vampire of yours and I wish you well, even as I secretly think that you're a braver man than I am for going there.

"The phenomenon of which I speak is the thing that stops you from panting after every pretty woman that walks by. We are men and I am well aware that that's how it works when you're in your late teens and early twenties, indeed some people never lose that part of their character, where they see a pretty girl who doesn't have to do anything other than be vaguely pleasant towards them and suddenly we fall instantly and hopelessly in love. But now, we have committed to another. I cannot speak for you, but I, certainly, did this subconsciously and suddenly, the girls I see and the girls I saw, no longer hold half the interest for me as did the woman I chose to marry."

I finally knew what he meant. I reached for my amulet to tell Ariadne of this new revelation is she is fascinated by this aspect of human romantic emotional development. She claims that she wants to compare and contrast it with her own experiences as she wants to write a book on the differences between vampire and human mating emotions.

But then I remembered that the amulet wasn't there any more and my face, and mood fell again.

"Follow," she said in Elven before turning and walking off into the trees. I had to struggle to keep up. "So you do speak our language." She told me in the same way that she might have said "I want to rip your balls off."

"I do," I told her in the same language. "Believe it or not, the Elder speech is the language of education as well as being the language of the conquerors."

"I do not believe you."

"Suit yourself."

She stared at me in surprise, stopping in the path as she did so. "Do you not wish to seek insult?"

"Why would I?"

"I have just called you a liar."

I laughed at her. It seemed like the only way out. "Are you trying to pick a fight with me?" She sulked in response. "Listen," I said, "I've been offended by proffesionals. I've been tortured, stabbed, poisoned, beaten up, shot at and insulted by people much worse than you. You have every reason to hate me and I won't judge you for that. I am sorry to disappoint you. Maybe we could spar a bit after you've had several more square meals and I've slept for about a week."

Her face was almost comical in it's confusion.

"In the meantime, do we have somewhere to be?" I prompted and she led me off into the trees. Not gonna lie, I was smirking a little. She led me off for a few minutes. I was pleased to notice that my energy was coming back and was able to keep up with her reasonably well. I found that I was climbing up a small hillock, still covered in trees. Hillock is, in fact, an exaggeration for what it actually was which was a small mound of earth but there was a tree lying flat on the top. The positioning of the tree to allow us to look down onto the approaches to the Elven camp that I guessed that it must have been put there deliberately. But behind the log I found Chireadean and another two Elves, both with quivers of arrows at their belts and bows in their hands. Chireadean was wearing a smile, albeit a grim one.

"Someone's found us." He told me, "But it's not who I thought it was going to be." He was whispering quietly but I could tell that the Elves next to us were almost quivering with a desire to kill something.

"Who is it?" I asked rather redundantly as then a huge Skelligan voice drifted through the trees.

"Hello," it called. "We know you're up there somewhere. I can feel my arse itching where there are arrows pointing at it."

"Friends of yours?" Chireadean asked with another smile. He'd adjusted it to being a wry one.

"You could say that." I told him.

"We're looking for Freddie von Coulthard." Rickard's Sergeant called. "We're only going to get cross if anything's happened to him."

"Can I?" I whispered.

Chireadean shrugged.

"Where you go Seargeant. Rickard isn't far behind. Where is the bastard?" I was struggling not to laugh.

"He's here," came the voice. "Are we going to get shot if we show ourselves?"

I glanced at Chireadean who was gesturing for the other Elves to lower their bows. The two of them looked disappointed.

Chireadean made a bird call with his hands before nodding to me.

I stood up so that I could be seen and the bastard's seemed to melt out of the forest.

"They're good," Chireadean commented but I wasn't really listening, already tumbling down the hill.

Rickard was grinning foolishly as he came into sight and I don't think I was faring any better. I ran down the hill and embraced him. I was halfway between laughter and tears of relief to finally see a friendly face. He hugged me back in an almost death like grip.

"Flame but you look like death." He told me.

"Whereas I don't think I've ever seen a prettier man," I told him. "Give us a kiss."

The Bastards hooted as Rickard avoided me easily.

"I didn't think that humans greeted each other like this." Chireadean said as he walked down the hill, flanked by the other two Elves, the woman stood off in the trees somewhere. "Is this some kind of new mating ritual that has developed in far off lands?"

"We don't normally." I told him. "I'm just overcome by this handsome face."

This time, Rickard didn't avoid me in time. I introduce him to Chireadean and they shook hands.

"Someday," Chireadean said. "You're going to have to tell me how you knew we were there."

"Don't take it to heart." Rickard said. "My men and I do this for a living."

"Hunt Elves?" Chireadean's face was hard.

"Sometimes," Rickard admitted easily and calmly, as if nothing was wrong. "Humans mostly though. Anyone that lives in the countryside and preys on the common folk. We're bandit hunters and the average bandit is a lot nastier and more cunning than you are."

Chireadean allowed himself to be mollified a bit.

"We can give you some pointers if you like," Rickard told him. "Dan over there is the best tracker I've ever seen and I've seen plenty." He gestured to the old poacher who was leaning against a tree chewing a piece of foliage.

"That would be...agreeable." Chireadean still wasn't convinced.

"Also," Rickard said. "We bring food. We have bread, cheese and some meat for the disgusting humans, and some vegetables for the equally disgusting Elves. Funnily enough. People are a lot happier to talk to people who are buying things with real, tradeable, easier to hide, money."

"There is some truth to that." Chireadean admitted, allowing himself to be charmed. "And it's actually a fallacy to believe that Elves don't eat meat. We do, just not to the quantities that humans do."

"Excellent," declared Rickard clapping his new friend on the shoulder. "All the more for us. Lead on."

The Sergeant whistled and made a circling gesture with his hands and the lads fell into an escort marching pattern. Words cannot express how much better I felt.

"I'm just gonna catch up with the boss." Rickard told the Elves who were mostly caught between horror and bemusement at marching with human soldiers before he fell back to walk beside me.

"Kerrass?" He asked.

"He's ok." I told him. "Got both his arms shattered by a warhammer."

Rickard winced in sympathy. "That's him done then."

"Nah, we've made some potions since we got here and he's on the mend. He claims that it's going to be weeks before he can lift a sword though. Which means that it's probably going to be a good month or two before he _should_ be lifting a sword."

"Heh, I know people like that."

"I'm sorry Rickard. Taylor didn't make it."

My friends face hardened for a moment and his expression turned ugly. "I know. We've been following two people's tracks and Taylor isn't...wasn't good enough to hide his tracks so that we couldn't find them. So if he'd gone off by himself as some kind of distractionthen we would have found him."

He grimaced. "Bastards." He shook his head. "So what do we do now?"

"We get the fuck out of here. That's what we do."

(A/N: No _this_ is the longest chapter to date and carries me comfortably over the one million word mark. Whoop whoop.)


	78. Chapter 78

(A/N: The ending of the story about the Kalayn/Cavill cult has been a long time coming and many people, including me, have expressed a desire to see Freddie and Kerrass hit the road again and find some more adventures. To not a small number of these people, including myself again, I had promised that I would be able to finish the story in one more chapter and then with another chapter of tying up loose plot threads so that, once again, Freddie and Kerrass could go looking for what happened to Francesca and find some more adventures. But then I sat down to start writing and the "one more chapter" seemed to grow and grow. I looked at the word count once and realised that I would have to cut the chapter into two pieces to make it readable but since then the chapter has grown again so it will have to be cut into three.

But I was so determined to reach the ending before inspiration left my fingers. So, as I write this, it is done but still needs editing. My aim is to edit a chapter a day and then post it but please be patient as I'm going away next week. I would like to get it done before I go away but circumstances being what they are, might make this impossible. Thanks for your patience and I hope that the ending was worth waiting for.

(A/N the second: This is a disclaimer to say that Lord Cavill, the villain of this particular piece is not named for Henry Cavill, the recently announced person to take on the role of Geralt in the Netflix show. I don't know why I chose the name "Cavill" but there it is. As for the casting of Mr Cavill and how I feel about that matter... I wish him the best of luck. At the very least, he is known to be a fan of the material which is more than some people have been when they have been cast in fan favourite projects. I will not be commenting further on any other news regarding the Netflix series until I have seen the finished product.

Further: While I'm on the subject of controversies regarding the Witcher series at the moment. (sigh.) I'm going to make another statement. I was born an Englishman and when I first encountered The World of the Witcher and Geralt as a character, It was due to buying and playing Witcher 1, on PC, in the north of England. On the strength of the world, and learning from the game that it was based on a series of books, I went out and bought the first two books. I, for one, would not have heard of Andrezj Sapkowski, let alone buying each of the books, in some cases multiple times (hardcopy and digital) if it hadn't been for the games. Again, I think that says everything I want to say on the subject.)

We weren't going to make it.

I don't know when the thought first came to me but I do know when I first said it aloud. I was crouched in a thicket of thorns watching the back trail. Rickard was next to me and my breathing was shallow. I was breathing carefully, trying not to let the noise carry but it was pointless. The fog had descended, it had been the second one since we had set out from the Elven camp and that had contributed to the ominous feeling. It was only a light mist really, not even worth the name, but it hung in the air like a blanket and it seemed to leech away what little of my strength I had managed to hoard for a time like this.

We crouched as we watched four of the men hunting us. One of them had dismounted and was examining out tracks with the analytical eye of an experienced tracker. We had seen him get down from the horse carefully, looking at the sign of our passing from a little distance away before slowly approaching the marks that had been seen. He bent, got close to the thing that he had noticed and seemed to sniff, the general kind of uplifting of the head that I always associate with Bloodhounds when they're trying to get the scent, before bending even closer to what he was looking at.

I had no idea what it was. We had been careful, as far as I knew, but it was clear now that we hadn't been careful enough. The other three men waited for the tracker to finish doing his job. These men were different from the rabble that we had dealt with before. These were not the drug and pleasure addled conscripts that had been taken from the local villages. These were professional men despite their cowls and voluminous cloaks. Their equipment was well made and they handled it well and easily. They rode correctly as well. It's a quality that I couldn't really tell you about but I know it when I see it. Men born and trained to the saddle sit on their horses differently to those who learned their horsemanship later in life. Rickard is one such man. The few times I've managed to persuade him onto the back of a horse, he rides like a sack of potatoes and promises violent retribution any time I try to give him any kind of advice.

These men were different. Their horses were proud and well trained. Well fed and built for speed. They wore swords and daggers rather than the broken down bits of metal that were forged for their psychological effect rather than for any kind of practical use. There were proper grips on their swords and they held them out of their way with subconscious ease so that they didn't trip.

These men were hunters.

The tracker straightened from whatever it was that he was examining and scanned around himself, staring into the trees and bushes around him. One of the others called to him and he turned, reluctantly, to talk to his fellows.

This was enough for Rickard who reared up out of the bush, drew the arrow back that he had nocked to his bowstring sometime before, and fired. The arrow shot from the bow string making that odd buzzing noise that I have not found anything like. Some bards and minstrels have likened it to the sound of a harp string being plucked but I have to disagree. It sounds like an arrow being fired and nothing else. It shot down the path and buried itself low in the trackers back, the impact sending the man sprawling into his mounted comrades shoe. Even from where I crouched I could see that Rickard must have hit him in the spine as he had lost control of his legs, he was holding onto his friend's stirrups as he began to collapse. I couldn't see it but I could easily imagine the look of confusion as to what was happening to him.

The other arrows started flying then. Rickard was already nocking another arrow and choosing his next target, he was enough of a marksman to know that his first arrow had killed his man but his arrow was redundant. We had another three of the bastards with us and the two Elven Scoi'Tael veterans who had adapted to taking Rickard's orders with an ease that I found off-putting.

Another arrow joined Rickard's in the trackers back, higher up but it seemed to bite deeper. The tracker had realised that he was dying now and sank to the ground. The horseman that he was talking to also took two arrows, one to the neck and another to the chest, the impact of which knocked him backwards so that he almost fell off his horse. Some instinct made him keep hold of the reins though so he was able to right himself before he realised that the wound his neck was spurting too much blood and toppled sideways.

Of the other two horsemen, one took an arrow in the chest and was falling but the impact drove him into the flight path of the last arrow meant for his remaining comrade. The one furthest away from our ambush party. He turned his horse and was already kicking it up to the gallop.

Rickard jumped up and drew his own bowstring back to his cheek before some instinct made him stop. There was no way anyone could make that shot. The last man had gotten away.

"Dan?" Rickard snarled. "Bring him down."

The old poacher hawked and spat. I didn't know where he was, somewhere behind me but I couldn't take my eyes of the horseman still escaping. I heard the creaking sound of his bow being drawn. Another pause before that sound again. It sounds like an odd kind of cracking buzz. I know that makes no sense when I read it but that's what it puts me in mind of

The wait felt like eternity as we watched the arrow disappear into the mist that obscured the treetops from us. I could barely make out the shape of the horseman as he flogged his horse for everything that he was worth. There was no way that Dan's arrow could hit a moving target at that...

But then the horse reared and fought as the horseman's dead weight pulled at the reins before tumbling from the saddle.

"Shot Dan." Rickard told him. "Get the horses." He ordered the others. We have sick and wounded and we need them."

A couple of the other men murmured their congratulations to Dan on the quality of his marksmanship. Even one of the Elves clapped him on the shoulder, a sight that lifted my heart a little but there was simply no getting away from the realisation any further.

"We're not going to make it." I know I said it aloud because Rickard grabbed me by the shoulder and marched me firmly away from the others.

"Never say that," he snarled. It is always a shock when I see Rickard the soldier and man of violence underneath the genial and good natured man that befriended me. "Never say that again. If I hear you say that again in anyone's hearing, whether that's mine, Kerrass', Chireadean's or any fucker else, I will pull your bollocks off with my bare hands. You hear me?"

I said nothing, my mouth opening and closing in shock and the sudden assault from an unexpected source.

"Do you hear me Freddie?" He demanded again. He was being quiet so that others wouldn't hear but there was an insistence and desperation.

"I hear you." I whispered in a shocked quiet voice.

He let go of my shoulder then, smoothing down my tunic. "Never give up." He whispered fiercely. "Never say die. Not you. If you say it and the men hear it, or the Elves or...For fuck's sake, even Kerrass isn't in the best of shape at the moment. If you start saying it then we're already dead. Never say it. Never say die."

"Never say die." I echoed.

"Say it again. Like you mean it."

"Never say die."

He spun away and stalked off.

But they were going to catch us now. There was nothing that we could do to stop it.

By the time that this event happened, we were maybe a week out from the Elven camp and our most optimistic estimates said that we were ten days away from any kind of reinforcement.

I don't think there are enough words in the northern language to say how good it was to see the rest of the Bastards when we all walked back into the elven camp ad started unloading their packs. Men that I barely knew as well as those soldiers that I had spent the most time with, were coming up to me and embracing me with a smile and a joke. The mood was infectious as well so that before long the Elves were coming out of the trees to meet these strange new humans that we had brought into camp. The bastards took it in their stride and were full of jokes and insults that they gave out with a good nature and an utter lack of any kind of rancour.

I noticed one soldier, Cooper I think, who was striking up some banter with an elf that he referred to as a "pointy eared bastard" before the elf, slightly bemused managed to seal some kind of eternal friendship by referring to Cooper as a "Filthy Fucking Human" to Cooper's astonished pleasure.

My shock must have shown as Rickard came up to me "You would be surprised how often it happens."

"What do you mean?"

"Soldiers and fighters on opposite sides of a war, realising that they have more in common with each other than they do with the people that they're fighting for. I saw it in the two wars that I fought in, before and after the big battles while the armies were still lining up for the fighting in the morning, sentry lines would cross, someone would trade a joke, someone else would offer some tobacco and before you know it, squads of men are trying on each other's helmets, sharing rations and having a party, only to try and kill each other the following day and grieve for each other the day after that."

"These are hardly soldiers on opposite sides." I told him.

He looked at me strangely. "Of course they are. The war has stopped for a while, that's all, but just for a moment, they realise that universal truth." he smiled as he realised that he was in a position to goad me into asking the questions.

"What truth?" I asked him, as I knew he wanted to be asked.

"People as a whole are ignorant, dumb and want to take your shit away from you. But if you meet that person in a bar, then they get the opportunity to see past the enemy trying to kill you and see the man, the man who probably has a wife and children. Who joined the army so that he can get a share of the rations and a sense of pride in whatever it is that they're doing."

"I'll take your word for it." I told him.

"Fucking nobles." He said without anger.

We found Kerrass sitting just away from the camp. At first I thought he was meditating but if he was it was unlike any of his meditation that I'd ever seen. He was muttering to himself and frowning with an intense concentration that was off putting. He saw me first.

"Why did they kill the children Freddie? Why would they do that?" He demanded.

"Desperation." I told him, "because one child's life is better than losing the rest?"

He shook his head. "But they could have left instead. If you were told to sacrifice your children, wouldn't you flee?"

"I would fight." Rickard said. "But that's just me."

Kerrass grinned as he seemed to see Rickard for the first time. "I would shake your hand but..." He shrugged. "Freddie got me my arms shattered."

"Yeah he told me. Careless of him."

"Good to see you."

But Kerrass was already distracted by something. "They killed the children. By anyone's account, that's evil."

"It is..."

"So why did they do it?" He didn't expect an answer, he had already sat back down and had gone back to staring into space.

"We were gonna talk about what to do next." I told him. "You wanna come...I don't know...contribute?"

"mmm?" He looked startled by the question, as though I'd slapped him across the face.

"Kerrass, Now that Rickard's here, we need to talk about what we're going to do next."

"Ah...No, leave me out of it. Just tell me where to go and what to do." His head tilted to one side as a thought occurred to him but then he shook his head again dismissively, "No, I need to think. Just leave me to it."

He'd already gone back to staring into space before he'd finished speaking.

"Is he alright?" Rickard asked me quietly, not quite in a whisper.

"Flame no." I answered leading him off. "He's not being taking his Elixirs for a good week or so but now he's taking rough approximations of them rather than the actual things, and that could mean anything. He's tired as well I think, more than he has been in a long time."

"And those injuries would weigh on a man. Especially a fighter like him." Rickard shook his head. "I would hate feeling that helpless and I'm not a Witcher."

I grunted my agreement.

"So anyway." Rickard said. "I have news."

"Tell me that it's good news."

Rickard pulled a face. "It's not great I'm afraid. In fact it's pretty fucking awful."

"Wonderful."

The Bastards were already in the process of making themselves at home. A couple of them had sat down with some of the Elves, straightening out arrows and reattaching feathers to the shafts with the small pots of glue that they carried everywhere. In a mirror to the earlier scene in the village, the men were building a fire and preparing a stew, the smells coming from it were already causing my mouth to water. Another couple of the men were oiling their bows and checking their bowstrings which attracted a couple of the more curious Elven archers and they were soon talking shop.

In different languages which I found interesting. Obviously not able to entirely understand each other but there was some kind of common understanding there.

I was astonished. I had never head the words "D'hoine Filth" said with such affection before as Dan showed one of the elves how to keep his bowstring free from damp by using candle-wax to coat it. The fact that Dan called the elf "pointy eared fucker" was not lost on me, just as I suspect that it wasn't lost on the Elf either but there we go. It was strange and oddly heartening to see. That two groups of people that would have tried to kill each other without hesitation before, would so quickly be inspired to form firm and long lasting friendships.

I was not alone in my bemusement though. I could see the Elven woman stood on the edge of the camp, arms crossed firmly across her chest, glaring at everything that moved. No-one seemed to be completely free of her baleful gaze and it struck me, as it sometimes did, that if eyes really could shoot flames like in the old children's stories, then many of the people there, Elf and human alike, would have burst into flames.

Nearby, there was a small group of men clustered round the Sergeant, the giant, bearded Skelligan. For reasons best known to himself, he had been unable to take his eyes off the poor woman.

I say poor because, to all intents and purposes she seemed absolutely oblivious to the attention that she was getting from him.

"Do I need to warn him?" I wondered aloud to Rickard as we walked past.

Rickard grinned. "Nah, the worst that could happen is that she claws his eyes out and it would be his own fault as well. But she will never have a truer defender as long as he's alive."

"What if she doesn't want defending?"

"Then that too, will be a good lesson for him."

I considered this. "He's older than me." It seemed a pertinent observation for reasons that now escape me.

"And me, but I don't think he's ever fallen in love with anyone before. At least not in a lasting way."

I stared at Rickard opened mouthed. "I thought he was married."

"He has been, several times as I understand it. Divorce is common in Skelligan society if the woman doesn't think that her man is pulling his weight. He was always overseas on campaign and as such he has never held onto a marriage. He's never been broken hearted though."

Rickard lowered himself to the floor with a sigh.

"Believe it or not, he's the unit's mother figure. If there's ever a stray animal or a street urchin or something that follows us around, it's him that puts some of his rations aside in order to keep the thing fed. He takes in theses women, falls for them, looks after them but then they feel smothered by his affections. He's the kind of man who should have been born in Toussaint. Some kind of questing knight but...He's also a Skelligan. He needs a strong woman to come back at him and challenge him and drive him."

"She hates humans." I warned him. "And from what I've heard, out of everyone, she has amongst the best possible excuses for doing so."

Rickard shrugged. "If we get out of this alive then I'll worry about my Sergeant's love life. Find him a nice girl in Coulthard lands and get him settled down. But until then, if a gentle infatuation with a fierce Elven Warrior woman is going to get him through what's coming, then who am I to get in the way."

He plucked a piece of grass from the ground and played with it for a long time. It occurred to me then, for the first time since the euphoria of seeing him again, that he was just as tired as I was, if not more so.

"How bad is it?" I asked.

He looked around, checking that there was no-one listening before sighing and addressed the air.

"Come out please, I would rather not have to have this conversation twice."

"You really must tell me how you do that," Chireadean was smiling as he stepped from around a nearby tree. "I am confident that I made no sound."

"You really want to know?"

The Elf nodded.

"You take better care of yourselves than humans do."

"I don't..."

"I will finish the lessons in woodscraft later."

"I will hold you to that."

"And I will not forget." Rickard retorted. "The opportunity to teach an Elf something about sneaking through the forest is not something that I should pass up if I'm given the opportunity."

Chireadean grinned. "To be fair, I am a city Elf."

"But you are an Elf."

"Boys," I chided. "This isn't getting us out of this mess."

"No," Rickard's mood subsided. "No it's not."

"What's it like out there?"

"Honestly? You threw them. Be proud of that Freddie, you threw them. They have honestly no idea where you are."

"You don't say that like it's a good thing."

"Well, in fairness it means that you're still alive now, but that's not the point of this exercise. They're still patrolling this side of things but the fact is this. We're about three weeks away from Kalayn lands, give or take."

"What makes the margin of "give or take"?" Chireadean asked.

"Conditioning." Rickard answered promptly. "Not being funny but I'm exhausted and although the lads and I have lived fairly well off the land since I last saw Freddie, before too much longer that strain is going to show. And Freddie looks worse than I had hoped for."

"I feel fine." I protested.

"Liar," Rickard told me. "You look like an undercooked egg, all pale and runny."

"Thanks."

"Don't mention it. You've been resting for a couple of days would be my guess but that's nothing. I've seen men in your state before and they needed a good week's bed rest and a proper diet before they were back up to full strength. We just don't have the luxury of that kind of time. Don't take offence Freddie," he said as he saw me beginning to bridle. "What you and Kerrass have done is superhuman but sooner or later that's going to hit you like a shovel in the face and then we're going to have to carry you. You're just not built for this."

"I've been on the road for..."

"I know Freddie, I know." Rickard tried to be gentle but it came across more that he was tired. "You're still in better shape than the majority of the toffs that I used to have to carry around on campaign back when I was a Sergeant, much better shape, but I've been conditioned to be a fighter since I was three. Most of the lads are the same. And we haven't been deprived of food, water and whatever else was done to you. And like it or not, it's you that we have to get through to get the word out. You are the only one of all of us who isn't expendable."

I turned away from him. An awful guilt settled into the pit of my stomach.

"We had already come to that realisation," Chireadean said into the silence that came after that.

I forced myself to turn back to the conversation. "So what's between us and Kalayn lands?"

"There are three patches of land that you would have to cross between here and there. That's presuming we don't go by road."

"Why not?" Chireadean asked. "I know there's an answer but I..."

"They're patrolled heavily and covered in spies and informants. Not that they would do so willingly but I've already seen Hounds beating up villagers to get the information that they want. They don't torture the adults, instead..."

"I get the idea." I told him. "So we're hemmed in by the road on one flank and the mountains on the other?"

"Correct. The problem is the narrow bit where the road skirts closer to the mountains before veering off to the west again and the terrain opens up into hilly wilderness where your brothers lands are at the Southern border of. We've already scouted it all out while we were being seen to be "looking for you" and that's going to be the area that kills us."

"So optimistic," Chireadean chided.

"Always expect the worst and then you will never be disappointed."

"Military wisdom?" I asked Rickard.

"Yes, that and "No plan survives first contact with the enemy. Therefore you should spend all your time on thinking about what you're going to do when the plan goes wrong." The earliest things that I was taught when I was learning how to lead men."

"Lovely."

"So we have three options to get through that land." Rickard went on. "Running through them east to west, There is a small mountain pass, an open valley, mostly populated by shepherds and their sheep and finally a wooded area which is the one closest to the road and what passes for civilisation in this part of the world. All three areas are watched and patrolled heavily."

"How heavily?"

"They've been doing this a long time and there's a reason that no-one's gotten out to tell the world what happens here." Rickard said. "The people manning this area of land are Cavill's veterans and they know what they're doing and what they do is hunt fugitives through the woods."

"How do you know that?" Chireadean asked

"Because I'm in the same line of work." Rickard told him, "And they guard those three passes well with encampments and regular patrols. Even if we got through without being seen, which is a big "if" by the way, then they would almost certainly see signs of our passing and be able to call up reinforcements which would mean that the chase is on and this time you wouldn't have a days head start. Our trail would be fresh and they would come down it with everything that they have. Reinforced by the local camps."

I blew out a breath. "No chance that we could conceal a trail?"

"I doubt it. They know the land, much better than we do. They would know the clues."

"How far away is this area from where Freddie here needs to get to?" Chireadean asked.

"Maybe seventeen days as near as we can figure it and Kalayn lands are a good three weeks away from where we sit."

"Ok," I said, "I have some more stupid questions that I know are stupid but they need asking anyway. Is there any sign that Sam knows something is wrong and is coming for us?"

"Not that we've seen. Also, something that you probably don't know. A lot of the local lords in this area have put out a bounty on pigeons. Five copper for every pigeon brought down."

Chireadean whistled. "Cheapskates." He eventually decided.

"You are not wrong, but even if word was being sent, there is every chance that it has been shot down."

My hand went up to my neck where my old amulet would once have hung. A reflexive gesture, begun and ended before I realised what I was doing. I'm pretty sure that Rickard saw it but he said nothing.

"What if we turn round and go back north?" I asked. "I know that this is one of those stupid questions again but, you say I've lost them, maybe we could come out the other end and appeal to a local garrison that might be more trustworthy."

"I did think of that." Rickard told me. "And it would be a good idea but for the fact that they have a line of beaters moving along, maybe three days back thataway." he waved off in the general direction of North. "Again, they know their business and they will find us eventually, it's the same reason that we can't just stay here and wait for help. They will find us, we could fight them and burst through the line, but then they know where we are."

"Diversion," Chireadean suggested. "A false trail."

"Require time, time that I don't think Freddie has. He feels better now but if Freddie has to go off on his own again then I don't think he will make it. Even if we give him a pack full of food and water."

"So we break through and then run South. That's what you're telling me right?"

"Pretty much. We are neither equipped, provisioned or ready to go over the mountains. North and West will result in us being seen and probably caught as well, apart from being in the wrong direction. It has to be South. But lets not lie to ourselves about our chances."

"So which one are we going to pick?" I finally asked after a long silence. It seemed fitting to have a moment of silence after that, I couldn't have said why but there was something about the finality of that that called for a pause during which neither Rickard, myself or Chireadean looked at each other.

"You're asking me?" Rickard asked, surprised. "I'm used to doing what I'm told. Being given an objective and then getting the job done. Not dictating strategy?"

"Not being funny, Ricky but who else am I going to ask?"

I saw the corner of Rickard's lips twitch. "Ricky?"

"Yeah, I'm trying it out. My point being that I can run. I can be a fugitive but lets say that you're right. Let's say that I can't run that much further."

"Which you can't," He insisted.

"I tend to agree for what my opinion's worth." Chireadean put in.

"But let's say that that's true, then you're going to have to help me. That means that it's a troop movement and military action and I know absolutely nothing about that. And before you come out with some kind of speech that tells me that I'm more competent than I think I am then I will call you out for your bullshit here and now. I've been getting a lot of those little talks recently."

Rickard sighed. "None of them are good choices. The simple fact of the matter is that if we go through during the night and manage to avoid being seen then our tracks will be seen in the morning. They have camps watching the passes on either side," He sketched it out on the floor with a stick. It looked like four vertical lines with three spaces in between.

I I I I

"With the line to one side being the mountains and the other side being the road which, as I say, is patrolled and garrisoned."

"So each of the four lines are ridges?"

"In one case it's a camp up against the mountain that has a perfect view down into the pass below them. They have an opposite number on the facing path. As soon as they see us then they can mount up and charge down the path."

"Ok, that doesn't sound too healthy. The middle one's a valley?"

"Yes, wider but with a similar arrangement."

"And the last is an open area with trees and farmlands."

"Yes."

"How big are the camps?" Chireadean asked.

"Big,"

"How big?" Chireadean insisted with a faint smile.

"You're suggesting that we attack the camps?"

"Yes."

Rickard shook his head. "There's a good fifty men in there, half a company each. We would need to take them all out without someone getting away and giving an alarm. I did think of that and it would certainly mean that we could flee along the line that they are guarding as the Hounds on the other side of the valley would be watching the floor of the valley. But I just don't have the men to guarantee the success of a raid like that. We could probably take them. But we would lose men and there's no way that we could do it quietly. It would also not buy us more than a couple of days at most. They check the camps regularly."

"A couple of days could make the difference though." Chireadean sucked his teeth. "Fifty men. Would a dozen good Elven archers help?"

Rickard looked up in surprise before glancing over at me. "Look," he began. "I appreciate the offer but this is not looking good. We're not asking..."

I was so surprised at the sudden offer that it took me a moment to join in with Rickard's objections. "I'm grateful Chireadean but you and your folk have done enough for Kerrass and I, more than enough."

"Shut your stupid human faces." Chireadean was smiling. "There are thirty of us here but only a dozen are fighters and the rest will need to come with us. As you say, there's a line of hunters coming through which means that sooner or later we're being boxed in as well. If we'd just left you to die then we might have gotten away with it but they'll know we helped you and that would be just the kind of thing that would give them an excuse to wipe us out.

"But that's not the reason I'm offering. We've been talking it through, the other Elves and I. Freddie's right. This needs to be stopped and these fuckers need to be wiped out. Who would we be if we didn't try and help? And if I am to die, I would like it to be a cause with no moral greys. There have been too many of those in the past."

He smirked.

"Think of it as our last act of fealty to the crooked King. Even if he isn't what we think he is, then he can be what we thought he was for a little while at least. He owes us that much."

Rickard was nodding.

"Will the Elves follow my orders? Or am I going to be following yours?"

"Oh, they'll follow your orders, they seem to think you're some kind of miracle worker Sir Rickard. They think it's destiny."

Rickard shifted his weight. "Not sure how I feel about that. He stared at his crude diagram for a bit longer. "Right then," he said after a long moment.

We rested up for the rest of that day. Rickard and Chireadean insisted on this, saying that Kerrass and I would need all the strength that we could muster while Rickard also argued that the Bastards would need a bit of time to catch up on sleep and take some time to do nothing at all. Which they did with abandon. It's never ceased to amaze me how easily soldiers can fall asleep, anywhere and at anytime, it doesn't matter how uncomfortable the ground might be or how confined the area might be, if there are soldiers about and they've done everything they need to, oiled and maintained their weapons and armour, done the camp chores, eaten, drilled and done their turn at the duty then they will normally find a nice patch of ground, in the sunlight if they can, before curling up and falling asleep almost instantly.

And, I don't know if this is true for other soldiers but I certainly know that the bastards never ,ever snore.

Kerrass snores. All the time, and it sounds like a wood saw cutting through a particularly stubborn tree.

The other motive, I think, was so that Rickard could get to know the people under his command. He put the Elves through their paces, watched them shoot, went on a little patrol with them and got to know their names. But not just their names.

When I first met Rickard, he had been working with the bastards for some time so it did not surprise me that he knew all their names and their histories. But as I watched, Elves who, and I know that this is racist of me to say, I could barely tell apart, Rickard could not only name, but also knew their nick-names and acceptable name shortenings as well as a bit of the history about each person.

It leant truth to the theory that I was once told about Rickard that the reason that he was knighted was that he was too much of a leader of men to be allowed to remain in the rank and file.

But he laughed and he joked, trading insults with easy charm and grace and it took that time to weld the two groups together into a unit. This was undoubtedly helped by the fact that Chireadean followed him around and called him Sir.

The entertainment for that day was provided by the ham-fisted attempts by the Sergeant to woo the Elven woman. An activity which everyone seemed to find hilarious as it was plain to everyone that she was not interested but, far from this making the entire situation uncomfortable, he was obviously so utterly incompetent at the process as well as being so clearly besotted with her that it became almost sweet. He brought her food, picked flowers for her and composed poetry. This always brought a snort, or a sneer from the lady in question before she stalked off in a huff to the cheers of Elf and Human alike.

I have genuinely no idea whether both the Sergeant and the Elf were in on the joke, but that was the other thing that brought the two disparate people together, almost despite themselves.

I found the entire thing oddly romantic. I still maintained that he stood no chance with the lady in question but it was made sweet that he took every rejection in his stride and was absolutely indomitable in his romance.

No matter how bad his poetry was. And it was pretty bad.

We set out at dawn the following morning where it soon became clear that a few days rest had been absolutely vital to my well-being, but also not nearly enough. It was a lot like being drunk although without the more pleasant side effects. I found it hard to concentrate beyond the most basic tasks, eating, walking and dressing myself as well as the cleaning that Rickard insisted that we all did on a daily basis. We moved slowly and furtively, broken into groups as we moved from point of cover to point of cover.

It soon became clear that Rickard and the bastards had done much more than just follow our back trail since the last time that we had seen them and they led us south with unerring accuracy. But it was a careful movement, slowly, scanning the horizon while listening, even smelling for signs of pursuit. I remember trying to tease him about it.

"Can you smell the hunters?" I asked him

"No," he said. "I can smell cavalry. Horse sweat and saddle rot."

We were camping at the time, huddled round the hole that we had dug for a small fire. Rickard had insisted that we should, wherever possible, be enjoying hot food on the grounds that there would shortly be some times where hot food would be impossible to come by.

"Is that how you knew that we were there?" Chireadean asked. "And how you knew that I was listening to your conversation with Freddie? You said you would tell me."

"I did," Rickard said with a smile. "The answer is that Elves smell different. I don't know why and if you're that close, it doesn't matter whether you're upwind or down wind. I suppose that it's something to do with diet as well as sweat working different for you."

"We are, generally, better smelling than humans." Chireadean agreed with a grin.

"But that's the point. I knew someone was there because of the movement of the trees and the forest, the lack of insects..."

"We don't hurt animals except when we need to eat."

"No, but you have bulk. The simple act of being there means that you have displaced air and leaves and whatever else that should have been there. And you smell of Lavender that you use to clean yourself. That's why I knew you weren't human. As for sneaking into camp. I have never seen a more perfect set up for an ambush."

"That was the idea."

"I know, it was too good for a villager ambush, we knew that the Elves were in the area so...it had to be you."

"How...underwhelming."

"It's always the same when you learn how the magic trick is done." Rickard said with an answering smile to Chireadean's. "But, if you really want to sneak up on a human, eat more meat and bathe less often. The human will assume that the stench that he is getting is his own."

"But the cost," Chireadean shuddered.

I was already falling asleep by this point and rolled over, leaving the pair of them to bicker. It seemed to take us a long time to get there by my count. I know, on a conscious level that Rickard and Chireadean were taking the time to get the two sets of people to work as a unit. I know that Elves and Humans were learning to communicate and work together. But I chafed at the slow pace. Even though I could barely stand at the end of the day.

Seeing the enemy camp up on the hill almost came as something of a relief. It was, how can I put this. We've all seen those temporary forts that get thrown up by armies as they pass through a place. Wooden posts hammered into dug pits with a couple of openings for people to come in and out of along with a couple of Watch-towers that I'm not sure I would trust _my_ life to. The Nilfgaardians can erect a large one that would put some castles to shame in terms of size and fortification in the space of a couple of hours.

This was not one of those. Once, maybe, it had been erected with professionalism and a sense of duty. Probably as some kind of "temporary" place holder so that, eventually, someone would come along and do the job properly with stone and mortar and foundations but then never got round to it.

It was a good place for a lookout fort as well. Commanding view of the local countryside, certainly of the valley that it was defending against but it just looked as though it was uncared for, unloved in some way.

The closest equivalent in my memory was the enclosure that surrounded Bishop Sansum's church but it's only reminding me of that now as I sit down to record the memories. At the time, I just felt that it looked sad and decrepit.

But absolutely dangerous.

We had not seen any sign of pursuit, whether by luck or by design, since we had set out from the Elven camp and we arrived in the area of the camp just as dusk was beginning to settle in. Rickard chose the camp-site before getting everyone together.

"We attack just before dawn." He told us. "We need light for the archers to shoot properly. Moonlight is all very well but the shadows can hide things. So here's what's going to happen. Dan, Carys (which turned out to be the name of the Elven woman. It was a shortening of her name which she seemed to tolerate) and Pol (another Elf) are going to set up a sniping position. There is a ledge above the camp that lets you see down into the enclosure. Your job is going to be to deal with anyone who looks like they're getting towards the signal fire, or anyone that might be about to raise a horn to their lips. Other than that, save your arrows. Dan, you lead that group,"

"Sir," The old poacher spat a wad of tobacco stained saliva at the ground before kicking some dirt over it to hide it. Then he offered the pouch to Carys who wrinkled her nose in disgust.

"Chireadean, you take six with you. The Sergeant and Cooper will come with you and choose four of your best and most stabby Elves. You, sneak round the wall and get in position at the other gate on the far side. Be the anvil that my hammer smashes the enemy against."

Chireadean nodded.

"The Sergeant knows how I work and will advise you." Rickard added on. Chireadean took this with good grace, despite the fact that this meant that, realistically, the Sergeant would be in charge. "What if there's no gate? On the other side I mean?"

"Then these people are more incompetent than I think they are. And I already think that they're pretty shit. If that's the case then climb the wall, make a hole or whatever. Just make sure that no-one escapes."

Chireadean nodded.

The rest of the combatants, and you know who you are, will be with me. We go in, hard and fast and leave nothing alive. The only humans that I want alive inside that camp when the sun rises are wearing my uniform."

"I like this plan," said an Elf in heavily accented Northern. I wondered if the accent was an affectation.

"In the meantime," Rickard told us. "Rest up, busy morning. Because when the killing is done. I want us to wait for no more than an hour to steal whatever food, arrows and material we can find before we're pegging it for the South."

He looked everyone in the eye before just walking off.

I moved to intercept him.

"What do you want me to do?"

He sighed. "You told me to do this, right?"

"Yes."

"I'm in charge, right?"

"Yes."

"You stay at home, in the camp with the other non-combatants, until I tell someone to come and get you. Am I clear?"

I stared at him.

"Normally Freddie," his eyes bored into mine. "I would want you and your spear at my side. Barring the men in my unit there's no-one I would rather have at my side than you and Kerrass, but neither of you are in any shape to fight. You have enough in you for a couple of exchanges but then you would be done in and you know that would be true. Yes, combat reaction would help, but then we've got to move fast and you will need all your energy for that. So you wait behind. Am I clear?"

I nodded.

"Freddie?" His voice took a warning tone.

"You're clear." I was dismayed at the whine in my voice. "I stay in camp."

"I will sit on him if I have to." Kerrass had snuck up behind me. Despite his injury and his growing preoccupation with Chireadean's story that he spent his time contrasting with the rites that we had witnessed in the villages, he could still move...well...as quietly as a cat.

Rickard nodded and moved away before I could protest further.

I didn't sleep well that night. How could I. I tried to, I really did but at the same time, all I could think about was that I should be getting more sleep and that we would have a long way to go in the morning. But then I couldn't sleep.

Why?

I don't know. I was angry, to be sure, that I would be left behind but at the same time, Rickard was right. I was tired and probably a bit sick and I would only get in the way, but I wanted to be in there. I didn't feel as though...I wanted my proper measure of vengeance. I had killed some of the riders in reflex and because I had to, because we were forced into it. As a rescue, or as a village defence back in Sam's lands and later because they were in the way and it was a "kill or be tortured to death horribly" situation. This felt different. We were setting out to kill some of the enemy. We had our targets and we were deliberately choosing to kill them. Not the ones further to the North, nor the ones further to the east or west. But these ones in particular and I felt as though I was missing out on something.

I found myself wondering about my own mental state. Was the disappointment that I was experiencing normal? Was it human and an expected healthy emotion or was it the more destructive feelings that I had talked out with Kerrass under the rock. The Dangerous feelings that might, eventually, sicken my mind. Was the desire for vengeance normal, the desire to push my spear into an enemy's body.

These were the questions that kept me up that night. Along with the universal truth that sometimes, even when you're exhausted and all your body really needs to do for it's own health apart from anything else, is to fall asleep. It will stubbornly refuse to do so.

The same thing happens before exams.

Normally when these questions come up, I would talk to Kerrass about them. He doesn't sleep as much as I do due to some kind of Witcher thing but he was sleeping more at the moment and I didn't want to disturb him. Even if he was awake, he would be sat, muttering to himself and arguing with himself. It's easy to think that I was being irrational about him but I began to remember some of my old fears of the man from back when we first started to travel together. Ludicrous and ridiculous those thoughts might have been but, at the same time, I couldn't help it.

The other person that I would normally talk to in these kinds of situations would be Ariadne. Something I had done increasingly often since we had left Toussaint and again since admitting my own problems with the way that I was feeling. Again, not for the last time, I felt around my neck for the Amulet, that old symbol of the eternal fire that she had given me and again, I felt that sense of loss and pain that it had been taken from me.

A wave of loneliness struck me then and I almost wept for it.

But there is no better aid to sleep than exhaustion of both the physical and mental variety and eventually I slept. However I only know this because I was being shaken awake with a hand over my mouth to prevent me from crying out. This meant that I was awake in time to watch those men and Elves that were part of the attack set out among the trees in the brightening day and I had to sit there with the other non-combatants and watch them go.

The non-combatants were myself, Kerrass and another twenty or so Elves that, by their own admission were all but useless in a fight, barely knowing which end of a sword to use and having no idea how to hold a bow, much less fire one and they sat there, with quiet, hollow and haunted eyes as they waited for their fellows to come back, along with the new humans that seemed to be in control of their destiny. I felt an indescribable guilt about the way that they felt and, crazy or not, I sought out Kerrass' company.

I hated the next few minutes. It was only really minutes but it felt as though it was as long as years. I feel as though people overuse the term "worst time of my life". I don't know about that, it wasn't the worst point of my life. There have been many times where I have felt fucking awful, being tired, sick or injured and if I actually sat down and tried to quantify the way that I was feeling then I would have to admit that this didn't even come close to the worst that I had ever felt. It probably didn't break into a list of the all time top ten "worst times in my life." The time spent running from the Hounds after Kerrass' arms had been broken, that would be on the list. The sheer hopelessness of how we all felt after Francesca had vanished, that would also be on the list along with when Lord Dorme had poisoned me and I thought that I was dying. The ride from the North when we had heard been brought news of Father's injury and illness would also be up there. All of those times were occasions where, objectively, things had been worse than when we were sat, waiting to be told whether the dawn raid had been successful or not.

But I still hated it and I would have given anything to be down there, or up there or over there or wherever the fuck Rickard had led them. I wanted to be there, fighting, being involved rather than over here and waiting for news.

"It's hard." Kerrass said from where he was sat nearby. He said it quietly but everyone else was so quiet that his voice seemed to carry over to me across the growing gulf that had started to form between us. His eyes glittered in the cold light and he seemed like some kind of alien...thing that haunts the dreams of normal men, those cat's eyes of his boring into me, staring deep into my brain and my soul as if to read what was there.

I always get poetic when I'm tired.

"What's hard?" I asked him.

"Waiting." He rolled his shoulders, it was becoming a regular thing with him, almost like a nervous tick. He was moving his arms in an effort to settle them a bit better in his slings, maybe to feel that tiny little bit more comfortable but it never seemed to work. "It's been a long time since I was last forced into the situation where I was sat, just waiting like the chump that I am. But I had forgotten how much I hated it. It was one of the things that I hated as we ran away from Cavill and his cronies."

I said nothing.

"The waiting for _you_ to do...whatever it was that needs to be done." He grinned nastily. "It actually feels a bit better now that you are feeling the same frustration."

I nodded. I found that the conversation was making me feel uncomfortable. "We need to be quiet." I told him.

"Not really," he responded. "The arrows have started flying and the blades have started to flash in the firelight."

He cocked his head to one side. The "Witcher is listening" look that once had reminded me of a dog listening for signs of it's master coming home. It no longer reminded me of that.

"Those that might hear us are too busy wondering about their own survival to worry about the small muttered words of a Witcher and a scholar in the dawn."

We said nothing for a while.

"Why do we always attack at dawn?" I wondered. Every time we attack armed men it's either at dusk or dawn, why not at midnight or something?"

His teeth flashed in the night as he smiled. "Because Sundown is when people change guards. The old guard are just relaxing and beginning to look forward to their beds and something hot to eat. The new guards are just in the process of being woken up and stumbling blearily to the latrines. People often assume that the danger has passed when it gets to that point of the night. They begin to reason that no-one will attack at dawn and so they begin to let themselves relax. The same thing with dusk. People tell themselves that the real danger comes at midnight or a couple of hours after that. It never occurs to them that people might come in at dusk when everyone's awake."

The conversation petered out when Kerrass stopped talking and I felt the guilt again. Guilt at not being down on the raid. Guilt that I had dragged everyone into this mess, including Kerrass who, although he was getting better, I had left with an injury that he may never properly recover from. I hated the fact that people were off fighting and possibly dying in my name.

I hated it.

But I also felt guilt that I was distancing myself from my friend. His muttering and staring eyes were frightening me and I didn't like it. It made me feel uncomfortable because I couldn't follow him to wherever he had gone. I couldn't understand it and, if I was being honest with myself, I didn't want to understand it and that left me feeling like a shit of a human being and an even worse friend.

"Kerrass," I began.

"You don't need to say anything Freddie, I know."

I said nothing for a moment. Kerrass had returned to his muttering and facial ticks as he was arguing with himself. It seemed to cost him no effort at all to maintain both sides of the conversation and I sat there and watched him go about his rambling and was left wondering whether or not he actually was aware of what I was about to say or whether he just said something to get rid of me.

"Are you alright Kerrass?" I asked eventually.

"Mmm?" He seemed startled as though I had woken him up from sleep.

"It's just that you spend so much time talking to yourself and arguing with yourself. You don't seem to be...You don't seem entirely right Kerrass. Is there something you want to tell me?"

"I'm tired," he admitted after a while, as though he was thinking about the response "and I'm finding this really difficult as well, more so I imagine than you are but I need to figure this out. I need to..." He frowned as he said this and his conversation almost seemed to peter out. I have seen this many times before, amongst the really clever kinds of academics back at the university. When a thought occurs to them and they have to run back to their lab or their rooms to check something vital in their notes or in some reference book because if they don't then they will lose whatever revelation has just occurred to them.

"I need to figure this out." He said in that same quiet, detached voice.

"Figure what out."

"Mmm?" Again that distracted look, vacant and bleary. A look that I didn't like on the face of a man that was always so focused.

"Kerrass, you're scaring me. What do you need to figure out?"

"This, I would wave my hand at everything but I don't want to take my arm out of the sling. You've got this all wrong, you, Rickard, even the Elf. It's all wrong. You're looking at this in terms of men, of enemies and armies. Of lords, politics and religion. But that's not it at all. You're not going to solve this by getting back to your brother. You're not going to free this countryside with swords, bows and whatever else,"

He stared into space for a moment as I tried to work this out.

"This is not a human problem, not even an Elven problem. If we get back to your brother and raise an army, lay siege to a mountain range and bring out all of his followers in the same way that you draw poison from a wound before wiping them all out. The curse will still be there. The curse is so potent that it brings Elves here despite their own best interests. It's kept Chireadean here when even _he_ knows that he would be better off elsewhere. Killing Cavill and his cronies is only dealing with the surface of the problem, it's like..." He paused for thought. "It would be like sewing up the wound before stopping the bleeding. Treating the symptom before you figure out the disease."

He was staring at me intently.

"There is a curse here and it needs lifting or it will come back. In a few years, even a decade, a man will suddenly get it into his head to rape and torture a young girl to death and the euphoria from that act will overwhelm him to the point that he will want to do it again and again and again. He will tell his friends about it and so it will happen more and more until in fifty years time, less even, this is all going to happen again and we might as well have left Cavill to his own devices.

"So we must lift this curse. We _must_. And that is Witcher's work. I just...I just wish I could think more clearly without all of these other voices in my head."

"I ask this with all possible concern Kerrass, but are you losing your mind?"

He chuckled. "Nah. Insanity makes you think that you're getting saner. Here I just feel as though I'm missing something. It's something to do with the sacrifice of the First born. It's something about that that doesn't make sense. Humans might do that out of desperation but there is no way that Elves would, or encourage it in others and this was before the Elves and the humans had properly started hating each other. There's no way that the Elves would try and force the humans to kill their own children. There's something there. Something..."

He petered out again.

"They're coming." He said suddenly. Just giving me enough time to really start panicking at the ambiguity of that statement before Rickard and Chireadean came back through the trees.

"All done," Rickard told us all with a smile. "Some cuts and bruises but we're ok. Time to start moving and now we need to move fast, so let's get to it,"

We descended on the camp like a wave. A tide of rage and anger, of vengeance taken. It made me feel sick.

Watching as an Elven woman with a child on her hip. A fact that I hadn't noticed up to that point stopped to kick a fallen man whose blood was still leaking from the open throat before bending to rifle through the man's belongings. When she was done she hawked and spat on the man's corpse before encouraging her child to do the same, making the young lad express a hate that he might not have understood on the corpse of a fallen enemy.

The Elves have every reason to hate us, and we have every reason to hate them. But it is a self-defeating cycle of hatred that I can see no way out of and wiser men than me have tried to find an answer to no success.

Not that I can blame these Elves in particular for their disdain and their hatred. They have earned the right to hate so indiscriminately. I wondered again if this was a path that I was in danger of going down. My growing rage at the people that had taken Francesca away from me, was that leading me to hate them. Then would it lead me to hate anyone that was associated with them or who might have been hiding information to do with those people? I had no answer but I resolved, once again, to do my best to let go of my anger in the hope that it would help me let go of my hate.

As I watched, the woman was butchering a horse for cuts of meat, she was using the knife of the man that she had just looted. It would seem that those pointless pieces of metal were useful for some things. She slipped it easily into her belt as she wrapped the steaks in some cloth and handed it over to the waiting child who didn't even blink at the fact that they were being handed large slabs of still dripping meat.

Then she was moving on.

The main focus of the looting was arrows though. I was told by someone that the bastards and the Elven archers had been ordered to hold their fire as much as possible. There was still a good couple of weeks trek ahead of us and it seemed inconceivable to anyone that we would go that entire distance without meeting the enemy. Again, I watched as one of the bastards, I don't know who it was as I was watching from the back, pulled a handful of arrows from a box of arrows that was near the watchtower. He examined them in disgust and shook his head, but nevertheless, the arrows were added to his own quiver before lifting the box onto his shoulders.

We had commandeered a number of horses and the looted provisions were quickly strapped to the beasts. I tried to help but they wouldn't let me, telling me that I would need my strength causing my anger and frustration at this enforced inactivity to grow, but then an order was called and we jogged out into the growing morning light.

The sunrise that morning was particularly beautiful. Hues of red, orange and purple. The mountains hid the sun from us until the sky was well lit but the colours that this generated as well as the clouds against the mountain peaks was a combination that made me wish that I could paint.

Or that I had time to paint.

But then I had to turn my attention to the trail as the path we were following was not easy. It wasn't long before I was, again, forced to admit that Rickard and the rest knew more about my physical capabilities than I did. I lasted several hours before the Elf, who I later learned had been assigned to me for precisely this purpose, caught me in mid stumble for the second time.

"I'm sorry," I told him.

He smiled and pretended not to understand despite the fact that I _know_ I was speaking Elven at the time. He also held me as I was placed onto the back of one of the horses. I complained about that as well until they had to tie me on early that afternoon to keep me from falling off. Even Kerrass was doing better than I was as he loped along next to the horse that I was riding. Consuming the distance with long easy strides. Bastard that he is. It still took me three attempts to get his attention though as he was still too busy muttering at the thoughts that were streaking across his consciousness.

"Why are you so active when I'm struggling to keep my eyes open?" I demanded of him when I finally got him to look at me.

"Being a Witcher is good for some things." He told me. "Now shut up. I'm thinking."

I was stiff as a board at the end of that days march. We were still going long after dark, trusting to the Elves Night Vision to find us a path and a place to spend the night so that, in total, we had started our activities of the day before dawn and finished long after nightfall. I remember none of this, all I remember of that evening was that I had to be woken up and forced to eat anything on the grounds that they wouldn't leave me alone until after I had done so.

There was a mist the following morning.

I was horribly stiff as I woke and it took me a while to force my limbs to move. Another effort of will to sit up and to begin massaging life back into rebellious muscles. I have no idea how long it took me to stand up and stretch in that way that makes your spine pop and leaves you feeling dizzy.

I found Rickard and Chireadean standing together looking at the mountains and the small range of hills that we had just come out of. Chireadean didn't move, so intense was his gaze on the hill and mountain tops as they climbed out of the layers of misty tendrils. Rickard greeted me with a nod before turning back to examine the same view.

"There's always a mist when they come." Chireadean was saying. "Those that the villagers call "The Hounds of Kreve." Always a mist. I've often wondered, during those moments when I can't bring myself to think about Elven survival and politics any further, do they do this on purpose? Do they deliberately wait for a mist before they ride out to terrorize people? They can certainly ride abroad in normal weather, but there is always a mist when they attack. Always."

He said it quietly, in the same kind of hypnotic tone that a bard uses when they're telling you a ghost story.

"That's what the villagers said." Rickard said. "Always a mist."

We stood in silence for a long moment. I can't speak for either Chireadean or Rickard but I had the sensation of standing at the top of a cliff before jumping off it into a lake. Only this cliff was much taller than any that I had ever jumped off before. Bigger than the cliff that I stood on when I was about to ask Shani out to dinner. Bigger than the rock over the local pond where Emma taught me to swim. Bigger than the cliff that I stood on before leaving home for the university or when I packed up my belongings in order to set out and find a Witcher.

The only cliff I could think of that was comparable was in that moment before I asked Ariadne to marry me, only this time I knew that there were deadly, sharp rocks at the bottom and I could not see where they were. The worst that Ariadne could have done was to metaphorically rip out my heart and stamp on it until it shattered into a thousand pieces.

That moment, just before you jump. You know that there's nothing you can do except to jump but for a moment, you just enjoy standing on the precipice, the moment of turning and looking at the room that you are about to leave, the knowledge that after this plunge, life will never be the same again.

It was like that and the stillness that settled over us was total. It almost seemed sacrilegious to break the silence.

"They will have found the camp by now." Rickard said as we watched the mist roll up and down the mountainside with the gusts of wind. "They will have found it and they will know that we have made our move. They will be taking to horse and coming after us."

"The ground will shake with their coming." Chireadean answered. I got the sense that he was quoting something, "Frost and mist shall be their herald and their hounds will play under their feet. Arrayed in black steel with sharp swords that glitter with ice. Terrible to behold as they herald the coming of winter. A winter that will never thaw."

"Their leader will come with a crown of ice and his face shall be as a skull." I answered him finally recognising that thing that he was quoting. "And where his blade strikes, the blood and the very marrow in the bones shall freeze. The worms in the ground shall shatter in the cold."

There was a pause as we both stopped speaking.

"Cheery," Rickard commented drily after a long moment.

"The Wild Hunt." Chireadean commented. "I'm quoting from the works of Dandelion the bard, although I always heard that he took those lines from elsewhere. Freddie?"

I nodded my agreement. "I never figured out where he got it from though. One of his earlier works and not one of his best. I used to read it to Francesca when I was forced to read her a bed time story in an effort to scare the crap out of her so that I would never have to do it again."

"She loved it didn't she?" Rickard was grinning.

"She always did. She started to ask Emma to read it, much to Emma's dismay as she hated the story. Frannie would always criticise her for not doing it in all the silly voices that I used to use."

Conversations subsided again for a moment.

"The Wild Hunt," Chireadean chuckled to himself. "I remember thinking that they were just some kind of a myth until I read the Bard's accounts of their attacks. Funny but I had always assumed that they would be on my side. On the sides of the Elves but Dandelion says that they had almost as much disdain for the remaining Elves of this world as they did for the humans."

"You know Dandelion?" I shouldn't have been surprised. He had already admitted to knowing Geralt so it wasn't that much of a stretch to think that he knew the Bard.

"Of course," Chreadean smiled. "I have known many people over the years. With a bit of luck, in fifty years time I'll be telling another uppity human that I met named Frederick von Coulthard."

I snorted.

"Well, at least we're not facing The Wild Hunt," Rickard said. "We're facing men who can be confounded and slain." He rocked his head from side to side, seemingly in an effort to loosen himself up. "Let's get them all up. We've got a lot of ground to cover to get back to Kalayn lands."

But we weren't going to make it.

I remember Rickard had sounded so...determined. So optimistic and hopeful. As though the end result wasn't in any kind of question. That we were all but home and that they end result was a foregone conclusion.

But we weren't going to make it.

The morning of the first mist still left us with a solid fourteen day, straight line march to get to the safety of Kalayn lands and that was assuming that we would march into the waiting arms of friendly troops. It was all too feasible that we would stagger over the border, exhausted from the trail, only to be caught by a raiding party.

That first mist had an odd effect on the group. It was a goad certainly and I, for one, felt a new, fear fuelled energy coursing through my body. But as I've just written. It produced a different kind of fear as well. A fear that I hadn't really felt since I crossed the border of Kalayn lands in the other direction and it was a kind of...superstitious fear. By which I mean a fear of shadows, a fear of strange noises heard in the middle of the night and a fear of odd, out of place movement on the edge of your vision.

Sudden movement becomes vastly amplified, even whispers seem to echo in the night. The cold seems colder and even bright sunlight seems intrusive as you begin to feel that it places a target on your back leaving you feeling vulnerable and afraid.

At first you laugh at yourself as you realise how silly you're being but more and more, the laughter dies and you huddle that bit closer to your fellows.

It was the type of fear that I had forgotten.

Leaving Kalayn lands I had lost the feeling that I was up against strange spectral demons from beyond the realms of myth and legend and had got back into the mindset of being up against very real and dangerous people. In this case, the "Cavill Cult". Nothing wrong with being afraid of a significant and organised group of lunatics that get off on torturing people to death. A perfectly understandable and reasonable fear that no-one can blame me for. But now, that fear of things that I couldn't understand and that I would never be able to understand was back.

I'm trying to think of a better way to put this.

Think about the nearest abandoned building that you know. Imagine an old Farm house that is near where you live, or a stand alone town house. Big house, lots of rooms with staircases and rooms and broken down furniture. Maybe even some quarters for servants to stay in where they're separate from the other rooms or there might be large store-rooms for the keeping of...things in. It's been abandoned now for several years.

Maybe the family was forced to leave because of the war, both the father and son were conscripted into the army and never returned so that the women of the family were forced to sell to someone who worked the land. Maybe the residents upgraded to a better situation, a more modern farm or town house with more modern fittings in a more fashionable part of town. One of any number of reasons why someone might, perfectly reasonably, pick up everything that they own and decide to leave one day.

So you go and look at this house. It's perfectly normal. Dusty, spider's webs everywhere, rotten sack-cloth and other items that were either too big, or too bulky, or not worth keeping so that they were left behind. Maybe there's even sign that someone took shelter there for a night or two while passing through as they were unable to find an inn or needed shelter from the storm. Small shafts of light come through the roof where bits of thatch or individual roof tiles have been removed, either through effects of weather or having been stolen by a neighbour on the grounds that good thatch or well made roof tiles are hard to find.

Can you picture the scene?

So what if I told you that the person that used to live there was a Sorceress.

Lets say she was an Elf as well if you like. An Elven Sorceress who had lived in that house for a long time. This was long before the family that you knew were actually living there. She was the person who ordered the house built originally and she had lived there quietly and peacefully for decades. Maybe the house that you know was built as part of the ruins of this Sorceress' old home.

It doesn't matter.

The Sorceress was a good woman, she looked after the community, healing the sick, providing effective potions as well as good solid advice on how to deal with various matters including various civil problems such as land ownership or disagreements. This was because the King's magistrates are so far away that it's impractical to take every matter to them so local villages take their own problems to this woman who smiles graciously before kindly and patiently leading the village councils through their problems and helping them to find the solution.

One day an official of some kind comes through town and is seen to be arguing with the Sorceress. Maybe the official is a merchant, maybe a tax official or a herald of some kind. Rumour is rife about the man, he stayed in a local tavern for the night before he was spotted heading towards the home of the Sorceress and he was rude to the serving staff at the inn. One of the girls that worked there didn't like the way he looked at her.

Many people said that they saw him heading towards the Sorceress' home, but none saw him leave.

She tells everyone who listens that he demanded something of her claiming the right to demand that thing. She took justifiable offence and ordered him to leave her sight which he did.

Rumour spreads about what he demanded. Did he demand money for some service? Was he a tax man that demanded that she pay up, or did he have more nefarious motives. Was he one of those, sadly not infrequent people that believe that the term "village Witch" is synonymous with "prostitute"? The Sorceress herself is tight lipped on the matter, telling folk that she will not dignify these theories with answers.

But then it transpires that no-one saw the man leave her house, or the area for that matter. Someone made an uncomfortable joke about the Sorceress killing and eating him, maybe using him for some kind of dark and sinister ritual.

People laugh uncomfortably but the joke is maintained by those people who the Sorceress has reserved her most caustic and scornful responses for. The kind of person who has come off worst in the Sorceress' handling of matters.

Then one day a group of the King's soldiers come by and they hear this joke. One of them comments that they had heard of this and that the official hadn't been seen since. The assembly isn't sure as to whether or not this soldier is also joking. The soldier's man in charge, whether it's a knight or a Sergeant of some kind, goes to investigate and ask questions of the Sorceress who tells him to fuck off and not to be impertinent. The questioner, full of self-importance takes offence at this and pulls out his sword. The Sorceress defends herself and the man ends up a small pile of ash on the floor. The other soldiers are horrified and flee.

The villagers retreat.

More soldiers come, this time with a Witch-hunter. The village is full of rumours about the presence of these men in advance and they seem to be waiting for something. That something being that the Sorceress leaves her home for some reason of her own and the soldiers attack her.

She is taken, because even Sorceresses are not infallible and can be taken by surprise or dog-piled under superior numbers and then a pyre is built in the middle of the village square where she is burnt alive. She hisses and curses at everyone around about how this is an injustice, that she had just been defending herself and that they will never hear the end of things. She swears her vengeance and that this is not the end of things before she dies spitting at people, begging and pleading at the same time towards all the people that she had helped over the years.

She dies, screaming in agony.

The soldiers and the Witch Hunter go into the Sorceress' home and spend a bit of time in the tavern looking pale and spinning tales of dark ritual circles, of baby corpses and secret doors. Of demons chained in the darkness and the loss of men's sanity. Of lustful implements and obscene writings.

That night, one of the old men who had objected to the Sorceress' meddling in village affairs dies of a heart attack and people whisper that it's the curse of the Sorceress made manifest.

One by one, all of those people who had made the jokes about her being a prostitute or who had spread the rumours about her having killed and eaten the man who had first argued with her, they all die. One falls down a ditch while drunk, breaks his leg and freezes to death. Another suffers a stroke. Another is found out in the woods having had all the blood drained from his body. Another falls off his roof and breaks his neck. Another falls afoul of a passing priest and gets accused of heresy before being burnt in a similar pyre to the Sorceress.

Eventually word reaches the village that the original official is alive and well and acting as an ambassador's aide in a far off country. That the Sorceress did nothing at all. That the original group of soldiers were sent by a jealous King or, more likely, a jealous courtier who didn't want the royal power being diluted by Sorceress power, and were under orders to provoke the Sorceress into action so that an excuse would be had to have her killed.

Nevertheless, the Witch-hunter cleaned her residence out with much shaking of his head at the perversions that they found there.

The next family to live there, lasted a year before their money ran out and they had to move elsewhere. The following occupant was a scribe who wanted a place of privacy to work on something, what that thing was? He never said, but he quickly went mad and died.

The son of the next family was in his early teens when he would come into town to drink and try to sleep with the village girls and would tell stories about the wraith of the dead Sorceress roaming the house. He is a well known liar though and people dismiss his stories until, at his funeral after he died of some kind of horrific pox, his sister tells the story of how he saw the wraith and had commented to her about how beautiful she was before he died.

The next family lasted a night in the place before fleeing in terror.

A long chain of people live there and all of them leave under dark and mysterious circumstances. But another story about the place sticks out. They say that the dead Sorceress still lives there. That her corpse has rebuilt itself. Being dead she no longer has to eat, sleep or do any other kind of thing that human beings have to do in order to survive and so she spends all of her time in a secret basement working on her rituals and summoning demons to either (depending on which side of the story you believe) enjoy their perverted rituals or to further her vengeance on those who wronged her.

They say that if you see her spirit and find her attractive that you will suffer from a deadly and vile version of the pox.

They say that she wanders her home looking for people who remind her of those that stood by and did nothing to help her when she died.

They say that somewhere, deep in the basements of the house there is a secret door that leads through to the Sorceress' most secret lab. The one that the Witch-hunters could never find, so cunningly was it hidden. They say that in there there is still her diaries and spell grimoires for those who would dare to read them as well as the chained demon who taught her the darkest secrets of magic who lies there, waiting for the one who will come to find it.

The previous owners, the ones that you knew, would ridicule these stories and laugh at them, so far removed from the events as they were.

But then the Father and the son were called to war and the women had to go and live with relatives.

The little girl said that she met a strange lady in the house one night. The lady offered her a sweet and seemed nice.

Now here's my question. Knowing all this, is it the same house and would you still be comfortable exploring it on a dark night when the mist is rolling in and you can hear a distant roll of thunder?

That was what it was like.

The trees were still trees, the ground was still muddy and the mountains were still there off to the East. My spear was still sharp, my dagger was still heavy on my hip and my enemies were still flesh and blood men that could be fought and killed in the same way that every enemy that I've ever faced can be caught and killed.

But I was afraid and the slow building dread affected all of us.

Two days later and the word was passed around that we should start wearing the scarves that we all carried, the scarves that had been infused with Kerrass' mixture to protect us from the Hound's poisons. But it didn't help.

That same day, we saw our first sign that the Hounds were in the area. We saw horse tracks down a road, smaller than the farm horses that were being used in the area but still large enough to be properly shod with the kinds of shoe that you use in war.

The going went slower after that as we grew more cautious, we took our time and deliberately chose ground where the horses would struggle to pass over. We went through marshland and over rocky slopes, through thick patches of trees.

I chafed at the lost speed but on the other hand it meant that I was better able to regain some strength although I had managed to win the victory that meant that I was no longer being forced to ride and could feel like I was contributing again.

We began to see numerous signs that we were not alone in the forest. That there were horsemen everywhere that were either missing us or ignoring us completely. We would all be huddled in a hollow as we watched a pair of horsemen ride by, horses foaming at the mouth as they were whipped on to new efforts. We heard distant horn calls and cries that echoed out through the tree-tops. We had no way of knowing what all of these things were as we were deliberately ignoring plumes of smoke that were probably villages but also could be encampments.

We also didn't want to endanger the lives of the villagers. We were, as I say, getting closer to Kalayn lands with every passing step which made it more and more likely that the villages were getting friendlier and friendlier but...the problem was that there was almost no way that we could tell a friendly villager from an unfriendly villager and all it would take would be fore one of the people in the village to be an informant for the hounds and then that would be it.

Game over.

I found it fairly curious. They had to know roughly where we were, they had to know what we were doing and which way we were going and although, as I say, there was plenty of signs that the horsemen were out there, there had been no signs of active pursuit. I brought it up with Rickard that night.

"They're tightening the net." Was Rickard's opinion. If I didn't know better I would say that he was enjoying himself. He was the only one out of all of us who didn't seem tired, who ran and walked at all times, always on his feet, checking sentries, talking to folk, learning names and back stories. Always with a word of encouragement or a goad to flagging spirits and dropping energies.

"Shame on you Dan," I heard him call out across the column at one point. "I remember a time when you would have _run_ twice this distance and asked where the nearest whores were. Shame on you, now pick your feet up."

The old poacher who was acting as rear guard, his old eyes still sharper than many of the Elves, told Rickard to Fuck off to Rickard's laughter and smiles all around. The twinkle even coming back to Dan as well.

"They're tightening the net." Rickard repeated to me and Chireadean. The Elf was stretched out on the floor nearby. I had mistaken this pose for him being asleep before but I had learned better. "They know where we've been and they know where we're going so they're taking their time in tightening things up. They're in no rush."

"Why not?" I asked. "We are not a small number of people. We're a threat."

"Yes, but they're confident that they can get more men at us. Men are expensive."

Chireadean snorted at this. I guessed that he was amused by something but I couldn't quite tell at what. Rickard took a stick and poked him in the ribs. The two of them were forming a fast friendship which I found that I resented. I have no idea why as I liked them both but there seemed to be some kind of common ground there that I was missing out on.

"If they attack us at the moment." Rickard explained. "Then one of two things happen. Either we fight them off causing untold damage to enemy morale that a motley crew of Elven renegades and soldiers led by a scummy low-born knight and an even scummier noble was able to beat them."

Another snort from Chireadean. "I notice that it doesn't occur to anyone that the Elves might be in charge."

"Shut up knife ear." Rickard told him. "I'm talking from the perspective of the people that are chasing us and they are unspeakably evil, let alone open to the idea of equal representation. Also, you're not in charge so keep your pointy ears out."

There was no anger in the voice though. More a kind of friendly mocking tone.

Chireadean's, oh so witty response, was to throw a rock at Rickard which only narrowly avoided hitting Rickard in the testicles.

"Ow," he cackled.

"I'm surrounded by children." I commented. "What's the other thing?"

"What other thing?" Rickard had retaliated by scooping dead leaves over the reclining figure of the Elf.

"You said that there were two things that prevented them from just attacking us?"

"Oh yeah. Well the other thing is that that they hit us and then we scatter. They're after you. You and Kerrass really, the rest of us would just be an added bonus. But if they hit us and we scatter then they're going to have to spend ages rounding us all up to make sure that they have us all, by which I mean, that they have you."

"Lovely." I commented. "So why don't we scatter? If that's what they're afraid of. Why don't we do that? I could go off with any number of small units, we split up and make our own way back. We'd also be harder to track too. Smaller groups move better than larger ones and we would be better able to hide our progress."

The two of them were making obscene gestures at each other in a parody of a bitter argument. Chireadean sighed and moved off through the trees in a huff.

"Harder to spot? Yes. Impossible?" Rickard shook his head. "While we speak, the net is closing in around us. No matter which way we chose to come south we were going to be found. They can find us. There is enough men here. Enough so that they have the luxury of being able to take their time and to be lazy. They don't have to. They could attack us and hunt down the scattering people and probably do it relatively easy. Sooner or later they would find you."

"You make it sound so hopeful." I told him bitterly.

He ignored the comment. "The trick here." He said. "Is to zig when they're expecting to zag and then, when we have no other choice, we make a break for it and use our superior numbers to hammer through the careful net that they are building and run off in an unexpected direction."

"So things are not hopeless." I wanted to say it out loud. Just so that I could hear myself say it I think.

"Not hopeless Freddie. Difficult and I would be lying if I tried to tell you that we aren't going to lose someone but...not hopeless. You will get through to your brother."

I looked at him for a while.

"Why do you look as though you're enjoying this so much?" I asked him.

"Because I am enjoying it."

"Why though?" I didn't bother to hide my confusion.

"It's fun to be on the other side of a manhunt for a change."

He didn't elaborate because Chireadean had returned having found a stick and was attacking him with it.

Then came the second mist, the men behind us and the decision that we would have to destroy the men on our back trail. The time when I first said aloud that we weren't going to make it.

I thought about Rickard's responses then, at his sudden display of temper and anger at my comments.

Comments that I thought were perfectly reasonable at the time and possibly even rather realistic. I thought about Rickard's reaction and the way he had acted in that small clearing with Chireadean. I began to wonder if I had really seen and heard what I thought I had seen and heard.

We stripped the enemy of everything that they had. The armour under the cloaks was fairly good quality which meant that we had killed some of Cavill's veterans. That was a small victory but I was taking everything I could by that point. The Elves took them into the trees and butchered them. There was no other word for it and I looked appalled. Both at the fact that they were doing it and at the fact that Rickard didn't even blink.

"There's a fox trail near there." He explained. "With a bit of luck, the animals will do a lot of the work about hiding the bodies for us."

I just felt sick. We also kept the horses. They were tired, badly fed beasts and they quivered at the touch of human hands but the Elves seemed to be able to get them to stay calm as we moved off to meet with the others.

I tried to tell Kerrass what had happened but I don't think he took it in.

That was the other thing I can't remember. I don't remember when I decided that Kerrass had lost his mind. The stress of being helpless when he is normally a man of action and decisive action at that. This coupled with the stresses of his injury, the inability to train or meditate as well as the reduction in his elixirs. At some point I had decided that he had just lost it. That I needed to get him back somewhere so that he could spend a bit of time convalescing and get himself back to normal. I didn't think it was a hopeless case but I felt miserable as I was forced to sit and watch as my friend disappeared inside himself. He would accept food and drink and would sleep like a baby.

At first, Rickard and Chireadean had tried to include him in their discussions about what to do next but, as time went on, it just became increasingly clear that Kerrass was just not taking it in. It wasn't that there was suddenly a decision made that Kerrass should be left out. It was just that people stopped calling for him when we all got together to make decisions.

The fact that Rickard and Chireadean wouldn't listen to me either, when they were making decisions was not lost on me. They had seemed to decide that I was terminally stupid and would just do something to hurt myself.

But we came back to the waiting soldiers and the waiting group and Rickard ordered us to speed up the order of the march Eastwards. We had been travelling roughly Southwards for the previous couple of days and it seemed that it was time for a change of direction. The bastards started to pick their feet up. What with what we had recovered, what the Bastards had had when we first travelled south and those that we had taken from the enemy, we were doing quite well for horses. Even with all of our equipment strapped to the sides of the horses there was still room for us to rotate people up onto the horses backs for a bit of a rest.

It was still me that sat up there rather more often that I was strictly comfortable with but it did alleviate things.

But now the chase was on. Where previously Rickard had cajoled and teased, now he ordered and mocked. Regular threats were made that if we didn't pick our feet up and march like we meant it then we would be left behind for Cavill's men to find.

I was not the only one who resented the change in leadership style judging by the bitching and moaning I heard from some of the Elves around me who muttered and moaned when they thought I couldn't understand them.

There seemed to be an unspoken thing. All of them knew that I could speak and understand Elven but if I didn't speak Elven in front of them then they would pretend that I couldn't and therefore, they didn't need to take offence.

But then something strange happened. The Elves determined that they would show this "Filthy human commander how Elves can move through the forest". And they picked up the pace independently.

At which point the bastards realised what was happening and the Sergeant whispered fiercely, even though it still sounded like a bellow to me, that he wasn't going to let the pointy eared bastards out march him and he, in turn, picked up the pace again.

Both Chireadean and Rickard were quick to step in when this competition started to get dangerous but I got the feeling that they were both pleased with it in some way.

But the good mood was not to last. In fact, it's a minor miracle that it lasted as long as it did. Because now it was a race, Not just the foot race of who could cover the ground fastest which was always going to be won by our enemies who rode on horseback, but also the race of who could spot the other first.

We could move through areas that horses couldn't traverse at speed. As it was, the mounts that we did have left had to be forced through the cracks in the undergrowth. This meant that we could cross country in a relatively straight line while the faster moving hunters had to go miles out of their way if they hoped to catch us.

So they were left playing a waiting game. Waiting for us to come to them and we had to figure out a way to come at them in a way that they didn't expect. That they hadn't prepared for. The major problem here was that they knew where we were going.

On a nightly basis I berated myself for choosing that course when Cavill first cut Kerrass and I loose. I should have gone North or tried to make my way through to the West to get out of the lands. But I had chosen what, at the time, had seemed to be the quickest and easiest route. I tried to suggest doing otherwise to Rickard on multiple times but he told me to shut up. That the decision had been made and now we had to follow it through or else risk paralysing ourselves with indecision and second guesses. Of course he was right but I chafed at it. I felt responsible. I felt as though it was my actions that had killed everyone around me.

The other problem that played on my mind was that we had to remain lucky as we fled. We had to hide and run before running and hiding again. All Cavill's men had to do was to be lucky once and walk into us as we marched, strung out and unprepared as we were.

Our luck didn't hold, of course it didn't because how could it although, fortunately it went in our favour the first couple of times. The advance Elven scouts, the pair of former Scoia'Tael that liked to work together, were the advance guard, roaming ahead of the group. They spotted a small encampment of the Hounds and came back to report meaning that we could backtrack a bit before walking in on them and being able to skirt round them.

I still like to entertain myself by imagining the report that those guys had to give over when the tracks were found that led round them. I like to think about their faces and the face of Lord Cavill reacting to that news, that we had completely avoided one of their sentry posts.

Rickard was effusive with his compliments that night, positively gushing with praise over the actions of the two scouts who stood there with some bemusement at the praise that they were receiving from the human knight. He held them up as examples to everyone as to how a job can be done and how to do it right.

Chireadean made a point of translating Rickard's speech into Elven for everyone to understand although I remain confident that the two Elves really _can_ understand Northern speech and just choose _not_ to use it.

Then they proceeded to take all of that good will and throw it down the cesspit.

The following day they spotted a rider on his way somewhere. We have no idea where or where he was coming from as the two Elves shot him out of the saddle. Killing him almost instantly.

"You stupid Bastards." Rickard snarled at the pair of them. Dragging them off from the main group and proving, at the same time, that a man isn't _really_ angry until he goes quiet. I also noticed that Chireadean didn't feel the need to translate Rickard's words this time. "You stupid thoughtless fuckers. Now we have to move again. They know where he was coming from and where he was going. All they have to do is track backwards to find him and they will know where we were. You've given our position away with almost as much efficiency as if you had stood out in the open and screamed at the top of your lungs."

The two Elves were impassive as Rickard turned and stalked off to calm down. Chireadean took the opportunity to tell them to head off.

"A bit harsh wasn't it old by?" The Elf commented to Rickard. "We killed those trackers a few days ago."

"Yes," Rickard had taken a deep breath. "Yes we did, but we did it in the early hours of the morning when we still had a days march ahead of us. They were also amongst Cavill's best and they were tracking our line of march. This guy that those idiots have killed had no idea where we were. Was just some drugged up conscript which we know because his gear was shit. His horse is going to run back to camp which is going to tell them that something's wrong and now we have to march through the night so that we stand even the smallest chance of not being found again."

"Rickard." I said, putting my hand on his shoulder in an effort to calm him down but he shrugged me off before standing there breathing heavily.

"And they wasted two arrows." Rickard finished in a quieter voice before taking another deep breath. "Time to zag again. I was hoping that we would get further before we would have to change direction. This means that we have to go through a marsh."

"How do you know that?" I asked him.

He snorted. "All that time you were fannying around talking to your brother and your in-laws. I was studying maps. They weren't perfect but and vast swathes of it are just labeled "uninhabited" but there were several areas that were better marked. We were heading South East towards the mountains. Now we're going to have to go South West which leads us into marsh-land."

Another deep breath. "And we need to start now."

Which we did, marching long into the night.

Did the death of that rider give away our position. I have no idea. Absolutely none. But what I do know is that the following day we started to be harried. We could hear horsemen off in the distance along with the sounds of distant signal horns and found signs of riders all around us. We could see them in the distance as well. Standing their horses and riding around, mist shrouded and mysterious as they seemed to watch us at a distance. There was a mist and, as we were heading into wet lands, it lingered and steadfastly refused to lift.

We were in some kind of bowl in the countryside. Although the landscape was heavily forested and hilly, this area seemed to be in a dip and water ran off the hills and the mountains which meant that there was a marsh because that was just what we needed to make our lives seem better.

We had only slept for a few hours before Rickard insisted that we were back on our feet again and heading out and thank the flame that he did. We had just gone into the water, the advance scouts finding paths through the treacherous marshland when the rear-guard called to say that they could see horsemen milling around our camp-site. Rickard nodded and kept us moving.

The stink was incredible. I want to say overpowering but the fear of the horsemen behind us was also a powerful motivator and so we went on. Rickard theorised that the marsh was a couple of days across but he also suggested that we would have to fight our way free from it. The marsh was hiding our tracks and our sent but it would be almost certain that they knew where we were. The horn calls continued and seemed to be getting nearer with every passing hour.

"Scare tactics," was Rickard's assessment of the matter.

He was probably right but it worked.

What with the horn calls or the insects that lived in the swamp. I, for one, didn't sleep that night.

By my count we were seven days from the Kalayn border.

That count was adjusted again as we stopped just before we reached the edge of the marsh as we wanted to be rested up in case we had to fight our way through some kind of ambush as we left the marsh. It was really tempting. Ridiculously tempting and equally irrational to want to stay in the marsh itself. We could walk around in circles in there and Cavill and his ilk would never find us, hidden as we were by the shifting nature of the marshland and the mists. But we would run out of food and fresh water. The marsh-fly bites might carry any number of diseases and as we hid, more and more of the enemy would be surrounding us. We had to get out.

Which meant that we might have to fight.

We camped near the edge of the swamp. We had had to slaughter the last of the horses because they were too heavy to make it across some of the mire which meant that we had plenty of meat and provision now. Most of what we had was horsemeat and I for one was getting tired of the flavour of salted horse meat.

I began to long for chicken. I don't know why, but some kind of chicken pie with carrots and onions and stuffing. It became the thing that I looked forward to, my talisman of hope. That when I got out of the swamp, I could have my chicken and bacon pie with cream and mushroom filling. I suppose it was simpler somehow, to allow myself to consider that I might never live to see another chicken pie. Easier than trying to imagine never seeing Ariadne again.

That fear, that _dread_ ran the very real risk of crippling me if I let it.

So instead I focused on the chicken pie.

Rickard had gone forward to where the scouts crouched, half submerged in the water, covered in filth as camouflage as they watched to see if there was an ambush out there waiting for us as we left the swamp in the morning.

Not that we were going to go anywhere else. True to form and his earlier assertations that the decision had been made and it needed to be followed through on, we were leaving the swamp here because it was close to a wooded area which would provide cover from cavalry attacks.

But did Cavill know that? Had he placed men there in readiness?

Well, as it turned out. He had.

We came out of the swamp, bastards leading as they had the trick of firing in concentrated bursts. They went out and formed a wedge. A formation that Rickard called "a beach-head" although I forgot to ask him why. Then the rest of us would follow, the rear-guard made up of the more combat experienced Elves as led by Chireadean. We had just made it clear of the swamp when the Horsemen attacked us. I didn't have time to count how many of them they were but they came from further round the edge of the swamp. For all I know it was an accident. That they had simply sited themselves at some point at a guess that this was one of the places that we _might_ have emerged from.

But we didn't have time and they were charging.

The Bastards. Bless their aim, every one of them. Arrayed themselves in front of the mass in a line and just started shooting so that the Horsemen were charging into a storm of arrows. The Elves helped, concentrating, as was their wont, on accuracy over the sheer weight of fire that the Bastard's were turning out and although people could argue as to which one of the two was most useful, I couldn't call it.

Horses fell and started to scream, trapping men underneath who also started to scream. The sound was a cacophony in the air. The horsemen split to move round us, moving round the awful storm of arrowheads that the Bastards were turning out so that they could regroup on the other side of our formation and charge again. Some of the horses splashed into the mire as they went too far wide.

Rickard screamed instructions over the din, the Sergeant was stood there bellowing orders, bodily hauling people who had fallen back to their feet.

We continued to move up towards the trees. Seeing that we were on the verge of escaping. The enemy commander must have ordered his people to cut us off and ordered the horsemen to put themselves in the way. But Rickard had seen the danger and ordered the concentrated fire to shift so that the arrows would punch a hole through the horsemen that we could flee through.

The horsemen broke again and the bastards started to jeer that they couldn't stand before the fire, that they were cowards and useless.

Rickard, Chireadean and the Sergeant were still bellowing to stay together as we moved up into the tree line. Climbing up the slope which was getting steeper. I saw that Rickard had shifted the line of march so that we were climbing up the steeper ground making it more difficult for the horses to follow.

It was a good plan, or it would have been if we were better used to moving together.

As it was though, those of us that were faster or fitter started to pull ahead out of fear than those of us that were slower and less able meaning that we started to spread out. Which, of course made us vulnerable. The horsemen came back at us, less concentrated in their movements rendering the volley fire of the Bastard's more useless. I heard the Sergeant call out "Skirmish order" and the bastard's started moving and firing, exchanging with a partner.

But we started to die then. As horsemen started to slip past the careful net of the bastards and get amongst the less combative Elves. I tried to run to help but a large hand prevented me from moving. I remember spinning to look at the face of the person who held me as I looked into the horrified face of an Elven man who was watching his fellows die with a pain that was hard to describe.

Rickard and Chireadean had ordered him to keep me from the fight and to keep me safe and I hated them, and the poor Elf that was forced to follow those orders.

I felt it was the least I could do to turn and watch those Elves that I might have saved, as they died on the weapons of my enemies.

I don't know if it was fact that those two Scoia'Tael scouts that led Cavill's horsemen to us when they killed that messenger. What I do know is that they had hated themselves for it and they tried to redeem themselves that day. They drew the long handled swords that Elves seem to love so much and charged across the open ground to the rescue of their fellows.

I think they only managed to kill one rider between them as they were swiftly overwhelmed and cut down but they did give the stragglers time to catch up.

Rickard's face was a mask as he ordered Chireadean to lead us up into the hills "where those bastards can't follow us," while he and the bastards acted as rear-guard.

Chireadean led us up to the crest and gave us five minutes at the top of the hill to recover our wind, to mourn the dead and to give Rickard chance to catch up.

Kerrass was fine. He had done what he was told and stayed out of trouble although I imagine that he chafed at not being able to fight. I went to talk to him about it and to check on him but he shook his head and just said. "What a waste," over and over again.

"Oh Kerrass." I said, hearing the tears in my own voice before putting my hand on his shoulder.

"Don't worry about me Freddie." He told me, clearly and distinctly. "I'm alright. Just take care of yourself and make sure that you stay alive."

At first I thought I had imagined it and for all I know I might have done. Because when I looked over at him again, he was back to frowning with concentration.

After his five minutes were up and with no sign of the bastards. Chireadean led us onwards. Keeping low in an effort to avoid silhouetting ourselves on the ridge line, we moved over the rockier areas to conceal our tracks as best we could. But speed was vital now and we went on long into the night before collapsing in and around a small cave.

The Bastard's walked up shortly after dark. They ate, checked their weapons and, to a man, just lay down and went to sleep.

All told we had lost seven people. Including the two Scoia'tael.

But I wasn't satisfied with that. I stalked over to where Rickard was still dumping his quiver of arrows to the ground and had lifted a waterskin to his mouth. He saw me coming and turned to me with a smile.

Something inside me snapped and I hit him as hard as I could in the mouth.

"You bastard." I growled as he fell down.

He lay on the floor and looked up at me. "Flame Freddie but I think you've loosened a tooth there. You feel better for it?"

"You son of a... but I was already going for him again. He held his hands up to ward me off but Chireadean was there beforehand. Catching my fist as I pulled back for another punch and hauling on my arm. The Sergeant had grabbed me from behind and nearly pulled me off bodily.

The futility of my actions stole the strength from my limbs and I went limp.

"You ordered that Elf to hold me back didn't you? You told him to keep me back from the fighting." I threw the accusation in his face as though I was throwing a rock.

"Actually, I didn't," Rickard was climbing back to his feet. "Although I agreed with the decision."

"It was me," Chireadean was standing between me and Rickard, arms slightly raised ready to get between Rickard and I if things turned violent again. "It was my idea. I told my biggest and burliest fellow to keep you out of trouble if it came to it. He was a labourer once and although he's massively strong he's a gentle soul and wouldn't hurt a fly, let alone a human. I ord..."

"I don't give a fuck." I snarled. Some part of me still wanting to keep my voice down. "I could have saved those people. I could have..."

"You could have died." Rickard said gently. Much gentler than I deserved if truth be told. He climbed to his feet, looked at Chireadean and over my shoulder to where, I assume, the Sergeant was still standing ready to catch me if I decided to do anything foolish. "You might have saved those people but you might have died in the process. In fact I would go so far as to say that you _would_ have died in the process."

He tested his teeth again and spat blood.

"We've all said it before, including you, but you're the one person here that needs to survive and we all know it. Every single one of us. More important than me, Chireadean, Kerrass as well as every man and Elf here. You _must_ get through. You're the only one with any kind of authority to speak and get this problem dealt with."

"You're a knight." I told him. "You could speak with just as much..."

"I'm a jumped up, common born scum-bag." He told me, his voice taking on posher vocal tones of the upper crust that forms on the upper levels of society. "Knighted by the same kind of man in Jon Natalis. I also have an antagonistic history with Lord Cavill that he made sure that everyone knew about. Your brother might believe me, your sister as well but after that?"

He shrugged and shook his head. "Cavill would march into court and denounce me as a liar with all of his old name and old money brought to bear. Your sister could apply pressure and many people might even know what he was up to but the fact remains that all the time that was going on. Cavill could continue with what he's doing here and even worse than that, he could move his base of operations so that even the evidence can't be found and the accusation of me being a liar is backed up. It has to be you and you know it too."

"I could have saved those people." I wailed.

"You could have. And we love you for wanting to." It was Chireadean who spoke.

My knees gave way and I wept. "I don't want people dying for me."

"We know Freddie, we know." I have no idea who said that.

With the adjustment in pace due to the delay on the edge of the marsh and having to flee up hill we had lost time. We were still six days from the Kalayn border and we weren't going to make it.

We lost our first of the Bastard's that night. Man by the name of Cooper. Joined the army out of a debtor's prison in order to pay off his debts. Had a gambling problem so that the Sergeant looked after his money for him. Wagered on everything. Betting you an arrow that he would hit the next target, gambling the night watch against an early watch that he could out wrestle someone. There was never any malice in it. He just liked that risk. He liked to feel the thrill of things.

He had been one of the people who had been hurt in the attack on the fort as we came south. The wound had been bound and cleaned properly at the time but it had been submerged in swamp water at some point and something had got into the cut. Probably just infection but there might have been something Insectoid about it. When he was found in the morning after not having woken up, Rickard found the injury had turned black and stank. Chireadean went around the others that were still sporting injuries to make sure that the problem wasn't just something that had happened to one man. The Sergeant stripped Cooper of his clothes and equipment before dividing it up. The Elven woman, Carys, was the recipient of Coopers Bow. It was a fearsome thing next to her light hunting bow and I, for one, doubted that she would be able to draw it. A thought that she immediately proved wrong. Coopers body was rolled into the back of the cave and lightly covered with what dirt and loose stones that we could scoop with our hands.

He had bitten his lip in an effort to not cry out in pain.

We were then in a problem of what to do. Rickard was worrying about the fact that we were slowing down. Which we were. The marsh had delayed us for not very much benefit as no sooner had they lost us when we went into the marsh than they had found us again when we climbed out of it. As I say, we were about six days march in a straight line from where we were to get to Kalayn lands, roughly four days from friendli _er_ lands and about eight from Castle Kalayn itself.

We all agreed that it would be a mistake to believe that crossing into Kalayn lands was a magical line that would keep us safe but there was no getting around the psychological barrier that that had.

The problem was that the higher up on the ridges and the tops of hills that we were, the easier it was to see us from a greater distance. Low as we might be able to stay, the easier it would be to spot us and even the best of us would be silhouetted against the skyline at some point. The other problem was that being high up and climbing up and down slopes meant that we were tiring ourselves out to no actual gain, not making much ground up as we toiled. True, we could see Cavill coming just as easily and he, at least, would have to dismount his troops and climb up to get to us, same as we had, where we could pick him off. That was if the supply of arrows held, which they wouldn't.

We had traded the siege like situation of the marsh-land for the siege like situation of the hills. I spent a bit of time trying to think about what we had done when we had travelled in the other direction, trying to pick out the lay of the land but the truth was that it was too different to compare the two. That time we had been going from village to village, from population centre to population centre in an effort to find things out. Now we were actively trying to avoid the population centres.

We decided that we could keep to the ridge line for the day as that kept us, mostly on course to get to where we wanted to go without too much of a deviation but that we would then need to look at coming down and making a run for the border before Cavill managed to call up more of his troops and bring them up to the area.

My sense of hopelessness was growing though. Made worse by the fact that the following morning was misty. The hilltops that we were on covered in thick grey fog that meant that we could barely see. It began to lessen as we moved and the day progressed but that was a mixed blessing at best. We couldn't be seen but now we couldn't see where we were going.

That day saw us scrambling through rocks with burning calves as we walked at a crouch, sometimes slithering on our bellies and inching our way over the ridge using our elbows and knees. Silence reigned over all of us as even the slightest whisper seemed to echo in all of our ears. Woe betide anyone who sent a loose rock tumbling as they then received the ire of everyone in the column.

We inched our way along, just below the ridge line, sometimes having to back track a little to find better paths including two memorable times when we had to go up and over the top of the hills themselves. First one way and then another and I can't be the only one that slumped to the ground gratefully when a halt was called.

The mist lifted as the evening went on and the stars came out. I had decided to distance myself from Rickard and Chireadean as I felt that I could no longer be involved in the decision making process. They were right and I had decided that I could no longer trust myself to not do something foolishly heroic. My self-loathing was pronounced as I continued to blame myself for every wrong decision that I had made.

For the historical record, no, the fact that I couldn't have known the consequences for my actions was not a comfort.

But it seemed that this was not to be as after I had eaten one of the horse steaks that was prepared for me over a fire of dry sticks with the light sheltered by bodies and rocks, I was shaken from my self-hatred by the Elven woman, Carys. She seemed to have softened a little in her attitude towards me in the time during the march. She seemed, now, to merely despise me rather than the utter loathing that she treated me with before.

" _He_ wants you." She told me in Elven before turning away.

"Who?" I asked but she had already walked off. I climbed to my feet and walked after her. She pointed to where Rickard was crouched on the edge of a cliff before turning and finding her own seat, not next to the Sergeant but near enough that they were obviously sitting together.

The thought made me smile and my mood lifted a little.

Rickard didn't turn as I approached. "Knowing you," he began, "you've sunk into self-loathing since the fight at the marsh."

"Perceptive of you." I told him bitterly.

"You shouldn't," he told me.

"What would I be if I didn't?"

"A worse man than I take you for." He said. "When we get out of this I'll buy you a drink and tell you how much you've made me and the lads respect you since this whole thing began. Indeed since we first met you but now isn't the time for that."

"What are we here for then?"

He gestured out into the gulf below us. A gulf, I knew, that mostly consisted of a rolling blanket of treetops with the odd village.

I saw the small sparkle of a camp-fire. Followed by another one and another of them. More even.

"What am I looking at?" I asked. I knew what it was but I was kind of hoping that Rickard would tell me something else.

"I think we're looking at Cavill's net. I think that the vast majority of his forces are currently between us and Kalayn lands. Spread out like a net. As soon as someone spots us they won't come within bow-shot and the signal will go up and everyone will close on that."

"What about going backwards?"

"Whit his numbers? He'll have look outs behind us as well. He has horses and speed on his side."

I let that sink in for a moment.

"Fuck," I said with feeling. "What does that mean for us?"

"It means that, when we come down off the mountain then it's a straight line run to Kalayn lands and it's going to have to be a run."

I nodded.

"We have one advantage. Not a big one but we need to make the most of it." Rickard told me. "He has to spread out across the countryside and be reactive where as we can choose where we're going to come down off the hills and ridges. I've talked it over with Chireadean and there's a branch of hills with useful ridges down to the South West. It's gonna take us a couple of days to get there but with a bit of luck that should cut the straight line run through to Kalayn lands down to four days."

I nodded.

"So, back to six days to Kalayn lands?"

"Six days." Rickard nodded his agreement.

I felt my throat thicken but I needed to say it.

"I'm sorry I hit you Rickard."

He almost managed a smile.

"Don't be." He told me. "I deserved it, even though it was the right thing to do." He clapped me on the shoulder. "Get some rest."

In comparison to some of the days that we had been on this march, it was a relatively easy couple of days. Rickard and Chireadean set a relatively light pace, stopping often to make sure that we could rest while we moved and so that we could enjoy hot food and take on plenty of water. There was no doubt as to what was coming which was a four day, all but sprint with the strong chance that we would be spending most of that run fighting off attacking "Hounds of Kreve". But we did our best to enjoy what time we had. The jokes started to come back as well as the boasts about how many Hounds that we would each slay.

We also spent some time gathering the herbs together for Kerrass' protective mixture against the Hounds poisons. Another problem that we were all but certain that we would have to deal with. A couple of the Elves were herbalists. I hadn't spoken to them since joining the group but it seemed that they were either apprentices of, or had learned a lot from Ella, the woman that now looked after Aunt Kalayn in her drug and trauma induced early dotage. Ella, it seemed, would teach and pass out supplies when the Elven group passed in this direction and she was fairly well regarded. But the two Elves in question advised that we boil the herbs and mosses in the water wherever possible before soaking the scarves in the mixture over night. Meaning that, eventually, the mixture would have "saturated" the cloth.

I had to ask what "Saturated" meant and I'm still, not entirely certain what it is. Something to do with not being physically able to take on any more of a thing.

Never mind.

I did my best to spend time with Kerrass. I spent a good amount of my time fighting off a general feeling of despair that was sinking over me and round me. It was a fog that came into my brain that rendered me unable to think, to plan. I could remember Ariadne's face but I couldn't remember what it looked like when she smiled, hiding the smile behind her hand because she thought that the sight of her teeth would frighten people.

I could no longer remember the terrified hope that she had when I first held out the engagement ring or the feel of things when I kissed her for the first time. All I could remember was her expressionless face. What she referred to as her "stupid people mask" that she wore in the presence of people that she didn't like or strongly disagreed with. The face that she wore in an effort to hide what she was thinking. I kept remembering those times, early on in our knowing of each other, when she had worn that mask to talk to me.

I could no longer remember what she smelled like and when I tried to remember, it brought tears rather than memories.

Kerrass hadn't changed. He marched and moved with the best of us. Still having to grimace when circumstances forced him to use his hands as, quite rightly, he insisted on using his arms as little as possible and kept them in his slings. We had run out of the strong alcohol that he needed in order to brew the Witcher's potions and Elixirs and so the progress of his healing was slowing down again although he insisted that he had rationed his Elixir use carefully so that he wasn't in extreme danger of losing his mind. I remember that he emphasised the word "extreme" in that sentence thus managing to suggest that he was still in _some_ danger of losing his mind.

When I called him on that he smiled and, not for the first time, I thought that I could see the old Kerrass shining behind his eyes. But then he told me to either go away or to be quiet and let him think. When I could bear it I would sit with him while he worked through his problems. The same things and the same questions over and over again. He ran through the entirety of the religious rite that we had been part of back at the village of the cave. He could recount the entire episode along with everything that he had ever been told about the peasant religion and he would go through it all, word for word, beat for beat as he turned it over and over in his mind. He didn't even appear to be aware that he was mimicking the voices of the people involved.

Including mine.

He still accepted food and drink and would sleep where he was told and accept the herbalists attentions when it came time to inspect his arms and the injuries. He had also begun a series of gentle exercises that the Elves had assigned him that were designed to strengthen his arms again and he could often be seen doing these exercises where, again, he proved me wrong. Where I had expected some kind of angry assault on his injury where he would be in danger of over extending himself and possibly doing himself more harm than good by following the often mistaken belief that if you do twice as much exercise then you will do twice as much good.

Instead he did _exactly_ the correct amount of exercise before stopping and resting. He followed their instructions to the letter, before sitting back down, cross-legged which was a feat of balance in and of itself and going back to his muttering.

I asked if I could help on more than one occasion, trying to recapture what I was coming to consider the glory days of our early association but all I ended up doing was sitting there as he talked round the problem over and over again.

I had no new ideas, no new suggestions and that was as frustrating for me as it was for him. It seemed that my fog of despair had spread.

In the end we seemed to come to a mutual agreement that we should leave ourselves alone with our thoughts. This might have helped Kerrass, indeed I really hoped that it did, but all it did for me was to leave me alone with my despair. A despair that I was sinking further and further into the depths of.

So we ate, we drank the herbal drinks that was prepared for us in order to make sure that we were as fit and healthy as we could be. We prepared and dried the meat as best we could on the grounds that we wouldn't be able to stop and cook or even stop and eat. It would have to be food on the run as we fled. Almost head long in a race towards hope.

But it was inevitable that the day would come where it was time to come down off the mountain. Where we would have to go down and start the mad chase and I found that I didn't want to. I didn't want to risk life and limb. I wanted to stay up in the mountains. We had enough food now, even though it was essentially just horse meat, for a week and water for a few days before it would run out, but I wanted to live for those few days. It was inconceivable to me that we were going to survive for more than a couple of hours when we came down off the mountain.

There was an inevitability about it though. A weight behind the movement that said that we had no choice about what was coming. That we had to keep moving forward and so it was that overnight. The night before Rickard had decided that we would come off the ledges and ridges, I began to feel as though I wanted to get it over with. If I was going to die then I wanted it to be done.

The morning dawned cold, damp and misty. The night had been cloudy and overcast enough that we had been unable to see down to the forest below. I know that a couple of volunteers had offered to stay up and watch the forest in the hope that they would be able to see camp fires and so that we might be able to chart a safe passage through for us but that had proved pointless.

Another brave group of Elves volunteered to come down off the mountain and head off in another direction in an effort to draw off anyone who might be watching and waiting but Rickard declined the offer even though I suspect that Chireadean might have quite liked the idea. Rickard again voiced his feeling that we would need as many people as we could get in order to punch our way through the enemy encampments and get to safety.

I stayed out of the entire debate as I no longer trusted my own judgement. As I say, I wanted it to be done now, whether I ended up spitted on the end of some bastard's sword, trampled under the horses hooves or ended up on a torture rack in the smoky depths of Cavill's cave. I wanted it to be done.

The thought that I might make it through to Kalayn castle was no longer a thought that I dared to entertain.

Of course that morning dawned with a mist hanging over everything. I didn't need anything else to make me feel twitchy and paranoid.

We tried really, _really_ hard to think of that as an advantage. To think that this meant that we could descend from the hills quietly and carefully and that the fog might deaden the sounds of our descent and that it might render us unseen. We tried really hard to be optimistic.

That treacherous voice inside my head, the one that told me that everything would be ok if I simply opened my veins with my dagger so that Cavill would have no reason to hunt these people despite the _blatant_ untruth of this. It was trying to tell me that the Hounds had much more experience with moving around in the mist than we did.

I did my best to ignore the voice but the stupid thing was getting more and more insistent.

Rickard had made a little speech before we climbed down off the hill. Just a short one. Longer than the speech he had given in the village to be sure but it was still a speech.

"Just in case I don't get the chance later." He told us all. "Just in case I fall to the first arrow or crossbow bolt or I don't make it past the first charge..." He had this trick where he seemed to look each of us in the eye. "I just wanted you all to know that I have been proud to fight alongside each and every one of you. Because fight we all have, even those of you that can't fire a bow or who haven't swung a weapon. This has been a battle and now we're into the decisive phase." He looked around again. "Let's get it done."

We climbed down, carefully and quietly as we went, the Bastards forming their beach-head again as the rest of us descended. There was some kind of loose theory that if we were attacked then we could climb back up. Personally, I didn't think that this would happen though. I thought that, if we were being watched, then they would want to cut us off from our line of retreat so that the could kill us at our leisure. They would want to make sure that they had got all of us before letting us go.

They would wait.

Whether I was right, or whether there was just no-one to see us climb down off the hill, there is no way of telling.

When we had all gotten down, settled our packs comfortably on our backs, bows strung and arrows ready he took another look at all of us. "Lets get it done." He said again before leading us off at a gentle jog.


	79. Chapter 79

It was an hour before we saw any sign of the enemy. We came across a fire, a large smoking mess of a bonfire, made out of a lean-to of new wooden logs. Vast columns of smoke was billowing up from it and blending into the mist so that you couldn't tell where the mist ended and the smoke began. As we got closer and closer to it my vision started to flicker and the edges of my eyes seemed turn red. I smelled sulphur and could hear the sound of someone screaming.

"Scarves up," came the call from further up but I was already lifting mind into place and breathing deeply of that perfume of herbs that was keeping us safe. Kerrass and a couple of volunteers went closer for a look. Apparently there were buckets of this odd, black goop that they had been ladling onto the fire that would then sizzle and bubble in the flames releasing the smoke. There were signs of people nearby but there was enough of a feeling that we were already being watched.

We didn't wait long before we were being ordered back to the march again.

The pace was steady. Not too fast but also not so slow that people were struggling to keep up. Of those people that were struggling, I was by far the worst and I knew it. I steeled myself for the extra exertion and did my best to fortify myself with daydreams.

I thought about what Ariadne would look like with her hair tousled across her face first thing in the morning. If she slept at all that was.

I thought about Francesca and what was happening to her at the moment, including if what was happening to her was that she was under a layer of earth somewhere, slowly being devoured by worms. It might sound painful or useless but my theory was that the anger that I would feel about that circumstance would give energy to my legs and distract me from the increasingly searing pain in my lungs.

The problem was that I wasn't getting nearly enough air through the scarf across my face in order to run properly. Not nearly enough. But if I took the scarf down then I was susceptible to the poisons and toxins that Cavill's people were pumping out into the air. I went for a mixture in the end. I would keep the scarf down for as long as I could bear it before lifting the scarf into place to provide some measure of relief from the horror that was assailing my sanity.

The poison seemed less potent than it did last time around the village and the castle. I don't know why. It's possible that the smoke was spread over a wider area rather than being concentrated to one place or another. It's also possible that over the time, I had begun to get used to it. There is also the very real possibility that I was in so much pain from old fatigues and pains as well as the effort required to just put one foot in front of the other and to keep breathing in and out that the visions that were dancing in front of my eyes were rather dull.

For the record. It looked as though the world was on fire.

The pain seemed to dull as one thing blurred into another. The dreams and the fantasies that I was trying to use to distract me from what was happening shifted into nightmares. Half fuelled by Cavill's poison and half tainted by the exhaustion that was still affecting me. The pain in my lungs and legs shifted into a dull ache, a never ending sea of pain that I was adrift on. I remember having an in depth conversation with my father where I wept with him for the state of the family and how these things had been allowed to happen. I screamed at the sight of Francesca, Emma, Ariadne, Laurelen, The Empress and more were thrown onto fires of rage that were fuelled by bile and hatred.

I gained a headache as well as the pain in my legs, chest and throat. It felt as though my brain was expanding and the creaking that I could hear was my skull struggling to expand to contain the stillg rowing mass that my brain had turned into.

Then we stopped. I had to be caught as I nearly ran into the person in front of me.

It dimly occurred to me that someone was splashing water into my face and I shook my head to clear my vision.

"Put your damned scarf round your mouth." A screaming face of flame was telling me. The face resolved into Rickard's expression of concern when I did what I had been told. "Flame's sake Freddie. We're two hours in to it and you're already struggling.

"I just need..." I was panting for breath. "I just need..."

"What you need is a week's rest followed by another week and then a little more rest to make sure." He told me, not unkindly. "Drink, as much water as you can. It will help."

"I'm sorry Rickard. I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry." He told me. "Be angry. Be angry at the people that put you through all of this so that you're at a fraction of your normal strength. Be angry at the people that killed Taylor and that are trying to stop us from getting the word out. Kreve's tits but get angry at me if it'll help. You just need to make it Freddie, just get through the next few days and I promise that you can rest and recover."

"I should be stronger..." I moaned.

"Bullshit." He told me. "You should be. But blood loss, exposure, malnutrition, exhaustion, shock, anxiety, grief and stress can't just be bounced back from. But if you dwell on it, it'll kill you. You're actually doing quite well considering. Now drink the water," he smiled with his eyes, his own mouth and nose hidden behind the scarf. "And keep your bloody scarf up."

He moved off. Calling out to everyone else, "ten minutes." He did it in Northern speak followed by a bit of heavily accented Elven. "Deg munud," he said softly to the knots of Elves in stage whispers. Alternating between the two.

The others stood around, stretching legs and arms, bending and walking off the stiffness as well as drinking from out waterskins and passing out small amounts of the dried meat that we had all stuffed into our pouches.

But then someone, presumably Rickard who had clearly gone mad because there is absolutely no way that we had been resting for ten minutes, declared that it was time to start marching onwards again at the part run, part skip, part walking pace that he set.

It was brutal.

Apparently it's called "Quick time." The speed of Temerian Light troops. Three steps running, three steps walking but I had absolutely no way of know that. No way of understanding that either. I was in pain, lots of pain and what little bit of my intelligence that I still had possession of was dribbling out of my ears and down my leg.

I threw up during the second rest period. I began to feel as though I could taste the poison that was flowing through the sky and it caused my stomach to cramp up which meant that I had to make a choice between keeping down the live giving water that I was consuming, or I could be comfortable.

But our luck didn't hold. How could it? I don't know why we were surprised really. I honestly don't know why I, why we, thought that we could make it through.

The first clues that they were closing on us were felt in the ground as it began to shake. We could hear the hooves drumming against the ground although I will admit that I felt it rather than heard it through my haze of pain and exhaustion.

Somehow, I don't know how, Rickard and the Bastards did it. But they split. Half in the front as led by Rickard, while half fell back to be the rear-guard as led by the Sergeant. Then, and this was the really unbelievable part. They picked up the pace.

I must have groaned or expressed some kind of disbelief because the huge, muscle bound Elf seized me by the collar and began to haul me along. It hadn't registered at the time but someone had also taken my pack off me. I still had my spear and dagger though. I knew this because the cold metal of the spear haft was one of the few things that was keeping me grounded.

I felt the fighting more than heard it. The rear guard fell into their patterns of fighting in pairs. . One sprinting backwards while his partner aimed and shot at another hound. Often aiming for the horses rather than the riders. Bigger and easier targets I suppose but the screams of the injured animals cut through my skull like a woodsaw. The sound seeming to explode from a vision of Francesca being torn apart on the rack.

Another halt was called and, despite a heaving stomach and gasping for air, I pulled the scarf over my mouth and breathed deeply so I could return to some kind of sanity. I was drinking and chewing a piece of meat when The rearguard came up. Somewhere it registered that the Sergeant's partner in combat was Carys, the Elven woman who had taken up Cooper's bow.

"Heh," the Sergeant chuckled in his broad Skelligan brogue. "That'll learn the bastards." He said it loudly so that others could hear.

"Sergeant?" Rickard jogged over, the bastard wasn't even breathing hard.

"About twenty of the cunts." The Sergeant reported. "We dropped a couple and they fell back. They've got crossbows which they seem confident in firing from the saddle."

"Accurate?"

The Sergeant laughed at him.

"You seem to have picked up a new soldier there Sergeant?" I commented between gulps of water.

The presence of an enemy that I could hit as well as the clarity of thought that the scarf and the herbs brought was incredible.

"We have at that." He commented before turning back to Rickard. "Might have to change the name though Sir. She doesn't really suit being called a "Bastard".

"Maybe a "Bitch," Sergeant."

"Rickard's Bastards and Bitches." The Sergeant mused. "Whaddaya say lads?"

The surviving Bastards gave a little cheer.

"Do you want to tell her that what her new title is Sergeant?"

Without blinking, the Sergeant turned and informed the woman that she was the Bastard's first Bitch in relatively good Elven.

"When did you learn to speak Elven Sergeant?" I asked.

His huge bearded face creased in confusion. "Can't everyone speak Elven sir?" He turned away from us all. "Right Lads and Lass. Let's have an arrow count." He was moving off.

It was almost imperceptible but it was there. Now that the enemy was here, we all felt better. We were almost in good spirits as Rickard called for the march to start again.

It wasn't to last though. Because of course it didn't. Constant pressure from enemy attacks will do that.

Not only were they trailing us from behind, getting closer and closer before provoking a shot or two from the rear guard, but we could also see them off on our right flank. Flitting through the trees in ones and twos. Not making any move to come towards us but likewise, always being there. Despite our best efforts.

Then, out of nowhere they charged us. Just turned their horses and started riding at us with some speed. Darts from their small crossbows sped towards us and the line of runners seemed to shiver as some of the bolts struck home. They were painfully inaccurate but even if you shoot badly made cross-bows into a mass of people, some of them will hit home.

The Elves had their bows which were lifted, arrows drawn back to their cheeks in one smooth movement before a split second delay and the arrows spread from the bowstrings. I saw two horsemen fall as they retreated. Two Horsemen either badly wounded or dead. Whereas we were left with mere injuries. Some of the Elves seemed pleased with this but, as we ran on and Rickard came back to check on the state of matters, I could tell that he was furious.

"They can absorb the losses, he told me. Two men? All he has to do is to go into a village and steal some more, addict them to the drugs and then he's replenished his numbers. But every loss hurts us."

We ran on. Still shadowed behind us and on one side.

The wounded started to struggle with things and we were forced to stop for another rest. But that's when those horsemen that were behind us started to attack properly. To my eyes it was fairly clear that the Horsemen that were part of the "Chasing Group" were the experienced and trained soldiers. Those men off to the side were the villagers and farmers that had been taken. The attackers darted from tree to tree, covering each other and shooting back at us. Again, I don't think that they were particularly trying to hurt us that much. Just to keep us moving. It worked too. I didn't even have time to drink any water before we started to run off again.

The poison in the mist was beginning to get thicker and stronger. I grew more and more grateful that Kerrass had been able to come up with a way of countering those effects as I have no idea how we would do what we needed to do with our brains reeling from the hallucinations.

I had lost track of time a long time ago and the pain was coming back. Could no longer allow myself to sink into the day dreams that I had used before. Now there was the danger that I would have to fight at a moments notice.

I discovered at one point that tears were streaming down my face. I felt them before I realised that I was weeping with fear, fatigue and helplessness.

Even early on during my journeys with Kerrass, I do not ever remember feeling this useless.

The riders on our flanks made another feint at us with exactly the same result. The Elves fired another volley and another few Horsemen fell.

This time though, they let us have a rest. The Riders behind us just sat on their horses, wreathed in the smoke so that even if we weren't being affected by the hallucinogenic smoke, they would look strange, ethereal and sinister. They stood their horses perfectly still. The only reason that we knew they were real at all rather than pictures that our minds invented for us, was due to the restless movements of the Horse's tails.

A group of Elves wanted to attack but Rickard held them back. Swearing at them in their own language that if they tried so foolish a thing that he would shoot them himself before taking their arrows as he could no longer afford the waste.

His comments put what was happening into a bit of context for me. Every time that the Horsemen attacked us, we were firing back at them. Sometimes in one's and twos but other times we were doing so in volleys. How many arrows were we losing in these exchanges? Our one advantage lay in the fact that the Bastards were amongst the best missile troops on the continent and the Elves were no slouches either having had centuries of tradition to fall back upon. But what would happen when we ran out of things to shoot.

I had previously thought it impossible that I could feel any more hopeless than I already felt but I was wrong.

I try, now, really hard to get the order of events in the right order and for the most part I think I've got this right. But after that last rest where the Riders let us drink some water and see to the wounded was the last time that I have a sense of the order of things. I remember individual moments. I remember distinctly tripping over a tree root and giving myself a black eye as I was threatening to lose consciousness while on my feet. There was a moment of intense danger when my legs wanted to just keep running as they didn't seem to realise that I had fallen and could no longer get up. The Elf next to me had to grab to of his friends and between the three of them they physiscally heaved me up to an upright position and dragged me along until my legs got the right idea and started to pump again.

I remember vomiting and not even having the energy to turn my head to one side so that I wouldn't smear it down myself.

I remember having to perform my own rescue of someone else as a woman running in front of me slipped and fell, on something unspeakable. On some kind of instinct she held her hands up and I grabbed one while my companion grabbed the other and we were able to haul her to her feet so that she could get back to running.

I remember the forest around us seeming like it was on fire and that it seemed to ripple and crest in waves like the sea during a storm. That the sky was black with storm clouds that threatened to send oceans of blood down on to our upturned faces. Holes opened in the sky through which a giant eye seemed to peer through and tentacles emerged from other, similar holes. The holes were edged with blue flame. I remember looking at all of these things and crying with despair. But then I was handed a scarf with a fresh herbal mixture and the visions of horror retreated back to wherever they came from. I sometimes worry that those images come from my brain and am left wondering what it says about me that my imagination can summon such waking dreams.

I remember Rickard running beside me for a while although I have no idea why. He was angry about something and that anger waged an eloquent war across his expression with his fear and anxiety and I had to guess that his own herbal mixture was drying out.

"What's going on?" I asked him, wheezing and fighting for breath and sanity.

"They're steering us." He told me. "Steering us off course towards the mountains."

I swore as I recall and when I was coherent enough to ask him what we were going to do about this, he had gone. Gone off somewhere to plot the next thing to worry about. I was dimly aware that things were beginning to look bleak and that we had lost people to fatigue and terror already.

One Elf had simply sat down, put his head in his hands and started screaming. Another woman, one of the running wounded had literally died on her feet. We didn't have time to check her to see if any of her injuries were poisoned but she simply toppled over in the middle of the march, clearly stone dead. Dead enough that we didn't even bother to check her but her legs were still pumping.

Someone else, I didn't see who as I lost them in the smoke simply went mad and charged the horseman on our flank by themselves. They were screaming. I certainly heard them screaming, I'm pretty sure I didn't imagine that part.

At some point we were permitted another rest and I felt myself coming back, slowly. With the aid of some medicinal brandy that the Sergeant wafted under my nose.

"They're steering us." Rickard was telling us. Chireadean was there along with the Sergeant and, much to my pleasure and joy, Kerrass was there, looking alert and taking part. He still looked pretty vacant and was frowning at a point directly in front of his nose as though he was concentrating on something that only he could see. But his right arm was out of it's sling and he was holding onto his medallion. It was the most like himself that I had seen him in what felt like years. Since before we were taken by Cavill's forces in fact.

"What does that mean, that we're being steered?" Chireadean looked like I felt which meant that he looked fucking awful. He was pale, drawn and was sweating profusely and it took me a moment to figure out why. He was a leader of Elves and those same Elves were dying. His entire job was to keep them alive and he was failing, even if it wasn't his fault.

"I don't _know_ ," Rickard told us but I can guess. "I think that Cavill and the rest of his forces are somewhere further over towards the mountains. I think we're being steered towards them and into an ambush where we can be rounded up and taken alive."

He coughed and I woke up a bit more. His scarf was off his face and he was blinking furiously. Which was when I realised that my own scarf was missing along with the scarves of the Sergeant and Chireadean. Suddenly Chireadean's condition was a bit more explainable.

"Whereupon we all get carted off for whatever games Cavill's sick brain can get us through."

"If we're being ambushed?" Chireadean paused for a moment and shut his eyes as he seemed to sway on his feet as though he was blowing about in the breeze. "Forgive me," he said after a moment, blinking his eyes back into focus. "It's been along time since I kept up campaign pace."

"We're all getting that way." Rickard told him despite seeming more alert and ready for action than Kerrass was.

Chireadean grunted. "But if we're being ambushed then we need to break out."

"We do. Which would be fine if we hadn't already tried that. The horsemen just fall back from us before re-applying the pressure. I would also guess that that's why they're letting us have these breaks."

I grimaced. "The huntsmasters at home do the same thing. They don't want to completely wind the prey before the guests get to it. They want to leave some sport for the guests to partake of things."

Rickard nodded.

An Elven woman approached staggering as she came, I didn't recognise her but there is every reason to believe that I was seeing things that weren't there so I wasn't all that worried. She was carrying a large basket and started handing round scarves that were sopping wet and the smell of the herbs was potent.

"Well, at least I won't have to worry about going completely insane for a bit longer then." I said as I mopped my face with it. I had not realised that I was sweating and the sharp smells cut deep into my nose and cleared my head despite leaving me with a thumping headache.

There were some more chuckles around us.

"So what do we do?" Chireadean asked.

"We attack them," Rickard said. "We choose our moment and make the bastards suffer."

"Fuck. Yes." This time Chireadean's smile was wolfish.

"I don't mean to be the downer here." It was Kerrass, he was still staring into space while gripping his medallion but his words came through clearly. "But do we have the energy to put up a fight? We've been all but running all day and not many people with us are conditioned for that."

"It's not a bad point." Rickard said. "But if we don't do it now then we might never get the chance to at all. Because if we're tired now then we'll be even worse tomorrow."

"Then I will ask the follow up question." Kerrass said, his head seemed to move independently from the rest of his body which didn't change at all. "What do we do if this doesn't work?"

We all turned to look at Rickard who shifted unhappily under our gaze.

"I don't know." He admitted after a long moment. "I really don't know." He rubbed his brow and I saw that his hand was trembling. "All I know for sure is that if an enemy wants us to do something then we should do everything in our power to not do that thing. They want us to run headlong. Run until we're exhausted and run in that specific direction. So if that's what they want, then we should deny them their desire."

"The further we run, the closer we get to Sam," I pointed out.

Rickard nodded.

"It's been a long time since I've been in a room with Lord Cavill." He told us. "A very long time and even then he will have been on his best behaviour. But it strikes me that he would be the kind of person that would dangle the bone in front of a dog's face before snatching it away at the last moment. Just for the hell of it."

"You're saying that he will take us when we get to Kalayn lands."

"Pretty much yeah. If he could, he would take Freddie within sight of Kalayn castle if he could figure out a way to manage it."

"So let's punch the cunt in the balls while we still can." It was the Sergeant's first and only contribution tot he conversation. Completely missing the joke in that statement.

We split up then, Kerrass just sat there for a while, staring into space and muttering to himself. Chireadean off to tell the rest of the Elves the plan and the Sergeant to do whatever it was that he did to keep discipline. A skill which seemed to me to come down to shouting and swearing at people although I have no doubt that there was much more to it than that. But I took that time to grab Rickard by the arm.

"Rickard."

"What is it Freddie, I don't have a lot of time."

"I know, it's just...Someone needs to say it and it might as well be me. When do we start talking about offering me up in exchange for..."

"Don't even think it Freddie." He hissed.

"You don't know what I was going to say."

"You were going to do a martyr thing weren't you." It wasn't a question. "You were going to suggest offering yourself in exchange for our lives. Don't even think it." His eyes flashed with a fury that I found surprising. "If we do that, then everything that we've worked for, bled for and died for will have been for nothing. Don't even think it." He took a breath to calm himself. "I wish I had the time to console you Freddie but I don't. This is not your fault. Our deaths are not on you. And you need to understand that if you are to survive and if I had time I would explain it to you now and every time that you needed to hear it. But I don't, so fuck off and get your spear ready, you'll need it."

Much to my astonishment, the sun was beginning to sink down towards the horizon. It was still going to be a couple of hours before the yellows and reds started to come through but the sheer fact that we were on the back part of the day was a little mind blowing to me.

I didn't have time to think about it much as that was when the Hounds at our rear started to harry us forward again. I don't know why they had let us have such a long break. There could have been any number of reasons, perhaps they themselves were getting tired and needed the rest. Perhaps they were playing silly psychological games with us.

It was impossible to tell. But then they were coming at us, hooves thundering, crossbows firing and the buzzing noise of crossbow quarrels shooting through the air followed by the rattle as they hit and gouged into the ground or the oddly wet sound of them hitting a tree trunk. We were all well used to this now and so our gear was picked up and we were back to running.

But this time it felt different somehow. Word had been passed about what was happening and there was a strange kind of hunger in us all now. A longing almost. That desire that comes when you have the stick in your hand and you've set your eyes on the man bullying your friend.

I was still tired, stumblingly weary but I felt as though my head was clear for the first time in that day. My entire body was on fire and my head was pounding but suddenly, the prospect of being able to "pound" some of my own pain into the people that had been tormenting us for so long was an extra spur. An extra kick up the backside that leant me a fire that I had missed.

We ran. I didn't count for how long and I wasn't thinking about the direction of march too much on the grounds that I spent all my time staring at the backside of the person in front of me.

I _think_ that we ran normally, as we had been doing for a while, letting the Hounds to our rear push us while allowing ourselves to be guided by the hounds on our other flank. My guess is that, at his own pace or whenever Rickard judged that the time was ripe for the action, he started to shift our line of march back towards the True South direction that we needed to travel in.

We were under instructions to _not_ react too hard to this. To _not_ seem as though this was too far out of place and to just act as though anything was strange. But I can't have been the only person who tightened their grips on their weapons.

Here they came, riding on their horses, edging closer and closer to us, aiming with their cross-bows hands outstretched.

Incidentally, have you ever held a crossbow at full extension in one arm? I have. There's a reason that military arbalists use two hands.

But here they came. Getting closer and closer and the first crossbow bolts began to wing their way towards us.

They were getting closer and closer too. Closer than they had ever been allowed to get before. I don't know why. I would like to think that it was some measurement of Rickard's tactics that he was letting them get closer so that our counter-attack could cause the most damage but I never talked to him about it. Instead I waited. I saw an Elf in front of me take a crossbow bolt to the arm, the impact of the bolt sending him staggering until his friend caught him and hauled him up, the bolt sticking out at an angle that made it look almost comical.

Someone behind me screamed. Someone else shouted in fear and with another emotion that I didn't immediately know.

I was watching the riders. Riding close, firing their bolts before drifting away to reload having obviously learnt to respect the range and the power of the Elven Longbows and the Bastard's Warbows.

Dear Flame though, Rickard was letting them get close.

But finally and mercifully, the signal came in a bellow that echoed out, easily drowning out the sounds of people's pain. Muffling the hoof beats and the constant sound of feet on the ground. Even managing to cover the sound of the blood pumping in my ear.

It was the Sergeants voice. Trained in the Skelligan isles in how to project a proper bellow before being refined on the battlefields of the continent over the course of at least two wars and numerous raiding parties. I could hear his voice clearly.

"Halt,"

I literally saw some of the riders obey. It was a primal feeling that circumvented any sense of civilisation and just ordered our legs to stop moving.

"Draw,"

All of those of us with Bows nocked arrows to bowstrings and drew them bag. Another noise that I had never heard before, the simultaneous creaking of bows as they came to their proper extensions.

"Steady now, choose your targets." It was a warning call, not an order. "Steady." And we waited.

Some of the riders realised what was going to happen. As I say, we were pretty sure that the people on our flanks were the drug addled conscripts that had been kidnapped from the villages and forced to work for Cavill and his sick cult. Some tried to kick their horses into moving off. Other's tried to close the distance, dropping their crossbows and beginning to tug their bladed weapons out of scabbards.

But it was too late for them.

"Fire," Came the order and the arrows leapt from our line, many, if not all finding targets in the flesh of our enemies.

Words cannot begin to describe the feeling as we did so. Not only did we send our barbs into their flesh but we sent our hate and our fear. Our pain and our anger at these fucks, no matter how helpless they might have been in their choice of a side, crystallised in that moment and we flung them into the faces of our foes.

"CHARGE!"

I had thought that the Sergeant's previous calls had been loud but he had clearly saved this until last.

The sound that emerged from our mouths, from Elf, Human and, for all I know, Witcher was not human. It was bestial and raw. It was the sound of longing and joy as well as the anger and we sprinted forward. Pain and fear forgotten in the face of the sheer release of emotions that we had been holding onto for so long.

I ran with the rest, looking for a target and I found it in the person of a rider who had fallen from his horse. He must have thrown himself out of the saddle as the horse was dying a short way away from him, thrashing it's hooves in the ground as it died. He was still drawing his weapon from the sheath as I ran him through at a full run. The impact carried him off his feet and he fell backwards. The speed and the impact as well as my death grip on the haft of my spear carried me past him and pulled the spear blade out of his flesh. I was looking for my next target.

At some point, the protective scarf had fallen from my face but I didn't care. I had been unleashed and it felt so good.

I was screaming as I looked for my next target.

One of the horseman who had realised the danger and had pulled away from the column was coming towards me, sword out and held ready for the strike in that classic pose. But I still had enough of my senses to remember Kerrass' instructions for facing a horseman. Don't aim for the rider, aim for the horse.

As he had taught me I darted across his line of charge so that his sword was out of position. I doubt he cared about me, he had plenty of other targets but I had reversed the spear and slammed the butt of the weapon into the horses mouth.

It screamed and reared up, spraying blood and teeth from it's face.

I always feel faintly guilty after the fact for doing this to an innocent horse. At the time I'm just glad that it works but I always feel guilty afterwards.

The rider fell because they always fall.

I ran over, the smoke was affecting me now but the rage that I now know as some form of a berzerkers rage was on me and I stamped on his neck until he stopped moving.

We were through the line and our enemies were fleeing before our sudden offensive and I bellowed my triumph to the heavens that were aflame before turning for another target.

But then the ground shook again and the horsemen that had been chasing us were coming up behind us. Someone was sounding a horn and I felt the fear return as I pulled the scarf back up to cover my mouth and nose.

"To me," the Sergeant's voice and I turned and sprinted towards it. "To me, Elves and Men,"

Remember the Elf that had been assigned to me. The large one with the heavy muscles that had picked me up and all but carried me when my exhaustion had become too much.

That's when he died. Saving my life as it happened.

I was running towards the sound of the Sergeant's voice. We had broken through the line and killed any number of Hounds but I had committed the cardinal sin of infantry when fighting cavalry. I had lost sight of my ground and a horseman came up behind me.

I had no idea. Kerrass would have been furious with me, positively apoplectic but as it is, he could not be more angry with me than I would be with myself.

Whether it was the poison still in my lungs or the blood pumping in my veins, I simply didn't hear or notice. But my bodyguard had.

He must have stayed with me all through the wait for the Sergeant's signal. During the arrow volley and during the charge. He hadn't been carrying a weapon but he had stayed at my side as though we had been glued together and when I had turned to run towards the Sergeant's rallying cry, he came with me. Not being a fool he had kept his scarf around his face. Also not being a fool he had not brought a weapon and so, I suppose, his mind was not clouded by a desire for blood. He saw the horse behind us.

He saw the rider hold out the crossbow and aim it at me and he was already moving as the bolt left the bow. The bolt struck him in the chest while he was knocking me aside and out of the way of the charging horse so that I didn't get trampled.

I spun, tucked and rolled in the way that I had first learned when Kerrass was teaching me how to evade. By some miracle of anatomy or emotion or chance, the Elf was still standing but he could clearly do little more than that. He took a step and another step but the horseman was coming back.

I was screaming again as I came to my feet, charging forwards, charging frantically. Screaming as if I could push away the inevitable by force of sound alone.

The horseman simply rode the Elf down, trampling him under the hooves of his horse.

I stepped close while he was still making sure of his kill and stabbed upwards with my spear. I was aiming for his throat, his hand dropping his sword and going to the injury. I wasn't clear but I think I missed the arteries as he was still hooded and I was aiming in the rough area. But I might have got under the chin or something and it still did the job.

He slumped and fell off the horse and I stabbed him again in the chest to make sure of the matter.

The Elf was still alive when I reached him. I could see his ribs sticking out of his side and the side of his face was horribly mangled. Pink foam bubbled from his mouth and nose but I thought I saw him smile when he saw me. I gripped his hand and he squeezed. I thought it was the least I could do really.

"To Me," came the bellow again and I looked up to see where it was. I had been turned round at some point and the voice was coming from behind me. By the time I had looked back down, the Elf had died.

I never even found out his name.

I picked up my spear and ran on to find the others.

I wasn't the only person running. I found an Elven woman trying to haul an injured man to his feet. He was clutching a Quiver of arrows like they were made from Gold and right now. They very well might be. She was sobbing in a combination of fear and frustration as he steadfastly refused to be helped, keeping his hand over an injury as well. She was screaming and pleading with him at the same time.

I ran over to him, broke her grip and passed my spear to her before grabbing the arrows out of his hand and passing those over too. She was still screaming though but it was suddenly vitally important to me that I manage to save these two Elves, some element of me wanted the redemption for the loss of the big man earlier. I got my head under his arm and bellowed at him to "fucking stand up."

We got to our feet and started running towards where the Sergeant was still calling out for everyone to go to his location.

We were getting close when I heard hooves behind me. This time I was not so foolish as to not be paying attention to what was going on behind me. I almost bodily threw the man into the waiting arms of the woman along with someone else who had come to help us and I snatched my spear out of her hands spinning to face the attacking horseman.

Again he had his sword raised and I felt my lips curl back into a snarl.

An arrow from nowhere punched him out of the saddle and I heard Dan's voice from behind me in the direction of the Sergeant's rallying call. "Got 'im," and then another hand grabbing me by the shoulder and hauling me into the protective group where I found the survivors taking shelter in a tight cluster of trees.

Rickard was standing beneath one of the larger trees. Chireadean had scrambled up in an effort to see what was going on and Rickard was calling up questions. Kerrass was there as well, still muttering and holding onto his medallion, while the Sergeant was directing the defence.

"More horsemen coming from the North and the West." Chireadean called down.

"How many more to the West?"

"Not a small number." Chireadean told us. "I hate to use the grand words but I would suggest that we were looking at a couple of score of them. They're riding better too. Better trained than the line we broke through."

"Fuck," Rickard swore with some heat. "To the North, any chance we could double back?"

"Not one that I like. That's where the conscripts are coming from. It would seem that the beaters that were keeping us going have caught up with us, summoned by horn call no doubt."

"Fuck," Rickard said again before spitting. "So that leaves the only way of escaping?"

"TO the South East." Chireadean jumped down. "Yes."

" Fuck. Precisely where they want us to be going." Rickard said. He just stood there for a moment shaking his head, frowning in intense thought.

"FUCK!" He bellowed, slamming his fist into the tree. "FUCK, FUCK, fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck." He paced as he swore."

"I'm sorry my friend." Chireadean told him. "You brought us further than I thought possible but I think..."

The Elf looked at me. Huge eyes seemed shiny with tears. "I think that this might be where we die."

Rickard looked up sharply. "Like fuck it is." He snarled. "I will be damned if I die where that bastarding fart lipped shit stain wants me to." He slammed his fist into his head for a moment. "You never do what the enemy wants. Never."

"So what do we do?"

"These riders are mostly conscripts right?"

"So?"

"So we have to make ourselves scarier than their masters."

"How do we do that?"

"We choose our ground. We want a hill or a valley or something. Something that we can defend. The only reason that we're not dead already is because those bastards aren't ready to kill us. They're saving us for their master. We should use that time to entrench and fortify."

"Why not here?" I asked, the thought of going back out into the chaos of charging horses, flying arrows and singing blades felt like more than I could handle at that point.

"We can't defend this place." Rickard said. "There's cover but we're too confined to work. Only half a dozen of us can fight and the rest are useless. There aren't any clear lines of fire and..."

"Alright alright I get the picture."

"Follow me," For a moment I didn't recognise the voice. It sounded strange and almost alien in my ears. "We go this way. South and a little West." Kerrass was pointing

"Why what's there?" Rickard's not unreasonable question.

"I have no idea. Something though."

"Then what possible reason do we have..." Chireadean's temper was beginning to fray at the edges.

"You're an Elf." I realised what it was about Kerrass' voice that I didn't recognise. He was excited. "Can't you feel it? There is magic in the air, magic happening all around us and it's happening now. We need to go that way." He pointed again.

Rickard's eyes darted between the two of them before coming to rest on me. I had no idea what to do and I simply shrugged.

"What the hell," Rickard sighed. "Lead on Witcher."

We ran. Once again, I was surprised by how things worked. It was the bastard's that led the formation. Such as it was. I don't think that there was many more than thirty or so of us left by this point but it was the bastards that led. I was so used to having them in the back of us, acting as our rear-guard that I almost felt naked without them there. I found myself looking over my shoulder all the time. Chireadean had taken up some of the slack, keeping back some of the bowmen and doing his best to instil some form of military discipline. He wasn't entirely successful. The Elves were pouring their anger and hate out at the chasing riders. Not just the generalised background anger that Elves all over the world have towards humanity but also the specific hate that these Elves have towards Cavill's followers.

To be fair, who could blame them.

But it meant that the rear of our group was getting strung out but it did mean that I could see what Rickard had meant. One concentrated charge could have wiped us off the map but the Hounds seemed almost reluctant to charge home. Instead they were just harrying us until one of the Elves careful arrows would pluck a horseman from his saddle which would send a group of the Hounds into a rage and they would charge after us.

I couldn't see much though. I had been pushed towards the middle of the cluster of Elves and was held there. There were two women behind me that almost literally snapped at my heels in order to keep me moving where there was more men on either side of me that kept me going so all I could do was to keep moving forwards.

Kerrass was off with the bastards up front leading us off to wherever he was taking us.

We seemed to come over a lip of a valley into what almost looked like some kind of crater. You can see them occasionally in the North where some meteorite or another has crashed into the ground flinging up these kind of curved walls and it was like we were running and scrambling down the sides of one of those. The slope was still heavily wooded but the addition of gravity stole whatever cohesion and discipline we had left. We ran on, some of us, including me, spent more time tumbling down the slope than we did running but the effect was the same. I lost my guardians as I fell and scrambled to my feet. I had twisted my ankle at some point and pain was shooting up my legs but looking behind me I could see horsemen coming to the lip of the crater and fear leant me speed. I scrambled on, all but using my spear as a walking stick as I ran.

Some of the more enterprising hounds dismounted from their horses and started to come down the slope after us. I suppose that they had realised that their horses would not do well coming down the slope and I also guess that they had begun to realise what was happening and were doing their best to goad us into some kind of foolish action.

I saw an Elf dump his pack and draw a sword, turning to face the coming Hounds behind me. His face almost seemed serene and I swear that he was singing as the Hounds headed towards him.

Another Elf beside me fell with one of the small crossbow bolts in her back. I bent to help her but my leg screamed at me and I nearly fell. She waved me on, sobbing, face wracked with pain and grief. She spat blood from her mouth and drew a knife.

I didn't see what she did with it. I like to think she took a Hound down with her.

I ran, or hobbled onwards until I came to the edge of the tree line. There was an open band of grassland that stood between the edges of the trees and what, I assumed, we were running towards.

The grass was about 1000ft across. Just further than bow-shot and it was all but flat, still tilting slightly towards what was in the middle of the crater which turned out to be a small hill.

Calling it a hill, was even too much really, more of a mound, perfectly round and rising out of the ground as if the ground itself had bubbled up to form it. On the hill itself, which I could see was largely grassed, was a series of trees, some of which were already swaying and falling from where the bastards seemed to be chopping them down frantically.

The remaining Elves and I ran towards this mound. I saw Chireadean stand with a group of Elven Archers stop in the middle of the grassland before turning to fire over the heads of those of us that were still straggling behind me back to the tree line but even from my distance I could hear the Sergeant bellowing. I risked stopping to see.

The Sergeant was standing at the foot of the hill and pointing to the east and I looked and could see an area where the ground was flatter than the slope that I had tumbled down and there were already horsemen coming down it. Then he pointed to the west and where there were still more Hounds coming from the treeline and I saw the meaning of the Sergeant's warning.

We were surrounded now and the horses were coming. Chireadean's little band of Archers would not stand up to the coming cavalry and they turned and ran towards the hill.

I was too far from it though and I gritted my teeth, willing my legs to move faster. I managed to get up to a jog and then a run. Pain shot up my leg, through my back and into my skull but I told myself that this was nothing compared to the pain that I would feel if the bastards caught me.

I looked over and the horses were getting closer. A cross-bow bolt hummed as it went past my ear.

From somewhere I managed to find enough energy to sprint and I ran on. I was still limping but I kept my eyes on the bastards on the hill that were calling me on, calling all of us that were still in the valley between the tree line and the hill on.

Those men and Elves that had made it to the hill were working frantically, chopping down the trees and digging pits with the Bastard's little entrenching tools. Tugging trees into place and forming crude barriers.

Much to my dismay, I discovered that the ground of the grass was not entirely flat as it started to slope upwards. The long day of running and the longer days of hiding and physical deprivation and fear as well as whatever it was that Cavill and his fucks had done to my while I was asleep were taking their toll now and tears of pain and fear streamed down my face.

I nearly gave up. I don't mind admitting it. I nearly gave up but an Elf caught me up from behind. The swordsman that I had seen singing as he swung his blade earlier. Blood ran freely from his left arm and he must have dropped his blade and ran for it. He caught me under my arm and we ran on but hope left me. I could hear the hoof beats behind me. I knew that I should dodge to the left or right. That logical part of the brain that knew this was screaming at me but I just ran on to get to the barrier and the waiting arms of the Elves that were screaming and hollering for us to come on.

We were getting so close now and I could barely move my legs.

Mercifully the pain and fear had turned to rage now and I growled at myself as I pushed myself on and on. The distance between us and safety got smaller and smaller. The hooves got closer and closer.

"Freddie Down," Someone yelled to me. Don't ask me how the noise carried, but it did and the Elf and I fell to our knees as a hail of arrows buzzed over our heads.

I heard horses scream but the Elf was already up and hauling me to my feet although even he looked far from perfectly healthy himself.

On we ran. I was being dragged now before two of the bastards. Dan, I think and someone else, a red head, jumped over the barricades and bodily carried me to safety. The Elf coming in just behind us as I fell.

We were the lucky ones.

All told, it had only been an hour or so since Rickard had told us to attack the Horsemen.

There were maybe six Elves that were still running towards the hill as the Horsemen came among them. I didn't see it as I was too focused on getting to safety and I didn't hear it as my own breath was echoing in my ears along with my snarls and gasps and moans. But as I collapsed, just the other side of the barriers that the Elves and Rickard were frantically erecting around the bottom of the hills, I could hear them as the Horsemen rode them down.

I think someone might have had the courage to ensure that they didn't get taken alive but the rest were taken. The Hounds then spent some time trying to goad us into leaving the protective circle of the hill and the system of barriers and trenches that people were setting up. Already the top of the hill was looking less and less forested.

But I lay there as the Horsemen tortured those remaining Elves to death. I couldn't even lever myself to any kind of sitting position, I was just too exhausted so I had that guilt as well. I felt that, somehow, I should have sat up and watched as those people died for me. Died to make sure that I could get a bit further along my road towards my goal.

So instead I just listened as they were tortured. I heard the wet sounds and the grinding noises and the screams that were torn from those broken bodies.

At the beginning, bless them, those Elves fought it. They knew what was happening. They knew that we were being provoked into attempting to leave our relative safety and they screamed at us to stay where we were, to protect ourselves and to do everything that we could to stand firm and strong.

It was heart-breaking.

But no-one's sanity can survive that for very long and gradually they stopped telling us to stay where they were and started to beg for help. Beg for rescue or beg for an end to it all. All I could do was lie there and listen.

Then the screams started to become less and less coherent and one by one, they just died.

Dan brought me water. I was so tired and in so much pain that he had to carefully prop up my head so that I could drink it

I could do nothing but lay there for far too long as the night began to fall.

Someone else arrived although I didn't see who, I was in a nightmare state of pained dozing and they started to massage some life back into tired muscles. It was agony but eventually, that agony began to turn into relaxant and I dozed. How I managed that I will never know.

When I woke up it was fully dark and I was woken by the sounds of distant screaming. I tried to sit up without thinking and gasped at the pain that shot through me.

There were a couple of Elves sat crouched behind a barricade near me that were looking out over a barricade, little more than a fallen log that had had a small trench dug behind it. One of them saw me moving and came over to help me into a sitting position.

"Still alive?" He asked me in Elven.

"Just," I answered in that same. "What's going on?"

"Look," He was talking simply to me, in the same way that you might talk to a child.

With my entire body screaming I managed to pull myself up so that I could see over the top of the tree and I gasped.

We were surrounded now. Moving around in the tree line. Occasionally lone sentinels of the Hounds would walk out from the edge of the trees and just stand there, staring out at us, carrying torches that guttered and shone in the darkness. But mostly it was the lights in the trees that caught my attention. Constantly moving and swirling around. Like fireflies on an autumn's day. Each one of them carried by a Hound in their full regalia.

It was oddly beautiful. I thought that it might have been intended to be some kind of intimidation technique but if it was, the Hounds had miscalculated. We were no longer the badly-educated and superstitious village folk that normally made up the majority of their prey. Now they were facing Elves and I could see a sense of wonder in the Elven eyes as they watched the chaotic patterns as they danced in the darkness.

A sense of peace had settled over the valley, only occasionally shattered by distant screams that I almost resented, but they seemed to echo in my ears and I could taste smoke as my vision started to redden. The Elf must have noticed because he passed me up a freshly soaked scarf and I quickly rapped it round my face and the echoes seemed to recede.

I nodded my thanks and enquired as to the state of Rickard and Chireadean. I crawled up the hill, using the trenches and bits of cover wherever I could after being instructed to keep my "Filthy human head down,"

He said it with a smile though so I decided that he called me "D'hoine Filth" in the same way that I might call Kerrass or a friend a dirty bastard when greeting them with a smile. Either way I decided to take it that way and grinned back.

"Why?" I wondered.

"Snipers." I was told.

"Fucking wonderful." I said as I crawled off. My body complaining with every movement. I was so tired that I had to stop and catch my breath every few meters.

As it turned out though, I found Chireadean first. He was a little way further up the hill. It wasn't that big a hill really. Not that it was that big a hill. It was more a kind of mound. He was sat with his back to a log and his legs stretched out in front of him. At first, I thought that he was asleep, he looked so peaceful, but he called out to me softly as I passed and I settled in next to him.

"You look done in." He told me with a slight smile.

"I feel it as well." I told him. "I've been tired before, especially when I was first starting out and Kerrass was in charge of my training and he pushed and he pushed and he pushed but this is something else entirely."

"I've read your journals."

"It's always nice to meet a fan." I told him.

Chireadean chuckled. "Was he really that bad to you when things started out?"

"In all truth, he was probably worse." I answered. He was still trying to drive me off I suspect but at the same time, it meant that I was better prepared for the future, so, possibly a little bit of both. Both being too harsh but also, I needed driving."

I winced as a muscle in my leg began to spasm.

Chireadean reached beside him and passed me a wine-skin. I lifted it up to my lips and spluttered as I discovered that it contained wine rather than water. Chireadean laughed at me as I started coughing. "I've been saving that for a special occasion."

"What is it?"

"Elven home brew."

I grimaced as I drank some more. "It's fucking awful."

"Stupid human, unable to properly take in the awesome majesty of proper Elven wine-making."

"What the fuck is it made from?" as I swapped it for a proper water skin that he offered me next.

"I have no idea. One of the others in the band made it and passed some skins out a while ago. I'd been saving it, as I say, for a special occasion.

"It's awful." I was drinking deeply from the water skin in an effort to wash my mouth out.

"That it is, but when you don't have access to anything else it tastes better than others."

"So what's the occasion?"

"Dying."

His good mood fled and our fit of giggles seemed to abate.

"Are things that bad?"

"I hate grand words." He told me. "I always worry that the situation doesn't properly merit it but if it wasn't for that I would use words like "Doomed" and "Hopeless".

I stared at him for a long time.

"Can I have some more of that wine then?" I asked and he passed the bottle over and I managed a couple of swallows.

"We're surrounded on all sides." Chireadean told me. "You can see from the summit but there are people all around us amongst the trees. The one thing that we've got going for us is that we're better shots than they are but we can't possibly shoot down that many of them. They're going to come at us in a stream, probably in the morning and we're going to start shooting but we might as well be pissing into the storm. Even if we drove some of them away, what are we going to do when we run out of arrows which isn't that far away. I think we've got maybe a dozen arrows per archer left. At best. We're tired, hungry and there is absolutely no hope left."

He let the words hang in the silence for a while

"I am so, so sorry Chireadean." I said as I passed the bottle back.

"Don't be. We were dying anyway although none of us could have put that into words until we were actually confronted with the situation. I think we've been dying for some time to tell you the truth."

He took another swig from the wine-skin.

"Also, I rather prefer dying here to some other place. Objectively, it's rather beautiful here. The Witcher was correct. There is something about this place. A peace that I haven't felt since coming to this part of the continent. I almost wonder why I haven't been here before. Also, we were right. We were being steered somewhere and who knows just how much further it was going to be before they came for us. At least, tomorrow I might have more of an opportunity to take one or two of the bastards with me when I die."

I saw that he was trying not to weep as he said it and I put my arm round his shoulders as he allowed his tears to fall.

"Go on," he said after a moment of getting himself back under control. "I'll be alright. Rickard wants to see you as well."

"Where is he?" I asked and Chireadean waved further up the slope.

I left him there with his pain and his sorrow. I think it would be fair to say that I felt Flame-damned awful.

On the top of the hill I found a very different scene. Rickard was ordering the remaining bastard's around. Dan was sat on the edge of things keeping watch. Four of them were asleep but the rest were working with Elves, chopping firewood and removing trees. The top of the rise was all but clear now.

"Still alive Freddie?" Rickard greeted me as I approached before turning to his men. "No, I want it bigger. I want a huge fire. Huge and I want it to smoke like a bastard. I want plumes of smoke reaching to the sky by the time the sun is up."

An Elf wandered up and asked him something that I didn't quite hear. But I heard Rickard's response.

"No, Piss down hill. Everyone, Piss over the edges of the barricades so that that last dozen or so paces is a mire of piss and filth and water."

The contrast between the two leaders was startling.

"You sound cheerful?" I told him. I noticed that he was almost standing out in the open, daring any snipers to pick him off.

"They're going to regret coming up here." Rickard told me happily. "They're going to feel every fucking step and by the time I'm done they're gonna wish that they've never been born."

"So what's the plan now then. Chireadean says that we're surrounded."

"We are." Rickard chuckled. "So here's the thing. They have two advantages. Numbers and horses. So we have to take that away from them. They can't get the horses up that slope, not easily anyway and certainly not with enough speed to be frightening and now that we're here and digging further in with every passing moment, that kind of assault is unlikely. So then they have to dismount to get here. All the while we're peppering them with arrows and they're dropping like flies. So when they get here, climbing up the slippy foot of the hill..."

"We're fresh."

"That's right." Rickard was a man happy at his work. "So we make assaulting this hill more scary and more intimidating than they can understand and they'll fall back. All they know is fear. All they know is the dread that Cavill and his fuckers are whipping them from behind so we have to be more terrifying than that. We have to break them and crush their hope."

He clenched his fist in front of me as if to demonstrate and in the meantime. The fire we're building sends a plume of smoke up into the air. People'll be seeing it for miles around and what would you do if you saw a plume of smoke?"

"I would go and look, but I am not the..."

"And your brother and Goddess knows who else is out there too looking for us. A big fucking smoky fire would be a good clue don't you think."

"There is an awful lot of them though." I commented. "and we don't have that many arrows. Less than a dozen per archer, is my understanding, and not all of those are going to hit and not all of those are going to kill."

"We can do this Freddie, don't lose hope."

"Really?" I wondered. "How? How are we possibly going to even survive this let alone actually achieving what we set out to do here?"

My voice was rising and I got louder and louder.

"We're surrounded by relatively fresh troops which means to say that we're outnumbered as well, by my count, substantially more than the conventional ten-to-one odds that are required against a "well seated defence" and we are far from well seated. How the fuck do we get through this? How the fuck do we..."

Rickard had grabbed me by the elbow and steered me away from the groups of men and Elves that were beginning to look over in question as to what all the hubub was about.

"Get a hold on yourself Freddie." Rickard snarled. "Pull yourself together. We don't have time for that kind of bullshit as I've told you before. I know, I _know_ that you've been through a lot and that you're struggling but right now, you're not just you, Freddie von Coulthard you are LORD Frederick von Coulthard of Redania, scholar, gentleman and mad bastard extraordinaire. You are a man and a leader and you are the hero that everyone on this hill is looking towards to keep us together."

He all but threw me into a sitting position against the stump of a tree before crouching in front of me so that he could talk to me and that I couldn't ignore him.

"Don't you think I know how bad it is? Don't you think I'm terrified too?"

He shifted his weight a little so that he could be more comfortable.

"I'm tired, and my headache hasn't stopped in about a week. I haven't slept for more than a couple of hours a night and I desperately, desperately want to get drunk. All this time with people looking to me for answers, you, Chireadean, the lads and now the Elves looking to me as though I'm some kind of miracle worker that's going to pull their fat out of the fire. I can barely see straight let alone think straight and I'm at the very end of my tether, all the time knowing that you and Kerrass have been captured, starved and tortured so I know that you guys have had it worse."

I said nothing.

"Don't you think I know how shitty it looks? I'm an experienced soldier and I've fought in wars, even losing wars look better than this because at least in war, you can normally depend on the other side treating you with decency and honour which is more than I can say for these cock-bags. Don't you think I know that there's very little to stop them from rolling over us. I'm even left wondering why they haven't already. They could, very easily.

"But you never say it Freddie. Never. You never say it. It's all right for others to say it. It's ok for Chireadean and the lads to wonder how we're going to get out of this but the instant that I start behaving like that. The very moment that I start believing in that kind of thing is the very moment that the entire thing crumbles. These people look to us for their courage and they follow our example, whether we want them to or not. They do it over and over again."

"Why?"

"Because I'm their knight. And you're the man who came out of that mountain alive and because you can deliver them from the danger that they face. So you never say it. No matter how much you might want to. You always act, always behave as though the ending is a foregone conclusion. That we are going to win and that we are going to make the bastards suffer. We have to believe it. We _have_ to because otherwise, the entire thing folds in on itself and collapses and we might as well not bother.

"So we are going to make it." He told me. "you hear me Freddie? We are going to make it. I am going to go back to Redania and I'm going to tell Shani just how much I love her. I'm going to tell her that I will be there for her whenever she wants me to be and that, even though I know that I am always going to be second most important to her patients and her callings, that at the end of the day, I will be there to hold her and to soothe away her troubles.

"Then I'm going to talk to her and see if she would be happy with me taking your sister's offer of being the Captain of your families guard when Captain Froggart retires. If she agrees I will talk to your sister to get that confirmed so that we can start moving forwards with that. I will arrange for the Sergeant to start learning to read and write, although I think he can already and just pretends not to be able to so that I can't arrange for him to be knighted in the mean time, so that he can be my second. So that I can make your family guards and soldiers the scariest guards that part of the world has ever seen.

"I'm going to arrange matters so that you can get back to your beloved and that the lads and I can hold our swords over your and your wife's heads as you walk out into the courtyard. I'm going to be there when she scolds you for being so foolish as to let yourself be captured and I'm going to devote a good amount of time to making sure that Kerrass and that Princess get their shit together and have at least one night of frantic fucking so that neither of them have anything to regret.

"But most of all, I'm going to see to it that you, Kerrass, Chireadean and I can piss on Cavill's corpse. In fact, I'm going to have a hole dug into which we can throw his corpse and the corpse of that son of his so that we can all use that hole as a latrine. No one's going to want to dig him up because of the awful stench that we're going to leave him with. We'll charge admission even. We'll charge people to be able to defecate over their corpses with the proceeds going towards the care of the people that they've hurt.

"Those are things that are still in my future Freddie. So that means that they're in yours as well. I'm not going to let you die so you can also get rid of any stupid thoughts that you might be having of giving yourself up so that the rest of us can get away as well. Just put it from your mind. We are going to do this and we are going to win. Don't let anything else enter your mind because, as I say, if you do. Then we're already dead.

"Besides." He grinned suddenly. "You and I, we're just far too pretty to die here. Far too pretty."

I nodded but I wasn't convinced and he knew it too.

"Get some rest Freddie, you've earned it."

He turned and was already shouting at someone to get a move on before saying something about there being enough time to sleep and complain when we're all dead.

I sat there for a long time, not really keeping track of things really. I may even have dozed after some time before drifting back twards a more wakeful situation. I heaved myself to a more upright posture and set off in search of Kerrass. At the end of the day. If I was going to die soon then I wanted to do so in the presence of the man that I had known longest, no matter what his state of mind.

Truth be told, I suspect that I was feeling rather lonely. Rickard was a friend but he had made his feelings clear. I wanted to moan and to spend a bit of time grieving. But Rickard didn't want to do that. Chireadean did, but he wanted to do be by himself and we weren't that close yet. Rickard was right on that score, that the men looked to us to provide leadership and that if we were falling apart then the entire thing could come crashing down.

But I didn't want to be alone. Not for the first time I was feeling the loss of my amulet keenly. I was missing Ariadne intensely. I was happier, now, that we were closer on a psychological level. But it had been a while since we had been together physically and I was left to wonder what my physical reaction to her presence would be now. We had not been too intimate with each other yet and although I knew and agreed with her declaration that it was potentially dangerous to ignore societies feelings on that matter just yet I had wondered if there was anything else going on. I certainly thought that there had been on my end.

But now I regretted that. I regretted that I hadn't been able to make love to her. I notably didn't promise myself that I would do that the very instant that I saw her. Mostly, I suspect, because it didn't occur to me that that situation would even come to pass.

I had lost hope. I resolved to pretend for the sake of Rickard who, I suspected, was struggling with such feelings as I was and needed to see someone else with confidence. And for the sake of the men as well. If they needed me to be strong then I would do so.

But I so desperately wanted to allow myself to be weak for a while. Just for a little while.

So I went looking for Kerrass.

I found him on the edge of the camp, sat, largely by himself. I think there were a couple of people sat nearby, working to dig the trench a little bit deeper and to keep an eye on him. Making sure that he didn't go completely off his rocker but he was by himself. Right arm in a sling but his left arm was out and he was playing with a stick, drawing odd shapes in the dirt.

"Ah Freddie," he said when he saw me approaching in exactly the same tones as a professor greeting an errant student who was late to the seminar. "Just in time. I need your help."

I sat down next to him.

There were odd shapes that he had been drawing in the dirt although I couldn't tell what they were. They seemed oddly familiar though.

"This place reminds me of something." He declared as though it was some kind of stupid little riddle that he hadn't quite managed to nail down in his own head. Like doing a puzzle and you can see the shape of the answer in your mind but can't quite get the final notes of it down.

"How can I help Kerrass?" I asked him. I suspect that I was humouring him in some way. Just coming out with something that would keep him entertained. Keep him moving in some way. So that I wouldn't...fold.

"I'm trying to remember," he said as he sketched the patterns in the ground. "What was the shape that the villagers used to say was the sign of a holy place?"

"Ummm," I tried to search my memory for the required pattern. "It was a hill. A hump in the middle with wavy lines all around it."

"That's right. A hump, wavy lines and other shapes that looked like arrows all around it, but I can't for the life of me...Freddie? Whatever's the matter?" It was his utter mystification that got to me in the end. His wonderment that I could be feeling anything.

"I don't want to do die." I told him. "I don't..." But I couldn't get more out than that.

"Oh Freddie." He shuffled over. Levering himself by virtue of his legs and his buttocks rather than trusting his weight to his arms.

"I don't want to die here." I told him. "You're losing your mind, Chireadean's given up hope, Rickard's ignoring the problem and all I want to do right now is to see Ariadne again and to hear her voice..."

Kerrass gently put his arm round me. A mark of how out of his character he was by that point, that he would do that.

"And I'm so sick of weeping my problems away. I'm so sick of being weak and tired and in pain and dizzy and..."

Kerrass just sat there, holding me tight, tighter than he should have if I'm honest, given his injuries.

"Why can't I stand up like he does?" I asked. "Why can't I be strong now? I don't want to die."

Kerrass said nothing.

"I've brought you all here." I went on, dismayed at my own weakness and ashamed of my own tears. "Without me, all those Elves in the woods wouldn't have died. Taylor, Cooper and the rest would still be alive but I had to drag them into it. I hdt to bring you up here and make you..."

"Stop it Freddie," Kerrass said softly. "Not a single one of us is here without making our own choices. Not a single one of us. Chireadean is the leader of his people but not one of them would have come out here without making that choice. Rickard would have led his people away. And we're not dead yet."

"How can there possibly be any hope left? How can we possibly survive this?"

He grinned at me, teeth shining in the darkness. "Watch Freddie, and I will show you. Survive for just a bit longer. Just a bit and I will show you. I promise. You've brought us this far. You've done everything you could have done. You, Rickard and Chireadean. More than you could have done. More than you should have been able to do. I'm so proud of you for doing that. But now it's my turn to do what need to be done. Witcher's work. Time to lift a curse."

He squeezed my shoulder again.

"Just a bit longer Freddie. Just a bit. I promise. Just a bit longer." He picked up his stick and went back to work. "It's the first born. That's the key. I just need to figure out how to turn it now."

He was back to muttering again and I realised that I had lost him. Whatever moment of sanity and clarity he had had. He had gone away again.


	80. Chapter 80

(Warning: Contains some graphic descriptions of torture and some sexist opinions (said by a bad guy).)

I slept and woke in the grey morning mist.

Through some combination of my complaining body and the poisons that were already being pumped out into the air by Cavill's hounds, it took me a long time to wake up. It was one of those times where I was aware that I was dreaming and that I was still asleep but I couldn't pry myself out of it. That sick sense that today was going to be the day that I died meant that I just didn't want to wake up. Kind of the extreme version of not wanting to get up on the day of an exam.

So I stayed in the dream for as long as I could.

It was a nightmare. I don't think that it could have been anything else given what was happening and what had happened but now I can't think of what the nightmare was. It wasn't the kind of "horror" nightmare where there are hooks tearing at your flesh, the walls are oozing with blood and the sky is on fire. It was the kind of nightmare that leaves you feeling sad when you wake up for it. A kind of bitter-sweet taste left in your mouth as though you had been dreaming of old friends and lost loves but the thing that made it a nightmare was the fact that you know that it's a dream and that there's nothing that you can do about it.

So I almost crawled towards wakefulness. There were voices in the distance and from the rhythm of them, I guessed that they were chanting something. It might have had some kind of religious aspect of things or it might have been some kind of intimidation technique that the Hounds were using in an effort to keep us frightened but the truth was that I found it oddly restful. Hypnotic in a way and so, I lay there, eyes closed feeling surprisingly warm and comfortable.

The only concession that I made towards the need to wake up was that I pulled the scarf over my mouth and nose from where it had slipped down during the night. It had been soaking for some time the previous day, so the scent soon came through and began to clear my head. It was almost something to look forward to. A day where I would no longer have to smell that particular combination of smells that threatened to make my eyes tear and my nose bleed.

Not that my nose ever bled from breathing in that stuff but that's what it felt like.

So I just lay there. Putting off the inevitability with every passing moment, trying to guess at what time I had actually lain down. How I had actually fallen asleep. Had Kerrass rolled me in a blanket or, more likely, had he got someone else to do it.

It didn't matter.

Instead I thought about all the people that I would be seeing soon. I thought about Father and wondered what I was going to say to him when I saw him next. I wondered what he would make of my efforts towards sorting things out. I considered whether dying would have an effect on our different perspectives on life and whether he would now be able to see the problems for what they were or would he still be obsessed with those things that he had been consumed by in life?

Or would it be me that would see things in a new light. Without all of the pressing matters, would it be me that saw things differently? Would I see the search for Francesca as the futility that I was beginning to worry that it was? Would my time have been better spent marrying Ariadne, lecturing, writing and managing estates? Was it me that was wrong after all of that consideration?

What would I say to Edmund? I found myself wondering that for a while. Would he be able to see the path way to all his mistakes? Would he see them for the mistakes that they were? Or would he not even be there. Consigned to the heaven or hell that goes with whatever happens to us all after we die. Maybe he was right and I was wrong?

I considered this for a while before shaking my head.

Nah. No way. My revulsion at what his cronies and the cronies of Cousin Raynard Kalayn had been up to in Oxenfurt was soul deep. As were the activities of Cavill and his people. Something fundamental in me was rebelling at what we had found and what was happening here.

But what if there was nothing after we died. What if it was all ultimately futile and that nothing we do actually matters. That secret fear of men all over the world that sneaks up on them in the cold light of morning or at the dead of night. What then?

But that also didn't seem right.

I thought of Ariadne. I knew that she couldn't hear me but I thought about her for a long time. Picturing her in her simple black robes that swirled around her when she moved. For some reasons known only to my own libido and brain, I found her more beautiful in those simple, unadorned black robes or dresses than I do when she's wearing some of the more elaborate dresses that she likes to wear to parties. More than the corsets or any of the other things. Obviously she looks fantastic in them all but I find that I find her most beautiful in those most simple of her clothes. Working at a work bench or sat, reading her book and humming softly with a gentle smile on her face.

"I'm sorry," I told the image. "I love you." And then I put her from my mind.

I didn't know how much time I had and it was kind of pressing on my mind so I thought I should do that first. The most important person first.

Then I thought of Emma. I tried to picture her behind her desk but found that I couldn't quite get the texture of the vision right. There was something missing. So instead I found myself imagining her in that small lake, little more than a pond near the castle where she taught me to swim and taught me to dive. I imagined her laughing as she splashed around in the shadows of the water and suddenly it seemed real to me. I spent as long as I dared watching her dance in the water in my mind. I gave my mental image of her the presence of Laurelen diving into the water so that she would have some company when I moved on.

The things that we think about.

I found that I couldn't picture Sam. Something I couldn't put my finger on but I couldn't bring him into focus. I tried to think of him on the walls in his castle, on the training grounds at home and sitting sharing a sandwich as he asked me as to whether or not Ariadne had a sister. I tried to picture his face but I just couldn't quite manage it.

"I'm sorry Sam." I told him. For all I know I said it aloud.

Mark was much easier. A simple cassock, knelt in the family chapel before the alter. Humming the psalms to himself, painfully out of tune as always. Gentle smile on his face.

Lastly I thought of Francesca. So many dreams of Francesca and again, like Sam, I couldn't seem to nail down one image. I thought of the young warrior maiden that had greeted me when I first got to Toussaint with a hug. I thought of her happy face as she admired Ariadne's engagement ring as she acted as hostess to us all. I thought of her attempts not to laugh at my embarrassment before the Empress. I thought of her tears when I left home to go to University and I thought of the letters that we had written to each other.

But then she disturbed my rest as I started to imagine all the torments that she was going through. All of the small tortures that she must have endured in the time since she had been taken. I found that I couldn't take my mind away from the sight of her beautiful face, tears streaming down her cheeks and mouth open in one long shriek of pain and agony.

I forced my eyes open and groaned as I sat up, still taking care to keep my head just below the barricade. I needn't have worried though. There didn't seem to be anyone shooting at us. There was just that chanting on the edge of hearing. On the edge of consciousness. I was on the opposite side of the hill from how we had approached but I risked a look out over the top of the barricade and I could see groups of horseman riding around as well as many more still inside the tree line. A hope that I hadn't put a name or a thought to, died for a moment as the prospect of being able to break out was crushed. There was absolutely no way that that would happen now. We were well and truly surrounded.

It was still misty. A mist combined with the smoke that was already being pumped out from the huge fire that Rickard had ordered to be built on top of the hill and the smoke that the Riders were doubtlessly pumping out of their fires, full of poison as they undoubtedly were. But there was not enough for us to sneak away and the fires during the night would make it impossible to do then anyway. Making it to the evening from here seemed like a remote and foolish hope.

I propped myself up into a sitting position and did some routine maintenance on my weapons. On my spear which needed a good sharpening, cleaning and oiling. Truth be told, I had been neglecting the poor thing for a while and it probably needed the attentions of a good blacksmith. But for now, I was still confident that it would do the job. The boot dagger was in worse shape having been submerged in swamp water on and off for a while and I thought that I could probably do with a new one. My eating knife was an eating knife and if I had to resort to that one then I was in more trouble than I could easily be extracted from with just an eating knife.

The dagger that Letho had given me was fine. Just a bit of sharpening and oiling needed.

It was during the dealing with this last, that someone came to find me. It was Carys, the Elven woman of all things.

"D'hoine?" She called. She tried to make it sound properly insulting but I got the feeling that she didn't have the time or the energy to put the proper amount of hate and anger into it.

"What?" I asked her with a smile as I examined the edge of the dagger. "No "filth" to go with the "D'hoine" today?"

She shook her head. Looking as though she was caught between a smile and that expression that you get when you bite into a sour piece of fruit. "No," she said in heavily accented northern. "Not today." I knew that the accent was an affectation but decided not to pursue it. She beckoned and I followed her.

She led me further round so that we were facing South East ish although it was true that I had become turned around with the smoke and the mist. It was tricky to pick out the landmarks that I would normally use to get location and direction. The sun was little more than a watery shape in the grey and overcast sky and I found Chireadean and Rickard sat on the barricades. The bastards and a good percentage of the other elves were lounging about.

I tell you, here and now, that if Cavill had ordered an attack on the opposite side of where we all were, he could have just walked all over us.

Kerrass wasn't there but I will admit that I had kind of stopped looking for him in these kinds of gatherings.

Chireadean was sat, resting his arms on his knees and staring at his hands. Rickard was the only one who registered my approach.

"What's going on?"

Rickard held up his finger.

"Lord Frederick Coulthard." A voice called.

"There it is," Rickard said quietly.

"Lord Frederick Coulthard, I want to talk to you Lord Frederick." It was Cavill's voice. I was surprised that I recognised it to be honest but then again...

Chireadean hadn't moved. I looked over at Rickard who shrugged before turning away.

I sighed and stepped forward.

"What do you want?" I called out.

"To talk."

I looked around but no-one was offering any help.

"So talk." I shouted back.

"Can you not come out? All this shouting is hard work and I promise that you won't come to any harm until you get back in to see your friends."

"Why should I believe you?"

"I'm hurt Frederick." I may be crazy but there genuinely seemed to be some kind of remorse there. "I may worship a God that you disagree with and deny as well as rejecting the worship of him. But I am still a man of some honour. Come down. I want to talk to you."

I pulled back.

"What do you think?" I said aloud.

Chireadean just shrugged. Weariness radiated from him and I wondered if he was living in some kind of waking nightmare.

"It's up to you." Rickard said.

I sighed. "I thought it might be." I took a deep breath. "The entire point is to play for time now right?"

"What?" Rickard asked, startled. From the look of him, he hadn't slept the previous night.

"The longer I can delay things, the more smoke gets pumped out which means that it's more likely that it gets seen right?"

"Right."

"Ok. So, hold the fort. I'll be back."

"What if he kills you?" Chireadean asked. He didn't look up at me.

"Then he kills me." I told him. "Do your best to make him regret it would you."

"I can see him." Dan said, standing nearby. "He will not survive if you go down."

"Reassuring." I said. "At least I will have some measure of vengeance. Is he alone?"

Dan nodded before spitting.

"Good. I'm not sure I could restrain myself from killing that son of his."

I took a deep breath and stepped over the barricade. "I'm coming out," I called. "Don't have one of your people shoot me by mistake."

"You have my promise."

So I went down to meet my enemy.

I muttered as I went. I still wasn't entirely certain what to make of the day. I was tired, but when had I not been tired recently, as well as being sad, a little angry and overwhelmingly bored.

I was surprised with the last part.

I suppose that when you spend days being tired scared and in fear for your life, even the strange and traumatic can become mundane.

Walking through the fog gave it a little bit of a surreal edge to proceedings too. As though I had not yet woken up from my dreams. Or that I was already dead and just didn't know it yet.

This effect was not helped by the appearance of Cavill. Wearing a long and voluminous black robe that literally billowed with every movement as though it had been designed to make him appear bigger and more dramatic than he ever had before. It was lined with gold thread which seemed to depict patterns and letters that I could not read, although I tried to. It kind of sucked at my eyes and made me feel nauseous at the same time. Nearby, there was a large pair of antlers that seemed to be part of some kind of crown attachment, or a helmet maybe but they looked unfeasibly large for so small a head to perch on. He was sat on a stool and there was a small table next to him which had some cups on it along with another stool. He was pouring a steaming liquid into one of them. His posture was rigid and almost painfully upright.

"Ah there you are." He said as I approached before frowning when he saw me properly. "I must say, I thought it was rather traditional that you don't bring weapons to a parlay such as this one."

"What?"

"Your spear and dagger?"

"Huh," I said in surprise, "You know I had honestly forgotten about them."

I had too. The things that you get used to when you have no other choice can sometimes be quite surprising.

"Would you prefer for me to leave them behind?"

Cavill considered this before shrugging and shaking his head. "If you were going to attack me with them then I would have thought that you would have done so by now."

I smiled in response.

"The truth is," I went on, "traditions around having a parlay vary from place to place. In most military situations it is perfectly acceptable to bring personal arms to a conference such as this one on the grounds that weapons often denote status. And no one who came to one of these things would ever dream of breaking whatever truce had been agreed."

"Why is that?"

"Honour." I responded.

He laughed at me. Or with me, I'm not entirely sure.

"Please," he said gesturing at the other stool. "Would you care for some tea?"

I thought about this for a moment, in a mirror of his earlier gesture, I shrugged and nodded. He poured as I sat and I downed the drink in a swallow enjoying his raised eyebrows of surprise.

"Thirsty?" He asked as he poured me some more.

"A little, to be fair, I haven't really woken up yet and I suspect that I'm coming on with a bit of a cold."

He watched as I took another drink.

"I must be honest that I'm surprised." he commented, taking a swallow from his own cup.

"Oh?"

"I was expecting you to demand that I drink from my own cup before you drank from yours."

I shook my head. "Nah,"

"Why not?"

"Three reasons. The first is that I am experienced enough in the ways of the world now to know that if you wanted to poison me, there are other ways to do it that have nothing to do with poisoning the tea."

Which reminded me, I tugged the scarf up and over my nose and mouth.

"Contact poison on the cup for example or in the bottom of the cup before you poured. Some kind of poison needle, a blow dart from somewhere in the mist. If you truly wanted me dead you could have just rolled over us with all of your people. You didn't need to bring me out to talk to me."

"True, and the second reason?"

I grinned. "A saying of my old tutors. I'm not sure it's applicable here but he was teaching me how to be a courtier. He had various little sayings that he made me remember in order to keep the lesson in my head. They include such pieces of wisdom as "The only box that can hold a secret is a coffin,"

He snorted at that,

"and "How dearly we cling to pretty deceit"," I went on.

He laughed. "I would have liked to meet this tutor of yours."

"I suspect that he would have hated you." I told him. "But he was a good man and did his best to teach me etiquette and technique. He despaired of me though. He thought I was too soft of heart for the true calling of a politician. But the saying that I was thinking of was "If you eat poison, don't forget to lick the dish." I will be honest and say that it took me many years to understand that last one."

Cavill frowned as he tried to figure out the puzzle himself.

"It's about putting a face on matters." I told him. "If a person tells you something that is blatantly untrue then you must pretend as though you have believed it which gives you an advantage over them."

"Ah, I see. The poison is the lie and in in licking the dish you are telling the person that you enjoyed and believed the lie."

"Yes. But the other meaning is more literal. If you are going to poison me then get it over with."

"Hmmm," he nodded. "Did this man teach your other siblings as well?"

"No. I only think Emma and Francesca really took to those lessons. Sam didn't have the head for it as he was too into tactics and military thinking along with heraldry and strategy. Mark was already learning his politics as part of his church training and Edmund was, well, Edmund."

"I begin to see why your family has attained such a dominant position. But you had a third reason to drink the tea."

"I did."

"What was it?"

"Because, "Fuck you." That's why."

He stared at me for a moment with a look of shock before a look of utter delight spread across his face and laughter overtook him. Genuine belly laughter and it was infectious. Much more than I would have thought possible actually and I felt my own laughter start somewhere in my gut. I had forgotten how charming this man was when he put his mind to it.

"Oh Frederick." He said. "Oh, if only you had been one of my sons, or had been born first. What things we could have accomplished together." He shook his head. "We could have changed the world together you and I."

"Regretting your lack of choice in an heir?"

He leaned over and spat into the ground. "My son is very good at killing. Very good, better than anyone I've ever known. But his brains are in his backside. If he had more, you know, up here?" He pointed at his skull. "Then we possibly wouldn't even be in this mess in the first place. I truly, truly fear for what is going to happen to my name and holdings when I'm gone. Obviously, the worship of _The God_ is the most important factor there but I still have a certain amount of pride and a desire to see that our primacy over the surrounding countryside is still kept going."

He sighed.

"Pride," he went on. "One of the only things that my son and I seem to have in common with each other. Do you know that I do believe that he's planning on killing me?"

"Imagine my surprise. Kill him back, seems like a safer alternative."

"Tempting. But I have no other true born heir and that is vital in my circles."

"You have bastards though don't you."

"I do, but we are not strong enough to withstand what would come of that." It took me a while to realise that the "we" that he was talking about was about his sick religion. "sooner or later we would have to tell people where he came from and then all kinds of things could go wrong."

"I still think you should kill him."

He stared at me sharply. "I do believe you hate him."

I thought about this and gestured for a refill of tea. "I rather think I do."

"Why? Why him and not me?"

"Because you have a reason to do what you do. Don't get me wrong. It's a sick and twisted reason and I despise you for it. But you have the sheen of a true fanatic. I've seen the fanaticism of men of the Holy Fire and, in many ways, you remind me of some of those fanatics. You think that your God is telling you one thing and you are ignoring all other thoughts or sayings or laws to the contrary on the grounds that what your God has taught you is the most important thing of them all. To the exclusion of all other factors."

He said nothing to any of that.

"But your son? Your son takes it one step beyond that. He is cruel with it. You hunt and kill people because the sport is part of your religion...How can I put this?"

I took another drink. The tea was really quite good.

"I don't think for a moment that your son forgot that I might know what Father Gardan's axe would look like. I think he was rubbing it in my face. I think he knew who Father Gardan was. I think he thought of himself as some kind of equivalent of Father Gardan, like everything that Gardan was for the Church of Kreve, your son wanted to be for your little religion when he was growing up. So he knew what that axe meant and it appealed to him to take that axe and turn it to other purposes. Not because he thought of it as a magic weapon, but because it appealed to his sense of humour."

I gained another insight.

"I would also make another gamble. You truly believe in this God of yours right? Just a straight question I don't need proof."

"Of course."

"I don't think your son does. I think he goes along with it because it means that he gets to kill, rape and torture to his hearts content. But I think he scorns the worshipping side of things. I think he's the kind of person who goes to church on a holy day, mumbles along with the words while thinking of all the whores they're going to fuck that night and how they're best going to screw over their peasants. Whatever the equivalent to that is in heretic cult circles, your son is that. The person that is there to be seen to be there. Just going through the motions. Saying the words but not believing them."

"Interesting." He mused the point. "You have given me much to think about there."

We sat and drank tea in surprisingly comfortable silence. I could see the smoke pillar from Rickard's fire growing up in a column before melding with the smoke and beginning to get truly quite impressive. The fog was lifting a bit and I could begin to see the sky beyond the misty tendrils. It was quite peaceful really.

"Take me." I told him suddenly. I am prepared to swear on any number of holy texts that you like that I did not intend to say anything. "I'm the largest threat to you, take me off to wherever you want me to go and do whatever you want with me, but let my people go free."

Cavill drank his tea carefully.

"Noble of you Frederick. Noble of you." He said it almost respectfully. "And if you had just lay down and died then that would have been what happened. But then you caught that Rickard idiot up with you and I kind of want to murder him as well. Did he tell you the story of how he got my son killed?"

"He told me the story of how your son died."

"Yes, well, also your Witcher friend. He's the one who's going around teaching people how to counter-act the poisons and hallucinogens that we use in the local area isn't he. Poisons that I spent far too much time and effort into arranging. So he has to die."

"How do you..."

"Oh, there's an Elven alchemist on your brothers lands. Your Grandfather on your mothers side caught her trying to sneak through his lands once. Caught her and subjected her to the rites. Father used to tell us the story about how she broke under the strain of what was happening to her. How she promised to use her skills and whatever else we needed from her so that we would stop torturing and raping her. Now she mixes up the poisons in her basement and we collect them. The formula is quite refined by now so that a small scoop can blanket the countryside in the smoke. She also gives us the information that we need about what's going on in that part of the world."

"Ella," I said. It made sense now that I said it aloud. She was a herb-woman and the people in that area didn't feel to strongly about Elves, so she turns up, heals the sick, helps with any child-birthing that needs to be done before passing on all the details to Cavill's men. "That's a shame," I said after another moment. "I liked her." I admitted.

"She's very likable." Cavill agreed. "Squeals most adequately when being fucked in the ass."

"Now you're just trying to piss me off." I accused. It was working too.

"But I'm afraid that I can't let you go now Frederick. I must kill you. If it's any consolation, the promised torturing to death is not something that I have time for now. Hence the ceremonial robes. Instead I must consecrate your death and the deaths of your followers but, at least it will be quick."

"Yeahhhhh. Fuck you." I told him. "What did you bring me out here for then. If I'm not here to discuss terms, why did you ask me to come out here?"

"Well, first of all, I wanted to make sure that you were still up there." He told me. "I would have been dreadfully disappointed if it turned out that you had drowned out in that swamp, or that we had killed you somewhere on the way or that we had missed you some place. But also, I wanted to thank you."

"Errrr. What?"

"Yes. You have exposed some shockingly lax efforts on the part of some of my people. Some, frankly, horrifying holes in our control of the land and as a result, you were nearly allowed to escape. You came closer to escape than anyone else had ever made it when doing one of the rites."

"I've been told about people that have made it to local Kalayn villages."

"Really?" His face darkened. "Ah, if only we had time for me to properly interrogate you about the things that you have found. Only proper hunts, from the caves and back to the caves are supposed to be done. I will find out what has happened and take certain steps."

"Well," I told him, "When you find out that it was your own son who was challenging your authority, would you do me a favour?"

"What is it?"

"Tell him that one of those lashes falls from me. Or if you kill him, tell him that I said hello or something suitably vindictive. I'm sure you know the kind of thing I mean."

He laughed.

"What is it about you people and this obsession with First-born sons anyway?" I asked him.

"Why do you ask?"

"It's one of those things that I've been curious about for a while. The nobility as a whole prefers the inheritance to pass to the Eldest son but that's not what you do. Hell, I know a lot of nobility who have adopted some of their bastards in order to still have a son to inherit, given all the deaths in the various wars that have afflicted the north, and for my money, Arthur is twice the man that your other son is."

"And if that was the only quality that I was looking for then I would agree with you. You are right of course. Arthur is more intelligent, more cunning and more charming. The only thing that he isn't as good at is the killing of his enemies."

"And he's older. So why is he still a slave?"

"Because..." Cavill sighed in exasperation. "It's tricky to explain. We are a cult that supports power. The most powerful people in our cult... Those that enjoy more of the God's favour are always the first-born sons. Always. Another part of it is that those sons that are born of our sacrifices are born of lesser women. Those slaves are barely even people so to pass our inheritance on to the son of a lesser woman would be repugnant."

He shuddered at the thought.

"Those women who are married to us in the sight of the God are those that properly gain the grace of the God. My son, neither of my sons will ever achieve that level of grace with the God. The God will turn from them and withhold his greatest mysteries from them. And that cannot be allowed in our service to the God. I am a first-born son. Just as my predecessor in the High-Priests robes was, and his predecessor and his before him."

"Is it a family thing?"

"No, although it has been in the past. But, as you say, sometimes circumstances, the wars and skirmishes make that kind of thing impossible."

"Sounds like madness to me."

"That's because you have never experienced it. You have never felt the power within you as you take a woman. The power that you have when you inflict pain and then again when you give a respite from that same pain. You have never felt the pleasure of a God running through your veins."

We sat in silence for a while.

"Anything else you wish to ask me Lord Frederick. I am inclined to answer. Even though I despise you for everything you have done to my family and to my people, it is rare that I meet an intellectual equal and I am enjoying our conversation." He said with such genial matter of factness as well. That was the thing that got me about what he said.

"Where's your tame mage by the way?" I asked him.

"Who, Phineas?"

"Yes, Of everyone who's to blame, I rather thought that he was one of the ones most responsible for my death. Without him, Ariadne or any of the other mages that are probably looking for me right now would have found me days ago."

"Too true I fear. He doesn't like to come out in the field too often so I left him at the caves so that he could be there when we brought you back. He's going to be dreadfully disappointed."

"Heh, one victory for me then."

"Oddly, apparently we were lucky that the two of you, your vampire and you, hadn't had congress yet. If that had been the case, there is no way that he could have hidden you from her. That that bond, especially with a vampiric Sorceress, would have been impossible to hide the closer she got. As it was though..."

He shrugged. There wasn't a great deal to say to that.

"You're saying that if Ariadne and I had slept together, she would have been able to find me?"

"So Phineas tells me."

I had nothing to say to that. It seemed like to big an idea for my brain to handle.

"Well." I said climbing to my feet. "If today is the day that I am to die, I would rather spend that time with my friends."

He rose with me. "It's been a pleasure Lord Frederick."

"Yeah," I sniggered. "Go Fuck yourself." I would have tried for something wittier but I was on my last legs. So much so that I staggered as I walked away.

But then a thought occurred to me and I turned.

He was putting the antler-head dress on. It turned out that there were slots on his back that supported the entire thing that was what was making his posture so rigid. Meaning that it was less a head dress and more like some kind of elaborate back banner.

"One thing." I called. "You never had anything to do with Francesca's disappearance did you." It was not a question. I was pretty sure that I knew what the answer was.

He seemed to consider this for a moment before he grinned.

"No." He admitted. "I wish I had though. The pain that it has caused you has been exquisite and whoever was responsible for it. I owe them a debt of thanks."

"You just said all of that to goad me then?"

He shrugged again. "It worked."

I nodded and gave him a little wave.

The tears began to fall as I began to walk back to the little hill that we had chosen for our place to die. I had to stop when a sob wracked my body.

It was never in any doubt. Not really. But another hope died in the mist. I wiped my face then, telling myself that I wouldn't have to carry these burdens for much longer and strode back to where the others were waiting for me.

I came back to the hill and climbed over the barricade. There was some evidence that there had been some small works done to the barricade. The kind of desultory work that is done in order to keep yourself busy and to take your mind of the coming...torment.

Chireadean was sat nearby leaning on his sword along with the rest of the Elves and the Bastards. Kerrass was nearby, but it was Rickard that came to meet me.

"You did it didn't you." He accused, even though he said it quietly.

"Did what?"

"Offered yourself in exchange for all our lives."

There was a desperation to his face. A strange kind of tired, pinched look that I didn't recognise at first.

"Yes," I admitted. "Yes I did. He turned it down though. It seems that he's decided that we all just need to die. He still remembers the episode with you and your son and mentioned you and Kerrass by name as people that he particularly wants to die. I'm sorry."

His face crumpled a bit as he put his hand on my shoulder. "And I don't know whether to feel angry at you or to be grateful for your efforts to keep us all alive." He turned away for a moment before turning back to me. I was astonished at the pain that I saw there.

"I owe you an apology," he told me. "I also don't know whether or not to be pleased or disappointed that he turned the offer down." His face crumpled, "I don't want to die either and after I yelled at you for giving up."

"Oh hey." I reached out and embraced him as I wondered how long he had been keeping himself upright and moving forward by sheer willpower. "We can at least give him a bloody nose."

"I know," he was pulling himself back with an awesome effort of willpower. "But that's not what I want. I want to see Shani again and sleep in a bed and have a beer and..." He grinned. "And fuck a whore's brains out."

"That's the spirit."

"But I'm not sure I've got anything left to deal with this. I will fight and kill but I don't think I can..." I saw him on the edge again and shushed him.

"Time for a speech I think." I told him.

"I don't think I've got anything." He muttered unhappily.

I looked around and saw the same expression in a lot of faces. That final moment, that final loss of hope.

Other than Kerrass. Kerrass was sat on a log with his medallion in his hand, frowning slightly in what I had come to think of as being "Deep thought and madness." He looked up at me as I glanced around and met my gaze. Then he winked.

Bastard still knows how to play me after all this time.

"Listen to me." I said stepping forward so that all eyes were on me. "Listen to me. I've never had to give a speech like this before so please pay attention." I told them. Need to start off with honesty.

Keep it short, that's the ticket.

"Thinking about what to say though." I went on. "It's fair to say that in the stories and the sagas and the songs, this is the point where the leader of the group should make a speech. So what do I say? Something to give you all some cheer and some steel so that when the fuckers start coming towards us we have the energy needed to do what must be done.

"I know what Chireadean would say. He would say something flowery and poetic. Because despite his disdain for using long, grand and flowery words, he's still an Elf and that's the sort of thing that you lot go in for."

I got the laugh that I was hoping for. Just a small chuckle really but I saw Chireadean feed of it. He laughed a little and shrugged as though admitting that the accusation was perfectly accurate.

"Not unfair," he commented.

"I also know what Rickard would say. He would puff out his chest, scowl and do his best to look all manly and soldierly." More laughter, led by the Sergeant who guffawed loudly. "Then he would say something in a gravelly voice that he thinks makes him sound hard. Something simple like "Good hunting" or "Let's go kill the fuckers" or things like that."

"Aim low," someone called out as a suggestion.

"Choose your targets," someone else called.

"Hold your fire." Three of the bastards sang out in unison.

There was more laughter. Rickard pulled a comical expression of trying to look stern but I could see that his eyes were dancing with suppressed laughter and I suspect that his men knew that too. I held my hands out for silence.

"Me though? I want to do two things in front of you all and so that you can all hear me. The first thing I want to say is that I am beyond grateful to each and every one of you. Everyone that has brought me food, or stepped over me when I was asleep or carried me when I was exhausted. Those of you that have shed blood and sweat and tears to keep me alive. Know that I am grateful for each and every one of you and that I am sorry that I got you into this mess. That I owe you all a huge debt that I would struggle to repay."

There were some moans of denial and that I shouldn't be sorry.

"But the other thing that I will say is this. There are a lot of them out there. There's no denying that. A whole lot of them. In their silly black robes and their cheap weapons, thinking that they're better than us in every way. They outnumber us twenty, thirty, fifty to one. Maybe even more than that. A hundred to one even although I think that might be a bit much. You know what I say to that?"

I made sure that all eyes were on me and that all of them were quiet.

"Is that all?" I made my voice almost comical as I said it. "After everything that we've been through together. After all the hardships that the Elves have suffered in the wilderness. After the battles and skirmishes of Rickard and the Bastards. After the monsters and demons that I have seen and fought along with Kerrass. A hundred to one odds?"

I sneered.

"Is that all they've got?"

I shook my head.

"You and I." I told them. "We're gonna show them that they should have brought many, many more people than that."

They growled in response.

I stepped away from my make-shift podium and walked up a bit towards the top of the hill. A number of people clapped me on the back.

"Good speech," Chireadean told me, his slight and occasional smile was back. "Could have done with some more flowery language though." He turned back to Rickard. "Do we have a plan?"

Rickard took a breath. "If we're honest with each other. My lads are the better killers with a bow right?"

Chireadean sucked his teeth a bit before nodding. "Not necessarily the best shots, but the better killers yes."

"Fair enough. Then I think that the Elves are in the front, the bastards sniping to hit the Sergeants and the like."

"Are they going to come at us from all sides?" I wondered.

"Nah," was Rickard's response. "He's not going to want to risk his good troops if the conscripts can get the job done. I reckon that he's going to get all of them into a battering ram and hurl it at us. We need to reduce the people doing the herding and become more terrifying than the people behind them. They'll break. Then we might get some worthwhile troops."

"If we make it that far of course." Chireadean commented.

"We'll make it. Freddie's just poured some steel down our back bones. We'll make it." Rickard said it like it was the truth of the Prophet and somehow, I believed him. Even though it was unlikely and all but certain that we wouldn't survive a second wave. "Get your people to pass their arrows to the Bastards and then we'll see what can be done.

"Right," Chireadean nodded and moved off, calling something out in Elven that I couldn't quite catch.

"Where do you want me?" I asked Rickard, but he shook his head.

"To the rear I'm afraid. Not because I doubt your desire or ability to fight." He held his hands up to stop me protesting. "But despite what I said to the Elf, we're still very shaky. You're our flag now and if you fall, we'll either break or go berzerk and neither of those two options is good. I'll get Chireadean to pick out a couple of Elves to stand with you so that if they break through, you can plug the gaps."

I nodded, I wasn't happy but I nodded.

I moved off to where I was pointed and I found Kerrass crouching there.

"Good speech," he commented.

"Thank you." I looked at his arms, still in their slings. "You want a dagger or something?"

He shook his head. "I tried holding one of my own fighting knives earlier. I could barely grip it properly, let alone swing it with any conviction. The most I can do is stamp on the necks of any wounded. I still have some thinking to do anyway so don't worry about me. My sword is not going to win this fight."

"What thinking is there to do?"

"There is still a curse to lift here." He told me. "And I nearly have a solution. Nearly, so close. It's all about the "First Born" thing. The cult are obsessed with First born sons. The villagers are supposed to sacrifice their First born. Why? I'm nearly there."

"It's something about the First-born getting more power from their God. But Kerrass, we're about to fight and die here."

"Not if I can help it." He told me. "This is not a fight that can be won by swords and arrows. Leave me to think Freddie. Please."

I nodded. I decided that if that's how he wanted to die, working at a puzzle, then who was I to argue with him.

"I'm sorry I got you into this Kerrass." I told him. "May I say that it's been..."

He chuckled. "If you tell me that it's been an honour then, healing fore-arms or not, I will punch you in the face."

I reconsidered. I had indeed been about to tell him that it had been an honour ."I was going to say that it's been informative."

He considered this. "I can live with that."

"Here they come," someone called and I returned to the problem at hand.

It was the most frightening sight, but it was also kind of funny. The conscripts which were those villagers that had been gathered together by the Hounds before being addicted to drugs and being forced to victimise their own people, were really reluctant to charge us. I have no idea why. Perhaps they were the ones that had seen our skills with bows and other weapons more closely at hand. But if you have ever heard someone trying to organise a group of people and saying "It's like herding cats..." Then that's exactly what it looked like.

There was no uniformity about them, no proper order of march, their weapons were different and they marched at different speeds.

Some of them ran out in front of the larger mass of men before stopping and turning round to see if anyone had followed them. They hadn't.

Some were obviously trying to stay towards the back of the group to be met by the whips and the herding of those of the Hounds behind them. Others took courage from being on the flanks of the mass.

I call them a mass because there was no way that there was any other kind of unit formation going on. It was certainly not a column or a line or an arrow or any of the other various formations that I have heard about being used.

The thing about them was though, that there was a lot of them and all of their weapons were glittering and sharp.

Someone came round and offered me a fresh scarf to help me ward off the poisons that were still being sent out into the air and I took it gratefully before tying it round my head. I checked that my knife was still in my belt and shook my arms in an effort to banish the ache and the stiffness from my limbs.

But I was already weary.

I shook my head to banish the thought.

A trio of Elven Swordsmen had come to join me and stood nearby looking out over the mass. I kept checking behind me. I knew that there were horsemen roaming the grasslands behind us but they seemed surprisingly uninterested in climbing the hill and overwhelming us.

They had obviously decided that they wanted to test the conscripts.

"Every shot finds it's mark." The Sergeant was moving among the Bastards who were setting themselves up in their firing positions. Arranging arrows and weapons in the places that they want them to be for easiest access.

"Every shot, kills it's target." The Sergeant went on. Speaking each word carefully. The Bastards picked out the best areas. Some were stood behind trees which reminded me that the Hounds regularly carry small cross-bows. Some were crouched behind logs. Others knelt in order to make themselves the smallest target's possible.

"Do not waste your arrows."

The horde of black cloaked hounds seemed to ripple as some among them started to fire their hand bows into an arc in order to get their shots to go further and land amongst us. Someone sniggered.

But still the hounds came on.

More darts fell among us now and the Elves were forced to find some cover. In all truth, it wasn't that dangerous. All we really had to do was to be aware of what was happening and to take our time, but one or two lucky darts hit home.

"Motherfucking, cocksucking, arsetitting bollock headed..." One of the bastards was swearing.

"What is it Baker?" Rickard's voice sounded amused.

"Son of a bitch shot me sir." The man sounded more indignant than hurt.

"Where?"

"In the leg sir."

"Serves you right for sticking it out then doesn't it. Keep yourself in cover next time."

"Yes sir, sorry sir."

"Nock," The Sergeant bellowed and arrows were fixed to strings.

The black mass seemed to ripple somehow, as if in the breeze but I was beginning to pick out features.

"Pick your targets."

There was some muttering from the bastards as they had quick conversations as they made sure that they didn't all kill the same guy.

"Draw,"

That creak of bows as the arrows were pulled back to their cheeks.

"Loose."

And it began.

The front ranks of the enemies fell and the mass of men that was running towards us seemed to ripple. As though you were watching the surface of a pond when the first drops of rain start to fall. To me it didn't look like too much had happened. There weren't nearly enough arrows fired in that first volley to cause any kind of lasting damage to so many men that were being funnelled towards us.

But they seemed to hesitate.

More darts began to fall among us as the front ranks of the enemy wanted to wait to see if the bolts and missiles would do more damage to us before they would be forced to climb over the barricades. But what this meant was that the Bastards had more room and more time to continue to pour their streams of death into the enemy.

It was no more than a trickle really. No more than that. Between seven or eight arrows every five seconds as they took their time and chose their targets. But it was oh so very deadly. Every arrow dropped a man, whether due to injury or death it was impossible to say. But every arrow found a target and it was awful.

I use that word in it's truest sense in that I was full of awe at the skill of the archers but also horrified by the instruments of death that were being unleashed on an enemy on my behalf.

Different groups of soldiers would claim that they were the "Elite" of any particular armed forces but I believe that I was watching the Elite of the Temerian armed forces at work in those few precious minutes of time between when the orders were given to start shooting and when the first Hounds, screaming with pain, fear and despair, charged towards the barricade and started to climb over. The almost mechanical nature of the arrows being fired. The Sergeant no longer giving out orders or calling out the cadence of the shooting. Instead he strode around the Bastards, ignoring the buzzing bolts and darts of the enemy as they fell around him, seeming almost to scorn them as he moved around. His giant two handed sword slung across his shoulder.

"That one," he would say to one of the Bastards. "That bastard there, hopping around and making a nuisance of himself. And that one there, the one on the horse whipping them over there on the left. That utter waste of life that's trying to persuade those lot to charge us. Bring the bastard down."

Every target that he pointed at would die, an arrow in the neck, eye or somewhere deep in his guts where he would fall to his knees or fall on his arse and gaze at what had killed him.

On they came though, more strung out, less organised and in clumps.

I could feel the first man's astonishment as he made it to the top of the barricade and no sword struck him. No arrow either. He turned and called to his companions who were still straggling behind him in effort to encourage them before jumping down into the ditch with his sword raised which was when one of the Elven women found him with a glorified Kitchen knife.

He screamed horribly.

Then more came in ones or twos and the cold hatred of the Elves swept forward out of them like a tide. Years of pent up rage and frustration were expended with every sword blow, every stab of a dagger and every swing of an axe or club.

"Holy Flame," I muttered in shock and awe. I had never been in a battle before and when I had grown up enough to see past the tales of glory as well as having seen what a sword or a mace can do to the body of a human...to the body of a _person,_ I became glad that I hadn't. That my father's money and influence had made it so that I would never have to see the war front.

I never got to thank him for that.

There are even some people that would suggest that I still haven't seen a battle. The numbers on our field were too few to be much more than a fight. I am not in a position to argue about that. But the wholesale slaughter that I saw that day made me think of a battle.

Every injustice that they had ever felt, every stifled outburst, every careless wrong that had ever been committed against them was being revenged on that small hill in Northern Redania.

More and more of the Hounds came at us now. More and more of them until the Elves were beginning to be pressed back from the barricades.

I went to dive forwards into the fray but Kerrass stepped into my path.

"Do not worry Freddie," he told me. He had a distant, almost strangled tone of voice at that moment and I wonder what emotions were going through his mind at the time. Whether he too, wanted to go down there and pay these fuckers back for the loss of his arms and the loss of his skills.

"What if they break through?" I moaned. My heart bleeding for the men and women that were fighting, bleeding and dying while I stood here and watched.

"They won't." He told me. "You didn't get to see it." He spoke in so quiet voice that I had to struggle to hear it. "These Elves, these are the survivors. They aren't necessarily the best fighters but these are the ones that made sure that they survived. They made sure that they made it here and that they still had the breath and the capability to fight. Rickard might call his men "The Bastards" but all of the people here are similar in nature and temperament. They will fight until the bitter end and do far more than anyone thought possible because they will simply refuse to die."

I turned away from him, back to the fight as I tried to imprint as many details as I could so that I could remember them. So that I would be able to stand before whatever power comes next and declare in as loud as possible a voice that these Elven heroes deserve their recognition.

I saw one elf grabbed from behind and stabbed in his lower back by a dagger. He turned, head-butted his assailant before throttling the man to death. Then he picked up his sword again and killed two more Hounds before he eventually succumbed to the blood leaking out of his back.

Another Elf took a sword embedded through the collar bone and into his shoulder. He trapped the blade with his hand and then stabbed his opponent. He then pulled the captured sword out of his own shoulder and continued to wield it against the enemy, a spinning whirlwind of death before I lost track of him.

One woman had found herself impaled by a spear. By some awe inspiring feat of determination and willpower. She pulled the spear from her own body and proceeded to stab the incoming hounds. Every time a Hound climbed the barricade, they would be met by a short, hard thrust from this spear. She went on, even when she couldn't stand any more and had sank to her knees. When she had fallen to sit with her back to another part of the barricades. Still stabbing.

Next to me, the leader of my relief force of Elven swordsmen, was weeping with the sight, seeing those tears standing out on his cheeks I felt that my own face was wet with the awesome spirit that those Elves showed as they killed and killed and killed and killed.

All the time, the screams of the dying being accompanied by the oddly melodic sounds of bowstrings twanging and arrows flying

It was awful. The destruction that they wrought on their fellow living beings.

It was beautiful, the spirit and the determination that they showed in the face of overwhelming odds.

But they couldn't hold. There was no way that they could hold. Each Elf was facing three or four or even more, opponents each with more people coming up behind them and always pushing forward, made worse by the fact that the Elves simply refused to yield.

The Hounds began to scream their calls of triumph as it began to get through to them that there were far fewer defenders than they had feared and they seemed to surge forward.

Which was when the Sergeant and Rickard attacked and I saw the two men fighting together for the first time.

The Sergeant was like a God of War as he hit the enemy ranks. He didn't even seem to pause as he did so, huge two-handed sword swinging as he went. I have never seen a sword used like that. I've seen stabs and swings and chopping motions but he moved more like a dancer. More even than Kerrass does. Kerrass seems to be a fast and acrobatic dancer but the Sergeant moved more like the slow, sedate movement of the courtly dance. But even though he seemed to move slowly and with leisure, his sword moved as an extension of this so that the shining point of metal must have been moving with astonishing speed. And as it did so, it cleaved through the enemy as though he was a farmer cleaving through a field of corn, or a butcher cutting through meat.

But I have cut through meat now and the Sergeant seemed to do so with less effort. Just moving and turning. All the time his sword spun and cut, sending limbs, heads and entrails flying through the air. No-one could get near him and I saw the awful strategy of the fighting style. To get near him enough to be able to stab him or thrust a spear into him, you had to know, to be _sure_ and to be comfortable with the fact that you were not going to survive the experience. And that was how it worked. Every time someone got close to him you could see them almost hesitate to get any closer as they saw that awful weapon coming towards them and then wanting to back off and flee. Our innate sense of survival was the very thing that killed them.

His peripheral vision was astonishing as well. Nothing seemed to escape his notice. When he saw someone drawing a bead on him with a cross-bow he simply moved, not to avoid the shot, but to place another enemy into the line of fire. Or a group of people who were trying to circle him, but he saw them and charged them. Even getting inside his swing was no guarentee of survival as he had that ability to make the pommel of the sword his weapon as well as that part of the blade closer to the grossguard. I swore one man getting brained by the smashing movement of the hilt into the back of his head.

The Sergeant chanted as he killed. A language that I didn't recognise. The language of his people.

But just as deadly was Rickard.

I remember a conversation that I had with Kerrass about Rickard's fighting back at castle Kalayn, where Rickard had been defeated handily by everyone there and he had been getting angry and frustrated with that but Kerrass had told me that Rickard was by far the most dangerous man on the training field.

I had asked why and indeed, I think I recorded that conversation. Kerrass told me that Rickard had learned his fighting on the streets and in the gutters of Temeria. He didn't fence, he _fought_ and when he fought, he killed.

It was the first time I saw him in action. Not the quiet man with the sly sense of humour that I had known on the road. Nor the calm and calculating mind that had been in evidence when we were still fleeing for our lives.

This was something else.

In every way that the Sergeant was graceful in his killing, Rickard was brutal and savage. He fought with his broadsword in one hand and a long knife in the other. Far from the quiet and collected man, he snarled and spat and swore and screamed at the enemy. Pulling one man in close and stabbing him over and over and over again before kicking his victim into the paths of his attackers. Who then stumbled as Rickard leaped at them, sword swinging. The onslaught so ferocious that they quailed before him. Which meant that he could kill them.

When he had, he caught a spear head that was heading towards his gut. Apparently without looking before chopping his sword down on the head of the man who wielded the spear, splitting the head apart like some kind of gruesome melon. Then he tugged the spear out of the dead man's hands and drove it into the body of the next man that came at him before pushing him forward and using him as a battering ram to hammer into the enemy.

Kerrass had been right. If Rickard had decided to stop fencing and star fighting on those practice fields all that time ago, he would have torn those well dressed and uppity high-born idiots apart.

The two men had an instinctual way of working together. Two more different styles of fighting would be impossible to find. One born in the gutter and the other born on the harsh islands of Skellige.

But there was a third person with them. One that I hadn't seen at first. A terribly thin form, almost frail but no less deadly. Carys had found a pair of short-swords from somewhere and she moved in behind the other two men. There was no finesse about her. Little skill at all but there was a cold and calculating rage. Every person that she moved towards she would simply move towards them and kill them, whether by ripping their throats or bowels out, the men died as she screamed at them.

The three of them pushed forwards and actually stepped over the barricade in their pursuit of more people to kill.

Into the gap stepped Chireadean. With his long handled Elven blade. I had seen echoes of other fights in Rickard and the Sergeant but Chireadean fought like nothing I had ever seen. He seemed to calmly place his feet, precisely and carefully, shuffling and moving until he was in _exactly_ the right place, holding his sword out in front of him. I could only see him from the back but I could well imagine that his eyes were closed at the time. Then people would run at him and they would die.

While looking for the movements that Chireadean had made, I had missed them, but people were dead or dying around him. Then he would take another step forwards and another step and another step. More people stepped towards him and more of them died.

There was a feeling about the battlefield then. A feeling of change as though something had shifted, both in our hearts and in the hearts and minds of the enemy.

"Fuck this," I said aloud before taking up my spear and screaming in fear and anger. I charged in after them.

They say that when you are under pressure, you fall back on the first things that you learn and that certainly is true for how I fought that day. There was certainly no finesse about it. I knocked the incoming blows aside and stabbed forward before taking another step to my front. There is nothing more to say about it than that. Parry, thrust, step, parry, thrust, step over and over and over again until my arms and legs ached and my lungs burned.

Parry, thrust, step.

I have no doubt that the three Elves assigned to me did their best to protect me but there was no shortage of people to kill. I remembered what someone had once said about my being a berzerker and reached for the anger but the truth was that I was too tired for that to work. Instead I just fell back on what Kerrass had first taught me all that time ago.

Parry, thrust, step.

Then there was no-one to stab.

"Back," someone shouted and I felt someone tugging at my clothes as I was hauled back to the hill and the lines.

I bled from a few shallow cuts and my twisted ankle from the previous day ached while sending pain lancing through my buttocks and into my spine leaving me wondering if I had done something more serious to myself.

But the Hounds were fleeing. A ,still huge, black tide fleeing from our blades and our arrows. I wished that I had the breath left for a scream of triumph.

Chireadean and Rickard joined me. Kerrass was nowhere to be seen. The Sergeant had bent to clean his huge sword on the cloak of one of his victims, wincing at something that he saw on the edge of the blade which I assume was some kind of nick or scar on the metal. He slung it back on his shoulder and strode off towards where the Bastards were waiting with a call of "Count your arrows. Come on, let's have an arrow count."

"Can't we have a break Sarge?" I'm guessing it was a joke as the men were already turning out the quivers and going through them.

"Oh, sorry. Did you want a beer bringing to you? Along with a comely maiden to shove her tits in your face as well?"

"That'd be nice Sarge,"

There was some small laughter.

"Come on now my lads." The Sergeants tone almost softened. "You fought well and I'm proud of you. Yes, even the Elves too. Not bad for the pointy eared soft foots that you are. But that's not all they have for us today. So it's time to get back to work." He roared that last. The change in tone was lightening fast. But people smiled and got down to it.

Chireadean was smiling as well. "Well bugger me." Like me he was also out of breath. "I didn't think we would survive that."

"We nearly didn't," Rickard commented as he stared out at what the enemy were doing. "But that assault cost us and cost us hard. By my judgement, we wouldn't survive another attack like that. Not that I think it'll come to that. Now we're in for something else instead looking at what they're doing now."

The Sergeant came over and Rickard turned to him with a raised eyebrow and the Sergeant shook his head. Rickard swore and spat. "How bad?"

"Eight arrows each. I'm sending the lads out to see what they can pull out of the bodies but..."

"Belay that." Rickard told him. "Get everyone to cover." He swore again and started to shout the order. "Get down, everyone get down."

The Sergeant was running around continuing the order. "Get to cover, get to cover."

Chireadean was shouting the same in Elven.

The Elves and the bastards started hunkering down behind logs and corpses, some people even pulling the dead on top of them in order to find some kind of shelter.

I was still recovering from combat reaction so it took me a moment to realise what was happening. A new group of enemy was forming up. This time in solid military discipline and were marching towards us. They carried cross-bows.

The chanting that had been a continuing background noise since the early part of the morning seemed to increase in volume slightly. That might have been my imagination though. I was pulled to the top of the hill where Rickard, Chireadean and even Kerrass had also taken refuge behind the small group of large trees that were still standing on top of the hill.

Then the first cross-bow bolts started to strike. Much more powerful than the small darts of the hand-held cross-bows that had been used before and they swept the hill like a storm, or like the sea will lap at and destroy a sand-castle when the tide came in.

The noise was extraordinary. Different from the sounds of arrows flying through the air. This was more solid. Where the Arrow has finesse and art to it, the Cross-bow bolt bullies it's way through the air with no mercy for whatever it passes through in the meantime. Whether that be tree, wood or flesh.

Seeing it from the top of the hill next to the beacon fire, I saw what Rickard had commented about. For whatever reason, there was now a bare handful of Bastard's left to face an enemy. I had lost track of the count at some point and I felt intense guilt about that. Five solid archers plus Rickard and the Sergeant. Down from the sixteen men that had set out to join us here. And the Elven ranks were decimated in that attack. Most of them now hiding so I couldn't tell how many there were and I felt guilty about that too. One of them screamed as a cross-bow bolt found flesh.

"Can we do anything about that?" Chireadean asked, almost conversationally.

"Do anything about what?" Rickard asked. He seemed to be counting under his breath.

"Those crossbows."

"No," Rickard shook his head. "They're firing by lines, that's why their volleys are so close together. They're well outside bow range but the thing about Crossbows is that they take so long to reload that good archers can run inside range and get a couple of volleys off before running back outside of range and being safe.

"But I've only got five archers and they're down to less than ten arrows apiece. Even if we risked it, which we don't have time to do given the frequency of the volleys, we won't make a difference in the number of bolts coming our way."

"Can we escape somehow?" I asked. "Is there a gap for us to make a break for it? I should point out that I know that there isn't, that even if there was we can't move fast enough to avoid the cavalry that would inevitably sweep over us and that even if there was a gap, we're all far to tired to get very far."

Rickard and Chireadean just looked at me.

"For the record," Rickard said. "I think you just answered your own question there Freddie." He said it kindly though so that was ok.

"But no, there is no escape route." Chireadean added. "Believe me when I say, I looked." He sighed and smiled, somewhat sadly. "So what do we do now?" he asked no-one in particular.

"We do what we have to." Rickard told him. "We fight until we can't any more. And make sure that we don't get taken alive. I don't fancy dying on the torture rack or being raped to death by some cultist or another."

There was another exchange of looks.

"I still hate using grand words." Chireadean said. I wondered if I was imagining the tear in his eye. "But I think that now is as good a time as any for grand words. It's been an honour gentlemen."

"You too, knife-ear." Rickard told him with a smile that faded after he said it. "you too."

I couldn't speak for the emotion and took refuge in humour.

"I should have killed that First-born bastard Cavill when I had the chance." I grinned. "Of all people that I know, and I've known some prize bastards in my time, that one deserves to..."

But the breath left me as Kerrass grabbed my shoulders.

"What did you say Freddie?" He was pale and sweating, his tongue licking his lips, his arms trembling.

His eyes shone.

"Kerrass I..."

"Dammit Freddie, say that again. About Cavill."

"I, uh, I should have killed him when I had the chance."

"That's not what you said."

"He said that he should have killed that First-born bastard Cavill when he had the chance." Chireadean was leaning forward as he spoke.

Kerrass laughed.

"Flame Kerrass what?"

But Kerrass had grabbed me again. "Why was being First-born important to him? Knowing you, you would have asked him why it was important wouldn't you?"

"Kerrass I don't..."

"It doesn't matter. It's the only thing that fits. That's what the villagers were doing wrong.

Rickard leant forward as well. "How does this help us?"

Kerrass shook his head. "Can we see Cavill?"

Rickard spun around so that he was still in cover but looking out across the fields. "What will he look like?"

"Black robes, huge antlers on his head. Ceremonial head-dress." I told him, "Kerrass what's going on?"

"No time Freddie, I need you to bring me my pack."

"Why?"

Kerrass' rage was sudden and overwhelming. "Goddess damn you Freddie, go and get me my pack and do it quickly. For the sake of your soul and your life and everything you hold dear, go and get my fucking pack."

I fled. I had thought I had seen fangs in his mouth. One day, I really must ask him as to whether or not he does have them. I'm going to get him to open his mouth so that I can have a good look around and see what's going on. But somehow, I always forget as I get distracted by other things.

I found his pack, propped against a tree. It took me a few minutes to find it, during which time one of the bastards had to bundle me to the ground so that the latest volley of Crossbow bolts could fly over my head. I have no idea who it was.

I ran back to where Kerrass was waiting. He had a rock in his hand and was gouging a circle into the ground on top of the hill next to the beacon fire that was beginning to die down with the lack of people to feed it.

"Are we sure that Cavill is even still here?" Rickard asked no-one in particular. Shouting to be heard over the noise of another volley of Cross-bow bolts hammering into the trees around us.

"He'll be here." I told him as I put the pack down next to Kerrass.

"Help me Freddie," he told me. "Don't ask questions, just draw the circle."

"What with?"

"I don't fucking know," Kerrass snarled. "Your flaccid cock that will never be sucked again, for all I care, unless you damn well draw the circle."

"All right, keep your fur on." I drew my dagger, the better to cut through the turf with. "How exact do I need to be?"

"At this stage," Kerrass was rooting through his pack, throwing small packets of dried herbs over his shoulder. The stuff that we had been collecting so that he could brew more potions when we managed to find something to brew them with. "If the size and shape and exact geometric shape of the circle is what's important then we're fucked anyway. Where is it?"

He had started talking to the pack.

"Please don't let me have imagined it. Please let it..." He reminded me of a man who was praying.

"Why would Cavill still be here?" Rickard asked. "We're still close to Kalayn lands. Someone's going to see the smoke and word will be sent. Even if we don't survive, your brother is going to come here and the longer Cavill remains then the longer that he's in danger?"

"He will." I paused as I tugged the blade through the grass and earth, pulling worms, pebbles and twigs free. "Fuck it. He will want to see it happen. This is a religious thing for him. I also think that he hates us rather a lot and will want to witness our final doom."

"Cheerful sort isn't he. Is this going to take much longer. Only I can see them getting another attack ready?"

"Found it." Kerrass pulled out a small clay bottle and crowed with delight. "Thank the Goddess that Elves don't like things to be too sweet and that I didn't completely imagine it."

"What is it?" I demanded. This time though Kerrass just ignored me because Chireadean was peering through the gently lifting fog and mist.

"There's the fucker." Chireadean said with quiet relish. "There, just beyond that outstretch of trees. Behind the cross-bows. There's five other men with him stood in a circle with their hands raised up." He pointed. I couldn't see a thing, the fog, smoke and mist mingling to make my eyes water.

"I see him." Kerrass said before he grinned nastily. "Rickard?"

"I can't see him." I commented to no-one in particular.

"Yes, just about." Rickard responded.

"Can one of your men shoot him from here?"

Rickard laughed before his face went still. "Fucking hell, you're serious."

"Goddess preserve me from fools and simpletons, do I look like I'm fucking joking?" Kerrass raged.

"Kerrass, you need to calm down." I told him, putting my hand on his shoulder in what I hoped was a placating manner but he shook it off angrily.

"That man needs to die and he needs to die precisely when I say so. It will save us all, and will mean that all of those people did not die in vain." Kerrass told us.

The crossbow men were getting closer to us. They were directing their fire now rather than just indiscriminately firing onto the hill. Behind them marched lines of Hounds who moved in good military order.

"Why?" I wanted to know, "Why will one death help us?"

"Not one death." Kerrass said. "One death _at the right moment_."

Rickard had been sucking his teeth. "It's a hell of shot." He muttered as he thought.

"Can it be done though?"

"Not by me." Rickard spat before calling down the hill. "Dan?"

The old poacher slithered up the hill like a man half his age, keeping under the bolts that crashed into the hillside and crouched next to Rickard who told him what we needed to do.

The old poacher paled and seemed to age before my eyes.

"I'm sorry Dan." Rickard told him. "I would do it but there's no way that I can make that shot and no-one else is anywhere near as good as you. We need that shot to happen."

Dan nodded and hung his head. "Will you..." He cleared his throat. "Will you take care of my wife sir?"

"I will. And your kids too."

"And this will save folks?"

"The Witcher says so."

Dan looked at Kerrass who was almost dancing from foot to food in his eagerness. Dan hung his head for a moment and nodded. Then the years fell off him.

"Call them in please sir?"

"Bastard's to me?" Rickard called and the men came running, scurrying from cover to cover.

"What was all that about?" I wondered to Chireadean who was stood nearby. I was surprised to see tears in the Elf's eyes.

"It's a long shot." Chireadean told me. "I've heard of it done but it's a hell of a long shot. Your man there isn't going to be able to shoot straight. He's going to have to do it in an arc. For that he's going to need a powerful bow and he's going to have to stand in the open to do it. You would need to brace yourself for a shot like that and stand properly."

"So he can't do it without standing out in the open and..."

"The crossbows are going to kill him."

Kerrass watched things with impatience. "Freddie, come here. Sit, crouch, crawl or lie at that point." He pointed at a particular part of the circle. To me it was indistinguishable from any other part of the circle. I opened my mouth to ask why but Kerrass had moved on.

"Chireadean here." He pointed to another point on the circle. "And Rickard here."

"I should be with my man." Rickard objected.

"Come here, stand here and do what I tell you or his sacrifice will be pointless." Kerrass mopped his brow with the back of his sleeve. He was sweating profusely.

Rickard seemed sceptical but he did as he was told.

We all had to duck as another volley of Cross-bow bolts crashed into the hill.

"Don't fire until I give you the signal." Kerrass told Dan, although I'm not sure that Dan even noticed. Dan was focused on his target that he didn't seem to seeing much. "Give me a nod when you're ready though."

Dan said nothing as the Bastards assembled round him. "Bring me Matilda," Dan told them. I had to strain to hear him, he said it so quietly. One of them rushed off. I didn't see who it was as I was concentrating on Dan. I remembered meeting him for the first time on the way south after Rickard and the crew had brought me news of my Father's accident. He had a habit of singing quietly to himself. Soft and sad songs of home, of lost love or of some nameless pain that you could only hear from the music itself. He did all of this with a purity of voice that I found astonishing in so old and weatherbeaten a man. He could be roused into singing a marching song when Rickard wanted one, as well as comedic and bawdy tunes that the lads would request around a camp fire.

The man came back and handed Dan his huge Warbow. Easily seven foot in length, if not longer. Dan had been using his shorter recurved bow for the short range power and accuracy that it commanded during our fighting on that hill and during our escape. But now it seemed he wanted the extra power. Dan took it from the man's hands and stroked it lovingly, in the same way that a minstrel might stroke their harp or lute.

Or in the same way that a person might stroke a lover. He was muttering quietly to it, whispering and when he was done, he kissed it. It was not a joke that he gave his bows women's names.

"Arrows," he told the men. While they all lay out their few remaining arrows for his inspection. Dan strung the bow. Straining and pulling as he got the noose of the bowstring over the notch on the end of the bow. Then he bent over the arrows that had been left out for him. There weren't many and he scowled as he examined each one before discarding it due to some flaw. But then his eyes and face seemed to shine as he chose one arrow out of the rest.

"This one," he said. It looked no different to me but Dan saw something in it. Some quality that he had been looking for.

"Thanks lads." He told them as they divided up the remaining arrows between them.

"Back to your posts," the Sergeant said. "Time to give the Hounds a good thumping."

The men left, a couple of them clapped the old poacher on the shoulder as they left. "Good luck Dan," one of them said. I couldn't tell you whether or not Dan heard them. He was fitting the arrow to the bow-string. Carefully making sure that it was at the right point before he took a deep breath and nodded at Kerrass.

Another crash of crossbow bolts. They weren't coming in waves any more, more like showers which suggested that they were close enough to be able to pick out targets.

Chireadean, Rickard and I were crouched on three of the points of a compass and Kerrass at the fourth point.

"Rickard Freddie and I know how this works." Kerrass told us. "It's the same ritual as we did in the village cave remember?"

"I remember." Rickard said. "I just don't see how that will help us..."

"We don't have time." Kerrass snapped. "Your lads are starting to shoot their last few arrows. The point is that we offer something. Then we ask for something. I would suggest that you offer blood in exchange for help at this stage. Cut your palms or something. Then take a drink and pass the bottle on."

"What's the drink."

"Apple and honey brandy. Something that one of the villagers gave to the Elves who gave it to me for brewing. I kept it because I like it. Now do as you're told."

He passed the bottle to me.

I just did as I was told.

"I offer you my blood." I said, bottle clutched between my knees as I cut into my palm and squeezed some drops onto the ground. "And I ask that we be saved from the enemies that beset us."

The drink tasted sour in my mouth. Still the beautiful apple brandy that we had tasted before but it cloyed at my throat. I passed it over to Chireadean.

We ducked again and Chireadean had to make his offer from his crouch.

"Rwy'n cynnig fy gwaed i chi." He said in Elven. "Arbedwch ni."

Rickard took the bottle. "I offer you this blood." He said. "I ask for vengeance on the people that come to kill us."

Kerrass took the bottle and nodded to Dan. Kerrass seemed very calm suddenly.

Dan waited until another hail of crossbow bolts hit the hill before rising to his feet and stepping into the open. Men's voices from the hill shouting, along the lines of "Good luck Dan," and "Get 'im Dan." I saw the old poacher raise his bow, adjust the angle, and again. He drew the arrow back to his cheek, arms quivering with the strain. Then he adusted again minutely. His face carrying not a mark of the concentration on it. He was aiming only slightly off, vertical. Then I saw him take a deep breath. Another adjustment and then he let the breath blow out.

The bow sang and the arrow flew. Just a split second before a cross-bow bolt slammed into the old poachers hip, shattering his pelvis. Another into his shoulder. He fell.

"Daję ci tę ofiarę pierworodnego wroga." Kerrass intoned. His voice had a ring of power to it that made me shiver. "Dostarcz nas od wroga." He almost breathed this last.

Then he ran over to cover and peered out into the mist. Rickard and I ran over to Dan. Chireadean joined Kerrass at the tree.

We waited. I tried to see through the mist but I could see nothing.

"Did I get him sir?" Dan begged, his fave pale and sweating. His hands scrabbling at Rickard's arm. "Did I get the bastard?" He turned his head and he spat blood. His face contorted with pain.

Rickard turned pleading eyes on me and I turned to Kerrass and Chireadean.

And we waited.

It felt like we were waiting for ever until Chireadean's face lit up. Then he screamed in victory.

Kerrass collapsed against the tree. Plainly exhausted.

"You got him Dan," I told the dying poacher. "You got him."

"Did it work? Did I save...?"

"Best shot I ever saw," Rickard whispered.

Dan grinned. "It was a hell of a..." and then he died. His face almost seemed surprised by it. His eyes widening suddenly

My eyes were so full of tears that I didn't notice the mist falling again, until it had already settled around us. Nor did I realise that the crossbows had stopped firing.

Slowly, I stood up and looked out between the trees.

"So," I said to no-one in particular. "What happens now?"

I could see nothing. Just a dark grey haze of smoke and tendrils of something else that I couldn't identify. The mist seemed to remind me of some kind of living thing. A beast of some kind but I may have been imagining things. I felt weighed down, as though I had fallen into deep water and was struggling to breathe.

"We find out what I have just done." Kerrass levered himself to his feet and came to stand next to me. He seemed calmer, calmer than he had in days. There was still a wildness in his eyes that left me feelinsg a little uncomfortable but it felt, more than a little, as though I had got my friend back in some small but essential way.

"Thank you Kerrass."

"Don't thank me yet. We don't know what the price is."

"We're still alive though," Rickard said coming to join us.

"Sometimes there are prices that are too much for even that." Kerrass resonded.

"But there is a chance now." Rickard insisted.

"A chance for what?" Chireadean countered. "What is happening out there?" 

We stood together, the four of us on that hill top for a long moment. There was a feeling that was threatening to engulf me. It was oddly frightening and I began to feel the first stirrings of panic in the bottom of my chest.

It was peaceful. Silence had fallen and I had begun to feel safe. I had spent so long over the most recent weeks resisting that feeling. As it was dangerous to feel that. That moment where safety was a risk and the desire to lie down in a quiet place and just sleep.

But the silence that had fallen seemed almost absolute. The only sounds seemed to be in our breathing, the occasional russtle of clothing as one of us moved and the crackling embers of the fire that had all but died out.

There was another absence as well. A noise that I had been used to since when I had first woken up early in the morning. The sound of people chanting had stopped.

But there was a new sound. I tilted my head to one side in an effort to hear more or hear better. I don't know why, but it made me feel better.

I could hear the sounds of screaming but it came from a long way away. It was a distant sound, muffled and cold. There were words there but I could not hear them. Nor was I entirely certain that a human throat could make those sounds. But there was a lot of it. Lots of people screaming.

I could also feel an echo through the ground beneath my feet. Of Horses hooves hammering.

"I think," Kerrass began, his voice sounding lound and almost overwhelming in my ears. "I think that we should get our people up here."

"Yeah," Rickard agreed. "Yeah, I think you're right." He turned and startsed shouting orders. Chireadean wandered over to the fire and started kicking it and poking it back to life, throwing some of the waiting wood onto the guttering flame.

"What was that last thing you called?" I asked Kerrass. "When you were making your sacrifice I mean."

Kerrass sighed as he lowered himself back to a sitting position. "I offered this sacrifice." He told me. "And I asked that our enemies be destroyed."

I sat next to him. "What is happening?"

"Freddie, I love you but could you just leave your questions until I've slept please. This has kept me awake for far too long and now I know the answer to the riddle I can finally get some sleep."

There was such an exasperated humour to his voice that I almost laughed. My friend had come back. From wherever dark recesses of his own mind and psyche that he had ventured to. He had returned.

The remaining Elves and surviving Bastards came to the top of the hill. Many of the Elves were weeping openly and the four remaining Bastards stood around looking sullen and angry. Rickard was pacing backwards and forwards while we waited for something to happen.

When it did, it was almost underwhelming. In truth, I didn't see it until it was pointed out to me. Kerrass tapped me on the arm and was pointing.

Figures seemed to be coalescing out of the mist as though they were coming out of a thick bush or thicket. They were tall, maybe seven of them with angular features and the upswept ears of the Elves. Their armour seemed to quiver and shake in a non-existent breeze. We could only see the shapes of their faces rather than what they actually looked like but their weapons looked all too real.

The leader was misshapen, as though his head was too large for a frail body and huge gangling arms seemed to reach down further than they should have. As though they were out of proportion with the rest of his body. He looked...So help me, he looked crooked.

His cold gaze seemed to sweep across us all. I saw, or thought I could see a faint sneer as he looked over at Chireadean, he looked over Rickard and the rest without even seeming to move. He bowed twice, once to where Dan's body seemed to lie on the grass and then again to were Kerrass still sat, unable to climb to his feet.

He bowed particularly deeply to Kerrass.

Then the figure looked around again.

"I remember you." A voice said, seemingly a whisper in my ear. "You asked for a way forward. A guiding light and a route to follow that would lead you to the answers that you seek. I may say that you already have all the answers that you need if only you had the wit to see it but I understand how things can be obscured by sentiment."

It was like the wind in my ear had started to speak to me.

"The magic that was used to take your sister and obscure her tracks was old. Very old and not of this world. That is the route forward that I give to you."

"Who are you?" I asked him.

I heard echoing laughter. "Can't you guess?" said the voice.

He looked around again before turning around and walking out into the mist which, in turn, started to lift and we saw what had happened to our enemies.

"Holy Flame," I whispered. "Sweet remains of the prophet."

Someone had started to vomit. It might even have been me.

Our foes had been torn to pieces. Not even by weapons. Just torn to pieces. All of them were dead. I stood there for a long time trying to look for some sign of life. Some sign that there was some kind of movement. I was looking for breathing or...I don't know...Something. But there was nothing there. It was so still, so very still and there was nothing that I could see. Absolutely no signs of life.

I could see a horse had had it's head torn off. Not removed by an axe but physically torn off with bits of skin flapping free.

Someone had seen fit to stack limbs.

They were all dead. Everyone was dead. We had been saved. It was over, just like that. In some way, Kerrass had snapped his fingers and then everyone had died. It felt...it was too much and I sank to my knees.

It was not a feeling of triumph. There was too much for that. Nor did it feel like a victory. It felt like...I don't know what it felt like.

"There is always a price." said Kerrass sadly.


	81. Chapter 81

(A/N: You'll never guess what happened. As it turns out, you can't wrap up approaching twenty chapters worth of story in a neat little bow with just one chapter. In my desire tog et this done, I did the same thing as I did last time and just kept writing before I lost the thread so I will be posting the next chapters as soon as I'm done editing them which will then finish off this story line.

I promise.

I'm really done this time. No takesie backsies."

(Warning: The following discusses racism at some length. My purpose was not to discuss racism in the real world so if you want to fight about racism then kindly take it elsewhere.)

And after all that, we were rescued the following day.

I say rescued, it was a relatively small party of men that rode into the clearing, flags of Redania waving high above head along with the Coulthard crest and, to my surprise, the Kalayn crest. Maybe a dozen men all told and it very nearly started to go wrong immediately.

We had all spent the intervening time, since the mist had started to lift and seeing all of the bodies laid out beneath us, going into shock. The incredible sense of relief was a hammer blow. That, along with the lack of fear and lack of drive that accompanied it, meant that all of our energy left us and we spent a long time just staring into space. If there had been a dozen survivors of the cult and they had just turned up then, then they could have killed us all with ease. Kerrass had performed his miracle in the morning, maybe a couple of hours before noon when people had finally finished dying and I, for one, had no idea what to do with myself. It was the unpleasant version of having just finished an extended project or essay where you're between projects and wondering how to start the next one.

No, it was worse than that.

It was like how I felt after I had finished the final version of my thesis and had handed it in. What was I going to do with myself now? I suppose I could go into town and get drunk. Maybe find a dice game, or a Card game of some kind. Maybe I could see if I could find myself a willing woman of some kind but then, that slow realisation that there were problems with all of that. The first was that there suddenly seemed to be so many options to choose from that it was quite overwhelming but also that I didn't really want to do any of them. What I wanted to do, indeed what I felt guilty for _not_ doing, was going off to my writing desk and getting back to work.

It was like that, only much less pleasant.

What did we do now? We were all tired, exhausted even, with that curious headache that signifies a level of exhaustion that you had not thought possible but at the same time, still makes sleep impossible. So I wanted to sit down somewhere quiet and begin to process everything that happened. I wanted to sit and think about Dan's sacrifice, the military actions that had brought us all to this point. I wanted to get it all clear in my head so that when Sam, Ariadne or anyone else started to ask questions, then I would be able to answer them.

But then that very thought of it's own hit me in the face like a brick.

I was going to live. I was thinking about the future. I was planning what I was going to say to Ariadne when I saw her next. I tried to picture her face and suddenly I couldn't do it. But I didn't _need_ to picture it. I was going to see it. I was going to be able to cup her cheek with my palm and hold her close.

This was too much and I burst into tears.

I was not the only one shedding tears either. The sheer realisation of a pending future had hit the Elves especially hard. They moved around in a daze, looking out at the field of the dead as though they themselves had turned into ghosts. Chireadean had sat on one of the logs that we had, up until that point, been using as a barricade and just sat, staring out into the distance, tears running freely down his face. His face that carried no expression.

I tried to sit and get some rest but my legs wanted to move. I wanted to be moving and running and getting on with whatever came next. So I climbed back to my feet and stood there, wondering what to do. My legs ached and seemed still. Now that I was stood up, I wanted to stretch and lie back down again. I found myself wanting to smile and laugh at the same time. I even tried to but it came out as a sob instead.

The four remaining bastards, along with the Sergeant and Rickard were working. Stripped to the waist they were clearing the dead away from our barricade, clearing space and finding spent arrows and cutting more of them out of bodies, trying to see what would still be usable. They worked mechanically, like the clockwork and steam powered machines that the Dwarves and Gnomish lecturer brought into the university in order to teach us all how inferior we were to those, more subterranean races. They were pale faced, their mouths and eyes set into fixed lines that seemed compressed into a solid lump of stone.

After some time, I realised that I had been watching them work for some time and bent over to help but it seemed that my strength had left me somewhere and I sunk back down into a seated position.

Rickard brought me a tin cup of tea which was when I realised that I had been sat, like the Elves had been, staring into space sobbing gently with the dawning realisation of my continued existence.

"Drink this," he told me, "it helps."

"What is it?"

"Tea, honey, brewed strong. The Elves'll hate it but... it works."

"Why?"

He scratched his chin. "Damned if I know, but it does." He began a long and extended speech about the many and varied benefits of drinking tea but I had already drifted away. Enjoying the warmth that the small cup gave out on my sore fingers.

"No, I meant why do the Elves hate it?"

"They seem to think that adding honey into any kind of herbal drink defeats the object of the exercise."

I grunted to show that I had heard him. But he was already off and talking about something else. I had drifted off again I think.

"What's wrong with me?" I asked suddenly. I probably interrupted him but there was no way I could leave the question unasked for any longer.

"Many, many things." He joked. An old joke but it's always a good one. I can't have reacted though because he sighed. "We call it battlefield reaction." He told me. "All of the awful stuff that we have to do to ourselves to get ourselves ready to fight and to die comes at a cost and sooner or later that cost has to be paid."

"I've had reaction before," I told him. "I've been in fights before and I've been afraid I might die before."

"Yes, but not like this. This time you weren't afraid that you were going to die. You knew it. You absolutely knew that this was going to be your last day sucking down air. It takes a long time to come back from that and you're far from fully healthy as it is."

I snorted, taking his comment for a joke. "Thanks."

"No, I mean it." He started off with another catalogue of my injuries and physical deprivations and all of the things that Kerrass and I had been through. I knew why, he was trying to reinforce the idea that it was ok for me to feel fucking awful but I didn't want to be reassured. I had no idea what I wanted at the time. Now, looking back, I wonder if I wanted to be chastised for still being alive when so many others had died. But another question occurred to me.

"How come you're ok?"

"Because I'm working Freddie. Military discipline _is_ good for some things. That's why men are often set to work immediately after a battle, moving the wounded, preparing the dead, all of that kind of thing. It's to help with the reaction. I will admit though that taking care of the dead would be a tall order here."

For the first time, some of the horror of what had happened sunk into his voice a little. "Kreve's mercy," he muttered as he scanned the field of the dead, "So many of them."

When I next thought to look up, he had gone.

The bastards ran out of work later that day, sort of mid-afternoon. One of the major questions that people have asked me in the aftermath of all of this is why didn't we move on? I'm afraid that I really don't know. I suppose that we might have been reluctant to leave the relative safety of where we were. It might also be true that if we were attacked, we were a little under the impression, however false, that we could call upon whatever apparition that Kerrass had summoned in order to protect us. It might also be true to say that we were worried about what else, or who else might be out there in the trees. We were all exhausted, on a physical level and a mental level after everything that had happened...

All of these things are true and all of them might go some distance to explain why we didn't move from our small hill.

However, for me at least, the truth of the matter is that it simply didn't occur to us to move. I must have eaten at some point although I have no idea what. I know that Rickard was getting worked up by The Elves attitude towards their own dead. It certainly seemed a little odd to me. There didn't seem to be any kind of connection between the Elves grief for the fallen and their treatment of the bodies. The bodies of the Elven dead were stripped of their possessions which were then passed onto relatives (if any) or to friends, which counted as all of the survivors. They grieved certainly but they spoke as though the dead had already gone. While they worked there was a not insignificant part of me that wanted to ask them questions about this. I wanted to research and chase up societal niceties and find out why they behaved like this.

But I didn't. Again, I don't know why, beyond the fact that... I just didn't feel like it. I didn't want to.

Later that afternoon, Kerrass, Rickard and I went for a walk to have a look at the devastation. I wanted to find Lord Cavill but I was also curious to see who else was out there for me to recognise. How many other names could be crossed off the list of people that would need to be hunted down by other men, by the inquisition or my brother's soldiers. Rickard wanted to recover the arrow that had slain Lord Cavill. He wanted it for Dan's cremation which we intended to hold later that evening along with the funeral rites for the other Bastards that had died on the hill.

So we headed out towards the circle of chanting men that Chireadean had spotted around where Lord Cavill had been.

As I say, the men there had been butchered. We saw that their bodies had been torn apart, insides strewn around the place like streamers after a party. Heads and limbs severed. Rickard commented that several of them looked as though they had been ripped apart by wild horses while still others looked as though they had been directly struck by seige weaponry.

I didn't ask him how he knew that.

Instead, we picked our way through the corpses until we got to where Lord Cavill lay. As it turned out, he was lying flat on his back with his legs bent at the knee and tucked under him. The arrow had struck him from above and seemed to have gone down through his neck and into the body. Rickard was shaking his head in amazement, presumably at the skill that Dan had shown in making such a shot, or amazement in the fact that the shot had been lethal.

Certainly such things were amazing but, like before, I found the entire situation a little bizarre and more than a little bit amusing. Cavill's face wore an expression of utter, almost comical astonishment and disbelief, as though this couldn't possibly be happening to him as he fell back and died. We guessed that he bled to death but it was hard to say. He was already wearing black and the blood would have simply dyed this black an even deeper shade.

Rickard bent down with a dagger and cut Dan's arrow out of him before telling us that he had got what he came for and wanted to head back "to camp". Kerrass told him that he wanted to have a look around a bit longer. I didn't decide to stay with Kerrass, or not to go with Rickard. I just went with the flow and accompanied Kerrass as he walked off.

The questions that were occurring to me seemed to float to the surface, the way meat floats to the surface in a stew or how bubbles come to the surface in mud or swampland.

"What are you looking for?" I asked Kerrass as we walked off.

"The man that got furthest away." he told me. Again, on any other day I would have asked for clarification, asking what he meant by that but I just couldn't bring myself to.

From where Cavill had fallen there seemed to be an elongated stream of men. If you imagine a fire as being the main site of the slaughtered men, the flames licking up from that fire were the people that had begun to realise what was happening and had begun to flee.

Or even better than that. If you imagine a child's drawing of a sun. The way the child will draw the rays of the sun streaming off the yellow disk. That was closer to what it was like. As though the apparitions, or whatever it was that Kerrass had summoned, had begun their work, some people had realised what was happening and had begun to run away with their best possible speed. Others had stayed, whether through shock, surprise or because they were braver or stupider than the vast majority of their fellows.

Close to Cavill's body were a number of other men who wore similar kinds of headdresses to Cavill but smaller and much less grand. They rested on top of the head rather than needing to be attached to some kind of back rest in order to be carried. As we walked past I managed to summon a little bit of curiosity to take some of their hoods down to see if I recognised any of them. As it turns out, I did and I felt another disappointment. A number of these men had been nice to me and sped me on my way as I continued the hunt for Cavill.

After that, I stopped looking although I continued to walk with Kerrass. I had realised that I was looking for someone too. I wanted to find Cavill's son. I wanted to know if he was here.

He was, or rather, he had been. He had fallen near his horse. It seemed that his horse had literally had it's head sheared from it's neck and as it fell, it had pinned my enemy under him, crushing his leg but not killing him. The apparitions had not forgotten him though. The top of his head had been cut off in the same way that father used to cut the top of his boiled eggs off when he was having them in the morning. I felt sick as I looked down at him, trying to decide what it was that I was feeling.

He was one of the most far out parties in that he must have taken to horse and fled as soon as the screaming must have started. I wondered what to make of that. Did that make him cowardly? That he had started to run as soon as something was coming for him and he was not guaranteed a victory? Or did that just make him sensible? That he realised what was happening and tried to escape.

"The spirits knew their work it would seem." Kerrass decided. "Not a single person escaped."

I said nothing. Nothing to say I suppose.

"Are you alright?" He asked me and I realised that I was weeping again. Not sobbing but there were tears running down my cheeks.

"I don't know." I answered as honestly as I could. "I can't seem to think straight. It all feels a bit much, overwhelming even." I straightened up, realising that I had kind of slumped as I stood, and stared at the horizon. "I feel...empty, I feel...I don't know how I feel."

"Robbed?" Kerrass suggested.

"I don't know." I told him. I was lying, I had no idea the word I was looking for or what name to give to what I was feeling but that was exactly how I felt. I felt as though I had been robbed of something and I didn't know what it was.

"There's nothing wrong with that you know." Kerrass had seen through me of course. I guess that that's what happens when you spend enough time on the road with each other. "You wanted to fight off your enemies yourself. You wanted to be the one to kill this bastard here and you wanted to be the one that killed Cavill and the others. I imagine that you would have settled for me doing it, or Rickard maybe but what you _wanted_ was to get through to your brother so that you could stamp on your enemies. Riding at the head of an armed force to take justice, _and_ vengeance if we're being honest with each other, from their bodies. You wanted to see justice be done. And now they are dead. Dead much quicker than they deserved."

I felt the beginnings of a smile. "And how is that ok?" I asked. "How is it alright that I wanted revenge for everything that they had put me through? Put you through as well, you and everyone here and that they have been tormenting for so long. Aren't I supposed to be better than that? How is that ok?"

"The very fact that you are questioning that is the answer I'm afraid, and I know that that's no consolation. We won Freddie. We won."

"This doesn't feel like winning. You were right, I do feel robbed but that's not all of it. I feel...I feel numb. When I start to think of things now, when I start to make plans for the future, a future that I had given up on then it all gets too much and there are more tears...Fucking hell, I didn't shed this many tears when Father died. Or when Francesca went missing. I got angry and drunk instead of shedding this many tears."

"I remember."

"I mean there were tears but not this many." I sighed, taking a deep breath. "This doesn't feel like victory, this doesn't feel like we've won."

"But we have. We're going to get to your brother. An army is going to march into the hills and take that mine, cave or whatever it was. They will take prisoners who will, under the inquisitions care, tell us everything we want to know about who and where the other cultists are. Those people are going to be thrown to the Empress' judgement and the judgement of the church courts. I would even go so far as to suggest that this is one of the few cases that money isn't going to be able to buy anybody back into good graces with either the Empress or the church. We won."

"So why do I feel like this? Why do I feel so empty?"

"Because you lived Freddie." I was surprised by the sadness in his voice. "Because you lived."

"I don't understand."

Kerrass shook his head and would say no more on the subject. We stood in silence for a while, staring out. We were almost on the lip of the valley and I could all but stare out over the top of things and see back to the North, Not quite the way that we had all come in to the valley, crater or whatever you want to call it. I was struck with two simultaneous feelings. The first was a desire to step out of the valley and see what was out there. To see what was happening off to the north. To walk out of this place of death and destruction, of heartbreak and loss and just keep walking to wherever I might end up. But there was another feeling, almost an equal and opposite feeling. It was fear. Fear of the unknown almost even though I am aware that this makes no sense at all.

I lowered my eyes back to my fallen enemy and a thought occurred. I went to the man's horse and looked through the saddlebags but it wasn't there. I found what I was looking for eventually, strapped to the horse underneath the carcass of the horse and trapped between it and the smashed leg of Cavill's son.

Yes, I know I'm not using his name. I feel as though he doesn't deserve that dignity. Distance means that my anger towards him has grown a little.

Indeed, it had caused a not inconsiderable amount of damage to the man's leg, being crushed between the horses bulk and him. It took some doing but I finally managed to pry Gardan's axe loose and I stood there looking at it in the light of the sun.

It shone.

"So my curse came true." I said aloud. I have no idea to whom I was speaking. Maybe to Kerrass and maybe to the dead man. "I promised I would pluck this from a dead man's hand and as it turns out, I have done that very thing."

The axe was heavy and in the end I had to lower it to the ground. Kerrass hadn't said anything, he was behind me so I can't tell you what facial expression he wore. "At the time," I began, "When I first said those words, when I made that threat, I had no idea how I was going to carry it out. I meant it as a psychological thing. I wanted to sow a seed of doubt into his mind, a little bit of fear but now it has come true."

I kicked at a stone, I have no idea why but it seemed important to accompany that statement with some kind of physical action.

"Did I do this Kerrass?"

Kerrass sighed audibly. "If you are looking for a way to take responsibility for all of this death then I'm afraid that I'm not going to help you there Freddie. You did not do this. I summoned the thing and the thing killed them all but none of that would have been necessary if Cavill hadn't been chasing us. If you go looking for blame then you will find it after a while and there is more than enough guilt to go round for us all. More than enough guilt, but there is always a danger that that guilt will cripple you if you let it."

He paused for a while. As I say, I wasn't watching him so I have no idea what he was doing during this little speech or during the pause that came afterwards.

"All we can do Freddie," he went on after a while. "All we can ever do is do the best with what we knew at the time. Doing it so that we can live with what we have done. You did the best you could. The man that killed these people was Cavill when he took them from their homes, taking advantage of commoner superstition and guilt. He got them drugged on stuff that they didn't understand and forced them into his service until they had no other choice. And if it makes you feel better... They would not have survived long after your survival and arrival at Kalayn castle anyway. If we had made it back clean, you would still have stood over their bodies in the end."

"I know that. It doesn't help though."

"No, I know. It never does. There is a Witcher's truth and I understand it's a truth that is carried by Knightly orders and holy orders when they talk about the souls that they have saved. The good ones though, are off in the corner, berating themselves and worrying about the people that they failed, the ones that could not be saved and they reconcile themselves with the same saying, over and over again."

"I remember you telling me." I told him. "You can't save everyone. You tell yourself that so that you can move on and save the next person."

"That's right. These people," I heard movement and I assumed that he was pointing or gesturing in some way. "These people were already dead. We...I put them out of their misery in the same way that you would kill a dead dog. If it wasn't me it would have to be someone else. Maybe you, or your brother or the growing Holy army that I expect is growing outside Castle Kalayn as we speak."

"You're right." I told him. "I know you're right. But do I have to shrug all of this off straight away?"

"Not straight away Freddie," I heard the smile in his voice. "Not straight away. Let's get back though eh? I'm getting hungry."

"Only you could get hungry on a battlefield." I told him as I heaved the axe up onto my shoulder with a grunt.

"There's a joke here about being being surrounded by meat." He said. "But that's probably a bit tasteless at the moment."

"More than a little." I told him.

"What are you going to do with that?"

We had turned and were heading back to the hill where our friends were waiting and he gestured at the axe.

"I don't know." I said. "I rather think that I should have it blessed by someone. A priest of Kreve of some kind and then it should be returned to Father Gardan I think."

"You going to bury it with him."

"I thought about that and I actually think he would disapprove. I think it should be working in some way, being used to right wrongs and defend people even if that is only the person that carries it. Also, it's a symbol now. If I left it there, it would be stolen or taken and who knows where it will end up."

Kerrass nodded. "You should learn to use it. I think Gardan would approve."

"This thing?" I asked in surprise. "I can barely lift it, let alone fight with it."

"Get stronger then." He told me reasonably. "It would be good for you. It would improve your footwork no end and teach you the benefits of keeping moving. You sometimes have a tendency to remain too solid in your stance."

"Not for me Kerrass." I shook my head. "We can discuss my "stance" when we're both a bit stronger but this weapon needs to be carried by someone who knows how to use it. And who _will_ use it in the defence of some ideal."

Kerrass smiled slightly but said nothing.

I had forgotten beautiful the axe was. The butterfly wing shaped blades glittered in the firelight as I examined it back at camp. The light that reflected off the edge seemed, hard somehow, more brittle than the soft glow that the flames often suggested to my mind.

It was as though the axe was angry, or hungry in some way. I know that that's ridiculous and I've since had the axe checked by both mages and Priests of multiple different religions and practices so I'm confident that it was just my imagination. But I remember feeling as though the axe was out of place somehow. I didn't take as kindly to the axe's harness and sheath. It was made from thin leather and I found that I simply didn't trust it so I threw it all on the fire, instead selecting a spare blanket from the many that we had spare now and after thoroughly cleaning and oiling the weapon, I wrapped up the blades and set it aside.

The simple action, the simple chore had banished the emptiness for a while.

We held Dan's funeral, along with the funeral of the other fallen Bastards that evening. Using oil that we had found from the enemies camps and a lot of the remaining chopped wood from the barricades. I did wonder what we would do if we came under attack again but the Sergeant answered me with a snort and Rickard commented that if we came under attack again, then a few bits of wood were not going to save us.

This was not a reassuring comment.

Instead, we sat and stacked the wood, burying the bodies as part of the pyre so that the funeral would not be prolonged indefinitely. The problem being that neither Dan or any of the others had been properly prepared by a priest but by the time we got them back towards civilisation then they would be long...ripe. Instead we resolved to carry some of the ashes with us for a priest to bless.

The Elves didn't care about it that much. They watched and said nothing. Their own dead had been carried into the woodlands surrounding us and then left there, presumably for the animals to take care of. Chireadean told me that the body was just a house for the soul and that now the soul had fled, the best thing that could be said of the body is that it was meat. Meat for the animals and the earth to take what they could from it.

Normally I would have debated with him on the topic, but the energy had not yet returned. Instead, I found a warm patch of ground and wrapped myself in my cloak and blanket before sleeping.

As I say, we were found the following day.

I had to be roused to greet our rescuers. Ten armoured horseman wearing Redanian colours and waving the flags of Coulthard, Redania and Kalayn. They were led by a young knight. I have no idea how old he was as I strongly suspect that our interactions coloured my opinion of him. At the time, I thought that he was barely old enough to shave.

He and his men picked their way through the devastation with looks of disgust, mostly focusing on keeping their horses from shying away from some of the, now, rotting meat as they approached the smouldering remains of The bastard's funeral pyre and our signal fire.

We had been intending to move out later that day if we were up to it but it seemed that the decision had been made for us.

The Armoured Horseman rode forward. At first I was surprised at the sound of bows being strung and arrows being attached to strings but then I realised that the Redanians all had their hands on swords themselves.

"Who goes there?" The leading knight shouted up to us.

Rickard, Chireadean and I looked at each other. Chireadean shrugged and Rickard looked at me.

Fuck.

"As we've been under attack for some time now Sir knight. You will have to forgive me for asking for the name of the man approaching our camp first." I began, calling down to where he sat his horse.

"Lord Frederick? Is that you?" He asked.

"That depends on who's asking." I responded.

"If that is you Lord Frederick, I am under orders to bring you back to your brother."

"Oh yeah?"

"We shall make a horse available for you my Lord."

I was struggling to keep up. My head felt heavy and I was still struggling to force my brain into thinking properly.

"Who are you?" I demanded, feeling my patience snap a little bit. "Furthermore..."

"I am Sir Stefan Colrith." He told me as though that should answer all of my questions.

Again, I felt my brain struggling to catch up with what my ears were hearing.

"What about the rest of my...people Sir Colrith."

"They can follow along in due time." He waved his hand dismissively. "My orders are that you are to be made safe as soon as possible."

I looked around myself. Kerrass was non-plussed, wearing the expressionless mask of a Witcher meaning that there was absolutely no way that I was going to be able to tell what he was thinking. Rickard was smiling ruefully, already catching up with the idea that we were heading back into places where title, rank and the quality of your blood meant more than competence and deed. Chireadean wore a similar expression but he seemed as though he was a little sadder than that. As though he was resigned to whatever happened next.

As I looked further I saw the faces of the Elves and the few remaining bastards. I saw their expressions, the lines of fatigue and the dirt encrusted patches of skin. I saw the wounded who looked to me and far too many of them wore an expression of resignation. I could almost hear them. "He will go," they thought. "And we will be forgotten about."

"No," I said. Whether to the knight standing his horse beneath the hill or whether to the imagined sentiments that I felt coming from the people that had bled and died to get me to this point, I'll let you be the judge. I do know that when I started to speak again, I was talking to the man beneath me. "No," I said again. "No I don't think so. You can go and tell my brother... whichever brother it is and I notice that you haven't said his name yet so why should I believe you, that I am not leaving the people behind that have all but carried this far. If he wants me to come then he is to send enough horses to carry all of us. All. Of. Us."

I thought I saw Chireadean's eyebrows lift out of the corner of my eyes.

"Sir, I'm afraid I really must insist?"

"Yeah?" I asked. "Then I'm afraid that I really must insist that you get Fucked and..."

"This is outrageous."

Not incorrectly, Sir Rickard decided that I was clearly not able to properly conduct these negotiations.

"Sir Colrith." He began stepping out so that everyone could seem him. "Allow me to present myself. I am Sir Rickard, head of Lord Frederick's protective detail as assigned by Lady Emma von Coulthard and as such I am afraid that it is simply impossible for me to allow Lord Frederick to accompany you."

Chireadean and I exchanged glances. "I never knew he had it in him." Chireadean commented.

"May I ask why not?" Sir Colrith hissed, presumably still angry about being told to Get Fucked.

"Because in allowing him to go off with you, I cannot guarentee his safety and as such I would be derelict in my own duties."

"I will guarantee his safety." Sir Colrith declared proudly. Obviously feeling that he was finally dealing with someone who appreciated the proper order of the world. Someone who understood honour and whatnot. "And as such you may surrender your charge to my care."

"You misunderstand." Sir Rickard said sweetly. "What I am saying is that I will not permit Lord Frederick to leave the sight of my people and I."

I saw Chireadean nodding in satisfaction as well as the Elves exchanging glances with each other. Sir Rickard making a declaration of "my people" rather than "my men" was hitting the right tone with everyone involved.

"But I have guaranteed his safety." Colrith's surprise was prominent.

Rickard had turned back to where we all waited for him. "And I'm telling you that I don't care."

"Are you questioning my honour?" Colrith demanded.

"If you like."

"Then I shall call you out sir. I will see you at dawn."

Rickard nodded. "If you insist. In the mean time you will return to your superiors and you will inform them that Lord Frederick does not leave this place except under the guardianship of me and my people. We will need horses as well as surgeons and carts for my wounded. Otherwise, we will remain here. Such a party must be led by persons that both Lord Frederick and I recognise. The countryside is rife with cultists and traitors and as such we will not be going anywhere with people who are unknown to us. If we were to do that then I might as well cut his throat myself."

"This is outrageous." I saw him lick his lips. "I am under orders to establish Lord Frederick's safety. By force if necessary. How do I know that you do not hold him captive."

Rickard shrugged. "Not my concern. Neither are your orders for that matter. Be gone, puppy before you get spanked."

Sir Colrith tugged his sword from his sheath. I could see the soldiers with him looking at each other in concern.

"Look around you Puppy," Rickard told him. "We did all of this. And you want to attack us?" He shrugged again. "Whenever you are ready,"

He jumped down next to me. One of the other soldiers had ridden up alongside Colrith and was whispering in his ear.

"An interesting bluff that," Chireadean told him.

"Who's bluffing?" Rickard responded. "They won't get up here. He's just a young idiot wanting to make his name for himself. He wants to be the man who brings Freddie in safely and get the name recognition for that. You notice that he didn't offer to bring me along as well as his guard in order to guarantee his safety, or to trade a certain number of his men for mine?"

Rickard shook his head. "He didn't want to share the credit. That's all. Besides. It's true, there might be more enemies out there and this place will put the fear of...whatever it was that Kerrass did into them. So small a group of armoured horsemen would seem like a tempting target to me if there are still folks out there that mean us harm. Even as depleted as the bastards are and not taking the Elves into account."

"Yes, thanks for that by the way." Chireadean told him.

"You bled with us." Rickard told him. "You're my people just as I am yours until you prove different."

"Was that wise?" Kerrass asked. "Provoking a possible, even probable, rescue party?"

"Wise?" Rickard asked. "Probably not. But I am not going to be left behind here. This is just the kind of way that people get swept away and I won't have it. The tactical consideration not withstanding."

The benefits of hindsight are many and far-reaching. Looking back at the incident, could I have done otherwise? Maybe. But I was tired and heartsick with grief and unspent anger and some uppity young knight who wanted to come in and tell us all what we were going to do was more than I could bare.

In the end we had to wait The next group of knights and horsemen to ride into the clearing was considerably larger also with considerably more flags and pennants flying above them. Again, I recognised the flags of Coulthard, Redania and Kalayn, but there were also the symbols of the three religions. The fire of The Eternal Flame, the triumverate of Melitele and the lightening bolt of Kreve. It was an impressive sight.

"No wagons I notice." Rickard commented. "Well, Freddie, looks like you're going home. I'm not going to be able to bluff that lot."

And just like that, almost with a snapping of our fingers, we were no longer in control of the situation. Not because knights started to posture or priests started preach but because three women got annoyed at the fact that they were being forced to follow the rules and, instead, took it upon themselves to leap out of the side saddles and sprinted over fallen corpses to get to us.

I saw one woman in her forties hurdling a dead horse in her haste to get to us. Medical pack bouncing at her rear and wimple already flying off in the wind of her passage.

I've said it before but it always merits being said again. There are few people in this world that I admire and respect more than the priestesses of Melitele.

They ignored the orders that came from the column of horsemen and moved past Elves that almost tried to stand in their way before simply sitting down, laying out their tools and getting to work.

Their apprentices soon joined them dragging their stubborn mules who were, quite sensibly, resisting the idea of forcing their way over a battlefield and before too much longer I was being examined and poked and prodded. Then I was told to sit _there_ and drink _this_. Kerrass, Rickard and Chireadean were treated with no less perfunctory a manner and submitted to the examinations of one, slightly older woman who seemed to be in charge. I was a little bewildered by the pace of it all and I was almost surprised to find myself staring at a large man in the red robes of the eternal fire. His head was shaved and he seemed to be missing an arm, shouting over his shoulder that guards should be coming and arresting us all.

"Wait, what?" I heard myself say feeling rather stupid.

"For consorting with dark forces." The priest intoned in a dire voice. "For dealing with and consorting with unclean non-humans."

"Ah," Chireadean nodded as though something had just clicked into place. "This is our fault. I should have recognised the signs."

"I'm too tired to be arrested right now," Rickard commented while one of the priestesses examined his teeth. "Come back tomorrow when I've slept."

"Also," the priest went on. "For the crimes of treason..."

"Now that's pushing it a little."

"And for refusing to follow the proper orders of..."

"Oh that's it." Another case of my mouth running off with it's thought before I could get in the way I'm afraid. "You're Colrith's father or something right?"

The Priest purpled. "These men," he gestured at the fallen cultists that still lay out in the growing sun, "were clearly killed by the blackest sorcery. That alone is enough for me to be able to condemn you all on the spot."

"On what grounds?" Chireadean demanded.

"I do not need to hear your words freak." the Priest declared. "Filthy non-human you shall be swinging from the nearest tree by the end of the day, you and all of your..."

Some of the remaining bastards growled. It was a tired growl, a growl of disbelief and sullen rage. The soldiers that were now climbing up the hill towards us recognised that noise, indeed some of them had probably generated that noise themselves and started to move up to defend the priest.

"The first man that lays his hand on one of my companions will lose it." The Sergeant of the bastards declared, uttering his first words as part of the general discussion.

Again, those sounds that had become all too familiar to me. The sound of bows bending and arrows being strung to bow-strings before finally, blessedly, a familiar voice echoed around the hillock.

"Honestly Lord Frederick, how many acts of utter idiocy must the priests of the Eternal Flame commit towards you before you admit that they have lost their way and convert to a more reasonable faith."

"Knight Father Danzig." I called as the Knight Priest of Kreve stepped round the bulk of his fellow from the Eternal Fire. He stepped in and embraced me hard.

"Praise Kreve but it's good to see you." He told me. "And you Witcher, heathen though you are. Sir Rickard too I see."

Kerrass nodded his greeting. Rickard stepped forward and shook Danzig's hand with a smile.

"Allow me to present Chireadean," Sir Rickard said. "Drafted into our service along with his people. I may say that without their _help_ and their _sacrifice_ ," he raised his voice so that others could hear. "That Lord Frederick, Kerrass and I would not be here now. We would not be here to bring you news of the cult that has brought this countryside low for these many years. "

"That's not the point..." The Priest of the Eternal Fire began.

"Oh, be quiet." Danzig snapped. I had forgotten how fast he could turn from the genial, funny and charming man that he was normally, to the cold eyed man of action.

He turned his back on the other priest and turned back to Chireadean.

"Chireadean, it is my honour to present Knight-Father Danzig of the Church of Kreve.

Another thing that I should have expected was the open hostility that was all but radiating from the Elf. Always a hard thing when two friends come together and they don't like each other.

"I offer you my hand, sir." Danzig told Chireadean, removing his gauntlet. "You have done me a great service and a service to this land, to the followers of Kreve and to the followers of the Eternal Flame," his wit came through again for a moment "had they the wit to see it." But then he was back in his formal guise. "You have helped the people that live here and, on a more personal level, you have returned a dear friend to us. I am glad that mine is the first opportunity to thank you although I would wager that I will not be the last."

He finally managed to get the gauntlet off and held the hand out to Chireadean. "Here is my hand sir. Will you take it?"

Chireadean stared at Danzig's hand for a long time and rubbed at his brow.

"I am not given to grand words or grand gestures." He said after a long while. "I have not been in the position to be able to use either for far too long."

He hadn't taken his eyes of Danzig's hand.

"I cannot take your hand sir," Chireadean decided eventually. The soldiers hissed and there was some general movement towards aggressive poses. "unless," Chireadean held his hands out to quell the attitude of everyone watching. "I can first ask how it is offered. The Followers of Kreve have done much to hunt and kill my people. There is too much blood and hate there and although this man," Chireadean gestured towards Rickard "who I respect, admire and whose orders I have followed vouches for you. I have difficulty taking the hand of a priest of the church who has hunted my people to the point of extinction."

Chireadean's eyes flashed and his teeth clenched at the end of his little speech.

Danzig nodded. "I can understand your pain and your anger." He told Chireadean and, by virtue of his raised voice, the surrounding area. "There is hate and anger on both sides and," he held up hands to forestall debate. "It belongs to wiser heads than I as to who is at fault. Instead..." He made his voice less grand, and took his helmet off. "Will you take the hand of the man who holds his hand out in gratitude. For saving the lives of my friends."

Chireadean thought about this as well and grinned.

"That I will do and gladly."

There was a perceptible sigh of relieve as the two men shook hands.

"I will warn you about the gratitude of the Vampire later." Danzig said with a grin and a comical shudder. "Now," he continued, jamming his helmet back on. "Although you and I have every reason to hate and distrust each other, I will show you that you can trust me." He turned back to address the priest of Eternal Flame. "These people, regardless of whether they be Elf, Human, or Witcher, I suppose you want me to specify that as well, are under my protection. I have orders and requests from the ruler of this part of Redania that his brother is to be returned to him with all possible speed and I would not wish to disappoint him. As, his guard would not leave him, Sir Rickard and his fellows, including the Elves?" He asked Rickard who nodded. "Including the Elves will come along as well."

The priest was apoplectic with rage. "This is outrageous." He protested. "I really must protest, there has been obvious witchcraft and Sorcery here as well as the presence of non-humans and..."

"Protest all you like," Danzig told him. "But these people are coming with me." He was already moving off.

"That man," the priest argued, pointing at me, "Is known to consort with evil creatures..."

"I see that Ariadne's in the area," Kerrass muttered but the priest was in full flow.

"...and has murdered good and honest churchmen. This is just the final proof that we need to level charges of the blackest heresy against him and..."

"This is about Cardinal Mark and his reforms isn't it." Danzig spat. "Well I'm here to tell you that..."

"Well," a cold, older and female voice cut over everything. "If you two _men_ would stop posturing for just a moment."

She pointed at me. "This man is suffering from exhaustion, shock, mild malnutrition and already has a fever. So he's not going to be tried by anyone as far as I'm concerned. He is not alone in this diagnosis although he is, by some margin, the worst of that particular bunch. There are also broken limbs and many other more serious injuries that need treating urgently. These people are no under my care and nothing is going to happen to them so long as I live and breathe. Do I make myself clear gentlemen."

"I bow to the wisdom of the honourable priestess of Melitele." Danzig said, bowing deeply.

"So I should hope." She snapped. "And as for you." She turned on me. "Many of your people shouldn't be going anywhere. The only reason I am allowing this to happen is because this place is going to be awash with flies before too much longer and that is contrary to the proper conditions for healing. So you will indulge me by sitting still, shutting up and doing as you are told."

"Yes Ma'am,"

"Is, I suspect, the wisest thing that you've said in years. Now have you drunk your medicine?"

"Yes Ma'am," I was trying to ignore the fact that Chireadean and Rickard were openly giggling.

"Then lets get you and your people out of here." Her face softened, so briefly that I wondered if I had imagined it for a moment. "You and your people have done a great thing." But then her face hardened again for a moment. "So let's make sure that you stay alive long enough to make sure that it makes a difference shall we?"

"Yes Ma'am."

Horses were found for us which was when I saw another reason that the Eternal Fire priest was so against us as we saw him talking earnestly to Sir Colrith. I hadn't seen the family resemblance before when seeing them separately but seeing them together, their attitudes and body language was so similar that it astonished me that I hadn't seen it before.

Another enemy I suppose. I shall add them to the list.

We rode the rest of the way to Kalayn castle slowly, at the Priestess' insistence. On the second day, the Priests and knights of the Eternal Fire left early to do...something. My politicians brain suggested that they had gone to begin sewing the ground with sentiments that could be turned against us all. The Priestess continued to approach feeding me vile smelling liquids and fussing over my diet. Another two of the Elves died from their injuries during the ride back and their deaths hit me hard. I don't know why although Chireadean's grief was somehow more raw, more angry. He wanted to know why they couldn't be saved and ranted for a while about the fact that we had been rescued so why couldn't they have survived.

I wept with him.

I wept uncontrollably for some time, before, during and after we had all mounted up to continue the journey. It was a pattern that had begun after the destruction of the cultists that were attacking us and I was getting increasingly sick of it. The tears would continue for a while before being joined by mental fatigue and a spate of exhaustion that would leave me swaying in the saddle. The roads were not yet wide enough for me to be carried in a wagon so at one point I woke up to find that I had been tied to my horse.

"What is wrong with me?" I asked the Priestess through the tears, as she came to me with my latest cup of goop that she would force me to drink while tapping her foot impatiently.

"There are any number of things wrong with you Lord Frederick." She told me. "Not least of which is the desire to throw yourself into ludicrously dangerous situations that you have very little chance of getting out alive."

"Yes, but apart from that." I pleaded,

She looked down at me from where she stood, her lips pursed together and a slight frown.

"I am a good Healer do you know that?"

"What? errr."

"I am one of the best healers in the North. Possibly approaching the level of Old Mother Nenneke now due to the poor woman's advancing age meaning that her hands aren't as steady as they used to be."

"Right?" I prompted.

"I can perform minor miracles." She told me. "Providing I have the access to the proper tools and the proper herbs and that the injured party will do what I tell them. I have reattached limbs and can amputate one in less than forty heartbeats. Quicker still if the patient is unconscious at the time and doesn't thrash about too much. I can cure most diseases and have delivered healthy babies when other midwives have given up hope. I can do all of these things and I cannot tell you what happens to a person when their brain gets involved in matters."

She crouched down to look me in the eyes.

"There is evil in this place." She told me. "Real, true evil. And you and your friends have done incredible things to get past it. It is no surprised to me that you are exhausted in your mind as well as in your body."

She sighed and rubbed her eyes and I saw that she was tired as well.

"Think of it like this. When a body is tired or injured it is more likely to pick up diseases right?"

I nodded.

"The brain is like that. When it is tired and has dealt with all that it can hold then even small impacts can have massive repercussions. Where previously you might have been able to withstand much more serious trauma, because you are exhausted, even the smallest thing can send you to tears."

She stood back up.

"The most I can offer you is something to help you sleep but I don't think you need much help in that. As it is, you're already coming down with a fever and a fairly serious cold. I'm giving you stimulants as we need you to still be standing up for the next couple of days, but you should prepare yourself for a serious bout of illness over the next couple of weeks."

"Something to look forward to." I found my dry sense of humour somewhere before punctuating her point by sneezing violently. I looked up to smile at her in acknowledgement of the point but she had already gone.

In the meantime, Knight Father Danzig spent the time talking to me about what had happened during the time that I was away. This was over the course of several days worth of conversations so I'll summarise in order to save paper and ink.

As had been promised, Messengers were sent out of Kalayn lands when Kerrass and I had left. Sam had briefly flown into a rage at the perceived desertion of Sir Rickard and his men, a fire that had been fanned by Sir Kristoff given that he and Sir Rickard had never made a secret of their mutual dislike of each other.

Apparently, Sam had had plans regarding the security of his realm that involved Rickard and the bastards, plans that were only slightly mollified by a message that Rickard sent explaining his actions but Danzig made it clear to me that Sir Rickard would be facing some tough questions when we got back to Castle Kalayn.

For his part, Rickard just shrugged saying, "I don't work for your brother, I work for your sister and the job she gave me was to protect you. More and more inclined to believe that I will be leaving your families service when Lord Samuel takes over."

"Well, it might be more serious than that." Danzig commented. Again though, Sir Rickard shrugged it off.

From there, troops started to come in from the surrounding area with some speed. The previous actions of the Inquisition and the priesthood had made sure that there were troops nearby that were able to mobilise should things become a problem. This meant that there was a now, not small, force of men mustering around Castle Kalayn.

"We will need those men." I told him as I pulled my cloak that bit tighter around my body. I was feeling the cold more and more and was rather looking forward to a hot bath and then to lie down and sleep for a month or three. Danzig just grunted in response.

The first time we knew that something was wrong was when Ariadne had gated into Kalayn castle in a fury that terrified many. Danzig, for one, found it funny to look back on it but I can well imagine how frightening that might have been. Apparently she arrived, cloak billowing around her, golden staff twirling and a snarl on her face where she stomped off to see Sam to tell him that I was missing and that he should damn well find me sharpish. Then she vanished again, only to reappear an hour later with Emma and Laurelen in tow, all three of them demanding to know what Sam had done to help find me.

According to various reports, that conversation did not go well. Danzig refused to go into any further details on the subject. Word was sent out that there was some kind of magical dampening effect on the area that Kerrass and I was travelling through and to all intents and purposes it would seem that Ariadne went berserk.

"I think I would have liked to see that," I commented.

"No," Danzig told me. "No you wouldn't."

The castle sent out search parties of course and people were contacted in the countryside around the area that we went missing. Not helped by the fact that a lot of Rickard's messages hadn't got through which meant that no-one knew what was going on or where we were but it was obvious that our disappearance was due to enemy action.

They knew this because the man that _had_ been carrying my amulet was kept alive long enough to tell them that, but he died of a strange sickness before interrogators could get who was responsible out of him. Ariadne had told everyone that it was to do with having the wrong blood in his veins but that seemed to be a little too complicated for a lot of minds to believe. By then the Inquisition was out in full force, full of exactly the wrong kinds of priest (Danzig's words) who were out to make a name for themselves on the grounds that real heresy is getting rarer and rarer since The Empress' decree that non-humanity and magical abilities are no longer fitting excuses for being burnt at the stake.

Then the smoke plume had been seen. The area had been patrolled by church troops before as formal Redanian guardsmen being unable to go into Noble territory that had not requested it.

For those who don't know. The reason that nobles are allowed to maintain their own troops is to preserve and police their own territory. It's only when the King, or now the Empress, calls that they put their Redanian tabbards on in order to enter a noble's territory. If someone does that then that sort of thing can, and has, lead to civil war.

But the church troops were too thinly spread to properly monitor the area. Then a patrol came back saying that they had found someone claiming to be Lord Frederick.

"I may say that matters might have gone quite black for you if I hadn't been in the area." Danzig told me with a chuckle.

"Oh? Why's that?"

"Ariadne has made no friends in her zeal to find you. Spiders have been seen coming this way and that in an effort to carry her messages to far flung parts of the countryside. To be honest, I'm surprised that she hasn't found you herself. She has also made her disdain and dislike of the vast majority of the priesthood well known. As well as the fact that she is now baptised in the worship of the Holy Fire. A fact that she throws in the face of all the uptight priests that she meets. It's been quite a lot of fun to watch actually. At one point they even forced a trial by fire on her."

I laughed aloud. Even Kerrass grinned. Again, for the uninitiated, Elder Vampires like Ariadne are immune to fire.

"But the fact that she is both a Vampire and a Magic user is proof to many that she, and therefore you, are heretics and the very fact that she has been baptised is taken as a sign of the worsening of Church law. There are a lot of, I wanna say "Eternal Fire Traditionalists" leftover from when Radovid was deciding what was traditional in the church, and they have all come here in an effort to prove that you are an evil man. This is made worse because, in her fear for you, Ariadne is giving them a lot of ammunition."

"Lovely."

"Not quite my words."

As we got closer and closer to Castle Kalayn and more and more familiar landmarks began to creep up, there was no longer any denying it. I was sick. The Priestess of Melitele told me that it was a cold, although she doubted that it was going to transform itself into a full blown attack of Influenza which she told me that I should be grateful for. She also told me that I should be prepared for this cold to hit me quite hard given the earlier blood loss, lack of proper nutrition, overexertion, physical and emotional fatigue. She told me that as soon as we got back to Castle Kalayn, I should take to a bed of some kind and stay there until I was allowed out. By her. When she was satisfied.

I told her that I didn't think that that would be possible on the grounds of things to be done. She looked at me strangely and then asked whether or not I thought that I had any control over the matter when my betrothed got hold of me.

I couldn't tell whether or not she approved of this and decided not to push it.

But I was beginning to feel truly dreadful by the time that the castle was coming into sight and the Priestess was giving me pills and potions in order to "limit" the fever rather than "curing" the fever. But I was beginning to feel a hunger in myself. A desire for all of this to be over, to tell my story and just be gone from this place. I was well aware that there were still things to do. People to talk to and the like but I wanted to be gone from here. When I first arrived in my brothers lands I had thought that it was beautiful and had been a little jealous of Sam in his new holdings. Coulthard castle has it's own beauty to be sure but it is the well conquered kind of beauty. The hedgerows and stone walls along with cultivated flower patches and maintained woodlands to go with the directed and patrolled little streams and rivers. There was a wildness to Kalayn lands that I had liked.

But no longer. Now I wanted to get out of the place. I wanted to go home, or into Ariadne's arms or, for entirely different reasons, into Emma's arms.

The other thing that was happening as we rode was that it was becoming clear that we were riding into the middle of an armed camp. Messengers were running everywhere, riders as well and the clearing beneath the castle, once the site of a battlefield and the temporary hall that Sam had constructed when he arrived, was now home to a sea of tents and pavilions. Danzig told us that most of these were empty now on the grounds that they were out on exercise or patrols. There were the sounds of blacksmiths working and men training.

All of this meant that I couldn't decide what I was feeling when we finally rode through the gates of Kalayn castle, the place seemed smaller than I remembered and an odd kind of melancholy seemed to be trying to claw at my brain as I pulled my cloak that bit tighter round my shoulders.

I saw Rickard greet Bones, his unit's surgeon that had been left behind, The surgeon, who called for Perkins, the messenger who had also been left behind, before being told the news and the final tally and the names of those who had fallen. Perkins tried, manfully, to hold back his tears until Bones put his hand on the younger man's shoulder and then the tears came but I didn't feel badly for him. I felt on the verge of tears and a good sobbing myself. Bones seemed to have aged visibly at the news.

Other men started to come forward. From those early days, some church soldiers and some of Sam's guards who had had the opportunity to work with Rickard and the bastards clustered round to hear the news.

Danzig had gone off to report somewhere and I we feeling a little isolated.

"Freddie," Kerrass said gently from where he was standing next to my stirrups. I looked down at him and he nodded over to where I could see Ariadne. She was stood near the entrance to the keep, just emerging into sunlight.

I don't know whether I saw her first or whether she saw me first but her face seemed to shift slightly and then she just seemed to dissolve into a red and black smoke that billowed towards us despite the sheltered nature of the castle courtyard.

I just had time to dismount before the smoke reached me and coalesced.

Trying to think about how to describe what happened next. Trying to imagine a way to describe, weaponising a hug. Try and imagine being hit by a ballista, one of those siege crossbows that are made to fire tree trunks rather than bolts. The sheer impact of the thing, that you almost feel before it reaches you as the air screams in order to get out of the way of what is travelling through it, and then it hits you and you disintegrate into your component parts with the sheer impact of the missile. Then you wonder if you would remain conscious for even a moment as your head flies away from a significant portion of your innards and would you have time to see what the insides of your own digestive system looks like before you die.

Do you have that image?

Right, now imagine that, instead of a bolt, or a tree being fired at you, imagine that it was a hug that was loaded into the firing mechanism. I was literally knocked off my feet and the only reason that I was able to remain upright was due to the fact that the ballistic vampire that had struck me refused to let me fall.

The hug lasted a couple of seconds before she pulled back.

"If you ever do that to me again." She snarled it, her teeth bared. She reminded me of an angry cat when it hisses at something that has the temerity to cross into it's eyeline when it is not required or wanted. "If you ever..." Her eyes were scanning my face, darting from detail to detail. "If you...terrify me like that..."

But then she was hugging me again. I managed to find my feet and just held her back mumbling my apologies into her ear.

I was dimly aware that people were clapping and cheering. It wasn't a raucous sound, just a small expression of emotion. The place felt too damped down for that.

"I'm so sorry," I whispered to her over and over again as I held and was held back. It was amazing, I had forgotten what her hair smelt like.

"I know," she told me. "And it wasn't your fault, but that doesn't mean that I'm not furious with you."

She pulled back, her face approaching normal again. She was wearing her scientist expression. "Why am I angry with you?" It seemed a genuine question. "I am, I'm furious. Furious beyond words but it's clearly not your fault. You didn't contrive to have yourself kidnapped, bled, tortured and whatever else was done to you so why am I angry with you?"

I chuckled through the tears that were running down my cheeks. "I love you too Ariadne," I told her. Her face blossomed into delight and then we went on holding each other for a bit.

"I'm never going to let go of you again." She told me at one point. Calmly, as though she was telling me that she had just eaten an apple.

"That might cause a bit of a stir at court." I told her with a smile.

"I don't care." She declared with a certain amount of asperity. "I shall start a new fashion trend where it becomes acceptable to walk around holding onto people, forcefully if necessary."

"People might object to being held against their will."

"They might. But they, and you," her eyes flashed with a remnant of her earlier anger. "Should learn to accept what is best for them." Her eyes narrowed for a moment. "You are sick." She accused.

"I'm told I have a cold. I'm told that it's bad."

"I've heard of these," she mused. "I prescribe liquids and rest."

"I approve of that suggestion." Came another voice and I turned to see Sam who had been watching us with a smile and enveloped me in a bear hug when Ariadne gave him a bit of room.

"Sam," I attempted. "Sam, you're cracking my ribs Sam."

"No I'm not."

"It feels like you're cracking my ribs Sam."

I exaggerated my breathing in and out for a bit when he did release me so that I could pretend I didn't see him brushing the suspicious dampness out of his eyes.

"I want you to know, that I was about to tear the countryside looking for you." He told me, gripping me hard on the shoulder. "I want to tell you that, here and now, before anything else happens."

"Why, what's going to happen?"

He shifted his weight. "Things haven't been...great."

"Huh," I let him off the hook. Sam had aged in the time since I had last seen him. He was paler, thinner and had the now standard issue black bags under his eyes. His hair was greasy and his clothes rumpled. I've never, never seen him like that.

"Flame Sammy but you look like hell, are they not feeding you enough?"

He grinned, Ariadne had snuck her arm round me and pulled me close while my brother and I were posturing. "You should look in the mirror yourself. If I look like the Eternal Frost has gotten to me then you look like you've been having sex with it." He realised who he was talking with. "Uh, sorry Ariadne, no offence."

"None taken," She told him in an even voice that, from anyone else, might have been taken as being a dangerous tone.

But then I got distracted by something happening towards the castle gate that I had drifted away from during the reunions.

It was not a nice something, raised voices along with drawn weapons and the unmistakable Skelligan voice of the sergeant telling someone that "If you draw that dagger any further then I'm going to shove it so far up your arse that it'll pick your nose."

Unfortunately, what was going on was immediately apparent. Some of the other soldiers, unfamiliar with Sir Rickard or his men, primarily among the Redanian contingent and among the soldiers of the more military religions had taken offence at the dozen or so Elves that were trying to get into the courtyard. They had held out their weapons to bar the way. I stress that this was the actions of just one or two men, certainly no more than five.

But one of the few remaining bastards had become upset by this, pushed the soldiers blocking the way aside and held the area open for the Elves to enter the castle.

It bears remembering that the Bastards were tired, dirty and more than a little ragged. In short, they did not look like what the Guards on the gate would consider to be "proper soldiers".

Another thing that is worth remembering is that soldiers are trained to see that if their fellow is under attack, no matter whether you like them or not, approve of their politics or not, if they are being pushed around then you go their aid and all those guards saw was a rather ragged man pushing one of their fellows aside so that a group of dirty, smelly and above all _armed_ Elves into the castle.

They had assisted their fellows. Which meant that more bastards who are just as susceptible to the aforementioned sentiments, stepped up. More guards were called and there was a very real danger of a fight breaking out. Sir Rickard was shouting at another knight which would later turn out to be Knight-Lieutenant Kristoff who was also raising his voice. Weapons had been drawn, all the while the Elves were crouched, half way between running for their lives and preparing to sell themselves as dearly as possible. The bastards were standing with them and I could see Danzig running back towards them shouting for his men.

"Sam," I called but my voice cracked and I started coughing.

It was a mess. A fucking mess at that. I was trying to shout at Sam to do something, Sam was dithering, Rickard looked to be about to order his men to begin a fighting retreat and Kristoff along with many others looked to be getting ready to order and attack.

I tore myself away from Ariadne and forced my way through to where the Elves were and turned to face their...well, their attackers. I threw my arms wide, cloak and blankets forgotten.

I shivered.

Kerrass joined me and we stood facing the angry soldiers and churchmen. I could see that Ariadne had been astonished by my actions but was now moving through to join us.

"So," I shouted at Kerrass over the increasing hubbub. "Does this make the list of most stupid things I've done?"

"Maybe," he yelled back. "But it might work."

Sam was shouting something now but no-one was listening.

A horn sounded. A loud blast, calling over and over again. Ariadne had started saying something to me, shouting over the horn blasts. Her words echoing after the noise had died down.

"It's like this a lot, and has been since I got here." She told us all.

Sam stepped forward. "What's going on here?" He demanded.

"A fair question." Sir Kristoff was moving to stand with Sam and I felt outnumbered suddenly. It was not a nice feeling and I wondered if the world had gone mad in my absence.

"I was asking you the question Kristoff." Sam bellowed. He almost seemed to rock on the back of his heels with the force of his shout.

"These...These non-human scum were trying to force their way into the castle." Kristoff said loudly.

"I'm getting really sick of all this posturing that we're seeing all the time." I muttered to Kerrass and Ariadne. I thought I heard Chireadean chuckle behind me. He would be the kind of person that would do that.

"When we sought to detain them, as was proper," various people applauded Kristoff's words although it must be said, I didn't see him anywhere near the gate when it was all kicking off, nor when I rode in. "Rickard and what remains of his men leapt to their defence. Attacking our men as they did so."

"Too fucking right I did." Rickard declared. "And it's _Sir_ Rickard or have you chosen to forget."

"Have a care." Kristoff growled

"That's enough." Sam snapped and I began to get a sense of just why he might be quite as tired as he was. He rubbed at his eyes before walking closer to me.

"What's going on here Freddie?" He asked me.

I took a deep breath, mostly in an effort to still my shivering which was causing my teeth to chatter. Time for some posturing of my own.

"Lord Samuel." I said carefully before a shudder went through my body. "May I present Chireadean. He and his people were good enough to help Kerrass, Rickard and I to get the news to you. I may say that they have fought, bled and died to do so."

I said it loudly, despite a bout of coughing in the middle. "When we were sick," I went on. "They healed us. When we were hungry, they fed us. When we fell, they _literally_ picked us up and carried us on their backs. Without them, I would not be here, bearing the intelligence that I carry. I owe them a debt that I will struggle to repay and they deserve our respect."

Ariadne turned and hugged an astonished and plainly terrified Chireadean and I heard her thank him.

"I believe that this explains the depths of _Sir_ Rickard's sentiment as well as my own." Rickard was not the only one who had noticed the lack of proper use of his rank and title.

"They cannot stay in the castle." Sir Kristoff insisted.

"They are Heretical Non-humans and they have no place in honest, Flame fearing..." I thought I recognised the large priests voice.

"No soldier of mine will stand to be in the same..."

"Quiet," Sam called. He turned pained and tired eyes back to me. "Freddie we can't."

"Can't what Sam."

"Freddie, they're _Elves_ ,"

"So?" I couldn't believe what I was hearing.

"They're Elves Freddie." As though that explained everything.

I nodded, suddenly feeling incredibly tired and an incredible disappointment settled over me.

"Well," I decided after a while. "If they're not welcome here. Then neither am I it would seem."

"Freddie, wait."

"We'll find ourselves a tent or something down below." I told him before another huge bout of shivering took me.

"Those are military shelters and..." Kristoff had begun.

"Fine," I snapped. I tried for some form of anger. "Fine, go fuck yourself with your pavilions then. We will be just as comfortable making camp in the woods somewhere won't we lads?"

The bastards cheered me and I even saw some of the Elves smile.

"Lead on Sir Rickard." I told him looking around for my blanket.

"Freddie, don't do this." Sam tried holding onto my arm.

"Sam," I looked at him as Rickard started shouting orders. "It's you that are forcing this. You are in charge, you're the baron here. You're the one that's letting this happen. Don't let them..."

"If it was just me and mine then I could do something but what with the church and the rank of everyone involved my hands are tied...And they're Elves Freddie,"

"They saved my life Sammy." I pulled the blanket around me, Ariadne was putting a cloak around my shoulders. "I owe them everything and so do you."

I started to shiver again.

"Freddie, you're sick." Sam tried. "You need to get to a bed and get you healthy. And we need to know what you know."

"That at least is true," The Priestess of Melitele had joined us. "You should be in a real bed with a fire and something hot in your belly. Ariadne nodded in agreement. I noticed that she was frowning in thought.

"When you're ready to talk to us." I told Sam sadly. "Then come and find us. But I'm not setting foot in that castle again. Not gonna lie Sammy, I'm disappointed. I thought I was coming home today."

I turned away and started walking. It would seem that I was not yet done with tears.

We went down the track and into the woods but I found that I couldn't go much further and I don't think I was entirely alone. Ariadne came with us, brow furrowed in thought as she came. Kerrass was walking alternating between a faint Witcher smirk, or the serious Witcher mask that kept his thoughts hidden. Also coming with us was Knight Father Danzig with half a dozen soldiers wearing the armour and sigils of Kreve and more were running down from the keep tugging on armour and strapping sword belts to their waists. As they came I saw more than one Elf reflexively reaching for weapons before realising that the men of Kreve were forming up with our formation. Carefully avoiding looking like an escort.

Rickard, Chireadean, Kerrass and Danzig held a short conference and selected us a campsite a little ways into the tree line. Even that was almost too much for me and it was Araidne's strong arms that got me there.

When we finally stopped walking Chireadean came to me. Ariadne warned me in advance so that I had chance to wipe the tears of disappointment from my face and stood to face him.

"Chireadean, I am so so very sorry."

He didn't say anything. He just hugged me, hard.

Danzig had started to speak though.

"That was shameful." He told the Elves that were watching with tired and sullen eyes. "That was absolutely despicable. You, who have no reason to love the people of this land, took a stand against the blackest heresy that I can imagine. To me and mine, you folk are heroes and I will tell anyone who asks me as such." He said it with force and emotion but I found myself wishing that I could believe his sentiments. I had to turn away again as more tears threatened me.

"My men will guard you tonight." Danzig went on. "They are not keeping you confined and if you wish to leave then they will not stop you. They are here to protect you from anything but also to give you a sense of security. For all I know it is months since you last slept in safety so I promise you, for tonight at least and as long as you choose to stay, my men will guard you." He sighed. "I will not blame you if you leave, but I hope that you will stay. I, for one and I hope that others will agree with me, want a chance to make it up to you."

He beckoned a Sergeant of his over and they consulted with Rickard, Chireadean and Kerrass. I was in no state to contribute.

Rickard came over after their short conference was over and just put his hand on my shoulder for a moment before moving off.

I was just lost to weeping tears of bitter and angry disappointment. Ariadne sat with me, her arm wrapped around my shoulders.

While I was calming down it turned out that the bastards had lost none of their enterprising spirit during their ordeal. Especially the youngster who felt like he had something to prove for not being with us. He led the remaining bastards off and found us some tents that were "lying around" as well as food and other supplies that must have been lying alongside the "neglected" items. And so a pavilion that was constructed before our very eyes. After that, some fires were lit and food started to be prepared all with the blissful ignorance of the soldiers of Kreve who steadfastly faced outwards.

Danzig went off to the castle to kick some ass and to denounce the people that were plotting against us and to tell the Priestess of Melitele exactly where I was. She turned up in a cloud of herbal smoke and anger. Anger at me, anger at Sam and everyone else for being fucking stupid. She and Ariadne clearly knew each other and had formed some kind of feminine alliance against stupid people, which seemed to include everyone except them. I was told to drink another potion and get some sleep.

Ariadne embraced me again before departing with a kiss on the forehead. "I promised your sister that I would let her know when anything turned up. Then I need to see to my own duties."

"Don't tell me that you're part of the Redanian or church forces here are you?"

She laughed. A sound that was better than any tonic or potion. "No. I will tell you of it sometime. You and Kerrass as I think you both need to hear it. But I have tarried to long. She looked around and tackled the nearest armed person which turned out to be Carys, the "angry" Elven woman who was busy cleaning and oiling her new bow. Ariadne and she exchanged introductions before Ariadne asked her to watch me and that if I moved anywhere other than where the Melitele priestess told me to, then Carys had permission to shoot me. The Elven woman gave a feral grin and stared me straight in the eyes as she strung her bow while Ariadne summoned a transport gate and stepped through it.

I was given some hot stew which must have been laced with something as I promptly fell asleep. Only to be woken up by an angry Emma.

"Why do men always have to be stubborn?" She was complaining to Laurelen who was sat nearby. I blinked a few times, trying to remember where I was. The sky was considerably more stripy than I remembered it being and this caused me some puzzlement until I realised that I had been moved into the Pavilion.

"I don't know Emma." Laurelen said in the tones of someone who had answered the same question several times and who's answer hadn't changed since the last time the question had been asked, three minutes ago. I felt lethargic and, if possible, more tired than when I had gone to sleep. I wondered if I could get away with pretending to remain asleep a little while longer.

Unfortunately, my body rebelled and I sneezed. Emma was next to my bed in an instant and knelt next to me indicating to my still rather sleepy body that, as well as having been moved to the pavilion, I had also been put into a bed.

Those sleeping drugs were powerful things and I wondered, and still do sometimes, whether I could get my hands on some more of them.

"Oh Freddie I was so worried."

"I'm sorry for that Emma but..."

In a mirror to Ariadne's reaction she then switched to anger.

"And why were you so stupid?" She demanded.

"About which part?" I enquired, getting a snort out of Laurelen if nothing else.

"Emma, we were travelling through strange lands that we didn't know. There's not a great deal that we could do to protect ourselves from a mage. We did out best and..."

"That's not what I'm talking about." She snapped.

"Then what?"

She stared at me in amazement. Eyes nearly boggling out of her skull. "Freddie, you're sick. You should be in the castle, in a bed, in a room with a fire, being properly looked after."

I stared at her for a long time as a sick feeling began to spread through me.

"Oh no." I moaned.

"Oh no, what?"

"You agree with Sam."

"I don't agree with Sam. Except that in this case, you need to be in the castle where you can be properly looked after."

"What about the Elves Emma?"

"What about them." She raised an eyebrow at me as if these very words proved her point.

"Emma, they were going to turn the Elves away."

"So?"

I stared at her some more. "Don't do this Emma." I pleaded.

"Do what?"

"Emma, these people saved my life. I'm not going to turn my back on them."

"They're _Elves_ ," She protested. "I will agree that the churchmen are a bit extreme in their views but the soldiers have valid points. They're murderers and vagabonds."

"Only because we drove them to it." I snapped as I levered myself into a sitting position. My joints and limbs made popping noises that I wasn't sure they should be. "I can't speak for Elves as a whole but these Elves? That woman out there, the one guarding my door, was used as a sex slave by a lord where she was routinely raped because of her good looks. Her story is not unique either. Chireadean was part owner of an inn before the townsfolk ran him off for having the temerity to earn more money than the rest of them due to having a good site for his inn. We drove them to it. We forced them into living in the trees and to live off the charity of better people. We did this and they deserve better."

I wondered if I would have said the same thing if our positions had been reversed. Would I have behaved the same way towards the Elves if I hadn't been subject to their qualities.

The answer, for those who are wondering, is yes. Yes I would.

"That's not the point."

"Then what is the point Emma? What is it?" My pain and rage were spilling over again. It was not lost on me that Laurelen had put down the papers that she had been reading and was watching the situation carefully.

Emma breathed in and out for a moment, presumably in an effort to calm herself down. "It's Sam's castle and he can admit whoever he likes."

"Then he should kick out the churchmen who insist on trying to burn Kerrass and I alive for heresy and make room for the Elves that have helped save his realm."

"But they're Elves. Everyone knows that..."

"What? Everyone knows what Emma?" I snapped. "Father taught us. He insisted on it. He taught us that the common folk contribute to our wealth and our privilege. He taught us to never look down on other folk because we were fortunate to have been born to a family with money. Why is it so different to look at Elves that way?"

"They're thieves and..."

"Says who?" I was shouting and screaming and sobbing and crying, all at the same time. I felt like another piece of my world was being torn away from me. My rock, my moral centre was turning out to be a racist. "I bet," I went on. "I bet that if you look into any case where an Elf was implicated in a crime, I bet that it will turn out to be because they were either innocent and therefore convenient. Or that they were driven to it. I bet you will find out that their children were beaten or that their wives were raped by some human who thought that he could get away with it because it was _just_ an Elf. Then the authorities proved the rapist right so the Elf had to take matters into their own hands. That we stole everything from them and that, in fact, _we_ are the thieves and...and the rapists and..."

"But they're Elves." Emma was upset as well. Tears of her own frustration and distress were running down her cheeks as well.

I stared at her. I longed to apologise and to hug her and tell her that it was ok. But I had found my line somehow. A line that I wouldn't cross.

"You know what?" I said pushing myself out of bed to discover that I was naked. "Fuck this." I started to hunt around for clothes. The fresh air hit my feverish body and I started to shiver. "Fuck this."

"What are you doing?" Emma put her hand on my arm which I shook off angrily.

"I'm not staying here a moment longer. I can't make you leave so I'm going off instead." Another bout of shaking struck me, combined with a spell of dizziness and I swayed.

"Don't be ridiculous." Emma was trying to retake her position of big sisterly authority Let's just get you up to the castle and..."

"I'm not going to the castle Emma." I roared. "I'm not going up there until Sam comes down here and apologises to each and every Elf here. I'm not going back there until those people who threw these HEROES are gone. I'm not going back there until..." I staggered and fell down with a thump. Emma bent down to help. "Don't touch me." I snarled. "Don't you fucking touch me."

Someone, I later found out that it was Carys had fetched the Melitele Priestess when Emma and I had started shouting at each other. She came in.

"You're not going anywhere." She told me, levering me back to bed. "You're going to do yourself more of a mischief if you keep going like this."

"Can't you tell him to get back to the castle where he can..." Emma tried.

"Be silent," The priestess snapped. "If you're not helping him then you should get out." The older woman pursed her lips and frowned as she checked my temperature and peered into my eyes. "If I were you, I would go outside and talk to the people that you condemn to living in the woods as being "Just Elves"." She reached into her satchel and pulled out a small phial which she made me drink from.

Emma rounded on Laurelen. "Aren't you going to help me?"

Laurelen blew her breath out. "No." She said calmly.

"What?" Emma was incredulous.

"No, I'm not going to help you."

"Why not? You're my wife. You're supposed to support me."

Laurelen remained calm. Admirably so. "You get my support the same way that I get yours. When I agree with you or when I don't care either way. I love you Emma, with every fibre of my being but you and Sam are wrong on this and Freddie is right. What happened to these Elves was shameful. What happened to the Elves in general is shameful but these Elves in particular take the cake. We should be showering them with rewards, paying for their children's educations and elevating them to the nobility."

I was being laid down again. Whatever the older Priestess had fed me was already having an effect and I could feel my head swimming

"I think that you forget sometimes Emma." Laurelen went on. "I am a Sorceress. I remember things and know things that others like to forget. The human race on the continent stands on the shoulders of the Elder races, the Elves especially. Our greatest achievements are built using Elven knowledge. I am a Sorceress and a new member of the Lodge of Sorceresses. I am under no illusions. I am a member because the others know that your family is important and powerful and that they think I have some influence over you. Influence that I do not use, nor do I spy for the Lodge, just for the record.

"I am under no illusions. I am dwarfed in power and in skill among their number. The most powerful member of the Lodge is the Empress. Her skills and powers dwarf anything the rest of us can muster. If she took the time off from her other duties to concentrate on making those powers work for her then she would be truly terrifying. But after her come the two Elves. Francesca Findabair and Ida Emean Aep Sivney. Both of whom could burn me to a crisp without raising an eyebrow.

"After that comes the dragon and the vampire. Less powerful than the Elves to be sure but they make up for it in sheer technique. Ariadne is very kind in saying that I have taught her many things but the truth is that in the vast majority of cases, her knowledge and skill far outstrips mine in all areas but my own specialised fields. She has forgotten more about Alchemy than I ever knew and make no mistake, if I ever manage to arrange matters so that the two of us can produce a child, it will be because Ariadne made it possible."

The Priestess was making me drink something else that made me cough, but I could tell that she was just as fascinated by this as I was.

"The most powerful women in magic on the continent and four of them are non-human, out of maybe twelve. There are women there who could give them a run for their money, Madams Yennefer, Vigo and Eilhart leap to mind. I think even Francesca would struggle with an angry Lady Eilhart to the face. And as with all things magical, preparation is key, but there is a reason that the non-humans were invited and it was _not_ charity. It's because we need them and we can learn from them.

"Humanity misses that and in the future, if the Elves die out, we will be judged harshly for what we did to the Elves." Laurelen stared at Emma for a long time, holding her gaze. "You and Samuel shame yourselves with your words and actions today."

Emma sobbed and I heard the flap of canvas as she left the tent before Laurelen took a deep and shuddery breath. I was drifting towards sleep by that point but I fought to keep awake.

"I'm sorry," I told Laurelen.

"Don't be. You should be proud of your actions today."

"Maybe, but I won't be pleased if this has driven a wedge between you and Emma."

She chuckled. "Nah," she said coming into my eyeline. "She's just been worried about you is all. Not helped by the fact that she's also angry with Sam. She'll calm down and realise that you are right. It would not surprised me if she gave them all an offer of land and jobs on Coulthard lands before all is said and done. Get some rest Lord Frederick and I would remind you that you still need to report what you found at some point. Probably tomorrow though if I read things correctly."

She pulled over a seat of some kind.

"Just...You are absolutely right Freddie, absolutely right and she will see it as well. It's something that I saw when Mages were catching it really hard. The vast majority of people are ok with mages. They are. But only as an intellectual concept. They are ok with Mages existing and doing that thing that they do. It's only a problem when they are confronted with the Mages and the magic up close that the fear comes back

"It's the small background evil that creeps in when you are not looking at them, or looking at the big evils. Emma would never have had anything against Elves. She would never have actively persecuted Elves. She would have even fought against injustices happening to them at the time, the problem comes in elevating them to our own level. To give them the same respect. To not...I don't know what to say. She probably, and I don't know, I haven't talked to her about this but, she probably feels as though Elves should be grateful for the fact that she hasn't treated them shittily and she doesn't realise that that isn't enough.

"Nor does she see the parallels, which I do, between what was happening with the mages and what was, and is, happening with the Elves. The one she actively fought against, the other, she simply doesn't see other than to be glad that she isn't taking part. Your sister is not a bad person though and I don't want you to think that."

"I know that. But it is no lie to say that I owe these people my life and what really gets to me is...when I first met them I said some pretty shitty things to Chireadean and he confronted me with them. Even after that, they came with us and fought and died and now I come back and am confronted with people that I love and respect behaving in exactly the same way that I would have done just two...or is it three...weeks ago. I'm angry at them because I'm angry at myself."

She smiled. "Get some rest Freddie. I will handle your sister. Sam is a different problem and I'm not sure what to do about that. But you should rest now."

But I was already drifting towards sleep.


	82. Chapter 82

(Warning: Inferred suggestion about Institutional religious pedophilia. Further discussions about racism, mental illness (that is discussed from a badly educated and old fashioned standpoint) and Sexism)

I slept through to early evening when I was woken up by the Priestess to take my medicine and eat something. My appetite was depressingly small but the older woman stood over me and forced me to finish everything that had been provided for me. Rickard and Kerrass were outside waiting for me to finish and they came in to tell me that the movers and shakers wanted our full report up at the castle the following day.

My sentiments hadn't changed since the previous day and I said that the movers and shakers could jam our report up their arse.

My language tends to become less flowery when I'm ill.

Rickard and Kerrass agreed but it was still true that the cult needed to be dealt with. Danzig, Rickard and Kerrass had already spent time with some maps which Danzig had brought down from the castle and messengers and armies had been despatched and were in the process of mobilising for the invasion of Kalayn lands as well as the lands of the various Lords that we had implicated in the course of our hunt for the cult.

No I'm not going to tell you who these particular lords were on the grounds that some of them still have family members in far flung corners of the continent that still need to be accounted for in acts that are a little bit outside my control.

We talked things through about how we were going to go back up to the castle, while still making our points regarding the virtues of the Elven contingent. We all agreed that a report needed to be given but we didn't want to let the bastards think that we had just given in. Nor did we want to endorse their opinions of the Elves.

It was Rickard who suggested the best solution. He suggested that he hire on the Elves as part of the bastards, taking on Chireadean as a second in command and as such, it would only be natural that Chireadean would have to attend the debriefing the same as any second in command would in any other situation. The proposition was put to Chireadean who found the entire thing rather amusing and it was settled. This before I was drugged up again and put back to sleep.

Laurelen had agreed that she would spell me up to hold off the effects of the fever that was now gripping me with a vengeance but warned me that this would leave me flat on my back for somewhere close to a week afterwards and that I would be weakened for a lot longer than that. It would mean that I wouldn't get to witness the final destruction of the cult but I found that I could live with that. Disappointing? Yes but at the same time, I didn't want to descend beneath the Earth into those caves again. The thought of that made me feel more sick than I was already feeling.

So I awoke, feeling much better than I had in several days, ate a huge breakfast of bacon, bread and sausage before Kerrass, Rickard, Chireadean and I walked back up to the castle with Father Danzig as escort. For the record, Danzig found our decisions regarding Chireadean's situation and rank, endlessly amusing.

As a note. I was still angry with Emma but I was somewhat mollified that morning after I had dressed and left my tent, to see Emma playing with the Elven child that I had seen earlier. I had forgotten that we had children with us and felt another wave of my own guilt at that ignorance.

To be fair, there was no argument at the gate over Chireadean's presence. I am grateful for that and I wonder if this is another problem. I was ready for a fight and from Rickard's attitude as well, I suspected that he shared my sentiments there. But then it was a relief not to have to fight. I don't know if Danzig had already paved the way or if we had been anticipated and Sam had, wisely, put some more tolerant people on the gate, or if the problematic men who had forced a confrontation were simply elsewhere. I don't know the answer, all I can say is that I was caught between relief and disappointment as I walked up to the castle.

I'm not going to go through the full debriefing as I would still be writing this in six months time and knowing the release schedule of the paper, you would still be reading it when I was getting married. Suffice it to say that it was a full day where we reported our whereabouts, what we did, when and why.

I did leave out a couple of things as the four of us told our stories. I left out my personal feelings and emotions that that came to a head at the camp underneath the rock. I didn't think that I was quite ready for several people to know how I was feeling or where my head was at when it came to that kind of thing. I also didn't tell the room about finding out about the agents, or rather the agent, that the cult had in the area. I wanted to deal with Ella myself and I still hadn't quite decided how I wanted to do that.

When I had first came back I had intended to drag her out, have her tried and then sentenced accordingly but something about the previous day made the idea seem somehow...inappropriate. Finally, I didn't tell the assembly what I had been told by the spirit about the magic that had taken Francesca. I wanted to run that past some people first before it became more common knowledge. Primarily, I admit, I wanted to talk to Ariadne. I wanted to spend a lot of time talking to Ariadne about a great many things but it seemed that circumstances were conspiring to make that all but impossible.

Ariadne was there as well as she had been nominated to direct the magical part of the excursion. There was a great deal of coordination going on which needed magical help. Not least of which was the mapping of the caverns that Cavill and his cronies were in. We needed to plug up all the holes to prevent anyone escaping to carry the taint of the cult elsewhere, or so that we could catch the victims of the cult to get them the help that they needed.

As well as Sam, there was also Inquisitor Dempsey who greeted me loudly and warmly before making a point of greeting Kerrass, Rickard and Chireadean with similar affection shaking Chireadean's hand, hard enough to make the Elf make a joke about massaging life back into his palm afterwards. Apparently Father Trent was now living in Father Gardan's old chapel and carrying the word of the Eternal Flame to the villagers. I was told that he would be grateful for a visit if I had the chance.

Also there were a bunch more priests including the large, one-armed priest that had found us, many church knights and Redanian knights as led by knight Lieutenant Kristoff who had become openly hostile to both Rickard and Chireadean while simply ignoring Kerrass and myself. There was also a sizeable contingent of Priests and Knights of Kreve. The entire thing would have been fairly comical if not for the fact that it felt uncomfortably like being on trial for our lives.

I went first as Danzig told everyone that I was sick and that I had been spelled in order to be strong enough to pass on the intelligence that I had. Ariadne's eyes glittered strangely when that was said although her face was a mask. I got off fairly easily all things considered.

But the room noticeably changed when Sir Rickard started to explain what he and his men had done. Equal parts boredom from a lot of the church contingent who couldn't see what all the fuss was about but an unbelievable amount of hostility coming from the group that was rapidly becoming labelled in my head as "Kristoff's faction." It started with the perceived desertion and dereliction of duty by Sir Rickard and his men by deserting their posts and coming after Kerrass and I.

To my mind, Rickard did very well to keep his temper. Over and over again he was forced to remind the assembly that he was not part of the Redanian military and was therefore not part of the military chain of command. He told them, over and over again that he was under orders by his employer, who was Lady Emma Coulthard, that he should be acting as Lord Frederick's guard and as such it _would_ be desertion and dereliction if he had not gone after us. Various people argued the point. They argued every which way, including that Sam, being a male of the Coulthard line and future Lord Coulthard, could countermand his sister's orders.

Rickard told them that that hadn't happened.

It was argued that Rickard's men were essential for the security of the realm.

To which Rickard argued that it wasn't _his_ realm which was Temeria and that it clearly wasn't essential as the realm was still here.

It went on and on before Sam finally made the point that this bickering was pointless and told Rickard to proceed with his account.

Every single decision that Rickard made, every action that he took, was questioned and criticised. It made the questioning that I had received seem paltry in response and the mood in the room started to shift with the Priests wanting to get towards, what they saw, as the good stuff.

How Rickard remained calm in the face of all of that, I will never know. Over and over again he pointed out that Kristoff was basing his criticisms on information that he, Rickard, simply didn't have access to at the time. That it was all well and good criticising decisions given the obvious results but at the end of the day, in the heat of the moment, when the results were far from certain, Rickard made the best decisions that he could.

He also had to point out, over and over again that his loyalty was not to Redania, the Redanian crown or even the Imperial one. His loyalty was to Lady Emma Coulthard and to me and his _only_ concern was to keep me safe. When someone told him that he clearly hadn't done a good job on that regard given the state of me, he shrugged and said nothing.

Once again though, I couldn't let that lie and re-emphasised that I would not be alive if it wasn't for Rickard and his people.

And that was that. Then came the churches turn.

Oh. Dear.

You see. It seemed that the more militant church contingent had one outcome in mind. One thing that they wanted and that was to burn Kerrass at the stake. The thinking seems to have been that they wanted to burn me really but given that they couldn't really get at me, they would settle for Kerrass as they had already tried and failed to send Ariadne to the flames.

I have no idea why although various suggestions have come to mind. The main prevailing theory was that it was a measure to put my Brother Mark who was in the process of being confirmed in his seat as a Cardinal, in his place. Mark, I later found out, was doing his best to put his remaining time to good use and was trying to force through some reforms. In short, he was trying to force the church back into it's older, more traditional role of being a caring and nurturing church rather than the hate mongering aggressi that had happened as part of Radovid's reign.

Unfortunately this meant that a lot of the priests that had joined the church in the time of Radovid's and Jacque de Aldersbourg's time, resented this as they quite enjoyed burning heretics and enjoying the status and fear that this earned them. They perceived Mark's reforms to be an attack on that, which they were, despite the fact that this was actually in line with the Empress' declaration that no church authority could summarily try and execute anyone.

Then Mark's brothers had had the temerity to find a significant piece of heresy on the churches doorstep that they, despite all their scheming, had been unable to find. So they couldn't even argue that the removal of their powers would leave the continent vulnerable to heretical thought. Because they hadn't found it and we had.

So they wanted to put us in our place, they resented that _they_ hadn't been the ones to find the "worship of dark powers" and they hated us for it. They couldn't attack Mark, Sam was going to be the future Lord Coulthard as well as being the Lord Kalayn which would, politically, be a bad move for the church which meant me. But I was out of bounds because I had famously converted a heathen vampire to the church of the Eternal Flame as well as being a prominent and, dare I say famous, worshipper and advocate for the Church of Eternal Flame.

Therefore they tried to make Kerrass suffer.

The other thing that is worth saying is that it wasn't _all_ churchmen. Even in that room that was full of aggressive churchmen who were looking forward to a good burning, there were several people that were firmly on our side. Notably Inquisitor Dempsey who's stock seemed to have risen since he had been involved in rooting out the heresy from the beginning. Also Father Danzig and Father Trent had re-emerged from his self-imposed exile to take a hand in matters. He had changed. He was sterner now and much more forceful. The small diplomatic man that I remembered had vanished and had been replaced by a much more forceful personality. Fortunately he was forceful on our side rather than on anyone else's.

The sticking point was the ritual that Kerrass had performed in order to deliver us from all the cultists. Over and over again Kerrass was asked what he had done. Why. When. Why not earlier. And what his methods were. How did he come to those conclusions. Who was it that he had summoned and what was the driving goal behind this. Had he endangered anyone.

Kerrass simply refused to answer. At first it was shocking as he steadfastly refused to acknowledge the self-important authority of the people assembled. Then it became funny as the ridiculousness of the entire situation started to become apparent. Then it was boring for a while before the situation started to come round full circle and start to become frightening as the men doing the questioning got angrier and angrier. I am still enough of a student of religion and in fear of my eternal soul to be frightened when people threaten my damnation.

But he just sat there. Over and over again refusing to answer questions. That's not strictly true though, he did answer two questions. The first was "Do you have any intention of answering questions regarding the ritual that you performed?" to which he answered simply "No."

"Why not? Do you not recognise the authority of the people asking you these questions?"

"No. The reason I do not tell you is that I am a Witcher. I was removing a curse. It is my job to remove curses and to slay monsters. So that was what I was doing. I was removing a curse. To explain my reasoning and my methods would be to betray Witcher secrets and that I will not do."

Then they would get on to demanding stuff and Kerrass would go back to ignoring them.

In the end, it was Danzig, Dempsey and Trent who lost their tempers and informed the assembly that they needed to move on. They pointed out that Kerrass had long warned people of the extensive magical field in the area, that he had come up with the methods which the soldiers could use to protect themselves from the cultists poisons and that he was under no obligation to anyone here. They also pointed out that Kerrass was a guild master now, following the declarations of the Empress at her coronation, and that blind attacks on a master craftsman carried grave penalties.

Judging by the expression that Kerrass pulled during this speech, he had forgotten this too.

Danzig went on to say that without Kerrass' intervention. That there was no way that I, or anyone else for that matter would have been able to get word back to Kalayn lands about who and where the cultists were. So arguing was pointless.

So the church contingent that were coming for me joined Sir Kristoff in his search to take Rickard and Chireadean down.

Things got really ugly after that and I realised that I had made a mistake. I had thought that I was going into a room to tell what had happened and that everyone there was after the truth in order to help them in the coming combats against the cult. But that wasn't it. In all reality, instead, I was walking into a courtroom, with politics and factions that hated each other. The were fighting over the prestige of destroying the largest collection of heretical cultists that had been found, arguably, since that great collection of Lionhead worshippers had been found in Tretogor twenty years ago.

In my defence, I was sick and I like to think that if I was a bit better then I might have been able to defend some of my friends from the attacks that they were having to defend themselves from.

So they tried to paint Rickard as being incompetent. Then they tried to paint the Elves out as being secretly against us from the very beginning. Then Sir Kristoff said something that nearly caused everything to get very dark.

"So let me just make sure that I understand this Sir Rickard. Why did you take the Elves along with you in the first place?" he asked

"I have answered this question before." Rickard responded with not a small amount of heat.

"Indulge me." Kristoff had a condescending kind of sneer that passed for a smile.

Rickard sighed. He had shown admirable restraint before and I guess that he was getting aggravated on the grounds that, technically, he and Kristoff were of equal social rank, although Kristoff was still in the military rather than privately employed and he thought he was done with his bit. He had begun to relax and was reaching back for some kind of...professional outlook. He was bored, tired and frustrated. It bears remembering that he had been through a lot as well and rather than being greeted as a hero, which he deserved by the way, he was being questioned as though he was accused of some kind of serious crime. He took a deep breath.

"I accepted the offer of help." He said it slowly, as though the person that he was talking to was terminally stupid. "Because we were massively outnumbered. The objective was to get Freddie through in order to report what he had found. That was the beginning middle and end of the job..."

"Yes yes, we know all of this. But why did you need the Elves?"

"We were outnumbered. I could see no possible way of getting Freddie through without them."

"So you took on the Elves"

"Yes."

"They agreed to follow your commands." I found it interesting that Kristoff wasn't asking questions. He was simply making statements that he expected answers to.

"Yes."

"Why?"

"You would have to ask Chireadean here who was acting as my..."

"I'm asking you."

Rickard took another deep breath.

"Because I had military experience."

"Why didn't you think you could get Lord Frederick von Coulthard through." He emphasised my title and full name as though Rickard had insulted me by not using the full title. For the record, I don't like being called Freddie. But it's considerably better than some of the names that I've been called. Also, some people have earned the right to call me Freddie. This list includes my family, Kerrass, Ariadne, the Empress and some others. After our adventures in the woods, both Chireadean and especially Sir Rickard have earned that right.

It rankled that Kristoff was trying to call him on that.

"You had military experience." Kristoff said, drawing the words out with a smirk and exchanged notable glances with his fellows. He was goading Rickard and despite Rickard's earlier calm, he had relaxed his defences during his break now the goading was working.

"What do you mean by that?" Rickard asked coolly.

If I had been sat next to him then I might have been able to jump into the breach. Restrain Rickard in some way. But, Chireadean was sat between us in some hope of Rickard and I being able to support the Elf if people turned on him. I was also slow.

"Oh Rickard, no." I muttered.

"I mean," Kristoff said with sudden asperity and anger. "That if you were even remotely competent, then Lord Frederick would not have been kidnapped in the first place. You would not have spared your own feelings and gone with Lord Frederick into Lord Cavill's castle despite your personal enmity and done. Your. Job. Lord Frederick would have got out of the castle clean and you would have gotten away. Wouldn't you."

Again, it was not a question. But the way he said it seemed to require some kind of response.

Rickard paled. Not the response that Kristoff wanted I suspect but it seemed enough for him.

"So then, after Lord Frederick and his _Witcher_ companion..." It never ceases to amaze me how some people can still turn the term "Witcher" into an insult. "... were taken. You mounted no rescue attempt. You barely even knew where he was. You were one of Temeria's finest. A Harrier no less. Why didn't you make a rescue attempt?"

"As I explained before. I judged that if we mounted a rescue, that we would not be able to get to Lord Frederick before he would be killed."

"Would it not be worth the risk?"

"Not in my estimation and..."

"But what if Lord Frederick had been killed?"

"They had captured him for a reason. There was no indication that..."

"So then, rather than rescuing him straight away and making good time during his initial flight. You left it and as such..."

"The caverns were vast and complex and they came out of..."

"That would be immaterial to good soldiers. To the famed "Best scouts on the continent" So Frederick was injured, sick, starving and you left him to it. Is it not true that it was the Elves that rescued him." Again with the question that isn't a question. "Is it not true that you only found them after the Elves had fed them and saved them."

Rickard said nothing. Resigning himself to just being insulted I suspect.

"But, to me, that isn't the most egregious crime that you have committed in this entire affair. That crime being that you condemn your comrade, your friend even, Witcher Kerrass to damnation for forcing him to commit heresy."

"Wait, what?"

Rickard wasn't the only person who was astonished but a couple of the churchmen that were there leant forward eagerly, possibly sniffing out a target that might be easier than the Witcher or I.

"Is it not true, Rickard, that you were rescued the day after all of this happened. Is it not true that our forces found you the day after Master Kerrass had been forced to drastic action by your incompetence. You had a defensible position, you were dug in, no soldier could ask for a better situation to be in. But you still needed to be saved. You still forced Master Kerrass to damn himself in an act that was ultimately unneeded. We were there, Sir Rickard. All you had to do was to hold out another day."

Rickard had paled even further during this little speech.

"There was no way that we could have known...There was no way that we could have held..."

But Kristoff was not to be deterred. He was like a warhorse, which I suppose he was really, who had the bit between his teeth and his target in sight and would no longer be kept back. His inertia must have been tremendous.

"Admit the truth Sir Rickard, that you and your men are dangerously incompetent buffoons and that if you had been proper soldiers rather than the lazy, incompetent, thieving criminals that they are then you would have been able to hold that hill. That you would have been able to keep your people alive if you had been remotely competent. Leaving aside all the mistakes you made to put you into that position in the first place, is it not true that if you had led your men properly, having forged the men and Elves under your command into a proper unit then the Witcher would not have needed to summon forth dark and dangerous powers. Is it not true that you could have held, that you should have held, and is it not true that all of those deaths could have and should have been averted."

Again, for the second time, I saw Rickard transform from the calm, relatively collected man into the fighter and killer capable of colossal violence.

Before anyone could react he was up and over the table, sword being drawn as he went. Kristoff was in the process of drawing his own weapon and rising to his feet. Others were rising, shouting had begun as Rickard leapt at the armoured knight. It bears mentioning that Rickard was in a shirt and tunic while Rickard was in his half plate and chainmail. Rickard kicked Kristoff in the chest, knocked the knights sword aside with a stroke from his own blade and shoulder checked him off his feet.

Then he stood over the fallen knight with the point of his sword at Kristoff's throat while standing on Krstoff's sword arm. The room had frozen.

"Say that about my people again." He snarled, remarkably quietly considering. "Say it again. I fucking dare you."

Kerrass, Chireadean and I had risen. Ariadne was chanting something quietly and I suspect that if violence really had broken out then she might have had something to say about it.

It was a pause that seemed to last for years, during which you could have heard a pin drop.

It was Danzig who broke the silence.

"I believe an apology would be appropriate." He said calmly.

"At least." said one of Kristoff's faction. It might even have been Sir Colrith but I couldn't swear to it. "This kind of behaviour from a knight of Temeria..."

"IT IS SIR RICKARD WHO DESERVES THE APOLOGY." Danzig roared. Another man who, it seemed, hid some rather extreme violence behind a mask of calm and genial friendliness. "I have never seen anything more shameful in my life." He declared in a good Preaching voice. "Those four men, sorry, Those two men along with the Noble Elf and honourable Witcher should be being hailed as heroes for bringing us the information that we need in order to rip out the roots of this heresy. Admit it, all of you, that the reason you hate them is because you want the credit for yourselves and if it was you that was sat there then you would expect to be sainted for your work."

"I agree," Father Trent stepped next to him. "I am sure, like any situation, these men might do things differently in hind sight but that is not for us to criticise. They did the best they could and we should be praising them for that. I also demand an apology."

"And I." Inquisitor Dempsey added. "And may I say that, as an Inquisitor, I see no signs of heresy. Just honest work from a nobleman, a Witcher, a soldier and an Elven warrior who did their duty as they saw fit. I too add my words of praise."

I stepped forward, cautiously. It was still a frozen tableau and I wasn't entirely certain that a sudden movement wouldn't make Rickard simply murder Kristoff. As it was I had to call his name several times before I placed my arm on his shoulder and he withdrew.

"That fucker," he said, quietly at first before saying it again loudly so that the words carried while he pointed at Kristoff with the point of his sword. "That fucker comes down to camp by the end of the day tomorrow to apologise or I'll see him at dawn the day after."

Then he left. Chireadean followed. There didn't seem to be anything to add to that.

All the way through all of that. Sam sat at the head of the table in the middle of the room and did nothing.

Needless to say. No apology came.

Instead Sir Kristoff and a lot of the military people that were involved in systematically insulting the four of us, departed for their deployment the following morning. Rickard was informed by post that, as such, Sir Kristoff would not be permitted to fight a duel as his duties would prevent him from doing so.

Which is _literally_ the only reason that is acceptable for dodging a duel according to standard duelling practice and culture.

Instead, Sam came to camp to apologise for himself. He told us that his hands were tied and that there was nothing he could do. If it was up to him and blah blah blah blah. I like to think he meant it but I also think that his excuses were far too convenient to be taken entirely on face value. He also, noticeably, did not withdraw his ban on Elves entering his castle before he himself departed to the sacking of Cavill's lands and the lands of Cavill's allies, so when someone went up to the castle gate to enquire as to whether we could all come up and sleep in some actual beds rather than in hammocks and bed rolls we were told that we were not allowed.

So fuck that.

Not that I was in any state to be making decisions by that point as I was very _very_ sick.

By some margin it was the strangest illness I've ever had. I had been warned of course, Ariadne, Laurelen and The Melitele Priestess whose name I had been told but now can't remember, had all told me that having myself spelled up to be able to work through the symptoms was a bad, bad idea. That what I should be doing is staying in bed and drinking the fluids but I thought it was important to do my duty and inform people of where the enemy could be found.

So what started as a mere cold, no matter how severe having been compounded with exhaustion, exposure to poison, plain old exposure, a period of deprivation and blood loss and the massive, huge psychological crash that comes after a period of extended high action, became something stranger.

For the record, I am aware of the stereotype of being the male that likes to make relatively small illnesses into things that are much larger than they actually are. I have seen this many times and have felt that temptation but, I would like to think, that I tend to beat that stereotype. Certainly in this case, the same as those times after I was poisoned and after my conversation with Jack. There were things that I wanted to do. Things that needed doing and I wanted to be the person doing them. I wanted to see it and record it, even though I had obviously been heavily involved up until that point. I wanted to be there when they assaulted the caverns.

But it was not to be.

In the end, the threats, bargains and pleas turned out to be pointless as there was simply no way that I could have done what I wanted to do. As I say it was the strangest period of illness that I could remember as it seemed that my symptoms were all over the place. The first day after the meeting felt like the most standard period of having a cold that you can imagine. I was shivering with the cold despite the warmth of the day, the fire that was lit inside the pavilion and the blankets that were piled on top of me. I was sneezing and oozing from most major orifices and that sickness was moving down into my belly which made things even more unpleasant. All the while I wasn't sleeping properly so my head felt as though it was full of gunk and I could neither think nor speak or act according to my own wishes.

I was pretty miserable

This continued for another two days. Then abruptly, those symptoms vanished to be replaced by a thing that I had never before experienced. The fever vanished, almost overnight along with the cold and flu symptoms. Instead this was replaced by an almost permanent headache and uncontrollable vomiting. The nausea only really happened if I tried to move so the best thing I could do was to keep as still as I could and just wait for my body to finish doing whatever it was doing.

I found the entire process rather fascinating if I'm honest as my ability to think came back at almost the same time. So, I was able to think, to converse and generally feel as though I was beginning to live my life again. Unfortunately, if I tried to move, I would get a crippling bout of nausea and start to vomit. Thirty seconds later, after I had stopped moving, it would all go away and I would be back to normal again.

Also, my innards would decide that I needed to vomit again with little to no warning and I was forced to keep a bucket next to my bed.

The Priestess just told me not to worry about it, to rest and to drink the potions that she prepared for me and to let my body get on with whatever it was that it was doing. Neither she, nor Laurelen seemed concerned and I took solace from their complacency.

To my mind, so long as I didn't move too much, I could get back to work. Reading the letters and reports that we got back from what was going on with the fighting and starting to write up the considerable adventures that I had been working on, so that they could be published. It was slow going as looking at the words on the paper would eventually give me a headache and I would be forced to stop.

Ariadne had come to see me briefly to say Goodbye as she was heavily involved in rousting the cult out. She was there to neutralise the Cavill mage if that was required, as he had seemed to be a man of some skill. She apologised over and over again that she had to leave me in the state that I was in but that she was bound by, and I quote, "certain obligations that I cannot break". I told her not to worry and that we would talk better when she came back. I told her to be careful and to not take too many risks.

For some reason she found this incredibly funny.

I also took this opportunity to tell her what the ghost had told me. About ancient and alien magic being involved. She reacted rather oddly to this, frowning and concentrating for a moment before visibly moving the information over to one side so that she could think about it later. She told me that she would need to think about that and consult some people as it suggested something that she had wondered but that for now, she needed to focus on what was going on with Cavill.

As I write this, the campaign that was being waged against the cult is going well. Co-ordinated by Ariadne the caverns that Kerrass and I were taken through, were located and then scouted out so that armed troops could watch all entrances. Ariadne didn't tell anyone how she managed to do that but I strongly suspect that she harnessed the spiders that infested the place. Then there was a concerted attack.

Which failed.

As it turns out. The Cult had long since known that such a thing might happen and had spent their time preparing for the prospects of a siege. Given that there were no walls that could be beaten down or scaled, the only thing that the Church and Redanian troops could do was to storm the various entrances where it turned out the cultists had set traps after traps and then, could defend the narrow places to their hearts content.

I was bitterly amused, as were Rickard and Chireadean when we received word about this. As it turns out the defenders were horribly out numbered but their knowledge of the caverns and the long awaited nature of the assault meant that they could inflict horrendous casualties on both the invading troops and the captives that our side had hoped to rescue.

In the end the armies had to consult with Ariadne and she "dealt with the matter." She ordered that the army plug up the holes so that no-one could get out and then teleported away. She returned a little while later with Maleficent and a tall thin man that was not introduced. Apparently he was described as being quite bookish. Maleficent had transformed into a dragon, parked herself outside the biggest entrance into the caverns that there was and just blew dragon flame in.

Then Ariadne and her fellow seemed to dissolve into smoke which gusted, under it's own power, into the caverns and the armies followed the smoke in. Traps were triggered by Ariadne and the other man, those that hadn't been destroyed by Maleficent's dragon fire of course and still more cultists were seen to be fighting invisible creatures before dying on the spot with very precise injuries that always resulted in death.

Many cultists fled, into the waiting arms of the armed forces where they were arrested and still, as of when I write these words, are awaiting trial and sentencing. Many of them are still heavily drugged and so it will be hard to say how far guilt will be assigned. Many church officials just want to burn the lot and have done but at various stages it has been pointed out that it is increasingly difficult to tell legitimate victims apart from perpetrators in this case.

I understand that the Lodge of Sorceresses has offered their assistance in these matters but the case is still ongoing.

I wish I could tell you that Arthur, Cavill's bastard son, survived and was taken prisoner. I wish I could tell you that he could be identified as the sick man that he was and that he could begin the long journey that some of those people have begun, towards getting better. I wish I could tell you that, but according to reports, he died during the first attack. He was leading the defence of the caverns at one of the entrances and stood firm in the face of overwhelming odds when his fellows, who were similar slaves to the will of the cult, broke and fled. As far as anyone could tell, he was one of the first people killed.

That is a shame. I had liked him.

I also wish I could tell you that the various attacking forces caught Cavill's pet mage, Phineas Torlane. I had been especially looking forward to seeing that fucker get what was coming to him. But it turned out that he had left Cavill's castle shortly after Lord Cavill had left to oversee my sacrifice. Meaning that he departed a couple of days after I had been taken in the woods. He had passed on the method to get rid of my amulet and then had simply packed up his goods and transported himself out of the castle.

No-one knows where he is.

Turns out that Mage Phineas is a nasty piece of work. A disciple of Vilgefortz of Rogeveen, otherwise known as the school of "The ends justify the means. No matter how horrible or how evil those means might be." He was on the list of people that the Lodge of Sorceresses one hundred per cent agreed with the church of the Eternal Flame on what to do with him and is widely believed to be one of the people for whom the rule about "No Necromancy" was invented.

If you see him, or hear of him. Do NOT, in BIG ASS CAPITAL LETTERS. DO NOT approach him. As he is extremely dangerous. Be patient, do what you need to do to survive and then get word to your nearest Nilfgaardian garrison or mage if you know one.

As for me. It would seem that my active deeds in the matter were over. All that was left for me to do now was to have a series of conversations while I worked to properly record everything that I had seen and everything that I had done. Some were short conversations but all of them important. I shall describe them to you in order beginning with the one which was, to me, the most surprising.

Of all people, Brother Mark came to visit.

It was relatively early on in my convalescence. I was still getting tired easily and had spent a bit of time having a bit of a snooze. One of the only times in my entire life that I have been actively encouraged to nap whenever I wanted and I was taking full advantage of this whenever I felt the need. I still needed a sick bucket next to me but I was able to work which was better than I had been for a while. Then, suddenly, I woke up to discover Mark sat on a stool nearby going through my papers.

"You're spelling is getting worse," he commented when he realised that I was awake.

"Thank you for your criticism Brother mine." I told him. "But what the hell are you doing here?"

He tossed one of the pieces of parchment down on to the growing pile of papers that was taking over the corner of my tent, and brought his stool over so that he could sit next to the bed.

"Apparently, it's an thing that you need a Cardinal present when there is a large scale heresy going on."

"Really?"

"Yes. I was as shocked as you are. Apparently it's to do with the fact that there might be important nobles involved and they want someone with suitable rank in order to outrank anyone that might be inclined to plead wealth, and or, privilege. And nowadays, I'm the closest Cardinal."

"Bully for you. Congratulations. The last I had heard was that they were still in the process of confirming you."

"It all went through while you were...missing."

"Yes well. I was a little out of touch at the time so you can't entirely blame me for that."

He laughed.

"Honestly Freddie, I don't know whether to be proud of you or pissed at you."

"There seems to be a lot of that sentiment going around." I commented.

"Yes."

The silence lengthened for a while as I spent some time looking at my brother. I knew that his sickness must be advancing but I couldn't tell in what direction it was going. He looked well, he'd lost a bit of weight but I had no idea if this was as a result of his illness, his change in work load and headquarters or because his doctors had ordered him to to put less strain on his heart. He looked tired but that too was a common symptom in the local area and so picking that out in particular seemed a little redundant. I could see no tremors in his limbs and he was bright eyed.

"So let me ask the important question." I said after a moment.

"Which is?"

"Does your new and exalted position come with a new hat?"

Mark's eyes twinkled. "It does."

"Is it even more ridiculous and impractical than the last one?"

"I would suggest it's more practical. It keeps the sun out of my eyes at least. Oi, Markus?"

A young lad of about seven poked his head into the pavilion. Bright blue eyes and mop of dirty blonde hair.

"Fetch me my hat of office would you Francis?"

The boy frowned. "Sir? It's not an official occasion."

"Did I stutter Francis?"

The boy looked rather disapproving and headed back out of the tent.

"A good kid." Mark told me. "But I don't really like having him around. He's supposed to fetch and carry for me. Bring me food and water but if I'm honest it makes me uncomfortable. When I moved into the Cardinal's quarters there was a heavy implication that I could use him in any way I saw fit."

"Yikes."

"I was rather more forceful than that." A storm-cloud flitted across Mark's face. "I ordered a room prepared for him nearby on the spot and regularly order him back to his studies. I'm still looking for the person who thought that a Cardinal might like a small boy as a bed-warmer and when I find them I'm rather tempted to...Ah here we are."

The boy came back with something that looked rather like a large red disk with a small indent in the middle. It reminded me of a shield with a central boss.

"Ridiculous thing." Mark told me, carefully placing his head in the middle of the indent and securing the hat in place with two pieces of string that came through the brim precisely for that purpose.

"I think it looks very dignified." I told him with an utterly straight face.

"Liar," Mark accused. The lad Francis seemed horrified that his master would accept mocking with such a calm demeanour.

"I have to hand it to your profession Mark." I told him. "You priests do invent some amazing clothing."

"It's heavy." Mark complained. "And you have to tie it on so that it doesn't blow off in even the slightest breeze, so tight that it cuts off air flow. Fucking thing."

Francis' jaw hit the floor at the sound of a cardinal being profane. Mark noticed.

"Go and talk to the Heathen Witcher or one of the equally heathen Elves." Mark told him. "Ask them, politely mind you, to find you something to eat."

"But...they're heathens."

"Yes. But does that make them evil? Think carefully now."

"Ummmmm. They are heathens so...Yes?"

Mark sighed. "Go outside and decide for yourself rather than just repeating what your parents taught you."

Francis fled.

"Stupid kid. If he can get past the damage that his parents and tutors have done to him before they sent him to me then he might become a decent thinker."

"My advice?"

"Go on then."

"Wait a few years and then send him to help out in the hospitals in Novigrad. Whatssitsname? Vilmerius Hospital in the Bits. That'll cure him of his preconceptions. If that doesn't work, wait a few years more and then send him to a brothel."

Mark was laughing. "That would certainly do something. Not sure it would cure him of his preconceived notions though. Or his prejudices. You can be a cruel man Freddie."

"How are you though Mark?"

"I'm alright. The doctors have given me a year of useful life where I can work to a reasonable standard, providing I'm careful and do what I'm told, and then it will start dropping off and I will start losing things. Small things at first, words, time, that kind of thing. That will get worse on something like an exponential curve with the degradation getting increasingly worse as time goes on. At some point I will lose control of my body, oddly looking forward to being incontinent to tell you the truth. Then it will simply be a case of waiting for my heart or my lungs to give up and just stop one day."

"I'm so sorry Mark."

"Don't be, it's my own damn fault. If I'd just asked the right people for help at the right time then it all might have been avoided. As it is, I actually find it rather freeing. I can say what I like and do what I like without having to worry about the future."

"I've heard a lot about these reforms that you are pushing through."

Mark grinned nastily. "I thought you might like them."

"Not quite the word that I'd use but..."

"The church is corrupt." Mark began. Clearly an often repeated speech that he felt quite strongly about. "I suspect that it has been some time. The instant that priests start to care about politics and earthly powers then they start to lose sight over what's really important. Namely the proper care of our people."

"But "our people" is subjective is it not." I argued out of habit and reflex rather than due to any kind of disagreement with my brother. "My thoughts of "our people" are going to be different from your thoughts which will be different from the people over in Kaedwen or down in Cintra."

"Precisely the problem." Mark argued and I guessed that I had jumped into a well travelled debate path. "We need to adapt with the times. We are no longer part of a small city state which is how the church was first founded. Nor are we a nation or an army. We are an empire and we need to start thinking in those terms. Whether we like it or not, and many people don't like it, the people inside the borders of the Empire are _our_ people now and we need to start working to protect them. To heal them and care for them. And unfortunately that includes non-humans and magic users as well as mutants and any others."

"I notice how carefully you didn't mention monsters in there." I said dryly.

"But. You yourself have proved that there's no such thing as a monster." Mark beamed at me. "The term "Monster" is out of date as is proved by the conversion of your fiancée to the worship of the Holy Fire. Don't get me wrong, I am well aware that she is doing this to comfort you as much as it is from any legitimate belief. But it is proof that what we, the church, think of as "monster" is no longer true. There are still dangerous magical creatures that have sprung up again around continent. Necrophages, Griffins and the like but again, this proves my point. Instead of working with the Witchers and making sure that these creatures stayed dead, we persecuted the mutated wretches..." He winked to show that he was teasing, "and as such, we removed the only natural predator that these creatures had."

He sighed happily.

"I can say these things now and people promise me doom and damnation but the truth is that I feel better about things than I have done in years. If it wasn't for my illness and family troubles I do believe that I would be a happy man."

"Family troubles?"

Mark sighed. "Yes unfortunately and that's one of the reasons that I wanted to talk to you. The main reason is to make sure that you are Ok and to tell you that I am both furious with you for risking yourself and proud of you for doing the same in order to save these people. I wanted to tell you that I love you and that I look forward to seeing you married and settled down. It will be a comfort to me as I lie in whatever sick bed waits for me to know that you, at least, are happy and settled down in doing what you need to do."

He said it with a certain conviction that took my breath away. I found that I was moved and said so. He waved me off though.

"Don't take it too hard." He told me with a sad, but slightly wicked smile. "As I say. It is sometimes freeing to be able to say what you think. To know that you can't put it off until later but you should know that today is a good day. Sometimes I am angry and scared as well as happy and full of Joy. Every day is a gift, yes, but every day is also a curse. Knowing that I am one step closer to senility and death."

He sat and stared into silence for a moment.

"Family troubles." I prompted him.

"Ah yes." He sighed again and rubbed at his temples. "Your sister and Sam have fallen out."

I swore for a bit. "I should have seen that I suppose."

"Maybe, but at the end of the day, you were sick, exhausted and had your own axe to grind with both of them. I'm on your side about that by the way."

I blew out a breath that I didn't know that I'd been holding in.

"Those Elves are heroes." Mark went on. "If only because they brought my brother back to me when I thought that I had lost another sibling and I don't have that many more to lose."

"Mark I'm sorry."

"I know, but the other thing that you look forward to when you're dying is being surrounded by people that you love and sometimes I feel that I'm running out."

I didn't have anything to say to that.

"Anyway. I was talking about Sam and your sister."

"Yes, you were."

"The problem is that although I would flatter them both by suggesting that they do love each other. Your sister and Sam don't really get on. In losing Francesca they have lost one of their unifying factors, one of the things that they had in common and now..."

He sighed and leant forward.

"According to my spies..." He began.

"Hang on." I interrupted. "You have spies?"

"Yes. I was as astonished to find out that I had them as you are. I turned up, settled into my new quarters after having ordered most of the rich furnishings, jewelery and ornaments to be sold with the proceeds going to some of the local charities, a very sinister man approached me and told me that he was my new spymaster and wondered how I wanted to use him. He turned out to be fairly genial and friendly while also being utterly without morals and pity. I don't think I've met a more ruthless man and I give daily thanks that he's on my side."

Mark sniffed hugely.

"But according to my spies, when Ariadne had brought Sam word of your disappearance, she immediately ran off to tell Emma and then me what was happening. She was right to do so by the way, although I might wish that your betrothed had been a little bit more circumspect..."

"That sounds rather ominous,"

"And it is, or rather it _was_ I should say." Mark sighed.

"What did Emma do?" I groaned.

"Thinking with my big boy hat on, what I suspect happened was that she was worried about you. She had Laurelen transport her here as soon as was able and demanded to know what Sam was doing to find you. He, not incorrectly, informed our sister that he was doing everything within his power to be able to do so. Emma being Emma was unimpressed with his efforts."

I nodded as I began to see a picture of where this was all going. Mark was shifting in his seat and took the opportunity to yawn hugely and scratch his arse with a happy and contented smile. Yes, Cardinals occasionally need to scratch their arses, same as the rest of us. Get over it.

"I love Emma, I really do, but she sometimes struggles with the fact that she had to, essentially, be the mother figure to Sam, you and Francesca. You possibly didn't see this as you can hardly be depended upon to be subjective at the time but Emma and Sam don't really have a great deal in common. As such, with Sam especially, Emma struggled with needing to be the mother while also wanting to get on with her own thing. She found it easier with you and Francesca but she found it quite hard with Sam for some reason that I could never quite figure out. I was deep into my studies at the time as you know so I didn't really pay enough attention."

He sniffed again and started patting around himself.

"The long and short of it is that I don't think that Sam and Emma really got on. They love each other, don't get me wrong, but they don't really..."

He sneezed, failing to get his handkerchief out in time.

"I swear Freddie that if you've given me your cold I'm gonna..."

His threat turned out to be empty as he promptly sneezed again, even more violently. "Flame preserve me."

"So what happened?"

"Emma tried to take over. Then when that, obviously, didn't happen. She started walking around the castle and commenting on what could be done with the place. She started talking about the different ways that Kalayn lands could be used by the trading company, commenting on the Herb trade. Farming and such like. Before beginning to give orders about what was going to happen over the coming years."

"I can't see Sam taking that well."

"He did not, no. In short, the two of them had a screaming row in the middle of the castle where, when one of them tried to escape to calm down, the other would pursue them to keep the argument going."

Mark chuckled suddenly. "I wish I'd seen it. It sounds rather epic."

"And harmful." I pointed out.

"Yes." We sunk into silence for a while. "But one way or another, they hurt each other during all of that shouting and I'm more than a little concerned that the damage might be permanent."

"So what are we going to do about it?"

Mark chuckled. "We? Freddie, I'm not going to do _anything_ about it. I'm not sure I have it in me. Furthermore I'm not sure I _should_ do anything about it. I'm Lord Coulthard now and if I get involved one way or another...I also don't think that this is a new problem. I think it's been going on for a while but it's bubbled to the surface."

"What caused it?"

"It might just be as simple as the fact that Sam wants a piece of land that he controls and only he controls. He's decided that it's going to be Kalayn lands. He's lost interest in his more martial pursuits and having talked to him. I think he likes it here. He feels more at home here than he does back at Coulthard and I think he wants to hold this place separate so that when he comes here he can leave all the expectations of being a Coulthard behind. Here he can be his own man and not have to worry about Emma and whatever business deals and politics she's involved in now.

"Then Emma comes along with an investment opportunity along with considerable, well thought out and researched documents on what can be done with Kalayn lands and something inside Sam just rebels and he refuses. Being Lord Kalayn, he can forbid it from happening and has done so. Emma meanwhile is quite right in knowing that her plans would make all of us, Sam included, a ridiculous amount of money. Not that we really need more money to be fair, but Emma doesn't see that. She's been given control of the family business, a gift and a blessing from a father who she thought didn't trust or love her and she's determined to take that and build it into something bigger and grander than ever. She feels as though that's her obligation to the man who gave it to her.

"Now the two are clashing."

"You think this has been going on a while then?"

"I think so," he told me. "I think it's been seething away. It might be that Sam asked for some funds for some renovations but the money was tied up...Oh, I could speculate for a while. But the result is always the same. At the moment, Sam and Emma hate each other with quite a lot of passion."

"That doesn't explain why _you_ shouldn't get involved in it."

"Because I am the deciding vote. They're both right but they're also both wrong at the same time. I am Lord Coulthard, if I come down on either side then that's the way the family goes forward from there. Plus, and I have to be honest here, I don't really care that much."

"What?"

"I'm serious. I'll be honest, I think it's all a little petty of them both."

"Well...yes but..."

"You can see it too can't you." He accused, pointing with an index finger.

"But we have to do something."

"Do we? Do we really?"

I didn't have an answer to that.

"I'll be honest Freddy. I love you and I love both of them but at the same time, they need to get over their nonsense here. They're both being foolish and petty and if I get involved it will only escalate."

He watched me for a long time.

"Yeah," he said as though he was coming to some kind of decision. "Did you know that Emma wants _you_ to inherit the title of Baron Coulthard after I'm gone?"

"Me?"

"Yep."

"Why would she want to do that?"

"That _is_ an interesting question isn't it. She didn't admit it to me really but she has certainly been dancing around the question. She doesn't think that Sam has it in him to rule, to govern. She likens him to Edmund in many ways."

"Sam is no Edmund."

"No, he's far more intelligent for a start. But the less charitable theory is that she thinks that _you_ will do what you're damn well told."

I subsided. "I can believe that actually."

Mark nodded. "So can I. Again, not that I think that that's what's going through her head. She is much closer to you than she is with either Sam or myself. I think there is part of her that thinks that the two of you would make a better team towards furthering Coulthard holdings and family prestige than she would with Sam. She thinks that Sam will want to do something else, turn the family business towards a different direction."

"She might not be wrong there." I sighed. "Not that I want it. I'm going to be Count of Angral. I understand it's rocky but produces passable olives and some other crops that Ariadne is making some money out of, but let's be fair here. Agriculture and business just don't interest me. Leaving aside the fact that I'm going to be newly married and will want to explore everything that comes with that."

Mark smirked.

"Flame Mark but I don't want to be Baron Coulthard. _Dad_ was Baron Coulthard, I would feel like an imposter. I _would_ be an imposter."

"I know the feeling."

"Emma's being silly."

"Yes." Mark agreed. "Yes she is. She sees herself in you. She recognises a lot of similarities. You and her are very much Father's children."

"There was a time when I would have hit you for saying that."

"I know." Mark laughed. "And you would be right to do so. But it's true. You both have your passions that drive you both. You have your academics and your desire to learn, as well as to teach, and Emma has the drive to further the families legacy. Francesca was the same. You weren't at home when she left so you missed the moment when she heard about the Empress and everything that the Empress was going through and decided that the Empress must be lonely. After that, that was all she was building towards.

"Whereas Sam and I are more our Mother's sons. We needed to find our goals. I was lucky in that I was pushed into something that appealed to me but it was different from everything else. But I have felt the same frustration that Sam has. He tells me that he talked to you about losing interest in his more martial pursuits. That he just stopped caring about how good he was with a sword and no longer felt the need to pursue it."

"Yes he did."

"I remember feeling exactly the same. I reached a plateau with Religious writings. A point where I felt as though I was reading the same thing over and over again and that the existing doctrine of the Eternal fire had nothing else to teach me. I nearly got into a lot of trouble as I started to read the teachings and the writings regarding other religions but nothing held my interest as much as the Holy Fire work. Which is what told me that I wasn't being called elsewhere. I felt that I was in the right place but I needed something else. I was lucky enough to find it when I read some of your works."

"Really?"

"Oh yes, although don't get too smug. It was something that I was already thinking of at the time but reading about Eternal Fire Priests and hearing about the depravity that some of them had sunk to. I was already on the beginning of my path but I didn't know where I was going until it crystallised.

"I think Sam is at the same place I was. He's just no longer as thrilled about being the best with a sword, or a lance or any of the other ludicrous weapons that he used to like to fight with. He wants something else, he _needs_ something else. He could probably do with getting married if the truth be known. Settle him down a bit. At the moment, the line of Coulthard still dies with our generation."

I laughed. "You know that Laurelen is working on something so that she could, in theory, get Emma pregnant right?"

Mark rolled his eyes. "Yes I know. Fortunately not something I'm going to have to deal with. Although I would have liked to meet my nephew or niece. Have you and Ariadne thought about how that might work for the two of you?"

"We haven't really. When we got engaged she told me that there is no reason why she couldn't extend my life for a while so that I could be party to the same methods as some mages use so there's no rush. She's also interested in Laurelen's research into various things and failing all else, we can always adopt. I would like children but I kind of want to enjoy being married to someone before I start to worry about that."

"I know, but the problem isn't going to go away."

I glared at him. "Well you're just a ray of sunshine aren't you?"

Mark laughed.

A soldier poked his head through the tent flap, ignoring me completely. "Eminence, your transport is ready."

Mark nodded. "I'll be out in a moment."

The soldier left.

"Eminence," I mocked. "You gonna be able to get out of the tent with your new title and all."

He grinned. "Take care of yourself Freddie," he told me. "And give some thought as to what you want to do about Sam and Emma. Personally, I reckon you should just bang their heads together and tell them to behave but that's just me."

"Do you think that will work?"

"It might. Especially if you do it. Whether you want the title or not, the fact is that you are the head of the family now. I don't know when it happened, how it happened or why. But you are the thing that keeps us together, keeps us moving forward and ties us to each other. We were all terrified when you went missing. If Sam, or Emma, or I vanished off the face of the continent then we'd all be worried. But that's nothing close to the terror that we all felt when we got news that you had gone missing."

I gaped at him. I must have shaken my head or something because he immediately started to offer evidence.

"You're the one that slapped us all into shape regarding Dad's death. I couldn't... I couldn't have done what you did there and right now, Edmund might be in charge of the family with this cult, and the one outside of Oxenfurt still running if you hadn't started your investigation. It was you that ran out to try and find Francesca. You swept Sam up and brought him with you but otherwise, I would have been content to let the professionals do their job. You couldn't help yourself it was so important to you. You _feel_ for this family Freddie and we all see it and react in kind. You make all of us better just by being alive. You challenge us and force us to think."

"Eminence," someone called.

Mark pulled a face. "We'll talk soon Freddie. I would hug you but I'm afraid I'll catch plague."

He looked down at me for a long time. "Love you Freddie."

"Love you too Mark." I managed.

I felt as though Mark had hit me upside of the head with a stew pot.

Emma was the next really _significant_ conversation that I had. After Mark had gone, I sent several messages to her in an effort to try and get her into my tent in order for the two of us to have a chat, but for whatever reason, she just didn't materialise. I don't know what she was doing. She has since claimed that she spent a lot of time talking to the Elves that had come with me but I also know that she had spent even more time talking to the local villagers.

During this time I was still, all but bedridden. The Priestess would allow me to work at a small lectern that I could prop on the bed to act as a desk but I was under strict orders to stop whatever it was that I was doing whenever I got a headache. I suppose that now is as good a time as any to admit that I ignored these orders on more than one occasion. I also spent some time talking with Kerrass. Nothing too deep and meaningful because I didn't want to pressure him into talking about something that he didn't want to, and I wanted to make sure that I had all my faculties about myself when we actually did sit down and started talking.

I also spent some time talking with Chireadean, as well as Chireadean, Rickard and Kerrass as a group. We agreed a couple of things as to what we were going to do next but mostly we just gossiped. I enjoyed Chireadean's sense of humour and he and Rickard were well on the way to forming a firm friendship, although Chireadean admitted that he had had enough of living in the woods and eating berries. He wanted to sleep in a bed, preferably with the option of sharing that bed with a nice, buxom woman.

I was also allowed out to go out "into the bushes" if you know what I mean and I also made a point to eat the main evening meal with the remaining bastards and Elves. I thought that this was important and this was, more than a little bit confirmed by the fact that, at first, I was still receiving odd looks from the Elves that would gather round us. As though I was behaving in ways that they did not expect and they were waiting for me to turn around and bite their heads off.

But one day, Emma strode into the pavilion like she was a woman on a mission.

"Good," I began, setting aside my impromptu writing desk. "I want to talk to you." There might have been a bit more anger in my voice than I had been intending at first.

"And I want to talk to you." She responded just as quickly. She seemed odd to me and at first I thought she might have done something different with her hair or one of the other small changes that she sometimes made to her appearance without telling anyone before expecting me to pick up on it without prompting. "Are you allowed outside yet?"

"What?" The question had thrown me off but I did my best to rally. "Of course I'm allowed outside, do you see a chamberpot."

But she was already waving her hand in an effort to dismiss my words. "Then follow me. I want you to see this." Without explanation, she turned with her skirts swishing behind her and left the tent.

I considered not following her for a whole forty two heartbeats before admitting to myself that I was far too curious to _not_ see what she had in store for me. My sister knows me well it would seem.

So she should as well, after all these years.

I pulled myself out of bed and found some trousers and pull my boots on. I also considered whether or not I would survive going outside without pulling on a cloak of some kind to keep me warm. Not that I was afraid of the fever or anything but I was a little concerned that the Priestess might skin me alive if I risked it.

In all fairness, the most dangerous stage of recovery is just when you think you've thrown off the illness and start throwing yourself into activities before you're ready for them.

But, as I say, one of my occasional weaknesses is that I refuse to accept just how ill I get until I'm almost literally dying and people need to sit on me in order to prevent me from doing anything stupid. I suspect that this quality is something that I get from having to be inspected by my mother whenever I got sick as a child.

She took the view that unless blood was actively gushing from the open head wound that I had sustained when trying to stand in front of a fully armoured knight on the back of an equally armoured war horse, then sympathy was not required. I would be sent off for my medicine, which was always vile on the grounds that if you make the medicine vile enough then children won't come back and ask for some more as some kind of treat, and packed off to bed.

Then I would be, in my eyes, punished for being ill by not being allowed to read or do anything interesting while being sick. The manifest unfairness of all of this was the cause of many tears when I had been younger.

I stumbled out of the tent as I was still having some difficulty in balancing properly for no good reason that I could understand to see what was waiting for me.

"There appear to be many more Elves than I was expecting," I commented to no-one in particular.

"A couple more have come in when they heard what had happened here." Kerrass, who was perched on a stool near the entrance to the tent, told me.

"Not many, but enough to actually manage to make a couple of people nervous." Danzig agreed, seeming to be having far more fun with this entire situation than was strictly needed in my opinion. "Mostly non-combatants and people that Chireadean had left behind when you first joined up with them. It seems that he wasn't foolish enough to put all his eggs into one basket. They caught up recently and were brought here. A couple of people were quite angry about this." Danzig snorted, showing exactly what he thought of soldiers who were afraid of a dozen, ragged, half-starved non-combatants.

"Hush," Kerrass quieted him with a flap of his hand. I got the sense that Danzig wasn't the only one enjoying the bit of theatre.

Chireadean was ushering the Elves towards an upturned barrel which Emma climbed on top of. I saw that Emma was wearing a relatively plain dress with some leggings underneath, the same kind of clothing that she used to wear when she went riding and wanted to annoy father. I looked for Laurelen and found her a little distance off watching the entire situation. She seemed relaxed and calm so I assumed that she knew what was happening and took a bit of comfort from that.

Emma began to speak.

"First of all." She said loudly and clearly, "I want you all to know that I'm not standing up here in order to place myself above you in any way. I'm just doing that so that you can all see me and hear me as I don't want anyone to mistake what I need to say. Least of all my younger brother who is stood on the edge of the clearing glowering at me."

There was some muted laughter from the Elves, a sound which grew in volume as the translation of some of the words filtered through as well as the fact that some of the more cowed people there realised that despite Emma's obvious wealth and status...

Try as she might, there is no longer any denying who and what Emma is. Her hair is too clean and well cared for, her clothing too well made and the way she stands conveys a sense of the person and the attitude of command that she has. It's not something you notice until you've been cold, dirty and hungry yourself and had your own privilege torn away from you.

… she wasn't going to tear anyone's heads off for laughing. A couple of people turned to look at me to see if I was, indeed, glowering at her. I cannot answer for what they saw but I saw a couple of them grinning openly.

"I asked Chireadean here," she gestured. A movement that I found funny as you normally make those kinds of gestures when you're giving a speech in order to ensure that everyone knows who the relevant people are. But in this case, it was absurd for people to assume that anyone _didn't_ know who Chireadean was. "I asked him to gather you all here so that I could say some things to you all." She went on.

"The first thing I want to say is almost a little note. I want to apologise to you all for not being able to speak to you in your own language. I can talk finances in the Elder speech," I applauded her silently for using the correct term for the Elven language, "so that I can argue with Southerners and I can read and write quite well. But there are sentiments that I want to express that I don't think I can do so adequately. So I do so, in my own language and I beg your forgiveness."

There was another pause as Emma waited for the translators to catch up.

"So here it is." She began. "I am sorry." The way she said it. Calmly and simply seemed to make it have more impact than if she had made the apology more flowery with many more big words attached to it. "I am so, so very sorry." She said again. I saw her looking around the group, presumably meeting everyone's eyes before I realised that one of the people that she was looking at was me.

"My father once told me about apologising," she went on. "He told me two things that have stuck with me over the years. The first thing is that simply apologising is not good enough. You have to be able to tell the person that you are apologising to, what you are apologising for. So, to that end..."

She took a deep breath.

"I am sorry that I leapt to conclusions. I am sorry that I assumed who you all were. I am sorry that I deliberately lessened you all in my eyes and that I saw you as a group rather than the collection of individuals that you are. Over the last couple of days since I came back here and you had returned, bringing my brother back to me through fire and death. I have spoken to many of you. As many as I could and one thing has become clear. The way that you have been treated is appalling. You are no less than I am. In many ways, you are greater than that. But I heard the word "Elves" and I assumed that you were brigands and thieves. I assumed that you were scum, vagabonds and layabouts who simply never tried hard enough to fit in with human society. Who simply didn't do what they needed to do to fit in.

"That assumption was wrong.

"I also, assumed that I was one of the good ones. I have never, nor has anyone within my sphere of influence ever done anything to harm an Elf. We have not enslaved Elves, nor have we taken advantage of Elves. I had not realised that this is simply not enough in correcting the great evil that has been committed against your people by mine.

"This crime of mine is made worse in my eyes because I discriminated against you further. When the mages and magic users were being persecuted, not only did I _not_ hurt them or torture them or execute them in droves, I devoted time, money and resources to their rescue and safety. I risked my own life and my own freedom in order to make that rescue happen and work towards the betterment of magical lives, spiriting magic users to safety aboard my families ships.

"But I did nothing to help the non-humans when the torturers came for them. I told myself that it was too risky, too dangerous and that people were already wary of us and I didn't want to risk myself or any of the people that I was responsible for.

"I now see that to do nothing to fight that persecution is as bad as being a persecutor myself.

"I do not expect your forgiveness. These wrongs are too raw and too heinous to be forgiven. I do not have excuses for my actions or lack thereof, only explanations but I will not waste your time with them. But I want you to know that I am sorry."

The speech was punctuated with pauses so that the translators could catch up. It was a good speech and I agreed with it. There was just a small, bitter and cynical, part of me that wondered how long she had been practising it.

But it would seem that the speech wasn't over yet.

"Now believe it or not, I know what you're thinking." Emma went on. "You're thinking "Pretty words from the human noble-woman who can retreat behind her castle walls to her life of privilege." And you would be correct, I can do that and I absolutely intend to do so. I need to examine myself and my actions for a while but I said that there were two things that my father told me about apologising.

"The second thing that he told me about apologising is that it is not enough to _say_ that you are sorry, nor is it enough to know why what you have done is wrong. The real part of the apology comes when you take steps to correct the mistake and to make sure that the thing that you are apologising for, never happens again. You have to show the injured parties, that means you, that you are making changes.

"To that end, I promise that I will do what I can to help you. I will not do anything to harm those people for whom I already hold responsibilities such as the people who already live on lands that I administer. But there are things I can do.

"To start with there is this. If you wish to stay in this part of the world, no judgement from me, this is your home after all, then I will ensure that Lord Samuel Kalayn, another younger brother of mine, will treat you fairly. I have, not inconsiderable, influence with him and I will use it to your benefit wherever I can.

"Or you can come and live with me. Sir Rickard of my castle guard tells me that he is more than willing to recruit any number of you to join his unit. A unit that my family uses in order to protect our roads and our people from bandits and when there's none of that to do, they act as guards for our goods and occasionally our persons, as you all saw they did with Freddie. If you prefer to leave the more combative side of life behind you, and who could blame you, then simply tell me of your capabilities and expertise and I will find work for you that you will be comfortable with, with employers who will treat you fairly on the grounds that, ultimately, you will be working for me.

"If you would rather travel, my mercantile enterprises are always in need of more workers, as wagon masters, trail blazers, guards, sailors, ship masters, warehouse guards, administrators, factotums and everything in between. I will be able to find you work easily.

"I also have no doubt that Freddie himself will take you with him when he gets married as well if that's the kind of thing that you fancy.

"I cannot promise you a life of complete safety, not can I promise you a life of idleness and comfort. But I can promise you that I will work as hard for you as I can and that you will always have a friend in me and anyone else that I might have influence over.

"Spread the word as well. My people and I already employ many dwarves and more than one gnome. Halflings work our fields and we are only under-represented by Elves. If you hear or meet any of your people that are looking for a fair chance, then send them to me.

"That's all that I have to say."

She stepped down and started talking to Chireadean, who hugged her. I was, a little, astonished.

I stood there for what felt like an age waiting for the world to start making sense.

"See," Laurelen is surprisingly good at sneaking up on people. "I told you she would change her mind."

"Is it a genuine change or is it something else?"

"I think it's genuine. Time will tell though and I can promise you that I will be there to keep her on the straight and narrow."

I turned to the Sorceress and hugged her. "Thank you." I whispered.

"Thank you as well." She whispered back. "You gave her the kick and showed us both a problem that neither of us really knew existed. Now go inside and get back to bed before you catch your death."

"I'm pretty sure that I've already caught a little cold, what could more hurt?"

"Just off the top of my head? Your lungs, your heart..."

"Ok, I get the picture," I told her as I turned to re-enter my pavilion.

"Also your brain, your nose..."

I left her there, listing off the things that could be damaged by colds.

I didn't have to wait long before Emma swept the entrance flap to the tent aside.

"What did you think of my speech?" She demanded with a little bit of a wicked smile about her eyes.

"Not bad." I told her. "How long did it take you to practice it in front of a mirror?"

"Cheeky sod." She told me, pulling over a stool. "And after all I've done for you."

"What have you done exactly?" I realised that I was grinning.

"I all but raised you with my own two hands," her voice quavered in an impression of a much older woman. "I protected you from the darkness on the outside of things that you have not seen and could not comprehend. Did I not protect you from harm, protect you from parents and the scolding of tutors?"

I had start chuckling which, in turn, made me cough.

"Flame but I've missed you Emma."

"I've missed you too. You seem different since I last saw you. Not including the time when you scolded me about my attitudes, but from back when you and Kerrass last stayed with us. You seem a little more...I don't know...calm. Less angry I mean, despite having plenty of things to be angry about. You seem more at peace somehow."

"Well, about that..."

I began to tell her my own account of what happened since I had last left Coulthard castle. Including telling her about my realisations under the rock. Of my conversations on the subjects of anger and my deepening distress at the state of things with Kerrass, Rickard and Ariadne. Despite everything, Emma is my closest friend as well as being my sister and my mother. Towards the end of my story, I remembered laughing.

"What's so funny?"

"It's an odd feeling, but I almost feel as though I've missed you somehow. I only saw you last a couple of months ago and yet I feel as though I haven't seen you in years. Which is ironic because before that we've spent longer apart and yet we've been able to take up almost directly from where we left off."

"A lot has happened in the last six months." She told me with a haunted look in her eyes. "A lot has happened."

I finished my story and then Emma had some questions. I still hadn't told her about Ella as I was still determined that I would deal with that problem myself. I had questions that I wanted to ask that Elven alchemist.

Emma sat in silence.

"So what _has_ happened in the last six months?" I asked her. "Last time we talked you were in the process of expanding the Oxenfurt docks, fighting the Novigrad customs keepers and pursuing a personal vendetta with half the administrators in Redania."

Emma smiled at the thought and I was amazed to see her eyes fill up with tears.

"Oh that's only the half of it," she told me with a very shaky smile. "Along with all of that I've had a wedding to plan for my favourite little brother. A wedding, by the way, that the Empress of Nilfgaard and the entire continent wants to attend and have more than a little say in how it's run. I've also had to deal with the fact that my big brother is dying, my other little brother is growing more and more distant from me by the day and Mother isn't returning my letters. I know that she was going into isolation to a healing order so that for all I know she's off somewhere giving healing out to people infinitely less fortunate than ourselves and is simply not receiving the letters.

"The family has been audited by Imperial investigators, not to see if we've done anything wrong but because they want to know just how many people that we've pissed off and upset."

She fastened her eyes to mine. "Freddie, it's a lot. A lot of people hate us and I find that I don't like it. I know that Father, and Grandfather had to work damn hard and step on a lot of people to get our family to where we are now but at the same time, I had not realised it was so many, nor had I realised just how many people that hate us. Or how many people _I_ have hurt in continuing our father's legacy.

"And I know, I _know_ that some of those people are worse than we are. I know that some of those people are scum and devious and cruel and have committed those same cruelties on other people. Worse cruelties even but when they put it all down on a piece of paper and you are forced to look at it...?"

She shook her head, eyes brimming with tears.

"The Empress came to see me." She went on, just the hint of a tremor in the back of her voice somewhere. "She came when she had received the same report that I had and commented that most of those people deserved what they got but that doesn't help. I don't like being feared Freddie. I don't like it."

She laughed suddenly. "And then the Empress asked me to come and do my own inspection of the Imperial treasury. She wants to put me in charge of the Imperial budget with a remit of making that money work harder for the Empire rather than going on to provide public works that the people don't want or need or going on to line the pockets of bureaucrats all over the Empire."

"Did you say yes?"

"I still don't know. You are not the only one who is examining themselves. I know that Mark has decided that life is too short, for obvious reasons, and is taking the chance to say what he wants to say before he runs out of opportunities. You tell me that you've been examining your own tendency towards anger. We used to make jokes about your temper tantrums when you were little, remember?"

"I remember. I remember being beaten for them and learning to swallow them so I didn't upset people. I remember that this seemed to make them even more explosive though, if fewer."

"And I look at these things. I want the job that Ciri, the Empress I should say..."

"She did ask me to call her by her name as well."

"Yes but I find I don't really want to. I want to call her the Empress but when it's just the two of us or she has taken steps to make the surroundings less formal then I have to work really hard not to call her Ciri. She doesn't make it easy."

"She likes to put the crown on and off."

"Yes, but she can't. She really can't. She's the Empress and she needs to remember that she's still the Empress when she's drunk and taking a dump in a flower pot as well as being in a frock and wearing a crown."

Silence reigned for a moment after that.

"That's a true story by the way." Emma told me with a sly smile. "Apparently, the roses in Mother's garden are turning out really well this year."

I couldn't help but laugh at that.

"But I want that job Freddie. I want it so bad. I can make it work, I can change the face of politics and the world and I can help this awesome, amazing woman make a difference in everything and I can do that. I have been offered that chance, but I'm not sure I can cope with being hated by even more people. Just from a quick glance at the records I can tell that several powerful people are stealing money from the Empire to line their own pockets. As a percentage of the Empires overall budget, it's nothing. Less than point zero one percent. But it adds up over the years. I pointed this out and the Empress had them exiled and one of them killed.

"I'm not sure I want that on my conscience Freddie. I don't know if I want to work for a woman who can speak so passionately when it comes to the protection of the common folk and installing justice for all as well as improving race relations and the treatment of magic users but can go from that to a cold and calculating mindset. Utterly ruthless in it's obsession to make the world a better place. I'm not sure I want to do that."

"And I miss Francesca so much. Oh Freddie it hurts so very badly."

She shuffled over towards me and hugged me for a long time as she wept.

"Even when I knew that she was half a continent away, I didn't miss her this much." She said into my shoulder.

"I'm the same," I told her. "I keep seeing things that she would like, or think of a joke that would make her giggle while being horrified at the filthy nature of the joke. I tell myself that she would like that and remind myself to make a note of it and add it to my next letter. Then I remember and..."

It took us both a long time to recover from that little bout of tears.

"And then," She began again, "you go missing and I fly into a raging storm of terror that I might lose you as well and then, mercifully, when you turn up to not be dead, you challenge me and tell me off for being far more unpleasant that I had ever thought of myself." She pulled back and wiped her eyes. "I felt like I was having my heart ripped out."

"I won't apologise for it though."

"Nor would I expect you to. You wouldn't be you otherwise."

"As I've said to others," I went on. "I would have shared your sentiment a month ago, not even that. But now... I saw an Elf die to save my life. Others died to make sure that Cavill and his cultists, the same cult that corrupted Edmund and killed Father, would never hurt anyone ever again, including humans. How do I thank them for that?"

I shook my head.

"There is no way I can thank them for that. No way that I can do that, it would seem condescending. I owe those... those _people_ more than I can possibly express and I don't know what to do about it. I should make them nobles, I should elevate them to the level of us, you and me, higher even. They should be kings and Queens and teach us all what it means to be truly noble. Offer them jobs? I feel like we're spitting in their faces but I can't think of anything else to do about it and it kills me that they're probably going to be grateful for it."

Emma said nothing, just squeezed her lips together.

I took a deep breath. "So what's this that Mark tells me that you tried to get him to name _me_ heir over Sam. Leaving aside the fact that Father said what he wanted to happen in his will about the title and land passing down _Father's_ male line..."

"Yes, I've looked at that. According to the lawyers that I've spoken to, Dad named Mark his heir of title and grants of nobility. It was some legal wrangling on his part apparently. The very fact that churchmen are not really allowed to inherit wealth and land was what made it necessary. But they were ok with Mark inheriting the title so long as he didn't inherit the land or the wealth, which is always the thing that people really care about here anyway,"

"That's immaterial Emma."

"I know but there's the thing. If the will had merely said that his, father's, eldest son was to inherit everything, then Mark _would_ have been passed over and Sam would have inherited the lot."

"So?"

"So the title passes to Mark which means that _Mark_ gets to decide what happens to it. Father's wishes on that regard are literally just that. Father's wishes which can be ignored. I sometimes wonder if Father did that on purpose?"

"Did he?"

"There's no way to tell. Mother isn't talking about those decisions and you remember Father's solicitor who was bound to be the one to orchestrate any kind of scheme?"

"Yeah, uh...Bernie?"

"Yes. He died in the Spring."

"Oh bless him. I liked him."

"Heart attack apparently. So there's actually no way of knowing what Father was thinking at the time and knowing Father he probably kept that to himself."

"All of this is unimportant though Emma. Why don't _you_ want Sam to inherit? Father was clever enough to know that Mark would either give all the money to the church, which is a much more plausible explanation for why Father protected the money than some conspiracy theory. A theory which, by the way, turned out to be correct as Mark has all but admitted to intending to do himself."

"Yes. But that's not the issue..." She turned away, thoughtful expression.

"Emma, you seem to forget that I was good at the politics side of things as well, just not as driven. This is nothing to do with Father being worried about Sam and playing legal tricks to make sure that he wouldn't inherit. This is about you. So what's the problem?"

"I love Sam. I really do but there's something..." She shook her head. "There's a reason why he's still unmarried. Mark's illness is getting out. Turns out that there have been rumours about it for ages so everyone knows that Mark is going to pass on. People know that the money and the land and the power and influence is going to pass down the line according to whatever it is Mark decides. Mark, being Mark and something of a traditionalist is going to name Sam heir. So why aren't there eligible women queueing up to marry him?"

"I have no idea."

"Neither do I. There has been some interest from Nilfgaard and from the more far flung areas of the empire such as northern Kaedwen, Lyria and Rivia and people the other side of the Yaruga. But they turn up, spend some time with him and then I never hear anything else about it. I should at least hear _something_. But there's nothing there. They just, never ask for a separate meeting."

"Sam is a soldier," I told her. "He knows next to nothing about courting a woman. He's still, I understand, going to be _only_ a Baron in places where titles mean more than the amount of money and land that comes with it. He barely reads and writes although his math is better than his writing. His knowledge of poetry, history...the arts in general is not going to help his ability to hold a conversation with any kind of eligible noble woman. He's a boor and a soldier. We both know this. He is not traditionally charming. We both know that as well."

"Yes but..."

"What he _is_ , is cleverer than a lot of people give him credit for. He is faster than most people give him credit for and he's also absurdly pretty. Leaving aside my recent problems with him regarding the Elves and the way he treated them and therefore me, he's not a bad guy. So why are you afraid of him inheriting? Why are _you_ afraid?"

Emma thought about this for a moment.

"Men like to talk about their gut feeling occasionally." She said after a while. "This is my gut feeling. I don't think that he's going to be able to handle the responsibilities of running the family. I don't think he's going to be able to expand our influence which, despite my earlier moaning, absolutely _has_ to happen because if we're not fighting other people off with cold ruthlessness, then people are going to see our good treatment of people like the Elves and the peasants, yes I use the word but I'm thinking like them in order to figure out ways to defeat them, they will see that as a weakness to exploit.

"But the truth is simpler than that. It boils down to this. There are two males left in the Coulthard family line after Mark. You and Sam. Of the two of you, _you_ are the one that is _provably_ better at expanding the families influence. You are an academic, you have made us famous throughout the continent when all Father, and I to be fair, were able to do was to make us rich. You have made us popular in ways that I would never have been able to do. You have skills that will be needed in the world that is currently being formed. A world that needs eloquence and learning and charm and humour. Much more than it will need the swordsmanship and the tactics that fill Sam's mind.

"You will make a better Lord Coulthard than Sam will. You will be better for it, better for us."

"Has he threatened you in any way. Has he made your life difficult with Laurelen?"

"No. But..."

"Has he said he wants to do anything with the family businesses and money that don't fall in line with what's needed for the best interests of it all?"

"I..."

"I remind you that he took the money that he inherited and put it back into the family business. Same as I did."

"You're right."

"So has something else happened?"

"No it's just..."

"He wants to do his own thing?"

She just looked at me.

"He wants his own little corner of the world. He wants to take Castle Kalayn and turn it into a reflection of himself in the same way that Father, and you to a certain extent, have taken Castle Coulthard and turned it into a reflection of himself and yourself. You want my advice?"

She sighed expressively before nodding.

"Give him this thing." I told her. "Let him have this land to do with as he pleases. Let him make something of it and when he asks for help, instead of just throwing money at him then teach him. Show him where he went wrong, ask him what he wants to do and help him. Include him..."

"You're going to be a wonderful professor at the university. You're going to be a good teacher."

"Now that's something that a man wants to hear when he's only in his early twenties."

"Freddie, you remember that I've met your fiancee."

"So?"

"And you remember that I'm gay right?"

"I say again, so?"

"So she's _really_ hot. I mean frighteningly hot. So hot that I considered stealing her from you."

"But Laurelen would have objected surely."

"Laurelen was actually quite open to the idea."

"Aaarrrggghhh." I screamed before an idea for some kind of revenge crossed my mind. "Hang on, is there the possibility of some kind of trade here?"

"What do you mean?"

"You get to try to steal Ariadne from me, whereas I get to steal Laurelen from you?"

"Do you fancy your chances?"

"Do you?"

We laughed at the same time.

"What are we saying?" I laughed.

"I know,"

"Besides, the truth is that they would probably run off with each other leaving us both."

"Alone and unloved."

We laughed a bit more.

"Sam has his faults Emma and Flame knows that I am fucking pissed at him at the moment but he doesn't deserve to be passed over because you have a bad feeling about things."

"You're right. But you're not going to be the one that has to live with him if it all goes wrong. You're going to be off having amazing sex with your insanely beautiful wife."

"Thank you yes. I shall remember that this is my end goal."

She grinned. "I've missed you Freddie."

"I've missed you too Emma."

We gossiped for a while after that. We talked about what was going on with the Empress' knitting circle, gossiped about other things and then she left in the evening in order to head home. Sam was still a long way away but she promised that she would talk to Sam when he was more easy to find.

So that was that.

All told it took me a good three weeks to recover, both my strength and my stamina. As always, recovery was intensely dull and boring. I had my work to concentrate on but the person that really kept me sane through all of that was, of course, as he always is, Kerrass.

It was a good three weeks and a bit. By which I mean that I look back on those three and a bit weeks with fondness and humour. Kerrass was, by no means, my nursemaid but we sat and talked a lot. It was a reaffirmation of our friendship and it felt good.

I felt guilty about the way that I had treated Kerrass over the last few weeks and I felt as though I needed to reconnect. It was also about this time that we had the conversation that I had been looking forward to for a while.

"So Kerrass."

"Yes Freddie." He still had a slightly exasperated air about him whenever he was talking to me. One of the first things that had happened when we got back to the castle was that some Mage or Sorceress, probably Laurelen or Ariadne, had taken the time to properly repair his forearms. I understand it's something to do with the acceleration of the bones being reformed and strengthened at a rate far in advance of what they would be normally. He had also found a small cave somewhere nearby where he had set up a small alchemy lab in order to properly restock his potion box.

He had developed a habit of stretching his arms and rotating his wrists, staring at them in marvel before allowing them to hang at his side. He did things like swinging his arms in an exaggerated way as he walked.

The other half of his time he spent training. For some reason he wasn't entirely satisfied though. He was training obsessively squeezing a small rubber ball as well as sword and strength work. Even though, as far as I could tell, there was no lessening of muscle strength, he complained that "they didn't move right" and wanted to "retrain his arms" into doing what he needed and being as quick, skilled and strong as he needed them to be.

"Next time Kerrass, Next time we have some kind of adventure. Can _you_ be the one that gets sick and has to spend a whole bunch of time recovering?"

"I would, but I don't get sick, and it doesn't take me ages to recover unlike someone like you. I have a decent constitution."

"So what you're saying is...?"

"That I'm just better than you and you should learn to live with that."

"That makes me feel so much better, thank you.

"In fact, it's actually a charity for me to be travelling with you. I'm doing you a service is what I'm saying."

"Kerrass, what did you say to the Ghost? And why?"

"I thought you let me off easily when it came to that thing." He sighed. "This is the part where you want me to tell you what happened and why isn't it?"

"It is a little. How did you know what to say? How did you know what to do? Who was that that talked to me about my way forward and answered my questions?"

Kerrass climbed to his feet and left the tent. When he came back he was carrying a large pot of tea and built one of his "hot rock" cooking fires where he heated a rock with his "Igni" sign so that it could provide heat without actual flames that could cause dangerous fires or give away our position with flaring light. Another little trick that would have been useful when we were fleeing from Cavill and his cultists, before setting up a pot and brewed some tea.

"This is a long story," he told me, "and I figure that we're going to need some liquid refreshment." He passed me a writing desk, ink, parchment and a sheaf of quills.

"To be honest the entire thing started when we were approaching Kalayn lands. The long and short of what happened here was that you, your brother, Rickard and the rest haven't really been able to see the woods for the trees. You spent your entire time in this part of the world fighting off individual situations and working to overcome individual trials without taking a big step back and looking at the entire painting. Don't feel too badly about this, it is a common flaw amongst people as a whole and I am just as guilty about it all as anyone else.

"Why?

"Because it all comes down to how we are trained. I wouldn't have the first idea of how to fight a battle. I just wouldn't know how to do it so my method of fighting in a mass battle would be to concentrate on the person in front of me, fight him and kill him before moving onto the next person and so on and on. That is fine, I don't need to know how any of that works. That is what we have people like Rickard and your brother for. Nor do I know how to move a significant number of people through relative wilderness while fighting off hostile forces. That is Chireadean and Rickard again that do things like that.

"You? You can navigate a courtroom, you can talk to people and make them love you. If I dropped you in the middle of a strange city surrounded by strangers and asked you to find out about what's going on there. You would know how to do it. You're even formulating a list of what you would do and in what order as we sit here and talk about it aren't you?"

"I _might_ be." I admitted.

"So what am _I_ good at? What do _I_ do? The obvious answer is that I kill monsters but the slightly less well known factor is that I combat curses. It is a less well accepted truth that Witchers often prefer to lift curses rather than trying to destroy the various victims of the curses. It is only when the victim is actively dangerous that we need to actively destroy the victim, for example, most cases of lycanthropy need to be introduced to the sharpened edge of a silver sword. Some do not, I grant you. Story and history books are filled with examples of the noble Lycanthrope who fought against their more savage nature and managed to become worthwhile members of society. But in the vast majority of cases, the anger and hate that started the curse is enough to drive the victim insane and the poor beast needs to be ended.

"So we all approached the area differently. Sam, when he first got here was concerned about the state of his castle and his countryside. You were concerned about looking for the cult and looking for any sign that they might have had anything to do with the disappearance of your sister. Rickard was concerned about you. The only person that actually came here with the outlook of having a job to do, was me.

"As I say, that's not a criticism. Just a statement of fact from my perspective.

"It was clear from the moment that we approached the border of Kalayn lands that something was going on. You may remember my commenting that there was a considerable magical presence in the area. A field of magical energy that surrounded us and pushed at us. It seemed to flow over us and wrap around us. Much more so than it would normally. Magical force normally flows through the land like streams and, in some cases, rivers. But here, it was like a sea. Ebbing and flowing around the land, manipulated by rocks and dips on the shore.

"There had to be a reason for this and the first thing that I decided I had to do was to look for signs that this magical effect was having on the surrounding area."

He poured us both some tea, sweetening his own with a large spoonful of honey. I like mine a bit more bitter than he does, a change that he considers as utter lunacy.

"That was the basis of my thinking from the very beginning." He went on after taking a long drink. "At first my working theory was that the land itself was scarred and that that was having an effect on the people that lived here. That the awful things that were done up at the castle had, in some way, reverberated throughout the countryside and, in some way, influenced the way that the world worked. This view was emphasised by the hostile nature of our reception when we finally got to the castle. The sense of disquiet that we all felt, yes, even you. It was easy to dismiss these feelings as a result of the ghosts and the evidence of all the horrors that had been committed in the castle as well as the personal connection that you had with what had happened there.

"But then you took me to the village and I noticed something else.

"This is a truly _beautiful_ part of the world. It really is. Even the mists, which to most people living here were a justifiably terrifying occurrence, gave the area an otherworldly beauty that calls to the soul. That and the relatively idyllic lifestyle of the local villagers. That simple arable life where they are provided for, have plenty to eat, lack of monsters...

"Yes there are some insectoids and Arachnomorphs around but not in particularly large numbers and certainly not in a way that would adversely affect the villagers. They had learned to live with these creatures and do so to a better level than most would. They have what they need. My theory changed when I was told about their "Crooked man of the mound." Their Crom Cruarch. A story of which was so vastly different from the entity that your cousin described to us back in Oxenfurt. This was a relatively simple, spirit of the harvest kind of affair. It would not have surprised me at all to find that there was some kind of satyr here that was returning the locals sacrifices with bounty but that simply wasn't the case. It also wouldn't track with the presence of these hounds. A terrorising program of the size that the Hounds had put in place would certainly turn out and discover anything of the size of a satyr.

"But there was a problem. Two problems actually. The first problem was that the villagers version of Crom Cruarch was so different to the one that we knew about..."

"But Mark said that that was not unusual." I interrupted That cultists who get off on the power and the...depravity of certain things often like to take more than they need and to change details of what they had been told in order to better suit what they _felt_ was right..."

"Yes, but that, in and of itself was a clue. The other problem was with the villagers form of worship. They operate a, not unique, viewpoint of how a small scale harvest God needs to be worshipped. They make offerings to the God in return for having more in return. Think about it. They offered the first fruits of the harvest in return for a bountiful harvest that year. They offered the first foals, the first crops of apples the first sheafs of corn. This was true in all things. The Bastards were offered the suggestion of giving up an arrow so that the rest of their arrows would fly true. You gave up knowledge in return for knowledge but there was one thing that was wrong with the situation which was the old story that they used to sacrifice their first-born children in return for everything else. Do you remember?"

"Yes. They gave up their first born in return for increased fertility, for better harvests, clement weather and the strength to carry on."

"That was the biggest clue if I'm honest."

"Why?"

"Because it was wrong. It didn't fit with the rest of the pattern of worship. These primal, old Gods are creatures of habit. They ask for one thing over and over again and then they give back one thing in return. In _this_ case, the villagers gave up one thing in return for many many more of that one thing and the return was quite literal in many cases. You give up Apples, you get more apples. You give up corn, you get more corn. But there was something about the killing of the first born that didn't sit right with me."

"I can see why."

"No, I think you misunderstand. I could almost see the logic that you would give up children in return for increased fertility so, you give up one child in return for more children. But remember that in the rest of the forms of worship, the sacrifice and reward was much more logical and literal in it's chain of thought. So if you were killing a child as part of a sacrifice then the God was just as likely to kill _more_ children, rather than provide you with more. If you also remember, the Priestess, or maybe it was the headman, told us that there were fertility rites where people had sex in the holy place and then they were regularly rewarded with children, despite the proven lack of fertility in either the male or the female. _That_ was the method of achieving more children. So what was it about the killing of the First-born? That was the question that started to oppress me. It was a riddle that I couldn't seem to answer."

He paused for thought for a long while, staring into space before seeming to shake himself loose of whatever he was thinking about and poured himself some more tea. He raised his eyebrows at me in question as he pointed at my own cup to see if I wanted some more. I nodded on the grounds that I was still under orders to drink as much liquid as I could manage.

"And it was that that made me shift my thinking as to what was going on here. It was that question that shifted me away from the land and the spiritual nature of that land having been scarred by the horrible things that your mother's family and the rest of the cult had done. More towards the possibility that there was some kind of curse going on here. This was an idyllic place, populated by good people who were just trying to scratch out a living.

"But then along comes an evil cult that subjugates them and punishes them for perceived sins. Because we're in a modern world, the trappings are slightly different. The Hounds were called "The Hounds of Kreve" and so on but everything about it reminded me of a curse. I thought that the basis of things was that the villagers were performing the rites wrong in some way and that as a result, they were being punished by the spirit of the God, or power if you prefer, as personified by whatever or whoever these Hounds were."

He sat in silence for a while before he smirked. "Turns out that they were indeed performing some of the rites incorrectly. But that's getting ahead of ourselves.

"There was even a point where I thought that what was going on with the hounds was separate from the Cult, but eventually I decided that there was no such thing as coincidences and that the two must be connected in some way. But I still thought that the cult was acting out the punishment of whatever this Crom Cruarch wanted them to do."

"But they were people. The hounds were people."

"So? That doesn't stop them being slaves to the will of a more powerful being. It's just that instead of the curse being enacted as an outgrowth of Sword-vines and a magical effect of lethargy, instead it produced an effect of increasing the baser natures of people as well as an unreasoning hatred of the villagers in these parts."

"So that was where the difference was. As I say, you, Sam, Rickard and the rest saw the problem as a human one. As a military problem that can be planned for, strategised for and defeated with tactics and superior skills. But for me? I saw a curse that needed to be lifted. I would go so far as to say that even had we killed everyone in the cult, then the cult would just grow up again in a different form in order to terrorise the countryside.

"At first, I assumed that the curse would follow a similar pattern to other curses that I have lifted in the past. That we would find some kind of shrine in a desecrated temple somewhere up in the mountains. That there would be some kind of old stone carving or a statue that was painted in what could only be dried blood. But then the scope of the problem seemed to become much larger. Much larger indeed, and as we left your brother's lands and went northwards and back into more settled lands. As we get towards the borders of Kovir, Poviss and the Hengfors league and over to the border with Kaedwen, I absolutely assumed that we would find that the cult phenomenon, the Hounds and whatnot, would turn out to be a relatively localised phenomenon."

He had a little chuckle to himself.

"Boy was I wrong."

We both had a little smirk to ourselves, as Kerrass sat in thought. "One of the interesting things about being a Witcher is that we very rarely get to see what happens after we've hunted. We kill the beast, lift the curse or dismiss the ghost. But very rarely do we get to see what happens as, more often than not, we are firmly, if politely, asked to leave the local area. So we climb on our horses and ride away. The side-effect of this is that we don't really analyse what we did. We don't really look back and think about the actions that lead us to this point. Having spent a bit of time with you and reading your accounts of past hunts, both the popular versions for that magazine as well as the clinical and scholarly versions for the books and the lectures, I sometimes wonder if this is a mistake.

"I still can't quite decide what was happening in these lands and I suppose that only time will provide us with the answers that I would like to be privy to. But I think that there are two options. The first is that we are dealing with a "Two sides of the same coin," effect. There is the evil side that the cultists follow and then there is the more benign side of things, the harvest God that the villagers worship. Again, I more than suspect that this is going to be one of those things where I will never know the answer.

"The alternative is far more terrifying. Which is that the cultists are right. That something came through with the Conjunction of spheres. Another being, vast and terrifying that simply doesn't agree with the laws of existence here."

"The laws of existence?"

"Yes, the basic stuff. That up is up and down is down. That we breath air, drink water and that, generally speaking, what goes up must go down. Fire is hot, ice is cold that kind of thing. Even magic obeys these rules on a basic level. It is a separate force to be sure, but at the same time, it does follow rules. It is classifiable."

I tried to imagine a world where these things could not be the case.

"Hard isn't it." Kerrass said with a smile.

"It is," sure enough, I was struggling to think in a way that didn't involve the most basic concept that occurred to me, that one plus one equals two. I was trying to think of making it a fact that one plus one equals a dozen, but then I realised that the concept of something called "a dozen," was, in itself, partially defined by the number one. So a world where one does not exist. Not because we have not defined it, but because there is no such thing as quantity that can be measured. It made my brain ache.

"You see?" Kerrass was smiling as he watched me try to contort my brain over into the strange and foreign shapes that I wanted it to.

"No," I decided after a moment. "No, I don't. But I suppose that that's the point."

"Exactly." Kerrass' eyes lit up. "You can't imagine it. But just suppose that the conjunction of spheres opened a portal to some place like that. Now imagine that a being that lived there looked through the portal and saw our world. What would it do. It can't come through because it's concept of space is different to ours. But it is jealous and decides that it wants to come through and so it sets out to change what it's looking at in order to better be able to acclimatise itself. It does that by creating a cult. Giving that cult the power and the abilities in order to...to pervert, yes that's the right word, to pervert the world that it has seen into it's own image."

Kerrass sighed again. "Unfortunately, now that I say this aloud, I think that this is by far the more likely scenario. We are going to need to put things in place to guard against this kind of thing happening again."

"I have no doubt that if you talk to the church representatives then they will be all too keen to help out with that problem."

"Yes, but would _their_ people be susceptible to the rot, to the taint. Or would the churchmen use that power and that remit to become corrupt and harmful in other ways as they have done in the past." He shrugged. "I don't have a better idea unfortunately. But still, I'm trying to explain my reasoning as to why I did what I did and why, I think, it worked.

"So, I've talked about the villagers harvest ritual and why I thought that was important?"

"Yes."

"So we went looking for signs of the cult, and as I say, I absolutely expected to find that it was relatively localised, but it quickly became clear that it was much more widespread than we thought it was. Which to me meant that the curse was having a much greater effect. It had infected a significant part of the population, both in the fear and the downtrodden nature of the peasantry...Yes, I know that you don't like the word but in this case it is fairly accurate, but also in the attitudes of the noble classes. Even those men and, to be fair, the women who were involved as well, thought that the practices of the cult were utterly repellent, they were still turned in one way or the other. Either to the fear, or to the overt and over the top belittlement and subjugation of the women.

"To me? I saw signs of the cult everywhere. But we still knew relatively little about the cult, or what we were dealing with. Then we had the good fortune to get captured."

"The good fortune?"

"Yes. I'm not sure I would have been able to put all the pieces together to solve the problem unless we were told about the opposing point of view. It killed a friend, it shattered my arms, made you ill and it has the potential to cause problems between you and Ariadne, I suspect, with the loss of your medallion.

"But on the whole, I would not have figured things out if it hadn't been for the fact that we had been captured. If we hadn't been captured then I would have let Sam, Rickard and the rest mount an armed incursion into Cavill's territory. We wouldn't have known about some of the other people that surrounded Cavill and his son and even now, some of those noblemen that we had thought of as friends as we travelled through those lands, would be riding off somewhere in an effort to go to ground and take the influence of the cult... the influence of the _curse_ with them.

"I suspect that Cavill and his son would have escaped and, no longer tied down to having to keep up the pretence of his noble name, the cult would have prospered. As it is, the mage Phineas has vanished and I would go so far as to say that if evil truly does exist in this world, then that man is one such. I don't know why. Maybe the being from another plane finds it easier to taint minds like his and he genuinely believes what is happening and worships that... _thing_ whatever it was."

"Even so. I can't think that we were better off captured. Poor Taylor."

"Yes, and let's be fair here. Poor us. Not gonna lie here Freddie. That was a dark couple of weeks there. A dark couple of weeks."

"It really was."

Kerrass stared at me for a long while, his golden eyes shining in the reflected lamp light. I realised that it had gotten dark outside. "You saved my life again Freddie. I know we're not supposed to be keeping score any more but I will remember that you did that."

"You are quite welcome." I told him. It seemed right that I hold out my hand to be shaken and he took it.

We sat in silence for a while after that. It was a pattern that we had come to accept, a mirror of our time on the road where Kerrass would explain something and I would note it down. Our surroundings were better than they had been during that time but I was beginning to long for a return to that time. A bit more time out on the road with my friend. It was during the quiet moments like this one that those kinds of sentiments, those kinds of feelings came back to me. I wondered if Kerrass felt them himself.

"So anyway," he said, seeming to shake himself. "Those were the last pieces of the puzzle. I was convinced of it. That our time spent with Cavill and his son, the things that he told us and our time down in the caves. The discovery that it wasn't just some cult that someone had invented to justify their own sick perversions. That there was something here. Some kind of power. That seems certain."

"Why?"

"North Eastern Redania is not the only home of depravity but it is more widespread here and more uniform. The kinks are the same and they all have a common theme. The degradation of women, more so than a willing subservience but this was an outright hatred of them and then the degrading of them to this extent.

"Most men treat women badly if we're honest with ourselves but the attacks on their perso are particularly harsh here. It does happen elsewhere, I am not so naïve to believe otherwise, but what it is... is rarer and the cases where that does happen are more isolated. Sooner or later, there comes a point where a witness, or someone who hears about it will imagine the victim to be _their_ daughter, sister or mother and will take steps. So people that do that have to be more secretive but here? Here it seems to happen out in the open and it's widespread.

"I remember thinking that I had all the threads then. I thought that I could see the solution before my eyes and that if I could just reach out and grasp them all, then I would be able to tie them up into a pretty bow and come up with an answer."

"But then they shattered your arms."

"And stole all of my Elixirs. The combination of the pain and the lack of proper alchemy took away my reason and I could no longer think beyond surviving past the next moment."

"That's not a bad thing. We needed to survive after all."

"True, but this is one of those times. If our positions were reversed then I would agree that that was true. Survival is the most basic form of instinct so if _you_ were the one telling _me_ that you didn't come up with the solution that would have saved lives because you were too busy just trying to survive and worry about where you were going, to find food and shelter then I would say that that was acceptable. But in my case it is far from acceptable. I am a Witcher."

"Kerrass you shouldn't be harsh on yourself about that."

"Yes I should. I am a Witcher. It was my job to solve this."

"You did."

"But only after many others, including Taylor, Dan and the rest, had died. I should have been faster."

"Next time you will be."

"I know that. I do, sometimes, such a goad is a good thing. It drives us to be better."

"Just so long as it doesn't push us into guilt and self-loathing."

"True.

He sat staring at the flame of the lamp for a long time. Slowly, he reached forward and extended the wick so that the flame lengthened and sent the shadows dancing against the tent walls. For a while he looked around himself at the patterns and the movement. He seemed...happy in some way. As though he had found something that was missing. I have no idea why because after letting his eyes dart this way and that, he settled back down to staring at the flame that echoed the dances of the shadows in it's own peculiar rhythm. Moving with the occasional gusts of air.

"I think I lost my mind in those first few days as we left the caverns Freddie. I do believe I went insane." He said it softly, I wondered if that was what my voice sounds like when I give confession.

"What's it like?" I asked gently. I did consider whether I would be better off leaving him to it and not asking the question. But there was something about him that suggest that he wanted to talk about things and it seemed rude not to. Almost as though it might be an insult to his efforts.

"You must know." He told me. "You've come close to it yourself. After Amber's crossing, I saw your eyes then and there was no-one behind them. When you tried to take my knife away from me in order to cut open your own veins. You were mad then."

I shook my head.

"No, sorry Kerrass, but I truly think that I've never been saner than I was in that moment. I was wrong, but there was an absolutely rational and logical progression going on in my head. I was in so much pain then, physically and mentally and I could not see a way out of it. I could not conceive of a life where I wasn't in some kind of pain, or that I wasn't suffering. I just wanted it to end as soon as possible and the quickest way to do that would be to end my own life. It made complete sense to me at the time."

"And that's precisely what it's like. That is madness in many ways, or at least it is for me. When you are sick or afraid, panicky, depressed or any of the other kinds of mental problems." He gestured at me. "When you are struggling to contain your temper. More often than not you know that you are going overboard. You know that you're being paranoid or that the fear is freezing you to the spot when you know that you should be getting up and doing something. That you should be _acting_ rather than reacting. Or you should be calming down and thinking rationally and calmly about the situation. You know what's happening to you and you try to fight it. To put it behind you and to move on.

"Madness? There isn't even the question there, not even the merest hesitation that you might be wrong. For example. I have told you before that I hear voices."

"Yes, you told me that they tell you to kill me on a regular basis. You made jokes about it as I recall."

"Yes. Jokes and humour as a whole are a defence mechanism and I'm just as guilty of employing that defence as anyone. But yes, I do hear voices. They whisper on the edge of consciousness, just about every day. Sometimes, believe it or not, it is even comforting to know that I am never truly alone. But other times, the things that those voices say to me are truly terrifying. But I know that they are just voices and I also know that the majority of the things that they tell me in order to motivate me into doing one thing or another are lies. I can take comfort in that, because it means that I can work my way through to being able to work through the noise and get the task done, or if you prefer, to make sure that I don't simply murder you in your sleep."

"Not as reassuring as you might think there Kerrass."

He just smiled. I wondered if I could see a tinge of sadness in that smile.

"No, I suppose not. But the truly terrifying time comes when the voices make sense. When I find that I have, not only listened to the voices but that I believe them, that I agree with them and that I am absolutely convinced that the only way for me to survive is to do everything that those voices tell me. That's what it's like for me to lose my mind. In the same way that it seemed like the most logical thing in the world for you to attempt to end your life to make the pain go away? That's what it's like for me."

I nodded to show that I had heard him and joined him in his contemplation of the oil lamp flame.

"But then we found the Elves," he told me after a long time. "Or rather you did and I do believe that those Pointy eared bastards saved our lives."

I snorted. "I don't think there's any doubt of that Kerrass."

"No, I suppose not. So they took us aside, give us some food, give us some water and then, miracle of miracles, I could take some Elixir's and start to reclaim my mind from the problems that gripped it.

"And the Elves gave us another gift. They told us the story of the Damaged Elven King."

"Did you believe that story?"

"Not a word of it." Kerrass grinned. "I absolutely believed that Chireadean meant it. And having talked to his fellow Elves, they believe those same stories too. But I didn't think that Crom Cruarch, the peasant God, was some kind of damaged Elven King. I don't believe that for a moment."

"So what did you take from that, because it did rather seem that you found the first step on your path to dealing with the problem while we were in their company, eating their food and drinking their water."

"And you are correct. What they told me was that _something_ had come in order to oppose whatever it was that the cult was worshipping.

"I wonder what it was. One of the things that you have to remember when you're dealing with Elves, is that Elves are just as arrogant in their own way as humans are. Something turned up with the power, the drive and the capability in order to fight the Cult's entity. To modern Elves, looking back at heroes that were born before the advent of modern humans, it is ludicrous to them that the saviour of the local area should be anything but an Elf. In their heads it just makes sense. What else could it have been that would have had the power to see off so massive and terrifying a being."

"What was it then?"

"I have no idea. Although I suspect that if anyone would know then it would be more likely to be someone like Ariadne, although her area of influence was somewhat further south and vampires would not have taken much interest in anything that was going on outside their own spheres of influence so I doubt that there's any point in asking. As it is, we could sit here and discuss it for hours as there's no possible way that we can discern the answer with any accuracy."

"You must have a theory though."

"Theories? Oh yes. A power of some kind, not unlike Kreve or the eternal Flame. Remember that it still has enough power to grant the wishes of the common folk even all these years removed. I also like the idea that it might be something that was opposed to the Cultists' thing. Maybe a being from it's own dimension, realising that it's enemy had snuck through, came through as well in order to help us fight it off. Maybe such things have natural enemies, who knows?

"But what the Elves did tell me was that we were dealing with two separate powers. It was, due to the Elven stories, unlikely to be some kind of situation where we were seeing the two faces of the same God like being. Instead, it was about two separate... _things._ Also from the Elves, it could be deduced that the thing, the Elven King if you like or the Villagers God, let's call the "good" entity "Crom Cruarch" for now so that we can get the two separate in our heads."

"Ok, what should we call the Cultist's God then? It seems only fair that _it_ should have a name as well."

"I dunno...Fuck face?"

"Haven't we given that name to someone else?"

"Probably. Probably several somones by now. But anyway. The point was that there was two things at work here. One was the evil, destructive, torturing thing. The other was Crom Cruarch. It seemed logical to believe that Crom Cruarch knew a lot more about how to fight off the other guy as he seemed to be diametrically opposed to him. So why didn't he leave behind knowledge on how to fight off his opposite number should the whole thing start off again?

"The reasons are many and varied. We know that the majority of the local humans died off. If not all of them. We also know that what Elves that _were_ here eventually disappeared and it wasn't until the area was repopulated or started to recover in the wake of various things that the two powers started to reassert themselves.

"So I theorised that Crom Cruarch had indeed left instruction behind as to what to do. He would have had to otherwise, what would be the point. Which led me to the things that all of the villages had in common. They had their holy places and they had their..."

He left it hanging as if he was expecting me to pick up the slack in some way.

"They had their rituals." I answered. Always a sucker for being a teachers pet in any way that I can.

"Precisely. Holy places and their rituals. So, as we journeyed, not being able to take part in the physical aspect of things because of my injuries, I just sunk into thinking about the ritual and how, in the name of all that is holy, would that help in fighting off the bad guy?"

He had a little laugh at himself.

"The answer, as it so often is, is obvious now that we sit here in the safety of camp and look back on it but the question was what I was using to fight back the pain and the frustration of my injuries. It was how I ignored the voices as we marched and I had nothing else to do but be carried around and treated like baggage."

"I suffered with the same problem."

"Yes, and I'm not trying to belittle your contribution towards anything here, but you are not me. You are, and I'm trying to be inoffensive here, used to being carried. By me as well as others."

"Thanks Kerrass I always love it when you belittle me." I said drily.

He waved his hands at me to ward off my anger despite the mocking nature of it.

"I don't mean it like that."

"I know, but I'm having far too much fun to _not_ mock you about being offensive. It's how you get better at dealing with people Kerrass."

"Why do I keep you around again?"

"I have no idea."

"My point though, is that you are used to being an observer. It's the nature of your job. You're used to being part of events but you are very rarely a participant in them. I notice that many of the times where you have been an active participant make up those episodes that make it into magazine publication."

"Well...It doesn't make for very interesting stories, either to write or to read if all I end up saying is "And then I hid in a ditch while Kerrass killed the Griffin. Or, I huddled in a cottage along with the other villagers while you dealt with the nightwraith that was terrorising the apple orchard. Doesn't make for interesting reading."

"I suppose not, but anyway... I was once again drawn into the question of why the villagers would sacrifice their first born. Back when humanity was just beginning to settle in the area, every child was needed, every child. It was the only way that we could survive so the thought of sacrificing the children would have been foreign and terrifying to the people that live here. That's just how people work. So if there was some being that was telling them to sacrifice their children in return for good harvests, there would be some people who would be for it because there are always some people who will take the darker and easier route. Look at how they summoned that entity in Amber's crossing. Another man who wanted an easy way out rather than confronting the truth that the village was doomed and needed to be completely relocated. But remember what happened to him when the village found out what was done."

"They hanged him from the nearest tree."

"Yes. And that would have happened here as well. When starvation and disease and monsters mean that every child's survival is precious, people don't stand for it. Even the people down in Velen who sacrificed their children to the crones only did so if they had a spare.

"So that was the puzzle. That was the thing that was wrong. I wondered where they had got the rules from. Despite the eventual loss of the Dauk in this part of the world, were there still ancient enclaves that were able to pass those rules on? Did the early settlers in this area get the rules of the sacrifice given to them in the form of dreams. It just seemed so out of place. It's worth saying again that Crom Cruarch seemed a very literal God. He would give you back that which you gave him. If you gave him a lamb then he would give you more. A bucket of apples would increase the harvest. Killing a first-born makes no sense. Because you can't have more first-born there is only one first-born of any family."

"But it was the sacrifice of children."

"But that wasn't what was specified. The thing that was specified was the sacrifice of the first-born. So why was that a rule? How did that help the harvest or help the fertility of the people there, either male or female given that we know that there is another rite that provides people with that?

"I remember the problem going round and round in my head until it seemed to echo off the walls of my skull and set my brain vibrating with the questions. Over and over, the same question. Over and over again until every path was so well tread that I knew them all by heart as well as where they went and what was at the end of them. If it was any other situation, any other hunt I would have either walked away or done something physical in order to distract myself. But I no longer had that luxury. I was focused on the solution to the problem to the exclusion of all other things. The only time I lifted my head from the problem was when we were attacked and we had to choose where we were going to make our stand.

"The truth is that we didn't have enough information. We were getting close to where we needed to be. We chose to stand on that hill in the valley that was surrounded by mist when the fog rolled in. I remember thinking that that place was the place that people were drawing or thinking about when they made those little symbols that denote them being a holy place. The hill surrounded by mist and trees. It left me feeling as though I was getting closer to an answer even though it was still just out of reach."

He stopped talking suddenly.

"I wonder..."

"You wonder what Kerrass?" I asked after he had sat in silence for what felt like an age.

"Oh, I was just wondering..." he shook his head. "Whether this is not the first time that this fight has happened. Crom Cruarch and or his followers have fought against the cultists before and I wonder if we were acting out according to our own whims or according tot he desires of Crom Cruarch and that it was he that kept the answer from me for all this time."

"We're heading into deep philosophical waters there Kerrass. Thinkers have been wondering that for years as to whether our wills and our actions are our own or whether we are all at the calling of fate, destiny or something else. It's another one of those questions that serves little or no purpose other than to give you a headache."

"True..." He shook himself free of that train of thought. "The reason that I thought that was that it suddenly all seemed so simple. As though someone, or something had plucked the covering from my eyes and it all made sense in my mind. The answer to the riddle and it hit me in the face as though it was a sword blow."

He leant forward in his chair, the flickering flame highlighting his face.

"I think...I think that Crom Cruarch is the kind of spirit that doesn't want to give you something for nothing. He will help you but he's not going to just save you and keep you safe from all comers. He expects you to do your part. He requires you to pay attention and help yourself rather than just sitting back and letting the God that you worship do everything for you.

"So what I think happened was this. I think that Crom Cruarch was aware that the followers of his enemy that were most powerful, the ones that felt the enemy's power most keenly were the first-born children. Specifically the First-born sons. And what Crom wanted to do was to teach people what to look out for in order to protect themselves from this all consuming bad guy. He was teaching the people to "watch the first-born" because they were the bastards that would come and kidnap your daughters before raping them to death.

"He was well aware that the people that he was protecting were not strong enough to do this off their own initiative...yet...but at the same time, he was wanting to teach them what was going on so that they would be able to take that initiative in the future. That they would be able to step up and protect themselves when he, Crom Cruarch, was less powerful. A factor that he anticipated."

"DO you think he was a genuine person then?" I asked. "If not Elf, Human or whatever, do you think he was a being?"

"If he was, he was unlike anything that I've ever heard of. But it's possible. He was here to fight something else that came through the rifts after the conjunction of spheres so I suppose that it's entirely possible that he came through another rift at the same time. We hear about other races and things coming through. We know that Humans and Vampires as well as magic and the vast majority of those beings and creatures that are badly described as "monsters" also came through. It is not too much of a leap to think that there were also individual beings that came through at the same time and that have since died out.

"It's also possible that he could have been, or could still be for that matter, something else. A kinder, gentler version of Jack, or the beast from Amber's crossing. There are other beings that travel the paths and byways of this world that are neither human nor Elf but have power that you would find astonishing and otherworldly. Maybe he was one such."

"Do you have any examples of these beings?"

"Of course. You have met several. Maleficent not least."

"Fair point."

"So maybe Crom Cruarch was one of these. My impression of him is that he has moved on though. Either to other places or he's died but it's impossible to say. But as I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted."

"Sorry."

"No you're not."

"You're right I'm not."

"But as I was saying. I think that Crom was teaching people to protect themselves from the cult or people that would follow the teachings of the cult. So he told them to kill the first-born as a way to show them a route forwards to be able to protect themselves and stand on their own two feet. I think that this instruction has been corrupted and confused over the years so that people who looked back on it think that they were supposed to kill their own first-born in return for... whatever. But the truth was that Crom wanted them to kill the first-born cultists in the same way as they would sacrifice a barrel of apples. To show that they were willing to do their part and not just trust in him. So if they killed the odd first-born cultist...That's what we'll call it by the way. We'll call them the cult of the First-born."

"Suitably sinister sounding. I like it."

"So if the villagers killed the odd cultist then Crom would help them out. That's what he was telling them. In the same way that he would give them _more_ apples in return for a small contribution, he would kill more first-born cultists in return for the villagers just killing one or two."

"So you told us to kill a first-born cultist."

"Correct. Cavill was the one person among the cultists that we knew, _for certain_ , was a first-born cultist. The rest of you offered a sacrifice of blood and I changed the tone of the ritual by offering the death of a First-born."

"And so Crom came to help us."

"Or whatever was left of Crom that is still in this area did."

"Holy Flame."

There didn't seem to be that much that I could say after that. A massive thing encompassed into a few short words.

"He seemed angry to me." I said. "He seemed, disappointed."

"I would be too if I had given people everything they needed to save themselves and then they hadn't listened or forgotten."

"From a few hundred years ago to be fair."

"Would you feel as though that was an excuse?"

"Probably not."

"And you are not some kind of supernatural creature. What did he tell you Freddie?"

"What?"

"At the end, when he looked at us all. What did he say to you?"

"Couldn't you all hear it?"

"No. He said things to each of us. He told me that there was still a lot of work to do. He admonished Chireadean for his people's feelings. What did he say to you?"

"He told me that he remembered me. He told me that the magic that I was looking for was old, very old and that it came from _elsewhere._ "

"Ominous."

"Very."

"But it's a way forward."

"If you like."

"So you saved us."

"Yes. I figured it out. And at the end of the day, I can't help but feel that I should have done it sooner."

"Proving that, despite all evidence to the contrary, you are a good man."

"I'm not convinced."

For a while, I was writing a series of small articles at the beginning of these entries talking about what it was that was indispensable to Witchers. It was an interesting series of things to write on the grounds that it has been some time since I have written anything deeply analytical about the nature of Witchers or what makes them a unique phenomenon. Why they have never been used before other than in that very specific format and why they, may, never be used again.

Yes I know that the Empress is intending to found her own Witcher school but the chances of that school being even remotely similar to what has gone before is, to my mind, remote. I think that the new Witchers, if they can be created at all, will become so tied up within Imperial power that they will bear almost no relation to the old Witchers, other than the tools of their trade and maybe some superficial similarities.

When I was writing those small chunks of work on the subject of Witchers, I was writing towards this point. My final analysis of what it is that makes a Witcher a Witcher. I'm talking there about the building blocks of a Witcher rather than the personality, methods or history of a Witcher. I'm talking about the basic things that are similar, if not the same, between them all.

I talked about their weapons, their mutations, their magic, their alchemy and their knowledge. I said that if it hadn't been for Kerrass' input on that small series of sub-articles, I would have told you that it was the knowledge that was indispensable to a Witcher. That you cannot be a Witcher without having been given the knowledge necessary in order to hunt the monsters that were before you.

I argued that without the knowledge that you could use to identify the monster then you couldn't slay the beast. Therefore the most important thing, the thing that you can't be a Witcher without, is the knowledge and the training involved in being a Witcher. How to fight it and what tools to use. But Kerrass argued differently and this is the best example of his point that I can think of.

In order to be a Witcher, you need to know how to think and it is this skill, this ability that is vital to a Witcher.

That may seem like a small thing and until Kerrass actually said it out loud I would have laughed at anyone that told me that. To me, thinking is like breathing in and out and Kerrass, quite rightly, scolded me for that attitude.

I have been taught to think from an early age. I was taught to be charming, witty and learned. Later I was trained to be able to analyse things. To look at things from a different perspective in order to hone in the truth of whatever it was that I was looking at. I would have admitted that I had to _learn_ how to do that but in all honesty, I thought that that was something that anyone can do.

Kerrass argues that "thinking" is a habit that needs to be ingrained into a person at an early age. Learning, in and of itself, is a separate talent whereas "thinking" is a skill, almost a craft or an art in that you need to practice it over and over in order to get better until it becomes separate nature.

Then, he argued, some people never get into the spirit of that. Some people don't have the opportunity and some people just never see the need. When I asked him for examples of this he gave me one of each.

The first is the person that never had the opportunity to learn how to think. This would be the kind of person who grew up as part of the poorer classes. The people that live in the villages and can't afford tutors, where there isn't a priest or learned person who can teach the children their letters. These are the people that never get to learn that there is a wider world out there so they see no reason to find out or learn about it. All they have to do in order to be able to see to their needs of security, a home, food, drink and family is to learn the skills that their parents have to teach them. The rest of the things will fall into place after that.

Most of these villagers only need one miller for example. He will get married because he's the miller and he will teach his son how to be the next miller. That son will have no need to learn how to think. All he has to do is to learn how to work the mill which he will start to do as soon as he has attained the necessary physical conditioning.

Why would he learn to think? He will never really use the skill of thinking and so he will gain no enjoyment out of it. So he never bothers.

The other kind of person who would never need to learn how to think is, socially, almost the other end of the scale. These are the wealthy nobleman's children. Men and women who are utterly secure in their future. The men know that they are wealthy and that they will inherit everything. Therefore why do they need to learn anything at all other than the stuff that they need to learn in order to preserve their wealth and to preserve their position in society. The women know that if they are the children of wealthy parents, then they will attract suitors who are hungry for the money and influence that their parents bring to any future potential spouses.

It's worth mentioning that I would agree with anyone that says that the women get the shorter end of the stick there. Knowing that they will attract suitors is not the same as knowing that they will be happy. That bears mentioning.

But those people never need to learn to think for themselves because then they might question what led them to this place and they need to sit down and do as they are told, just as much as the common-folk who work the fields do.

Those are the two different kinds of people that are the best examples of people that might be quite clever, quite intelligent and even quite well educated, but they will never learn how to think.

Which is different.

It is.

I know some people are reading this with a strange face on them at the moment but it's true. What's the difference?

This is the oldest example on the subject that I've ever heard of and it goes like this.

"The intelligent and learned man will know that the tomato is a fruit. But the man who knows how to think will prevent the tomato from being put in the fruit salad."

Many of you will be scoffing now, thinking that you would never do the one thing over the other. And you are correct. It is an extreme example. But that is because you have been taught about the flavour of the tomato from the age of being able to distinguish between flavours. Not because you had to figure out where it goes in the first place.

It is also true that many people possess the skill of thinking to a certain degree. You use it whenever you have to think about things. Or answer a question. But, thinking is hard and it can often lead you to conclusions that you might not necessarily like. I can talk about this from my own experience.

When I set out on my journey with Kerrass I was the very image of the privileged noble. Even though I was all but disowned by my parents at the time I had still been raised into a life of privilege and nobility. I was educated and I had kidded myself into thinking that I was educated because I was intelligent but the truth was much closer to the fact that I was educated and got into university because I was intelligent but also because my father was one of the richest people in the country.

I had the inbuilt arrogance of nobility believing that people can drag themselves up and make something of themselves. I believed that the definition of "monster" was anything that wasn't human. I believed that commoners were common and the nobility were noble.

Now, I couldn't tell you why I believed those things.

I also believed that my family were good and that anyone who came after us were the bad guys. I had not yet learned to see things from the other perspective. Kerrass had to teach me how to do that.

I did things like wondering how to talk to farmers and craftsmen when the truth was that you talk to them in the same way that you talk to anyone else. Why?

Because they are people.

I had to learn to _think_ differently. I had to examine things from every perspective so that I could see the entirety of the situation or situations that I found myself in.

I am still learning how to do this. I am still learning how to think differently and in every way I am learning that each situation is unique and different and needs to be thought about differently.

So why don't many people know how to think?

I don't know but I have a theory and it's not a nice theory.

I think it's because, to the vast majority of society, thinking is dangerous. If the farmer starts thinking then he might ask himself why he spends all of his days in backbreaking work in order to put food onto the table of some distant noble who cares little about them. He might start to think that he is not alone in this situation and realise that there are a lot more people like him than there are people like them. He cannot be allowed to think like this because if he does start thinking like this then the status quo might change.

If the nobleman's son starts thinking about things then he might realise that what he is being trained to do to the people that live and work in his fields is morally wrong. He might set out to use his families money in order to change things and that cannot be allowed because then the status quo might change.

The nobleman's daughter might start thinking about why she is automatically subservient to her younger brother. She might start thinking about the fact that she is more intelligent, better educated, more charming and better looking than her younger brother so she might start wondering about why he is inheriting over her. She might start to think that this is wrong and she might start taking steps to correct this injustice. She cannot be allowed to think like this because if she does then the status quo might change.

Education is increasingly becoming a virtue and, to be fair, that is an entirely good thing and we should push that agenda with everything that we have. But we frown at thinkers, we don't like them. Why? Because they start to tell us things that we don't like. Things that, if we're honest with ourselves, we suspect to be true.

But it is a skill that is vital to a Witcher. Without that skill, without the ability to think then all of the other things that they have been trained to use, the swords, the magic, the alchemy, the mutations, the knowledge and training, all of them.

They are all useless.

So speaks the Witcher.


	83. Chapter 83

(Warning: The following contains scenes of the results of torture and the mutilation of people. It also contains an extended discussion with a very damaged person who has been abused in the worst possible ways which has broken them to an extent that is extreme. If you are concerned that this might be upsetting then stop reading after the conversation with Ariadne is concluded)

Kerrass and I spent a bit of time talking about what we were going to do next. I hadn't asked him about his religion, his Goddess or any of the new revelations about his mental health. I didn't want to push things on that regard. He had told me that he would talk to me about those things in his own time.

We knew that Rickard was no longer confident in his ability to keep me safe and as such he was intending to turn southwards. Kerrass was arguing that the threat that we were afraid of had been neutralised and so we could continue our journeys.

He had some ideas as to who to talk to about any kind of "old" or "alien" magic starting with the druids of Skellige so we briefly sketched out a plan to head southwards with Sir Rickard and what remained of the bastards. As far as we knew, the greater share of the Elves were going to come with us. Many of them seemed to be intending to take Emma up on her offer of work. I did ask them as to why they no longer felt the need to stay in the area and none of them seemed to have an answer that satisfied, them or me.

Chireadean did suggest that the Elves were disillusioned. That they had believed that they were following the ancient orders of an equally ancient Elven King. The fact that they were provably not, was disappointing to them and so, they no longer felt the need to pursue it. The other option was something that they found quite scary. They were worried that the reason that they had felt so compelled to stay in the area was due to the will of some kind of supernatural entity. The one that we were referring to as Crom Cruarch. They didn't like it. Not at all and as such they were turning their backs on the area.

I had decided not to comment. My only addition was to ask them to delay their departure, as there was still something that I needed them to do.

Ariadne started to show up towards the end of my convalescence.

I was getting to the stage where...How can I put this. I was getting to the stage where I was still sleeping far more than I would normally be entirely comfortable with as I would generally prefer to be up and doing stuff, but otherwise I felt fine. But the Priestess who was still in charge of my care (she hadn't gone to the front with the army, she was still doing various things, including looking after me, and she would be taken up there should her skills be needed. S

he declared regularly and often that "there are plenty of perfectly skilled and talented medics up with the army and one more old woman isn't going to make that much of a difference". (It bears mentioning that, to my mind, she's somewhere in the region of forty five but I suppose the claim of advanced age is one of those things that can help prevent people from taking advantage of you.) She would regularly declare that I was still not ready to return to a fully active life and would regularly threaten to sit on me or have me tied up if it would prevent me from leaving before she decided that I was entirely ready.

She told me that this was the dangerous part and that my immunity to other illnesses was still dangerously low and that, even though the initial illness had worn off, there were still lingering signs of exhaustion which left me vulnerable. It reminded me of the story that one of the bastards had told me about when you want to run away from the site of a crime that you have committed, the biggest mistake that you can make is to assume that everything is ok and that you have nothing to worry about. That is when you need to be at your most careful.

Not that I had any choice in the matter, Kerrass and Chireadean both conspired with her to ensure that I didn't go anywhere so I had to resign myself to staying still and being ill for a while. Oddly restful but at the same time, since the declaration that we might find what we wanted in Skellige, I wanted to be on my way.

The deadline of my marriage was beginning to loom on my horizon and it was weighing on me that, although it was well over a year away before I would need to come off the road, that didn't include winter where the weather and the snow and ice would prevent serious travel. There was also the problem of travelling time between objectives and I was getting worried that although my wedding seemed a long way away, it would creep up on me when I wasn't watching and then it would be there, in front of me and I would be done for.

I would wake up, eat the breakfast that was put in front of me, lots of meat and bread it seemed to me before working on my writing for a while. Then I would get up and go for a walk, or sit and watch Kerrass train which he was doing obsessively, trying to recapture an elusive "edge" that he felt as though he had lost since having his arms repaired. Something about the enforced idleness of healing as well as the shifting of muscles.

I didn't understand and to be truthful, I didn't even really try to understand. All I knew was that he didn't want me to be training with him, declaring that I still needed to build up my strength before I could start on that kind of thing. I did wonder as to how I was going to set about building up my strength if no-one ever let me do anything but that wasn't a question that he seemed willing to answer.

But as I say, Ariadne started to show up for random visits. She would arrive in camp, still being discreet enough to teleport in some distance away before walking in. She would find me, ask me how I was doing before walking up to the castle and reporting to the garrison what was going on at the front before she would come back to camp. I saw her talking to Chireadean a lot who seemed to be rather intimidated by her. I asked him why once and he told me that he had been aware of talking to a friendly vampire on an intellectual level but when actually confronted with her, his mind was at war with his instincts. He found her polite and charming if a little distant but also felt that his entire body wanted to flee from her while waving his arms in the air and screaming like a banshee.

Then she spent a bit of time talking to the Priestess about my progress before talking to Kerrass and then finally coming back to talk to me which is how I learned about everything that was going on regarding the military actions against the cult. We chatted about various things, including my current family politics which she found utterly stupid and ludicrous. Not without reason I should say. But then she would stare at me for a long time before declaring that it was time for her to go.

I was left with the distinct impression that I had done something to upset her or otherwise annoy her, devoting a not small amount of brain power to trying to think about what it was that I had done. You know, beyond the whole, getting myself captured and making myself sick and things.

I remember that it was dark, night had fallen and I was trying to get my thoughts down onto a piece of paper before turning in for the night. One of the few occasions when I had managed to get some room from the various nannies that were set up around me. I was trying to think about how to talk about what had happened in Cavill's cave complex I think, trying to structure it and figure out what I was trying to say.

Sometimes, the cold recitation of facts is not enough to entice me to write, I am not a remote witness and I certainly wasn't a remote witness at the time. I was emotional, frightened, angry and unresponsive. I was desperately afraid of what was happening and deflecting that fear with humour but I had to get past that and talk about what happened.

I was sat in my shirtsleeves and trousers having taken my boots and socks off. Someone had put a sheepskin rug down on the floor and I enjoyed the decadent feeling of cool air over my toes and the soft, warm fuzziness underneath. I was writing by the light of an oil-lamp. Very probably the same oil lamp that Kerrass had brought into the tent when the two of us had been talking. The one that had sent strange shadows dancing around the interior of the tent.

"I have been thinking," she said, stepping out of those self-same shadows off to one side of the pavilion.

"Holy Saints." I swore standing up with a jerk knocking over the stool that I was sat on and sending the oil lamp flying. There was a moment there when I was in real danger but Ariadne sighed and waved her fingers and the flames went out, plunging us into utter darkness.

"Saint Lebioda's testicles." I said continuing to swear. "The prophets giant hairy ball-sack, what in the name of all that was and is holy did you do that for? Fucking hell."

Anger, sometimes it is harmful and oppressive but other times it can be a good way of beating back the fear.

Ariadne said something else and a ball of light floated from her hands and up to the top of the pavillion. I found the light oddly cold.

"That was blasphemy wasn't it?" She asked. "I check because I'm not entirely certain as to the difference between a prayer said in fear and anger as opposed to the genuine desire to swear. If it was blasphemy then I suppose that I should chastise you for the blasphemy."

I was just staring at her. I have learned considerably more about her moods and her ways of thinking since we first met. She looked thoughtful and I had the impression that she was just letting her mouth speak while also thinking around the solution of a problem.

"Chastise me?" I demanded, still feeling the effects of the fear rushing through me. "Chastise _me?_ You were the one that jumped out of the shadows in order to terrify me." The humour of the moment was starting to catch up with me now. "I should be the one chastising you."

"Still, I don't think it's entirely appropriate for you to be using that kind of language," she scolded. "I am newly baptised into the religion of the Eternal Flame and although there are many parts of the scripture that I have problems with, notably the fact that the very belief in the Eternal Flame would cause me to cease to exist, I do not think I should allow you to say such things in my presence." I saw the first hints of a smile around the corner of her mouth. "I am, after all, an innocent, unmarried woman and I cannot allow this kind of behaviour to be carried out in my presence."

"Innocent?" I demanded. "Innocent?"

"Leave it Freddie," she held up a finger in warning.

"Alright," I said with a smile. "It is good to see you, but could you not sneak up on me like that, please? You scared the crap out of me."

"I will take the request under advisement." She declared. "I understand that it is characteristic for men to start to dictate how their wives conduct themselves and I can't say that I am open to such ideas. I think it's important for me to put you in your place and establish the way things will work in our married life as soon as possible."

"You take all the fun out of things." I told her.

"Oh, I don't know." Her smile was broadening now and I began to see the first signs of mischief poking through.

I grinned at her. I had missed her after all.

"So what were you thinking about?" I asked her now that the rush of emotion had flushed it's way out of my system.

She went serious almost instantly.

"Yes," she said, suddenly frowning in thought. "Well." Then she nodded as though a decision had finally been made, as though something unpleasant needed to be done and it was best to get the unpleasantness out of the way as soon as possible. "I have come to a decision. It has been made perfectly clear that any medallion or any other kind of charm that I might give you can be broken or taken from you. Odd that it honestly didn't occur to me that someone would do such a thing, but now I think it's vital that certain steps should be taken to prevent this occurrence from ever happening again."

"Right?"

"Take all your clothes off."

"What?"

She had already set her staff aside, sat on one of the stools and was pulling her boots off. "Take all your clothes of. Now please, we don't have a great deal of time. I need to be back north before morning."

"Ariadne, what the fuck?"

"Precisely my point. Take your clothes off please and let's get on with this."

She started pulling her robes off and stood before me completely naked. Entire parts of my brain stopped working.

No, I'm not going to describe what she looks like other than to say that she took my breath away.

"Ariadne, wait, what are you doing?""

"You're still wearing clothes Freddie, we need you to be naked to get this done." It was the matter of factness about the way she said this that broke my heart. Not that I was particularly in a mental place to be taking carnal actions but those words just seemed to pour cold water all over whatever there was.

"To...To get...w..w.w...what done?"

"I will not lose you again." The words were said with a force. It wasn't loud, she didn't yell or shout (Yes, they are two separate things) but at the same time it was as though I had been hit in the face by a gust of wind. The raw emotion made it more forceful.

Looking back it is easy to see that I am not the only person that responds to heights of fear with anger.

"I won't do it Freddie, I won't. They were this close, _this_ close," she brought her finger and thumb together so that they were barely touching and held it up for my inspection. "to taking you from me. So close that I wake up dreaming about it." The way she said it made it sound as though she was giving me the punchline to a joke.

She suddenly seemed to be clothed again, wrapped in darkness that was certainly not made out of any kind of cloth. I knew she was still not wearing any clothes as her robe, boots and staff were carefully piled nearby.

"I still can't believe it," she went on, pacing back and forward, her voice high with amazement, the same tone of voice that I would use to tell an amazing but funny story in the pub. "First that they would try and take you from me but then that you have come back. My reaction to the entire situation is really quite interesting.

"My heart surged when I saw you and it was all I could do not to just teleport us both away with the thought that you would never forgive me if I did that... That's why I keep coming back to the castle, they don't need reports as to what is going on. Command is in the field and if I have anything to say to them or if they need anything then I would go to where they are. But I can't help it. I need to know where you are and I need to know that you're not in any danger. My reaction is absolutely fascinating."

She stopped and spun to face me. All the way through that speech she had spoken in the form of a scientist examining different theories about what to do or different things to try. She seemed amazed both at the temerity of the people that had taken the medallion away from me and at her own emotional state.

"Since you reappeared, I've been racking my brains to think of a way that I can keep you safe so that this kind of thing never happens again. Obviously a medallion is useless as, just like the first one, it could easily be taken from you. Maleficent advised me to take you and lock you in a box so that I could take you out when I wanted you."

I paled a little at the thought. Especially as I still didn't know whether or not she had seriously considered this option.

"In the end though, I thought that that would be needlessly cruel. But I would be lying if I told you that I did not consider it...I can't lose you again Freddie, I just can't do it. Please don't ask me..." She said it in the same way that you or I would talk about cleaning out our horse's stable. She suddenly reminded me of a much younger Emma, complaining about having to get dressed up to go to the ball that our Father had organised in an effort to attract suitors for her.

I stood up and went to her. Something that I probably should have done some minutes ago.

"It's ok Ariadne, I love you too."

She looked at me. Her face hadn't changed throughout her little speech, the kind of confused, quizzical expression but now it finally changed. At first she was delighted at my declaration of love, her eyes shone and her lips parted in amazement and happiness, then the fear clouded her eyes again for a dark moment followed by a realisation that I could not identify.

Then she hugged me and pulled me close. Even if I wanted to I don't think there was anything I could have done to stop it. I stood there for a while realising, not for the first time, that Ariadne wasn't actually that tall. It was just her attitude and behaviour that gave the impression that she was much taller than she actually was.

I just held onto her and stroked her hair which felt thick and smooth.

Slowly though, the feel of cloth underneath my other hand began to fade to be replaced by the feeling of smooth skin. I felt my breath shudder in my throat.

"Ariadne?" I said quietly.

"What is it?"

"You're naked."

"Yes I know. Although there are ways of doing this while being fully clothed, from everything that I have read as well as the experiments that I have performed, it is much easier to have sex with someone when all participants are naked."

I felt myself begin to grin as well as certain parts of anatomy beginning to react. "Experiments?" I wondered.

"Naturally. It would be the height of stupidity to act on something when you care about the results without first trying things out first. You need to know how everything works after all."

"Do they?" I cursed my curiosity under my breath.

"As I told you the day when you..." she cleared her throat, "when you proposed. I have already ascertained that vampiric sexual organs, erogenous zones and pleasure centres are tolerably close enough to human equivalents for us to give each other carnal pleasure should we so desire."

"I do, very much so." I said after swallowing a few times.

"I had hoped that that would be the case."

"Can I ask another question?"

"Of course."

"There was a while there where you looked as though you were clothed again."

"Really?"

"Felt like it too."

"Fascinating. It must be some kind of emotional, involuntary response. I really must look into that when I have time."

"But now you're..." I had to swallow. "very...naked again."

"Yes, well, as I say, it's hard to have sex with someone if they're fully clothed. I suppose that I could hitch some skirts up though but you, at least, will need to diverge yourself of your trews."

"Ariadne... I thought you wanted to wait until..."

"Yes I did. But I am not going to leave you to your own devices anymore. It's not that I don't trust you, or Kerrass but the fact remains that there are people out there that may seek to do you some harm and I cannot, I will not, allow that to happen. I remember from your account that you were told that if you and I had had sexual intercourse then I would have been able to find you no matter what kind of magical defences had been erected. I have investigated the matter and this is correct. Therefore, in order to keep you safe it is absolutely vital that you and I have sex immediately."

I regularly get letters. Still, even now, after all this time and all the explanations about why I have and why I continue to find her so frightening. I get letters from men, and women to be fair, as to why I don't just have sex with Ariadne and have done with it. I'm not going to go over it again as it's a waste of my time and yours.

In this case though, there was something else going on here that just didn't feel right. I had longed for this woman as I tramped through the countryside, lost, starving and more terrified than I cared to admit. But now that she was standing in front of me, naked and without modesty, there was something about her matter of fact delivery of the declaration that turned me off. She seemed remote then, far away almost and although she was amazingly beautiful. I found that I didn't want to do this.

"But what about..." I faltered. There was still a naked woman in front of me after all. "But what about the need for legitimacy?"

"This is more important than that."

"What about your new religion?"

"This is more important than that too."

"But..." I turned away. The sight of her was doing nothing for my concentration and getting my words in the right order. I took a deep breath. This may have been a mistake as the smell of her nearly overwhelmed me. She smelled of soap, lavender and wonderfully damp spring mornings.

"Honestly Freddie, I would have thought you'd..."

"Please stop talking." I told her. There must have been some kind of strangled note to my words as she did as I asked.

I sat in silence for a moment, trying to think of what to say. Trying to think of what I was trying to say or what was driving my reluctance. I think that I might have been just as surprised as she was at my own reticence. I had dreamt of the moment that I would stand before a naked Ariadne and that she would invite me to take her into my arms. I had used it as an image to keep myself moving forward when all other enticements had stopped working.

"I remember you telling me about the thing with the erogenous zones." I said after a while. "I remember wondering what it meant. I was in a fairly heightened emotional state at the time and I remember wondering if that had meant that I was making myself confused and getting things wrong. Entirely possible I suppose but that wasn't the entire thing.

"I remember you telling me that you wanted to wait for our wedding night. I remember you saying that you wanted to wait for that and as such, I kind of locked off that part of me if you know what I mean."

"I do not. I hope that's ok." She had sat down, still naked and seemingly able to ignore the cold.

"It's ok. I imagine that there will be many of these conflicts of communication by the time we're done. It means that I have put any kind of sexual desire, for you or for anyone for that matter, to the back of my mind. I haven't done it consciously and I haven't done it deliberately. You told me you wanted to wait and I would do anything to make you happy..."

"But I've changed my mind."

"Have you?" I asked her. "Have you really?

I risked a look at her. I still found her overwhelming when it was just the two of us. She was sat on the stool, seemingly relaxed, legs crossed, looking prim and proper. But she had her hands clasped together in a pose of what I took for nervousness. Her face seemed calm and collected but I had learned through past and bitter experience that this did not necessarily mean much. She could be calm, or she could be disguising her emotions.

"Here's the thing." I told her. "I have dreamed about..." I smiled. "exploring your erogenous zones and seeing just what kind of noises you make when I stroke the back of your neck and the small of your back."

I was rewarded by a smile.

"As well as some of the other sensitive places that might be located around your person. That's one of the things that I enjoy most about the entire process of loving a person physically. The exploration of each others bodies. The fumbling around in the dark and the giggling. I look forward to it and I'm honestly surprised by my reaction here."

I took care to stare her straight in the eye. Like everyone, I have heard just as much about the ability of an elder vampire to hypnotise and otherwise influence a person by staring at them as anyone else. But trust starts somewhere and I had decided, a while ago actually, that one of the first fears that I needed to get over was the fear of looking the woman that I love, in the eye.

"If you tell me, that you honestly want to go over to that bed and for the two of us to do our damnedest to make sure that other person experiences as much pleasure as they possibly can, then I am up for it. I really am. If you want to see just how much I love you then I am game for it. But if you secretly want to wait, if you would rather wait for a time when we can do this in a proper bed rather than on the floor or on a camping cot.

"When we are properly married and I have bathed recently. When I, for one I'm not sure whether or not Vampires can be anything other than in perfect health, am feeling a bit better and a bit stronger. If you would rather wait for our wedding night when we can take our time. When we can explore each other with care, kindness and attention to detail. Where we don't have to rush. Where we don't have to...be careful that we don't embarrass others or make others be uncomfortable..."

I was running out of words again. Something about the steady way that she has of looking at me, as though she is staring _through_ my eyes rather than into them. As though she goes through my eyes, past my brain and into my soul.

"We can explore more exciting things later." I told her. We can make love to each other out of doors, in fields, forests and on river-banks. I'm not sure if it's for me but if you want to explore any kind of exhibitionism, if you want to..." I swallowed again. "Try things with restraints and the giving and receiving of control. I'm not sure I'm interested in any kind of "pain" play but...But for our first time. I want it to be special. I want it to be because we both _want_ to do so, not because we feel as though we have to in order to make one or other of us feel that bit safer. I want us to _want_ it. Whether it's on our wedding night, here in my tent or halfway up a mountain in a cave. I want to be wanted."

I leant forward and knelt before her. "So, Ariadne...what do you want to do?"

She stared at me for a time. I won't lie and pretend that it wasn't a little frustrating to kneel there and wait for a decision but I remembered that she liked to think these things through.

"I... I don't want to lose you." She said.

"I know."

"I don't want to spend all of my time worrying."

"I know that too. But, and I say this like I'm some kind of old veteran of love despite only really loving you and maybe one other person really. That's what love is. I worry about you every day. I worry that you will grow bored of me, that I will disappoint you and that you will leave me where you found me, or worse. I worry that I've hurt you, not without grounds given what happened in Toussaint. I worry that I might upset you or make you angry at me. I worry that something might take you away from me. Something that I was not prepared for or could not take into account. That you and Maleficent could get into a quarrel and that she decides to incinerate you."

"I would survive that."

"I know, but it would take you years to recover and what would I be then?"

She sighed. It seemed like a long drawn out thing that she had been holding in for a long time. "You are correct of course." She said after a while. "It seems that all I spend my time doing is thinking about you, wondering what you're doing or where you are. And that was before you were captured. You are right, that I want our...first time to be special, leaving aside the societal pressure of things. I want to do this right. But it's the only way that I can think of to guarantee that I can always find you."

"A medallion won't work?"

"Such things can be countered."

"Then build a better medallion." I told her. "Or something similar, a ring or...I don't know...something else and this time I won't talk about it in my journals so that people can prepare for it."

She smiled then. "I will make you another medallion as well though. I find that I like the idea of you wearing something that I made for you, something that means something to you more than just the fact that I gave it to you. I will think about the other problem."

I nodded.

"But in the mean time," she said. "Would you have any objection to holding me close for a while? I'm told that it's one of those things that couples do a lot when they are upset and I want to see if it works."

"I would not." I told her. "But would you at least do me one favour."

"Of course."

"Please put your clothes back on."

"Is my nakedness distracting?"

"More than a little."

"Excellent."

"Ariadne," I warned.

"I shall put some clothes on directly."

She dressed, far too slowly for my liking as I was still struggling to think and accidentally seeing her naked thigh was a little distracting, forcing me to studiously look elsewhere.

We arranged my sheepskin rug on the floor up against a chest that contained some of the supplies for the camp and wrapped ourselves up in a blanket. She did suggest that we do this on the bed but I rather thought that thoughts would lead, inexorably, in one direction and one direction only. I may say that it took us a little time to get the entire process right and to both of our satisfaction.

We started off sitting next to each other but this felt incredibly awkward. Then she rested her head on my shoulder as we talked a bit more which lead, as these things do, to my putting my arm round her shoulder and pulling her closer in. She shifted a bit and wrapped both of her arms round my torso and placed her head against my chest.

"Well?" She asked after a while.

"Well what?"

"Do I...Oh what is the word...snuggle well?"

I laughed.

"I sense that I am being mocked." She scolded.

"A little." I admitted. "Are you comfortable?"

"Mostly. I'm not sure that I could keep this position up for long as I'm rather concerned that parts of me would begin to lose their proper circulation. However, it is not unpleasant."

There was a pause as she seemed to consider this. "I can hear your heartbeat." She told me.

"That is not the most reassuring thing that you could say in this circumstance."

"When are you ever going to get over the vampire thing?"

"Honestly?"

"Yes please."

"I hope to never get over it. It's what makes you special."

She pulled back and stared at me sceptically.

"Was that what some humans call...a line?"

"Maybe. Was it a good one?"

She harrumphed for an answer and snuggled back down.

"I take it from your response that it was indeed a "good line"."

She said nothing to this.

"Yes," she decided after a while. "I could get used to this."

"Well, in a little over a year, you can do this whenever you like."

"After we are married you mean?"

"Yes."

"After we are married." She told me. "I think we will have far more interesting things to do than to merely snuggle."

"What do you mean?"

Have you ever heard a vampire laughing suggestively?

I have. It's terrifying.

And arousing. I didn't tell her this at the time but if she had sat up and kissed me then, I'm not sure I would have had the strength of will to resist her. Fortunately for both of us, she changed the subject after that.

"I spoke to Kerrass." She said."

"Oh yes."

"He told me for your plans for the immediate future. Off to Skellige while stopping to see if he can talk to one or two of his other contacts on the subject of this "old and alien" magic that you have been pushed in the direction of. Then he wants to bring you South to visit the battlefield of Brenna."

"Did he say why?"

"He did not. I thought he would have told you."

"He has not. Something to look forward to I suppose. Kerrass' mysteries are always good."

She considered this for a long while before shaking her head. "But anyway. Have you made any plans for the winter yet."

"No, No I don't think so."

"I would like you to come and winter with me in Angral. If you don't want to stay under my roof then the Duke and Duchess, or King and Queen if you prefer..."

"Have they not sorted that out yet?"

"No. I rather think that he enjoys not being called King as often any more now that we have more of a presence on the world stage thanks to your works. But his wife rather enjoys being called Queen. She's a nice lady though and she has been a good friend to me. But that's beside the point. If you don't want to stay with me out at the estate in Angral, then I shall speak to the...I suppose that they will be the King and Queen given that they will be in residence at the time, and I will get them to have you as a guest. They will be delighted."

"Why?"

"Well, you were instrumental in saving them and their..."

"No, I mean...why?"

"Is it too much to suppose that I want to see you?"

"Ariadne, I love you. But you're a Sorceress. You can teleport to wherever I am, whenever you want to see me."

"True..." She seemed to brighten. "Yes, I can can't I. But that's not it. I want you to see what kind of a life that you will have when you come to live in Angral. Your brother will have Kalayn lands as well as Coulthard lands and I want you to feel as though you're coming _home_ when you come to live with me."

"Wherever you are, that is my home."

She pulled back and looked at me again, her eyes searching my face. "Now that was a good line," she decided after settling back down.

"I meant it." I told her. I did too.

"Regardless. I want you to meet the house, spend some time there and have the opportunity to spread your legs a bit. The other reason is that it occurs to me that the former Lord Angral was involved in some rather sinister dealings during his efforts to enslave me. It is entirely possible that he might know something, or there might be clues in the area as to this "old and alien" magic that you are looking for. Certainly the magic that he was trying to harness in order to enslave me would fit that description.

"I also want to talk to someone else on the subject and to see if they would be willing to talk to you. It is far from certain so don't get your hopes up. But the individual in question is capricious and so, if they agree to see you, then I would need you to be close by in case they change their mind suddenly."

I thought about the matter.

"Talk to Emma though would you?" I told her. "This is likely to be Mark's last Yule before he starts properly losing his mind and I don't want to miss that."

"This is the kind of thing that teleport gates were invented for. But I will discuss and organise the matter with Emma and Laurelen, do not worry on that account."

I didn't really know how to feel about that, truth to tell I still don't. Even in those years when I had not been living at home I had still been within half a days ride or so. It didn't feel so different to be drinking myself into insensibility in Oxenfurt as opposed to in Castle Coulthard.

It was the feeling of another Era ending I suppose and I wasn't sure I liked it. All of Ariadne's points were valid though. And it would be good to see her and spend some more time with her when things weren't as emotionally tense.

We spent a lot of time talking then. Long into the night. I might have dozed at various points as there were long periods where neither of us said anything. I do know that she left in the early hours when the sky over the Eastern mountains was just beginning to turn a lighter shade of blue. I got to stroke her cheek as she left. Her skin was cool and smooth. I may have imagined things but I thought that my fingertips tingled afterwards.

In the morning I got a thorough scolding from the priestess of Melitele for staying up late when I was supposed to be resting. I argued that I had been resting and spending time with loved ones. She countered with a good old fashioned "is that what they're calling it these days" and made me swallow a mouthful of medicine that tasted like ass.

We were another two days in that place but I was getting anxious for the road by now. I felt as though we had a road forward and I was eager to be on it. This was beautiful countryside but I now found that I hated every peak, tree and rock. I had learned to dread the quiet morning mists and the peaceful sounds of birds in the trees. I found that I reached for a scarf to pull over my face and missed the smells of Kerrass' potion, sharp and acrid though they were.

It was time to leave.

On the second day, I did a small amount of training with Kerrass. We were both rusty and neither of us were satisfied with our performances and we agreed that we would leave on the morning whether the Priestess agreed with me or not.

Fortunately she agreed. More out of a desire to get on with things than anything else. I went up to the castle for the last time as I had no intention of coming back here any time soon. I wanted to see if I could get hold of Sam but I was told by his aides that he was not in residence and it was more than likely that he wouldn't be in residence for some time. I wrote him a quick note to say farewell. I told him that I loved him and that I missed him. That I was grateful for the help that he had given over the last little while but that I couldn't help but be disappointed regarding his actions about the Elves. I hoped that I would see him soon though and that we would have a chance to talk about things. I told him that I would hope to see him around Yule.

I have still not received a reply. Even though it's entirely possible that he hasn't received the letter yet on the grounds that, at the time of writing, the armed forces are still in the field hunting down the last remnants of the cult. But it prays on my mind. I am afraid that I have irreparably damaged my relationship with my brother but try as I might, I can't think of a way that I could have done anything else differently.

Rickard was not needed for the things that I had left to do in this area of the world and we arranged a rendezvous on the road south. Our intention was to travel south together but to split our directions a few days north of Novigrad. He would continue, with as many Elves as wanted to go with him, onto Coulthard lands where he intends to make his intentions known to Shani regarding his future and to take up Emma's offer regarding the future captain of her guard.

Notice I said _her_ guard. Not _our_ guard. He was very careful when he was specifying that.

Kerrass and I took a different path though. Taking those Elves that were still around that hadn't vanished off into the bushes while waiting for my health to recover from whatever it was doing we led our horses through the trees. I had two things left to do. An errand and a conversation.

First I stopped at the old chapel that was Father Gardan's last resting place.

It was guarded now. There were some novices roving over the place, repairing and cleaning it up. Cleaning up the stonework and clearing the ground which led me to wonder what they were going to do with it. As far as I could see the novices were for the Church of the Eternal Flame as well as for the Church of Kreve. They were no more than children and it gladdened my heart a little bit to see them working together side by side. Laughing and joking as they worked. The place deserved a little sunshine.

Father Gardan's grave was guarded. Four knights of the churches. Two of Kreve and Two of the Flame standing at the cardinal compass points. Fully armoured, anonymous in their great helms with their shields on their backs while resting on their sword pommels. They could easily be mistaken for statues except that their robes and vestements were blowing in the wind. I took Gardan's axe from my saddle and walked forwards. Taking as firm a stance as I could I pulled the axe round and brought it whistling down until it bit deep into the earth. He was buried deeper but I thought that he would want to feel it as I brought it home. I walked to one of the knights of Kreve.

"I will be back for the axe." I told him. "Such a weapon should be used for the betterment of the world, not left to rust here."

The knight did not move.

"But I wanted them to be reunited, even for a short while before I return for it. They deserve that much."

This time, the knight nodded. But nothing was said.

We parted ways with the Elves then as they had their own paths to follow. Kerrass and I mounted up and I went off to see my Aunt and the woman who cared for her.

There is something different about a house that contains the dead. A house where something horrible has happened. I couldn't tell you what it is that is different, something about the smell maybe but regardless you can tell when you are approaching a place where something is wrong. Call it instinct born out of experience, call it hypersensitivity or maybe even the fact that the land and the...well...the aura of the palace seems to be scarred in some way. It's the same kind of thing that lends a certain miasma to sick rooms.

I don't know what it was that triggered the instinct in Kerrass and I as we approached the dower house. It was as though the place had lost some of the colour about it in some way. As though the greens of the leaves in the bushes, the colour of the stone and the blue of the sky had just been reduced a little. Turned down like a minstrel who has been told to play quietly so as not to disturb the people eating. We exchanged glances and dismounted.

I felt...disappointed. I was done with the strangeness now. I wanted to go home. Where I was thinking of "home", I couldn't tell you. I have previously thought of home as being Coulthard castle, my lodgings in Oxenfurt and the open road with a camp fire and the beckoning warmth of a bedroll. All I knew was that I wanted to be gone from this place. Gone from this land altogether.

But it seemed that we were not quite done with horror.

Kerrass clutched his medallion for a moment while I tied the two horses to a tree and drew his steel sword. He grimaced as he drew and rolled his shoulders as he did so. I was just as dismayed as I took my spear from my saddle and twisted the two halves together. I was ready to move again but just the act of drawing my spear and getting ready to use it was enough to make me weary all over again.

I had been so done with horror.

Kerrass led me into the stables first, sniffing the air as he went. He went cautiously and carefully, too used to being ambushed I suppose. More than a little bit tired himself. We ran, quickly across the courtyard to the stables, pushing open the doors gently.

The stench was appalling but oddly bearable. It was that that sickened me. I had become inured to it now. Inured to the sights, sounds and smells of people that have died horribly. There were flies there as well, the horses long gone.

"Is that the groom?" I asked. I had not met the man although I knew Kerrass had from the last time that we came here.

"Yes."

The man had been nailed to the ground, literally nailed to the ground with iron spikes driven through his wrists. That alone must have been agony but I noticed that it had been done in such a way to avoid the major arteries. There was little to no blood underneath those injuries. Nor was there any blood underneath the nails that had been driven through the ankle bones.

No blood in those places but there was plenty of blood elsewhere. He had been tortured to death. First he had been skinned, carefully before having his eyes, teeth, tongue, nails, genitals, nose and ears removed. Then the torturer had gone to work, carefully peeling away the man's flesh. I say carefully because the torturer had managed to avoid any of the serious blood vessels and arteries. You could see his internal organ laying open for us to see. Some of them had been pulled out and piled next to him. Specifically the digestive tract.

I stopped looking then. There were signs of blood bubbles around his mouth and nasal passages so I suspect that his lungs had been punctured as well and that it had been this that had eventually killed him.

Skilled isn't the word for it. This was not a torture designed to gain information. This was a torture of hate. This was a torture of someone who wanted their subject to suffer, and suffer he had. It was impossible to tell how long it had taken him to die.

"The cult?" I asked Kerrass, finding that I wanted it to be the cult. I wanted it to be a known evil, something that we had fought before. Something that we knew how to kill. A few stragglers that had managed to escape the rounding up and the slaughter that was happening in the north even now. It wasn't the cult, the cult take more... I don't know what the word is. The cult take more pleasure in their torture. There is less focus and although the cult knew how to torture someone. They do it with the objective of their own pleasure in mind. This was done to make the subject suffer. I knew all of this, I could see all of this in what had happened here and what had been done to this man. But something in me made me want confirmation from Kerrass.

He shook his head.

"Fuck," I said sadly.

We scouted the outside of the house to no avail before we carefully pushed inside. We found the cook in a similar state in the pantry. Kerrass sniffed the air, waved to catch my attention and then gestured at the ceiling.

He had heard something upstairs.

We pulled back and he led the way carefully up the stairs. The first room was empty. As was the second.

"You can come in. I am alone and unarmed." It was a woman's voice, easily recognisable as Ella's voice. She sounded calm and collected. Kerrass ignored her and calmly continued to check the rest of the floor. He left me next to the master bedroom while he searched. We still had seen no sign of Aunt Kalayn but I was no longer hopeful as to her survival. True, there was no longer any sign of the stench that had greeted us when we entered the stables. But I was not hopeful. I edged the door of the room open and I could see the thin form of Ella sat with her back to the door. I looked from left to right but it was hard to see anything else. I waited there until Kerrass gave me a nod before I slowly pushed the door open.

It looked like a sick room, in that it was set up exactly like that. There was the bed in the middle of it with a table nearby along with the numerous bottles and potions that would normally be required for such things. There was even the stereotypical, grieving friend or family member that was sat in a nearby chair next to the sick person, leaning forwards with their hands clasped together while they waited for the person to die.

But that was the end of the similarities. There was none of the smell that I still dream about from my time with my Father while he was dying. There was none of the feel, or the oppressive, close, stuffy nature of that time and place.

Apart from anything else, the windows were open with a flow of fresh air coming through the room, the smells of the distant trees and the various herbs in the air, only the slightest smell of the dead and tortured from the stable and the kitchens. The curtains were pulled back and the room was clean and clear. Bright even.

It was Ella that sat next to the bed, staring at the dead form of Aunt Kalayn that lay there in the room. She was lying back, utterly still with her hands resting across her stomach in that way that makes people look so contented. I noticed that her cane was propped next to the bed and that my aunt was dressed in a fairly standard night robes as though she had just climbed into bed and not woken up.

Kerrass looked around the room carefully, moving past me while I waited just inside the entrance. He checked out the windows and opened the wardrobe before examining the walls and the floor. When he was satisfied he came back, looked to see that I still had my dagger in my belt before nodding.

"Do what you have to." He told me. "I will wait outside for you."

I nodded and he left, sheathing his sword as he went.

All the way through this, Ella hadn't moved. Just staring at the dead face of the woman that she had served. She still didn't move as I walked past her and pulled up a chair so that I sat on the other side of the bed opposite her.

We sat in silence for a long time and it was Ella that eventually broke the silence.

"Have you come here to kill me?" She asked quietly.

"I don't know." I answered. "I didn't come here intending to do so but then again, that was before I found what you had left in the stables and the pantry."

She didn't say nothing.

"What I want to do," I told her when it became clear that she wasn't going to say anything, "is to ask you "why?" before delivering you for some kind of justice."

Still no response.

"Having said that," I went on, "I should tell you that I am physically weakened so if you come after me then there is a good chance that I would not be able to keep from killing you in self defence."

I waited for what seemed like a long time. There was the scent of pollen on the wind, some flowers turning into their budding season and beginning to be a source of reproduction to each other. A bird started singing and I listened to it wondering, not for the first time, what a little bird might have to sing about.

"Justice," Ella snarled the word after a while. "What justice is there for someone like me?"

I looked up. I was still very tired and I realised with a little bit of a shock that I had been about to nod off. I considered her question.

"I don't know." I answered honestly. "Justice is a funny beast. I would like to say that I've been thinking about it a lot, but I really haven't. But I know that it starts with a conversation. It starts when people start telling each other why. Why did they do such things, why did they say such things and why did they behave in those ways."

She said nothing, still staring at the face of Aunt Kalayn.

"I have been waiting for you." She said after a long while. "I've been waiting for you since I heard that you killed that snake Cavill... No that's not entirely true, I think... I think I've been waiting for you for a lot longer than that. Much longer. Maybe even my entire life."

She sighed and she finally let her face sink forwards until she was looking at the floor. A sob emerged from her. It was a loud, harsh and racking sound. The kind of sound where you can imagine that it hurts the throat of the person that makes it.

I waited as patiently as I could manage for her to finish. It took a long time.

"Holy fire Ella but what did they do to you?"

She laughed bitterly. "Do you know, from anyone else, that question might drive me into a rage. What did they do to me? They did everything to me. Everything. There is not a single thing that I haven't been forced to endure, not a single part of me that is clean and unsoiled. Not a single part of me...what did they do to me?"

She laughed again and it was, despite the sight of what I had seen in the stables and found in the pantry, it was the first time that it crossed my mind that this woman might have lost her mind.

"They broke me." She told me after the fit of laughter had passed. "They broke me so utterly and completely that there is simply no opportunity to put me back together again. I was so utterly shattered that I might as well be dust. Just dust, blowing in the winds of change, hatred and lust."

I considered my next question carefully. She had lifted her eyes again so that she was looking at the still, grey face of Aunt Kalayn. Her eyes were red but I could see no wetness there.

"Why me?" I asked. "Why can _I_ get away with asking these questions?"

"I read your book." She told me. "You told me last time you were here that you had been tortured. I have been told that kind of bullshit before and so I wanted to know if you actually know what you're talking about or whether it was just the normal kind of one-downmanship that people like to play."

"One-downmanship?"

"That thing. "I had it hard because my mother never loved me." "Well at least your father never beat you," "Did your father use a whip to beat you though," "I never had a father, I was given to a relative. _He_ beat me." A constant race to the bottom where everyone complains and competes over who had the shittiest life.

They are all shit. Everyone has a shitty life and everyone is damaged by it. Everyone. Including me."

I had nothing to say to that.

"But I read your book. You really have been tortured haven't you."

"Yes."

"And scarred."

"Physically and mentally."

She nodded and sat, staring into the face of Aunt Kalayn for a long time. "I held on for as long as I could after they took me. For as _long as I could_. I have no way of proving that but I held out for as long as I could. I can't even tell you how long it was that I held out. I would like to think it was years before they," she swallowed, "before they finally broke me. I would like to think it was a long time. I want to believe that I staved things off for that long. But I was underground and there was no possible way that I could tell what happened or how long it took."

I said nothing. Not for the first time I was being exposed to the truth that sooner or later, people want to tell you their story and that if you leave them alone for long enough, they will tell it. Indeed, sometimes, the difficulty comes from getting them to _stop_ telling you it.

"But in the end I broke."

"Everyone breaks." I told her. "It's just a matter of time. I can say that, not just from my own perspective but also from having spoken to a professional torturer and interrogator."

"But I didn't just break. I shattered."

There was another long period of silence after that.

"Do you know what it was that broke me?" She asked after a little while. "I had been in those caves that I suppose you must have been kept in for some time if Cavill got his claws into you. I had been tied to a rack and tortured, raped and the rest of it. There was not a single bone in my body that hadn't been broken or an inch of my skin that they had left alone. I won't make any stupid claims, I had tried ending my own life but they were well aware of the risks of that kind of thing and easily prevented me from doing so."

She was rambling but I just let her speak.

"The thing that broke me. The thing that unmade me and finally broke me down was a small cup of clean water."

She shook her head and I wondered if I imagined seeing the first tears fall.

"Words cannot describe what it tasted like after all of the awful things that they had given me. After the blood and the urine and the human milk and the...other fluids. Just a clean cup of water and a smile. I have no idea what made the man do that."

"Who was it?" I asked.

"I have no idea. It wasn't Cavill, your uncle or anyone you will have ever meet. This happened, I would guess, long before you were even an itch in your Father's britches. Just some random cultist I suppose. I don't remember seeing his face before or after that. They wore hoods you see, the torturers and the rapists. All I can say is that my body was aching, my skin was on fire and I would have given anything to be allowed to just die. But then he came round the... the apparatus that I was tied to. Just the relief of _not_ having something done to me was...overwhelming. I heard a liquid being poured into a cup. Then he gently tipped my head so that I could drink and smiled at me gently. "Here," he said, "you look as though you could do with some water." He gave me the drink and nectar from the Gods would not have tasted so good.

"Suddenly I was weeping. I must have wept before in the pain or the humiliation, but this was something else. He unshackled my arms and took me in his arms and I wept for a long time. When I finally stopped he pulled away, "ready to get back to it?" He asked me and suddenly I was begging him. Something had shifted in me and I couldn't take it any more. I just couldn't and I begged until I was hoarse. He just looked at me. I remembered that...He just stood there and looked down at me for the longest time. His eyes looked kind.

It's the bizarrest thing, the very strangest thing to fall in love with the man that is torturing you."

"Did you ever see him again?"

"Yes. Many many times. I recognised his voiceHe became my sole torturer but the way he did it seemed to shift. It was no longer about my pain any more. It was a different kind of torture. He started to overwhelm me. It was...The closest thing that I can think of to describing it would be that it was like that we loved each other. It makes me sick to think of it and I know, up here," she gestured at her head, "that he was still torturing me and manipulating me, but suddenly all I wanted to do was to please him. All I wanted to do. Because when I turned him down, or when I tried to resist in any way, then the pain came back and I just couldn't take it any more. I just couldn't...stand it. Pain that I had previously been able to stand was suddenly overwhelming and I just couldn't stand it.

"And it all started with that small cup of water.

"He was my torturer for years and I became his slave in all things. I loved him you see."

She looked up at me and this time I knew that I could see tears in her eyes.

"Come to that, I love him still and I hate myself for it."

"Why not hate him instead?"

"Because I can't. I've tried. I've really tried. He must be long dead by now. If not by your hands then by the hands of age as this all happened years ago. But I still love him and I would do anything at all for him. I hate the rest of them with every fibre of my being. I would, and have, tortured them all to death until what's left of them goes screaming into whatever hell awaits them, but I still love him and I can't stop. Even now. All for the price of a cup of water."

This time the tears really did start to fall.

"After everything they did to me, after everything _he_ did to me, I still love him. It's like a sickness, a disease that infests me from the inside out. Something inside me just snapped when he gave me that cup of water and showed me just a hint of kindness, no matter how feigned it might be."

She bared her teeth in a snarl and started to get angry. "Now matter how feigned it probably was. No matter how much he must have laughed to his superiors and how much he must have told the story to his mates about the fact that all he had to do to keep this Elven slut happy was to give her some water and then she would let him do all of these...things to her.

"Because then the torture shifted to the inflicting of pleasure."

They give you lessons, when you're learning how to transcribe things. When you're trying to note down all kinds of horrific details. They teach you how to keep yourself distant from the "subject". They actually teach you to refer to the person that you're interviewing as "subject" for a start. I've listened to people who have described the horrible things that were done to them by monsters, horrible things that were done to them by people and children crying about the giant creature that came down from the sky and killed their favourite pet sheep. I've been able to maintain that distance and note down the things that they have said for academic purposes as well as for these stories.

Sometimes it's been difficult. Not gonna lie, maintaining my distance when talking to the Princess Dorn when she woke up is a big example. Nor will I lie and try to claim that I've always been successful when my family has been concerned. But when sat, listening to someone describe the things that they have been through, my success rate is pretty high.

It was shaken when she said that. That torture could shift from the inflicting of pain to the inflicting of pleasure. It had never occurred to me that that could even be done. But of course it can. As Ella went on to tell.

"Flames embrace." I breathed. I don't know whether I was praying or swearing. Possibly some kind of mixture of the two I suppose.

"Almost literally," she told me. "I'm a herbalist and a healer. So I know the truth of what I've just said. Without taking a person's psychology into account as to how much a person might enjoy pain, they are the same nerves that carry the pain signals to the brain as are the ones that carry the pleasure impulses. The very literal truth of "Pain is so close to pleasure," because it really is the case. So that's what they did to me."

She winced before gritting her teeth.

"That's what _he_ did to me. You seem like a good man and from reading your book, you are a charmingly normal person sexually speaking with just a small harmless amount of kink in your sexual make-up. You enjoy giving pleasure for the pleasure's sake. But what they did to me was... degrading in the extreme and I would be lying if I claimed that I didn't enjoy a bit of it. The body can be fooled you see and if you fool the body into that kind of thing then it can be implicit in the fooling of the brain.

"All the way through, what was actually happening was that I was being trained. My entire body, my entire being was being trained towards the service of the men that were doing those...things to me. I had been raped many times since I had been captured. So many times that they seemed to blur together. But that had been something that they did to my body. Now they were raping my mind."

She shuddered at the thought of it and her eyes seemed to become a little glazed and she started breathing heavily.

"But here was the distinction. The lack of pain was a reward for no longer resisting their influence, for not disobeying. I became so well trained at that that even the thought of disobeying their orders now causes me intense physical pain."

She gritted her teeth and whimpered as she said that, her skin went pale and sweat started to stand out on her forehead. Again, there was another effort for her to pull herself back under control.

"But there was another response that they were training into me. For taking some initiative, for doing things off my own thought that I believed that they might want me to do. That was rewarded with pleasure. There was still pain there but I had been trained to enjoy it and I did. And I loved them for it.

"Even while I also hated them for that same thing."

She took a moment to calm herself. I don't know what she had been feeling during that time but it looked to have been intense, whatever it was.

"So that became my being. It got to the point where I, now, no longer feel pain except when I'm either actively disobeying orders of the cult, or pleasure when I'm coming up with new ways to make their lives better. My skin actively feels as though it's on fire just sitting here talking to you. But they also tied the one to the other so that it became clear that in my head, not offering to come up with things to help them was disobeying." She hung her head for a long while as she wept.

I wanted to do something. That kind of mute, admittedly male, reaction that sometimes comes over people that have been brought up according to some of the knightly virtues. I wanted to comfort the woman. I instinctively knew that trying to embrace her or to put a comforting hand on her shoulders or similar would, obviously, be intrusive and unwelcome. But then I realised that I was considering offering her something to drink.

Maybe a cup of water.

I wanted to vomit.

"Tell me about how it worked," I said after letting her purge her emotions for a while. "I know that you were the one that provided them with their poisons that they used to keep the populace cowed and our soldiers easy to influence. I also think that it was you that kept the cult informed as to new people that came here. The travelling merchants and the new settlers that weren't following the rules."

"Why do you want to know?" she hissed, the hate returning to her voice. "Is it because I've possibly triggered a trace of sympathy somewhere in your soul and now you want to return to hating me?"

It was not an invalid question. No matter how much she tried to hurt me with it and I took a bit of time to consider.

"No," I said eventually, "No I don't think so."

She looked sceptical, as well she might. "You are an intelligent and educated woman." I continued, "you would have to be in order to do the things that you do but also in order to keep your...actions..."

"Call it how it is," she hissed through a shudder and gritted teeth. "My betrayal of the local people."

"Very well. In order to keep your betrayal of the local people secret. So I knew that there had to be a reason that you have done all the things that you have done. I _will_ admit that I barely understand the reason and that it is more horrible than anything that I could have imagined."

She stopped shuddering and nodded, hanging her head.

"But this is part of an action to tear out the cult by the roots." I went on. "I'm not putting you on trial here. I just want to know. It's a scholars lot to try and see everything from every perspective in order to find the truth."

She looked up at me sharply.

"No," I said. "I'm not going to discuss the nature of truth, objective, subjective or otherwise. I always hated philosophy lectures for that reason."

She actually laughed. A short bark of laughter that seemed harsh and unpleasant. As though it was something that hadn't been done for a long time. Which I suppose it hadn't. She certainly seemed to be surprised by it.

"There's actually not all that much to it." She said after a while. "They wanted something to inspire fear which is a basic instinctual response. It's about triggering the right chemicals in the brain so doing that is easy. They wanted it to be air-borne and they wanted it to be done in a way that their own people could also be immune to it. All of that is relatively elementary.

"Then I added something to alter people's perceptions so that rather than it just being an instinctual fear response which would result in a fight or flight mechanic, I also wanted the..." she sighed and some of the...stubbornness left her, as though she slumped a little. "I suppose I should say that my victims would see what they were most afraid of when they looked at the cultists coming to get them. All of that is relatively easy. After that, it was simply a case of making it stronger, more condensed and easy to deliver."

She laughed again, much more bitterly than before.

"I was absurdly pleased with myself that I managed to get that done." She shivered. "I was always the private plaything of whichever bastard was in charge of the cult after I had been "properly conditioned" and had "proven my usefullness". Before Cavill it was your uncle, the prime bastard Kalayn himself. Before that it was Old Lord Sutch-cliffe and before that it was Lord Cavill again, the current...sorry, the most recent Lord Cavill's Great Grandfather I think. I was like their personal chemist. Inventing new and interesting ways to make it so that the body could take more, more pain, more pleasure, so that the cultists could have their own feelings of pleasure and power heightened. So that they could feel their," her mouth twisted. "So they could feel the presence of _their_ God that much easier."

She shuddered again. In the same way that some people have many different smiles that convey a vast array of emotions, Kerrass being a good example of this and from everything I've read Queen Calanthe of Cintra was another, Ella had a vast array of shudders. Some spoke of horrible memories, some spoke of remembered pain but still others were less identifiable. Some looked as though she was currently in pain and still more suggested that she was...well...not. I didn't ask though. It felt even more intrusive.

"But I'm a herbalist. One of those things that people do when they're herbalists is that they heal people. They look after people. So I did so.

"I did so and then I kept doing so and for the first time, in what felt like forever I started to feel good about myself."

She had gone back to staring at Aunt Kalayn's face again, elbows resting on her knees and hands clasped in front of her mouth.

"You'll forgive me," I began, "if it seems as though you didn't enjoy that."

"No, I didn't." She admitted. "It made me literally sick to my stomach. The first time that a woman thanked me for healing their children I got dizzy and sick. I just made it outside of their room before I vomited violently into the nearest bushes. I vomited so hard that I passed out and the villagers assumed that I carried some kind of disease. It did not go well.

"I tried again and again. But it wasn't working. The cult was giving me autonomy but I was so...conditioned that I always, always went crawling back to them. On my hands and knees. I couldn't control it. I just couldn't."

She took a moment to calm her voice. "I honestly don't remember the first time that I betrayed the villagers. I almost wish that I did. So that I could, I don't know, atone is the wrong word because how could I possibly atone for what I've done. But I suppose that part of it would be to actually feel the guilt over that first time. I would also like to know what it was that tipped me over that edge."

"Why?"

"It feels as though it's significant. All I had done up to that point was to corrupt myself, to shift my own feelings and my own behaviours more towards the deviant side of things. I had only corrupted and hurt myself."

"You gave them the narcotics to heighten their... I'm gonna say "desires","

"Yes, but they didn't have to take them, or use them to inflict pain on others."

"You also gave them the gasses that were used to torment the villagers and the farmers."

"Yes. Again, yes I did. But again, they didn't have to use them. I was just practising my craft. Poison making is integral to the Alchemist's craft. You would be surprised how many poisons are actually beneficial in certain quantites and how many medicines can be used to kill someone. Do other craftsmen feel guilty about the things they make if they are carried by soldiers who march to war?"

I took a long time to think about my response. "In my experience, it depends on the craftsman."

She grimaced at that. "You know, my urge is to tell you that you can't possibly know what it was like, you can't possibly know how it is to be broken on the wheel of torture, of the physical and mental torment that you can be put through in order to corrupt yourself. But you do, don't you."

"Yes I do. But the situation here is different. I can at least admit that. I was tortured to, and beyond, my breaking point by a creature. I understand that calling it a demon is technically incorrect, but a creature of untold power. I also know that the things that it did to me and the things that it made me see, and do, happened in a different perception of the world. In a different place, created by it. This was done to you by people." I shook my head. "I have no idea what you went through Ella. No idea. I am also well aware that suicide..."

"I was kept from it. I was prevented from doing that. There were many times that I just wanted to die. I tried hurling myself onto the implements in order to kill myself. I tried to make them hate me in order to be too rough and kill me the quicker. I tried all of those things, but they were too good at what they did and I was never successful. They had other healers and herbalists. They had mages and Sorcerers to prevent their chosen subjects from dying."

I let that hang in the air for a moment before responding.

"I was going to say that I was well aware that suicide is often impossible to victims of torture, especially at the hands of a skilled torturer who is not up against any kind of time limit. Who can take his time with the way they do things. I'm saying "he" but I am just as aware that a torturer can be female."

"And Elven." She said. "A torturer can be Elven."

I felt a chill go down my spine. "I take it you are talking from personal experience there?"

"Yes. I know you found the gardener in the stables and the cook."

She shivered again in a way that made me uncomfortable.

"Did you hate them so very much?" I asked.

"In more ways than it's easy to say."

I nodded and filed that piece of information away. "But we are getting ahead of ourselves." I told her. "And I have another question. Did it ever occur to you that the cult lied to you? I am well aware that the mind hides things from ourselves when it wants to. That it will forget traumatic memories but is it not also a possibility that you simply _didn't_ betray those villagers that first time and the cult told you that you did in an effort to get you to take the next step. That you had already betrayed the people once so you might as well do it again in return for the offered reward."

"You forget that I actually got, and still get, physical pleasure from the thought of helping the cult out of my own initiative." She told me with another shiver. "But yes, the thought has occurred to me. On more than one occasion."

"And?"

"And, I already know that the cult is evil. In as much as anyone can be evil. They are corrupt and corrupting and... I remember you quoting someone at some point when you said that the most evil act that can be performed is forcing another to perform an evil act."

"Yes."

"Then this cult is evil and I am living proof of that. Even if they did con me, even if those actions were coerced, I still performed the later atrocities off my own _initiative_ ," She said the word as though it was some kind of poison. Her lips twisting in distaste as she spoke.

I nodded. She seemed rather set on self-loathing and might react violently if I pushed her on the fault of the cult rather than her own fault.

"Then, another question. Why haven't you taken... steps to end your own life since you gained your own autonomy?"

"Are you saying I should have?" She reacted oddly, somewhere between anger, hurt and something else that I couldn't identify.

"No," I answered truthfully. "If you've read my work then you will also know that part of the point of being a historian is to be objective and to not let my own personal feelings get in the way of such thoughts. I won't lie, sometimes it has been difficult and when all this is over I might find that I hate you, rage at you or even feel pity. But for right now?" I left that last unfinished.

She nodded, seemingly satisfied with that. "When is it most difficult?"

"To remain objective?"

She nodded.

"When it deals with my own family or loved ones. Then I tend to get emotional."

She nodded again. "Just don't pity me, I don't deserve it."

"My pity is my own to bestow where I wish and is not yours to command." I chided her, with as little emotional inflection to my voice as I could manage. "Look, you might not know this but I've been ill and I'm still really tired. If I go and get some water will you still be here when I get back?"

She nodded.

"And if I bring a cup for you, would you take it as my being taught to offer other people in the room refreshment whenever I go and get some for myself. This rather than any kind of effort to manipulate you?"

"I will try," she seemed to appreciate the humour of my statement while also letting some tears fall.

As I went and found water and some small wine to purify it, I took my time as I marvelled at the maze that she had to walk. Warring with her own body and brain. I also took the time to remind myself at all the horror that she had been part of.

When I returned to the room, I could tell she had been crying and I left the cup on the table next to her elbow rather than trying to give it to her directly. I felt as though I was handling a delicate glass sculpture and that if I mishandled it then it would fall and shatter into a thousand pieces.

"So let's talk about some specifics?" I began.

"If you like?"

"How long have you been doing this?"

"I was based to the North before Kalayn became the head of the cult which is when I was moved here and started setting myself up."

"When did that happen?"

"Maybe forty years ago. I remember your mother and all of the horrible things that they did to her. I invented the drugs that they used to keep her docile. I was there when your Uncle was inducted into the cult and I was there when he was made into the high priest after his father. I was there...through everything."

"Did they...Did they make you watch?"

"All the time. Your Grandfather was an old man, even when he was a young one. He... How should I put this. I don't think he was particularly cruel. He just did things because that was the way they had always been done. He was the one who took hold of things and started to use my drugs to properly subdue their victims. It had been used in the past for people like me and for the children of the houses who needed to be inducted into the cult. But in general it was very rarely used. He was aware that the world was growing up I think, growing up and growing smaller and that sooner or later someone would remember that his corner of the world was remote and easily convertible to the...he called them "new-fangled and trendy religions"."

I nodded, that was in line with what Mother had said about him.

"Your uncle was the same. He enjoyed the rites and enjoyed the power that it gave him. He...got off on it more than his father did. But he had a notable lack of ambition for the cult. You can see that after a while if you work amongst them. When the grotesque becomes normal you see the degrees in the level of monsterdom."

I remembered having a similar sentiment, not all that long ago.

"I don't think your uncle would have bothered really if he hadn't been high priest. I think he would have quite enjoyed raping his sister, his wife and any other people that came near him that he had power over while being off his face on whatever chemicals I could invent.

"Your cousin though? That man was a monster."

"Who was my aunt, before she came here I mean?"

"I don't know, she never really talked to me back then. She came to the then Lord Kalayn from his contacts, probably in return for the money and for proven fertility. The problem was that she was provably good at giving birth to daughters. So when she finally managed to give her husband a son, he almost went berserk with paternal pride. Lavishing everything on his son that he could want, training a true son of the cult in the process."

"What happened there?"

"I think...I think someone got into your cousins ear. I don't know who it was although I always that it was your brother. But he started wanting more. He was no longer satisfied with the little things, the small orgasms. He didn't understand that one of the things that heightens pleasure as well as pain, is the anticipation of the act. He just didn't get that and started to become all about the climax."

She smirked. "Typical man."

I laughed, I couldn't help it.

"He had a colossal fight with his father and Lord Cavill."

"Cavill was involved?"

"Yes. He was starting to become big in the cult towards the north. A true believer and, given that Kalayn didn't have any first-born sons and Cavill, at the time, did. It was thought by many, including me, that Cavill was inching towards being in charge of the cult."

"You were correct as it turns out."

"Yes. I wonder if it was Cavill that finally had your Uncle killed."

"Cavill? We were told that Uncle Kalayn went mad with grief and anger and jumped onto the pyre that was burning his son."

She snorted. "Would never have happened. Your uncle was far too self-absorbed to do that kind of thing."

I stared at her. "Are you sure?"

"As sure as I am that you are sat here opposite me. Although, I should say that I have taken a lot of hallucinogenics in my time and as a result I'm not entirely certain that the sky is up and that I am not a giant Lobster monster."

"Oh Good."

"Lord Kalayn, your uncle, was a self-absorbed madman who liked to look into mirrors when he raped his victims. That includes me. He liked us to look up at him and tell him how beautiful he was. How clever and wonderful and marvellous. To him, he was the most important person in the universe. Far more important than his son, his wife, his sister and anyone around him. As far as he was concerned, he should have been the God-King Emperor of all of existence and was actually quite angry at the rest of the world that he wasn't.

"There is no way he would have thrown himself onto his son's pyre. No way at all. He would have fought in order to save his son's life but after the son was dead, he would have shrugged, serviced another woman and produced another heir. He would have been able to do so as well. He was not young but with enough chemical help from people like me, he would have been able to get someone pregnant."

"Not his wife."

"Goddess no. Her reproductive organs, same as mine, are so utterly destroyed by the many and varied torments that they have been put through that getting pregnant is all but impossible. And the chances of giving birth would be even less likely let alone giving birth to a fully healthy and... able child. His wife would have "died" and then she would have been replaced by whichever of his various lovers, by which I mean victims, managed to give birth first. This would probably happen fairly quickly all things considered and she may even be rewarded with a quick death if the child would be male."

"Flame."

"Not quite what I was going to say."

"But everything we were told about what happened back there was that he killed himself. In despair."

"Never happened. I wasn't there. But it never happened."

I got up. Not out of any kind of anger or disdain but more as a kind of physical reaction. "Well this is a whole new thing now." I walked over to the window. I could see rain clouds over the mountains and I found that I almost wanted to feel the rain on my face.

I walked back to my chair.

"You look shocked." She told me, looking as amused as I had ever seen her.

"Do you know who might have done it?"

"You're asking me?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because you are the only person that might have something to say on the matter. You are also the only member of the cult who I can trust to tell me the truth."

"Really?"

"Yes."

"Really?"

"Yes.

She seemed to think of that a little while. "Really."

I let her mull that around for a while. "So what do you think happened?"

"I...um...I." She swallowed and took a drink from the cup that I had left out for her. It was not lost on me that she took a sniff, then dipped her finger in it and examined the liquid on the end of her finger before taking a sip and breathing the air through the liquid before spitting into a plant pot. But then she took a sip. "I suppose... I think he was killed. If I had to choose someone, I would have thought that it might be another member of the cult. Someone who wanted to curry favour with Lord Cavill by removing a competitor."

She was watching me though, carefully.

"Do you know who it was?" I asked.

"No."

"Are you sure?"

She took a deep breath and looked me in the eye. "No."

"Ok then." I wanted to believe her. "So Uncle Kalayn was Lord Cavill's predecessor to the High-Priesthood?"

"Yes," She instantly seemed more comfortable.

"That means that he was only the High Priest for a little while. I had the impression that he had been the High Priest for years."

"Did he tell you so?"

"Do you know, I can't remember."

"He would have. It might even be true for all I know by that point. Lord Kalayn was a useless High Priest, speaking as someone who hates all of them put together. Objectively, Lord Cavill was a better High Priest and yes, he was High Priest in all but name long before Lord Kalayn died. It wouldn't surprise me if Cavill was wearing the ceremonial head dress long before Kalayn was killed. He was certainly giving me orders and not taking no for an answer. He had taken over "handling" me."

"By that you mean..."

"Everything that you can imagine. I was working for him. Giving _him_ the chemicals and passing on the information on to him that I discovered."

"Why didn't you go with him to where he lived?"

"I don't know. Part of it was that they were concerned that Cavill's son would kill me during one of his rampages. He didn't like the prospect that someone might have been more important to "the cause" than he was, especially a woman. But also, I hated him and Cavill was that bit more paranoid. Also, all my stuff was here, we knew that your brother was going to arrive and take over the Lordship of Kalayn and as such it was deemed prudent that the best agent to the cult would stay here, regardless of whatever else was going on."

"So you stayed here?"

"Yes."

"I forgot to ask. Why did my Cousin leave?"

"He was bored. He wanted the orgasm without doing the work. He enjoyed the torture without understanding that it was the lead up to things that made that work. He was joined by a lot of the younger sons. Truth be told, I think you can analyse it and say that your Cousin is more responsible for the destruction of the cult than you are. Without his leaving, your other brother would have been less likely to be corrupted. Without you finding him, then he would have continued in place until he was eventually caught and killed. Without his death, your uncle would have continued, your brother would not have inherited and no-one would have known that the cult was even here. It would have continued to exist in this small out of the way place for years to come."

I thought about this. "It tracks."

"It does. He left to form his own cult in his own image. And it destroyed everything."

I nodded and drank my water for a while.

"So you were the cult's agent in this area?"

"Yes."

I nodded. "Did you tell the cult that we were here?" I didn't look at her.

"I did. But I didn't have to. They already knew."

"How did they know?"

"I have no idea."

I nodded to that.

"Did you tell them our plans?"

"No. I wouldn't have known. To save you some time. I told them about when I was expecting visitors and who I was expecting."

"That was why they knew to attack the churchmen and kill Inquisitor Hacha."

"Yes. Although it wasn't targeted at him. They wanted to hurt you in order to hurt you and to see how you would react when they punched you in the face. They honestly thought they had you on the back foot there and had you beaten."

I looked back up at her. She was looking at Aunt Kalayn's face again.

"They almost did." I told her. "Kerrass was the one that figured it out."

"Yes, I'm pleased that he did. He was the first person ever that figured it out, the way round the poison."

"It wasn't much of an alternative."

"But even so. I worked hard on that poison in order to make it as powerful and potent and useful as the cult wanted but the more powerful you make a poison, the more likely it is to degrade or have a really simple sidestep or antidote. Which is why the race in Poison making is towards making it as deadly as possible so that it kills as quickly as possible before someone can counter it. Most commonly by diluting it."

"Did you get in trouble when they realised that we had countered it?"

"No, they didn't have time." Her smile turned feral. "I had warned them about the danger of someone figuring out a way to work round it many times. I even told them how it would be done. It requires someone to sit down and actually _think_ rather than reacting to what was happening to them because of the poison."

"And Kerrass did."

"Yes he did and I was so pleased. Pleased enough that I spent the day that I heard about it puking my guts up through the giggles."

"As I recall, we got you to come down and help people."

"You did. And you also may recall that I came in my own time in order to not be puking my guts up as I came."

"We had captives."

"Yes you did."

"They died."

"Yes they did."

"Did you help them on their way?"

"Yes I did."

"Why?"

She shifted her eyes towards me. For the first time I saw through her eyes and saw the broken...thing underneath. The thing beneath the knowledge that what had happened was wrong. The thing that lived beneath the knowledge that she was a woman. I saw the thing that the cult had created, the broken, damaged... _monster_.

I wondered if I should kill her.

"Because I did." She told me. "Because the cult wanted me to. Because it helped them, because it protected me as they might be able to tell you who I was and how important I was. Because I saw myself in them and if our positions were reversed I would have begged for whatever painless herbs that I could be given. But most of all, I did it because I did it and I couldn't have done other than what I did."

"You knew who I was?"

"Yes."

"We were the good guys."

"Were you?"

I was horrified. "We were not members of the cult."

"And how was I to know that."

"So why didn't you help us. We could have stopped all of this, we could have saved so many people."

"Maybe."

"Fucking hell Ella, we could have saved _you_."

"No," She said, "No you couldn't."

We sat in silence for a while.

"Did you tell Cavill that we were coming?"

"No. He knew you were coming anyway."

"How?"

"I don't know that either. Funnily enough, Cavill doesn't really include me in his thinking. I didn't give you away. I don't know everything that I have done for the cult. I don't, and the reason for that is because they broke me so completely that I don't recognise myself when I look in a reflective surface. But the reason that I know I didn't give you away is because, like Cavill, you didn't include me in your thinking."

She was breathing heavily and was plainly furious but I couldn't help it. "How do I know that?"

"I'm a traitor." She said. "I am a sickening thing that I wouldn't spit on if I found myself lying by the road on fire. But I didn't betray you. I didn't have to. From everything I've heard, you did well enough on that by yourself. Marching up to people you've never met before and announcing your name and what you were doing. Even when you were being covert you are the brother of the man that has just taken over Kalayn castle. You didn't hide that. You didn't come in disguise. You announced yourself and they had plenty of time to research you, to look you up and find out what you were doing and what you were like and how you would behave in any given situation.

"I've read your book, I know exactly how to break you if I was to torture you. Exactly how to do it and you announce it for everyone to see and hear. Of course they knew you were coming. It's written in every line that you have ever written, in everything that you have ever said. You would not let this lie. It is the thing that you should be proud of most and the thing that you should protect yourself from, as it will, it _will_ get you killed. It is not a monster that will kill you. It is not some wild thing in the dark or some, unimagined enemy. The thing that will kill you will be the person closest to you and that will happen because you do not see it coming."

I breathed in and out for a moment as I realised that I had gotten angry as well.

"So we won." I told her.

"Yes you did. And after puking my guts up until I literally bled at the same time as screaming in pain and pleasure at the same time, I began to get used to the idea."

"I have to know something."

"Ok?"

"Did you prevent us from being found?"

"No. I was ordered to let people know if you were sighted but other than that it was felt that I would better serve by ingratiating myself with all the newcomers to the area and see if there was anyone worth...converting."

I leant forward. "Was there?"

She looked me dead in the eyes. "Many, many people."

"I see."

"I even reported some of their names but shortly after I did so, you killed Lord Cavill."

"As a matter of fact I didn't but that's beside the point. Who did you report?"

She gritted her teeth and started breathing heavily. "I...I can't..."

She literally almost screamed.

"Alright that's enough."

She stopped gasping for air and started sucking down great gulps of the stuff.

"Just for the record, and I don't like the fact that I can say this kind of thing, but you know that the churches have people who could make you talk."

"Yes they do, but you're assuming that I wouldn't enjoy all the stuff that they would do to me." She hissed it. I guessed that she was saying it to try and hurt me. But I had a different weapon.

"Is that a literal thing or are you just saying that?" I asked her.

"Disobedience causes me pain. Denying knowledge to your churches would be something that would benefit the cult. That would give me pleasure, circumventing the physical pain that they would inflict... Also, is there anything that they could do to me that hasn't already been done to me? Also, how do you know that the people that I would be talking to are above the feelings of being corrupted by what they're doing?"

"I wouldn't. Indeed it has been said many times that some of those people do it because they enjoy it a little too much. But, I'm told by the very best person I know at asking questions, that they only need a knife and... a cup of water."

"They are possibly correct in that."

"So who did you tell."

"The Gardner."

"The one that's currently nailed to the floor in the stables."

"The very one."

"Is that why he's nailed to the floor in the stables?"

"One of the many...many reasons why he's nailed to the floor in the stables."

"What are the others?"

She stared into the distance for a while.

"Everything I said last time you were here is true. Everything. I was in the castle when we learned that Lord Kalayn had died. We knew that your brother was coming and we knew what we were supposed to do. Most of the servants fled. I can't blame them for that, if I could have done so I would have to. I tried, twice. Once I made it as far as the stables before being overcome with nausea and cramps. Odd that I could leave the castle for the purpose of healing someone in the next village over but leaving for my own purposes?"

She shook her head.

"But I was so broken that I couldn't leave. So the Countess Kalayn, myself and the two remaining true believers decamped to the Dower house."

She leant back in the chair and closed her eyes. "Tell me what you think happened. A woman, older than her years and losing her mind due to the truly ridiculous amount of narcotics that she has been given over the many years that she has been a victim of her husband and, through him, the cult. And me, the young looking and pliable elven woman. Locked in a prison of duty and damage with two true believing cultists."

I shuddered. "I can't imagine that it would have been pretty."

"It was not. Fortunately for everyone, including me, they were chosen, primarily for their utter lack of ambition and intelligence. Which meant, in turn, that they had an utter lack of imagination. As abuses go, I've had considerably worse. And then you turned up."

She made it sound like she was discussing dinner.

"So we stayed here. Doing our bit and just waiting for things to go by."

"And then we won,"

"And then you won."

"Did you know about the Elves in the woods?"

She shuddered. "Yes."

"Did it influence you in any way?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"What could I do? By the dint of extraordinary effort I managed to keep myself confined to _only_ reporting on the groups whereabouts when I knew where they were. I could have, for instance, told the cult about the Elven resistance to pain and their ability to bend in areas and in directions that humans are unable to. If they knew that those talents were not confined to just me, they might have taken steps. It took everything I had. Everything. I. Had. To keep from giving them that information."

I said nothing. I was trying to get my head round what she just told me. Trying to imagine a world where it would take me a lot more effort to merely _not_ pass information on.

"So what happened?"

"You won. The others didn't know what to do. But I knew exactly what to do and it was everything that I could have dreamed. I could stop them from talking _and_ take my revenge on those two men. I could take my vengeance out on the cult that did _this_ to me."

"Did you enjoy it?" I tried to say it with as little emotion as possible. I saw a tear roll down her cheek. "Yes. Yes I did. Goddess help me but I did."

"So what happens now?"

"Tell me about Aunt Kalayn. Was she part of the cult?"

"As part of the cult as anyone could be and still be a woman."

I nodded. "So what does that mean?"

"It means that I hate her too."

"But you told me that you loved her."

"That too."

"That she kept you safe?"

"She did."

"But you hate her?"

"Remember the cup of water? An act of kindness is what broke me. How to put this... I was once tied to a table, being raped with the pommel of a dagger and another man was choking me out because he was getting off on it. Your aunt was on the next table, drugged out of her mind so that she could feel no pain. She was in a privileged position which meant that they weren't allowed to go too far with her. She looked over and in her utterly dead voice, she told them that I was important too. Not that she was successful, but she did draw the attention of those that could give orders and prevent me from being strangled. In doing so... she saved my life that day, and the same way in many other days. Not just because I kept her in narcotics. I could have died that day and how many people would still be alive today if I had died."

"There's no way to know that. They have, or had I'm unsure on the details, a powerful mage."

Notably she shuddered at that. "Yes they do. That man needs to die." She gagged at the thought. "But I still hate this woman."

"And yet you poisoned her to death when you saw us riding up instead of taking your time to torture her."

"Yes I did."

"Why?"

"Because she is old and damaged and as much of a victim as I am. She is responsible for so much horror but is she guilty?"

She shook her head. "I don't know the answer to that. But I do know that this is something that was done _to_ her and as a result she shouldn't have to be tied to a different torture table why you and people that you admire try and get everything out of her that they can."

"The cult is dead."

"Is it? You didn't get the mage did you."

"No," I admitted. "No we did not."

"I thought not. You didn't use a past tense when you talked about him. So while someone lives, or escapes, the cult will continue. Especially the mage."

"So why poison? Why not torture her to death like you did the others?"

"Because she saved my life."

"But that's why you hate her."

"Welcome to what it's like living in my head."

We sat in silence for a long time. I sat and stared at the floor for a long time.

"Is there... Is there anything else you want to tell me?"

"Many things."

"Are you going to tell me any of them?"

"I don't think I can."

I nodded and went back to staring at the floor.

"I have to ask this as well. Did you ever try to kill yourself?"

"I tried. Once I even managed to consume the poison, but the nausea that it caused added to the pain that I was already feeling for the disobedience made me vomit it straight back up. My throat bled for a week."

I nodded again. This time I found something out of the window to draw my gaze.

"So there's nothing else that you want to ask me?" She asked after a long while.

"I suspect that there are many things that I should be asking you, but for the life of me I can't think of any of them."

"So," she stood up and her movement drew my eye. She was still looking down at the body of her former mistress. "Is this where you condemn me and take me off to be tried and hanged?"

I considered. "No," I told her. "No I don't think so."

"Oh," she sat down heavily and seemed to crumple in on herself. "I rather thought that I was a condemned woman."

"I don't think it's my place to do that." I continued. "I don't think... I don't..."

I tried to get my words into the right order. "I don't think I can condemn you." I told her. "I really can't."

She sat heavily and was weeping.

"Ella look at me."

She looked up.

"You did what you had to do to survive. And I find I can't condemn you for that, no matter how awful those things were and how many lives have been lost because you...because they warped you so badly. I look at you and I find that I think of you in the same way that I think of some kind of engine of war. You are like a sword that someone has forged for their own purposes. Could you have done other than you did?"

She was openly weeping now. "I don't know," she wailed through the tears and the anger and the hate. "I should have. I should have told you everything when you arrived. I should have saved those people and I should have kept those two _things_ out there alive for someone to question. But I couldn't. It would hurt the cult and I couldn't let that happen. I hate myself every day because of that."

"Did you _try_ though?"

"I don't know that either. I _think_ so."

"Then there is that at least." I sighed. "So I am not inclined to condemn you. But the things that you have done were fucking awful and I can't let you go."

She nodded and her head sank back down.

"Come on." I told her.

"Can you give me a minute to say good bye?"

"Are you going to end your life?"

"No, You might have destroyed the cult as I know it. But my death would still harm them if they do come back for me, they would still need me. You may trust that their orders that I should resist my own death will hold for some time at least."

I nodded.

"Then I shall wait outside the door for you."

She was about ten minutes before she came out and we walked down the stairs.

"I do have another question though." I told her. "Why didn't you go to your people. You knew that they were around, couldn't they have helped you?"

"Have you heard nothing that I've just said?"

"You misunderstand." I told her. "You're an intelligent woman, Elves get sick, could you not have gone to them and told them what was going on and ask them to help. Even if they had to hit you over the head to get you away."

"I just couldn't." She said. "If I left, the first place that the cult would go to look for me would be in amongst the Elven refugees. After everything I'd done, they would condemn me more assuredly than the villagers would?"

"Are you sure?"

"Pretty sure."

"I am not so certain." I told her. "But what do you want?"

"Honestly? I was expecting to be judged today. I was expecting to leave here in chains to be judged."

"And maybe you should, but as I say, I don't feel as though I can do that."

We left the house, she was looking around the building, pain written over her face.

"I just want this to be over," She said after a long while as we walked out of the door into the house.

"I'm not going to kill you." I told her.

"I'm a monster though. Maybe your Witcher friend?"

"He would...I'm unsure on what his response would be. He knows what I intend to do though."

"And what do you intend?"

"I think you've had enough of human society for a while. I think you should be with your people."

I gestured.

Chireadean and the dozen or so remaining Elves were waiting at the treeline. As I had asked them to be. They looked over at the pair of us and watched us steadily.

"They will reject me. I betrayed them too."

"Maybe. Maybe they will be able to condemn you in the way that you want to be condemned, in which case they have promised me that you will be killed quickly, if that's what they decide to do after hearing your story. I just know that I can't do it. But I know that you should talk to them and maybe they can help you. Either way." I shrugged.

"I can't..."

"Ask yourself this. Wouldn't it piss the cult off if you went off with your people. I don't know but I understand that most of those Elves intend to leave this place and go far away."

"It would."

"Then don't you want to do that?"

She surprised me by vomiting over in one of the plant pots. "I really do." She said as she fought down the shuddering that seemed to consume her body.

"Then they are just over there." I told her. "But I can't make you walk over to them."

She nodded, trembling.

I watched her as she struggled with her own body before realising that I wasn't helping. I turned and looked at the rain clouds. It was definitely going to rain, a proper rain fall like the night under the boulder where I had my revelations.

I heard a step behind me, it was a gentle foot fall but it was followed by another one followed by the sound of some more retching.

But then, crucially, there was another step.

"Lord Frederick?"

I turned and she was looking at me. Vomit stained dress and all.

"Thank you Lord Frederick."

"You're welcome."

"But I meant what I said. You're greatest weakness is the people beside you. They are the treats that you need to be careful about and it will be someone you never considered that kills you. Please be careful."

"I will."

"She tried to warn you you know."

"Who did?"

"Your Aunt. She tried to tell you..." A spasm of pain crossed her face. "I can't...I just...I'm still in their grip."

"It's ok. I'll figure it out."

"You won't though. That's the point."

Then she fled. Away from me and in the direction of the Elves.

I stayed where I was. I didn't watch what happened when she got to the Elves. I didn't want to see that. I didn't want to know what happened. I desperately wanted to believe that she could be saved. I desperately wanted to believe that she could climb out of the hole that she had been thrown into. I wanted it so desperately.

What I didn't know was whether or not she deserved it.

So yes, I passed it off into the hands of another. Some might call that cowardly and maybe it is.

Chireadean and his fellows rejoined Kerrass, Rickard and myself on the march South. We had pitched a camp just outside of Kalayn lands where we fished and hunted for our food and waited a couple of days with them. Chireadean didn't tell me what had happened with Ella and I didn't ask. A few of the other Elves had also gone their own way so we were left with Chireadean and another nine or so Elves. Including Carys, the angry Elven woman, which stunned me rigid.

I would like to think that Ella went with those remaining Elves. I would like to think that she made it out of North Eastern Redania and found a place to settle down and practice her craft or find another one. I would like to think that she will find some measure of peace there. Or, if she is dead and her spirit has left it's former shell. Then I hope that she finds some peace there too.

But I cannot condemn her. I don't feel that I have the right to.

(A/N: That's it. That's the end of this story arc. By far the longest that I've written for this story. Thanks for sticking with it and I hope that you will enjoy the future adventures. I get to go back to writing now so I'm afraid there will be a short wait before the next chapter. How short? * **shrug** *)


	84. Chapter 84

I find myself in an odd position.

As I write these words I am currently sat in one of the taverns near the Novigrad wharf having discovered that I have missed my scheduled ship to Skellige and now I have nothing to do until passage can be bought on a different craft, or until Emma can move things around until I can find a birth on one of the companies many merchant ships.

Part of the problem is that Skellige is coming up on the biannual festival of the Skeleton ship. What is this and why have I never heard of it before I hear you ask? Well the first thing is that I have no idea. I have never heard of the thing either but apparently it involves an act of supreme bravery that, if successful, means that you have the rite to ask a favour of either the ruling monarch of The Skelligan isles or of the druid council of the Skelligan isles.

I had no idea that this festival even existed otherwise I would have made it my business to go a long time ago. It's supposed to be a big festival that has taken on a more than significant status in Skelligan society.

Apparently it started due to... _something_ happening, the "something" being a thing that no Skelligan that I have asked likes to talk about. But after that, it has turned into a kind of funeral rite for all the sailors that have been lost at sea since the last time the festival happened and then devolves into a Skelligan wake. The difference between a Continental wake and a Skelligan wake seems to be that the Skelligans treat a wake as an opportunity for a decent party where copious amounts of alcohol is had, food is eaten, fights are had, oaths of friendship are given and received and, I suspect as a result of all the alcohol and high emotion involved, a lot of sex is had.

So why has it been secret for so many years? The reason for it is that because the sea and sailing upon the waves is a nigh religious experience for the Skelligans, this festival is actually extremely important. I'm told that no matter how skilled a sailor might be, the sea will suddenly decide to carry them off to the depths and then it will be them that will be mourned when the time of the Skeleton ship is again on the world. So, sailors being superstitious folk, they just don't talk about it as discussing the dead is considered bad luck.

Why no funeral rights before hand if someone is lost at sea? Apparently it's because they still might turn up alive. I'm told it has happened but without a body to bury, burn or give to the deep. The skeleton ship festival is a time for people to say goodbye.

So why are we hearing about it now instead of several years ago. I'm told that this is because of the practises of the New, or at least newish, Queen of Skellige. From everything I've heard she is a sensible lady, another member of Empress Cirilla's knitting circle, and has started to move the isles away from the tradition of a raiding based economy. It's not that the isles have given up raiding and warfare against anyone that they don't like. Which is just about everybody. But that she has realised that trade is good and that the Skelligans run the risk of becoming...obsolete if they don't learn more about how the world works.

She is encouraging farming reform in the isles as well as that, now, foreign vessels, providing they have been given a pass to approach the isles by the Skelligan crown, now regularly anchor at the main harbours and trade their wares.

It should be mentioned that having one of these passes doesn't entirely protect you from the Skelligan raiders. It's just that you are more likely to get off a bit lighter with only _some_ of your goods having been taken and that instead of butchering the entire crew, you all get beaten up soundly and thrown over board with more affection and good cheer before they agree to meet you at port and have a good booze up to celebrate their victory over you. The booze-up having been paid for the plunder that they took from you in the first place. I'm told by extremely wise people that the practice is not entirely foolish. It is keeping the raiders fighting fit and ready for anything while also improving the naval skills of the continental merchant fleets. Although people still have accidents and there are still deaths, the entire thing is good natured and is becoming a bit of a game.

Providing you have a pass.

So the story of the festival began to be carried around the continent by these merchants that have been at anchor in Skellige when the festival occurs. So why is this important to my story? Because, as with all things when there is some kind of festival in any part of the continent, it attracts tourists. This is made even more prominent this year by the fact that one of these tourists is turning out to be the Empress herself.

As a result, not wanting to be outdone on the hospitality front, the Skelligans are importing foodstuff, party favours and all kinds of alcoholic beverage that can reasonably be carried into port, in order to satisfy the expected demand. Because with the Empress coming North, even those people who wouldn't normally bother with going to see what the entire festival is about, want to go to the isles to see the Empress. So that they can discuss all the important things that they want to bring to her attention because "they couldn't possibly discuss these things with anyone else". I suspect that if she was intending to have a good time at this festival, she should manage her expectations a little bit.

As a result of all this, every ship to the Skelligan Archipelago is full, every berth is taken. Emma has promised me that she can get me a berth in a couple of days time for Kerrass and myself but until then I must be patient.

I am no longer very good at being patient. I regularly go around all the ships at anchor to see if anyone has dropped out so that Kerrass and I could sneak aboard. It's so bad that even the promise of Kerrass' sword and his protection is not freeing anything up.

Kerrass eventually grinned at my discomfort and wandered off to the Passiflora to find himself a woman leaving me here with absolutely nothing to do.

I am more bored than I could feasibly expect to be. So bored that, as I write these words, I am sat at a scribes desk. One of those that you can hire at the rate of a couple of crowns per hour. It's left me feeling oddly dirty as it reminds me of those brothels where you hire a woman and a room for the period of an hour at a time, where the mood instantly vanishes the second the last sand disappears through the glass standing int the corner of the room.

The mystery is, why were we so late? We had left the North in plenty of time, hearing about the Skeleton ship festival was an extra goad to get us out to the islands sooner rather than later, but when Kerrass and I turned up in Novigrad, it turns out that our ship had left two weeks beforehand. I checked with the date and everything and for a while, I thought I was going mad.

We had lost a fortnight.

Kerrass was as mystified as I was but he took it much calmer, he told me that such things often happened when you hang around magic users and magical creatures for too long and that I shouldn't worry about it too much.

Easy for him to say.

But I was genuinely worried. I don't have that much time to waste. As it is, my immediate future is filling up with alarming speed. After the visit to the Skelligan isles, Kerrass wants to take me to the battlefield of Brenna for some reason that he is remaining tight lipped about. Then we're heading over to Angral in the preparation for the winter. This so that Kerrass can investigate the immediate area in search of anything that might be considered "ancient and alien" magic that we can then use to further our enquiries. This in the remnants of whatever the old Lord Angral had used to try and enslave Ariadne. In the meantime I would help him as well as get to know the lands and people of the place that would become my home. Emma had sorted things out so that she and Laurelen would come and spend Yule with us and were arranging matters so that Mark would be able to come as well.

Having a Sorceress in the family is really good for being able to keep in touch over long distances.

Sam is proving difficult on that regard but I shall get to what is happening with him in a moment.

There is also another mysterious "thing" that Ariadne is try to set up that she won't tell me what it is. To say that this is a little frustrating would be an understatement. The two most important people in my life are keeping things from me, in Ariadne's case, she claims that this is because the arrangements might fall through and she doesn't want to disappoint me. In Kerrass' case... He just tells me not to worry about it. Mostly because keeping such things from me is something that he finds amusing.

Bastard.

After that, well...there are several things in the wind. Kerrass has mentioned something about an expedition to the south to consult...something...but we have both agreed that we need some buffer time in case nothing can be found or in case "something" is found or an emergency comes up and we need to rush off in order to deal with that...whatever it may be.

So I feel like a leaf on the wind, being blown about and pushed in different directions. Frustrating? Yes but also a little freeing. It is certainly a release from the darkness that subjected us all from what had happened, and what is still happening to the North.

I will address this first before moving onto other topics of conversation.

First of all, the destruction of the cult is all but complete now. They are calling the cult "The cult of the First-born" which seems as fitting as anything that I have heard suggested. Personally I prefer "The cult of the utter bastards who do despicable things to people that deserve better." or "The cult of people that I wouldn't piss on if they were on fire," or "The cult of evil, insane, deviant freaks who murder and torment people for the sheer thrill of it, that needs to be utterly exterminated like the sick fuckers that they are." I realise that this doesn't exactly roll off the tongue though so I understand why the shorter and punchier "cult of the First-born" is being used.

Also, please notice I specify the "evil" and "insane" part of the "deviant freaks" thing. A little deviance can be healthy and freaks is often defined as something that goes against societies normal state. Freaks are good, freaks are healthy and it is often the freak that gets things done and goes out of their way to make the world a better place. Case in point? Witchers. But as I say, those fuckers were sick and insane and evil.

They have caught all of the significant lords that Kerrass and I have identified and those men, having been interrogated, gave up many more names that were involved who have also since been arrested and questioned. The trials are just beginning now and are being presided over by a court as duly appointed by the Empress' authority. They will be tried by a judicial panel rather than by the church trials that would have been previously used, again by Imperial order.

The churches of Kreve and Eternal Fire are not pleased by this but a Priest of Radiant sun turned up from the South to oversee the religious aspects of things. He was, I'm told, suitably appalled at the cult and was hammering the other two churches into a sense of order.

Mark tells me that his method for doing this was essentially. "Behave, or we will make the "Divine sun" a state religion and have the churches of Kreve and the Eternal Fire declared cults."

Of course this caused outcry and promises of countryside rising up. The priest from the south had a counter to this as well which went:

"Yes, but you have both spent centuries brutally subjugating the countryside and pissing off the nobles with your antics. All we would have to do would be more reasonable. Which would not be hard. Also, the churches of Melitele, the prophets and the druids would be exempt from these things and the Imperial armies are beginning to look for something to do so if you want to try and raise a holy army to go on crusade then by all means try it."

In his last letter Mark, who seems to get on with this Southern priest really well, tells me that the Nilfgaardian sat across the table to the representatives of the Northern, more militant religions and literally said, "Your move, Chuckefucks."

Mark was unable to contain his glee.

But the panels are being convened and the trials are due to start in the next couple of weeks. There is little to no doubt that those people will be executed both because of their crimes but also because Justice needs to be seen to be done. That people need to see the Empress' law in action and that neither money nor rank are enough to protect you.

Mark and I both approve.

All in all, churchmen are still being churchmen and nobles are still being nobles. All the lands of people like Cavill and the rest have already been confiscated and people are now fighting over the scraps. Like wild foxes or vultures fighting over the rotting bodies of a battlefield.

That's unfair, the nobles and the cultists were the part that was rotting while the people and the land are all well spread and deserved much better than what was done to them _and_ much better than what is being done to them.

So actually the metaphor is much more apt than I had previously considered.

Sam is still up in the North. He is one of the people that is arguing for the expansion of his lands. His argument is actually quite strong in saying that he had found the problem and it is due to his leadership (partially true) that the cult was found and routed in the first place. He keeps saying over and over again that he doesn't expect too much but he would like an increase in his domain and maybe a title bump up to the level of Count.

You can't tell because this is the written word but I've just blown out my breath in something approaching exasperation.

I would like to think that Sammy is going for an increased title because it will give him more negotiating power over his neighbours. I would like to think that it is an effort to elevate himself and the other members of his family. I would like to think all of these things.

I hope he doesn't want to be a Count because I am going to be made a Count as part of my marriage which is what Kerrass is suggesting. It dismays me that popular opinion among my nearest and dearest is turning against my brother. There was a time when he and I were really close and although our lives have drifted off into different directions I still think of him fondly.

As I say, his argument is strong but I'm not convinced that he's going to get it. I think that there are far too many other people that are clamouring for a piece of that commandeered land for younger sons. There are lots of ambitious Nilfgaardians who want to come north and take advantage of that. There are lots of other siblings of the churchmen present who want to make a name for themselves and above all, it is still well known that Sam is going to be Lord Coulthard as well as being Lord Kalayn. The wealth, power and influence that he will be wielding as is, is _still_ too threatening to certain members of the nobility.

It has been suggested, again by Kerrass, that this is another reason for the, still growing, gulf that has begun to form in my family. That Sam is feeling a lot of the negativity associated with being the Lord Coulthard without actually having any of the benefits. Still being deprived of the land and the money which he is beginning to feel is rightfully his.

I find that I can actually understand his bitterness. When we use the saying "You have to take the rough with the smooth" it is built around the fact that you have to take the bad parts of things along with all of the good parts. It's why we were brought up to understand why people didn't like us and that we should learn to live with the envy and dislike from our peers and it is also why we were not given masses amounts of money or lives of privilege when we were growing up so that we could learn to stand on our own two feet. It was only when Emma told me that I began to learn just how rich we are that I began to realise that I could have been living a much richer life during my time as a student in Oxenfurt and it wouldn't even have caused father to break a sweat.

But in Sam's mind, he is putting up with the rough while having none of the smooth to go with it and he is beginning to blame Emma for this. That is the part of his attitude that I think he is being unfair with. Emma is doing her job, the task that she was left by father which is to continue and expand the fortunes of the family in order to help provide for the people that work for us as well as to secure our future. She was deliberately instructed to keep the money from falling into Mark's hands so that he wouldn't fritter it away in donations to the church and she has extended that to how she deals with Sam.

Is she right?

I don't know. I do think that when he _is_ made Lord Coulthard, that there will be some changes made and I do think that Emma is going to suffer some of the brunt of that. Technically speaking she will still have control of the mercantile aspect of things and her growing friendship with the Empress will protect her from any legal challenge to pull control of the money away from her. But I certainly don't think that she will still be living in Coulthard castle when Sam inherits from Mark.

For my part, I think I am well out of it. Ariadne tells me that Angral is nicely productive and can more than see to our comforts. If there are no dividends from the company then I shall withdraw my investments from it and reinvest them into enterprises for Angral and take things from there.

But I would be lying if I tried to claim that I wasn't saddened by the entire thing.

Still, there have been efforts at trying to patch over the growing split. Ariadne has invited him to spend the Yule feast with us as well as Emma, Mark and Laurelen. He has not responded in the positive but that he will think about it. He says that he might want, or need, to spend his first real Yule after making his lands safe, actually in his lands to take part in local customs which is a not invalid excuse. But on the other hand, Mark's last Yule... I know that Ariadne told him that teleport gates were invented for precisely this kind of purpose though, but I am now out of the loop on this particular discussion. I may get more letters in the mean time though.

Ariadne thinks she has solved the problem of the medallion though. No, I'm not going to tell you how she did it. We are back to trying to regularly communicate... but not too regularly. I treasure those conversations and I don't want to get bored of them. She also made me another holy symbol that she had Father Trent and Inquisitor Dempsey bless it. Apparently Father Danzig also threw in a blessing as well despite the fact that he was blessing a symbol of the eternal Fire but he reasoned that every little bit helps.

I am grateful. I felt almost naked without something to hold onto while I was praying.

But I am, by now, well off topic. I was talking about the fact that Kerrass and I had arrived in Novigrad rather late and I wanted to know why. No answer came to mind so, as I so often do, I reminded myself that I had other ways to use the time and I sat in Kerrass and my shared room in the inn and started going through my notes which is when I discovered something odd.

I had many more notes than I remembered having had before. With frantic fingers I checked through them to see if I had been left messages or anything else but no, the strange additions were covered in my own handwriting, easily distinguishable by me, after all, I spend a good portion of my time looking at and deciphering my own handwriting. The script looked as though it had been written with speed as there are several tell-tale signs of ink splatter that show that I was rushing.

With shaking hands I sat on the bed and started to read. Kerrass was out and about somewhere, possibly getting drunk with Dandelion and Zoltan over in the Rosemary and Thyme. He had tried to insist that we stay there as we so often do when we're in Novigrad but I wanted to be near the water in case something came up. He argued that it takes a grand total of ten minutes to walk from the Rosemary and Thyme down to the docks and that he could easily make it back in time but I wasn't deterred. I was half way through reading them when he came into the room, swaying slightly from the particularly strong variety of apple brandy that the dwarf brews in the cellars of the R&T for whenever Kerrass and I visit.

You can ask for it if you wish although I warn you that it is very possibly toxic to human stomachs. Even Zoltan will only drink at a rate of a small cup a time and he only takes small sips from it.

"What's wrong?" He asked me. "You look like your latest dump has tried to crawl back inside your arse after it's just escaped."

Kerrass is another man who can get a bit poetic when he's in his cups.

I handed him the notes over and he began to read. Ten minutes later he smiled. Ten minutes after that he started to laugh, or at least as much as a Witcher ever does.

"That explains that then doesn't it," he declared.

"What should I do?" I asked him as he struggled to remove his boots.

"What?"

"Should I write about it?"

Kerrass mused as he won a hard fought victory against his left boot and moved on to the right one.

"Why wouldn't you?"

"I don't want to draw too much attention down on him."

"Oh I wouldn't worry about that. They're long gone by now."

"Are you sure?"

The second boot finally popped free and Kerrass laid back on the bed, stretching his legs out with a sigh of contentment. "Tell the story Freddie. You're not hurting anyone and it might even do some good."

So here it is. After my first shock at discovering that there was a significant amount of my memory that had gone missing I started to calm down and as I read, I began to understand why there was a gap in my memory and furthermore, why it was important that I had forgotten.

It began while we were still marching south with Sir Rickard, the remaining bastards and the Elves that meant to take Emma up on her offer of employment.

As a note, I understand that those arrangements have been confirmed and that even if he wanted to, Sam would be unable to counter their employment. The plans were to do with the merchant side of the family and it was still pretty certain that Sam had little or no interest in taking part in that side of things. He just wanted to enjoy some of the benefits rather than having to put up with it only being a one-sided situation. So they are safe in whatever situation that they find themselves in. I understand that Chireadean has taken over an inn near Coulthard castle called "The Proud Cockerel." I wrote him back and told him that was an interesting name to be sure but that he may come to regret the choice of words.

I enjoyed the journey south, the atmosphere had relaxed and it was nice to spend some time with these people where we weren't fleeing for our lives. We could take the time to hunt for our food, buying supplies from local villages and merchants as well as getting riotously drunk together.

Unfortunately Rickard's antipathy towards Sam seems to have solidified. Although he absolutely intends to sign up to work for Emma and to do so formally, if Sam starts to throw his weight around and insist that Rickard and his people work for Sam instead, then Rickard intends to quit on the spot. He also told me that he is going to go back to ask Shani to marry him.

I am very pleased to announce that, at the time of writing, I have received word that Shani has accepted his proposal and that they intend to marry at some point after my wedding to Ariadne. This on the grounds that they don't want to feel as though they have rushed things to beat Ariadne and I to the alter and also so that the fuss can have died down in the mean time. But while we were travelling, Rickard was going through all the things that I remember having gone through when I was preparing to propose to Ariadne. That age old terror of the bridegroom as to which of the two answers is worse.

What if she says no?

But what if she says yes?

I will leave you to decide but it is an interesting conversation to have while you're on the road. Another form of the entertainment on the road south was that it seemed that Carys, the Elven woman, was beginning to return the Sergeant's affections.

I, for one, was stunned absolutely rigid and I may say that I lost the price of a slap-up meal and a new horse to Kerrass in wagering on that outcome. It just began to seem that wherever the Sergeant0 went when he wasn't on duty, she would be nearby. Not too close but not too far away either. Then one night as we were sat round the camp-fires. Kerrass, Chireadean, Rickard and I round one fire with the bastards and the majority of the Elves round the other, Kerrass elbowed me in the ribs and pointed.

The two were sat close together. At first I couldn't see it but when one of the others, I didn't see who, passed a bottle over, Carys had to let go of the Sergeant's hand in order to accept it.

I am beyond pleased for the two of them. Although she still hates my guts, I am glad that his gentle and clumsy gallantry did more than just make everyone laugh. She deserves whatever happiness that she can find and one thing is for sure, anyone that wants to hurt her will have to go through a giant hairy Skelligan to get to her and _then_ she would have to deal with the furious elven woman who is more than capable of defending herself.

After the budding romance was increasingly becoming public knowledge, Rickard made the pair of them blush by loudly suggesting that they should have a double marriage. He with Shani and the Sergeant with his Elf. As I say, they both blushed hugely and incredibly endearingly. The laughter was gently mocking but enormously affectionate from the bastards and the Elves both. As I looked around I decided that there might be hope for our two peoples yet.

I remember this. It definitely happened and I can remember the laughter that took place. It makes me feel warm and happy as I think about it.

Trying to plug a hole in my memory is actually quite hard. I reach back to that night. The last night that I know, _for certain_ happened. I'm pretty sure that Kerrass and I stayed with the group for another couple of days before we went off by ourselves.

I bought everyone a meal. I was already doing so for Kerrass anyway and it seemed churlish to not include everyone else. I wanted to give them all one occasion that they could look back on fondly. A time that they could remember from that period where they hung out with a crazy nobleman and his friend the Witcher. We marched into a Tavern and ordered food and drink for everyone. The landlord was a little cross for a while at having to treat the elves amongst us so well but I beat him to death with a huge bag of money.

Figuratively speaking of course. Money is the great leveller I find.

I also bought Kerrass a new horse. Kerrass is not a massive horseman but he knows a good horse when he sees it and can tell the difference when he is riding a good horse versus when he's riding a tired old nag. Our current horses were taken from Sam's stables and as such they were military cast-offs, not really suitable for what we were doing and our old saddles and tack had been confiscated and destroyed by the cult.

So one morning I found a horse trader, haggled a bit and bought Kerrass a beautiful black Gelding. Amazing he was, proud, powerful and full of character which is just how Kerrass likes his horses. He once explained to me that Witchers spend a lot of time on the road and often, the only friend that they have on the road is their horse so they need a horse with a personality and intelligence. A good horse, he claimed, has saved his life on more than one occasion. I also bought him a full set of gear to go with the horse. Beautiful black leather with silver ornaments. I thought that it would add to his love of theatrical moments and I was well rewarded by his surprised and happy face when he met his new horse.

I was especially amused as the horse was called "Imp" due to it's "Impish" nature and sense of humour but the beast whickered in protest when it heard itself being discussed in such a fashion. Kerrass was stroking it's nose at the time getting to know the beast and said "Don't listen to him baby" and that was it. The horse is now called Baby. A giant black, muscular horse called baby.

For myself I bought a mare that had caught my eye. Not for any particular reason but she seemed to get on with Baby and sometimes that can be more important than anything else. She's a piebald, built for speed and distance rather than strength and I bought some tack to go with it. New saddles as well for both of us. It is sometimes better to wear in a good saddle rather than make do with a shitty saddle that you have had for a while and again, we were using old military gear.

I named my horse Cassie. I don't really know why but I'm really pleased with her. The horse trader told me that she runs like she has wings and she really does fly.

But, according to the notes, saying that we went off by ourselves is a little misleading. What actually happened was that Kerrass stopped by one of the many signposts by the side of the road to which people attach their notices. The notices that are the bread and butter of a Witcher's trade.

For the reader, what I'm doing here is that I'm annotating my existing notes so if it seems a little disjointed then that is the reason. As I think of these times and read about these events, small nuggets of memory start to float to the top. I struggle as to where I should put them in the grand order of things but the memories come and I have to put them somewhere.

As I say, Kerrass stopped to pick up a notice and came to tell me that he wanted to "get his hand back in".

We said good bye to the bastards and the Elves, there were many hugs and words exchanged and the entire thing was rather bitter-sweet. Even Carys gave me a hug. She looked me straight in the eye before telling me that she still hated me with heavily accented Northern before throwing her arms round me to the cheering of the people there. I thanked her, because it was true and because I couldn't think of anything else to say.

Rickard knocked aside my offer of a handshake with a sneer and embraced me like a brother.

I miss him.

But it was good to be back on the road, just the two of us. Kerrass and myself riding into the unknown in order to do...whatever it was that we found.

We sat and watched as the rest continued to march down the road towards Southern Redania, towards Castle Coulthard and Oxenfurt whereas we turned west.

"Where are we going?" I asked Kerrass and he just handed the notice over.

It was a standard notice, you can see dozens of pieces of paper like it wherever you go on the continent. A group of Necrophages including, but not limited to, some Ghouls and Alghouls had moved into a nearby Crypt. Nearby villagers had tried to turn them out without success and now that the monsters had run out of food in the crypt, the Necrophages were beginning to attack livestock and terrorise local villages.

It's exactly the sort of thing that I don't normally write about on the grounds that it's rather boring. It always goes the same way. Kerrass scouts the area to identify what he's going up against before properly oiling his silver blade and taking a number of potions before descending into the crypt and destroying the creatures. On average it takes 1.3 visits to the crypt to deal with the creatures inside before Kerrass is satisfied that they are all dead. Then he goes back in with his skinning knife in order to properly harvest any alchemical ingredients that he might be able to get hold of from the bodies. Then a day to rest up and properly recover from any of the after-effects of the potions before we move on.

It's of absolutely no interest to a scholar at all. It was the same pattern as the very first account that I wrote. Yes that one was about Nekkers rather than Necrophages but it amounts to the same thing.

The Necrophages in question are relatively easy to escape from, very many of them have been captured and dissected and as such, it holds no real interest. But Kerrass wanted to do this one. Personally I thought it was because he was having a little crisis of confidence, not that he didn't deserve having a little wobble after everything we had been through but I did feel it was unfounded. I prepared all the usual little speechs about him having properly healed and about him still being good at his job in case he completely lost his confidence, but I needn't have worried. Kerrass performed the hunt and pocketed the fee with relatively little fuss and we moved on, continuing to head south with a gentle progress. After the Necrophages Kerrass took on a mating pair of Wyverns that were decimating local flocks and then we reached the coast where he dealt with an Echidna.

We weaved through the countryside, zig-zagging from travelling east to travelling west, moving from one contract to another. If the notices we saw during that time are any indication then the new school of Witchers are going to have plenty to do when they are finally formed.

I spent the time writing up the notes from when we were in Sam's lands and sending them off by Imperial dispatch to Oxenfurt in order for them to be published. I wanted to make sure that there was no confusion and that my side of the story was told. I was _not_ having another situation where I was going to be held up as an example as to why, what had happened to these people, were wrong and that Kerrass and I were at fault. It was vital that people knew that.

I didn't ask Kerrass what was happening. I figured that he knew what he was doing and truth be told, I was enjoying myself. The quiet rhythm of travelling from place to place, killing monsters and solving problems. Of gentle camaraderie with Kerrass, quiet jokes by camp-fires and the simple satisfaction of confounding many years of learned prejudice from the people that we were dealing with. All of this without fearing too much for our lives beyond the normal kind of perils that we went up against with the monsters that we were facing.

I was stunned when I realised what was happening. I was happy and I was sleeping like a baby.

I'll never forget it, just being grateful for that couple of weeks, so much so that I lost track of time which was when my memory of this period starts to get hazy.

So we were riding through this woodland track. Kerrass was throwing out schemes that he had for what he was going to do to me for my stag do. He was in the process of negotiating with Ariadne about precisely _what_ he was aloud to do on the grounds that he didn't really want to piss off the ancient elder vampire or make things awkward between the two of us before we had a chance to make things awkward all by ourselves. Primarily he wanted to know who I wanted to invite but as well as that, he was tormenting me with ideas. Trying to make me disgusted and wince and kind of dread what was going to happen. He had some kind of idea about taking me to a dwarven brothel.

I'm really really sorry, but if there _are_ any dwarven readers of these journals then I'm afraid that it's my duty to tell you that dwarven women are simply not attractive to human males. I know, I know that to dwarven eyes, the sight of long, flowing and soft, two foot long, plaited braids are attractive but I'm afraid that it just doesn't do anything for me. I'm really sorry.

Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on your point of view, Kerrass knows about my tastes when it comes to this kind of thing. My theories that the entirety of my time spent with him was one long Bachelor party was considered and dismissed with aplomb.

I suspect though, for the curious, that it's going to devolve into a list of my friends sharing a day or two drinking an obscene amount of alcohol followed by my being humiliated in some brothel to the amusement of everyone involved. Which reminds me, I really must discuss this whole situation with Ariadne, I really don't want a situation where I tell her all about my Stag party and then she turns around and asks me why I didn't make proper use of the truly staggering amount of women that Kerrass keeps throwing at me. But nor do I want a situation where I take advantage of all of the women that Kerrass is throwing at me, only for my lovely and beautiful wife to be angry with me.

Both possibilities are equally likely I think and I do want to make sure that our marital life starts off on the best possible footing so I must remember to discuss it with Ariadne, just so that _I_ know what I'm aloud to do.

But I'm digressing again.

We were riding down this woodland track while Kerrass was enquiring as to whether or not Mark would put a damper on a night of drunken debauchery when we came across another one of those noticeboards. Kerrass had just driven off a Griffin, managing to not kill it but by driving it off and teaching the locals how to ensure that it doesn't come back and attack the herds. Something to do with a combination of parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme along with a good helping of Puffball. I don't know the exact formula but apparently, according to my notes, you mix the stuff together with a particular kind of vinegar and the stuff is overwhelmingly unpleasant to Griffins.

So Kerrass drove the thing off, got the farmers to only grow wheat and barley in those fields and to move the herds elsewhere and then they would never have a problem again. The fact that Kerrass could deal with the problem, pocket a fee and _not_ have to slay a noble and proud beast that had done nothing wrong other than to get hungry in the wrong part of the world, had left him in a good mood. A good mood that was letting him needle me incessantly. But I was glad. We had both been through a lot and I was happy to see him enjoying life.

But, as I say, we came to a noticeboard and Kerrass dismounted, throwing the reins of his horse to me and went to have a look. I tied up both horses to a nearby bush and wandered over myself. I find these notices fascinating insights into local situations and many a good giggle can be found in amongst the complaints about missing rakes, broken wagons and monster contracts.

I know I keep digressing but it's nice to talk about something that isn't so fucking awful for once.

I once found a notice on one of these boards where a man went off on a rant about how he was pretty sure that his wife was cheating on him. That wasn't the funny part but it seemed as though she had added a note on the end to say that the original writer was just tired and being afraid. That if he actually did all of the things that he was supposed to then he wouldn't be so scared. There was a whole series of these where a husband and a wife seemed to have an entire conversation about all of the problems regarding their marriage on a public noticeboard.

Some of it was touching, some of it was terrifying, some of it was hilariously funny as the wife in the story complained about her husband's flatulence, or he complained about how she was always seeming to want sexual congress at all the strange times of the day followed by her telling him that if he did what she wanted him to do and actually gave her a good hard...well ok, I won't finish that. But the fact that they had this whole thing where they went through it in public rather than having a conversation in private... I found it hilarious.

Kerrass actually suggested that it was a hoax, precisely for the reaction that I gave. I was kind of left feeling as though I didn't want the truth. I wanted to believe that this strange couple had managed to sort out their marriage by conversing through notes on a noticeboard.

But this noticeboard was relatively boring really. There were a few notices about missing items, someone looking for some help with a particularly busy planting session, some more people offering free firewood in return for "coming here and taking the damn stuff away". I was relatively disappointed until I heard Kerrass beginning to laugh next to me as he took down a notice.

He was really laughing and I turned to him in amazement.

I've talked about this before but it bears being reminded of. Kerrass is a Witcher and as such, Witchers don't express very much emotion. It tends to be of the more subdued and quiet variety. A slight curl of one side of the mouth instead of a smile, a snort instead of laughter and a slight frown to go along with a slightly more clipped sentence structure instead of yelling.

I describe these things as laughter and whatnot because I don't believe the common theory, the common prejudice that Witchers are emotionless. I think it's more complicated than that and if you want to know more about why I think that then I refer you to the earlier chapters of this work. Specifically the conversation with one Letho of Gulet. But I describe them as the Laughter and sniggering they are because that is now what I see and hear when I'm with Kerrass. I see his slight smirk and know that this is his version of grinning from ear to ear and so I write it down as him grinning ear to ear.

I have been informed that this has resulted in people becoming confused when they actually meet Kerrass and he turns out to not be the expressive and funny man that I have described. I always say that there are two reasons for this. The first is that it is extremely likely that you met Kerrass when he's working or putting on some kind of professional "Witcher" front. The other reason is that I genuinely see the grins and the guffaws and the smirks. Witchers are as expressive as the rest of us, it just takes some practice to be able to know what you are looking at.

But it remains surprising when Kerrass actively laughs outright. And now he was doing so.

It was one of those amazing outbursts of laughter. The one that causes spontaneous laughter in the people around the person laughing. A kind of snort crossed with a cough as the laugher seems surprised by the outburst themselves, followed by a gasp and a wheeze as they have forgotten to breath. Then a side shaking tremor that just seems to set the person shaking.

Kerrass was doing that. Laughing so hard that he was holding on to his sides, bending double in the middle of the road.

"Kerrass what is it?"

Kerrass, his face still creased up with laughter simply waved the notice at me for me to read. There genuinely seemed to be tears in his eyes at the joke.

"HELP WANTED," the sign read. "YELLOW EYED DEMON TERRORISING THE VILLAGE OF CRAYTON. REWARD OFFERED."

Kerrass had managed to get himself a little more composed as he stood facing me. We said nothing for a long moment.

"Yellow Eyed demon?" I said softly which caused Kerrass to dissolve into gales of laughter again.

"Kerrass," I sighed. "Much though I enjoy seeing you set off into fits of laughter. What's so funny?"

"Yellow...the eyes are yellow." He snorted and started giggling a bit more.

"Yes, I get that. Why's it funny?"

"Because..." He did his best to compose himself. He straightened himself up and looked me in the eye.

"Because Yellow." And he was off again. Full on having to lean against the signpost in order to keep himself upright."

"You need to explain to me why that's so funny Kerrass."

"Oh," he wiped his face, still giggling a little bit. "I will. Come on then."

"Come on where?" He was walking back to where the horses had been tired.

"To Crayton. Haven't you heard?"

"Heard what?"

"There's a yellow eyed demon..." He couldn't hold it in any more and was still laughing as I climbed back into Cassie's saddle.

"Demons." He snorted. "Fucking demons."

"Kerrass, is this important?"

"It might be."

"Why do you say that?" 

"Have you ever seen a yellow eyed demon before?"

"No."

"Neither have I. And I find I want to meet a yellow eyed demon." And he was off again. Gales of laughter drifted in his wake as I turned Cassie's head to follow him.

"I fucking hate it when you do this." I told him as I kicked her into an effort to keep up.

We still rode gently for the rest of the day. We bought some supplies in a village that I can't remember the name of and continued a little way along before finding a nice patch of woodland in order to get some rest and have something to eat.

Kerrass had been giggling the entire way.

We did ask about the village of Crayton in the one that we passed through. We learned nothing useful though, just the normal kind of inter village squabbling. You know the kind, "Ah well, we don't like them folks over there from Crayton we don't."

"You don't do you,"

"Aye,"

"Does that mean you do like them or that you don't like them?"

The old man had looked confused. "They're twisty folk they are."

"As in they turn around often?" Kerrass was not helping matters.

"They like to keep things to themselves they do."

"They do do they?"

"Aye, they do."

"What kind of things?"

"All kinds of things."

"Yes. But what kind of things."

"Things of importance that they don't want anyone else to get involved with."

"You don't know anything do you?"

"I'll have you know that I've been a village elder for night these last twenty years."

"Meaning that he's the oldest, not necessarily the most clever." Kerrass put in, having far too much fun.

"Shut up Kerrass."

But that's how it went. No-one could tell me what it was about Crayton that everyone found so shifty and nor could they tell me what it was that anyone had done to make people so uncomfortable.

We set up camp with Kerrass still walking around chuckling every so often. Periodically I could hear the words. "Yellow eyed Demon," Drift across the camp-site towards me. He was in such a happy mood that I even beat him during training by simply looking him in the eyes and mouthing "Old yellow eyes" at him causing him to crease up.

He made me pay for it of course but it was totally worth it.

"What do you know about demons?" Kerrass asked as we sat across from each other waiting for the food to cook. The traps had caught some rabbits and so we were baking them in little clay balls in the fire along with some wild garlic. A skin of Redanian lager was the accompaniment along with a couple of loaves of bread and some barley soup. It was a good meal, simple, rich and filling.

"Next to nothing at all." I told him. "I know enough to say that they all but don't exist. That they are so close to not existing that even calling them anything is a little bit of a misnomer. I think that they come from another dimension but that could just be a story."

"That's about right." Kerrass told me. "But despite the fact that they happen so rarely as to barely be classified at all, they are possibly the most dangerous things on the continent."

"Why?"

"Two reasons. The first is that they promise power and knowledge for those that can master them."

"I take it that it goes without saying that hardly anyone can actually master them then?" I asked as I stirred the pot."

"As far as I know, no-one has actually managed it. But that doesn't stop mages or whatever stupid people that come across the right spell book from trying. It's called Goetia, the art of summoning and binding demons. The problems with it as an art is first, that any bugger can do it and second, that you need to summon it before you can control it. Trying to convince a demon to sit still and shut up while you bind it with powerful magics is..."

"Tricky?" I offered.

"I was going to go with, bone smashingly difficult but there you go." It seemed that Kerrass was still having the occasional fit of too much hilarity.

"The other reason that Demons are dangerous is actually nothing to do with the demons themselves." Kerrass went on.

"What do you mean?"

"One of the ways that Demons can be controlled is to get them to inhabit a person's body. To possess it if you prefer. They do all the moving, the speaking and the acting. They can see and hear and taste and feel everything that the human can but without any of the relevant horror about whatever it is that they are feeling. So they can eat raw human flesh and feel the instinctive human revulsion of that and enjoy it. Or they can have bits of them gouged out and register the pain as an intellectual and sensual experience. Or should I say, they experience the body's reaction to the pain as the intellectual and sensual experience. One of the things that you have to remember about Demons is that they come from...elsewhere and as such they operate according to different rules."

I felt myself begin to get excited. "Does this mean that there's a possibility that they could be involved in Francesca's disappearance?" 

"No, sorry Freddy but I've considered this already. There was no signs of any use of Goetia happening at the palace of Toussaint or in the local area. If there had been then the Lodge _would_ have found something. It's one of the first things that you check when you come across strange magical happenings. Up there with, "Are there tentacles?" and "Has the magical field been affected in any way?" Also there were none of the other signs of demonic possession."

"Which are?"

"Blood, entrails strewn around the place. Cannibalism, general horror."

"But there were. The thing that caused that teacher to look and act like Jack."

"But there was still no signs of Goetia Freddie. It's a specialised thing and the mages have been even more strict about containing that than they were about Necromancy. For it to be a proper demonic possession it needs to have both. The horror and the Goetia. Also, if it was Goetia, the body count would have been much higher since long before we even arrived and there would have been no way that that Knight Errant could have kept things quiet."

I subsided.

"But that's the part that everyone knows." Kerrass said. "Everyone knows that Demons possess people and drive them to do awful, awful things. Which means that whenever people do awful things the problem is dismissed as being a "Demon possession" without it actually being the case. They don't look past it and discover that the person that committed the atrocities was forced to do it by someone or something else. They don't see that the poor person is sick or has a growth in the brain or something.

"But these occurrences of people going mad and killing lots of people are much more frequent. They get blamed on demons and everyone assumes that it is demons. But it never ever is."

"What's the rate of demon attacks?"

"Freddie. I've been on the path for around eninety years now, give or take and I have never found an actual case of demon possession. The most that I have ever heard of any other Witcher coming across was Cousin Geralt who has had two encounters with Demons. In both cases he says that he found that there were mages involved and that they had lost control of the thing that they were trying to interrogate. The poor wretch that went on to be possessed then needed to be killed like the monster that they had become and the demon could escape to go back to wherever it was. I have, however, been called in to investigate several other cases of demon possession and it always, always turns out to be someone masquerading as a demon in order to hide other motives. Demons don't need motives to cause horror. They just cause it.

"That's another reason that Demons weren't involved with your sister. There is a reason for what happened, there was thought and plans implemented. If it was a demon she would just have been found dead. I'm sorry."

I stared into space for a while. "This conversation got serious all of a sudden didn't it." I commented.

"Yes. But that's not what happened here. It's not a demon."

"How do you know?"

"Because of the yellow eyed comment. There are absolutely no external signs of demonic possession. No glowing eyes, nothing."

"So if it's not a demon, then what is it?"

"I don't know," Kerrass grinned and rubbed his hands together like a man happy at his work. "But I can't wait to find out."

We approached the village the following day. I would like to say that it was a unique place of startling beauty and wonder but the truth was that it was a fairly standard village for this particular part of the world. I find that I begin to classify this kind of place in my own head whenever we approach a place. If I'm honest, it's a bit of a dangerous habit as what I _should_ do is to take each place that we visit on it's own terms. Whether that's the huge cities like Novigrad, Tretogor, Vizima or Vengerberg, down to the smallest village that is merely a small collection of buildings that are there so that the people that live there get some kind of social company in order to hold off the terror of the night with some good company.

Even if they secretly hate each other.

And it's interesting as well. There are many different kinds of city and everyone knows this. Whether it's the huge capital style cities that I've said earlier which are full of the trappings of government. Whether that government is religious based in nature or whether civil. Huge bureaucracy's full of little civil servants running this way and that way with arms full of paper, all but running along the corridors of power, absolutely convinced that without them and that particular errand that they are carrying out that day, the city, the country, nay, the Empire itself would collapse.

For all _I_ know, it very well might. But these cities are different from the trade hubs that sit around the large natural harbours, or those smaller cities that hold other buildings or places of import. Oxenfurt is one such place.

We all know this. That cities are different and have different purposes. Some of them have many purposes and you must approach them with that in mind.

But the same has to also be said for the villages that we pass in the world. This is a trap that I feel many of the people from the social strata that I was born into, fall into. They see a distant collection of buildings as they travel from one place to another and then dismiss it as "just another village".

Don't even get me started on where the boundary is between something being a "village" and being a "town". People have tried to explain it to me over and over again and I still don't get it.

But with villages, as I have come to learn, they have just as much variety in them as cities do. That's not taking into account racial make-up or manufacturing process' used.

The most common kind of village is the small gathering of huts that provide little to nothing more than some form of social contact between a few families so they aren't completely isolated from the world. There is almost never an inn in this kind of place and it almost never has a name. Instead it is called after the senior and most important resident of the area. In other words, the man with the biggest house. So when you're asking after someone that lives in a place like this you would be told "Ah yeah, 'im. He lives in one of those places over yonder near Bates the farmer." Bates being the owner of the biggest building.

The next most common collection of houses are those places that service all of these many and far-flung settlements. They exist to provide the smaller settlements with everything that they need. So as well as the houses that people live in, it's places like this where you find a blacksmith which is by far the most common kind of service that a man who lives off the land needs. There is also, nearly always, some kind of building for travelling merchants to sell their wares. It's kind of like a small, empty house that the merchant can sleep in before setting their stall out, outside the house for people from the village to examine and bargain over.

There's also, nearly always, an inn. Sometimes people call it a tavern instead but I always think of these places as inns because you can generally stay "in" them for a relatively small amount of money. Taverns always make me think of places to go drinking in cities where you have to go home at the end of the night.

Every place needs a place for folk to go and blow off some steam. Whether if it's with some alcohol, some dice or cards. Whether you like to have a dance or listen to some music, seek some attentions from your gender of choice, or simply enjoy the luxury of having some food that is cooked for you by someone else. Fighting tournaments, archery tournaments, horse-racing and all kinds of entertainments fall under the province of the local inn and it's a vital part of countryside life.

Absolutely vital.

After that, it starts to become more about the different terrain factors that might have an effect on the local area. First of all, is there a river or stream going through the village. Is it wide enough for a bridge to be needed. If there isn't a bridge, is there a ford, a weir or some other form of water feature that might be used to help the village. If so? That means that there might be a mill. These things happen in arable farming country. Where the primary crops are wheat, or barley, the kind of stuff that needs to be ground down to flour. That tells you that you're dealing with farming country.

By far, the more varied options come with when you are dealing with different forms of cattle, then you need livery stables, grazing lands for when the animals come to market. Pens for sheep, cows, goats, pigs and other things. But this often comes with the need for a butcher's yard and a tannery. The people that live in this kind of area tend to smell. Not because they aren't particularly clean but you can't work with animal waste products without getting used to the smell, which means that you don't notice it when you're knee deep in offal and as such you automatically learn to live with it and lower your standards. I've spoken to these men and women and they claim that it seeps into your skin so that no matter how much yous crub, you just can't get rid of it.

It's for the same reason that Kerrass doesn't notice when he's still stained with monster gore and why I don't notice when I'm spattered with ink and covered in blotting sand.

The more farming things that crop up, the more there are other services, a cooper, a thatcher, a herbwoman, a healer of some variety.

Then it's about servicing the people involved. A school, a post place, maybe some kind of messenger service or a garrison in order to watch the local roads.

So I find myself looking at villages with these things in mind. We were near some dense and overgrown woodland. That meant that lumber was probably _not_ a main crop or export of the village because if it was, then the woodland would be more ordered and have been cut back rather strongly. I also reasoned that there wasn't a lot of local farmland. The lands that we passed through was mostly marshland. There was some fishery buildings and what I could see as some kind of smoke house.

But overall, the main feature of the town was a road. It was wide and well worn. Worn enough that the path down the middle of the road which is stereotypically covered in grass, was relatively bare. That told me that this was the kind of village that exists to service travellers. Probably built around the local inn that would then have sprouted a blacksmith to shoe the horses of the travelling horses. A carpenter to fix wagons and a cooper that would be able to sort out any kind of storage problems that might have occurred while people were on the road. There might be a small chapel or a church school of some kind as well.

I was born out as we rode into the village.

At times like this, when we have been brought to a place because of a notice, Kerrass likes to ride into town, slowly and with a certain amount of pomp and circumstance in order to be seen so that people aren't surprised when he turns up on their doorstep in order to ask them questions. It's when there hasn't been a notice posted that Kerrass waits on the outskirts of town to see if he is wanted rather than just ride in. This time we had a notice so...

The inn complex was quite large and backed onto the tree line which had been cut back to a couple of hundred yards away from the town limits. As well as the inn complex there was also a bath house and a separate livery stable. The stable itself was quite large, large enough for it to be kept separate from the inn which told us that they often had quite a bit of traffic passing through. There was a small tannery and I saw a fletcher bent over his table as we walked in. You can tell a fletcher by the barrels of feathers that sit outside of the building as well as the bundles of long, thin sticks. We had also passed a small artificial copse of yew trees.

There was also a hunting population here. That was how they provided for the village as well as being able to feed the travellers.

I also saw a spire towards the edge of town, a building that looked much newer than some of the other places.

This was further emphasised by the fact that there was an archery range round the back of the buildings. Some of the targets were obvious targets but there were also straw men, straw animals and I could see boars and deer. Also frames for swinging targets and arrow buckets that were left out.

Rickard would have been furious. Arrows left out in the rain where they could warp. I doubted that they had been properly waxed to protect them from the damp.

But there was something else happening here as well. There was a shabby air to the town. As though people didn't really... care for it any more. They just...existed here. They didn't live here. I actually found it a quite melancholy place. It felt like the village was dying. My feelings were borne out a little bit by the fact the livery stable was all abut empty and the village was full of people...not really working.

That was a difference here. In every village that I have ever travelled through there are signs of some kind of industry. Back when I first started travelling with Kerrass and we rode into that first village I remember being surprised by the noise that there was in that place. I remember being surprised at the industry and the frantic nature of the week that was going on.

Here, there was still industry, but it was kind of subdued and desultory. As though they were working because they had nothing else to do. They were just not...energised. They reminded me of a ship that was coming into port. You take down the sails but the inertia of that movement keeps it moving. It was the same with these people. They didn't need to work so hard, but they kept doing so because that was what they had always done.

It felt...It felt like the kind of place where the children that are born here wait until they can grow up and leave home rather than staying to try and make the place work.

Kerrass always enjoys the ride into the village. I've never really figured out why, I've asked him and he claims to not know the answer. You can just see it in him. Normally he rides with a relaxed and easy pose. Both hands on the reins but when he's riding into town having looked after his armour and polishing the metal in his armour and his weapons until a mirror sheen, he rides upright. Scanning the horizon with a steely gaze with his left hand holding the reins and his right hand resting easily on his lap. It was made even worse now by the fact that Baby sensed his rider's mood and pranced into the town. He always looks like the Witcher of legend, the Witcher of a story book and I think he enjoys the effect that this has on the countryside.

We dropped the horses off at the livery stable and paid an astonished groom his minding fee with orders that the horses should be fed with oats and needed to be brushed properly. Then we took our belongings, slinging our bags over our shoulders and carrying our saddles (never leave your saddle with the livery stable. Things happen to them and proper saddles can be expensive, then you have to break in a new one and it all goes horribly wrong. The first time it happened to me I had piles for a week) we marched off to the inn who met us with equal astonishment.

Kerrass hung back, leaving the bargaining with me. We generally ask for separate rooms when we're staying in an inn, we share when we have to but if Kerrass decides to get amorous after a hunt then I don't want to be having to listen to that happening in the next bed over. Here there was no question, the inn was clearly dead. I reasoned that it might pick up a bit later when the hunters, farmers or if there really were any wagon trains due to come in, then the place might liven up a little bit. But as it was, being able to pay up front for rooms for several nights along with dinner and breakfast, the innkeeper was more than happy to accommodate anything that we asked for.

Kerrass told him that he was enquiring about the notice and that he would appreciate the opportunity to speak with anyone that might be able to tell us more. The innkeeper nodded, telling us that it had been "a right terror that had been affecting the town" and gave us a tankard of ale each on the house in anticipation of our successful defeat of the demon.

You can also tell a lot about a town from the state of the innkeeper. This was one was relatively thin. A friend of mine from back in Oxenfurt once told me a piece of wisdom that went "never trust a thin cook or a thin innkeeper" and when I asked why? He told me that it's because they don't care to sample their own product.

A proper innkeeper or cook should always be drinking their own beer and eating their own food on the grounds that they should enjoy the stuff that they offer. If they don't enjoy it then that means that it's shit and you should reconsider eating or staying there. As theories go it's not entirely bad. It's often been borne out by circumstances but personally I think it's more important for a place to be clean, or as clean as you can get in these circumstances.

Also, if the place is busy then that can tell you that there's a lot going on as well.

But this man was thin and his inn was all but empty. He was a very unfortunate looking man with a pronounced jaw as though his teeth bulged out from his face, his eyes bugged out of their sockets and they moved constantly giving him the impression of an insect that had just landed on your food. If he had rubbed his hands together then I might have lost control. Having said that his voice was warm and friendly if a little rough and contrary to my old friends opinions, the beer was excellent.

"Any idea what's happening here yet Kerrass?"

"Nope. And I refuse to guess."

So saying, we took our gear up to our rooms, ordered a bath to wash the dirt of the road away and settled in for the evening to wait to see what Kerrass' enquiries turned up.

There are few things as good as a hot bath and a good meal that's cooked by someone else at the end of a days journeys and a few days sleeping out on the side of the road.

A few more people did come into the common room of the inn that night but it was, by no means, busy, which meant that we got the majority of the attentions of the waiting staff. Although Ariadne has told me many times that we are not yet married and that I shouldn't feel beholden to her, I remain faithful to her in these kinds of things.

In contrast Kerrass actively goes out of his way to entertain the women that he meets. It's even arguable that his libido has increased recently. It had certainly done so since we had come out of the north and there was rarely an evening that went past where he wasn't accompanied by a willing woman. I suppose that it's part of the whole "enjoying being alive" thing but also, I think that he's deliberately not thinking about Princess Dorn. He aggressively changes topics whenever I bring her name up. He's also increasingly got this kind of wistful expression in his eyes as he sits down at the end of the day. He thinks I don't notice but every so often, there is a certain...bite to his teasing when it comes to my future with Ariadne that makes me wonder.

He lost the letter from the princess somewhere and he won't talk about it. I wonder if it was one of the things taken by Cavill when they were captured but again, Kerrass isn't talking about it and I find that I don't want to push. I still think he loves her and that he should take steps to bring the two of them together, or at least write to the poor girl. But he's not taking the bait.

He just sits, eats his meal and talks about other things until he starts to get a little melancholy towards the end of the evening. Then he seems to shake himself and look around the room. If there is a serving girl, another word that I try not to use is "wench", that is being suggestive towards him then he will pursue her, otherwise he will see if there are any willing eyes looking in his direction. If there aren't he will leave and do some "training".

Tonight though he was in luck. A pretty young girl, blonde curls, blue eyes and generous curves made a point of bending over our table to an extent that I found a little over the top but I saw that Kerrass had something of a need in him and pointedly looked away. Which meant that I was unsurprised that he followed her up to her room in the rafters rather than going to his allotted room.

After he had gone I decided to stay up a bit longer, enjoying the warmth of the open fire and some more of the innkeepers undeniably excellent beer. We weren't short on funds and if this was going to be my last period of time on the road before marriage took me away from tramping round the country then I was determined to enjoy it. As such it was to me that the innkeeper brought the message that the village council would meet the Witcher in the morning. He scowled up the stairs to where Kerrass and girl had gone and I wondered what that was about.

But I stayed up for a while longer before climbing into bed whereupon I couldn't sleep. Not an uncommon phenomenon. After a few days on the road, your body gets used to the hard floor and suddenly, the prospect of a soft bed is almost too much for your body and mind to handle. I drifted off to sleep in the early hours of the morning.

Kerrass was up before me. I tend to sleep late the first time I sleep in a real bed after an extended period of time on the road so I came down to find him eating a huge breakfast. He was looking a little...disquiet, almost guilty. Another reason that made me wonder if he was thinking about the Princess again. But I sat down and a different woman came and brought me breakfast along with some honeyed milk that they served here in place of any kind of hot drink.

The woman was older but similar to the girl that had taken Kerrass off to bed. She smiled at me sweetly but looked as though she disapproved of Kerrass. I guessed at the girl's mother, which might explain her attitude but, from everything I had seen, the girl had been willing enough and old enough to know what she was doing so I saw no reason to chastise Kerrass. He just ate in silence, seemingly oblivious to the antipathy.

"So what's the plan?" I asked as I pushed my platter aside.

"Same as always. Go and see the head man or the council."

"They did leave a message to say that they would come and find you in the morning."

"Good, that'll help. Then we'll go round the village and ask some questions about what has actually been seen and take it from there."

"You still don't think it's a demon though?"

Kerrass looked around to make sure that we couldn't be overheard. "I am more convinced than ever that it's not a demon."

"Why?"

"Because the village isn't painted in blood for a start."

We stopped talking as the innkeeper came over and enquired as to whether we were happy with our breakfasts which we were and asked us to wait for the council to arrive. When they did, they were almost comically stereotypical. The innkeeper sat down along with the smith who we hadn't met yet. He was a tall man, not overly muscled as smiths go but it seemed as though his strength was lean rather than overbearing. I got the impression of him that he tried to work carefully rather than being full of brute force. He was balding with a rapidly retreating widow's peak and huge drooping moustaches. He looked like an incredibly mournful man, the kind who looked out on a rainy morning and accepted it as though he deserved it.

Then there was a thatcher. These men always seem to be old, wiry and gnarled like a tree root. I always feel as though they burst into life fully formed rather than having gone through any kind of childhood. They always seem like bitter old men to me, often widowed and live alone. But the simple fact of the matter is that you have never seen anyone clamber up the side of a building faster than these bent and gnarled old men. This man was no different from that.

There was also the livery stable owner. A heavy set, younger man that seemed to smile often and want Kerrass and I to ignore him but the thatcher called him into place and he sat towards the back of the group and didn't talk unless he was invited to do so.

And that seemed to be it. The innkeeper bustled around, pushing tables and chairs together so that Kerrass and I could sit on one side of the table and they could all sit on the other side. Not for the first time when I have come across these circumstances, I felt like we were on trial for our lives. Drinks were brought and distributed.

"So," Kerrass began after taking a cautious sip from his tankard. "How can I help?"

The four men spent a bit of time looking at each other. As though Kerrass had done something that they hadn't expected and now they needed to figure out where they were supposed to start.

"So Witcher," began the Thatcher. He seemed to be the leader of the quartet, such as there was one. "You'll understand that we want to establish your boner fidays." Yes, I know he meant to say bona fides but I thought I should spell it the way that he actually said it.

Some of you may be thinking that I am mocking this town council. That's not an unfair question.

"My what?"

"Well," the Thatcher went on. "We need to establish your..." He seemed to run out of words. As though he had learnt the first line of his opening gambit and hadn't bothered to think about what would happen if someone asked for any clarification.

"Your ability to perform the task," supplied the innkeeper.

"Yes, Quite right." There was something about the way that the Thatcher spoke that made me think that he was tasting the words, as though he wasn't quite pronouncing them right as he was unused to them. But that he had heard how a man in his position was supposed to speak and wanted to speak in that way to exert his control over the situation.

Kerrass stared at the four of them coldly, I noticed that the Livery operator couldn't meet his gaze. The smith hadn't bothered trying in the first place and just went on staring at the table.

"Gentlemen," Kerrass began in his best, "cold killer" voice. "My name is Kerrass of Maecht. I am a Witcher from the Feline school of Witchers." It depends on his mood as to whether or not Kerrass uses the term "Cat Witcher", or "Feline Witcher". I think he uses the line about Feline Witcher when he wants to show that he, too, knows how to use longer words. "I am here at your invitation. If I can't do the job then I won't and that will cost you nothing. If I can do the job then I will do the job and I will expect payment."

"Yes, but how good are you?" The Thatcher insisted. "We don't want to hire you, only for it to turn out that you are unskilled."

Kerrass sighed and stood up. "It seems that we are wasting our time here Freddie. Come on, we can be well on our way by night fall."

"What?"

"I do not have to prove myself to you." Kerrass snapped, putting a bit of steel in his voice. "You notice the two swords on my back? You notice the vertical slits in my eyes and the medallion around my neck? I am a Witcher. I have been alive and killing monsters since the best part of all four of you dried up on your mother's thigh. I did not come here to be insulted or to have my expertise questioned. Good day gentlemen."

"What? How dare you speak to me..." The thatcher began again. And again, I had the thought that he didn't really know what he was saying, but that he was mimicking someone else who had said those words in a similar tone of voice. Fortunately, the Smith put his hand on the older man's shoulder.

"We did not mean to insult you." The smith's voice was oddly quiet, if raspy.

"You might not have meant to," Kerrass suggested, eyes gazing over them from on high. "But you did."

"Yes, we see that now. Don't we?" The smith seemed to exert just a small amount of pressure on the Thatcher's arm and the old man subsided mumbling something about "Knowing who their betters were." The smith ignored him though.

"Anyway," the Smith continued. "Please accept our apologies. Since the demon came we have all been rather on edge, terrified and chasing our own shadows."

Kerrass made a play of considering the matter but I knew it was a pretence. If he had actually intended to do anything other than sit back down then he would have already been on the way to get his horse. "I can understand that." He sat back down. "But understand that those of us who aren't masters of our crafts are dead, either in a ditch somewhere or sitting in a monster's belly. Would any of you accept someone questioning your skill?"

"No, we would not." The innkeeper put in. The dynamic of the four men was beginning to come to the fore. The smith was actually in charge although the Thatcher was still there out of deference to his age and his seniority.

"So," Kerrass said, sitting back down. "Why don't you start at the beginning. Tell me what is happening here."

The four men exchanged looks with each other. Or rather, The Thatcher, the Smith and the Innkeeper exchanged looks. The Livery man just looked at his three elders. I wondered if Kerrass had noticed the younger man's being ostracised and resolved to mention it to him. I also wondered why there wasn't a priest in the room. There had been a spire of a chapel in the village skyline when we had been riding in but there wasn't any religious representative at the village council.

That meant two possibilities. The first, and by far the most likely was that the council was keeping the priest out of these negotiations, because the priest would have disapproved of the action. Either on the grounds that hiring a Heretical mutant was heresy or because the priest believed that the power of faith and prayer was more powerful than the monster that lived in the woods.

The other option, the slightly more sinister of the two option was that the men that we were sat across a table from were actually not the village council and that they were a group of "concerned citizens" who were taking matters into their own hands. None of these options were good as all of them suggested that there was going to be some form of a confrontation at some point down the line.

"First of all, how does this work?" The innkeeper wanted to know. "I'm not doubting you, but I would like to know what we're buying with our money. For someone like me, you would know that I offer a bed, food and drink. The Thatcher would promise to fix your roof and the smith would shoe your horse. We all know how that works but...other than slaying the Demon, what do you charge us for, what does that look like? How much will it cost and how long will it take. We are not so ignorant as to assume that you are just going to walk into the woods and just lay about you."

"Not an unfair question." The Witcher asked, "and I am pleased to know that you know that much of my craft at least."

"The bard's tales of the White Wolf have reached us, even here." The Livery man added his first words to the conversation. The Thatcher glared at him furiously.

"On the trade roads no doubt." Kerrass said, smiling slightly. "Well, the bard's tales of Cousin Geralt often like to inflate and amplify how it works. I normally start by asking the clients, that would be you, what you want me to do. Fortunately we already know the answer to that. You want me to slay the demon that is terrorising the village."

The four men were nodding. Kerrass was working. I had seen this many times before and sat back and watched.

"Then it's a case of narrowing the problem down to specifics." Kerrass went on. "Just as I'm sure I realise that Thatching a barn is different from Thatching a house, or crafting a horse shoe is different from crafting a sword or axe head, one demon is different from another."

There was more nodding. For those who are curious as to the Witcher's methods... Notice how Kerrass puts it in terms that the villagers can understand. What he's doing is drawing them into the process in almost the same way that a bard, or even a lecturer draws in _their_ audience.

"So I will need to know the full story from your own lips. I will ask questions about when did you first learn about the problem...no don't tell me that now. There is an order to these things and I need to get my thoughts in a line. After I am satisfied with knowing as much as I can from you, I will ask some questions from the villagers."

There was a little bit of shifting in seats as again, the main three men looked at each other. There seemed to be a feeling of confirmation. As though Kerrass had just given them some bad news. They had known that it was probably coming but they felt no better for that fact now that it was here. I was beginning to get the theory that this was an offshoot of the council, or that there were factions in the village which would explain the reasons as to why the priest wasn't present.

"After that," Kerrass was still talking. "Depending on what I've found out so far..."

"Depending?" The innkeeper. I subconsciously labelled him as "The Brains".

"Yes. Sometimes the problem is obvious from just the stories of you and the villagers. Often it isn't but sometimes it is."

The innkeeper was unconvinced but he let it go.

"So then I would scout the problem out by having a look at where the Demon tends to have the most effect. The object of the exercise here is to ascertain what we are dealing with. During this time I simply ask for food and lodging for myself, my apprentice," He gestured at me, "and for our horses."

I noticed that the Thatcher was impressed by the big words, especially the thing about "apprentice." For a certain kind of tradesman, the possession of an apprentice is like a badge of honour or a guarantee of quality.

What is it about Thatchers? No matter where I go, it often seems as though the Thatcher is the most un-trusting but also wilfully stupid member of the village. They are often the people that get angriest at Kerrass' presence and tend to be the ones that whip people up into a frenzy of hatred against magic, mutants, non-humans, education, smart people, pretty people, young people, women, the list goes on.

Maybe it's something to do with the advent of tiles increasingly being used to make roofs and they can sense their inevitable demise. They've still got a way to go before that happens though and for me, there will be enough work for them and their sons to keep them going. Their grandsons might need a new career but still.

"So what happens then?" It was the innkeeper who spoke. The Smith had gone back to leaning back and letting other people do the talking.

"One of three things will happen. The first is that I decide that more research needs to be done. This is actually quite rare. Normally, the creature is identified and I can begin the process of planning it's eventual demise. By far the most common result is that I can identify what the problem is and come back to the village with a quote as to how much the destruction or removal of the creature will cost. You can then either agree to my terms, or you can decline at which I time I climb on my horse, wish you the best of luck with your demon problem and go on my merry way. The third option is, again, very rare. The third option is that I decide that the hunt is too risky for me to contend with, I make you a recommendation and then I move on."

"How often has that happened?" The Livery keeper again. He seemed genuinely curious.

"Rarely, but not so rarely that it doesn't bare mentioning. It happens when it turns out that the village has been built on top of an ancient burial ground and that the spirits from the burial site have been disturbed. That kind of thing Then there is very little to do other than to evacuate the village. Also, in the presence of a dragon, the best thing to do is to just drop everything and flee for your lives, regardless of what you might want to do."

"Do Witchers not hunt dragons?" Another glare for the livery man. Poor guy, unable to contain his curiosity.

"Not as a rule, no." Kerrass answered.

"What happens then?" The innkeeper wanted to know. "What happens if you refuse to fight the thing and just get back on your horse and ride away?"

"Then I consider the room and board that we have used in the mean time to be adequate payment for my time and effort as well as any goods, herbs and tools that I may have used in the meantime. But, as I say, that is rare. Not unusual but the balance of probability is that, if there is a beast out there and I can do something about it, or help _you_ do something about it then I will do so."

"What happens?" The smith leaned forward. "What happens if...during the initial scouting of the target and the thing leaps out to attack you? What happens then?"

"Then I defend myself and attempt to get away."

"But if that fails?"

"Then I would normally be dead. Do not misunderstand. In monster hunting, the unprepared hunter is a dead hunter. Even the smallest monster, something like a Nekker, Ghoul or Drowner can be dangerous if you do not have the right tools to face one."

"And if, during the course of your defending yourself, the creature dies?"

"I see. You want to know if you would still have to pay me?"

The four men looked at each other before the Smith nodded.

The Thatcher licked his lips.

"On the very rare occasion that that sort of thing happens, then I would quote a flat fee based on the identity of the monster in question."

"But you would defend yourself?"

Kerrass stared at the innkeeper flatly. "No," he said after a long moment. "When I am being attacked by a monster I'm just going to let it rip my head off. Now..." He was letting a little bit of anger and irritation creep into his voice now. All of it an act. These were not the most stupid questions that I had ever heard someone ask him, by a considerable margin even. But they were telling. "...Is your next question going to be what will happen if you refuse to pay me? In either these circumstances that you describe or in similar circumstances?"

The four men said nothing.

"In which case there are two options and most of it depends on your method of refusal. If your method involves assault and attempted murder then I would warn you that both my apprentice and I are skilled with the weapons that we carry and would be considered, by many, to be deadly with whatever other objects we find close to hand. If you choose to simply refuse, or to claim that you have no money to pay me against whatever else you had just promised me then I would take...steps."

"What steps?"

"I would prefer not to say. Both because I would like to let your imagination run riot but also because I don't want what I say to be misconstrued as a threat. All I will say is that such things do occur and the client always _always_ comes to regret their decision."

The four men said nothing.

"But that's not going to happen is it." Kerrass said with a more friendly tone of voice. "So instead of talking about worst case scenarios. Why don't you start at the beginning and tell me what the problem is so that I can see if I can help."

"Where do you want us to start?" It was the innkeeper. He seemed to have been nominated as the opening speaker. I always struggle with this question. I once asked it myself when I was making a presentation to a Professor and he answered with a gently mocking laugh and a piece of wisdom that I follow even to this day. "Start at the beginning and work your way through until you come to the end." I always think of him when I hear someone asking that question or when I find myself wondering that same thing.

I hated the bastard.

"When did you first know that there was a problem?" Kerrass said calmly.

The innkeeper closed his eyes.

"It was a couple of months ago." He began, speaking softly. "It was at some point in the morning, I know this because we had served breakfast and were clearing up after the day's travellers had moved on. The sun was shining, there were some clouds over to the East that suggested it might rain later on in the day, or maybe during the night but for right then and there, we weren't concerned about the weather. My wife came in through the back door and pulled me out of the cellar where I was taking stock inventory and she pulled me out into the yard. As I climbed out of the cellar I realised that it had gotten dark."

"Not like nightfall you understand." The Thatcher cut in. "But like a cloud had covered the sun."

"Yes, I follow." Kerrass said. He had leant backwards in the chair, stretching his legs out in front of him as he listened. He stared at the group, or rather in a kind of middle distance of the group so he was actually staring into space as he listened but at the same time, I knew from experience that all four of them felt as though he was speaking directly to them. "Please continue."

"So I get pulled out into the yard and I remember shivering."

"Was it cold?" Kerrass asked, "or was it something else?"

"I don't know. But there was a shadow over the sun. A huge dark cloud of black smoke had billowed up from somewhere and had covered the sky, blocking out the sun."

"How fast did it move?"

"Not slowly, like steam from a bath, but more like smoke from a damp wood fire," The Smith cut in.

"Did it billow?"

"Yes."

"Did it move in the wind?"

"No, in fact it moved against the wind."

"Interesting. One final question then if you please before we move on to another topic. Other than it being black smoke, was there light inside the smoke, like lightening flashing in the sky above the cloud, only it would have been red, green or maybe yellow."

"Yes," Breathed the Innkeeper. "Yes, there was a yellow light beneath the smoke."

Kerrass grunted but he leant forward as though he was excited. "What happened then?"

"The smoke billowed round the town as though it was looking for something before my wife, just screamed. I spun towards her but she was looking up at the cloud only the smoke was shooting towards her and it possessed her."

"How?"

"What do you mean how?" The Thatcher demanded.

"I mean, what did it look like?" Kerrass asked. "Did it just vanish above her head or did it go in through her nose and mouth?"

"It went in through her mouth, that was open because she was screaming." The innkeeper told us. He shivered as he said it. "Then she turned to me, her mouth was watering as she leapt on me, knocking me to the ground before she kissed me hungrily. As though she was devouring me."

"I've heard of worse things happening," The Livery man muttered in a tone that he probably thought was under his breath but I caught it and I wondered if Kerrass had as well.

"I had enough time to see that her eyes had turned a kind of murky yellow. No pupil or whit of the eyes. Just a murky kind of yellow. But then she was off me. Bounding to her feet with an energy and strength that my wife does not possess. Then she leapt at one of my helpers. A good lad called Darron. She ripped his throat out with her teeth."

The thatcher patted him on the shoulder in sympathy. Sympathy that I couldn't help but think that it was false.

"There was blood everywhere. I served in the war although I didn't really see action as I was part of the sea garrison. But I can't say I didn't see some unpleasant stuff. But there was nothing I ever saw like my wife, the woman I love, standing over the corpse of the man she had just killed, blood running down her chin and a hungry grin on her face. Then she spun, a peddler and his daughter had just come through the gates to seek lodgings. She pulled Darron's eating knife out of his belt and leapt at the pair of them. Cutting the throat of the older man she declared him to be "too old," before she gutted the girl who was screaming now and bent to start eating the entrails."

He shuddered.

"We were just about to get at her when she reared back, her mouth opened again and the black smoke poured out of her leaving her unconscious."

Kerrass nodded. "Was that your wife that I met this morning?"

"It was."

"Does she remember these events?"

"She does. She says it was like being a prisoner in her own body and that there was nothing she could do to stop it. She has mostly repressed it now though."

"Probably for the best, but I would like to talk to her later."

"I will let her know."

"What happened then?"

"That's where I take up the story," The Livery stable owner spoke up. His story was an interesting on and the way he spoke made it all the more interesting. When he had interrupted the earlier conversation he had been excited, curious and his speech flowed with proper...well... flow. But the way he spoke here was stilted and wooden. Like... Have you ever seen a street play where young children have had to be involved, or amateurs are pulled out of the audience in order to fill in the gaps or because it's a nobleman's birthday or something and he wants to take part because he's noble and he thinks that this gives him the right to. That's what it was like, wooden and stilted, unformed and as though he was reading the words from a sign or a piece of paper.

I felt so sorry for him.

"I was working away," he began. "Just working away, I hadn't noticed the smoke as I was too busy. As Master Corran says," he indicated the innkeeper, "it was midmorning and we knew this because we had just had to say good bye to a bunch of travellers and I had been really busy. Still was by that part of the day," noticeably, his speech picked up when he was talking about his work. "as you have to be when you've just a load of travellers leave the stable."

The Smith cleared his throat noisily.

"But anyway, the smoke burst through the door, knocking the doors open as if a...a giant had struck them and forced them open. So powerful that it knocked me down on my arse if you know what I mean."

"I do," Kerrass interrupted. The poor young man was obviously not used to talking in front of people. It's a tricky skill and it can take a while to pick it up if you're not sued to it.

"But the smoke rushed past me and shoots down the throat of one of the horses that we still had there. It was a cart horse. Big thing...Hooves the size of dinner plates. It reared up and started thrashing about. Knocked the brains out of my lad Collin who helps me muck the horses out and beat another mare to death with it's hooves. All we could do was to get the other horses out. Then it just stood there in the middle of the barn shivering, it's eyes were yellow as well, before that smoke came out of the horse again and shot off to the west..."

The smith cleared his throat again.

"East." He corrected himself. "Towards the trees."

"I see," said Kerrass after a while. He frowned and stared into space, after a while of this his hand came up and he tugged at his lower lip for a moment or two. He was thinking.

Or rather, he looked as though he was thinking. The two are important factors. I once asked him about this and he told me that it was important that a craftsman let the customer think that they were doing something. That they were getting something that they were paying for. It's the equivalent of a restaurant sitting you down and providing you with a jug of water, or a brothel where they sit you down with a beautiful woman on your arm and a glass of wine so that you can feel as though you're getting something for your money.

In this case, apparently, you need to look as though you are thinking so that the client is given the impression that that Kerrass is thinking about the problem that they have brought him. He tells me that he is often genuinely thinking about the best way to approach the situation. In other circumstances he is just thinking about what he's going to have for dinner in order to appear as though he is doing something with his time.

Then he leant forward again.

"Did anything unusual happen before the arrival of this black smoke?" He began. "Any cold spots in the houses or around the village?"

"Why's that important?" Asked the Smith.

"I just need to check everything. Anyone notice the smell of Sulpher, like rotten eggs?"

They all shook their heads.

"Did anyone notice what the moon was doing at the time?"

"Sir?" The livery man whose name we still hadn't learned to keep his peace.

"Well was the moon full the night before it arrived? was it waning? Waxing? A new moon? What colour was it? Yellow? Red? Or something else?"

"Is that important?" The thatcher asked.

"It might be." Kerrass responded quickly. I got the impression that he peered at the four of them closely for the next passage. "You see demons are tricky bastards, you've probably heard that."

There was some general nodding before Kerrass continued.

"But one of the important things that you have to remember about demons is that they are all individuals. But you can figure out which demon it is from the signs that are given before hand."

"Can you?" Even the Thatcher seemed fascinated by this particular piece of information.

"Indeed. Demons come in all shapes and sizes, obviously, I mean we all know that." The council was nodding again while I was struggling to contain my mirth as it was obvious to me that Kerrass was just stringing them along and it was baffling to me that they didn't seem to realise this.

"But the really scary ones," Kerrass went on. "The really terrifying ones, the ones with names. The powerful ones that we tell stories of to frighten children. Those demons. There are signs that crop up before hand. The Mages that study this kind of thing call them "signs and portents"."

"That's what the priest called them," The Livery lad piped up again before he was, again, shushed.

I felt, rather than saw, Kerrass' reaction. I know this because I had a similar reaction which was "did he now." Not a question that we both realised needed asking, but more a kind of...realisation that there was more to the story. Of course, we knew that that might be the case anyway but...

"To be fair," Kerrass went on, admirably being able to keep his reaction out of his voice. "The priests of the various religions probably came up with the phrase but it was the Mages that properly applied it in these cases and gave the term proper meaning. In this case, the signs and portents that tell us that there is a demon coming. These are the clues that can tell us what kind of demon we are dealing with, if not the name of the demon itself. If we can figure this out. That will lead us a good way towards knowing how to get rid of it."

The smith was frowning. "I thought that you simply attacked them with that silver sword of yours."

"In the majority of cases of monster hunting, that would be true, but one of the things that you have to remember is that demons are closer to spirits than they are to creatures that can be cut with a sword. If the demon has possessed someone and anchored themselves to that person then I won't deny that that might be a problem that would need to be solved by the sharp edge of a sword."

The four of them seemed to relax in some way, as though a breath had suddenly been expelled after being held for a moment or two.

"But even if that were the case, the demon would still be in the area and would need to be banished. Exorcised if you will."

"Can you do that?"

Kerrass smiled thinly. "Probably. But I was asking about any signs that there might have been beforehand. Can anyone remember the state of the moon."

They looked at each other. The Thatcher looked as though he was counting on his fingers.

"The moon was waning." He said after a moment.

"What colour was it?" Kerrass asked.

"A kind of dirty yellow."

That colour again. Yellow.

Kerrass nodded. "That is good. At least it wasn't red."

"What would red mean?" This time it was the innkeeper that couldn't contain his curiosity.

"Arguably the most dangerous kind of demon and very possibly the King of Hell himself. They are deal makers. They offer you things in exchange for your soul. They are dangerous because they are insidious. You don't know that they are there until they turn up and offer you something that you want, something that you need and by then, it is already too late."

The livery lad...he wasn't young but it was hard to think of him as being older than twenty. He was probably my age or maybe even older. But he was so clearly out of his depth that it was hard to think of him as being anything other than a teenager,...couldn't contain a shudder.

Kerrass paused in the telling for effect.

"But the fact that the moon was yellow is an important factor. It matches up with the thing about the eyes of the demon."

I swear, I _swear_ that the Thatcher preened in pride.

"If it was a red-eyed demon," Kerrass went on, "I would already be gathering my things and running towards my horse while yelling at you all to do the same. So we have some other clues. A yellow moon, yellow eyes and the violence with which it struck."

"What do you think this might mean?"

The livery lad and the innkeeper were fascinated despite themselves, the Thatcher was listening but the Smith seemed bored.

"Yellow suggests one of the Princes of hell." Kerrass went on.

"Princes?"

"Yes, demons model themselves after human society. They're fascinated by it and seek to emulate and mock it accordingly. There are four Princes all told and they rarely come through. They are dangerous, I won't lie and it might mean that you have to evacuate after all until it moves on."

"Isn't there anything that you can do?" The Thatcher asked.

Kerrass sighed. To my mind he was pushing the theatricality a little bit. "I will try. The important thing is to try and ascertain which one of the four it is. Were there any earth tremors before hand?"

The four of them looked at each other before they shook their heads.

"Then it wasn't Dagon. Then was there storms in the lead up to the appearance of the smoke?"

More head shaking.

"Nor was it Ramiel." Kerrass sucked his teeth. "A rain of blood?"

More head shaking but I noticed that the Livery keeper and the Innkeeper were looking at the smith sidelong.

"Then it wasn't Asmodeus. That is good. How about..." he seemed to muse. "How about a swarm of insects?"

The Smith leant forwards. "There was some swarming flies out towards the marshland. Does that help?"

"Azazel." Kerrass breathed. I had to pretend to take a drink to keep from laughing. "This is going to be rough."

"What do you need from us?"

Kerrass considered. "I need to know more about what has happened since he first appeared." Kerrass told them. "I need to know what he's done, what he's planning, anything that you can think of, anything that people have been dreaming of."

The four of them were tensing up again.

"Then," Kerrass shook his head. "Then, I suppose that I would need to go into the woods themselves and see what is to be seen."

There was another moment when the four council members seemed to noticably relax.

"When will you go into the woods?" The Smith asked.

"Today maybe, depending on what you tell me or what I find, but more likely tomorrow. Demons are weaker during daylight hours and by the time you have told me everything that I want to know, it will be getting dark."

There was more nodding.

Kerrass shook his head in thought.

"But before we do any of that, my apprentice needs to train and I have some tasks for him to do. Apprentice work, you all know how it is."

There was more nodding and mutual understanding about the problems involved in training an apprentice.

"If you'll excuse us." Kerrass climbed to his feet. The smith and the Thatcher did so as well but Kerrass waved them back to their chairs. "No, no. I must talk to my apprentice privately. As you will be aware, we Witchers guard our secrets closely."

Kerrass led me outside into the inn yard before he carefully looked around and turned away from the inn. Then he started to laugh so hard that he was shaking.

"Oh," He gasped after a while. "I haven't had that much fun in ages. I do believe those people want to kill us."

"I take it that that was all nonsense then." I was grinning with him.

"All of it. Absolutely all of it."

"I thought so. I thought that "Demon" is just a catch all term for beings summoned from other worlds."

"That's right. And they could generally give a crap about human society." He sniggered. "Did you notice how keen they were to get us to go into the woods?"

"I did. They were visibly relieved when you said that you would have to do that."

Kerrass nodded. "I think, I think that there's someone in those woods that these people want dead and they want me to kill them. Did you notice the questions about my defending myself?"

I nodded.

"I think..." Kerrass went on, still sniggering occasionally. "I think that they will follow us into the trees, we will have to defend ourselves from whoever is in there and that they will fall on the victor. Probably a criminal of some kind and they want the ransom money, or the bounty or something."

A suspicion crossed my mind. "Do you know who it is?"

"I might." He grinned at me.

"Who is it Kerrass?"

"Yellow eyes Freddie. Yellow eyes."

"I fucking hate it when you get all mysterious."

He pointed a finger accusingly. "Admit it though. You're enjoying yourself."

"I am, the beer's good anyway. What do you want me to do in the meantime?"

"We still need information. Have a wander round, go and talk to the priest if there really is one. Also see if there's a healer or a herb-woman. Talk to people, make friends. You know the drill by now."

"What are you going to be doing?"

"Listening to all the bullshit that they tell me. Probably interview a couple of the demons "victims" and seeing how long I can go before I laugh in their faces."

"Enjoy yourself," I told him.

"I will," he waved as he went back into the inn.

(A/N: This story arc is NOT, in big ass capital letters, a Supernatural crossover. But when I conceived the story of "The Yellow eyed Demon" I couldn't resist throwing in a load of references. As always. Thank you for reading.)


	85. Chapter 85

(A/N: The following chapter contains some discussion regarding the separation of church and state. The debate of this issue in the real world is not something that I'm interested in getting into and I may say that my views on the subject are different from Freddie's views. However Freddie approaches this topic from the attitude of a fantasy middle ages world and he comes from a background of idealised religious belief that I do not share. As I say though, I am not interested in debating this topic, just in telling the stories.)

(Warning: The following contains past tense accounts of horrific injury towards a woman. She is much better now but it might upset some people)

I think, on the whole, that it would once have actually been quite a nice village.

The kind of idyllic country place that people imagine when they get told about countryside villages. Woodland on either side, no real industry to speak of. I mean yes, there was a small scale tannery and a smith but beyond that there wasn't really anything there. It was... peaceful. I understand that a lot of my feelings on these kinds of places have been tainted over the last little while because of my experiences up in the north. But I could honestly imagine finding myself living in a place like this.

It was all built along the road, as I found when I left Kerrass back at the inn. He had returned to the council to listen to what we supposed to be their many and varied untruths while I collected my spear, hid Father Gardan's axe under the bed for lack of anywhere else to put it, made sure that my dagger was tucked into my belt and wandered off.

It was quiet but the birds were singing in the trees and I could see children chasing a wheel made from a metal band from a barrel down the road with a stick. They were laughing as they went and I had to dodge to one side to let them past. Whatever else you could say about the place, it didn't seem like the kind of place that a Demon is playing around with. It seemed... nice.

But it _was_ quiet. As I walked down the main street there were a couple of houses away from the road front that were obviously abandoned and empty, families having either died or moved on. There was also a general kind of shabbiness to the place. Doors that hadn't been varnished or whitewashed in ages stood there, bleached dry by the sun. Even to my untrained eye it was obvious that the Thatcher wasn't really keeping up with demand and that he could make a tidy sum by just walking down the main street and pointing out where the weather would soon come in through the roof.

I went and had a look at the Smithy first. A young man was working at the forge, someone I took for an apprentice of some kind. Mostly he was just keeping the forge hot so that when his master came back then the work could continue without pause. Apparently it takes less effort to maintain a forge at the proper temperature than it does to get the damn thing lit. He was also doing some minor work around the place. As I watched, looking at the wares that they were selling, he was working on a set of skinning knives and heating some metal to make arrow-heads. He was quiet, industrious and when I turned up he told me that his master was just away seeing to some business and that he would be back soon. If I needed anything then I should wait for him.

I asked him the price of a small hatchet for splitting firewood for kindling. He told me the price but that I would need to wait for the Smith himself to return before I could hand over any money and that he wasn't allowed to haggle on the subject.

I tried to ask him a few questions, about the demon or the doings of the village but he pleaded ignorance and told me that he needed to get back to work. He didn't seem particularly afraid, there were no marks or bruises on him, no signs of his nose having been broken and he was working hard. To my mind that showed that he was relatively happy in his work and that the smith was not that bad a man. Just a little...

What was he really?

I shook my head as I walked on. Kerrass likes to say that it is useless to try and theorise when you don't know everything. All you end up doing is twisting what you know to suit the facts that you have managed to gather rather than the other way round. That was what I was here for. To gather facts so that later, in the privacy of our room, we might be able to put them all together in a way that might make some sense.

I went to the Bowyr next. I wanted to give the impression that I was just walking down the road, poking my head into the shops and the craftspeople. Really though, I was heading towards the church and looking for a herbalist or a herb-woman of some kind as between a village priest and a village healer you can normally get your hands on all the gossip that a village can contain. Often more gossip than you want if the truth be told. But if I just walked off like a man with a purpose then there was a risk that people would see that, get suspicious and clam up. I needed people to talk to me.

The Bowyr was a quiet man, stoop shouldered with the hugely muscled arms of an experienced archer. Rickard and the others didn't display that kind of thing as they prided themselves on their accuracy rather than the training of the Longbowman who stand in ranks and whose job it is to just send arrow after arrow off in the direction of the enemy. Those men are surprisingly large. He was one of them.

I made a show of examining his wares but I didn't really know what I was looking at and it must have shown as the man went back to doing something arcane with a long piece of wood. Again, he seemed reluctant to talk to me. He knew who I was which was different from what had happened with the Smith's apprentice but after he had asked a few questions about what I was looking for when it came to a bow, he dismissed me from his mind. He told me that real bows need to be made from the beginning with the archer in mind and as I wasn't going to be around for very long then I would need to content myself with anything I found in the racks.

I liked him. He had a no-nonsense attitude that I found appealing even though he plainly didn't think very much of me. The bows in his shop that stood on the shelves were well carved and smooth to the touch, well varnished and treated to protect from the weather but they lacked the ornamentation of those people that think that ornamentation makes things better. He was content to let the bows speak for themselves. I liked that. He also sold oilskins, bowstrings, quivers and all the other gear that an archer might want.

I didn't buy anything. Archery is a mystery to me, almost like magic. I don't understand how you can do what archers do. I once saw Dan shoot a rabbit that was moving from cover to cover at a hundred paces. He drew his arrow, fitted it to the string and fired in less time than it's taken you to read this sentence, and the rabbit was dead. Adding to the company stew-pot that night.

It might as well be Sorcery to me. I tried it a couple of times at Rickard's insistence but it left my arms shaking and my back hurting. Somewhat discouraged to find that I had failed to move the bow any more than a hand-span. I finally gave up trying to learn the art when it was made clear to me that real archers start training from a young age and that to try and pick it up later in life is almost impossible.

I passed a Cooper who was treating a series of wooden staves until they bent properly to form the right shape for barrels. I obviously had nothing that would need to be transported so he would know that I was just trying to get information out of him. I also passed a baker who was too busy to talk despite my buying a small lump of bread as I found I was hungry.

The next store was a Cartwright. There were wheels, both wooden rimmed and metal rimmed as well. I know a little about the craft. It's impossible to grow up in a situation where your family owns many wagon trains to _not_ know a little something about wagons and the rules of the road. Wheels are one of those things that you don't appreciate until they're gone, shattered on some stone or pot-hole on the road. Then you either have to fit a spare wheel or wait, and hope that the next person that comes down the road is going to help you rather than slit your throat and steal all your stuff.

It's for that reason that you should always help people when you're on the road, because one day it will be _you_ that needs help and will watch as traveller after traveller just walks past you. For more practical advice, always carry spare wheels and keep the ones that you have properly maintained. Also, if you can afford them, get the metal rimmed ones. They will last longer and will save you money in the long run.

I spent a bit of time talking with the Cartwright. Having enough knowledge about such things meant that I could have an extended conversation with him on the topic before being able to turn things more towards the direction that I wanted them to go. In every way that the Smith of the town had bucked the trend and gone against the stereotype of the big, muscled man. The Cartwright was the opposite. He was huge, massively bearded and was vain enough about the fact that he was obviously bald to have taken a razor to his scalp and shave himself entirely bald. Not entirely successfully it has to be said as there were obvious tufts of hair growing around his ears and the back of his head where he couldn't see. He told me more about the kinds of things that I had already been able to guess, or surmise about the village.

He told me that they had been a moderately busy waypoint town. The kind of place where merchant caravans would stop, take on supplies and spend a night in warm beds where they don't have to be afraid of bandits. It wasn't one of the major routes but it was out of the way enough that some of the people that didn't want to spend as much time going through royal, now imperial, customs checks would often use _this_ road to avoid such Imperial entanglements.

I did ask him about whether or not this technically meant that they supplied and looked after smugglers and he shrugged. He saved and paid his taxes when the collectors _did_ show up, which was rare, and all he did was sell his services to wagon-masters. He had once been a travelling carpenter himself, repairing the wagons for this merchant and that one before he met a girl and settled down. She had died though, in childbirth a couple of years before. He bore it well, but he didn't bother hiding the fact that he was thinking of packing up and moving on. Business had been slow since the Skelligan raiders had begun to relax, opening up the sea route from Novigrad to the North that was faster and cheaper.

Of _course_ I told him to present himself to the Coulthard trading company with my recommendation. We're a merchant company and we could always use good Cart or Wheelwrights.

He did get a bit shifty when I tried to talk about the Demon or what had been going on in the meantime. He did the thing where he looked up and down the street before brusquely telling me that "We don't talk about that."

"Why not?" I asked.

"We just..." He shifted from foot to foot. The very image of discomfort. "Look, I don't know what's going on alright. I don't. I just...when the screaming or the shouting starts, I lock my door. I'm not afraid of a fight, I'm not. Back when I was on the road I carried a sword and shield like anyone. I didn't really fight in the war as I spent most of my time repairing army wagons. But this situation?"

He shook his head.

"It's not right though. It's not right what's happening and that's the truth. We could use the money, couldn't we all use the money but it's not right."

"You mean hiring the Witcher?" I asked.

His face froze.

"Look," I said after it became clear that he wasn't going to answer. "I know that Witchers can be expensive. I know that they're frightening sometimes but Kerrass is a good man...well, he's mostly good, well he's alright. But he won't swindle you."

He shook his head. "We've all gotta make a living. That's all." Is what he said. Over and over again. It struck me that he was undoubtedly a good Cartwright but not the brightest tool in the box and my continued questioning was beginning to make him uncomfortable. So I wished him well, reminded him about the fact that the Coulthard trading company would easily find him a job, especially if he was willing to relocate, a condition that he brushed aside easily, and I left.

The following house had a large pig pen attached and the woman that was minding them waved and said hello. She told me that they used the pigs to hunt for truffles in the woods as well as for food. I asked her which woods they went into to hunt and she smiled and told me that all of the woods were fair game when it came to hunting for truffles.

I smiled at her. She was a woman in her early to mid forties I would guess, with a long brown braid that she had round and over her shoulders. Her clothes were hard wearing and she treated the pigs with rough affection. I didn't stay long. She seemed friendly enough but I didn't want to get her into trouble by stopping in the middle of the street and talking to her. I had visions of her husband, who was the town butcher, coming and demanding to know what I had said to her and as such, I moved on.

Also, I'm always a little suspicious of these pig pens that are kept in the town. I always remember the stories that I was told when I was younger about pigs that would eat the dead.

It was Sam that told me those stories in order to attempt to give me nightmares.

I moved on. I skipped the tannery. There was absolutely no reason that I could contrive to go and pay a visit there so it struck me as a wasted visit that would only raise suspicions.

I finally found a reason for the village to exist exactly where it does. It turns out that there was a creek, little more than a stream that was fed by the marshes and flowed through the village from east to west. The village itself is a line that fits on either side of the road that travels north to South. So someone had either drained the land for the village to sit on or, more likely, they had found a flat, relatively stable piece of land for the village to occupy. That, and to build a bridge over the stream. I guessed that there would be many such streams further into the woods or into the marshlands but there it was. A stone bridge that arced over the creek.

It was almost built into the road itself, if you were asleep in the back of a wagon, I'm not sure that you would have realised that you had crossed over it. The roadway itself was well worn and rutted. As I looked, I could see where there had been some efforts to fill several pot holds by the application of some loose gravel but I know from bitter personal experience that such measures never last for long without proper and experienced repair.

I took a bit of time to look round the bridge and was amused when, under the arches I found that someone had scratched a little heart into the stonework. The age old letters spoke to me from some time long ago. "JH Luvs KJ". As always, whenever I see things like this I am struck with the question of who JH was and whether or not KJ returned their affections. Or, as my cynical soul suspects, did JH do this as a romantic gesture only for KJ to spurn their advances. I hope not. I hope that their story had a happy ending.

I had a bit of a play at examining the creek bed and the banks of the stream for the herbs that Kerrass uses before carefully picking a couple with my sharpest knife and tucking the stems inside my jacket.

The next couple of houses that I came to didn't seem to have anyone in them. I thought that one of them was a fisherman's house, or a net repair person or something. It was something to do with Fish anyway. I thought I could see a smoke house and there were a pile of fishing rods propped in the corner and a fishing net nearby. It didn't look like a shop though and I didn't want to just knock on people's doors so I moved past it. Then there was just a standard house. There were definitely people that lived there. There were sheets on the line and a pair of boots outside the door but I could see no signs of people moving around inside and again, I didn't want to intrude.

I still hadn't got to where I really wanted to go yet which was the chapel but, again truth be told, I was enjoying the stroll. The sun was shining, there weren't any bad smells in the air, I had food in my belly and a problem to solve. Life was good and I was just taking the time to enjoy it as well as enjoying that feeling. Enjoying that my wedding and therefore the end of my travelling was still way off in the distance and that I didn't need to worry about it yet.

"You look happy," someone called. A woman's voice from a nearby house.

"Hmm? What?" I turned around, I didn't sense any danger. There had been no padding feet, no scuffing noises and no shouts. The street and the town wasn't deserted so if someone tried to attack me then I doubt that they would have been able to do so quietly. I turned and looked over at the small house to be taken by surprise actually. It was not what I had expected.

When I had been approaching this part of the village I had seen just a small cottage, the smallest that I had seen up to that point in the village itself. Now that I was closer and could take a good look at it. It was also, by some margin, the oldest building in the village along with the largest garden. It _looked_ like it was a Witch's cottage. It was one of those places where it was so old that the sheer weight of years had started to compress down on it making it look as though it was melting. The thatch was huge and heavy looking and the stonework was intricate and hypnotic.

Because it was stonework, of the other houses in the village, only the inn, so far, was a stone building. The others were all built from wood, straw and clay. But this was stone and it had been built by stacking bits of stone on top of each other. There _was_ some kind of mortar there but it was old. Tiny windows with shutters were there and a smell of herbs and baking came out.

It was the kind of building where you look at it and you just _know_ that it's been there for hundreds of years and that it will still be there for a hundred more easily.

Attached was a large fenced off area where I could see rows of herbs, carefully planted out and cultivated. Some were covered in, what must have been expensive, glass boxes, others in earthenware pots which I took to mean that there would be mushrooms underneath and still others grew up, tying themselves round cane structures forming triangles of herbs that stood in the ground.

Leaning on the fence in a homespun dress was one of the more attractive women that I've ever had the good fortune to encounter.

And I've met a significant portion of the Lodge of Sorceresses.

Obviously, she's nothing compared to Ariadne, the light of my life and the woman of my dreams, but even allowing for this, she was a good looking woman. I would like to think that I'm not that shallow and that I can see past the physical attributes of the people that I meet but it was so startling that I found myself lost for words.

She was the kind of woman where I found my eyes automatically fixing themselves to her face so that they would never get caught looking elsewhere.

As I say, she was in a plain homespun dress, wearing an apron that was stained with green and dirt and other colours that she presumably got from the flowers of her herb-garden. Underneath the dress I could see large, heavy boots which struck me as a bit incongruous. The dress wasn't particularly low cut, nor was there a slit up the side but she was...shall I say...shapely. Yes, I think I can get away with describing her as that. From her hands, which were obviously dirty, dangled a trowel and she also had obviously been working at something hard and physical judging by the sheen of sweat on her face.

She was, I would guess, a few years older than me which would put her in her mid twenties. Her hair was dark, long and dread-locked which she had then wrapped around her head to the point that, when I first saw her, I mistook her for wearing a turban. The head covering that you sometimes see people from Ofir where when you chance to see them in port. She had a round face, huge, pale blue eyes, the colour of a winter morning as well as large lips that were grinning at me.

"Don't worry," she told me. "You're doing better than some. You a herbalist?"

"Errr, what?"

Her grin widened. "ARE." She raised her voice for comic effect. "YOU. A. HERBALIST? I saw you fishing around down by the river."

"Oh," I laughed. "No, I'm not. I know just about enough to know what not to eat in the woods." I remembered what I was there for. The presence of a beautiful woman does not do my thinking process any good. "It's my master that's the herbalist."

"Your master?" She beckoned me over.

"Yes. I'm apprentice to the Witcher that the village council are looking to hire."

She gazed at me sceptically with a twist to her mouth that suggested that she was trying not to smile. "You look old to be an apprentice."

"I'm also a runaway."

"Some nobleman's bastard?"

"As you say." I bowed.

She laughed in delight. "That would explain the courtesy and the education. So you're hiding with a Witcher until it all dies down."

I grinned back at her. "So," I began, "As one runaway to another..."

"What?"

"It was the first thing that you guessed so I'm going to guess that it occurred to you because you are a runaway too."

She pursed her lips into a grimace and frowned critically although her eyes were still dancing with merriment. "Interesting theory. Who am I running away from then?"

"My first guess would be a runaway Sorceress of some kind. In hiding from something."

She laughed again and I found myself liking this woman. "Tea?" She suggested. "I've never met an apprentice yet who would turn down a free piece of cake and a rest from whatever attentions their master are directing at them."

"I would love to. Although I notice that you haven't answered my question."

"You are correct," she said as she gestured for me to climb the fence. "I have not."

I climbed over and sat on one of the larger rounds of wood that she gestured me towards. She vanished inside and I could hear her singing as she went, clattering around the place. Something smashed and she swore hugely before she came out with an immaculate tea set and a dainty little plate with some cakes arranged on it.

"Milk and honey?" she asked.

"Just as it comes," I told her. Her eyebrows raised in response.

"I've never liked my tea overly sweet and when you're out on the road, a bit of milk for your tea is a luxury that you sometimes have to do without."

"Fair enough. So you're an apprentice Witcher are you?"

"I am."

"What's it like?"

"Being an apprentice Witcher?"

"Yes."

"Which part?" I asked her back, laughing. "The hunting or the serving of my master."

"Either," she said promptly, "Both."

"The hunting is both the most terrifying and the most boring thing that I have experienced." I told her. "As for the serving part of it? My master is not cruel although, at first I thought he was. He does not suffer fools gladly and but can be as patient with children, simple people or the uneducated as anyone I've ever met. He's a contradiction. Unemotional and yet capable of great acts of kindness and wrath. In return, what's it like being a runaway Sorceress?

"

"I'm not a runaway Sorceress." She told me and, to be fair, I believed her. "What I am is the village Witch and herb-woman. I'm also the Midwife and local healer. My mother, or rather the woman that raised and trained me took me in when I was younger as I was an orphan of the first Nilfgaardian conflict. I barely remember my father who died and my mother left me somewhere. Took me out into the woods I suspect."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. The bitch did me a favour. Now I'm a respected member of the community, even though it's a community that's dying which is a shame."

"Dying?"

"Yeah," She scratched at the giant mass of hair perched on top of her head. It wasn't that it looked dirty, it just looked like a...well a mass. "We were on a trade route once or so my mother said. We made our livings off the travellers that came through. Feeding them, supplying them with things. Acting as healers for the sick or trading with them. But since the sea routes and the main road have become safer since the Black ones took over, there's just no need for people to divert and come through here."

She didn't sound bitter about that, just...resigned, a little sad and accepting. "Truth be told, I should probably start making plans to leave myself but I feel as though I would be deserting them all if I left now. All it would take would be the right...reason to leave." She winked at me suggestively, in a way that made me feel a little hot under the collar.

"Believe it or not," I said carefully. "I'm actually engaged to be married."

She laughed again. "That does not surprise me. Besides, you're not the kind of man to settle down somewhere. Not yet anyway. I've seen very many travellers, girl and woman. You're one of those that wants to see what the next horizon brings and you're not going to be satisfied otherwise. Me? I want a garden so that I can grow my herbs. I like people and communities. If this place doesn't pick up then... I don't know what I want. I've put down roots here, literal and figurative. I don't fancy a city or anything though, something small where everyone knows everyone else's name. Also," a shadow crossed her face for a moment before a smile returned and she looked at me slyly. "You're not really my type."

"Really?" I don't know if she wanted some kind of reaction of disappointment out of me but if she did then she was disappointed. "What is your type?"

"I don't know...I like muscles though." She smiled at me, presumably in an effort to take the sting out of her words. "Also, believe it or not. I like bald men."

"Bald men?" I made my voice sound aghast and astonished. As though she had just admitted to enjoying sleeping with the dead.

"Yes."

Bald men?" This time I went for incredulity.

"Yes," She giggled.

I shook my head and stared into space for a while. "Seriously though. Bald men?"

"Is it so hard to believe?"

I nodded acceptance of the sentiment. "I suppose that you have enough hair for two."

"I really do." She admitted.

"Isn't the Cartwright your type then?"

Another shadow crossed her face. "Yes. But he hates me."

"Hates you? He seemed like a nice man to me."

"He is." Her previously open face had closed off. Time to change the subject.

"So, you're not some kind of escaped Sorceress or something?"

She visibly shook herself out of her thought pattern and shook her head. A gesture that wasn't at all confusing. "No, I'm not. Why do you keep saying that?"

"Because, and I speak as a happily engaged man, you are rather a beautiful woman. Some women I know would kill for your secrets."

"Oh that," she laughed again. It seemed that she was a woman that liked to laugh and I thought that I would fuel that for a while. "The secret," she leant forward and whispered it as though she was imparting a great conspiracy that was kept from the entire world by shadowy people that gather in the hidden palaces in the world. "Is clean living."

"Really?"

"Yes. Avoid clean living at all costs. Drink, smoke and generally do everything you can to have a good time. I can recommend some mushrooms if you care to partake."

"No it's ok. I struggle enough with what I see as it is without trying to adjust my perceptions even further."

"As a Witcher's apprentice I can understand that." She mused. "Seriously though, there isn't that much to it. Proper herbal care will do it. There are oils that can easily be made and any herbalist knows the recipe for a cream that you can use on your skin to protect you from the sun's rays. It's about keeping your skin from drying you out you see. Also to stop yourself getting cooked."

"Cooked? By the sun?"

"Have you ever had sunburn?"

"Well yes but..."

"There you go then. That's all sunburn, Heatstroke and sunstroke are. Your body and brain gets cooked by the rays of the sun. You must protect yourself from that."

"Well ok, but what about..."

"You mean my feminine assets?"

"I wasn't going to say it like that."

"Really? How are you going to say it?" She was enjoying my discomfort. I wasn't really that uncomfortable but I was trying to put her back at ease so that she would be more relaxed when I began to ask her the real questions.

"I don't feel I should tell you." I responded.

She laughed again. "Mother used to say that I was just lucky. That some people are born that way, that I might have some elven blood in my ancestry or something. Believe it or not, it can be a problem sometimes."

"Really?"

"Oh yes. Even though I have no magical talent whatsoever I am still called the village Witch more often than I would care to admit. You would be surprised how many people, both travellers and merchants believe that the term "village Witch" can be swapped out for the term "Village Whore". But men have a particular image in their mind about herbalists and healers. They like them to be older and unattractive. I don't know why. Something about age giving them authority or something.

"But if they're young and attractive they're too busy trying to get you to do what they want with such charming words as "Smile, a woman as pretty as you deserves to be happy," and, "What you need is a husband and then you wouldn't have to work as hard."

She snorted to show what she thought of this opinion.

"The truth is that I like my job. I like helping people and although there are and have been many that I'm attracted to, there aren't any that would accept having a wife that's more intelligent than them."

"Because you are?"

"Because I am, and they won't accept anyone who enjoys working. They want me to sit and look pretty so that they can show me off to their friends. Not really my idea of a good time."

She grimaced.

"I can't believe I've just told you all of that. I've only just met you. I called you over because you seemed to be interested in herbs by the river and I thought that I could make a sale."

"It's a gift." I told her. "To get people to talk, it's often as easy as just being able to listen."

She stared at me for a long time. "Did your Witcher master teach you that?"

"No, it is something I already knew although he uses the same trick when he's trying to find things out."

"Are you trying to find things out?"

I considered lying but she was right. This woman was clever and I suspected that I would regret trying to lie to her.

"I am."

"What are you trying to find out?"

"You've already told me much of it. That the village is dying due to lack of industry and lack of willingness to change into something new. That you are all holding onto some kind of proud past that you are beginning to realise will never come again. You have also told me that, despite appearances, you are not a very happy lady."

She nodded as though accepting something.

"Anything else?"

"I think you love the Cartwright but that's just a guess."

She thought about this for a while. "I think you will make a good Witcher."

"No," I told her. "I don't think I will." I allowed a smile to creep into my face and voice. "For instance, I'm useless at herbalism and alchemy and just don't have the memory to remember the formula and how they all work."

She laughed, as I intended.

"Why did your village seek to hire a Witcher?"

And then she instantly clammed up. As though her mouth, and face was a trap door or a lock box. "You would need to ask the village council. It is them that are arranging that and they know all the details."

"But I'm asking you." I told her.

She turned away, staring out at her garden. "Bad things are happening here. Good people are becoming desperate and are losing their integrity."

"What is happening? The council claim a demon."

"It's not a demon." She said it almost automatically, as though she said it without thinking.

"Then what is it?"

Her eyes widened and she seemed like a frightened animal, on the verge of bolting into the woods.

I sighed and eased off. "Look." I said. "My master and I are here now. We don't know what's happening but sooner or later, something is going to happen and my master will have to take steps. When that happens, people have a tendency to die. That's not a threat, but a plea. One of those people might be me and I would like to live to see my wedding night. I would imagine that you would like to see yours too."

She hung her head then which was when I realised that I had won. She wouldn't tell us what she knows now, but I knew how to get the information out of her later. But she needed time for my words to sink in.

"The more we know, my master and I, the better prepared that we can be and the more likely we are going to be able to save people's lives. That's how this works."

She said nothing but I knew she was taking it in. I climbed to my feet. "Time for me to go. Thank you for the tea." I turned and went to climb over the fence and back into the road.

"Don't go into the forest." She called after me. "Especially not the Eastern woods."

I turned back to her. Her eyes were shining. I felt a little guilty that I had brought tears to this woman's face but I also felt as though I was justified. Kerrass was right. This place was dangerous and one of the things that was making it dangerous was the people that lived there. Also, part of the job of being a scholar is to get people to tell you things that they might not want to tell you.

"Why does the Cartwright hate you?" I asked. I don't know why, some half-baked notion of helping her.

"I delivered the still-born baby that killed his wife."

I nodded. That would indeed do it.

"Does he love you as well?"

She threw her hands up in despair. "I don't know. I never know, how do you find out such things?"

I nodded again. "I will mention your shop to my master. He will, undoubtedly want to pay your a visit and make some purchases."

I left, feeling a little dirty.

The most necessary part of a Witcher's task is getting information on the situation that they are dealing with. It also seems as though it can be the hardest sometimes. Having to push through the lies and the secrets to get to the truth, even when that truth is unwelcome.

After vaulting the fence I carried on, still moving towards the church as I still wanted to speak to the priest that was there.

As I got further and further away from the Livery stable and the Inn, the buildings that I was passing seemed to be deserted and in woeful need of repair more and more often. It would not have been unfair to say that the Herb-woman lived on the outskirts of the centre of the village. There was still smoke rising from a couple of chimneys but more and more often, the windows were shuttered and dirt, twigs and other tree debris blown up against the doors showing that they hadn't been open in a while. It was broad daylight though so I decided that I didn't want to go poking around in the remnants of people's lives.

Maybe when it's dark, Kerrass and I could come back but I didn't want to look and feel like a looter.

I found an empty and abandoned inn building where the door was still open. Either having been abandoned that way or, I suspected, because some people had thought there was still abandoned beer and other alcohol in the cellars or something. But an open door seemed like an invitation and my curiosity got the better of me.

After all, Curiosity may have killed the cat but satisfaction brought it back.

It was just a small, empty inn. Anything that could be removed had obviously already been taken, either by looting or by the original owners. It was smaller than the one that we were staying in and I supposed that this one was further away from the Livery stable which mean that they caught less business from travellers. I guessed that this was more of a tavern for locals than the other one. It didn't inspire any kind of dread. None of the feelings that you get when you enter haunted buildings, it was just...empty. Empty and a little sad. It was all to easy to imagine this as a family run business, to imagine their dreams and aspirations that would have been born here. That would have died here.

I left.

Near the inn were a number of broken down merchant booths. The same that you find in most villages. With a table out front where a merchant can spread his wares for other travellers and locals to go through and investigate. I saw an old, cooking pot. Long given over to rust, sat in the corner of one of them.

I moved on, exchanging greetings with an old man who was walking down the road towards the tavern, leaning heavily on a walking stick. He took the pipe out of his mouth and waved it at me in greeting but he didn't slow his pace in an invitation to a conversation so I kept on walking, realising that it was the first person that I had seen in some minutes.

I passed a few more houses and then I had reached my destinations. Both the edge of the village and the church. The road that I stood on weaved off between the trees heading northwards. I had a strange feeling that I sometimes get when I am standing on a path that I don't know where it goes and had no intention of following, that if I just went round that bend, then I would get an answer. That in the shadowed treeline, I was being watched.

I shook myself free of the thought and the vision and turned into the churchyard.

The church itself was a deceptive thing. It was surrounded by an old stone wall. The Kind of wall built by old shepherds and farmers just for the purposes of keeping livestock in or out. I've sat and watched these kinds of walls being built, both when I was younger and sat watching the common folk at their work while Father discussed something with one of his tenant farmers. But also while waiting for Kerrass to do whatever it was that Kerrass needed to do.

They build them, literally one stone at a time. I suppose that the foundations are laid well in advance but then, whenever a villager finds a loose stone of suitable size, in a riverbank or in a field or something. Then they pick it up and find a nice solid place in the nascent wall to place it before wandering off to be about their normal tasks. It's the sort of thing that you do when you find yourself with five minutes spare in your day or you finish your farm chores early but it's not yet time for dinner. Just pick up a couple of stones and go and build a wall.

It was also very old. There was moss crawling up the side, moss and various molds. Vegetable debris that had blown into it over the years from the nearby woodland that had now found something to grow in. Sprouts of flowers that would have gladdened the herb-woman's heart, mushrooms and other fungus grew out of a couple of gaps that I could see. Such growths only occur in the oldest of old constructions.

To get through the wall, other than hopping over the top of course which could have been done easily, I walked through a small wooden archway that also seemed to double as a noticeboard for the church. A lot of the notices were faded now, as though someone had once put a lot of effort into them and were now realising that such things are simply not as important as they used to be.

One of the ways that the person, presumably, had found something to do was in the preservation of the churchyard which seemed to double as the village graveyard. In as much as Graveyards can ever be beautiful. This one was. Flowers everywhere. Both in small bushes and in pots that were placed near the graves. Other bunches of flowers adorned the headstones themselves. The grass that provided the walkways between the stones was well maintained and although not short, it looked as though it was regularly kept trimmed and cared for. It was a peaceful place, both in the sense that there wasn't much noise but also in the kind of peace that comes with the odd holy places that I had been to. It reminded me of my family chapel and I decided that I liked it here.

I spent a bit of time wandering around. There were names on some of the stones and many of the stones were quite old.

But the church building itself was relatively new. Made from wood that had obviously been harvested from the nearby trees. It was one of the only buildings that hadn't been thatched. Instead, a wooden roof that had been sealed with tar or something similar. The was only a couple of windows, but again, it looked plain, clean and well cared for.

I was beginning to find that I was hoping that I would like this priest. Recent experience had told me not to hold my breath though.

I walked up the main door, knocked and tried the handle which told me that the place was unlocked. Churches like this one are supposed to be open spaces where anyone can walk in and worship at any time so I didn't feel any particular hesitation to go inside.

What I found inside was another peaceful and quiet place of worship and I was struggling, more and more, to remain objective when coming in to meet this priest.

Inside, the church was simple, clean and tidy. Several rows of wooden benches made up the congregation area of the building. There was a confession booth off to one side that provided anonymity for both the confessor and the person confessing. This is not as common as you might think. Again, there were flowers everywhere, underneath the windows to take advantage of the sunlight, at the end of every bench and in all corners of the building.

At first I was worried that the flowers themselves would be potentially overwhelming, filling the relatively small space with so much scent and pollen that the air would become cloying and sickly. But that just failed to happen. Instead there was a gentle, clean scent about the place. At the end of a central aisle there was an alter with a relatively small bowl of fire on top of it. As I walked in, the man that I took for the priest was feeding small logs to the flames from a well stacked and tidy pile that was off to one side.

"Welcome," he called over without looking. "I'll be right with you."

He had the booming voice of a man who has been trained to speak to large crowds of people and make sure that his voice was going to get heard.

"Take your time," I called back. I walked forward, made the proper bows towards the flame and found a seat on one of the benches. A woman entered through a door in the back of the church with an armful of flowers and set about working on an arrangement. She either didn't notice me or didn't care that much, so focused was she on her small tasks. When she was done with the flowers she reopened the door, picked up a broom of twigs that looked like the stereotypical witches broom of a simple pole with a collection of dry twigs tied to the end. Then she started sweeping.

"Now, what can I do for you," came the Priests voice and I turned back towards him. I was leaning on my spear at the time. "I should say," The priest went on, "That you have nothing to fear here."

"Errr, What?"

"The spear my son. You do not need the spear."

I had genuinely forgotten that I still had it on me. "Oh, sorry. Force of habit."

He smiled at me genially. I was surprised by how young he was. Normally men of this kind of priesthood tend to be in their middle ages. That period where they are no longer going to rise any higher in the church hierarchy and they have done everything that they can in whatever monastery or parish that they come from. Village priesthoods like this tend to be the places where priests retire to when they've done everything in the church organisation that they want to do. But this man was in his late twenties at most.

He had warm, but sharp brown eyes that gazed at me from underneath bushy eyebrows. He had a crooked smile on when I saw him properly for the first time and the kind of stubble that you get when you have other things to worry about than shaving in the morning. I regularly wear similar stubble myself. I would have put him at about my age, his hair was dark and tied back into a small pony tail. I don't think it was any kind of statement but more that it was tied back to keep it out of his way. He was neither short, nor tall and might have been designed by nature to be a big round man but it seemed that he hadn't taken those instructions to heart. Instead he had a massive frame about his body structure but there was relatively little on it. Neither fat nor muscle. I was also surprised that he didn't have a tonsure on the top of his head although it did look as though there might once have been one there but that it had been allowed to grow out.

"Do I pass inspection?" He asked with curiosity and humour.

"Forgive me father." I said automatically. "But I am going to be asked to pass on details at a later date."

"I see. I am Father Anchor sir and you are?"

"My name is Frederick Coulthard."

When I'm meeting villagers or farmers. I tend to leave out the "von" part of my name because some people tend to clam up when they think you're taking on "airs and graces".

He looked at the spear though and noticed the dagger in my belt.

"Frederick _von_ Coulthard? Brother to Cardinal Mark?"

I sighed. "The very one."

There was a gasp from the corner of the room and a clatter as the broom hit the floor. There was some flapping of cloth and the woman that I had seen earlier ran off towards the door. "When I turned back, the priest was grinning at me.

"I take it you've heard of me then."

"Not me, although I may say that if you want to travel incognito then you might want to change your name or stop having your works published. But it's my wife that's the fan. In fact, if I'm not that much mistaken, she's gone off to find her copies of your journals so that you can sign them for her."

"The books or the original..."

"The originals."

I winced. "That's a lot of journals."

"That's what I keep telling her." he sighed. "We don't have a lot of personal space here as it is and a shelf full of heavy paper is bulky. But damned if I can get her to listen," He spoke fondly though and I ventured a guess.

"Also," I began, "It would be better if you could refuse her anything that she asks for."

He laughed. "You have the right of it."

"I didn't think priests could get married. I know that Mark never wanted to and I have never really met any priest that has."

"It's rare," he scratched his cheek. "And I would be lying if I claimed that it hasn't damaged my church career if I wanted to climb to the lofty heights that your brother has achieved. They want their cardinals and Hierophants to be free of any other concerns other than their worship and protection of the flame. But I find I quite enjoy being a village priest anyway, trying to help people find spiritual fulfilment. I like the community of it. That and I didn't like the way the church was going."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, to start with, they didn't want me to marry my wife."

We both laughed.

"But seriously. I was all but brought up in a monastery. I'm told according to extremely wise people that the Father Abbot was a traditionalist who believed that the church was about protection and nurturing things and so the monks would take part in local things, help to build houses and mucked in at harvest and planting. I remember looking at them and the way that they were accepted by the village and townsfolk, the way that they were loved. That's the kind of priest I wanted to be and that's the kind of priest I hope I am. I want people to feel safe when they come here."

He looked at me sharply as he said that.

"I'm pretty sure though," I told him, "That celibacy is one of the rules."

"Is it?" He stared me straight in the face. "I'm astonished. I notice how often the priests don't obey that rule though and I also notice how much trouble that gets them in. Instead I am in a committed, loving marriage with the most beautiful woman in the world and anyone that disagrees with me can fight me for it."

"Isn't violence one of the rules that priests are supposed to avoid."

"Yes, unless they're a Witch hunter I notice. Or a church soldier, a member of a knightly order, a guard on a place or taking out your aggression on heretics, magic users and non-humans."

He sighed.

"I love my religion and I love the Holy Flame, but flame if the "church" part of it does my head in sometimes. Still, I like your brother, he seems to have a good head on his shoulders and if he can be allowed to continue then he might have the chance at seeing to some real change. Change for the better. Including letting us marry."

"Why's that so important?"

He considered this. "Being a priest is hard. Anyone who tells you different is either lying in an effort to recruit you into the church itself, or has never done the job. We're only human. I know that some priests like to think of themselves as the personification of the Flame on the continent but that's utter rubbish. We're human we need the human touch. We need friends and loved ones and intimacy in order to retain our sanity. How many of those fucking torturers and murderers that used to fill the ranks of the Witch hunters and priests under Radovid's encouragement, would have been able to get away with that stuff if they had gone home to a wife and kids and had to look them in the eye?"

"Quite a few of them I suspect."

He thought on this. "You are probably right there. But for me, I have found my wife's presence and her love invaluable in the pursuit of my work. As good a woman, as good a person as I've ever known and she makes me a better man because of her presence. A better man, a better priest."

There was a noise and he turned. "Ah, speak of the heretic and lo she doth appear."

Out of the back room, the woman returned, tottering under the weight of too many books and scrolls compelling both myself and the priest to leap to our feet and rush to her aid. A feat of minor gallantry that earned us a smile each.

She wasn't the prettiest woman I've ever met. Maybe in her late teens or very early twenties. Her hair was cut so that it could be tied out of the way, her nose was a little bit too pronounced and there was a strange, I almost want to say "sunken" quality to her jaw and her mouth. Her forehead was a little too pronounced and there were some scars of some childhood disease that marred her skin that was also flushed in ways that would subtract from what would be considered "classic" beauty.

I really hope that when she and her husband read this, that she is not too upset at these words.

But there were two things about her that made her beautiful. The first was that her eyes contained an intelligence and humour that was amazing to see. They were among the most expressive eyes that I've ever seen. They gave the impression of a person that wandered around _observing_ the world and finding some measure of amusement in what she saw. Both gentle mocking amusement as well as genuine and gentle laughter and humour at what was happening in the world around her. They were eyes that saw the best in everything. They saw the beauty in wild flowers and plants that others would refer to as weeds. They saw the wonder and peace that can be around a graveyard and in some way, she seemed to see the best qualities in the people that she met.

Also, when she smiled. It was like the sun coming out on a cold day. The entire room lit up and seemed to chase the chills away. As I say, not _classically_ beautiful but there was a warmth and a kindness to her that was wonderful.

The priest, Father Anchor, is a very lucky man.

She also had a blank slate that was tied around her neck. I wondered at it but decided not to pursue it.

We placed the piles of paper and leather bound volumes on the bench next to me before she scurried back into the back room which I guessed contained the living area that she and Father Anchor shared. Before I really had time to assess just how much she had produced from the back room she had come back with a sheaf of quills and a small pot of ink that she presented to me with an endearing kind of shyness.

"I'm sure that Lord Frederick will be good enough to sign them all for you." Father Anchor told her.

She looked at me with an expression that plainly apologised to me for the stupidity of her husband before her eyes widened in an almost comical level of hope. The same way that a small child would when they want a cookie or a piece of cake. Emma calls them "Puppy dog eyes" and none of us could stand tall in the face of Francesca's version of them.

I laughed and reached for the quill.

"Perhaps we could bring our guest some tea?" Father Anchor suggested. "You know, while he signs just about your entire library."

She really had the most expressive body language and facial expressions of anyone I've ever known. She folded her arms across her chest and gave him a scolding look. There was no doubt in my mind that what she was telling him was "And why do _I_ have to be the one that fetches the tea?"

Father Anchor saw it too. "I'm talking to our guest,"

She made a kind of "Harrumph" kind of noise to show what she thought of that.

"Also, it's you that he's doing the favour for." He pointed out.

She gave him a look that promised some kind of punishment at a future date before she almost skipped out the back, Father Anchor's eyes followed her with an odd expression.

I signed the first book. "Who should I make it out to?" I asked.

The priest shook himself from thoughts that I guessed were kind of maudlin. "It would not be inn inaccurate to write that she's your biggest fan. Her name is Tulip though."

I nodded and made the appropriate adjustments to my written message. "You know I have to ask though right?"

The priest nodded. "You want to know our story?"

"I do," I put one book down and picked up the first magazine. She had clearly collected my articles from when they had first started to be published along with every magazine, or book to which I had contributed, even those ones where I only added an academic essay on the behaviour of something that I had come across. The clinical, academic works that don't really speak to anything entertaining or exciting. The writing that is little more than updated classifications of old books and documents. I gestured at it all. "You must be well aware of my habit for curiosity."

"I am." He sighed. "But look. I love my wife and she would be really cross with me if I let her...be taken advantage of."

"What do you mean?" I had started on the magazines now.

"I would be really cross as well."

I smiled. "Look, I'm a historian by trade. I've become a traveller and a mover and shaker, largely by accident. I'm not even sure yet whether this entire episode is going to make it into my writings at all. Either as a whole or in part. So it's more than possible that her, and your, story is never going to get told. But just so you know, I don't have a switch where I suddenly decide that I'm not listening, or not collecting material for a future date. I'm not that guy. Either tell me or don't, that is your choice.

"I actually came here for another reason but now that I've met the two of you, I am insatiably curious about that. So I can either ask you the questions I came here to ask, but I would rather wait until your wife comes back so that I can ask you both. Or, you can tell me the story about how a young priest and his wife came to live in the back end of beyond. Especially a woman who is clearly rather well educated." I tapped one of the more advanced academic texts that I had helped contribute some things to. "That tome is not for beginners and I notice that it's well worn and that she's annotated it."

"Yes, not your sections though." He sighed.

"Was she born unable to speak?" I asked.

"No, Flame no." He hung his head for a moment. "I was young then, younger in mind and character rather than age. According to the monks that raised me I was abandoned to them at a young age, I have no idea why and they either didn't know or wouldn't tell me. I grew up in the monastery and found that I quite liked the church and the religion that came with it. All things considered I had a happy childhood and I don't think I surprised anyone when I took holy orders. I liked working with people. I liked working alongside people in order to make the world a better place. I like providing sanctuary to strangers and being a sympathetic ear that people can trust."

I nodded and reached for another magazine.

"I didn't want to serve in any of the larger churches. I like the religion, not the church and I certainly didn't want to be part of the Witch hunters or the Flaming rose before them."

"A little unfair," I said. "The Flaming rose were not the Witch hunters."

"No, but they were militant. And like the Witchhunters, they were given their leave to do horrible things by madmen." He spoke with sudden energy, passion and determination. "They also attracted the very worst kind of men. They should have, both of them, been the very pinnacles of humanities efforts to be good, kind, chivalrous and decent, but instead they descended into becoming examples of the very worst kind of cruelty that humanity could be. I wanted no part of that. Instead, I joined the Flame wardens."

"You tended the shrines?"

"I did."

For those who don't know. On the many and varied roads that lead towards Novigrad there are a series of small buildings that house large bonfires. They're supposed to be guiding lights that help people towards the great flame that is housed in Novigrad cathedral. In practical terms they end up being stopping points where people can get a drink of water from the well, or a bite to eat should food be available. Also some healing and other services that the church can offer.

"I was stationed there during the rise of the Witch-hunters. It was an awful time." He shook his head, lost in some kind of old memory. "She came to us then. Like me she has absolutely no idea how old she was. We guessed that she was sixteen at the time but, you've seen her. There's almost nothing to her and her, I suppose we have to call them what they are, her feminine curves are underdeveloped to say the least. But she was an old soul in a young body."

He smiled at a memory.

"I had absolutely no idea how much she would change my life when she first turned up. She was a tiny little waif of a thing, I certainly didn't harbour any feelings towards her. It wasn't love at first sight or anything like that. She was a small, lost, starving person but she wasn't sad, upset or beaten down. She had this strange ability to see the best in anyone that she saw and a touch of her hand and the sound of her singing could calm even the most troubled of people."

He sighed.

"As she opened up to us, it became clear that she wanted to be a priest of the holy flame. She had heard a calling to serve that entity, rejected being a priestess of Meletele, Freyja or any of the other Gods and Goddesses that would welcome women into their priesthood. She wanted to be a priestess of the Holy Flame. Obviously church law _does_ forbid that and she had run away from home after being told this for what must have been a truly ridiculous amount of times in the hope that she could serve the fire in some way, even if she couldn't do it in a cassock from a pulpit."

I continued to sign my name, doing my best to add little jokes and comments to each of the things that I was signing so that I wasn't just going over the same things over and over again.

"She worked just as hard as the rest of us, getting up early with us and working until long after other volunteers were pleading off and going home to bed. She didn't eat enough to feed a sparrow but always her smile and her gentleness seemed to carry her through. There wasn't, there isn't an angry or hate-filled bone in her body."

There was a pause in the story.

"When did the two of you fall in love?" 

"Oh we all loved her. But it was a kind of little sisterly, younger daughter kind of love. I stress and I will point out over and over again that I didn't think of her romantically for ages. I've since been told that it's not uncommon, that a person doesn't realise that they're falling in love."

I grunted. "I remember how it was with me. I just realised one day that I _was_ in love and that was that."

"With me, it was a couple of years after she had first arrived and things in Novigrad were turning for the worst. We, and by we I mean she and I, think she was about seventeen at the time. I will have been about twenty five. The Witch-hunter faction was becoming more and more powerful and those of us that were more accepting of those different from ourselves or even the more moderate members of the priesthood were being shut out. Simply put, the fact that we had this girl with us that we were feeding out of our allowance was becoming controversial. Many times church nights and witch-hunters would come out and search our place for "magic using fugitives. Many many times we had to stand between her and them in order for her to not be taken out for burning as they had all heard of the "Calming effect" that the girl of the fire, which is what she was called in that area by the pilgrims and travellers, had on people. They claimed that that was sign of sorcery."

He snorted to show what he thought of that.

"In the end, we had to tell them that we had driven her off, but in reality she had a hiding place a little way off. One of the points of those shrines is that they can be seen from a long distance but that also means that we could see Witch-hunters coming, almost from the moment that they left the city and then she was like a deer, running off through the grass and the bushes."

"Flame," I muttered.

He laughed at me. "This story isn't going where you think it's going. It wasn't the Witch-hunters that crippled her. If anything, arguably, it was the Witch-hunters that saved her life. One of those silly little circumstances that shape the world. But I was telling you about how it happened that I realised that I was falling in love.

"She came to me. The Witch-hunters were the real power in the countryside now and we all knew it and we all feared them. For whatever reason, she came to me in the middle of the night."

He grinned at the memory. "But again, it's not what you think. I slept in the store-room. I was young and although I couldn't hurt a fly there was some kind of feeling that if they put me in the store-room then people would be less likely to steal from it. But anyway, I woke up to find that she was shaking me. She was sat next to me, cross legged wearing her shirt with the sleeves rolled up and a pair of trousers but I notices that she had no shoes or boots on. I remember finding that odd. I remember thinking that she looked very serious as though something really important had happened. Which I suppose it had. But anyway, she looked at me as I struggled to wake up. When she was sure that she had my full, awake intention.

""Don't say anything," she told me. "I am well aware how silly you are likely to get over this given that you are a man," she counted the points off on her fingers, "older than me and a priest. But there is something that I want you to know. Before the Witch-hunters come for us for not being as violently anti-magic as they think we should be or someone else comes for us in revenge for the excesses of the Witch-hunters themselves. I have thought about it for a while and I want to tell you this before something happens."

"She stared at me for a long time.

""I love you." She told me.

""And I love you too." I told her back.

""No, silly," she told me crossly. "Not as a priest loves a person, or as a brother loves a sister or as two friends might love each other. I love you as a man loves a woman. I love you."

She put her head on one side and considered for a moment or two.

""Yes," she decided after a while. "I think that covers it." Then she darted forward and kissed me. It was a chaste thing, over before I could realise what was happening but I will never forget that feeling. She nodded in satisfaction and got to her feet telling me to get some rest."

He laughed at the memory. I realised that I had been kind of holding my breath and had stopped signing things. I hurriedly dipped my quill and started writing again, hoping that he wouldn't notice.

"Things weren't the same from then on." He carried on. "I was trying to be celibate and follow the tradition that priests don't get married but it was like... It was like a different path opened in front of me, as though there was a new path through the trees that I hadn't noticed before. It was an odd thing, but I started to realise that she was a sexual creature. She used to dress the same as any other labourer in the fields and keep her hair short which meant that she often got mistaken for a boy that worked at the shelter. Too young to take holy orders. But it meant that up until that point I had never thought of her as anything other than being, just another worker. But suddenly I started realising that I was admiring the curve of her leg. Or what happened in her chest when she stretched her arms over her head. The shape of her neck, that kind of thing."

"You sound like a man falling in love."

"Which I suppose I was. I loved her most though for the way she handled the other people at the shelter, the poor and the injured, the people that thought that a pilgrimage to Novigrad would solve all their problems. She was good and kind and gentle and that was the thing about her that I loved the most. I realised what was happening and talked to her about it. I made some kind of gallant gesture and suggested that I should leave the priesthood so that we could marry.

"She laughed at me as I recall. We hadn't discussed her feelings towards me since the night that she came to my room and I had certainly not told anyone about the fact that I was beginning to reciprocate."

"I suspect that you reciprocated long before that."

"My master at the shrine agreed with you. But she laughed when I suggested that I give up holy orders and that we should run away together. She told me that it was my devotion to the flame and my...holiness, her words, that attracted her to me. The same values I saw in her, she _claimed_ to see in me. She told me that I made _her_ better than she was and that was what she loved about me." He grinned at me. "The fact that she then told me that all of this is true while she also wanted to fuck my brains out was a bit of a brain melter to me."

I laughed with him.

"I went to my confessor and the chief priest of the shrine. A good man that I miss a great deal. I told him about the problem and he also laughed at me. Not for the first, or the last time that he did that. Apparently there had been a pool running between him and the other priests about how long it would take us both to realise that we loved each other and ran off with each other."

"I might be a little hazy on marriage but I'm pretty sure that gambling is forbidden in the priesthood." I commented reaching for another magazine.

"It is," he replied. "But then again, so is hating other people. We're supposed to guide people back to the light, not torture them into submission. Anyway, they didn't gamble for money, but who got to clean out the chamberpots and move the cesspit. That kind of thing."

"I see."

"He told me that they would support our decision one way or another. But in the end, as with so many things in our lives, it was my wife that came up with an answer. We had taught her to read but we hadn't registered how much she wanted to learn. She consumed knowledge at an amazing rate. Can read and understand faster than anyone else I've ever known. Had she been born wealthy, I suspect that she could have attended the universities. Or even been a lawyer or even a Sorceress."

I saw his hands twitch towards making an automatic warding sign. I was pleased when he didn't do so though as he stopped himself with conscious thought.

"She had some books that we had taught her to read with. She had a copy of the writings of St Thomas as well as the holy scriptures and the teachings of the Prophet Lebioda. She hunted through them all and could find no reference to priests being unmarried. All she found was the same old passage. The one about priests being chaste and good in all their dealings. There was nothing about not marrying and as marriage was and is one of the most important rites of the church, she reasoned that being married was perfectly acceptable, providing that the priest took his responsibilities seriously, both as a priest and as a husband."

"Haven't people argued that a priest's first duty is to the church and that having a wife would distract them from that duty. Not that I disagree with you but I want to know where you stand on it."

"I had the same problem. She argued that a wife can actually help a priest do this. She can remove a lot of the other responsibilities that a priest had. Like having to care for themselves, feed themselves and clothe themselves. They can help out around the place, to take worries off the priests shoulders as well as providing the occasionally valuable woman's perspective. And she argued that getting good and properly shagged occasionally is good for the soul."

"You know what?" I said. "I kind of agree with her."

"So did my confessor as it happens. He married us in secret. We're public knowledge to the rest of the church now but at the time we were worried about what some of the fanatics might do to us at this perceived breach of church law. We feared that the fanatics wouldn't stop to listen to reasoned debate and would just kill me and rape her before killing her.

"I will never forget my wedding day."

"Especially the wedding night."

"That too." He admitted reasonably. "Turns out that there's no sexual appetite quite like a repressed, flame fearing sexual appetite."

There was a period of silence for a while as he was lost in his memories.

"So what happened?" I prompted.

He surfaced out of the sea of memory. "Nothing much. The shrine was manned by a group of relative traditionalists in that we were all well aware that the recent attacks on magic users were fuelled by politicians in the church hierarchy who wanted to take advantage of political realities rather than standing up for what's right. Unfortunately, our political stance was why many of us were exiled to the shrines on the outskirts of things in the first place. Therefore we were the first suspects whenever anyone escaped custody and people just assumed that we were guilty."

"Were you?"

"Of course we were but that's not the point. We were so in the eye of the hierarchy that we could draw eyes towards us rather than in, say, the local village which would often put mage refugees on barges and have them shipped up, or down, the river. So while _we_ were being searched those self-same forces were not elsewhere. Also their insistence on carrying flaming torches everywhere meant that we could always see them coming. But it meant that my new wife spent a lot of time away from the shrine and away from me. We had agreed that the time was not right for children as it meant that she would have her mobility curtailed, mobility that was vital to her survival so we waited, taking what refuge we could."

"Did your wife lose her speech during all of that?"

"No," he shook his head and smiled sadly. "We haven't got to that part yet. It happened after the Witch-hunters had run out of Sorceresses to hunt. It always struck me that they were more interested in Sorceresses than they were in Sorcerers or Wizards. Can't think why, although I always suspected some suppressed sexual rage. The magical folk had escaped and the Witch-hunters needed a new enemy to stir the people against in order to keep their control over the populace."

"Nothing like a foreign enemy to bind people together."

"I think it's more than that. It's fear that they use. Divide and conquer is the oldest tool in the arsenal of tyranny and this is no different. It also served to keep the Witch-hunters and the Inquisition in power. They'd killed or driven off all the Witches and as a result, what were they still doing here? They needed something else to keep them all in power and so they turned on the non-humans. I suppose we should have seen it coming but we really didn't. We all kind of hoped that the anger and the hatred that had driven the Witch-hunters up until that point would have spent itself in the pyres that they had all built but of course it hadn't and it was this that caught her out."

"How, she's thin to be sure but she's hardly Elven in appearance."

He smiled sadly. "You misunderstand again Lord Frederick. The Witch-hunters didn't do that to her. It was a group of Elves. As I say, ironically, the Witch-hunters saved her life."

I felt my mouth hang open.

"Here's the story. She was in Novigrad when the first of the massive pogroms was taking place. When they were literally rounding up Elves, Dwarves and Halflings before putting them to the sword. It was awful and my wife couldn't stand it. She was in town when it happened, picking up some supplies for the shrine in the Bits. We needed bandages and some...it doesn't matter but she saw what was happening and hid."

"Sensible," I commented.

"Yes it was. But then, being my wife, instead of escaping she saw a group of Elves that were being chased and she beckoned them on, telling them that they could find safety if they just followed her. She beckoned them on and they followed her. But then they saw the holy symbol that she had round her neck."

He sighed. "It's hard to be objective when it comes to this. It's hard to remember how scared those Elves were. How angry they were and how bitter they had become at just one more cruelty they had suffered. But they saw that Holy symbol, assumed that she was a servant of the Holy Fire, which she was, and then they assumed that she was leading them into a trap where they would all be killed."

"Fucking hell."

"Yes. So instead of following her to freedom, they pulled her into a side alley and, in their words, cut her lying tongue out."

He didn't say anything for a long time. I didn't move as it seemed a little tactless to continue signing things in the wake of that kind of revelation

"She was pretty sure that they were going to kill her as well as she kind of became a focus for all their fear and their rage. She told us later that there were two things that saved her. The first was that they were so angry and scared that they couldn't agree on what to do with her. Some wanted to rape her before they killed her. Others wanted to start cutting bits off her before they killed her but in all the arguing they forgot that tearing someone's tongue out doesn't stop them from screaming. Her screaming summoned a group of Witch-hunters who drove off the Elves before helping her. Eventually she was taken to the hospital where they patched her up and she escaped.

"I was beside myself. Because she couldn't speak she couldn't tell them where she was from. It never occurred to them to give her a piece of chalk and slate to find out what was going on. So she escaped and all but fell into our arms. It was the closest I've ever come to losing my faith."

"I can't say anyone can blame you."

He grunted at that.

"I remember thinking that the Flame was supposed to protect us from monsters if we believed in it. I obviously did and my wife was even more obvious in her faith so how had the flame allowed this to happen? I was furious. The person who got me to calm down?"

"It was your wife wasn't it."

"It was. She reminded me that the Elves were afraid. That they were scared and that the horrors that they had done to her was merely a reflection of what had been done to her. She didn't hate them. She felt pity for them and if she could feel that, then what right had I to my rage?"

He shrugged. Out of the corner of my eye I caught a hint of movement and noticed that she had snuck out of the back room and was listening, just being out of sight of her husband. She put her finger to her lips to show that she wanted me to be silent as her husband continued the story.

"The terror and the madness ended with the death of Radovid. Cooler heads, like that of your brother over in Tretogor started to gain power and my brothers and I started to rise in prominence again as stories of our exploits during that time began to get about. But I didn't want to be there any more. I am ashamed to admit that I still feel that anger in my heart when I think about what happened to my wife."

His wife pointed at her head and spun her finger around in the childish mime for suggesting that her husband was a crazy person.

"So I asked for, and got assigned to this parish, well away from Novigrad. A nice small parish where I could bring the word of the flame to the locals."

"How are you and your wife finding life here?"

"Not gonna lie. It took some getting used to. There is a switch of pace here. They go from being, what I would consider to be relatively lazy and lay-around to being full on and active to the point of lunacy when a caravan comes in. It's obscene the lengths that these people will go to when there is the possibility of making some money. But I like it here. I like being "in charge" of things, for our being able to put our own stamp on things. To be able to preach those parts of Holy teachings that resonate the most with me. To create a space for believers to come, to feel a sense of peace," he looked at me sharply again, "so that all comers have a place of sanctuary where they can feel safe."

I nodded. His wife was nodding behind him.

"And how's your wife coping with things?" I asked.

"You can ask her when she turns up with that damned tea. Has she ridden off to Novigrad to buy the damn herbs herself." He grinned. "I hope she's happy. She makes me buy any books that come through the place as she has some ideas as to helping what few young people still remain in the local area. She's made some inroads to that. She takes great delight in demanding that I..." he blushed. "see to her needs."

His wife mimed obscene acts behind him. Pelvic thrusts, finger through a circle, that kind of thing.

"She wants children." He went on.

She nodded vigorously.

"Is there a problem with that?" I asked.

She jumped up and down and applauded my question.

"I worry about her." He said as she rolled her eyes in her head at the stupidity of the male in her life. Female exasperation is often a funny thing to see. Especially when it's directed at someone else. "She's been through a lot, both before I met her and in the time since then. She's been through a lot and she gets sick easily. I don't want to risk her or hurt her."

She face-palmed and rolled her eyes again before going back into the back room to fetch the tea.

"I may say," I said carefully. "I may say two things. The first is that this decision isn't entirely yours."

"Yes, I know that but..."

"Also, there is a very talented, to my eyes, herb-woman and healer in town. Might I suggest a consultation with her could allay a lot of your fears?"

His wife had returned with a tray. She put the tray down with a crash and pointed at me while glaring at her husband. Even though she couldn't speak, I could hear her. "See," she said. "That's just what I've been saying. But you have to wait to listen to a _man_ before you'll listen to what I have to say."

I decided to keep my head out of their brief and obviously loving marital spat. Instead I bent to my work and continued signing. Whoever this woman was, whichever students finally managed to learn from her would be lucky people. From the few notes on the works that I had chance to read, she was also fiercely intelligent and had the talent of cutting through academic bullshit and getting to the root of the matter. I say that as someone who has used my own fair share of academic nonsense in order to appear clever.

In the end though I was surprised when I was asked whether I wanted milk in my tea. Once again I made the point about lack of cows on the road and a cup was handed over. The woman, Tulip, had sat next to her husband, resting against his arm. They were a couple that radiated affection for each other although the atmosphere of the body language suggested that she had won the argument by virtue of his realisation that there was no way that he could win.

She caught up her slate and scribbled on it quickly with a piece of chalk. "So is this village going to make it into your work?"

"I've already asked him that." Her husband told her. She responded by giving him a withering look.

"I don't know yet." I told her and therefore them both. "Maybe. It depends on whether anything interesting happens here. I know, that to all of you, what's happening here is of vital importance, but in the greater scheme of things..." I shrugged. "But...if it does then I shall be sure to mention the village priest and his clever, beautiful wife."

She beamed at me. And I felt that the day was one well spent if I could make this woman smile.

I carefully finished my signing and took a sip of tea which turned out to be a blend that I hadn't tasted before. Not entirely unpleasant but there were some herbs that I couldn't identify. I wanted to believe that I wasn't being poisoned but at the time, I was well aware that people in the village were not entirely trustworthy. That we had already been lied to and led down the garden path. I wanted to believe that this pair, along with the herb-woman and the Cartwright were good people. But the crypts and cemeterys are full of people who trusted too soon and too quickly.

I took a deep breath.

"I want to trust you." I told them both. "I like you both and I want to thank you for the story that you've told me."

She had sat next to her husband and had taken her husband's hand which she tugged over so that she could hold it on her lap.

"But." The priest said.

"But." I agreed. "You both know why I'm here? You know why Kerrass and I are here?"

"You want to ask us what's going on."

"I do. One of the first things I learned about life on the road, not just life spent with a Witcher, one of the very first thing's I learned was that the unprepared man is a dead man. Whether because you haven't brought enough water with you on a long journey or because you don't have the right oils and potions when you're facing a monster. We find ourselves in this situation. We saw a sign and we came here to help. But now we're here people are lying to us. So I have to ask you, what's really going on?"

The priest just stared at me. It was as though the gates of a fortress had come down behind his eyes. The same thing that happened with the Herb-woman and I felt a sinking feeling in my stomach. I had liked these people.

"People are desperate." He said carefully. The humour had vanished from the eyes of kind and friendly priest in front of me. "They can't help themselves and they need something."

"What is going on?" I asked again. I felt like I was at the beginning of a game of Gwent. The moment where you have a deck in front of you, neither of you has played a card and you look up to gaze at the person sitting opposite you. You scan each other's faces looking for openings. That moment where the really good players, the ones with the big decks and lots of money say that you have to realise that you don't play the hands that you deal with, but you play the person sat opposite you.

It's a fight, just as much as if we had both drawn weapons. The man's wife was looking from one face to the others. Concern in her eyes, there was a sympathy there that was directed at her husband that was...daunting. I wanted to reassure her, to tell her that it was ok and that I wouldn't be pushing this any further. But I couldn't and I think she knew that as well.

Kerrass had taught me better than that.

"The town is dying." He told me. "If there's anyone left here in five years I will be surprised. Five years after that, this will be a place of ghosts and monsters."

"So? It happens all the time. Towns and villages spring up to service particular trade routes or particular needs and then, when that need goes elsewhere, the town is no longer required. The villagers and the townsfolk move on to a place where they _can_ make a living and that's how it works."

He said nothing.

"There have been three wars in my living memory." I went on. "Continental wars that have almost literally rewritten the definition of the term "war" in our language. Wars that have involved multiple countries, on both sides, multiple armies on both sides and a death toll that is still being felt all this time later. It makes every military action that came before them seem like nothing more than border skirmishes. Entire population centres have moved, They have had to and landscape that was once well populated is now all but deserted, returned to the monsters and vagabonds that once lived there."

The priest still said nothing.

"So saying that these people are desperate is not enough. Of course they're desperate. But in the absence of work or goods or whatever, you either change, or die. You cannot cling on to the past."

"Unless you want to." He said finally. "Unless you want to. People here are not just desperate. They are also proud and do not want to let go."

"But that doesn't explain why Kerrass and I were summoned here with a fake notice of the presence of a demon."

"The notices were not fake."

"But what is here is definitely not a demon."

"No it isn't."

"So what is here?"

He continued to say nothing.

"Look, Are Kerrass and I in danger?"

"I think you might be."

"Are you in danger?"

"I might be, if I help you."

"Then..."

"But more importantly, my wife might be in danger."

She glared at him but it seemed to be an old expression, as though she well knew what was happening but that the argument was out of date and had happened long before and that there was nothing that she could do to stop it.

"Then you're going to stand by and let innocent people be harmed."

He smiled, "I doubt that the two of you could be considered innocent."

"Maybe not. But I wasn't referring to what Kerrass and I could be considered as. If we are attacked we will defend ourselves. We have little patience for this kind of thing and will react accordingly. You have not seen a Witcher fight. You have only read about it, either in the sagas, or in my own writing. The violence is shocking. We will defend ourselves and the less we know about what our circumstances are, the more likely it is that we're going to blunder our way into a situation that we can only get out of by drawing our weapons and laying about ourselves."

He said nothing to that.

"Have you ever seen what a blade can do to a body?" I asked.

They both shifted with indignation. "Of course we have." The priest snapped. "Did you not hear my story from earlier. I have spent hours caring for the dying, men and women and children who have been attacked by people who thought that their abilities with a sword made them right above all things."

"So why would you want to inflict that on the people here. Why would you want to strangers to be cut down by villagers or why would you want us to cut down villagers that are attacking us. We're not the bad guys here. We came here to try and help you. You and the rest of the village. So why don't you tell us what we need to know?"

"I..."

"Oh, and before you start. I will not be made to feel guilty because I used my spear to defend myself. I will not feel guilty for that. I will not. If I am attacked then I WILL defend myself to the best of my ability. I have seen those wounds as well, have inflicted those wounds myself and I will not hesitate if I feel as though I have to again."

"I am a priest."

"Yes. Yes you are."

"I have a duty."

"Again, I am not arguing with that at all."

"But I do not know everything. I have been kept from the council meetings."

"Kept from them, or chosen not to attend?" I wondered. I saw his wife flinch and realised that I had hit the truth of the matter.

To be fair to the priest here. There is a consistent and ongoing debate about the role that religion should play in civil government. Some people, like Father Anchor obviously did, believe that the church should have no say in civil matters, that priests should have absolutely no influence on lawmakers and monarchs the world over. But in return, that monarchs and civil laws should have no influence on church policy. It's a nice idea in theory but is almost impossible in practice.

Why? People often give land and money to the church in order to guarentee their ascent into whatever afterlife they would like to end up in. So some church members end up getting quite rich of rents and and things that their tenant farmers pay to them in return for working on the land.

But that land belonged to the king in the first place and why should he lose that same land to religious authorities. So soldiers turn up on these lands and demand the local feudal lord's taxes. "But we've already paid all of our taxes to our rightful landowners." Complain the farmers and townsfolk.

And on and on it goes.

But the other problem also exists. Just because a man puts a crown on his head, it doesn't mean that he's entirely immune to the pulls of religious teachings and writings. The recent Kings of Kovir and Poviss have all been religious men, some say to a fault. But when a churchman is telling the King to do something that is blatantly untrue and, or, foolish. What's the poor monarch to do? It's made even worse when the King decides to do the right thing and steadfastly refuses to take any part in the foolish military expedition or refuses to oust the "unpleasant, unsightly and heretical" druid's grove. Then the priests who are jealous of the influence of the druids in question decide to go off on one telling their followers that the King is not a right and just King and they should all disagree with him and refuse to carry out his orders.

I'll leave the results to that little problem up to your imagination.

Also, there's the problem that we have in the north which is that we all worship different Gods and Goddesses. I am well aware that the Eternal Fire, the Church of the Sky Father, Melitele and druidism are the main ones but there are all kinds of others. If you go wandering through Velen you will find wooden posts and idols at a good number of intersections devoted to a local nature God. As we've seen, there are cults to small local deities like Crom Cruarch. So who is right.

And by the way. I don't necessarily think that the Empire has the right idea either. Where the church and the state are actually the same thing. Where the Empress and her predecessors are the very definition of their religion, the holy sun on Earth. I think that that's dangerous, to have one person in charge of your civil and spiritual needs.

Wiser people than me will debate the point and arguments for years to come and maybe they will be able to give better answers than I will.

My own views? I am unsure on the subject. On the one hand I can easily imagine a good King being pressured or forced to do unsavoury things to his people because of the policies of greedy churchmen. But on the other hand, I can also, just as easily see a corrupt and mad King, not being held in check by good, wise and benevolent priests.

I remind everyone that the recent terrors in Novigrad and through a good chunk of the North happened because Mad King Radovid, notice how we call him "Mad King Radovid" now rather than "Radovid the stern", decided he didn't like Sorceresses and harnessed the greed, ambition and anger of the then head of the church of Eternal Fire which, in turn, whipped up the populace into a frenzy of anti-magic fervour before carrying that over into an all consuming fire of hatred towards non-humans. Many of whom had been good citizens in the past.

That was the church and state working together towards a common goal. If they did that towards a good series of things then that could be a benefit. But recently, we've seen what happens when such things can be used for evil.

This priest had decided not to interfere with the running of his town and be supportive of their efforts to save the place.

The other thing to bear in mind when people make decisions that you don't necessarily agree with, is that I was a stranger coming in from the outside. I had no idea what had happened to this man and his wife, I had no idea about the conversations that had happened between him and the other members of the village. This was all strange to me. It's easy for me to sit here, or to stand there, facing the two of them and for me to say that they took the wrong option. That they should have been involved, that they should have done something, but I was neither a priest, nor had I seen what these people had seen.

What I'm saying is, don't judge a man until you know what you've been through. But, in similar standards, it's easy for me to look at this calmly and say that I should have been calm, but there and then, at the time where I had just come out of one of the darker periods of my life on the road, I was getting scared and angry.

"You didn't attend," I told him, "because you chose not to rock the boat. You didn't attend because you chose to remain neutral and to be calm and separate from the whole thing. But you can't do that. I hang around with a Witcher so I know a few things about neutrality. One of those things is that sooner or later a situation is going to come up where you can't possibly remain neutral. Where the situation becomes so untenable that you have to step in and when that happens, all you can do is pray that you are not too late. Pray that things haven't gone past the point where you can affect the outcome. Because when it does."

I made sure that I looked them both in the eye. "If it already has. Then you have to live with whatever it is that you let happen. Because you are letting things happen."

I had made myself angry, entirely by accident. I liked this couple quite a lot and sometimes it's easier to get angry with people that you like for not living up to your expectations. There is nothing quite as soul destroying as when you find yourself liking someone that you think is despicable. Lord Cavill had been one such and I felt his ghost at my shoulder then.

I still do sometimes.

"That was a good speech," The priest told me, a little coldly. "Did you work on it for a long time?"

I let the air out of me and forced the anger from my mind.

"It's a standard one," I lied to them. "There are several "standard" speeches that you trot out in various circumstances when you need to try and get someone to tell you something. That one is about neutrality and not stepping up. There's a variation on that one when the person is not doing something because they are afraid."

"I can well believe it." He said. He was a little angry himself which was warring against the fact that he was well aware that I had deliberately taken the sting out of my words with a joke. "One day, you must write all these speeches down for me and I can compare them to some of my sermons. I have several that work similarly. Especially on the nature of support, friendship, forgiveness and understanding. I wonder how similar they will all be."

"More than somewhat I imagine."

The priest's wife, Tulip, was looking from my face to his and back again. She looked desperately unhappy and clearly wished that the two of us would just stop being men for just a moment and sort our shit out.

"I am their priest." He told me. He seemed calm, tired and resigned. "I hear their confessions, I listen to it all when they go on about their hopes and fears, their dreams and worries. I'm not supposed to act on that. I can't condemn a man to death for the fact that he lusts after the herb-woman. I can't hate a man when he tells me that he's worried that he might not be able to feed his children in the winter time. I look out and I see people waiting for the next caravan to come through. Not today, maybe tomorrow, maybe the day after that.

"I see people drawing lines in the sand, lines on the calendar where they say things like "If we haven't made more money by that point then it will be time to leave. But then a storm rolls in or, even worse, a caravan finally does turn up and the rest of the village swoops in like carrion feeders on a corpse. Then they are delayed. A day passes, they tell themselves that they will move on in the morning, or the morning after that. Then they hear rumour that a large caravan is coming up from the south and they convinced themselves to stay on for a bit longer."

He sighed.

"This is a dying place Lord Frederick. When we came here, four years ago, no more than that, shortly after the death of Radovid and the end of the war. It wasn't thriving then but it was busy enough to maintain two inns. I grew up near Novigrad and my world has always been dominated by that place on the horizon. The village that I grew up in was there for decades, even a hundred years, fishing the river and taking the fish to town on market day. It's still going to be there in a hundred more years until Novigrad expands a bit more and just swallows the place. It's terrifying to me that a place can lose it's reason for existing in a little under five years. They all know it too. They all know what's going to happen and they fear it. They don't want to confront the problem that they face, which is that there is simply no need for a village here any more. The only people left are those people that are either too stubborn, too stupid or too naïve to leave."

"Naive?"

"Yes. The Herb-woman is a good example of this. She knows she could go and make a fortune elsewhere but she doesn't leave because she feels as though she has a duty to the people here. Also, we are the same." He took his wife's hand again. "We have a duty to these people and we feel that we _have_ to stay and that we have no choice. But we do. I could write to the bishop and explain the situation and ask for a new posting. I would get one too. Some place where there's a quiet old church with a living room attached that we could make beautiful. But I won't.

"But I'm getting off topic. These people are my people now. I don't know when that happened but they are my people and I am their priest. They might have confessed matters but they haven't _told_ me what has happened so I can't act on it."

"You can act to prevent a crime." I told him. "I know that much about the seal of confessional."

"Yes I can." He told me. "Is survival a crime?"

"That depends." I told him. "Does survival mean that you are going to harm others?"

I didn't give him time to answer the question.

"Kerrass and I are here now and we are going to be forced to act. I don't know how that is going to come up but Kerrass thinks that sooner or later we are going to be forced to go into the woods. He thinks we are going to be forced to fight something there although we don't know what that thing is. Even though we are as confident as we can be that it's definitely not a demon. He also thinks that when we have done so, people are going to come for us and try and kill us."

The priest said nothing. His wife was frowning as though she was thinking furiously. I let the silence hang in the air for a moment.

"We did nothing other than to answer a call for help." I reminded him. "So show me the way out. Give me something I can use."

"All I can say," He told me, "All I can do, and it's all I _can_ do, rather than all I _want_ to do rather than breaking the most sacred laws and you know that. All I can say is to say that I am not a fighter. If armed men come for me then I will not fight, but anyone who comes to my doors and asks for sanctuary will be granted it."

"Are you trying to tell me something?" I asked.

He said nothing.

"Fine." I threw my hands in the air and got up to leave. "In which case I will leave with the most obvious barb that I have to throw, obvious and true. If you could have done something and you choose not to, no matter what excuse you decide to give yourself. If people die, whether it's Kerrass and I or any of the people that come for us. If people die then it's on your head."

"I know. And I will live with that. But I will not be judged by you for keeping my oaths." He said sadly. "Good luck Lord Frederick."

I sighed. "I'm sorry." I said. "I shouldn't have been so harsh." 

"Yes you should," he said in a similarly tired sounding voice. There was sympathy there I thought. "You would not be who you are otherwise. I flatter you with the thought that you are trying to save as many lives as you can. But I am a priest. A person's life is not necessarily the most important thing that they posses."

I nodded. I had heard of the quandary before.

"Good bye Father Anchor. Your servant Ma'am." I bowed to Tulip whose mouth hung open in astonishment.

"Good bye and Good luck Lord Frederick."

"Call me Freddie would you." I told him waving off his words.

"I thought you didn't like being called Freddie."

"I don't. But my friends call me Freddie and "Lord Frederick" sounds wrong coming out of your mouth."

He smiled. "Then I would be honoured Freddie."

The way he said it sounded odd. As though he was tasting the word to see how it felt. I turned to leave and Tulip waved as I left.

I left the church and got out into the still lingering sunlight. I felt faintly sick and only partially because I had just tried to hammer two people that I liked into doing what I wanted instead of what they felt they had to do. I wondered if I would have been gentle if our situations had been reversed and some stranger had walked up to me before attempting to get me to go against everything that I believed in.

I looked at the town again with new eyes. I had been correct earlier, it had the makings of a very pleasant little town and I could well imagine living here. But now I saw a place of gossip and lies, I found myself imagining people hiding behind doors and gossiping, conducting plots and schemes. I had found four people that I liked out of however many else there were around the place.

I had two thoughts as I walked down the path back towards the road, intending to walk back towards the inn to where Kerrass would be waiting. The first was that, yes, I had escaped the Cult of the First born but that didn't necessarily mean that I had managed to escape people doing bad things to each other. This felt worse somehow. These were not bad people really. They were just desperate and in a little while I would very probably have to fight and maybe even kill a few of them.

The other thing was that I felt a sense of inertia. We really were going to have to walk out into the woods at some point soon and see what could be seen.


	86. Chapter 86

(warning: Some crude language used for the purposes of shocking characters. Also, a description of a character's appearance that might be considered racist but is born out of a character's ignorance rather than any malice)

"Please Freddie, I'm begging you here. Please, tell me you found at least one soul in this Goddess forsaken town that is worth saving."

It's not often that Kerrass pleads with me about anything. Normally it's the other way round where I'm pleading with him to not beat the crap out of me during one of our infrequent training sessions. Or that I can lie in a little longer or have the last morsel to eat. The only time that Kerrass pleads with me is generally when he's trying to ensure that I don't talk about this or that in these journals.

This time though I was feeling a little more sympathetic.

"I found, at least three I think. Maybe as high as four or five."

Kerrass relaxed a little bit. "As many as that," some of his humour was returning.

"Yes. I don't think everyone here is worthless. I think that there are a lot of people that are weak, even more people that are stupid and most people that are desperate."

Kerrass grunted his acknowledgement of the point.

"The Priest and his wife are good folk but feel that they can't do anything that might hurt the town as a whole. He, almost certainly knows what's really going on as he's been told in the confession booth. But, unfortunately for us, he's the kind of priest who actually believes in what he's doing and isn't going to turn that knowledge over just to suit our desires."

"Damn," Kerrass mused. "I suppose you would object if I went over there and kicked it out of him."

"I would a little bit. It's just our luck to finally find a priest of principle, precisely when we could have done with finding a priest that bends the rules a little bit in our favour. But because he's so upright and noble, he's also the kind of man that wouldn't break under torture. He would bite his own tongue off first. Damn him and his stupid moral code. "

Kerrass smirked. "You liked him didn't you."

"I really did. I just hope it isn't his lack of telling folk that gets us killed."

Another grunt from Kerrass.

"And his wife? Are you sure it's his wife and not his lover? I thought Holy Fire priests can't marry."

"They can't. They've used a loophole in scripture to get it done though. She won't talk because, let's just say that the earlier joke about biting your tongue off was a bit on the nose. And she supports her husband."

"Stupid couples and their stupid supporting of each other."

"Exactly."

"Anyone else?"

"The herb-woman is a good woman, I think. Unhappily in love with the local Cartwright. She knows that the town is dying but feels as though she can't leave yet as she still has a duty to heal and look after the people that are still here. Her set-up is quite advanced though so you could probably top up your supplies if you're running low on everything. She'll talk eventually but my guess would be that she's been kept out of things. My guess would be that she knows _roughly_ what's going on but hasn't been allowed to know too much. Her punishment for being too nice and automatically healing everyone that she comes across. She's the kind of person who takes in injured mice and nurses them back to health."

Kerrass nodded. "I can see that. The locals seem to have a particular kind of view when it comes to women, in that they are generally too weak to be allowed to do proper jobs." He snorted at that.

"Did you point out that they are currently all ruled over by an Empress?" I asked slyly.

"I did make a few comments in that direction but they seemed to be of the opinion that she is just some kind of figurehead and that there's someone behind the scenes that is running the entire show."

"The Empress'll love that."

"Yes she will. Does the Cartwright return her affections?"

"I don't know. He'd be a fool not to though,"

"What do you mean by that?"

"You'll know when you meet her. There are some other factors though. She thinks he hates her because she was involved during the death of the Cartwright's first wife during childbirth."

Kerrass winced.

"It would seem that it was a stillbirth and the mother just didn't make it."

"Even the best midwives struggle with that kind of thing."

"They do but men, and women for that matter, sometimes struggle to keep their thoughts objective when it comes to wives and children. But in truth, I didn't talk to him about it. The other problem is that to my eyes, she's considerably more intelligent than he is and he might be intimidated by her despite not really knowing why."

"Mmm," Kerrass mused as he pulled on his lip in thought. "Is he another person that might be worth saving?"

"He might. He knows what he's doing and is working up the courage to leave town. He's not as invested in this place as he settled here rather than being born here."

Kerrass nodded at that. "That can make all the difference. And the other person that might be worth saving?"

"That I've met." I pointed out. "I've hardly met everyone that lives here and there are children here as well Kerrass. It would seem a little harsh to condemn the children because their parents are terminally stupid."

"Spoiling all my fun. Ok, but who's the last person."

"I liked the Bowyr. I couldn't tell you why as he took an almost instant dislike to me given that it was plain to us both that I wasn't an archer and was just poking around. But he knew what he was doing and his bows didn't have any of the ornamentation that Rickard would have found funny."

Kerrass grunted.

We were sat in the corner of the inn while we had this conversation. We were talking quietly but I didn't think we were being overheard. We were sat next to an outside wall which meant that anyone trying to listen in on us would have to be outside and be straining to listen through a thick wall of stone. A lack of draft suggested that there weren't any easy to see spy holes that people would be able to see or hear through and there was no-on around us.

When one of the serving girls came close to us we stopped talking so that Kerrass could continue to flirt with the blonde, who continued to make eyes at him, and so that the brunette sister could flirt with me. I wasn't that receptive if I'm honest. She was obviously younger than her sister, a little too young for my taste and, as has been made perfectly clear, I tend to like older women.

Somewhere a musician is performing a drum roll.

But the sentiment was true. I told her, when her sister was becoming a bit more encouraging and trying to push her onto me a little more, that I was engaged and trying to remain faithful to my intended. I told her that had I not been otherwise spoken for then I would have been happy and privileged to exchange kisses with so beautiful a young lady.

Kerrass later commented, just before he went back upstairs with the blonde, that being engaged has actually made me better with women.

My point being that we weren't being overheard.

We were eating a very fine rabbit and wild mushroom pie along with some roasted potatoes that had been mixed with some garlic and sage as well as some carrots. It was a fine meal, the drink was on the house as well although I wasn't drinking that much. Again, I was reminded that the rule about a thin innkeeper meaning that the food and drink would be terrible is not always correct.

Kerrass was in a foul mood when I had returned though. Being lied to for the majority of a day would do that to anyone. His earlier jocular amusement at the sheer ineptness of the lies had given way to boredom and eventually to a kind of sullen rage. Not that people were lying to him. That happens a lot and sooner or later you just have to learn to live with that. But rather that they were so inept at it. That they genuinely seemed to think that they were getting one over on him. He told me that they could barely restrain themselves from cackling and rubbing their hands together at the prospect of...whatever it was that was actually going on.

He was insulted, that they would think that he wouldn't see through the stupid and pointless lies.

And those lies had been many and varied.

It had started off with Kerrass' attempts to interview the innkeeper's wife. One of the unfortunate "victims" of the demonic possession. Unfortunately it would seem that the poor woman had not been properly briefed by the village council as to what she was supposed to say. She spoke about having been working in the yard in the early hours of the morning when she suddenly felt as though she saw a huge being. All muscle and horns with the face and legs of a goat but the torso, arms and genitals of a man.

Kerrass told me that he had really had to fight to keep from smirking at the woman's description of a demon. It was straight out of a fairy story, the kind of imagined figure that would be conjured up by housewives everywhere who secretly want to be kidnapped by dark, sexual forces without really realising the horror that that sort of thing suggests. Apparently, she had gone on to describe the demon's manhood with increasing and vivid detail until the innkeeper who was present, but under admonishment that he wasn't allowed to speak in case he distracted his wife from the traumatic events that she had been through, had to turn away in embarrassment and disgust.

"You egged her on didn't you." I accused him.

"I may have." Kerrass said. "If I'm going to be lied to then fair enough, but you can't expect me not to have a little bit of fun at the same time."

After meeting the innkeeper's wife, Kerrass had made a huge show of walking round the yard, inspecting the straw and the corners, spending a bit of time in the inn's stables with the horses so that he could have a bit of intelligent conversation for five minutes.

Then he had gone off to make a more detailed inspection of the Livery stable which was where he found out the first piece of real news that hadn't been told to us before.

The stable owner was actually the eldest son of the old owner who had died recently. According to the council members that were escorting Kerrass this way and that, he had been a good man but had then become suddenly ill and died a matter of six weeks ago. Kerrass had enquired as to whether or not he might be allowed to speak to the man's widow as the sudden sickness might be an important clue, or one of the "omens" that might give a clue as to what was going on. But his request was refused on the grounds that "The poor woman should be left to her grief."

"Did you at least get shown where she lives?" I asked.

"You're thinking of a night time rendezvous?"

"I am."

"Unfortunately not. But your Herb-woman might know, or the priest if he had to see to funeral rites. It would be useful if we could see the body."

"Unlikely. The Holy Fire burns the bodies."

"But didn't you say that there was a graveyard?"

"Yes. It's one of those cases where the Holy Fire takes over belief's and practices from older religions. Kreve, Melitele and a lot of the nature Gods and Goddesses say that the dead need to be buried in order for them to nourish the ground and various more wishy-washy ideas. The truth is that the Holy Fire says to burn the bodies so that they aren't lying around as food for Necrophages. "

"Which is a good idea." Kerrass put in.

"But they're just as happy if the family would prefer to bury the bodies like our family crypt or in the mausoleums. A lot of smaller churches still maintain a graveyard in order for the living to have somewhere to go in order to mourn the dead. The more forward thinking priests prefer to call them "Gardens of Remembrance" which I suppose they are but the term hasn't stuck. They're Graveyards in all the same ways that they used to be. The only difference being that the dead aren't underneath the grass as often."

Kerrass grunted again.

"We're just going to have to go off into the woods aren't we?" I asked him.

"It looks that way yes." Kerrass took another bite of the quite delicious pie.

"Kerrass?"

"Mmm?"

"Do you know what's going on here?"

He looked at me for a long time, his eyes glittering with something which I took to be amusement. "I _might_ know what's going on but I don't _know_." He took a drink from his tankard. "I would like to be sure though."

"Ok, so how do we set about doing that?"

"I want to see a body, or at least talk to the people that might be able to give us an idea of what had happened

to some of these bodies."

"So you want to talk to the priest,"

"Or the herb-woman. I would imagine that if people came into town injured then she would be the person that they would go to."

"Probably, but will she tell you?"

"Maybe. I suspect that it will come down to who is with me at the time. Is she afraid?"

"Of what?"

"Anything... Is she the kind of woman that would be easily intimidated?"

"I don't think so."

"Would she give you the information?"

"I..."

"Here's my problem. The village council are following me around. The chances of me being able to sneak off in order to actually find something out are...slim. I have visions of turning up to talk to this priest of yours or this herb-woman and trying to talk to them with the Smith, the Thatcher and the Innkeeper hovering over my shoulder and glaring at the person in order to get them to tell me whatever it is that they want me to know."

"More night time rendezvous'?"

"It might have to be. I think I can drag this out another day but after that I don't think I'm going to be able to put off going into the woods."

"Do you want me to stay behind when you go?"

"No. If it's what I think it is, or even if it isn't what I think it is, then it's too dangerous for us to split up. In the woods I... sorry, we, can easily avoid these people. They need us to be able to fight so they won't do a Cavill and injure us in advance."

I was taking advantage of Kerrass musing and eating as much of the dangerously delicious pie as I could while he was talking. I do love me some pie.

"They want me to kill something. We know this. We know that they're lying about what it is that they want me to kill. What we don't know is why but the fact that they're lying to us about what they want me to kill suggests that this is... They wanted to know if I would defend myself if attacked. That suggests to me that it's some kind of fugitive in those woods who either carries with him a great treasure, or is worth a lot of money to the right people if he's brought in dead. But if _I_ kill him then that bounty belongs to me. It would be much easier for them if they simply kill me on the way out."

I snorted with laughter. "Easier."

Kerrass did grin. "Careful of overconfidence Freddie. "Even the mightiest man can be felled by a single arrow"," he quoted." But he was sharing my amusement as he said it. "If that is their plan which is the most likely possibility in my opinion, and you're still in town, then they can't let you live. I suspect you would kill many while they underestimate you but at the end of the day, again, you can't deflect arrows."

"So you think they'll follow us."

"I would. They get their food through trade and hunting. Vegetables are grown in gardens so the majority of their diet is made up of game meat. They will know the local area and know it well, while any town that can provide enough work for a Bow maker as well as a fletcher, then that will be their weapon of choice."

"Goody. What if we just left. You've gotten angry and left over less than this. You're refused contracts before when you have realised that people are lying to you."

"I have."

"So why don't we just take to our horses and move on?"

"Two reasons. The first is that if we did that then I strongly suspect that we will be ambushed just outside town by the aforementioned Archers and hunters."

"Why?"

"They won't want news of whatever it is that's going on here getting out."

"Bleak, but ok. What's the second reason?"

"The second reason is what might be in those woods."

"And that is?"

He chuckled. "A yellow eyed demon."

I glared at him for a while. "I fucking hate it when you do this."

"No you don't you love it. You love the mystery and the suspense and being kept in the dark so that you can find it out as we go."

I glared at him. As a response it lacked poetry but I couldn't think of anything to say other than a general denial and I didn't think that that really got my point across.

"So, is there a plan?" I settled for.

"Well, we'll start tomorrow by doing some training. I know we don't normally do this sort of thing but let's see if we can put on a bit of a show and put some fear of the Witcher into the minds of the people that will be watching."

"Isn't that also telling people that they'd better not miss when they shoot at us."

"Yes. But if their hands are shaking when they do that then it's not too bad. After that then I have another day looking at whatever it is that they want to show me. Apparently they have evidence of "Dark magics" to show me and "signs of evil". To be honest, I can't wait to see it as the mind boggles at the thought of whatever it is that they've managed to dream up."

"What do you want me to do?"

"Come with me. It might even be educational. Take careful notes on whatever they say, pay special attention to the lies for there will be many of them. Sometimes people accidentally allow a little bit of truth to creep into their words when they're lying through their teeth. But there is some possibility that we might see some moderately decent showmanship."

"I won't hold my breath. Then what?"

"Then I think it's time to meet a couple of your new friends. I think we can sneak out at night and go and talk to the priest, the herb-woman and maybe, if we can find out where she lives and we haven't already found out everything that we need to know, we'll talk to the widow of the old Livery man."

"For tonight then?"

"You, are going to bed to spend a lonely night all by yourself. _I_ am going to go and have an enjoyable evening listening to that blonde barmaid giggle."

"You know that denial isn't a good look for you Kerrass. You should just write to the Princess and tell her about how you project her face onto every woman that you meet."

"Harsh Freddie, very harsh."

"Unfair?"

It was his turn to just glare at me in lieu of having anything better to say.

Truth be told, I wasn't that lonely. Ariadne and I had a long chat that night about the way we were going to decorate the manor house that she had had built in Angral. She had ordered the thing to start being built shortly after it had been finally confirmed that she would take over the lands. Despite this it had taken all this time to get properly built, well over a year since. At time of writing it's late summer and she was freed from her tower in mid to late spring last year so it's been since then that she's been waiting for the place to be completed. Apparently this is because she keeps ordering the labourers to go off and do something silly like "helping with the harvest" or "maintaining roads" or "carrying on with other projects." She had a basement for her laboratory and a nice room for the parts of her library that had survived and as far as she was concerned this was enough for her needs.

Just for the record, I absolutely support her desire to not put her own requirements above the needs of her people and the land that she rules but I have to have my fun somewhere.

Then she had had them build a receiving room and a bedroom for those times when she could no longer put off getting some sleep. Apparently she needs an average of a couple of hours of sleep per day-night cycle.

She can go without for several cycles quite easily and if she's in the middle of an extended project then she can go without sleep for weeks at a time before eventually crashing. Then she ordered a bath house to be built. She can cleanse herself with magic but she is fascinated by the ritual of bathing in groups as a pass-time and admitted to me that the luxury of lying, submerged in warm water, is one that she could get used to.

But that night we spent a lot of time talking about furnishings and the colours of cushions. It was not, by some margin, the most boring topic of conversation that we had had when we had talked about our future marital home. In case you're interested it was about the rails that you hang drapes off when you want to cover a window. Not the drapes themselves mark you, the poles that the drapes hang off.

I've also been told that if I don't like it when I get there then it can all be redone anyway, a prospect that fills me with a cold dread that suggests that whatever is up already is whatever I will settle for, not really caring about such things.

I want a comfortable chair and desk to write in. Some shelves to store my scrolls and books in and a comfortable arm-chair to read in. Preferably next to a nice fire and big enough for a husband and wife to snuggle in.

I also told her that she was to hire the best cook that she could lay her hands on and to make sure that the bed was as comfortable as possible.

She made jokes but believe me, a comfortable bed is a luxury that far too many people take for granted.

We rose early the following day and had one of our huge breakfasts, thus signalling that we were going to do some epic things today. Then we went out and "trained". I use the quotation marks as had I suggested that we train in such a fashion Kerrass would have torn my face off.

I once talked about the differences between a real fight, a show fight and a demonstration fight. Real fights are short, sharp brutal affairs that are over relatively quickly. Show fights, the kind that you see on stage, are designed to simply look flashy with lots of loud clashes of weapons and flashes of light. Demonstration fights are designed to be flashy, well, demonstrations of a person's skills. That's what we did for the village that morning. We went out to the inn yard and went at it. We don't do this kind of thing often. I haven't been able to do enough to provide Kerrass with an adequate partner to provide this kind of demonstration. But when we do, we're getting quite good at it.

It's not choreographed, but it's a lot of fun. The object is to spin, move the weapons but still be able to do flashy things. To turn the weapon aside at the last minute. Nothing like what happens in a real fight. I didn't use my dagger for instance. It was all foot and weapon work. When I got close to Kerrass, he didn't head-butt me in the nose. Nor did I try and trip him up or kick him in the balls which is what I would have done in a real fight. This was meant to impress.

And impress we must have done as I saw more than one look exchanged with concern.

Eventually though we drew it to a close. As we generally do in these kinds of things I started to become desperate and become wilder with my strokes until Kerrass "finished me off" with a series of flashy movements that look brutal and uncomfortable. In truth they don't really hurt. They just _look_ like they do.

Then he "tsk'ed"

"Pick up your training." He snarled at me in a quiet voice that managed to carry to all the listeners. "You're just not putting your best into it at the moment and you need to pick up the slack if you're going to hope to survive,"

"Yes master." I said, trying to look and sound ashamed.

"Don't you "Yes master" me."

"No master,"

"Your lunge is still to weak. You've been neglecting your thigh strength again which is going to leave you off balance when it comes down to it. How often do I have to tell you."

"Don't lose sight of balance in all things Master."

"That's right. Sort your shit out."

"Yes Master."

He shook his head in disgust, "Go and clean yourself up. We've got work to do."

"Yes Master." I scurried off with body language that I hoped looked ashamed and frightened.

"Frederick." Kerrass almost shrieked. "What have I told you about caring for your weapon?"

"Sorry Master." I ran back and scooped up the spear that I had deliberately left where I had "dropped" it earlier and ran back the way I came back up to our room. As I ran I could hear Kerrass apologising to the innkeeper and commiserating with the Smith, who had also come to watch, at the state of Apprentices in the modern world.

I was still sat in the room after splashing some water on my face and making sure some of my clothes were a bit damp in order to suggest that I had rushed "cleaning myself up" despite not having really exerted myself at all when Kerrass arrived.

He laughed at me quietly when he saw me cleaning the dust of the ground from the spear.

"Too much?" I asked.

"No, I did think it was going to be but it seems that that leaving your weapon behind in the dirt is just the kind of thing that they all thought that an apprentice Witcher might do. The fact that you're an apprentice Witcher also explains your relative age to other things in their eyes."

I snorted to show what I thought of that. I finished oiling the blade of the spear before re-covering the head with the leather sleeve that I had had a craftsman make for me some time ago.

"So what's the scheme?"

"We're going off now to inspect the site of some of the "deaths" and "massacres" that the Demon supposedly committed."

"Goody."

"I suspect it will be fairly boring all things considered. Try to conserve your strength though as we're likely going to have a long night and will have to set off early in the morning."

"To go into the woods."

"Yes."

"I'm looking forward to it already."

We went and had breakfast before being led out to a small clearing, just inside the woodland. Calling it a clearing might even have been considered an overstatement. When you say clearing, people tend to imagine a wide open space with grass and flowers and maybe a little hillock or something but this was far from the case. It was more an area, maybe twenty food wide where there were no trees. The ground was covered in a strange combination of wild grass, Puffball and white myrtle flowers but only lightly as the ground was crisscrossed with the root systems of nearby trees.

According to our escorts, there had been a ritualised murder committed here. A young woman from the village had been killed here, Her skin flayed from her, layer by layer and inch by inch before she had been hung from the tree, her arms and legs spread-eagled between the branches. The tale that was spun for us was lurid and sickening in it's detail making me a little concerned for the sanity of the tale tellers.

Kerrass and I exchanged glances. I saw him shrug minutely before he went back into the trees and found a stout stick before he began scratching patterns in the ground.

I gestured and herded the escorts which consisted of the innkeeper, the smith and the thatcher. The Livery barn owner had clearly been informed that he wasn't old enough, or experienced enough, to be hanging around with them and that he must have some work to do. I made a mental note to talk to Kerrass about that before we went anywhere and whether or not it might have been worthwhile to talk to the much put upon young man.

Kerrass spent some time scratching out the design. A circle in the ground which seemed to contain a pentagram as well as many other shapes and curls to the edges of them."

"What is that?" The Thatcher asked.

"Mmm?" I asked, pretending to pay attention to what my "master" was doing. As far as I could see, Kerrass was making the design up off the top of his head. "Oh, it's called a "Devil's trap". It's a protection circle really. What Kerrass is doing is seeing if some part of the demon, if not the entire demon can be brought back to this place in order to be identified."

"Part of the demon?" The Innkeeper asked, looking a little nervous.

"Mmmhmm. I mean, obviously the demon is possessing someone at the moment so I personally think it's unlikely that we will get the entire demon to come here. But we might get part of it and then we can trap it inside the trap before questioning it."

"Will it work?"

I smiled at the poor man. "We'll have to see."

"How will we know?"

"The best case scenario is that we see the black mist that you talked about coalesce inside the circle until it looks almost solid."

"And the worst case?" The smith asked. I guessed that he didn't believe a word of it but he was caught up in it all despite himself.

"The worst case is that it realises that we're trying to trap it and kills us all."

"Oh," The innkeeper paled a bit and made the warding sign of the flame.

"I wouldn't worry about it though." I told him.

"Really? Why is that?"

"My master is highly skilled and wouldn't let anything happen to us."

"Oh that's a relief."

"That would mean that he has to do his own damn laundry instead of having me do it."

I left the innkeeper to ponder that for a moment so that I could go and poke around in the treeline and the bushes, ostensibly so that I could check for "signs of the demon's passing" but mostly so that I could hide my own boredom and curtail my temptation to be overly and inappropriately funny.

In the end though, after confirming that there was no signs in the undergrowth other than some left over food items (apple cores and chicken bones, that kind of thing) and some cloth fibres in the bushes that surrounded some of the clearing, there was no sign that anything other than human visitors had come to this clearing. It was not an unattractive place and I guessed that it was the kind of place where young lovers went to escape the prying gaze of parents and guardians. I could easily imagine the Priest and his wife coming here to do some very...unreligious but very loving things here.

Kerrass continued his chanting for a long time. Much longer than I would have had the patience to continue on given that it was all nonsense but eventually he lowered his arms and took out his medallion and peered at it closely. He shook his head sadly.

"The demon is well planted, wherever it is." He told them. "He hasn't come forth at all." He stood, shaking his head with worry and thought before looking up and fixing the innkeeper with a gaze. "This is getting serious. If the demon is so powerful that it can resist that ritual then it is strong indeed and very possibly stronger than my apprentice and I can handle."

"What does that mean?" The Thatcher asked but I was quick enough to see the Smith and the Innkeeper exchange glances.

"I'm saying that it might be necessary for you and the other villagers to make preparations to evacuate after all."

"You're giving up?" The Smith asked, incredulous. "You haven't even been in the woods yet."

"No, and I'm not sure I want to given everything that you've told me and that I've seen here."

"You must help us. Please Witcher." The innkeeper begged.

"As I say," Kerrass held his hands up in a soothing gesture. "As I say, I'm not giving up yet. But it has to be considered a possibility. There are still some things to look at yet."

The trio calmed down a little.

"What's done with the bodies of the victims after you find them?" Kerrass asked.

"They're burned Master Witcher." The Thatcher told him. "In order to prevent the spread of their evil."

"Of course they are. Who told you to do that?"

"Everyone knows that what you have to do is..."

"I see. Are all the bodies burned?"

"Yes."

"Did anyone examine the bodies before you burned them?"

"Well no. We asked for volunteers to build the fires and to throw the unholy carcasses onto the flames."

"Good. That's good." Looking at Kerrass' face though, I was unconvinced that there was anything good about any of this. "What about them, the people that throw the bodies onto the fire? Anything going on with them?"

"No Master Witcher?"

"Who are they, I might be a better judge of that than you. Knowing what to look for and all."

The three men looked at each other.

"I volunteered." The Smith told us. "It seemed only fair that the members of the council should take on some of the risk."

"I would have done." The Innkeeper piped up in order to not seem cowardly. After having to figure out what people like Lord Cavill were thinking as well as other members of the various royal courts around the land were thinking, three village council members were relatively easy to understand. "But... the village depends on the inn for a lot of it's income."

Kerrass nodded as though he understood completely when I personally think it was much more likely that he couldn't care less what the innkeeper thought about his own importance.

"Anyone else?" He asked. "Did the village priest not try to help?"

There were more exchanged looks. "Well, you know priests," The Thatcher ventured, licking his lips. "He didn't want to possibly stain his own holiness did he."

"Ah," Kerrass nodded in sage sympathy at the incompetence of the modern priesthood. I turned away again. Both in amusement but a little bit of disgust at the brazen nature of the lies that were being told. The man that I had met would want to care for the souls of the departed, no matter what their condition was.

"What about the herb-woman or healer? Surely they would have helped?"

"The men were already dead though weren't they. You can't heal that." The innkeeper tried to laugh as if he was telling an amazing joke.

"Plus," The Smith eyed him sidelong. "The simple fact of the matter is that we didn't want to risk our only real healer and midwife. We depend on the inn for our income but without the healer, we would literally all be dead."

"I see," Kerrass deflated before a thought occurred. "If you burned them, what did you do with the ashes?"

"Errr." They looked at each other a bit more in confusion. "We scattered them."

"Where."

"Over the stream so that the water could wash them down stream."

"Thus contaminating the water supply and everything else that lives in the marshes." Kerrass thundered. "Even if, by some miracle, I manage to drive the demon off. You might want to consider relocating anyway before demon tainted wolves, deer and boar start attacking you out of the trees." He shook his head in disgust. "You'd better show me where you tipped the ashes in so I can see if there is anything I can salvage."

The day went like that really. Kerrass allowed himself to be led to the stream in the middle of the village where he spent a bit of time prowling up and down the stream bank, inspecting the water in the minutest detail for any signs of "demonic taint". He made quite a good show of it too although personally I think that some of his showmanship could do with a bit of work but he played the part of a grumpy man, trying to save people who are too stupid to live, quite well.

Of course the _real_ point of the excursion was in order for him to see where the Herb-woman's cottage was and where the church was located. He made note of both things before sighing.

"Well, I guess there's nothing else for it." He told me, speaking loudly so that everyone could hear us quite well. "We're just going to have to go into the woods tomorrow and see if we can't have a look at the thing and find out what's going on."

The innkeeper and the Thatcher couldn't contain their excitement, stifling grins and all but jigging with glee.

"Why not today?" The Smith asked.

He's a cheerless fucker, he really is.

"Because we're heading towards evening." Kerrass told him with just a hint of condescension as though it should be obvious.

"Why's that important?"

Kerrass sighed and took a deep breath before staring off into space for a moment, as if he was gathering his thoughts.

"Have you ever raced horses?" He suddenly turned to ask the Smith.

"Well, I..."

Horse racing is actually a fairly common practice in the North. Not as uncommon as you might think and it's certainly not to only be considered as "The sport of Kings". Precisely because it started to be called that, anyone with a horse decided that they would enjoy taking part in "The sport of Kings" and decided to have a little race. It's a long way from the carefully trimmed grass or sand with the carefully marked tracks though. It's more a headlong flight along country lanes where the unwary racer can find themselves being ambushed by a rival's friends.

Father hated the practice because of the danger to the horses and tried to regulate it on his lands. He was moderately successful too but anyone who really wanted to make some quick money in one of these "Outlaw races" then they could easily go elsewhere where the power of the Coulthard races was lessened.

"I sometimes struggle when I talk to people who don't race horses." Kerrass said, ignoring any possible response. "When I was first learning to race horses. This was about twenty years ago when the monster population of the world was beginning to decline and it was becoming clear that Witchers were beginning to become redundant. I decided that one of the ways that I would be able to make a living would be to race horses. I've always enjoyed riding and riding with speed so it seemed like a natural fit."

Not unlike the other villagers, I was fascinated. I had not heard this about Kerrass before and I wondered if he was making it up. It could go either way of course.

"But I kept losing, over and over again I kept losing. I did everything that I could think of. I bought a racing horse rather than a riding horse, cart horse or war horse. I was wearing a light shirt. I'd left my weapons and my armour behind, I'd done everything that I could think of. After losing for, I don't know how many times I had lost I went to a friend who was with me. He made a lot of money off racing, apparently he had been a rider when he was younger but had fallen off and injured himself. But he could see a good racer and would bet on them accordingly.

"He told me a thousand and one little details. He told me that I should tie my hair closer to my head so that it wouldn't flap around in the wind. He told me that I rode like a fighter, upright so that I could see all around me but that this was a mistake, that I should crouch low to the horses neck to avoid wind resistance. He told me to change my saddle to one more suited for racing rather than for travel and to shorten my stirrups. I changed my horses diet and wore tighter clothing, also to cut down wind resistance. I felt like a fool. All these little details. He dished them out in small chunks as well. The change of saddle was first, then it was the change of posture and so on.

"Every tip he gave me, every little improvement meant that I was going just that little bit faster. Just a little bit faster every time. But when I put it all together, I won my first race. Then I could refine what I was doing and I could eke out just a little bit more speed. Just a little bit of speed could, and did, make all the difference."

He smiled as he was lost in the memory for a bit longer but then he fixed the Smith with a glare.

"Being a Witcher is a lot like that. It's not just a case of keeping my sword sharp, or my potions to hand. It's not just the magic or the knowledge about what I'm dealing with. It's all of these things put together and if I can increase an advantage, go a little bit faster, kill it quicker or otherwise ensure that my apprentice and I make it out alive then I'm going to take that advantage.

"And if you believe, for one second, that I'm going to give up even the slightest opportunity to be that little bit better prepared. If you think I'm going to sacrifice a bit of time during my preparations so that you can feel that bit safer that bit quicker. Then you are out of your Goddess damned mind."

He turned and made to storm off.

"Besides," He told them. "I haven't even begun to discuss how much this is going to cost you yet have I."

Then he did walk off and I scurried after him.

I checked around us carefully to make sure that there was no-one around us that could listen in on us before I asked the question that was most on my mind.

"I didn't know you used to race horses." I told him.

"Yeah, twenty or so years ago. I was spectacularly bad at it."

"But all the..."

"I was indeed told to do all those things but at the end of the day, I decided that I couldn't be fucked."

"Fair enough."

"We've got a lot to do tonight." Kerrass told me after we'd gone a little bit further, "so pace yourself. Pack your gear as though we're leaving tomorrow and then get some rest. I'll tell them all that you're resting up for tomorrow's ordeal,"

"Which is partly true anyway."

"I'm pretty sure that the only ordeal is going to be when we have to lose those people that are tracking us into the woods in the morning."

"Confident that that's going to happen?"

"Oh yes. I'm not worried but..."

"Never give up an advantage."

"As you say. There are some other things that I want to get done tonight as well."

"Such as."

"I want to make some preparations and I want to see if I can speak to the Herb-woman and the Priest. You notice how they didn't want me talking to them?"

"They let me talk to them."

"I suspect, in the way of craft and tradespeople everywhere, that they think you're unimportant and unskilled on the grounds that you're an apprentice. They automatically think that you're too stupid to live for that reason."

"Nice to be so well thought of."

I did as I was told. Had another bath as there was a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that it might be a while before I got one again and went to bed. I was a lot better at falling asleep under enforced circumstances now since coming out of the north. A skill that I hoped that I would be able to keep into the future but for now... Speaking as someone who has struggled to get to sleep in the past due to my brain's inability to stop thinking, it is beyond pleasant to be able to lie down and just go to sleep.

Long may it continue.

I also sleep a lot lighter though which is something that I could do without as I wake up in the middle of the night and it's sometimes impossible to tell what has woken me.

Kerrass woke me up for dinner which we ate. He'd ordered the customary large breakfast to be ready for a couple of hours after dawn and had asked for some lunch supplies to be made up. I asked for the supplies to be made up in the form of a couple of slices of pie.

I do like me some pie.

But we ate and went to bed early so that we could be "fully rested up for the morning."

In all truth, Kerrass was shaking me back to fully awake a couple of hours later when darkness had just gotten to the stages of being completely full.

Apparently our first task was to take our equipment out and hide it somewhere.

"Why?" I wanted to know.

"Because these people intend to kill us."

I looked at him in askance. "Are you absolutely sure?"

"As sure as I can be. Even if I wasn't pretty sure, which I am, it doesn't hurt anyone to take a few precautions."

"We've never had to do this before." I commented as Kerrass climbed out the window onto the rooftop.

He grinned at me suddenly. "Welcome back Scholar Freddie. I've missed these questions."

"It's been a while." I answered with a grin of my own as I started passing over our saddles and horse gear. "But now I have questions. So why have we not done this before?"

"It's because." He grimaced as I passed his saddle-bags over which he slung over his shoulders. "We've never really been in serious danger of this kind of thing before."

"People have tried to swindle us before when I've been with you." I passed my own packs over which Kerrass took.

"Yes but, you've been stood guard over our belongings. Actively killing the Witcher to avoid payment has become rarer in this part of the world. Mostly because the common folk take the attitude that they can't pay us what they don't have. Which is true."

I slung Gardan's axe over my back and Kerrass helped me out of the window. We had put pillows and rolled up blankets under the bed so that if anyone had come into the room then we hoped that the subterfuge would last a bit longer.

"So," Kerrass continued, "They don't feel the need to. Such acts are fuelled by greed rather than desperation I find. It's not that I don't get attacked at the height of desperation but it's more...it's a spur of the moment kind of thing. I go back to where I expect to get paid. They say they can't afford it. I tell them to pay up. They get angry, make threats and such like. I get angry and demand the agreed upon payment. Then someone might try something but, if you're careful, you can normally see it coming. It's in the eyes. You remember Gaetan?"

"The Cat Witcher that got injured in Toussaint. The sad man that got headaches a lot."

"That's him. He struggles around lots of people. It happened to him once, relatively recently down in Velen and he didn't see it coming because he was injured and still in the grip of heavy duty potion withdrawal. It does happen but, as I say, it's more often than not a spur of the moment thing."

We tied the packs to a bit of rope and lowered them down to the ground off the corner of the inn.

"As I say, it used to happen more often when people thought they could get away with it. Which they could to be fair." Kerrass sniffed to show what he thought of that. "Another piece of wisdom for you Freddie, the more you have, the more you are frightened of losing and the lower you will sink to keep it."

Not that we needed to be worried about being that quiet as we snuck out. From the sounds of things people were beginning to party a little harder. There was a kind of anticipatory air to things, as though they were torn between partying against the coming darkness but also being excited about something.

I couldn't tell what that thing was though.

But despite all of that, we played it safe rather than sorry and kept to the shadows.

"Kerrass?"

"Yes Freddie?"

"What's in the woods Kerrass?"

He sighed. "Haven't you figured it out yet?"

"Well, no."

We dodged a man who was vomiting in a ditch.

Kerrass laughed. "I am surprised."

"But you know don't you."

"I don't know. I'm pretty sure though."

"So what is it?"

"A demon with yellow eyes." Kerrass answered promptly.

"I really fucking hate it when you do this."

Then we had to back track a bit as a couple were going at it in a haystack. Again, if I had to bet, we could have ridden past them, blowing a horn and the pair of them wouldn't have noticed us but...as always, it's better to be safe than sorry.

Kerrass sighed when the sounds of his grunting and her moaning began to fade into the background. "Think about it Freddie. How many things are there in the world that have yellow eyes."

I mused on this for a while. "Quite a few I would imagine. Trolls for a start."

"Yes, but if it was a troll, they would just hire me to get rid of a troll. There wouldn't be all this nonsense about a demon. The same kind of thing would be said about a Griffin or any of the other significant beasts. Also, we would have seen signs of the depredations of such an animal on the town. So what has yellow eyes? That they would want dead but would want to lie to us about."

I strained for an answer.

"I may be being uncommonly stupid here Kerrass but I really can't think of anything."

"That's because you're over thinking it. Looking for a complicated solution when you really don't need one. The answer is actually right in front of you but you want it to be something else, something new, something complicated."

I saw his teeth shining in the darkness as he grinned.

We moved a little way out of town, heading South. The moon was only a crescent hanging in the sky but the night was clear and it was not hard to see. We headed along the road out of the village for a bit until we came to a large oak tree that had been split by lightening at some point. It was mostly dead but there were still some leaves sprouting from the lower branches. Kerrass kind of nodded to himself and turned into the trees on the Western side of the road. It was tough going as these trees were wild, many fallen logs that had been pushed over in one of the various storms that occasionally attack this part of the world, branches, bushes and all kinds of crawling moss, grass and plants conspired to make movement treacherous. I am ten times the woodsman that I used to be when I first set out with Kerrass but that's not saying a great deal and I still struggled to move a bit.

Kerrass was counting. When he got to a large tree with a hollow against the side, he put our packs into the shelter of the tree before we spent a bit of time covering them with forest detritus to camouflage them. It was some time before Kerrass nodded in satisfaction though.

"Why aren't we taking our horses out with us?" I asked as the thought occurred.

"Horses can be replaced." He replied with a short smile.

"I paid quite a lot for those horses," I complained.

"True, and I am found of Baby. But... People like this. Clothing, saddles and other gear can be re-purposed, disguised and burnt so that anyone that comes after us will not know what's happened to us. But horses? People out here would never get rid of good horseflesh. That can be sold on, put to work, disguised, dyed or at the ultimate end of the extreme. It can be butchered for meat and boiled down for glue."

"I paid a lot of money for those horses." I complained again.

"They won't do that immediately. They will weigh the options and see if the horses can be sold on first. All the while, we can sneak back into town and steal them back. But if we leave our belongings behind then I would guess that they will be on fire by the end of tomorrow."

I sighed. "I paid a lot of money for those horses."

Kerrass chuckled quietly in the darkness.

It still took us a little time to retrace our steps. This time, as we moved through the village, we did so on the side of the village that we had been told that the demon lived in the woods. Kerrass crouched in the shadow of a storage shed and watched the town. We must have watched for a while before he grunted to himself.

"They haven't set a watch, or a guard." He commented to me.

"What does that mean?"

"If there was a dangerous fugitive, a monster or...heh... a demon in the trees. Wouldn't you set a watch?"

"I suppose so. I would certainly not be drinking heavily or running off with a lover into the haystack."

"Neither would I."

He smiled and rubbed his hands together. "So, let's go and see this herb-woman of yours then."

We crept along the treeline. Still keeping to the shadows. It was actually a little nerve-racking. Not gonna lie here. Yes, Kerrass had told me that there was no demon in the woods but there was still someone or something in there and we were now closer to the trees than we were to the town and that made me nervous.

We came to the stream that ran through the middle of the village and jumped over a narrow bit. We could see where some of the children of the village had started to build some kind of dam which they had floated bits of twig into. I fought an almost overwhelming urge to kick it into destruction like some of the local bullies had done to my dams when I had built them at home. I didn't though. I also remember the tears that had flowed freely after the destruction of all my hard work.

Then it was my turn to lead. I took Kerrass over to where the Herb-woman's cottage was and he spent a bit of time all but salivating as he looked at the herb-garden.

"Lady's got some skills." I told him.

"She must. Oh, I could spend a fortune here."

"Then why don't you."

"Don't tempt me."

I knocked on the door.

"Go away." Came an angry response.

I knocked on the door again.

"I said, Fuck off." She yelled louder.

"I suppose it would kind of give the game away if I yelled back," I mutter to Kerrass.

"We're trying to be stealthy here Freddie."

I nodded, knocking again.

"Look, for the final time, I'm busy."

I sighed and knocked again. A little longer and a little louder.

There was a pause. "All right I'm coming but you'd better be fucking dying out there, I shit you not."

There was some clattering from inside the cottage and the sound of things moving before she answered the door in her nightdress and wrapped in a large, heavy, woollen robe.

"WHAT?" She thundered as she opened the door before realising who we were. "Oh."

She had also let the dreadlocks down from the top of her head so that they spilled down her back. The longer ones managed to reach down to the back of her knees. If she actually brushed them out then the flame only knows how long they would be.

"Are they not, really really heavy?" I asked as she pushed a thinner one behind her ear. Now that I could see them all I could see that some of them had wooden beads and carven shapes in them. I could see more than one piece of simple silver jewellery wrapped round them. I had forgotten how attractive she was in the meantime.

"Sometimes," she told me indignantly. "But on the other hand, it all keeps me warm in winter. Like an extra fuzzy blanket."

"Isn't keeping it clean difficult?"

"Not really. Hair doesn't dreadlock through lack of cleaning. It's lack of conditioning and grooming that causes that."

"Conditioning?"

"Cleaning it with largely expensive and pointless shite. Look, is there a point to this? Otherwise I kind of want to go back to bed to continue crying myself to sleep if that's ok with you." It was hard to see, but her eyes really were red.

"May we come in?" Kerrass asked finally. "I want to talk shop and that is sometimes difficult with some of the other folk hanging around."

She sniffed and examined him up and down, her mouth twitching from one side to the other as she considered. I couldn't decide whether she was angry or being charming.

"Come in," she decided eventually. "But I warn you that I've been drinking. Not enough to want to sleep with you though if that's the idea." She glared at me. "Maybe the Witcher," she decided after a while but definitely not you." Then she span on Kerrass. "But only because I'm curious about what a mutant looks like under the clothes."

"You would be disappointed," Kerrass told her. The ceiling was too low for him to stand up in and keep his swords on his back and he was taking the harness off. I had already propped my spear in the corner. "I look astonishingly human other than the eyes. Disappointingly so, or so I'm told."

"So, no large mutated dick then."

"Alas no. I will also say that any attempts to drive me off with crude language or behaviour is not going to work."

"Really? How about fucking anger and hatred then?"

"What have we done to earn your anger, or your hate?" Kerrass asked, not unreasonably.

"To be fair, not you. And as for him." She gestured at me. "He asked some damned rude questions and opened some old wounds."

"He does that sometimes." Kerrass admitted. "It's a skill of his that I value as often, I find, it helps in the long term. More than once I have had the chance to look back on what has happened in his company and realise that the events that have transpired have turned out to my benefit and it started by answering an uncomfortable question."

She didn't look convinced. Kerrass was in a mode where he was talking to someone of slightly higher social standing. Which we were I suppose. Not the same voice or speech patterns that he used when talking to the other villagers but a bit closer to the kinds of things that he said when talking to my professors.

"May we sit?" Kerrass asked her politely.

"Can I stop you?"

"Any time you like." He replied.

She jigged from one foot to the other in nervous energy. "Oh fuck it." Then she sort of collapsed into her arm chair that showed some signs of much use. "I suppose you'll want some tea as well." She spat it out as though we had asked her to sacrifice her life for a cause that she didn't believe in.

"Only if you're making it anyway." Kerrass said.

"I was actually in the process of drinking myself into oblivion." She told him.

"That works too."

She sighed and went into that area of the cottage with a stove and came back with two more small cups. Then she reached down next to her chair and produced a bottle that she offered to us both. Pouring a generous measure into her own cup, a smaller one into Kerrass' cup and a tiny measure into mine.

"You don't deserve that much of it." She told me.

"What is it?" Kerrass asked. "And your attempts at humour are not distracting me either."

"I don't think it has a name. I brew it from forest berries and apples. I used to get in trouble with the innkeeper for brewing and selling it as apparently I took custom away from him. Stupid fool. If he even knew a fraction of what he thought he did about brewing then he would be a famous brewer rather than an innkeeper in a backwater town."

"The food and ale there is quite good." I ventured cautiously.

She snorted. "It's his wife that does that. My mother taught us both everything we knew. She took it into her marriage to the innkeeper and uses her herb lore to make better food and better beer. I use it to make this stuff and to make medicine. I think I got the better end of the deal as she ended up with that stupid prick of a husband."

She was not quick enough, nor was it dark enough in the cottage to hide the fact that she was wiping the tears from her face.

"What's your name?" Kerrass asked softly.

She sniffed hugely and expressively. "Samantha." She admitted after a while as though it was the world's greatest secret. "Are you going to tell me that it's a pretty name?" She demanded.

"No." He told her.

"Although it is." I put in.

"Shut up." She told me.

"What's going on here Samantha?" Kerrass asked me after sending me a little glare.

"I can't tell you."

As always when this happens, Kerrass did not ask the obvious question of why not. Instead he asked a different question. I once asked him about this. Apparently it's because if you ask a continued question that a person cannot, or will not, answer then it compounds the refusal and the person is even less likely to answer questions. Instead, you ask a different question, one that is more likely to be answered, and get the person that you're talking to back towards the habit of answering. You talk around the question, change the topic, anything. Ask if you can use the rest room or for a refill of a drink or something. Then you can bring them back round to what you want to know.

Kerrass nodded and took a sip from his cup of spirits.

"This is good stuff," he commented.

"Thank you. Not going to ask me why I won't answer your questions?" Easy to forget sometimes that in order to be healer, midwife, herbalist and whatever else Samantha was and women like her are. They have to be intelligent as well.

"Would it help?"

"Not really."

See how it works?

"Why wouldn't it work?" I know Kerrass well enough to know that he was smiling.

"Because I'm still not going to tell you what's going on."

"Which is why I didn't ask the question." Kerrass told her. "So instead, I will ask a different question if I may?"

She considered and I noticed that her eyes had dried up. Then, after some time, she nodded.

"You will know, because you're not a fool and you know a little bit about things that I am a Witcher."

"I also know that he's as much your apprentice as I am." She commented gesturing at me.

Kerrass ignored the question "Do you know what Witcher's do?"

"You kill monsters."

"We do. We also lift curses quite a lot as well as lifting enchantments but that's not the root of the situation. The root of what a Witcher is, is that we're problem solvers. Everything else is just the fruit of what that root produces."

Notice Kerrass' use of plant based metaphors while talking to a herb-woman.

"Freddie here is a scholar. So he tends to look at the big things like he's a man wanting to record everything. He wants to see it for what it is and record it so that the situation is recorded for posterity."

Not quite true but I let Kerrass get on with whatever it was that he was saying.

"Me? I look for problems to solve. Often, people know what problem they want me to solve, a rogue Grave hag or a nest of Arachnomorphs. But sometimes they don't know."

He'd drawn her in. Kerrass didn't really fish but it kind of looks that way sometimes. If he did, I would guess that he would say something like "Got her," or words to that effect. She stared at him with rapt attention.

"Here," he went on. "I come to a village. A quiet village and, as far as I can see, many people think that the village is dying. I think that they are right. But instead of going off quietly, with grace and humour, leaving a couple of people here to keep the memory alive who prefer to live in the wilds anyway. They decide to do something else. What that thing is?"

He shook his head.

"I don't know. This place reminds me of a knot. The entire village has come together to form this knot and now the knot hangs over their heads like the waiting blade of an axeman. When things first started to develop, people thought of the blade to be the thing that would break their chains, the ones that hold them to the block. But as time goes past, more and more of you are beginning to see the blade as a thing that is going to strike down at you, to kill you but in the meantime, the bonds and the ropes are being tightened. Drawing them closer and closer until none of you can breathe."

She said nothing.

"I know how it started. A desperate town meeting. Someone spotted the possibility for making some money and then you all gathered together. At first it sounded like a good idea and you were all desperate weren't you. Nothing wring with that. You just needed the money. To get back on your feet, to get you where you needed to be."

I knew that his eyes would be searching her face, for any clue that he was heading in the right direction.

"And if that was all it was. I would have thought that it was fine. But people among you are not alright with it. Not all of you know what's actually going on. Some of you are excluded. Some of you are kept in the dark. You get told "Don't worry about it. Leave it to us and we'll take care of it." You should be nervous of such people."

He stared at her for a long while.

"May I have a refill?" He asked suddenly, holding his cup out to her. Startled, she almost jumped. Reached down and picked up the bottle that was next to her chair and poured him some. I didn't bother holding out my own cup. I ran the risk of being rejected and I might have distracted or otherwise broken the spell that Kerrass was weaving over her.

"Let me tell you what I know." Kerrass said after another appreciative sip. "I know that someone is in those woods. Note that I do not say something. It is definitely someone. Someone who is skilled enough that they can't pick him off with a bow. And skilled enough of a fighter that they would rather hire a Witcher than get the deed done themselves. This person is either carrying enough wealth on him or has enough value to nearby rich people to justify this."

Again, I could well imagine Kerrass searching her face for any clues that she might give away during being questioned.

"In the morning, Freddie and I are going to go into the woods and Try to find this person. The village council expects him, or her I suppose, to attack us. When Freddie and I have defended ourselves, the villagers will attack the survivors from a distance in order to hush up takes of whatever had happened."

She swallowed. Even I could see that.

"So there are going to be at least two, probably three deaths on the entire village's conscience tomorrow. If there aren't other deaths already."

I thought that her rate of breathing increased just a little.

"I think some of the other villagers have already been killed here." Kerrass continued after a moment. "I think that they would have tried to send some of their own in against this person because it takes a lot to summon a Witcher and that method of procuring a skilled fighter is neither quick, nor guaranteed."

Notice that Kerrass was starting to talk about the other members of the village as "They" rather than including her in the questioning. Separating her from them so that she might think of herself as an individual rather than as someone being coerced or entrapped.

"So let's say that they do get their hands on whatever it is that they're after. Let's say it's a large sack of money. Just so we're not being distracted by the problems involved in receiving any kind of reward money or collecting bounties, fencing stolen goods, that kind of thing. So they have their bag of money. In my experience, and I'm sure in your experience too, greed is a growing disease. Once a person has it then it gets worse and worse and worse. It can eat a person alive if they let it. They are already getting pretty dangerous in their greed in that they are already plotting people's deaths to get what they want. So that leads me to my question. Finally, yes I know. Freddie is not the only person who can get long winded if he's not careful. Are you ready for my question?"

"Yes. Unless that was the question?"

"It was not. If they are willing to go to such lengths to get the money, what makes you think that they will split it up equally among everyone else. Or is it more likely that they will go to equally considerable lengths to keep the money to themselves?"

She said nothing.

"So I'm not going to ask you what is happening here again. I'm assuming that you have given your word to various people and I'm not going to ask you to break it."

She nodded, as though pleased but I wondered if I saw a small amount of disappointment in her face.

"Tell me though," Kerrass began. "On a completely separate matter. If someone were to get injured in the woods. Do they bring the poor souls to you or do they take them elsewhere?"

"They generally bring them here, or I go and see them in whichever house they have been taken to."

"I see. What if someone has been killed in the trees. Do you see the bodies?"

"Yes. But that's very rare if I'm honest."

I thought I could see the first hints of mischief growing in her eyes.

"What kind of injuries have people been coming back with. You know, recently."

"Well," She said. "Long straight cuts. A little tearing but mostly...I know about slicing wounds. You can't work around hunters without knowing what happens when a blade hits flesh. This was the same as those injuries only on a much greater scale."

"What kind of blades?"

"I don't know about that kind of thing."

"Are the cuts clean?"

"There are two kinds of cuts. The first is a clean cash or, you might say, a flat, clean puncture wound."

"I see." Kerrass leant forward. "And the other."

"Those injuries look like puncture wounds. Like if the person got shot by an arrow only if the arrow was an inch or two wide."

Kerrass leaned forward. "Tell me, does the puncture wound taper off. As though it gets thicker the further into the wound that it goes?"

"How do you know that?"

Kerrass laughed. He laughed for a long time. "I will venture further guesses. Do some of the people that you have been examining show signs of having been set on fire? Or that they have been struck by large heavy objects. Or injuries that might show that the person has been run over by a horse?"

"You've tricked me," She glared at Kerrass. "You knew all these things already."

"Not a trick." He told her, still laughing. "It just means that I know what's going on now."

"I don't," I said to no-one in particular.

"One last question." Kerrass said, ignoring me, "before we leave you to whatever it was you were unhappy about. Does anyone go into the woods on a regular basis and come back uninjured?"

"The priest's wife does. Tulip. She often goes in looking for herbs and the like. Not a bad healer herself."

"Excellent. Thank you for your time. Come on Freddie, time to go."

He got up to leave and I went to follow him before stopped and turned back to her.

"Look." He began. "It's none of my business but...Talk to the man. What's the worst that could happen?"

"He could tell me that he hates me. He could blame me for everything that's wrong with his life and the world in general." She answered promptly. "He could tell me that he hates me, that he's too old for me, that he's leaving town and not coming back. He could rip my heart out of my chest, throw it on the table and hammer at it with his mallet until it's flat and lifeless and the last vestiges of my soul dribble out."

Kerrass and I looked at each other.

"That was...vivid." I commented.

"He might." Kerrass said. "But has he ever actually told you that he hates you?"

She didn't answer but the way she looked up at Kerrass told us that he hadn't.

"Then let me suggest another possibility." Kerrass went on. "He's still in the village rather than going off and finding work elsewhere, because he's in love with you."

She snorted.

"Men are stupid creatures." Kerrass told her. "You need to write your message on the side of a hammer and clobber us over the head with it before we take notice. But I will say this. You are an intelligent, funny, charming and beautiful young woman. He would be a fool not to see that and even if he doesn't then you should move on. The world is a bleak, dark and unpleasant place and if we have a chance of happiness, even for a moment, then you should grab it with both hands and hold on with everything you have."

She nodded, still not looking entirely convinced.

"Good night." Kerrass led me out into the night.

"That was kind of you." I told him.

"I liked her. I haven't met the object of her affections yet but he could do a lot worse."

"That was good advice you know." I told him. "About finding happiness and holding onto it."

"I know." He said, smugly, not seeing where I was going with this yet.

"There's a certain princess." I went on. "and what she represents that could be grabbed hold of, by a Witcher who stands not a million miles from where I am right now."

"Shut up Freddie."

"She's an intelligent, funny, charming and beautiful young woman who's head over heels in love with him."

"I said shut up Freddie."

"Any man would be a fool not to see it"

"Freddie, I'm warning you."

"After all, the world is a bleak, dark and unpleasant place and if we have a chance of happiness, even for a moment, then you should grab her with both hands and hold on with everything you have."

"Hah, you misquoted. I said you should grab "it" with both hands, not "her"."

"Did I say that?" I asked innocently. "Can't think why."

I skipped out of the way of a swung blow. I was going to pay for that later but he totally had it coming.

I was surprised though. I thought that we would be heading over towards the church, but instead, Kerrass was leading us back towards the inn.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"Back to the inn."

"Do we not have more people to talk to?"

"No. I know what's happening now."

"For certain?"

"For certain."

"Are you going to tell me?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"After that crack about grabbing life with both hands. I don't think you deserve to know the truth."

"Don't lie to me Kerrass." I said, chuckling. "You would have hidden this from me anyway for your own amusement."

Kerrass considered this. "True. But this time it means that you can't really complain about it in the long run. This time you deserve being kept in the dark and whatever it is that happens to you."

"Oh good. Something to look forward to then. Where do you think that Tulip was going then?"

"Work it out for yourself. You know how I do things, what do you think she's doing?"

"Kerrass." I warned.

"Stop being so lazy Freddie." He chided.

"I'm not being lazy. I've told you before that I want to hear things in your words. It's no good if I figure it all out when what I want to do is to study a Witcher at work."

"But in this case, you actually don't know what's happening do you."

"No, I don't." I admitted.

"There you go then."

"But this time it's unfair. You knew what was going on before we got here."

"I didn't, not really."

"Liar."

"Ok, I had a good idea. Further borne out by the behaviour of the other villagers."

"So you're operating at an advantage to me. You know what's in the woods don't you?"

"Yes. Yes I do."

"You know because you knew which questions to ask. To hone in on existing suspicions and knowledge that no-one else could have."

"Not that no-one could have, but that _you_ couldn't have."

"That seems unfair to me."

"Life isn't fair Freddie. Anyone who claims differently is selling something."

"Very funny. Where is Tulip going at night?"

"Where would you think she was going? Leaving aside the attitude of the village. Leaving aside the thing that lives in the trees. If you heard about a woman sneaking off in the middle of the night..."

"I would say she was meeting a lover but she's not like that." I interrupted. "You haven't seen her together with her husband. The two of them love each other in that hopeless kind of puppy dog way that makes people sick."

"You mean in the way that you and Ariadne do when the two of you are together."

"Fuck off."

"If you'd let me finish I would have said that if you met a good woman, as good as the one that you've described to me. As holy a woman as that is and she was sneaking off in the middle of the night. Where would you think she was going."

"I would still think that she's meeting someone."

"There you go then."

"She would do what she feels is right."

"Precisely."

"So why aren't we going to ask her what's going on then?"

"Because it would force her into a compromising situation. She has, undoubtedly been sworn to secrecy. By her husband if by no-one else. Her husband who has promised to help the village in any way that he can, and by whoever, or whatever, she is meeting. So she would have to compromise one of those promises. There is also the probability that her husband is in on it. Her husband, the good and holy man that you describe is trying to help both sides of the problem. That's tricky of course and he's charted a difficult course. But all we would do if we went there would be to put good people under pressure to compromise their ideals."

"Are you going soft in your old age?" I asked him after that little speech.

"Maybe," he said. "But it's also pointless. I know what's in the woods now. So all that we would be doing is asking good people to compromise their principles in return for information that I already have."

"Information that you're not going to give to me."

"No."

Try as I might, I couldn't get him to tell me what was going on in the woods. I asked about going to see the widow of the dead Livery man but Kerrass denied that idea as well. Pointing out that if the priest, his wife and the Herb-woman had been put under pressure not to say anything, then the widow would be doubly certain to be under the same amount of pressure. And, it was a given weakness in their story and if we were compromised then she would possibly pay the price.

We made it back to the inn and went to bed for a few more hours sleep.

We woke, as we had asked to be woken, at dawn.

As I say, since everything that has happened, I have developed a slightly unwelcome habit of sleeping relatively lightly, except when I know that I am safe, either in my families castle, my rooms in Oxenfurt or if I'm surrounded by other guards.

Also, when Ariadne is watching over me but that's a conversation for a different day.

So I woke easily, cleaned myself up a bit and we went down for our breakfast which Kerrass had ordered in advance. This was another occasion where we were putting on a show and we both knew it. So we sat, ate the ridiculously huge breakfasts that Kerrass always, and I do mean always, consumes before we set out on one of these expeditions.

I keep meaning to ask him about the breakfasts but I always get distracted by other factors and forget to ask. Several reasons occur, the first is that he's just not sure when he's next going to get the chance to eat. The next possibility is that it buffers him against the possibility of taking any potions. The third possibility is that he just likes breakfasts. The sausages, bacon, tomatoes, Fried potatoes and mushrooms along with fresh bread and butter when he can get it.

To be honest, that's probably the most likely option and he consumes it all with relish. No matter the quality of the food that is presented to him. Even when I've turned the food away on the grounds that it's too greasy or woefully undercooked. Kerrass has consumed it all with obvious and unfeigned enjoyment. Even stealing leftovers from my plate.

So we ate, with the attitudes of two men who felt that we were about to go out and die which meant that we ate in silence, exchanging _significant_ looks with each other.

I made a show of handing a packet over to the innkeeper that was supposedly full of letters that I wanted posted off to my family. It wasn't the real packet. The real one is in my pack, back where we'd secreted it in the woods. Kerrass had promised me that we were in no real danger and as such I hadn't made any provision for getting those letters sent out.

Then we packed our provisions. The food that we were taking for the trip in case we would be out all day. We filled the water skins and made extra care to ensure that they were all settled around our bodies properly. And by extra care, I mean that we redid it over and over again until we were both bored. For the record. Kerrass can go from inactivity to a position where he can move in a little under a minute. Nowadays, I'm not far behind him in that regard. It's all about setting things up in advance so that you know where everything is and don't need to think about where it all is.

Kerrass likes to tell a story where we were camping out in the woods one time while we he was hunting a feral vampire who was eating the locals. My job was that when contact had been made with the beast, that I was to mount back on my horse and head back to let the authorities know so that they could cordon off the area and evacuate those people that might be at risk in case the beast escaped Kerrass' blade. He claims that the beast had found us and was attacking. Kerrass was unprepared so he shouted and I was up, on my horse, gear stowed and riding away. All before I had actually woken up. I don't remember the incident as there are many such episodes in our past but it sounds as though it was likely.

Then, with an attitude of sombre men going to our deaths we made our way out of the village and into the trees.

I had considered asking to go and pray for a bit in order to properly prepare myself for death but I thought that that might have been a touch too far.

We entered the forest slowly and cautiously. Doing our best to look as though we were walking into fire and that we were afraid. Not too far from the truth in my case but Kerrass was hamming it up to his great delight.

The outskirts of the woods were obviously well travelled by local hunters and we could see many tracks heading off into the trees. Kerrass spent a bit of time look at the tracks before shrugging and picked one, as far as I could see, at random. Then we started walking. The path gradually and obviously became a wildlife path that led us down to a small pond of natural water. The ground softened as we went but it was easy to imagine the various animals making their way down to the water in order to get something to drink and the hunters lying in wait for them.

Kerrass was muttering to himself about the kinds of tracks that he was seeing. He saw boar, human, both male and female. He saw rabbit, deer and some signs of other swamp creatures. Nothing too big, nothing too dangerous and nothing that would actively be a threat or wouldn't taste good if you caught it.

We went carefully, advancing as though we were being cautious and keeping our eyes out. Kerrass went first and I followed, occasionally turning to walk backwards as though I was guarding our rear.

"How far behind us do you think they are?" I asked quietly.

"Not that far." he replied. "They know these woods which is more than we do. They can track us easily which might be a problem but I think we can shake them off. They are used to animals who don't really think. Not humans who have their own...way of thinking. These are no Cultists of the First-born."

"I know. But you'll forgive me if I'm not really enjoying being hunted through the trees again."

"This is different though."

"In what way? Other than the obvious that we're being hunted by different people."

He grinned at me. "This time it's fun."

I made some comment about the rumoured insanity of Feline Witchers.

The difficulty here was going to be getting away and turning the tide on our pursuers. The possibility that we weren't being followed hadn't even entered into our minds. The problem was that the ground was soft and marshy meaning that we were leaving easy tracks to follow. If we moved into the vegetation in order to hider our tracks by moving across root systems then we would damage the plants which would be just as obvious as leaving huge foot prints everywhere. And, of course, they knew the land and we did not. We were looking for some kind of running water. If we could find the stream that ran through the village itself then that would be idea. We hadn't seen any hunting dogs in the town but running water would hide our tracks better. A body of water, like a pond or something wouldn't work as people could just walk round it and find where we had emerged from the water.

In the end, we escaped from our pursuers with the oldest trick in the book. It's so old that you've even heard of it. We laid a false trail and doubled back. Literally the oldest trick in the book when it comes to evading capture or ducking pursuit. If there are ever books written on the subject of "How to avoid pursuing enemies" then this would be the first chapter with a later follow up chapter about how to spot someone else when they're doing it.

We did have one advantage though which was that our pursuers didn't think we knew about them. They still believed that they had got one over on us and as a result, they weren't expecting any kind of subterfuge. That and they were primarily experienced in tracking animals and game which meant that they were used to tracking things that used instinct rather than intelligence in order to evade capture. We did our best to subtly support this conclusion as we went by making no effort to conceal our tracks and to make large, obvious to follow trails. As I say, I am a much better woodsman now than I had been before all of this began and I will admit to being outright embarrassed at the size of the trail that we were leaving.

But we found our stream. We walked along it for a while before climbing out and walking plum into a patch of brambles. We used the pole of my spear to force a bit of a path into the bramble bush so that they would think that we had gone into it before we doubled back. Carefully putting our boots back into the old tracks. Yes, that meant that the impressions that we left would be odd. More pronounced and differently... I suppose the correct term is "scuffed" but again, people that were used to tracking animals rather than humans.

After that we were back in the stream and went a bit back in order to find the low hanging branch that we had marked out for the purpose earlier. I went first with a boost from Kerrass, pulled up what gear we had with us and then pulled Kerrass up behind me before we made our way a little higher so that we could be more covered by the undergrowth. So that we could, hopefully, see while remaining unseen.

We didn't have to wait long. I couldn't decide whether that was a sign of incompetence or whether that proved that they were better at this than I gave them credit for. Regardless, Half a dozen men with bows came after us. Travelling with Rickard, I have learnt quite a lot about this kind of thing. I know, for instance that a hunting bow is not the same as the kind of bow that you need for "man-killing" which is thicker and more powerful.

Mostly, these men were carrying hunting bows. Hunting bows would still fucking hurt but they would struggle to puncture proper leather. They would need to be good shots and hit us somewhere deadly like in the throat or in the face. Maybe the arm-pit or the groin which are those places that all armour struggles to cover because the wearers also need to be able to move around. I would have scoffed but the reason that these people were still alive and able to survive in their environment was because they hunted and practice something often enough and then sooner or later you become good at it.

And if you're going to hunt for your food then you need to be a good shot to hit an animal in the head, throat or heart to kill it instantly. Otherwise you get tough, inedible meat.

There you are. Every day's a school day with Professor Freddie.

So we waited in our hiding spot and waited. They took the false trail and then we waited. We ate a bit of jerky before they started to call to each other in frustration. Kerrass grinned, signalled and we moved off along the tree so that when we _did_ start to make tracks again, we would be a suitably large distance away from the stream, making it difficult for our opponents to begin tracking us again.

I felt good. There seemed to be a lack of stakes to the entire thing. Here, it was just Kerrass and I against a group of people and we outclassed them. We had the drop on them and there weren't any higher stakes other than our own survival. This was not the same as when we were being pursued by the Cult. There were no villager lives at stake. We didn't have any comrades that depended on us for their lives. We were not carrying vital information that was necessary for the destruction of evil. There was just them, and us. They had weapons, we had weapons and they had no idea where we were.

I cannot tell you how amazing that felt. No mysteries, no riddles. Just an enemy to be defeated. And defeat them we had.

We went a little carefully, there was still someone or something out in the greenery and as we got further and further away we spent more and more time looking for it. The countryside was well spread and we hadn't really needed to worry about provisions given that we could have lived off the land fairly easily. Plenty of berries and if we did need to camp we would be able to set snares and all kinds of wildlife would fall into our traps. We could even fish in the ponds or the streams or anything else that we came across. It was good land and I wondered aloud to Kerrass as to why they were so desperate for other things.

"People are always desperate for that thing they cannot have. You have seen this yourself many times."

"Any number of these people could make better livings anywhere else in Redania, fuck, anywhere else in the Empire."

"But they were born here. You are not a good example in that you moved when you were young into your families castle and you have travelled from a young age. These people think a morning's ride in either direction is a long way. The village over the hill are foreigners. You've never had experience of that. They are terrified of the change and desperate because they know that this place cannot support them."

I nodded.

"I could be happy here." I commented. "It's beautiful and peaceful and..."

I was interrupted by Kerrass snorting his amusement. "You would be bored inside a few days, restless inside a week and snapping at people inside a fortnight. You need stimulation Freddie. You crave new experiences, new learning and experiences."

I said nothing.

We stopped and had something to eat for lunch where I teased Kerrass about his avoidance of the topic of the Princess Dorn and Kerrass teased me about my pending nuptials.

I felt...alive I suppose is the best term for it.

We went a little further where Kerrass bent down and pointed out some tracks.

"What do you think?" He asked with a slight smile.

"A horse." I suggested. "Unshod though. Elves?"

Kerrass shook his head. "Elves only ride horses when they're about to attack or when they are desperate for speed. They would move through woodland much more stealthily than that and these tracks are recent. Look at that."

He bent down and dipped his gloved hand into the tracks. When he held his hand up to the light his finger had some strange kind of sparkle on the edge. The light refracted through it and shone in the colours of the rainbow.

"Do we follow?" I asked.

"We do." Kerrass said. "But carefully and...quietly."

"Because we do it differently so often."

He glared at me.

We moved on a bit further. We seemed to come over a ridge and descend into a small bowl shaped valley. The ground was soft under foot, Kerrass was leading when he suddenly stopped still. Then he gestured off to one side and I moved off in that direction as instructed. Depositing the supplies against a tree. I checked with Kerrass and he made signals to carry on round to the side before he turned and seemed to continue descending into the valley.

I crept along, as carefully as I could, walking with my legs bent, making sure of every step as the mud shifted and moved underfoot. It was slow going and I was having to be extra careful so that my boots didn't make too much of a sucking noise when I pulled them from the mire.

I came out of the bushes into a clear space where the ground seemed a bit firmer. I waited and scanned the bush line carefully before advancing.

I saw movement and spun round, ducking as I went.

Kerrass had me well trained. Sudden movement might be a blade moving towards your head, or it might be an arrow leaving the bowstring in your direction. Don't turn and look to see what the "sudden movement" was. Instead, duck. Preferably with a duck, tuck and a roll.

As a result the whistling of a weapon sped through the air over my head. I climbed to my feet as the shape leapt at me. I had the sense of blackness. I thought that there were limbs, legs, arms but there was also flashing metal and proper examination of my opponent would have to wait.

But I was already on the back foot as my dodge had been followed up on. He charged me, his sword cutting hard towards my thigh. I parried desperately but our weapons made no contact. He had changed direction at the last moment and I was forced to take another step back. He, for it was a man although I had never seen anyone like it, drew back and gestured at me. I felt the impact and was thrown from my feet. It was like the air in front of me had become solid before pushing forwards. It didn't hurt but I would be lying if I said that the impact with the ground didn't hurt.

I managed to keep hold of my spear and tried to bring it to bear but the breath had been knocked from my lungs with the impact and I could barely move. He knocked my feeble lunge aside with his sword and I got my first good look at him.

He was dressed like any other light fighter. Like Kerrass, like I was or like the bastard's had been. Light, leather armour but after that, he was completely different. His skin was black, not the light browns of the Ifieri or the deeper darkness of the Zerrikanians. This man was black. So black he was almost blue. His hair was cut short and was a similarly dark shade with a slight edge of brown, meaning that his hair was actually a lighter shade than his skin. His teeth which were bared in a snarl were startlingly white in the face of this black man but the thing that caught my attention were his eyes.

They were indeed yellow. They were the yellow cat's eyes of a Witcher.

The punchline settled into my brain so that I barely had time to register that he had knocked my spear aside so that he could draw back for the killing blow.

I thought I saw fangs in his teeth as he snarled.

The blade came up, my limbs felt heavy. I tried to roll but I was trapped.

"Please don't kill my scholar." Came Kerrass' quiet voice.

I opened my eyes although I didn't remember having closed them.

"Kerrass?" The man spoke, his accent sounded odd. As though the vowels had somehow been emphasised or moved towards their most basic form. The consonants were sharper as well. "Kerrass it is you."

The two Witchers laughed and embraced each other fiercely, swords drawn and all.

I lay back and focused on getting my breath back.

A demon with yellow eyes. A Witcher.

I really should have seen that coming.

Kerrass' face swam into view. "You alright Freddie?" He asked innocently.

"You sent me off to distract him so that you could sneak up on him didn't you." I wasn't asking a question.

"Well," He said with a smile. "You deserved it after that crack in the village about the Princess."

A thousand and one questions clamoured for attention in my brain. But one fact floated to the top.

"I fucking hate it when you do this."


	87. Chapter 87

(A/N: Believe it or not. Before I realised that I was spectacularly bad at, and utterly uninterested, in the subject, I studied Physics at university. So before I get a torrent of comments on the subject along with various people telling me that that was not what the thought experiment was about, or telling me that the inclusion of a Cat Witcher named Schrodinger was just an Easter egg. I want to let people know, up front, that I absolutely realise this. As I say, I studied physics so I know who Erwin Schrodinger was, why he was an important thinker and what the thing about the cat was about.

I laughed at the inclusion in the game and the joke about nobody knowing whether he was alive or dead.

But the story teller in me wanted to know _why_ no-one knew whether he was alive or dead in the context of a story set in the Witcher universe. So that's what I'm doing here.

Also, as a reminder before similar criticisms turn up. I came up with my idea of what the Feline Witcher Fortress was before, as far as I know, it was decided that the Cat fortress was a travelling caravan of Witchers. I wish I had known that before I started writing up my own ideas. I _like_ the idea of a travelling circus of Witchers and can think of many stories around that.)

(Warning: Freddie continues to use terms that might be considered racist and insensitive to modern readers. But please be assured that I would never use such language myself and that he is approaching the situation from ignorance and the fact that such things are outside of his experience.

Also, considerable discussion about mental illness (again). A reminder that Kerrass, Freddie and the rest don't really have the language or the knowledge to deal with this kind of thing so bare that in mind while you read

Also also, Horrible things done to young Witchers.)

The new Witcher's name was Schrodinger. Among the very first things that I said to him was to say, rather stupidly, that it was an unusual name and that I hadn't heard anything like it.

"Neither have I," he told me in his strange accent. "If you do find someone who looks like me, sounds like me or has a similar name to me then please, let me know. I have been from one end of the continent to the other. I have travelled as far south as it's possible to go before you reach the end of civilisation. I have travelled beyond the northern mountains and explored the great tundra beyond it before having to turn back due to lack of provision and lack of work. In doing so, I have seen a lot of strange things. But I have never heard anyone who talks like me, who looks like me, or has a name close to what mine is."

During our short journey from where Schrodinger ambushed me to where his camp-site was, it had been explained to me that Schrodinger had become a Witcher, just passing his trials a couple of decades before Kerrass himself. We hadn't had chance to go into too much detail but it seemed that Kerrass considered him as a kind of peer figure rather than an elder figure. Where Eskel was Kerrass' closest Witcher friend, Schrodinger acted as a kind of Elder brother, teasing and haranguing him as we walked.

He was an interesting man. Utterly outside my experience of Witchers. Every single Witcher that I've met was kind of closed off, taciturn, withdrawn and stoic. They are the outsiders of civilisation that look in on everything, observing and watching. Only small gestures giving away what they are thinking at even the best of times. A slight upturn of the lips in place of a smile. A slight hooding of the eyes in place of a frown and a slight gritting of teeth instead of a raging torrent of anger. Instead of this, Schrodinger was like an open book.

In the short time that I had known him since he leapt out at me from the bushes to the point where I was now sitting in his camp, he had laughed aloud more than Kerrass had in our entire relationship together.

I liked him. I didn't know whether a true and lasting friendship was possible as we had only just met, but I liked him a great deal. He was the kind of man that you find yourself telling your innermost secrets to, your deepest worries and your deepest fears. He has that trick of laughing _with_ you at your own mishaps rather than making you feel as though he's laughing _at_ you.

He had taken to me like another long lost brother, embracing me firmly and apologising for frightening me.

The entire thing felt really strange. Kerrass was beside himself with glee, all but leaping about from one foot to another in excitement, asking over and over again if _she_ was here and where _she_ was. For the other man's part Schrodinger smiled indulgently and told Kerrass that _she_ was staying in camp so as to not lead any other travellers to the camp quite as easily and Kerrass sped off. It was as though he was a small child again, having been promised a treat that had long been anticipated. Like a child at Yule rushing from his bedroom in the early hours of the morning in order to open all the presents.

Schrodinger caught my gaze at the time and rolled his eyes in mock exasperation before linking his arm through mine and leading me down into the valley. The camp-site that I was led to was like a larger version of the same camp-site that Kerrass had instructed me to build all that time ago, but there was a certain "lived in" quality to it all that I found enticing. It was set outside a cave mouth, On one side it was backed by a large pond. This was fed from a stream forming a waterfall that fell down the rocks that formed the cave, the water then draining out the other end. I could see three possible routes for entry and or exit which meant that there was likely to be a couple more than that in reality, as Witchers never like to get boxed in wherever they camp. There was a large fire pit and I could see several frames on which were the stretched out skins of various animals. I could see boxes of supplies as well as an impromptu mattress that had been made out of blankets and straw along with a frame and tarpaulin that was obviously meant to keep the rain off.

"There is an alchemy lab inside the cave." Schrodinger told me while we were approaching. "I have spare blankets and bed-rolls if you are going to be spending the night. Food is plentiful so you don't need to worry about that either."

Schrodinger fussed over me like a house proud old woman. Setting out bed-rolls with a brief question as to whether or not Kerrass still snored while putting water on to boil so that we could have a hot drink. He showed me where he washed his clothes after suggesting that my brief mud bath would necessitate some...freshening up. Then he apologised for tipping me over into the mud with a slight but small smile. Needless to say we both blamed Kerrass for the temerity to not warn us both, properly, as to what was going on.

I bathed in the pond after being reassured that the water was clean and relatively pure but that I shouldn't drink from it due to the swamps and things feeding into it. Apparently the pigs and other herd animals in the woods drained into the stream and the others like it so it was always better to not risk it. He told me that he had a water purifying set up inside the cave which provided his drinking water but also fed his still.

"Never assume that a Witcher's alchemy skills are only for the proper brewing of potions and oils my friend," he told me.

After also being reassured that I wasn't going to insult or offend "her" whoever she was, I stripped off my overclothes and leapt in to the pond. After which, a fire was built and my clothes soon dried out in the face of that double onslaught.

"Who is _she_?" I asked.

"You will meet her soon enough." He told me. "She is currently deciding what to make of you and whether or not she likes you."

"What happens if she doesn't like me?"

"Then we must hope that I can persuade her not to kill you."

Something on my face must have tickled him as he soon fell about laughing. "I am joking my friend," he said. "Not all of us share Brother Kerrass' sense of humour or the dour nature of the Wolves. I myself have been known to crack a joke once or twice a year at least."

"That many times?" I made to sound amazed.

"Oh you would be surprised." He stroked his face in thought as I got dressed. "So you must be Lord Frederick von Coulthard and if I recall properly, you are not appreciative when other people call you Freddie."

"I think that that ship has sailed if we are being honest with each other."

"Mmm, It is a wise man who knows when to accept things that he has no control of."

"Thank you. But I am far from a wise man."

"But isn't that something that a wise man would say? After all, did someone not say that a foolish man knows how much he has learned but a wise man knows how much he still has to learn."

"Someone did. I don't know who though. Must be one of those things that I still have to learn."

He laughed again. It was an infectious laugh and it seemed to echo.

Most people that I've ever met, and most people that you've ever met if you're honest with yourself, tend to laugh rather quietly, they don't want to embarrass themselves so they restrain their laughter until they figure out whether anyone else is going to laugh with them. Then, if more laughter does emerge they can start laughing a bit louder themselves.

Schrodinger clearly didn't agree with this philosophy himself and whenever he felt as though there was something worth laughing about, he laughed. Laughed, long and loud until he chose to stop. Kerrass is my subject when it comes to following a Witcher around and noting down how they work. When meeting Letho off to the north, I could see similarities between the two men. Their taciturn approach being the most obvious along with certain dry elements of their humour. Lord Geralt, Eskel and the other wolves that I have met are the same. Dry men, withdrawn from the majority of society with a mocking sense of humour who relax and warm up when they get to know you.

But this man seemed different. I suddenly had a burning desire to see how he worked. Thoughts rushed through my head about how things would have been different if I had met this man first. How would that first hunt have gone with the Nekkers. Would we have found who killed my father that bit quicker? Would I be engaged to marry a Vampire. I certainly wouldn't have encountered Marion, the woman who taught me a little bit about allowing myself to love...

Would we have found out what happened to Francesca?

So many thoughts that it was a little dizzying.

Fortunately I was saved by Kerrass emerging from the undergrowth with Schrodinger's companion and I felt my mouth open.

"Well that explains a few things." I heard myself say.

"It often does." Schrodinger commented in my ear. "Try not to stare though. She thinks it's rude."

"She would be correct." I commented, forcing myself to turn away so that I could try and process what I had seen.

"Would you like a drink now?" Schrodinger asked, grinning from ear to ear.

"Yes please."

He pulled on a rope that was tied to his canopy. "She sometimes has that effect on people."

A glass bottle rattled across the pebbles that made up the floor of the small beach that led down to the water. Schrodinger caught it up and pulled the cork out the top, sniffed the neck and passed it over.

"Take it slow. My moonshine is powerful stuff."

I took a swig. He was not wrong about the power in the liquid. "I suppose it's one of those things that Witchers need to brew powerful stuff so that they can even feel it."

"You would be surprised my friend, you would be surprised."

I took another swig and turned to watch as Kerrass set up a chess board on the ground before sitting opposite the board, legs crossed with an expectant expression on his face. His opponent looked down on him magnanimously and with the air of great patience, snorting occasionally as Kerrass put the pieces out in the right order. Kerrass played white and advanced with one of his pawns. His opponent snorted and carefully, but precisely, pushed one of her own pawns forward with the tip of her horn.

Schrodinger's companion was a unicorn.

No matter what you're thinking about that image. I'm telling you that you are definitely wrong. Some of you might be imagining the stuffed unicorns that some people buy in order to have one sat in the corner of their room as a kind of ornament or furnishing. A talking point or a conversation starter. You might have even seen one. But trust me, those ornaments and furnishings are nothing compared to the real thing. I keep meaning to look into it but I too have seen these things and I am now convinced that these things are the creations of enterprising artisans and are not the product of killing a unicorn and stuffing it.

For a start, I have difficulty imagining anyone but the most hardened and experienced warriors hunting and taking down a unicorn if it was ready and able to fight.

You might be imagining a drawing with charcoal and chalk that children have made. The kind of thing where the unicorn looks cartoonish with a trailing rainbow coming out of the things tail. This is also not the case.

Unicorns are not colourful. Unicorns are not cuddly. Unicorns are not a fucking cartoon. A unicorn is a living breathing thing.

Lets break this down a little bit. For a start, there is no mistaking it for a horse. There are similarities. Unicorns have tails, a mane, a similar elongated head, hooves, four legs and biting teeth. But the musculature is different. Much more pronounced in the unicorn. We breed horses for different things. If you tried to take a cart horse to war, or used it as a long term riding horse, then you wouldn't get very far. Nor if you used a riding horse to pull a wagon, or a warhorse for that matter. This means that to a trained eye, even with a relatively small amount of training, even if you don't know the breeds in question, then you can look at a horse and tell the difference. Cart horses with their huge feet and massive shoulders. War horses with their spirit and the way that their hooves move that little bit more precisely. Riding horses which are much smaller relatively speaking.

This was not like that. Her musculature was different and it took me a while to figure out why. The difference was that she had chosen how she wanted to work. She had never been bred for a specific purpose. She was just there. It was a subtle difference overall but you could see it. Anyone who spent any amount of time around horses at all, would see the difference. Calling her more beautiful would be incorrect as well. The aesthetics of the animal were just different, that's all. If there was a way to describe it then what I would say is that the unicorn looked...more natural. It's the only term that really works for me. She looked like she was the product of nature rather than the product of being bred for a purpose.

The closest equivalent I can think of was...Elves and humans look fairly similar. Please don't be insulted by that but it's true. Both races have two eyes, a mouth, teeth, two ears, a tongue, similar facial structure along with two arms, two legs and similar, if not identical, sexual organs as well as digestive tracts and breathing apparatus. But if you put a human next to an elf you would be able to tell the difference. That would be what it looks like to have a horse and a unicorn stood together.

I don't know if Unicorns and horses can breed and I didn't dare ask her. I suspect that it would be the equivalent of asking a werewolf to mate with a dog. And a stupid dog at that.

That was the next difference.

I am not an expert horseman. I am not nearly... interested enough to be an expert in horses. But there are clever horses and stupid horses. You can normally tell the difference if you spend enough time with the horse in question.

Looking at the way the Unicorn behaved...There was just...She was easily as intelligent as many humans that I have met. She was probably more intelligent than me. And you could just tell as well. It was the way she moved and the way she looked at people. In the same way that you can tell about things going on behind the eyes of certain kinds of people. When the Unicorn lifted her eyes from the board to look Kerrass in the face, you could tell that there was something going on there. There were thoughts, coherent sentences and structure to those same thoughts.

That was another difference but the last difference was the thing that stood out to me. She was no-one's cartoon. She was no child's drawing or dream of romance. She was a terrifying creature, sorry, a terrifying person. She was a warrior and a poet and a soldier.

Her hooves did not sparkle. There was certainly a certain amount of sparkle and yes there was an aura of a rainbow about her. She was certainly magical but she was also frightening. The closest thing that I could define about this was this.

Her horn was not golden. It glittered and shone, like burnished steel and I knew what it was that had caused some of those puncture wounds in the people that the herbalist had seen. This was not a wand that she waved in order to summon the magic. This was a weapon. The weapon of a warrior born.

That was what she reminded me of. She was a soldier. She was a warrior and a fighter and she had the battle-scars and the memories and nightmares to show for it.

My heart ached and fled from what she showed me. I have never met anyone, or anything like it.

"You're actually doing quite well." Schrodinger said, intruding on my thoughts. "You haven't drooled, passed out, spontaneously soiled yourself, orgasmed or haemorrhaged anything so you're doing quite well."

"Does that happen often?"

"You might be surprised."

"If you know who I am then you must also know who I am engaged to be married to."

"True, is that how you reacted to meeting her for the first time?"

"You mean with the drooling, passing out, soiling myself, orgasming or bleeding from various orifices?"

"Yes."

"Well, to be fair, I was already doing a lot of those things, but then again I had been poisoned just before hand so I wasn't really in control of my bodily functions. I wasn't orgasming though because as I recall she looked rather a lot like a corpse at the time."

"Did the orgasming thing happen later?"

"Maaayyybe."

I had to force myself to turn away from the sight of a Unicorn playing chess with a Witcher. It was one of those mythic images that I have seen occasionally while out on my travels with Kerrass. The sight of a Witcher on the edge of town waiting to see if someone was going to hire him. The undeniable power of a knight's tourney in Toussaint with pennants and flags flying high in the air. The coronation of an Empress. The flight of a Royal Griffin as it takes down it's prey. All of these things and the many things like them are the kinds of sights that make me wish that I could paint. In order to ensure that those moments could be immortalised forever rather than in my imperfect pencil sketches or in my rather clinical prose.

But this was a new one. So strange and otherworldly that the other thing that it made me think, was that even if I _had_ managed to paint it, no-one would ever believe that it had happened.

But I forced myself to turn away and took another drink from the bottle that I had been given. Schrodinger was grinning at me.

"I uh... I have a few questions." I stuttered out.

"I thought that you might."

I took a few deep breaths in order to properly settle myself.

"So I suppose that I'll start with the most basic of questions then." I took another swig of the rather fortifying hooch that was actually rather pleasant once you got over the truly astonishing alcohol content.

"Please do."

I took a deep breath. "Who are you?" I asked him.

He laughed.

"I take it that you mean that in the grander scale of things."

"I do really yes. Otherwise there is no point. I know that you're name is Schrodinger. I know that you are a Witcher of the Cat school?"

He raised his eyebrows at my question but he nodded.

"I also know that you are the most unusual looking man that I've ever seen." I went on.

He grinned at that.

"I know that your accent is not one that I recognise and I'm pretty wildly travelled as people go in this kind of thing."

He nodded.

I thought for a while before shrugging after deciding that there was only so much that you could do in order to protect someone's feelings. "You travel round with the most unusual travelling companion that I have ever heard of."

"Not an unfair observation." He commented "Also, coming from a man who travels with a Witcher. Not a common experience itself, despite Cousin Geralt's activites."

"I also know that I've never heard of you. That's not necessarily a massive thing if I was just someone on the street but I've spent the last...two years really, studying Witchers. Kerrass has never mentioned you. Neither did Gaetan of the Cat school when I met him. Certainly none of the other Witchers that I have met have ever mentioned you and I'm pretty sure that I would remember a name like yours."

"That is entirely deliberate on my part, I have to say." He smiled. "I have worked hard to move through the world without affecting it beyond on a professional level. My brothers know not to go on about me and as for the cousins..."

(Freddie's note: It seems that Witchers refer to people of other schools as "cousins" and people from their own school as "Brothers".)

"... Those that I _have_ met have understood my problems."

"So can I ask a few basic questions just to get the conversation started?"

"Please."

"Where are you from?"

He told me briefly about the fact that he had no idea where he was from and about his travelling habits in looking for where he might find his people.

"Do you not remember?"

"No I don't." He told me. "Everyone has a different reaction to the mutations but my reaction was that I lost the entirety of my memory. It was as though the chemicals just reached into my brain and just removed them like a doctor might remove a limb."

"So you have no idea where you come from?"

"No."

"Did the older Witchers not tell you?"

"It was not really a focus of our conversations. I was still too busy relearning how to walk, feed and clothe myself that kind of thing. Muscle memory is a wonderful thing and it remembers much more than the brain does but by the time I had finished my training after all of that, The prospect of needing to know who I was didn't seem as important somehow."

"But they told you your name."

"Yes, and my peers kept telling me that as well so I know that it isn't made up. I would almost believe it were made up more if it had been something more boring. Like Thom, or Jon." He grinned suddenly. "Or Kerrass for that matter."

"You are aware that I can still hear you right?" Kerrass piped up from where he appeared to be losing badly.

"Attend," came a voice, seemingly from nowhere. "You cannot afford to let your concentration wander." It was a woman's voice and the overtones in my skull seemed to suggest that the voice belonged to an extremely attractive woman as well.

"I communicate telepathically." She told me. Kerrass' opponent had lifted her gaze to mine which was when I realised that I was talking to the Unicorn.

"Oh." I said before nodding slowly. "That would make a certain amount of sense yes."

The telepathic contact felt different than it did when I talk to Ariadne. With Ariadne I get a sense of her moving around the place. I get the feel of the room around her, a sense of what she's doing and what she's thinking. I can feel the water on her skin and the clothes around her body. She is looking forward to trying out the sensual and sexual possibilities of this in the future, something that I am beginning to find a little intimidating.

She has a list of things that she wants to try when it comes to sex, showing off, not for the first time, that she approaches life like a scientist examining it from every angle. Physical lovemaking while we are also telepathically linked is on this list. I have told her several times that although I am more than up for trying things out but that I look forward to doing simple things like examining what her body feels like underneath my fingers and trying out all the many and wondrously varied uses we could find for a bed. She always laughs at this and says things like "Well we can do all of those things as well," in a tone of mental voice that suggests I'm being uncommonly stupid.

But this telepathic contact almost felt cold. There was just a voice there. There was none of the extra...feeling of that voice.

How to put this.

If you listen to a person then you are not _just_ hearing that person speak. You are also hearing the echoes of their voice around the room. You are seeing the body language with which they are also expressing themselves. So that the mere sounds of the words used become only a part of what is happening. The difference between listening to the Unicorn speak and hearing Ariadne or any of the other people that I've spoke to telepathically, was like listening to a person speak without being able to look at their body language, or hear the echo of their voice. It was just the noise. I could hear feeling and emotion but it was as though all of the other things that we use in order to communicate with each other had been removed.

That's the closest way I can think of to say it.

"You do not appear to be too surprised by this." I looked over at her to see that she was gazing at me steadily. Which was when I noticed that her eyes were just slightly more towards the front of her head. They were still more towards the side than you would get in a lot of "predator" species but they were certainly that little bit more towards the front than a standard horse's eyes are. "I have spoken to humans before and they have assumed that they were going insane."

"Hey," Kerrass said from where he was frowning at the game board. "I thought we were supposed to be paying attention here."

"I am," she said. "I know exactly where all the pieces are. And I know where you are going to move next, as well as the next six moves after that, which is when I will checkmate you."

He protested wordlessly. A sight that I enjoyed a great deal. Always nice when someone schools him in whatever thing that he was practising.

"I do have some experience in these matters," I told her. "My fiancée speaks to me through telepathy on a semi-regular basis."

"Is she a Sorceress?" The unicorn asked. I got a sense of a certain amount of wariness from her at this question.

"She is." I admitted. "She is also a vampire."

The Unicorn hissed audibly and bared her teeth as she turned on me. Kerrass looked up, a sudden expression of concern on his face as the Unicorn seemed to dip her head and be preparing to charge towards me, horn extended in order to impale me on the end.

But then Schrodinger started to laugh.

"I told you." He said wagging his finger at his companion. "I've told you over and over and over again that you need to pay attention to the world around you. You've even seen me reading this man's travel journals and wondered why I was laughing at them. I told you then that the writer was having the misfortune to fall in love with a Vampire."

"So?" She asked. The mental words almost seemed like a growl. If they had come from a human mouth then they would have come from the back of the throat. Deep and bass.

"So this is that man. He has no blemish on his mind, you know this already don't you?" The way he spoke to her was in the same gentle chiding that a person might use when they are pointing out the error in their spouses thinking. There was still love there and a depth of feeling that was almost touching but there was also a sense of correction, of turning her into the right channels of thought.

"I do," The Unicorn admitted.

"So the Vampire is not aware of your existence. She does not know that you are here. She is not coming here even now and even if she did, she would probably only be curious and certainly not come with any murderous intent."

The Unicorn looked sceptical. I don't know how she managed that as it strikes me that scepticism is a complex emotion and I have never seen that on a horse or horse like creature before. But I knew she was sceptical. It felt odd and slightly surreal. It was something about the way she flicked her tail from side to side and the tilt to her head. Maybe the movement of her lips.

I am never going to look at a horse the same way again.

Then she reached a decision. "If Kerrass trusts you then I shall trust you. And if Kerrass trusts her then I shall trust her."

And then she seemed to just forget about it. Turning back to the game with the intense focus and concentration that she had had before.

"It would seem," Schrodinger commented, "that Vampires and Unicorns did not really get on historically. Some kind of ancient war from before the conjunction of the spheres."

I considered this. "I could probably arrange a meeting."

He laughed. "Much though I think that might be fun to watch as I like the sound of your Countess, I don't think it would achieve anything. Unicorns seem to live in the moment a lot more than any other sentient creature that I've met. A lifetime of war will do that to you."

I agreed.

For those of you that have not read The Bard's works on the travels of the Empress Cirilla through the different realms of time and space on the back of a unicorn then I will explain this. Unicorns have fought an almost constant war against a race of Elf like beings called the Aen Elle. Not to be confused with the Aen Seidhe which are the Elves that live in our world. Both of these races would describe themselves as being "True Elves" but that is a debate for another time. Unicorns can travel across the magical planes and move through worlds. Their home-world is one shared with these Aen Elle and they have warred over the centuries for control of that place. I cannot imagine that it would have been pleasant. For more information on the subject, I refer you to either the aforementioned works of the bard, or to the works of the Sorcerer Gerhart of Aelle and particularly his book on the subject "The Legends of the Elder Races".

"But," Schrodinger went on. "We were talking about my problems."

"Yes we were. But before we go back to that. How close was I to getting run through then?"

Schrodinger didn't answer that. His eyes just gleamed.

It was not as reassuring as you might think.

"So, as I was saying. As far as I know. I have always looked like this. I looked like this when I woke up after the trials. And by the time I thought to ask, there was no-one around who could answer my questions about my past and where I came from."

"The prevailing theory when I arrived at the school," Kerrass spoke up from where he was setting up the game board for another round. "Was that the trials had mutated Schrodinger so that he looked like that and sounded like that."

"So you are older than Kerrass?"

"That I cannot answer." Schrodinger said. "I had been a Witcher for a number of years when Kerrass came to the school and we did not socialise. I was grown and mutated and he was just one of many children who we didn't want to become attached to."

I must have frowned or something because he then answered a question that I had not asked.

"Most of those children die, or worse, so you don't become attached for fear that your heart will break when they die. Which is what they are most likely to do."

"Seems harsh."

"But human." The Unicorn commented from where she was examining Kerrass' first move in the second game.

"And no-one treated me as being odd for the colour of my skin, at the Witcher school, or for the way I talked. We were always gathered from all over the continent anyway so no two of us spoke the same way or behaved the same way. The only etiquette that we shared was the deference to the older Witchers. It wasn't until I actually left the school that it struck me that my skin colour set me apart."

"I've only really got Kerrass' accounts of the Feline Fortress. Have you read that issue?"

"I have, and with great interest." He eyed Kerrass over my shoulder. It struck me then that he had positioned himself so that he could watch the Unicorn and Kerrass interact. Whether by design or by instinct but he kept looking over my shoulder to see how they were getting on.

"Did you not ask questions when you got back to the school after that first year on the path? After everyone was treating you differently I mean?"

"No. I just assumed that they were looking at me oddly because I was a Witcher."

"Ok." I was finding it quite hard work to get information out of him. He seemed open and honest and he was certainly friendly enough. He just seemed as though he was evading questions. As though he had been doing it for so long that he was now doing so out of a reflexive action. As though it was second nature to him.

I took a deep breath.

"Who are you?"

He laughed. Of course he did. "My name is Schrodinger. I am a Witcher of the Cat school. My skin is black, my hair is brown and I travel around with a Unicorn who refuses to tell me her name."

"Ok. There it is then. How long have the two of you known each other?"

"A long, long time."

"Ok. Now I know that you're just playing with me."

"I am. And I'm sorry. I'm not used to talking to people who don't know who I am."

It was my turn to laugh.

"Kerrass." I called turning back to the game where Kerrass was in the middle of conceding the second game. "Who is this man?"

"His name is Schrodinger." He told me with a slight smile on his face. "He's a Witcher of the Cat school. His skin is black, his hair is brown and..."

"Go fuck yourself Kerrass. You would not have brought me here if you didn't want me to know more."

Kerrass considered this. His eyes twinkling for a moment. "That is true." He admitted. He got up and bowed to the unicorn. "I will beat you one day." He told her. She snorted in response.

"Then I will hunt." She said disappearing into the undergrowth.

"Please don't kill anyone." Schrodinger called into the undergrowth after her. I got a telepathic feeling of disappointment.

"His name is Schrodinger." Kerrass told me after accepting another bottle from his brother Witcher. "I was first aware of him shortly after I arrived at the Feline fortress. He was among those Witchers that we novices didn't really get to talk to or associate with. The experienced Witchers." He took a swig, making an appreciative face at whatever it was that he'd just had a mouthful of. "He was right when he said that we don't tend to associate with novices because we know that most, if not all of them, are not going to make it through the trials.

"Which is another thing that we never talk about. Being a Witcher is a lonely life. It's taught to us from a very young age. Even as apprentices we don't even socialise outside our immediate peers as those children that are older than us and more advanced than us are about to die and those apprentices that are younger than us seem so much younger, so much more innocent than we are and it makes us sick."

"Mmm." Schrodinger agreed. "We are taught to isolate ourselves. I sometimes wonder whether it was something that was done on purpose. If we are encouraged to do that so that we become self-sufficient and able to stand on the outsides of things easier. So that we can move and walk separately and relish our independence."

"Schrodinger can also be something of a poet when he puts his mind to it." Kerrass grinned slyly.

Schrodinger shoved him in the shoulder in response.

"I can see the point." I said, grinning myself. It was fascinating to see Kerrass with a peer. I know that he had been around Gaetan in Toussaint but to be fair, I had other things on my mind at the time so I didn't really have time to watch how the two of them interacted. But in this case, Kerrass' behaviour was _exactly_ like that of the younger brother. An equal physically and mentally but never losing sight of the fact that the other man was older, more experienced and maybe a little bit wiser. In return he felt as though it was his duty to needle at the older man. To remind him that they were equals in a lot of ways.

In return Schrodinger treated Kerrass with a kind of weary affection. A slight hint of condescension although I thought that it was a deliberate air that had been adopted in order to wind Kerrass up. A way of ensuring that Kerrass never forgot who was the elder here. It was as though they were constantly reminding each other of the social order while also reminding each other what they were both capable of.

"There is a point there." Kerrass said. "But sometimes it can lead to a sense of weakness. I, for one, can certainly remember several times on the path where I might have wanted to talk things over with a comrade on the path, to discuss what I was doing and where I was going with things. To talk over methods and to exchange notes."

"It used to happen." Schrodinger said. "Indeed I can remember that that was part of the point sometimes when we all got back for the winter, where we swapped our diaries and journals over so that we could further our own knowledge about potion ingredients and the differences between Northern Royal banded Griffins and Southern Royal Banded Griffins."

"I remember." Kerrass said with a sad smile. "But then the soldiers came."

"Then the soldiers came." Schrodinger agreed.

I don't know how to describe how I felt at that moment. I had so many questions and so many potential answers in front of me that I didn't know which way to turn. I imagine it to be like being a miner. You get down the mine and discover that the seam of coal that you found yesterday has turned into a seam of Gold which is studded with Gems. Then you shine your light around a bit and you find that the Gold and Jewels have spread all around your area. You know that you're the only worker here. But you also know that there is more here than you can reasonably expect to extract in a day. Let alone take the stuff off to town to be weighted assessed and turned into capitol. So then you have to know where to start.

A slightly more lewd equivalent would be... I have spoken about how Kerrass likes to approach taking me to brothels and about how he once paid for me to have "The royal Treatment". I hope I don't make anyone too upset when I say that the royal treatment consisted of access to several women and as I was sent into the room to begin the debauchery there was an awful, wonderful and terrifying moment where I was surrounded by all of these beautiful women and I didn't know where to start.

That was what it felt like.

"What happened?" I asked.

"To the Feline fortress?" Schrodinger asked.

"Yes. I know that the mob destroyed the Wolves at Kaer Morhen but I haven't really heard, or asked about what happened to the Cats. It never seemed like the right time to ask."

"You didn't tell him?" Schrodinger asked Kerrass.

"As he said." Kerrass took a swig from the bottle. "It just never really came up. To be fair though, filling in his gaps in knowledge is part of the reason I brought him here."

"Part of the reason?" The other Witcher asked.

"Part of the reason. But we need the Unicorn's presence for the rest of it."

"The fall of the Feline fortress." Schrodinger mused, stroking his chin with a gloved hand. Then he shook his head and looked at me. "It is not as exciting as all of that I suppose and the honest truth is that we brought that shit down on our own heads."

He leant forward, taking a long drink from his bottle.

"Kerrass wasn't there." He said after a long time. "Occasionally he tries to hate himself for that but he wasn't there and that is not his fault."

"Are you telling me that, or him?" I asked looking over at Kerrass who was hiding his expression behind the bottle.

Schrodinger looked at me with a glint in his eye. "It could go either way." It really is occasionally off-putting to speak to a Witcher who is cracking jokes. "But, as I say, the truth is that we were betrayed. Two Witchers, of our own school no less, betrayed us and led Redanian forces to our doorstep. A man called Brehen,"

Kerrass hissed at the name. "someone you might have heard of as being called The Cat of Iello."

"Wow, alright then..." I breathed.

Again, another note for those people who don't know what happened. Everybody has heard about the incident regarding Blavikan where Witcher Geralt was involved in the deaths of seven men and one woman. Even though it is true that, by all accounts, he was forced into those actions and didn't have much of a choice, it would also be true that that incident was a blemish on the reputations of Witcher's everywhere. Particularly that of the White Wolf of Rivia who still carries the name of "The Butcher of Blavikan" and probably will until long after the day he dies.

But there was another massacre that happened before the one in Blavikan. Some argue that it has since been eclipsed by the massacre in Blavikan and maybe it has. Maybe the fame of Geralt contributed to that, that his reputation for heroism means that the supposed murderous actions in Blavikan resonate more and is better fuel for those who want to tar all Witcher as being dangerous, murderous psychopaths.

But the massacre in Iello was something else.

There are many different accounts as to what happened. The thing that tipped the matter over the edge into "massacre" varies according to the accounts. Some claim that the clients refused to pay the Promised price. Some others claim that the Witcher went back on the agreed deal and demanded more money that wasn't forthcoming. More people said that the clients could no longer afford the promised price and when confronted with that, the Witcher in question tried to take it by force. There are other stories of course. That the Witcher had a contract in the town and the guard forbade him from working. That his target was a prominent person in the town. That there were legal problems. It is all a matter of hearsay.

What is agreed though is that a Feline Witcher called Brehan strolled into the town square of Iello and started killing people.

The part of it that I believe on the grounds that a couple of sources agree on the subject, was that the Witcher in question had carried out a contract and that there was a problem with payment. Brehan took a hostage and threatened to kill the hostage unless payment was immediately forthcoming. Unfortunately the unreasonable time limit was ignored and the hostage's blood flowed freely. Then another hostage was killed and another and another until the events in Iello could finally qualify as being called a "Massacre". From the accounts though, the massacre was horrendous and betrayed a cruelty that the massacre at Blavikan lacked. For what it's worth.

But wherever Witcher Brehan does turn up he has nearly always acted with cruelty and an excess of temper that would mark him as being a dangerous man to approach. I have not heard of him in a number of years and many people suggest that he is probably dead of misadventure on the road.

"But yes it was Brehan and another Witcher named Lexandre." Schrodinger went on." I don't know for sure but my understanding is that the two of them had known each other for many years and possibly came from the same class."

"I've not heard of Lexandre."

"No reason you should have. He was not unusual really. He had been on the path for forty or so years when he betrayed us and had basically decided that he had had enough. He told Brehan that he planned on leaving the path and Brehan being Brehan went on to concoct a plan. They both hated the feline school. Brehan had been expelled from the school and was considered a renegade by us."

"Which is saying something." Kerrass smiled darkly. "To be so much of a scary psychopath that even we, the Cat school, casts you out."

"Quite." Schrodinger put in. "But Lexandre just wanted a way to make some money so that he could retire in comfort. So the scheme was that they would steal some of the Witcher secrets of the school before selling them. There's no way of knowing who came up with which part of the plan, but all I know was that a large force of Redanian troops turned up to the keep one sunny summer day when the keep was substantially less occupied and set about killing everyone they found there."

There was a long silence then.

"Brehan led them." Kerrass said. "I spoke to Joel afterwards and he told me that Brehan had been at the front, killing the younger students."

"Yes." Schrodinger said. "There weren't many of us at the keep at that time. It was the middle of summer so there were only those of us who were involved in training the youngsters that were present. I remember trying to lead the youngsters away, through the tunnels but Brehan, or Lexandre had betrayed us well. At every exit there were more troops, picking off the children with well aimed crossbow bolts. They laughed as they killed and Brehan laughed the loudest."

Kerrass put his hand on his friend's shoulder.

"They set fires on all the entrances you see." Schrodinger said. "Kerrass told you that our keep was really a series of caves and caverns and that is true. But it wasn't as heavily patrolled. As I say, most of us were out travelling and working the path. So rather than advance into our territory they just set the fires. I still dream of smoke in the dawn sometimes. When I'm not careful. They knew that we, fully mutated Witchers could breathe poison you see. That we could tolerate the smoke and lack of oxygen. But the kids. The children and the madmen? They didn't stand a chance. I held one kid as he coughed his lungs out and another while he just stopped breathing. Axel and Cedric..."

"Two of the other teachers." Kerrass whispered to me.

"...tried to cut us a hole through the troops but it was wishful thinking and we all knew it. They were unprepared for the fight and the troops had the back up of mages as well."

"We think that the mages were after our secrets." Kerrass went on.

"Yes." Schrodinger grinned, flashing his teeth. "Unfortunately for the mages Lexandre had betrayed his fellows, snuck in during the chaos and made off with the diagrams and those secrets that he could carry. I laughed for a long time after finding that out."

"How long ago did all of this happen?"

"Maybe, forty years ago?" Schrodinger asked Kerrass.

"That would be about right. I was down South at that point."

Schrodinger's smile was sly. "Looking after your princess.

"Yes as a matter of fact."

"I'm sorry." I said.

"It was a long time ago. Long before you were born." Schrodinger told me. "But would you feel uncomfortable if I told you that I can still smell the smoke that they sent down into the tunnels." His eyes took on a distant kind of sheen to them. You see this kind of thing when people are lost in memories and dreams. "I remember the day light filtering through the soft fuzz of the smoke. The slight green tinge to it that told us it was poisoned. The strange sense of pride that I had in the kids. Not one of them screamed or shouted or cried. Even those who had not been with us for very long. Not one of them cried or got upset. They just...endured. As we had trained them to do."

Schrodinger stared into space for a long while.

"Some might say that we deserved what happened to us after everything that we have done."

"Including me by the way." Kerrass put in.

Schrodinger ignored him. "But those kids... The last I heard, Lexandre was killed when he tried to sell some of the things that he had stolen and I hope that the bastard turns into some kind of spirit so that I can take the contract and send his soul into whatever comes afterwards for traitors."

"What about Brehan?"

"Brehan is sick." Schrodinger said with a grimace. "He is a monster now. The same as any kind of rabid troll or hungry Griffin. He's a feral vampire or a Grave hag or some kind of Alghoul. He needs to be put down like the sick cat that he is."

"You sound like you are almost less angry at him."

"I am. As I say, he was sick. Just one more Cat Witcher that we failed when we tried to mutate them."

"That " _we"_ failed?" I asked

Schrodinger sighed. "Yes, that we failed." He rubbed his eyes. "Forgive me. I haven't talked this much for a long time."

"It is getting dark," Kerrass commented. "And Freddie can take some getting used to. Perhaps in the morning we can start talking about how you got yourself into this mess with the village and we can talk about the other reason that I brought Freddie here."

"There's more than one reason?" Schrodinger grinned at his brother.

"There's always more than one reason." Kerrass told him. "You taught me that, remember? _Teacher?_ "

"Fuck off."

"But," Kerrass turned to me and looked at me strangely for a moment. It was an odd kind of expression. It reminded me, in a strange way, of the way that he had looked at me when we had first started travelling together. Of those times when he would occasionally look at me and decide whether or not he would be better off murdering me in my sleep. "But hold nothing back from Freddie. About me I mean. Tell him everything. I promised him that much recently and he deserves the answers."

I stared back at him for a moment as the words sank in. Then I frowned."Wait a minute, what?"

"I'm going off to find us all something to eat." Kerrass said. "I also want to see what happened to those villagers that were following us. I want to know more about how they think if we're all going to get out of here alive."

"Wait a minute Kerrass, what answers?"

Kerrass looked at me for a long time. "I wasn't one of the lucky ones Freddie." Then he turned and strode off into the undergrowth.

"I really fucking hates it when he does that." I heard myself say. "It's as though he feeds off being the strong and silent man of mystery."

"He does." Schrodinger says. "It's his shield. It's all of our shields really. We hide behind them just as we hide behind our fancy sword moves, our signs and our pirouettes. The strong silent type. We don't handle being around people well so we pretend that we've got nothing to say so that when we do actually talk, it ends up sounding like wisdom."

"I always thought that he did it because it made him attractive to girls." I commented.

"That's one of the _better_ side effects. But it _is_ a side effect. Kerrass has been using those things and those little assignations to patch over his broken heart for as long as I've known him."

"And how long is that?" I asked.

"I thought I told you. I was around when he was brought in."

"You did." I said with a smile. "But you also dodged the question. You said that he was kind of mixed in amongst the crowds with the other apprentices. I think we would both agree that that isn't really the same as _knowing_ someone."

He looked at me flatly but there was still a bit of humour in there as well. "I knew that you were clever but that was a little close to the bone."

"When did you properly meet Kerrass?" I asked. "And why does he think that that's some kind of big secret?"

"He... I thought we were done with these kinds of questions for the night." He protested after a moment.

"You said that." I told him with a smile. "You and Kerrass. I agreed to nothing. I merely agreed with the statement that it was beginning to get dark."

"Mmm. I would have hoped that some of my hooch might make you feel a bit more tired than you are though."

"Oh, don't get me wrong. That is undoubtedly having an effect. Enough of an effect even that I have resolved to stop drinking it until I have something to eat or until I get more answers. Correct me if I'm wrong but we are not overly blessed with time."

"No you are right." He sighed. "And it's undoubtedly the reason that Kerrass brought you to me. That and whatever this other reason is that he's talking about but let's settle for the main thing for now."

He peered at the now empty bottle. "Gonna need a refill." He stomped off and rooted around in a box where he emerged pulling out another bottle.

"This is not a nice topic." He said, pulling the cork out of the neck and sniffing the end. "Are you sure you want to know?"

"I always want to know." I told him. "It's my curse. If you read my journals do you remember the incident when I followed Kerrass into a set of woods that nearly cost me my sanity and my soul, let alone my life, in order to satisfy my curiosity."

"I do. Both times in fact."

"Also that time that my curiosity nearly tore my family apart."

"I think, from memory, that your family had enough going on, that it was in the middle of turning itself inside out without your input anyway. If anything your action and intervention led to a wound being cauterised and a cancer being removed. Yes it hurt and it caused untold damage but your curiosity solved that problem."

"Or about the time that I insisted upon knowing who "Jack" was."

"Do not speak his name." Schrodinger snapped. It struck me as an ingrained and rehearsed response. The kind of thing that you learn from a young age. Like saying thank you after someone gives you something or the fact that you bow towards the King.

"It's even conceivable that it was my curiosity is the reason why I'm marrying a Vampire."

"Curiosity killed the Cat." Schrodinger said musingly. "The oldest little proverb and we so often tried to ingrain it into our apprentices. Don't be curious. Don't follow the lines into strange places until you don't know where you are. But in doing so we cut out one of the most important lessons that we have to learn. Do you know what the rest of the saying is?"

"Curiosity killed the Cat." I said, "But satisfaction brought her back."

"Yes. It did." He sighed and took a long drink from the bottle. "Yes it did."

He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. "I was the keeper of the cages."

I waited for more for what seemed like a good few minutes. "I'm sorry." I told him. "Is that supposed to mean something to me?"

He laughed suddenly. "No, no I suppose not." he took another swig. "I know that Kerrass has told you about the problems with our mutagens."

"He did. He told me that Feline mutagens, although, theoretically, producing a greater quantity of viable Witchers than any other school, had a significant problem. That being that as well as being more likely to survive the process they were also more likely to be dangerously insane. So insane in fact that they often needed to be put down."

"That's true. Dangerously insane. That's a nice way of saying it. The slightly more accurate way of saying it would be that we might not have killed them. But we destroyed their minds. It was something about the way that we applied the mutations that seemed to result in the change.

"So instead of killing people you drove them insane?"

"Pretty much, yes."

"And that's the major difference between you and the other schools?"

He scratched at his chin. "I don't know if it's the major difference, the only difference or what. Do you know about the thing with the Elven blood?"

"I do. Kerrass explained."

"Did you know about the rumour that The Cat school was created by a bunch of angry Wolven rejects?"

"I had heard that rumour."

"It's more than possible. I don't know for sure either way to be fair. All of this was happening long before I was born. But it would explain a few things. A group of Witchers unhappy about the way that they were treated during their apprenticeship decided to run away, stealing a bunch of mutagens along the way and deciding that they could do it better."

"To be fair to everyone involved. I could see that happening. Speaking as someone who all but ran away from home because I didn't agree with the plans that my parents and tutors had for my future. Their plans were a lot less painful than those that apprentice Witchers get made subject to of course."

"True. I can see it happening as well. If I continue being honest with myself I can also believe that a group of young Witchers thought that they were being created at the whim of mages to become slaves to those same mages. That they just wanted to be Witchers without the input of all of these magic users. I can see that as well."

"Sooner or later, the children have to leave the parents." I commented.

"They do. But we've gone of on a tangent now. The points are that instead of killing our apprentices, it was actually more common for us to drive our apprentices insane."

He looked at my face as though he was looking for something. Some trace of condemnation, maybe sympathy, I'm not sure which but I did my best to try and keep my face as neutral as possible.

"There was still a high mortality rate though. Many still died. But that was the problem, at the end of the day, we were still Witchers. And the problem is that you can tell what is going on when someone dies. We all know what that looks like."

"Lifeless eyes, lack of breathing, no pulse, that kind of thing." I agreed.

"But how do you tell whether or not someone was mad? I don't know and neither did anyone else. It's because of this that men like Brehan, may he burn in a fire while being violated by a poker, slip through our checks. We were just looking to make Witchers but they kept slipping through the cracks. Then someone who is slightly less sane than is entirely ideal starts teaching the apprentices and suddenly we're teaching our kids that you shouldn't feel any kind of empathy towards the people that live on the continent."

"Is that how it happened?"

He shook himself from his train of thought. "What?"

"Is that how it happened. Is that the reason that the term Cat Witcher is synonymous, in some parts of the world, with the term "mad man"?"

"I don't know."

I stared at him for a long time. I still wasn't sure what to make of this man. He was much more emotional than other Witchers are. He was a lot more friendly, open and... I wanna say honest about his feelings and intentions. But there was something about him there that I didn't like. There comes a point when you're questioning people and trying to get to the truth when you have to push the person that you're talking to.

"I don't believe you." I told him.

"What?"

He started to say something else but I cut him off.

"You don't know me but you have to know something. I love Witchers. I do. It's not just that my best friend is a Witcher although that is part of it. Nor is it just because I grew up with the stories of the White Wolf in my ears although that is a part of it too. I love Witchers because they are unique. No-one does what they do. No-one _can_ do what they do. No-one else makes a study of things in order to destroy them. No-one else's ultimate goal is to make themselves redundant. The end goal of every Witcher is to destroy all the monsters in the world and when that's done? They don't know the answer.

"The Empress tells me that there has been another Conjunction of Spheres recently. She also says that there is an increase in monster population which means that more Witchers are needed. Fair enough. I can even believe it what with everything I've seen. But the end goal is still the same. You want to work your asses off to make yourselves redundant.

"Now I've met Wolven Witchers, I've met Bear Witchers, I've met Viper Witchers and I've met Cat Witchers. I've also read and talked to everything and everyone I can reach on the subject of Witchers and the thing I come to over and over again... The thing I get told over and over again is that Cat Witchers cannot be trusted. That they can't be relied upon. When I first told people that I was travelling with a Cat Witcher I was told that I should flee from him otherwise I would find myself in a ditch somewhere with my throat slit.

"Why is that I wonder? The answer is that many of those stories are probably true. I believe Kerrass when he talks about how the Cats decided that they would change along with the way that the world itself was changing. That they were simply looking for new people to hunt, a new niche to carve out for themselves. But that in doing so, some of them went a little too far or that they got the wrong end of things. That sounds right and I know that he believes it.

"But then you come at me and try to give me some excuse about how you were all taught by madmen and that is an excuse. If I'm honest, that sounds a little bit like putting the responsibility onto someone else because you don't want it."

"I..."

"Another Witcher told me something important. He told me that what was done to him was monstrous. That in turn that created a monster and that the monster then made more monsters. He went on to say that if there was one thing that redeemed the Witchers as a whole, it was that they had all decided that they would no longer create new Witchers. That they would break this cycle of abuse, neglect and...lets call it what it is... torture.

"But the way you tell it is that if those troops hadn't arrived. If Brehan and that other one hadn't led them to the Feline keep. Then you would still be doing those things to children and you would be blaming the evil that you committed on a daily basis on some invisible madman that had taught you all that this is the right thing to do. So just to be clear here. Did you, did any of you think, for one moment... "Hang on. We're going a little too far here"?"

Schrodinger said nothing.

"Just to be clear as well. I've seen Kerrass when he struggles with whatever is going on in his head. I've seen him shake his head to dislodge errant thoughts or ghost voices that he can't control. I've met Gaetan and seen the enormous stress that he puts himself through every time he goes anywhere near people and it's all too easy for me to imagine him just snapping and killing people. I can absolutely see it, and I can absolutely believe it."

"I thought you liked Witchers."

"I do. I do like Witchers. And I have a lot of sympathy for what you've been through because this was something that was done to all of you. But don't pass the florin. Don't try to pass the responsibility for your actions and your decisions onto other people. You did these things. You were the school that decided to creep through the night and ambush another school of Witchers. You were the school that led the mob to Kaer Morhen. You are the school that killed itself, by your own story it was your own Witchers that brought doom down upon yourselves. You did that. Not the Wolves or even the Vipers and those men are difficult to like. It's especially reprehensible to blame that on people that can't defend themselves. Madmen are mad and cannot entirely be blamed for their actions. You are sane. Take some fucking responsibility."

Silence settled over the clearing for a while. My hands shook as I took a drink. I hadn't realised how angry I had gotten.

Schrodinger sighed. "You are right of course even though I do think that you've just hung me out to dry without knowing my story."

I forced myself to laugh. "I'm sorry. But it really did sound like you were passing the blame on to other people. Mad people at that who can't defend themselves."

"Which I was really." He took a swig from the bottle.

I took a deep calming breath.

"So you were the keeper the cages?" I asked.

"I was."

"What was that? It sounds like a title. I can imagine a fencing master. I can imagine someone training people in the proper use of signs, alchemy and Lore. What was it about the Cages?"

Another difference. I could almost see Schordinger's humour coming back to him. "I'm not sure I should tell you." He joked. "After all. You might go off on a big diatribe as to how Cat Witchers are evil people who don't take responsibility for their own actions."

"I might." I told him. "But, as I've said before. I am too close to the subject now. I know you. I know Kerrass and I can't help but think of you, and Gaetan and Kerrass going through all of these things and, I'm not going to lie. It turns my stomach and even hurts when I come to think of the fact that my friends did these things to each other."

"It is a problem." He mused. "And I treated Kerrass worse than most but if you really want an example of the horror that we did to each other. Ask Cousin Geralt about all the stuff that was done to him during his trials. I once teased him by saying that there is a reason that his hair is white and that it wasn't due to the mutations." He sighed and took another swig from his bottle, only to discover that he had emptied it. "I should stop drinking there until I've eaten something."

"I thought that Witchers had a tolerance for that kind of thing."

"We do, but we would be lying if we tried to claim that alcohol doesn't have an effect. How to explain the responsibilities that I had?" He mused.

It was getting really dark now and he started to build a fire as he talked. "Kerrass told you about the cages that we used to keep the dangerously insane in."

"He did."

"Well, that wasn't all that the cages were for. Going into the area of the caverns that was set aside for the cages was like walking into a dungeon. Or a Cell-block in a Watch-house. Small boxes made out of metal. Your father was a hunter, I imagine he kept his hounds in cages?"

"He did." I said, kneeling to help break up sticks to build the fire. "But you would need bigger cages than that to house humans."

"They were. The problem we had was this. When you come back from your trials and the mutations are taking hold. In the other schools they would tie the person to a bed in order to stop them thrashing around and hurting themselves. Then they would wait to see if the apprentice survived. We did that, but the bed that we tied them to was inside a cage."

"Why?"

"Because if they survived, there was a good chance that they would set about trying to hurt _us_ as well as themselves. My predecessor at the cages told me that the practise had to be started when one apprentice woke up and set about eating his neighbour. Which poisoned him of course because they were still going through their own mutations. It might be a Witcher legend that we told each other to explain the things we did to each other but..."

"Of course."

"So we put them in cages. They were not large, I can admit that. Enough room for a bed and for others to go in and examine them and walk around the bed."

"How about their...their sanitary requirements."

"You mean chamberpots?"

"Yes."

"They were dangerous. Both because they could be used as weapons but also because the mad men would throw the contents at passers by. We had still not come up with a solution to that problem when I refused to do it any more. We tried various things. We tried making the apprentices hold the chamberpot while the mad-man did his business."

"That must have been used as some form of punishment."

"It was. But then the madman broke free and clubbed the apprentice to death with the chamberpot while his own faeces ran down his leg."

I took this information in silence as I processed this mental image.

"I'm glad I haven't eaten anything yet." I told him.

"I have to have some measure of revenge for the earlier comments."

I grunted but otherwise said nothing. I hadn't meant this to be an interview. I really hadn't thought of it as research or anything of that nature. When you're preparing for an interview or an investigation you need to spend some time thinking about what you're going to ask. Thinking of some quips or jokes that you can use to keep the conversation flowing when one or other of you runs out of things to say. Here though, I was unprepared. It had only been that morning that Kerrass and I had set out from the inn, myself not knowing what we were going to be facing.

Now I was sat across from another Witcher. Another perspective on the hated and feared Cat school of the hated and feared Witchers of the north. It wasn't that I didn't have the questions, it was that I had so many of them that I didn't really know where to start. I wanted to know about Kerrass obviously. That there were some elements of his story that I didn't know was not a new thing. He'd been alive for approaching a hundred years and I only knew a fraction of the things that he had done in that time. So another perspective on that was attractive. But also, this was someone who seemed to know more about Cat Witchers than that. He knew more and I wanted to know it.

My instincts were also about the fact that I felt as though we had come to the crux of the interview. You see, the person that is being interviewed is also aware that they are going to be answering some questions. Which means that, on some level, they are prepared to talk. Even if they don't intend to actually say anything, they are aware that I am after some information and so they are thinking about that information. That's why the best thing to do if you're being interviewed and you don't want to tell anyone anything is not to shout, scream or try to intimidate the person doing the interviewing. Don't try to divert the interviewer, turn the question or initiate a debate. Simply say nothing. Because a skilled interviewer or debater will turn that around on you and before you know where you are, you have told them everything that they wanted to know in the first place and there's absolutely nothing that you can do about it.

Of course, the danger being if the interviewer has access to a torturer but that's a conversation for a different day.

But there is a skill to it and one of those skills is to know when the tipping point of the interview is coming. For those who wonder, the tipping point is that point where the best thing to do is to shut up and just let the person that you are questioning get on with it. Just let them talk. Provide them with silence in order to make sure that they fill it with whatever is on their brain. The overall technique is to ensure that they are thinking of the thing that you want them to tell you about and then just sit back and let them talk.

As I sat there on a blanket that my host had provided for me and watched him, wishing I had my paper and quills with me. I realised two things. The first was that we were no longer having a conversation about the many many things that I wanted to discuss. Instead, I was performing an interview. I didn't ask him as to whether or not he realised this or whether he was angry that his brother (Kerrass) had brought a really nosy bastard (me) to his camp in order to ask a load of really nosy and pointless questions about things that he (Schrodinger) would rather forget.

But I also realised that he was ready to talk. So the best thing to do in this situation is always, and I do mean always, keep your mouth shut.

"I don't know the truth." He began. "I don't know if the Cat school was founded with Elven involvement because the Elves saw that there was a need for Witchers, or because some people, whether Witchers, mages or a combination of the two, kidnapped a group of Elven children to experiment on them to see if they took to the trials that bit better. I don't know if our school was started by a group of Wolven rejects who thought that they had a better idea of how to create Witchers than the way that they did it at Kaer Morhen. With mages dictation everything about the mutation process and monitoring it and controlling it. I don't know which is true.

"I can absolutely believe both. I can absolutely imagine a Witcher, fed up of being ordered to commit horrible acts on the apprentice Witchers, whether you want to call them children, apprentices or even subjects. I can absolutely imagine a group of clever Witchers, deciding that the Mages were doing it wrong, were being too cruel, pushing it too far, doing things in an awful torturous way for their own ends. Or if you prefer, I can also imagine a group of Witchers deciding that the Wolven mages and masters were being too gentle with their subjects.

"I would like to think the former but you are correct in thinking that that might be naïve to think that way. That the rebellion of the men that became the Cat school was entirely altruistic seems rather far fetched as well. I don't know the answer. I would like to think that the Cat Witchers would look down at the children that they had done these things to and feel a certain amount of pity. Unlikely though that might be.

"What I _do_ know is that the other schools practices were dogmatic. They taught that the Witchers needed to be created in the same way, over and over again. The only school that tried to iterate was the Wolven school, that experimentation resulted in the White Wolf himself who many, including me, would declare to be the greatest Witcher that ever lived. But even for the men carrying out those experiments, the mortality rate of the other subjects was far too high. During a time when the world needed Witchers, One Witcher, even of Cousin Geralt's quality, for the loss of so many other potential Witchers along with the sheer monetary cost of the other alchmical and magical components, that was too much.

"Again, you might call it naivete but I would much rather believe that it was their desire not to put any more children through those horrors rather than their desire to save the money required for those extra procedures that caused them to stop those experiments.

"But no-one else tried to improve the process. No-one else tried to make it better, easier, less painful or less stressful. No-one but us. Is that why it all went wrong? I don't know the answer to that. I hope not but there it is.

"What I do know is that we managed to reduce the mortality rate. And we genuinely managed that. That is an achievement and I for one feel as though we can hold onto that and be proud of that."

He petered out for a moment. One of the few times that I felt it prudent to add a little goading. "But?" I said quietly.

"But did that directly result in the lack of sanity in the survivors. That is the question that we keep on asking ourselves and we to which we still don't know the answer. I doubt that we ever will. Another one of those questions that will never be answered. In our iterations, we made the process more survivable but is that more cruel? Again, I can't judge that. I do know that more people had a chance at life but I suppose that the human body, no matter how elven in it's make up, is not supposed to take all the stresses and the, let's face it, the torture that we put it through.

"So at the end of the day, did all we achieve turn out to just be an exciting and terrifying way to trap a soul in a body long after it would normally have fled. Would it normally have talked to itself and said the equivalent of "Fuck this, I'm getting out of here," but because we trapped it inside the body it had no other option but to turn on itself and attempt to cannibalise it's own house in an effort to get out."

"There is a more troubling notion." I suggested feeling the need to put my pennies in the jar as it were. "I'm not saying for a moment that this is true and I should say that Theologians have been debating this problem for centuries without coming to a satisfactory answer. But what if the soul, as you say, gave it up as a bad job and left but you kept the body alive. As I say, I'm not saying that for a moment but some people do suggest that that's what madness is."

He shook his head. "I don't believe that for a moment. I don't. I've dealt with those people who are mad for many years of my life while the trials were being committed and I don't believe it. I saw a man who couldn't help himself but try and put his thumbs through the eyes of everyone that he met. He hated himself for that but all he saw was the condemnation in the eyes of his victims. Even when all there was was pity. He wept at his actions and you cannot hear something like that and not think that somewhere under all of that there is a soul in torment."

"As I say, I'm not saying I believe it."

"And there are many other kinds of madness too. The depressions, the tempers, the inability to feel empathy or the failure to process current events into memories of the past. I know that Kerrass has talked to you about all of these."

He sat in silence for a moment and I judged it best not to interfere. "My school is guilty of a number of things." He said after a while. "But our greatest crime is that we drove the schools apart. They no longer talked to each other despite the best efforts of someone like Vesemir of the Wolves, bless him. If we could have gone back and shown someone like the Griffins or the Vipers what we had managed to do with the mutation process and prove that the trials could be improved, then what else could we have discovered. Might Witchers now be more dangerous. If we found out how to make the trials more survivable and the Griffins had found a way to curtail the madness that our methods resulted in?... You know the standard mortality rate of Witchers?"

"I seemed to remember something like four in ten."

"Which is about right on average. We didn't keep records and if we did they have long since been lost, stolen or destroyed. But even if we had raised that to five out of ten, let alone six, seven or eight out of ten. Can you _imagine_ what we might have achieved. But no, our leaders had to lead the youngsters in a misguided attempt at needless revenge against an enemy that had all but forgotten that we were cross with them and certainly didn't return our hatred until afterwards."

He sighed.

"But I'm off topic. I was the keeper of the cages. The short description of my job was that when those young Witchers came out of the cavern that was set aside for the purposes of making the mutations happen, they would be brought out on a stretcher and given into my care.

"You cannot imagine what it was like. I have read your account of what Cousin Letho put you through and although he missed out a lot of what happens, he is largely correct when it comes to the nitty gritty so you will know what the youngsters looked like when they came to us."

"It can't have been pretty."

"You have no idea what it was like. No-one can. You have no idea what it was like."

He was there. There at the moment when he would just keep talking now. Lost in his memories of times gone past and all I had to do was to just sit there and let him get all the words out.

Some might call this process cruel.

It is. Make no mistake but it is.

Some others might call this process manipulative.

It's that as well.

But it is also vital. They say that those people who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it and anyone who has studied history to more than a passing degree would know that this is true. You want an example?

The Empire invaded the north three times. Three times in living memory. Even if you try to argue that the first time was the Emperor using a foreign adventure to prune his higher command structure with some military action that he knew wasn't going to work.

Which he did.

Even if you argue that the Northern monarchs provoked the second war, which they did, although they were heavily manipulated into doing so by the Greater Empire and an Emperor that was much cleverer than they thought he was.

Even if you allow for all of those things. Then surely, we should have seen the third invasion coming. Surely we should have. The proof of this is that many people did. One of the reasons for King Demavend of Aedirn's descent into drunken indolence was the fact that his country had been carved up by Nilfgaard and Kaedwen after both invasions and he was surrounded by so called allies who told him that such things would never happen again and that he didn't need the help that he was begging for.

Don't get me wrong, his bitterness against the Elves of Dol Blathanna is legendary as well as his dynastic struggles and the growing power of his Lords that worked hard to undermine their king. But one of the reasons that they were doing that was because Demavend was trying to centralise Command and Control from the Lords in order to properly prepare for another Nilfgaard invasion. He deserves his reputation towards the end of his life of lechery, drunkeness and sullen laziness, but let history also show that he was right.

My father is another example. One of the richest men in Redania managed to become even richer by virtue of buying up weapons and armour in preparation for the third invasion that he knew was coming. Before accusations start flying, he donated a lot of those items to the crown before Radovid had to order their seizing. Yes, my father went on to trade that donation for other things but one of the reasons that our family became so rich, influential and powerful is because my father predicted another invasion from the south and our troops were among the best trained and the best equipped troops to take the field.

Speaking of Radovid, despite his active madness, he also predicted the invasion from the south. One of his justifications for the crimes committed against the non-humans was because he was worried about how they would support the southern invaders. Obviously this was a mistake as all he did was to drive Elves, Dwarves, Gnomes and Halflings into the Nilfgaardian ranks but the prediction was there.

It is not a small thing to say that we lost because the greater part of the Northerm kingdoms were too busy with their own concerns that they didn't bother looking south. That they hadn't learned from their own past to see that this kind of microscopic world view was exactly the weakness that the Emperor could take advantage of. Indeed it is his methods in just about everything. The oldest strategy invented. Divide and conquer.

These are the things that history teaches us. The reasons why we know that Demavend, Radovid and my father knew that Nilfgaard was going to come back is because they wrote it down so that we can all go back and read about it.

One of the problems for historians in general is that not many people know how to write stuff down about their daily lives and thought processes. Of those people that _can_ write stuff down, there is an even smaller percentage that has enough time to write that stuff down. Which means that someone has to do that for them, which is when people like me come in.

This stuff has to be recorded. It _must_ be recorded. Both the good parts of our history needs to be recorded, the stuff that we are proud of and want to be remembered for but also the bad stuff needs to be remembered.

We need to know that we wiped the Elves out and have all but driven them to extinction. We need to remember that so that we can learn from our, and their, mistakes. We also need to remember that Magic itself is not the enemy, nor is knowledge. It is those people that would use this stuff for evil acts that are the enemy and they need to be defeated. People Like Dorme, Cavill, Edmund, Cousin Raynard and all the rest.

But the other thing that needs remembering is what we did to those children when we turned them into Witchers. Rather than dealing with a problem ourselves, we created a slave caste of people to do it for us. We literally created a new race of people and expected them to solve all our problems for us for free. Sound like an exaggeration. The next time you hear about a Witcher being conned out of his fee, I will remind you of this situation.

So yes, I pushed him into telling me this story but if it goes on to inform others, to inform those men and women that are working to bring new Witchers into the world under more controlled, humane and less barbaric conditions... If it can do that, then I have to admit that I am sleeping fine tonight.

And even if it doesn't. Then the effort would still be worth it.

"No-one can imagine what it was like," Schrodinger told me. "We had a cave where the mutations were monitored. Rather than having a mage on site in order to properly maintain the mutagenic levels and to monitor the flow of mutagens, one of our forebears had managed to persuade a gnome to create us a machine to do it for us. Before you ask, I have no idea where the machine is, or what it looked like. I only saw it a couple of times as they were, and are still I suppose, jealous of their secrets and didn't want the process to get out into the rest of the world.

"I also can't tell you whether or not what we had done was to actually kidnap the gnome but the few times that I met him, he seemed happy at his work and he certainly wasn't guarded. Knowing the Gnomes, it is not entirely impossible that we _did_ kidnap them and then when we presented them with the problem they were fascinated by the idea and stayed to see it through.

"But it was awful. Absolutely awful.

"They had a cavern you see. A cavern where the students were put through it. They were tied down to tables, really little more than extended ropes tied around lumps of rock. They could do them in pairs as that was all we had the room for. I know that Letho showed you some of the ways that they connected up the tubes. Some into your neck, some into your elbows, your groin, through the veins in your feet. There was one set of things where the needles had to be pushed through the eye in order to get to the cornea and into the brain."

He shuddered.

"Luckily, I had long since passed out due to pain and terror when they did that to me. I can't imagine having to stay still while they inserted needles into my eyes. But after all that was done, after they'd pulled out the needles and untied all the clamps, they would be tipped onto a stretcher and carried through to my cavern.

They called it Schrodinger's kingdom. Quite a large cavern all things considered with rows of cages. Maybe twenty of them all told. We were lit by torches and by a hole in the ceiling that let in sunlight or moonlight. Sometimes I had to cover that hole and we had a pulley system set up so that I could pull a tarpaulin over the hole. Modern scholars, scientists and Magical folk might claim that the moon doesn't have an effect on the human brain, or even the Witcher brain for that matter and that all the rumours and superstitions about that kind of thing come from a very real and understandable fear of were-creatures turning in the moonlight. But you speak to any watchman on the continent that has to deal with the madness that occurs on the night of a full moon. My kingdom was no different. The howling and the screaming alone were enough to drive normal men to insanity."

He had this thing where he seemed not to want to talk to me. He would constantly find little tangents to go off on, to find something less dangerous or less risky to talk about. This does happen and you have to be careful with how you handle it. Some people need to be brought back to the first point carefully and precisely with some pointed comments and questions. The other option is to just wait for them to run out of things to say so that they bring themselves back to the point that they were supposed to talk about. I don't know about that and I often play it by ear depending on who I was dealing with. In this case, other than wondering if he was alright and wondering _why_ he had so much difficulty keeping to the topic at hand I just let him get on with it. Doing my best to commit as much as I could to memory in order to transcribe it later.

I was also struggling with my own memories. Long term readers will remember that I was captured and for a while, my soul was subject to the Beast of Amber's crossing. During which time, some of the visions that I can remember involved my being locked in a cage along with rows and rows of other cages to either side of me, above and below, and being tortured. The stuff that he was describing about what had happened to those apprentice Witchers was very evocative for me and I was struggling to keep my head in the present. I was sweating freely and having to bite my lip or pinch the back of my hand surreptitiously. I needed the pain in order to keep myself in the present rather than to backslide into memories that I couldn't control.

"But they (Freddie: The Witcher attendants or apprentices) would bring them in, take them to the cages that I would direct them to and tie them to the beds. Then they (Freddie: The newly mutated) were formally in my care."

He sighed.

"One of the reasons that so many of them struggled to keep hold of their sanity was because their first feelings in the open world was this one. They had just been through the awful, awful things that had happened in the other cave and now they were here, having to deal with their newly mutated bodies with all the changes to their sight, hearing, smell and physical sensation and they were suddenly surrounded by mad people. Screaming, shouting, groaning, spitting mad people who mostly spent their times living in their own waste."

Another sigh. It turns out that if Schrodinger wasn't laughing then he was sighing.

"Can hardly blame them for going mad really. I'm being unfair though. Some of the madmen were relatively sane really. They just couldn't be trusted around other people. But they were no less loud. Instead though, they would be screaming that all their fellows should keep quiet so that the "kittens" could get their rest. In all honesty, they were the worse people to deal with. Because you could see the potential in those men, potential that was just being wasted on an overwhelming desire to consume the flesh of others or to perform unspeakable acts to unwilling victims. They knew that they were sick and could not be released but at the same time, they hated themselves for what they saw as their own weaknesses."

He paused for a moment.

"It's impossible for me to disconnect myself from those people." He said. I don't know whether he was telling me that or whether it was just something that he had to say aloud. "I distinctly remember waking up after my own trials. Testing my limbs and finding that I was tied down, only for grey haired men to come and peer into my eyes with light that was too bright. I remember the pain and the weakness and the horror as I realised that I didn't even know my own name. It is impossible for me to describe, the existential terror of not even knowing how to articulate, even in your own mind, that you do not know who, or even what, you are. I had lost everything, even the language used to form and express the pain, and now these strange things with their glowing yellow eyes were causing me pain."

"So you lost your entire memory then?" I felt a bit of a need for some clarification.

"I did. Bits started to come back almost immediately. Fortunately, language was among the first things that came back and that way I could at least understand that the word that they were shouting at me was my name at the very least.

"But they bring the Kitten (Freddie: I took this term to mean the newly mutated young Witcher in this instance. It certainly puts other's use of the term in a different context) in and tie him down to a bed. Then the medics come in and the masters of the mutations and they examine the poor lad. Trying to see if the mutations were being rejected or accepted by the body. There is no easy way to tell if this is the case before it actually happens though. You can always tell when it's happened or is happening. If the body is rejecting something then it starts bleeding from the orifices. Blood, or pus or some kind of other liquid. It is never pleasant. I once saw a Kitten leak all the water from their body. And it was water, the substance was tested by our alchemists later to see what it was so that we could try and prevent it from happening again. All of the water in the body just started leaking from the eyes, mouth, ears and... until he died of extreme dehydration."

I could not help but shudder.

"More often than not though, they would examine them and declare them fit and they would become my problem. It makes it sound much fancier than it actually was. My job was to keep them contained and alive until they came to their senses enough to be released onto the path or released out for a trial of the Mountain. You know what a Mountain trial is do you not?"

"I do. It's a test to see if a person is fit to be a Witcher. Most often used when a person has a difficult transition through the trials or when the mutations don't entirely take properly."

"That's right. Most, came to their senses relatively quickly."

"How long is that?"

"A week."

I shuddered again. A week is still along time to be caged up in a cave while your body was strange to you.

"Then they would be taken off to be trained in the use of their new bodies. To get used to their new strength, speed and agility."

"But you yourself have said that many of these men were still not entirely sane."

He shifted uncomfortably. "They were not. How do you test for sanity?"

I didn't have an answer of course. "What about the rest? Those that didn't make it."

"Those men. They would stay in the cages."

"How long for?"

"Until it became clear that there was nothing that we could do for them or that they could not be made useful in other ways. We worked hard to try and save them. We found that some of them managed to reach some form of sanity if they consumed particular herbs and potions. If we made them elixirs then it meant that they could ignore whatever it was that was driving them to insanity. This process took time, sometimes months and if it didn't work, or if they were too dangerous to try and contain, then one of us would have to go into the cage and put the poor thing out of their misery. There was always a desire to iterate. To get better and to prevent the mistakes of the past from happening again if we could possibly help it."

"Who did that? Who went into the cages to end their lives?"

He said nothing.

"It was you wasn't it." I wasn't asking a question.

He still said nothing. After a while I gave up waiting for him to start speaking again and decided that it was time to prompt him again. Time to get things moving.

"Kerrass once told me about one of these madmen who was kept in a cage but was used to teach Alchemy. That Kerrass used to have to clean out the man's cage."

"That is true." Schrodinger shifted his weight, presumably in an effort to try and make himself more comfortable. "As I say, occasionally the madmen would recover enough of their wits in order to be able to function on some level. The man that you are talking about had a distinct and urgent desire for fresh liver. From a human if he could get it. If we couldn't get it from elsewhere then he would do his very best to take it on his own accord. It was a frenzy, the hunger of a man so starving that he could no longer control himself. He was another man consumed by self-hatred but he had a mind for alchemy like you wouldn't believe. We never had the luxury of being able to cast aside valuable resources like that one."

The way he said that sent a shiver down my spine.

"This must all sound awful to you." He commented.

"Awful is one word," I told him. "In that I feel awe at the prospect of people doing that to each other. Especially after it had been done to each of themselves as well. You all underwent those tortures but that didn't stop you from doing it to others."

"No." He mused. "No it didn't. I wish I had a glib answer for that. Something funny or charming, even a deflection would have been enough to be able to sidestep what we did."

"Did you ever try to stop? You won't have been on the path while you were doing this surely."

"No. And I didn't do it for long. I found that I couldn't. There is a high turnover from the Master of the cages. The school could never keep one for long. I spoke to my predecessor when I took over and I spoke to my successor after I left. I actually did the job for several stretches and everyone who takes on the role, the same as with the masters of apprentices, have ideas about how _they_ will be the ones who do it better. How _they_ will be the ones to save lives and turn things around but in the doing of the job we find that there is no other reasonable way. You can make small changes and adjust things in certain ways but sooner or later it just comes down to the fact that there is no other way to do things."

"Why couldn't you do it for very long?"

He scratched his chin and sighed. "There is a strange kind of fatigue that comes with having to deal with it all. In having to look after people that you feel an intense empathy for, which of course I did. When there are children lying in front of me begging for me to make the pain go away. Screaming and bleeding and sweating. All before they have the awareness or the mental... whatever it takes to try and beg for death." He sighed again, this time it didn't put me in mind of a sigh so much as it reminded me of a groan. "All they wanted was an end to the pain."

Here again I was tempted to steer him away from the remembered agony that he was clearly feeling. It is the instinct of a human being to look after their fellows and to help through that pain but I needed to hear this. I needed to record this so that you could hear it. As it was though, I swore that I could hear tears on the edge of his voice, trembling on the edge of things.

"But there's nothing you can do for them. They are Witchers by this point and the pain that they feel is the shock of the bright lights that they are unused to and the extra sensations and the intense hunger. It is their mind rebelling at the things that have been done to it and there is no cure for that malady. After a while you get to that point where you just find yourself shutting down. You go through the motions and become like a machine, a golem or a gargoyle as you just do what you have to over and over again without the love and the affection that is _vital_ to the proper caring of these individuals. They need the sympathy and the encouragement. They need to be able to feed off your strength in order to find their own. This is not the trial of choice this is not even a trial. The very fact that they are still alive means that they have made it and now they must survive the re-entry into the world unless it tries to kill them. That is...tremendously difficult and those kids _need_ you to be able to provide them with that encouragement and that strength. But sooner or later you just, or I certainly did, you just run out of strength to give."

I grunted. "A friend of mine works as a doctor in Oxenfurt. She spent time with the armies and she once told me about that. She called it "A weariness of Empathy"."

"Doctor Shani?" He asked.

"Do all Witchers know her?"

"Most of us do." He admitted. "She looks us in the eyes which is rare. She doesn't inflate her prices because we are Witchers and treats us the same as she treats everyone else. You cannot understand how precious a commodity that can be sometimes."

I nodded. "Do you do all of this caring by yourself?"

He laughed. The first time in a while so it actually startled me when he did. "No. That would be impossible. I had anywhere between six and two dozen madmen in my care at any one time. I could not do all of that by myself. But that is what the powers invented Apprentices for."

I found myself laughing along with him despite the horror of the suggestion. I had heard that sentiment expressed by so many craftsmen and craftsmasters over the years that I had been travelling with Kerrass, posing as his apprentice, that it had become a joke. The Apprentices get all the shitty jobs, even more than those people that get called "Assistants." I have no idea why as you are certainly not learning about things if all you are doing is menial chores that any idiot can do. Some masters call this "paying their dues" but I sometimes wonder if they do this to their apprentices because _their_ masters did it to them and so on.

"It was part of our trials of choice. We made the apprentices care for those people gone mad or recovering from their mutations so that they knew what was going to happen to them. So that they could be properly prepared for what happened next and how it was going to happen. That way, if they stayed, they couldn't complain that we had lied to them about what happened."

I nodded. It did make sense in a twisted kind of way. "Where does Kerrass fit in here? I assume that this was the thing he meant when he said that you should tell me everything."

"Ah Kerrass." He said. The way he said it almost made it sound like it was a sigh. "Poor Kerrass." It was getting towards full dark now and he was staring at the fire, watching the flames dance and using it as a way to project his own memories in front of his eyes.

"This is going to sound really macabre." He told me with a sidelong glance. "But we used to have a pool among the more senior Witchers at the fortress."

"A pool?"

"Yes, it might not seem like it or it might not sound like it but when you're an established Witcher, if you have nowhere to go at the end of a season you head back to the fortress. When you get there, there is absolutely nothing to do. Nothing at all. You can read, you can train but beyond that there are absolutely no amenities. You have commented on the factor yourself. Life as a Witcher can actually be called rather boring. You go to a town or a village, sometimes a city, get a contract, hunt, kill, claim reward, move on go to another place, repeat over and over again. We all know that this is how it goes. And although there are very many monsters in the world with many different varieties that can scare and terrify. There is only so much shop a Witcher can talk with another Witcher. There is only so much time you can devote towards mourning the fallen. So what else can we do when we run out of things to talk about?

"We can get involved in the lives of the students, either as extra instructors or just sitting around and watching. Or we can gamble. Gwent, dice, who can do this or that the fastest. A truly inventive mind can think of a potentially infinite number of things to gamble about. Who can eat that roast chicken the fastest. Who can climb the wall the fastest. Who can run from one of the cavern to the other and back the fastest. We gambled small coin largely. Small coin, bragging rights and chores.

"But the other thing that we could gamble on was the fate of the apprentices."

"That sounds grotesque," I commented.

"And it is. But as I say, we needed to occupy ourselves. It was a way of distracting ourselves from the horror that we were going through. That we put these kids through on a daily basis. It was a way of making each other laugh."

He stopped suddenly and looked at the sky. "Getting late. You hungry?"

"I am if I'm honest."

"Kerrass'll be back soon with whatever he's managed to find." He got up and started moving around the camp-site. He began by building up the fire and setting up a cooking stand to hang a pot over. I found watching him to be a little strange as he used the same movements that Kerrass did. The same slow care to ensure that the construct wouldn't just tip the dinner into the flames.

"It started with the lowest stakes game. Betting on which kids would make it through the trial of choice. The grueling and horrible training along with all of the disgusting things that our herbal concoctions did to them along with the disgusting trials of puberty all happening at the same time. You could buy in as many times as you like. A copper per name, you could only take each name once. The pot was split evenly between all those who chose the right names. We used to keep the pots in small pouches that we hung off nails around the common hall. It was a game as to what we could tell the students when they asked what was in the bags as to who could tell them the most disgusting thing. I used to tell them that we kept the ashes of nosy students in the bags but they never believed me.

"The gambling became more serious as they started being put through their mutations. Then it was a game of who was going to survive. There was an element of skill to it too. As to who passes the trials of choice, that can very so it was more about luck than any kind of sound judgement. We were just picking the child randomly that we placed our bets on but when it came to acceptance of the mutagens?"

He shook his head as he filled a bucket of water from the stream.

"There were so many factors that it was impossible to track all of them. How much Elven blood did they have in their history. How tall were they, how had they taken to their herbs and elixirs. How was their muscle tone and on and on and on.

"Kerrass was middle of the pack on both pools. He was no Cousin Geralt who took to the mutations so well that they risked trying other things on him. As far as I know, Kerrass wasn't a child surprise or anything. He was just an unremarkable child from an unremarkable village in the ass-end of what is now Northern Redania I think, although I didn't care enough about the details to check.

"I never spent time with the younger apprentices when I was in charge of the cages. I didn't want to like them knowing that one day I might have to take their lives while they drooled their sanity onto the floor so I didn't know of Kerrass until he came into my domain.

"I left it until it was becoming clear who was the most likely to survive which is when I would get together with the Master of Apprentices. A man called Nayhan at the time who told me that Kerrass was an unremarkable student really. He was not the best sword, nor the best shot. He was talkative and charismatic but was useless with alchemy as he lacked the patience of a true alchemist. That is not unusual though. It takes a few close calls to really focus your mind into learning all the potion formula. Nayhan told me that he got bored easily and had a bit of a temper but again, that is not unusual for a lad his age. All that apprentices want to do is to be given their swords and their medallions and to be let out onto the road. They don't care about the knowledge that they need or the other tools of a Witcher's trade they just want to get out there so that wasn't unusual. It just marked him for one of those Witchers that would either die on his first hunt... sorry, he told you about the trial of Death didn't he?"

He took out a small wooden board and a sharp knife before starting to peel some potatoes and chop some carrots into the pot.

"He did," I responded. "Can I help with any of that?"

He wordlessly handed me some turnips which I started working on with some industry.

"We thought that he would probably fail is trial of death but that otherwise he would make a fine Witcher. Nayhan's opinion of him was that he was a romantic. That he saw Witchers as wandering knights, travelling the world and righting wrongs. That the truth would be a blow and the question would be whether or not he would survive it. He went in for the mutations and no-one thought any the more of it."

There was another pause as Schrodinger stared into space for a while. I only saw it because I looked up from chopping lumps of turnip to go into the stew which was when I saw beneath his mask to the Witcher that lay beneath it. I had a bit of insight into the man then. He was much older than Kerrass. Not an elder of the school by any stretch, certainly not as old as the fabled Vesemir of the Wolven school but this was a Witcher that had been travelling the world for well over a hundred years. I didn't ask him his age as it seemed rude but it was then that I realised I was being shown beneath his Mask. The face and the personality that he wears whenever he has to interact with people.

At first I was angry with myself for not having seen beneath the mask as I had seen Kerrass with his many and various masks all the time. I had seen the masks that courtiers wear and had worn more than a few masks myself. This man could teach lessons in how to wear a different character on your face. Somewhere, the stage lost a fine actor when Schrodinger became a Witcher rather than an actor.

But now I saw beneath that in an unguarded moment. I should really be flattered that he felt comfortable enough to let me see it. That he was relaxed in my presence enough to show me what he was really thinking. He looked old, incredibly sad and haunted. Haunted by many things. This was a man that had walked the cliff-edge of madness himself and vividly remembered what he saw there. He looked tired as well, worn down by so many things, things that I didn't recognise and couldn't have identified if I tried but there was also a defiance shining in his eyes and around the jaw-line. It was a man...

He reminded of a soldier that I had once met during the war. I was young then, maybe sixteen or seventeen and working as part of the signalling corps helping to decode Nilfgaardian messages as well as reading and translating our own military codes. I put together intelligence and tried to figure out what people were doing. I was eating my rations once when a soldier came in from the front. He was tired, sore and had that kind of sullen rage that I remember being so common in the troops that were actually stationed along the front. The rage born of a desire to finally bring the enemy to battle. Born from a place of frustration of being away from home and watching your friends die one by one. For whatever reason, he brought his bowl of soup and hunk of stale bread over to the small, young signalman who was eating alone. Mostly because I was ashamed that I wasn't a proper soldier and that there were people out there doing my dying for me.

I was a prick when I was seventeen. Some might say that I'm a prick now but I was REALLY a prick when I was seventeen.

This soldier and I fell to talking and I remember that determination in his face too. That defiance that said that he wasn't done yet. That he still had things to do and an enemy to defeat.

Schrodinger had that look about him.

He must have realised that I had stopped chopping my turnips because he shook himself from whatever memory that was engulfing him and looked over me. The mask was back but it looked so natural on his face that I couldn't really... I could barely tell the difference.

"I served as the master of the cages in four batches of time. The first time was before Kerrass arrived and I managed to serve for two years before I had had enough and set back out on the path. It was in my second batch of time where I was master for four and a half years, give or take, when Kerrass was brought into my chambers and up until that point I had not seen anything like it.

"He heard voices. He described at as like being surrounded by people who alternated between whispering in his ear to screaming and shouting.

"To be clear though. It wasn't that there were more than one person living in the same body. He never spoke with a different voice or have memories that didn't belong to him. He was just listening to things and to people that weren't there. You could watch him having conversations with them and those conversations were absolutely chilling.

"For a start. The voices wouldn't let him rest. They were always talking to him so he could never sleep. When he lay down to sleep then they would start talking louder. Sitting nearby we could hear him pleading with them to quieten down to let him sleep but somehow, worse than that, was the voice that he referred to as being called Jenny. Jenny was a woman's voice and she seemed to try and protect him and want to keep him safe. She seemed to be screaming at the other voices in his head to quieten down and let him sleep. To me, and my helpers, on the outside of the cage, Kerrass would suddenly cover his ears with his hands and scream for them all to be quiet, to listen to Jenny and to just let him sleep.

"So that was what we tried to do first. We tried to sedate him to let him rest. Sleep is the great healer, the ultimate doctor and when people are hurt or sick the best thing they can do is get some rest and it was the same with the young Witchers in my care. If we could just get them to sleep then things would improve. But he couldn't sleep. Even sedatives that our most skilled Alchemists came up with. Sedatives so strong that they would kill normal humans and Elves while sending Dwarves to sleep for several days, only managed to get him to shut his eyes for a matter of minutes before he would wake up, tears streaming down from his new Witcher eyes as he pleaded and begged them to leave him alone.

"He told me once that the problem was that just because he was asleep, didn't mean that the voices stopped talking which came with it's own perils."

"I don't follow."

"According to Kerrass, and I really suggest that you talk to him about all of this because I can't... All I can do is give you the outsiders perspective as to what all of this looked like. But he said that just because he was asleep didn't mean that he couldn't hear them. And being asleep, he couldn't _not_ listen to them."

Schrodinger took another bottle out, examined it for a moment before taking the cork out and pouring the contents into the pot.

"Something for the flavour." He told me. "Nothing like a bottle of red wine to add some flavour to an otherwise rather bland stew."

"Sage, salt and garlic would do just the same kinds of things." I told him.

"They would," he agreed. "Do you have any?" he asked hopefully.

"Not on me, no."

"There you go then. I will just have to settle for the wine that I stole from the inn in town a few days ago." He sniffed the pot. "I just hope that Kerrass comes back with some meat. But anyway..."

He settled back down and pulled out a clay pipe. "Do you smoke?"

"Not me, tobacco gives me a headache."

"I'm not smoking tobacco but I take your point."

"Does it not give away your position to people hunting you?"

"Not really. They only come so far into the woods before turning back. They don't want to be trapped out here when it begins to get dark. Rather wise of them really. My biggest danger is when I need to get some more supplies."

"Sorry, yes. We were talking about Kerrass though."

"We were." He looked a little bit disappointed, as though he was cross that he hadn't managed to distract me from the former topic of conversation.

"He had difficulty when he _did_ sleep."

"Yes." He made that gesture that Kerrass makes to light fires. "It seems that the voices would tell him to do things. When he was awake, he could resist that but when he was asleep, he had less, or even no, resistance. So he would wake up and it became the most logical thing in the world to attempt to dash his brains out against the bars of the cage. Or to attempt to throttle the next person that came into the cage to give him food or something. But those weren't the scary times,"

He took a deep puff on his pipe.

"The really scary ones were when one of the voices was talking to him and you could it in Kerrass' eyes, that the instruction made sense. That it sounded right to him but that instruction was utterly...utterly wrong. When he looked at you with that slightly considering expression as though he's considering what the best method is to rip out your throat with his teeth. As it turns out. That's what he was thinking."

Schrodinger looked at me sidelong, considering. Then he shook his head as a decision was made. "He did it too. Twice. One apprentice didn't pay proper attention to our warnings about how to behave with Kerrass and got to close. He trivialised it because Kerrass was curled up into a foetal ball on his bed, or at least as much as his bonds would allow, and he was whimpering. The lad didn't think much of this as there were other crazy people in the cages at the time who were actively gibbering and throwing their own bodily waste around. In comparison to that, Kerrass seemed relatively harmless. But then the poor, stupid little fuck brushed against Kerrass carelessly and Kerrass was on him before I could do anything.

"The other time was during some training. This was early on, we were trying to see if working Kerrass would help him to be distracted from the voices in his head. We were trying a couple of different alchemical elixirs that he could take in order to either dampen down the...well the volume of the voices or to help Kerrass to be able to ignore them. We had found a mixture that seemed to help but we needed to know how much. Was it useful or were we just pissing into the rainstorm.

"We took him out into the practise yards and gave him a wooden sword. We didn't trust him with a sharp weapon because we weren't that stupid."

He laughed at a sudden thought. It was the first time I had heard that sound from him in some time and it startled me. "Don't get me wrong. We were pretty stupid but not _that_ stupid.

"We started slow. Working the most basic of the sword-forms. Little more than practising the basic stances. You probably know them. The striking Falcom, the slinking cat... That kind of thing. Then we started some basic fencing which was when it all fell apart. We asked him what was happening and it seems that the voices were giving him contradictory advice. Telling him to do this, or that. Telling him to dodge, parry or strike. They often contradicted each other and argued against each other and the cacophony in his mind was overwhelming.

"But we took him outside, he was training, it was no better or worse a day than any of the others when some apprentices took a short cut through where Kerrass was training. There is, or was, no real way that you can segregate the keep. Sooner or later people need to walk through everything. The only caverns without multiple access routes were the cavern of cages and the mutation cavern. But these apprentices walked past and, One of them laughed and suddenly Kerrass spun. I wasn't there as I was busy with the other caves but I was told that he looked startled before a look of terror and rage crossed his face. He bounded across the room, the grown Witchers who were with him were taken utterly by surprise and he caved in the skull of one of the apprentices with his practise sword."

He shook his head and sucked on his pipe hard enough to make a glow spring up from the bowl.

"The violence and the rage in the action took everyone by surprise. Apparently he stood there, covered in blood and brains and bits of skull fragment and grinned at the horrified onlookers. You know the grin I mean, the one where you keep saying that you think you see fangs."

"I've always meant to ask about that..."

"That grin." Schrodinger emphasised the point with a gesture of his pipe. "Then he told the watchers that they didn't need to worry. That he had killed it and they were all safe."

He blew out a cloud of sweet smelling smoke.

"He didn't get let out of his cage again."

"And rightly so," came Kerrass' voice as he moved into the circle of firelight. Schrodinger almost looked relieved. "I hated myself for those two deaths for a long time and I still regret them bitterly."

"It was not your fault Kerrass." Schrodinger insisted. It had the sounds of a long argument.

"I know. But that doesn't mean I can't feel it. I brought rabbit. Your wife showed me where all the traps were."

"Your wife?" I asked.

"The unicorn." Kerrass told me as he carefully put the rack of rabbits nearby. As it turned out, he had already skinned and cleaned them meaning that they were ready for the stew. "Brother Schrodinger has his own interesting stories to tell and they tie into what I brought you here for. But that's a story for a different night. Tomorrow probably."

"Kerrass," I began after looking at him for a moment. "I had no idea..."

He stopped me with a raised hand. "I never talked to you about it because...well...shame and embarrassment are powerful feelings. Also..." He sighed. "How do you tell someone that you hear voices?"

"As I recall, you told me about them early on."

"I did. I tried to make them a joke as I recall in the hope that you wouldn't ask too many questions, and you took it as such."

"I did." I echoed him. "But since then...Sorry Kerrass." I shook my head as I realised I was about to start criticising him for not telling me his deepest and most private secrets. "I'm sorry." I said again. "I'm sorry that I didn't listen."

"Ah Freddie," he grinned handing over my packets of cooking herbs to Schrodinger who inspected them before making an appreciative face and adding them to the pot. "This is one of those situations where you will apologise and I will apologise and then we will keep apologising to each other. It becomes boring awfully quickly I find."

"But you got better." I said. "You got better to the point where you could stand it."

He smiled, a little sadly. "No, No I didn't. I didn't get better, I got stronger. I warn you though that I am not yet ready to talk about how I got stronger."

"May I ask why?"

"You can always ask. I'm just... _she_ might be listening."

"The Unicorn?" I felt as though I was being stupid. "There are a lot of " _She_ 's" by now."

"No. I promised that I would tell you everything. I will but I am not ready yet. Schrodinger will tell you now what it looked like. One day, hopefully sooner rather than later, I will introduce you to _my_ Goddess. Don't let Schrodinger get away with not finishing the story though. He likes to leave things half said and half done. He likes to leave the mystery around."

"Not unlike certain other Feline Witchers of my acquaintanceship," I commented.

"Well, I had to learn it for someone. In the meantime." Kerrass rose to his feet and struck a heroic pose. "I have rabbits to add to the pot." He strode over to the carcasses like a man on his way to do battle.

"So," I began, turning back to Schrodinger who had been watching the pair of us with gleaming eyes. "So he got better."

"Yes he did. But first he got weaker."

He added some more of whatever it was that he was smoking to his pipe. I had already noticed that Kerrass was waving the smoke away from himself with an expression of distaste.

"After the incident where he clubbed that lad's brains out, Kerrass was locked away. During which he just started to get worse. He didn't sleep for much more than an hour or two a night. His appetite was reducing and the only thing he seemed to be able to keep down was water. You have to remember that as well as all of the things that were going on with his mind, his body was still keeping up with the awesome changes that it was going through. To survive that a body needs food, water and above all it needs rest. You can't just let that kind of thing go.

"He was pale already, even by my standards he was pale but his face had taken on that shade that comes out the other side of pale. A kind of light bluish green tinge entered his skin. We began to see the veins standing out on his skin. The way they do when a person has taken too many potions. His eyes were already bloodshot due to the changes that they had gone through and the tearing up was also not unusual for someone who has just been through the trials but he also had huge black shadows under his eyes which seemed to sink deep into his skull. His hair began to fall out and he was losing weight."

Strangely, Schrodinger seemed to have become more comfortable now that Kerrass was sat nearby. Less ashamed of telling someone their deepest and darkest secrets.

"The worst thing about it was that he stopped screaming. He had just lost the strength that he needed in order to get that out. Instead, he just lay there. There were still the outbursts of murderous rage but they were becoming fewer and further between and what there was was much weaker. He could barely hear us over the noise of the voices in his head and we were holding him down to force food, liquid and medicine into him just to keep him alive.

"You would be forgiven for thinking that he was getting close to death. He wasn't. He was getting closer but he had a long way to go yet before he died. He was a Witcher now and we take some killing."

Schrodinger sighed. Kerrass was cutting at the rabbit carcasses with his knife.

"When this kind of thing happens which, I need to emphasise, is not unusual. We call the masters together. The mutations master, myself, the alchemy master and the master of the Elements..."

"In charge of magic," Kerrass chimed in when he saw my confusion.

"... Yes. Me as well and we all get together to decide what to do about the Kitten in question. We had already had several debates on the subject of Kerrass' survival but there came a time where we could no longer delude ourselves. There was nothing more that we could do to help him.

"I'm not going to deny that I felt for the poor Kitten. I always did, it was part of what made me a good master of the Cages. That I had empathy and sympathy for these people. After all, it had been me that had been tied to those tables once. Every single one of the Feline Witchers has woken up on one of those beds in a cage and every single one of us has felt the tug of madness while we lie there. You said it yourself best when you were talking about your brother...Every single Feline Witcher looks at those poor, madmen and thought to themselves. "I was lucky", or as you put it more eloquently "There but by the grace of the Powers lay I". Kerrass had fought every step of the way. He had refused to give in, had refused to let these voices get the better of him and he sweated and bled and screamed at them. But as it was, he was failing and he knew it too. Like the others. He didn't tell me that he wanted to die. He told me that he wanted the voices to stop.

"So we had our second meeting. It was always a two meeting process. The first meeting was when we all got together to ask whether there was anything else we could do for the Kitten in question and when all of us would say that there was nothing else that could be done we would all go away and try to come up with a solution as to what else could be attempted. We also let the sufferer know what is happening because it seems only fair. Then we go back a couple of days later. If there is still no alternative or suggested solution then we again, warn the sufferer and leave it another couple of days."

"Why the delay?" I asked. "Why not get it over with?"

"Because Witchers believe in destiny. Individual Witchers might claim differently but they are lying. Whether or not we're a child surprise or whatever we believe in destiny and sometimes destiny, or luck if you prefer, will intervene. It does happen occasionally. Others would suggest that the incentive that their lives are about to end also has an effect on the sufferer and that has dragged things out of the mud before now. All of that is supposition of course. The truth is much more likely that it was a tradition. Invented before I became a Witcher myself."

"The other reason," Kerrass said. "Is that the apprentices are brought to watch."

I was appalled. "That's horrific."

"Yes it is." Kerrass agreed. "But like the practice of having the apprentices come and help cleaning out the cages, it is important that they take on their trial of choice, knowing all the facts. It is seen as a lesson and a learning experience. Horrific? Yes. But it is a good lesson worth learning. But organising the apprentices together for a gap in the lessons takes a bit of time to organise. It's a sombre occasion, like a funeral and if there are any other brothers in the local area then they do their best to attend as well. Again, it could have been any of us." He tipped a load of meat into the stew.

"It very nearly was you." Schrodinger commented. "It was a three day delay in Kerrass' case. He was informed but he took it in his stride."

"I barely remember it in truth. I was trying to argue with one of the voices who wanted me to gouge out my own eyeballs on the grounds that I wasn't using them properly.

The thing that got to me was that Kerrass was actively making light of the situation. A coping mechanism? Maybe. I will let you be the judge but I was appalled and aghast.

"I went to Kerrass on the morning of the second day, he was due to be killed the day after.

"I'll never forget it. I walked into the cavern as I always did. I was carrying Kerrass' breakfast as I always made a point of feeding and caring for the Kittens that I was about to end myself as it seemed only fair and decent."

He stopped, sucking on his pipestem and staring into the fire while Kerrass stirred the pot.

"The cavern was quiet which is always unusual. Normally someone in there is weeping, screaming or shouting. But it was quiet, deathly so. I remember my medallion jerking as I walked in, my apprentices were all asleep which is no unusual in and of itself although rather lax of them. I was just about to head over and kick them awake with a few choice words when I saw Kerrass in his cage.

"He was loose from his bonds which was the first thing that got to me. He was all but a skeleton at this stage so there was no way that he could have broken free but he was loose. He was kneeling, like a man at prayer at the edge of the cage, holding onto the bars with a death grip so tight that his knuckles were visibly white. He was resting his head against the bars too. He was sweating profusely as I approached. I carefully set my burdens down and dragged my apprentices to the cage to help me. As I got closer we could see that he was trembling with fatigue, his breath hissing between his teeth and his eyes were tightly closed.

""Kerrass?" I remember saying.

""Shhhh," He hissed softly.

""What?" I was confused.

"It's so quiet," he told me. He spoke in a hushed tone. Again, the same way that people do when they speak in a church.

"He looked up at me and he was weeping. "It's so quiet" he said again."

"We had to pry his hands away from the bars and when we got them away, they trembled. We fed him and he ate hungrily. We cleaned him up and put him to bed where he fell instantly asleep. I had never seen anything like it. He slept through until the following morning when he was supposed to be put out of his misery. The other masters came to see the miracle and Kerrass calmly and quietly asked for breakfast and his morning Elixirs. He ate and started doing some gentle exercises in his cage. For all the world, other than the Elixirs that he had been prescribed. He looked like a lad just out of his mutations. He answered some questions, he was lucid and calm. He just told us over and over again that he had seen something and had been given the strength to fight the voices off. He was self-aware enough that the solution was not all consuming and he understood why were nervous. He promised to tell us if the voices came back and agreed to being tested including an eventual trial of the Mountain. You know what that is right?"

"Yes." I said. "You asked me that earlier. It's when a Witcher is tested under supervision before he departs on his own for the path."

"Correct. We asked him, over and over again as to how this had happened. He told us that it was a miracle. We made jokes as I recall, jesting about how miracles are the purview of Gods. He would just chuckle and say that they were also the purview of Goddesses."

"Which is not an unfair observation." Kerrass called from where he was stirring the pot.


End file.
